Post by Lua on Jun 30, 2014 20:43:52 GMT
(blows dust off the thread)
I'm Indonesian so obviously that's my first language, and (I like to think) I'm (pretty) good at English. I've been exposed to the English language since I was really young, from CD-Roms (shout out to my extended family in the States), books, etc. and I also attended an English course from first grade to fourth, so I learned it pretty easily. Part of the reason why was likely because there was little pressure from my family to learn a second language, so I mostly "taught" myself over time without really intending to learn.
One thing I've noticed about English is how needlessly complicated it is compared to Indonesian. My language doesn't have tenses, countable and uncountable plurals (saying the same word twice doesn't count, i.e people = orang-orang, students = siswa-siswi), gendered pronouns ("dia" all the way), irregular verbs, or irregular nouns... and if they do exist, they're regarded as the exceptions that prove the rule.
We only need to worry about suffixes and prefixes (make = buat, making something for somebody = membuatkan, etc). Plus we place the nouns before the adjective when describing an object and vice versa when describing an attribute (apple red, blue sky). And somewhat like the Japanese, we have formal, semi-formal and casual forms of pronouns. My friends at school tend to stumble over English grammar because of all the rules.
On the other hand, call me pathetic but despite attending compulsory Lampung language class since first grade I'm still hopelessly bad at it.
I'm Indonesian so obviously that's my first language, and (I like to think) I'm (pretty) good at English. I've been exposed to the English language since I was really young, from CD-Roms (shout out to my extended family in the States), books, etc. and I also attended an English course from first grade to fourth, so I learned it pretty easily. Part of the reason why was likely because there was little pressure from my family to learn a second language, so I mostly "taught" myself over time without really intending to learn.
One thing I've noticed about English is how needlessly complicated it is compared to Indonesian. My language doesn't have tenses, countable and uncountable plurals (saying the same word twice doesn't count, i.e people = orang-orang, students = siswa-siswi), gendered pronouns ("dia" all the way), irregular verbs, or irregular nouns... and if they do exist, they're regarded as the exceptions that prove the rule.
We only need to worry about suffixes and prefixes (make = buat, making something for somebody = membuatkan, etc). Plus we place the nouns before the adjective when describing an object and vice versa when describing an attribute (apple red, blue sky). And somewhat like the Japanese, we have formal, semi-formal and casual forms of pronouns. My friends at school tend to stumble over English grammar because of all the rules.
On the other hand, call me pathetic but despite attending compulsory Lampung language class since first grade I'm still hopelessly bad at it.