You are using English because you are using English. When I lived in Germany I used German nearly 100% of the time, and now I speak fluent German with hardly a hitch. 10 years later I regularly run into German speakers, and while it feels a little rusty now, I continue using German because I know if I fall back on English Im going to be using English and not learning German. I recommend you adopt the same learning strategy.
I have been learning Chinese in China for about 7 months, and have a functional command of most conversations because I never ever use English during those conversations. English will always win if you keep biking with the training wheels on.
When I lived in Cambodia for an even longer time I didnt learn nearly as much Khmer because I was constantly speaking in English, even though I diligently listened to Khmer conversations and researched the language. Like programming, language learning is much slower as a spectator sport.
Re:Esperanto is finding new life online
by freehunter on Monday June 01, 2015 @08:37AM
(#9638058)
Right, that's what I'm saying. It's harder to learn another language as an English speaker because there far less incentive to speak anything other than English. Because most people I end up talking to around the world can speak their native language and English, so we both end up speaking English. Sometimes we're speaking English at their request (I've known people who refuse to speak to me in their native language) and sometimes at my request (I really need to understand them and not mishear something).
In my travels, I've yet to run into someone who I really need to talk to who only speaks their native (non-English) language.
Aren't there some web sites/services/communities where you can speak with like-minded people? I think I remember that I've visited about half a dozen of these things over the past year.
And feel free to drop me a mail and have a call if you want. :)
ごんばって、ね！
Re:Esperanto is finding new life online
by freehunter on Friday May 29, 2015 @07:28PM
(#9628156)
So I put that into Google Translate and it detects it as Japanese. It then translates it into English as "Gonba~tsu Te, ne!" So I have no idea what you're saying.
Good lord, Google Translate is even worse with Japanese than I remember. Sorry! This is a very common phrase in Japanese, that comes up all the time. It means something like "Please work very hard", but it's meant to be very encouraging!
Re:Esperanto is finding new life online
by tokenadult on Friday May 29, 2015 @08:33PM
(#9628339)
You misspelled your Japanese. In Chinese characters the term is "頑張って," and in kana it is "がんばって." Google Translate did the best it could with what you wrote.
It's still an interesting commentary on Google's handling of Japanese kana. I knew immediately what the GP comment meant to say, but googling (.co.jp) for "ごんばって" doesn't even come up with a "did you mean...?"
I've visited Mexico with my Spanish-speaking wife (semi-natively) and while the locals loved to hear her speak their language, we communicated mostly in English if we wanted to be easily understood.
The struggle is real for Americans, or for native English speakers as a whole. For Americans, there is no other language spoken for thousands of miles like you mentioned (Mexico and Quebec (to a limited extent)), and even then, most of the people we interact with on vacation will speak English.
I put serious effort into maintain my German, and she puts serious effort into maintaining her Spanish. But we rarely have the chance to actually use it, even if we're in a country that speaks the language. English has won.