I'm glad I speak English -- and I'm glad Amy does, too

[pne]

As I'm reading documentation for yet another program we'll be using, I'm extremely grateful for the fact that I learned English.

Knowing English is simply indispensible in IT, and having a good command from it (enabling you to pick up information easily without having to laboriously decode information written in a language you learned only imperfectly) is really useful.

I'm glad I grew up bilingually and had the opportunity to attend an English-speaking school, further increasing my fluency.

---

And, relatedly, I'm extremely chuffed at the progress Amy is making. I'm glad that she speaks English to me, and I'm amazed at how well she is doing in her English, given that she basically only speaks it with me and I'm not at home for all that long during a typical day.

But she can express nearly everything she wants to in English, and she's getting better every day at keeping English and German apart (e.g. using different prepositions depending on the language, or otherwise picking the appropriate construction).

She's also getting better at inferring rules and remembering exceptions to them. For example, this morning, she mentioned that she sometimes speaks English to Stella, and I said she could teach her English, and Amy said that she could be "an English teacher".

That's the first time I can recall that she used "an" appropriately when not prompted; she used to use "a" always. (On the other hand, she talked about being "an 'English 'teacher" rather than "an 'English teacher", but I was still happy.)

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

having a good command from it

Hmmm... never heard it put like that before - usually it's "command of the language" but it may be perfectly valid grammar and it's just I've not come across it:D

she talked about being "an 'English 'teacher" rather than "an 'English teacher"

What are you denoting with the use of apostrophes there? Pauses in her speech?

[conuly]

I'm guessing pauses and stress.

I'd normally say English teacher like one long word - English-teacher. Maybe she parsed it to say English teacher?

[pne.livejournal.com]

usually it's "command of the language"

Very true; I have no idea why I wrote what I did -- I don't think it's anything I'd be likely to say.

What are you denoting with the use of apostrophes there?

Primary stress.

'English teacher has only one primary stress (as if it were one word, like "blackbird"; I interpret it to mean "person who teaches English"); 'English 'teacher has two primary stresses (as if it were two words, like "black bird"; I interpret it to mean "person who teaches and happens to be English").

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I thought they spoke English to her at nursery school?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah, true, they do (or at least one teacher does). I hadn't thought about that.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Have you ever wondered whether it mightn't have been motivating to learn English as your first foreign language? I mean most people in Germany start with English, which is relatively easy (at least for its similarities to German), and only later turn to studying Latin/French/whatever. I guess you had to start directly with one of the less related foreign languages, which is probably harder.

(Certainly this slight advantage wouldn't have outweighed the benefits of being a native English speaker. Still curious if you ever thought about it.)

[pne.livejournal.com]

I never thought about it, but I think I was always interested in learning languages, so I didn't mind learning French as my first foreign language (which was the only language my school offered besides English and German).

I wouldn't have minded learning Latin first, either, for example.