My first contact with English was when I was 4 years old and it was because of my Dad’s job we had to move to Virginia Beach, United States. We lived there for about 2 years. It was very strange, because my big brothers used to speak in Spanish, my sister half English half Spanish, my parents also, it was that confusing that my little brother (he was 2 months old) he didn’t say a word for 2 years! Then I studied in a British school in Vina del Mar until I was 14 years old, my Dad was transfer now to London, we stood there 1 year. I for got to say, he used to work in the Navy. Also when I was in the University I worked in a ski resort in Colorado for 4 months and a few years ago I travel to New Zealand and Australia for 5 months. What else, last year I had to teach 3 grade students English (a couple of months) and... here I am.
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ResponderEliminarVery interesting Valentina! But how come your little brother didn't speak till he was two? And where do you think you learnt the most, 14 years at a British school or those bits abroad?
ResponderEliminarWhat Leyla asked you is interesting: did you learn more when you were a little girl or when you were a teenager?? And another question: was it difficult to deal with the different accents you were exposed to? I mean you lived in USA, then Chile, England and finally New Zealand, so it must have been difficult to get used to differrent pronunciations. Which accent do you think influenced you the most?
ResponderEliminarYour experience with English has started a long time ago and now you can really give a good opinion about how difficult or easy could be to speak a foreign language.
ResponderEliminarI have met people who have lived for many years in the USA and you can say in some cases, that they still have a Latin accent.Or you can also find people who need just a few months to learn to speak the language as if they were native speakers.
How luky are you!! You learnt English in a natural environment and you were able to practice it and to develop the communicative skills. Also, you had the chance to interact with native speakers.
ResponderEliminarI thought that way was the best to learn a second language, but reading your history makes me wonder if it could produce a kind of confussion and stopping the development of both languages (L1, L2)
ResponderEliminarDid it happen to you? Is english like your L1?
It`s true that you have been very lucky!! Not only because you lived in an English spoken country, also because you continued studying in an English spoken school. You maintained the language in "your" environment.
ResponderEliminarHave you ever thought in English????
Wow! Lots of interesting comments here. I'd like to know about the experiences of your brothers and sisters who maybe didn't study English formally like you. Do they still use English now? Do they have a good level? What do they think of their English learning experience?
ResponderEliminarI think that being in the United States when I was a kid gave me the chance to interact with native speakers and get my hearing use to English. So I think that those two years were very helpful for me. And when I returned to Chile although I was in a British school I think that was never the same, because you didn’t speak as much as you do when you are in a foreign country but it still gave me the chance to keep practicing. About the accents I think I never had problem with that, maybe some words that meant differently. When I arrived to Chile (6 years)people noticed that I was thinking in English, because I used to say sentences like “la niña de rubio pelo”, but it didn’t took me long to think in Spanish again. And finally about my brothers and sister, it was a great experience for all of us and all of them had the opportunity to speak English again (jobs),their English level are fine but maybe if they have to write a letter or something like that I think it will be more difficult. But I think that my sister (she was 8 years) and me, were the ones that took more advantage mainly because of the age.
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