Fancy a little chat in English?

[Sshaythiel]

Good Morning Ladies...

Weather is really cloudy and cold here.....will have a visitor in a good hour's time....

Whate are you up to?

[Lizzy the Loony]

morning!

fränzi, i'm technically at uni but practically i'm not in lectures anymore, so i use my time to apply for jobs. or, in this case, wait for my daughter to finally wake up and get ready for nursery...

[Bilby]

Good morning , how are you today? Just dropping in before I have to start working ...

[Sshaythiel]

Morning Bilby..

I am glad to have a day off from work...

[Lizzy the Loony]

how come you're off work today, sshay?

[Sshaythiel]

I did too many hours at work..and so I could get off...

Have planned to make a new soap today...

I am also planning my next visit to London in fall this year...

[Lizzy the Loony]

lucky you, i haven't been to london in ages and i really do fancy going back down south to visit mme whatshername.

ooh, got to dash, baby has decided it's time to wake up and go to the nursery.

catch you later.

take care

[Bilby]

I am also planning my next visit to London in fall this year...

If you need a hotel recommendation, let me know – we were there just a few weeks ago London is so great but it's not easy to find a good place to stay. I did some research before our trip and discovered a nice little hotel near Paddington station. It was clean, friendly and rather cheap – what more could you want?

Okay girls, I have to start working – sometimes it is difficult to keep up your motivation when you're a freelancer!

[Laverne-a-vù]

gosh I'm so tired, i can't read or write or do anything else
I need coffee..

[Laverne-a-vù]

I haven't been to london for years..

[Sshaythiel]

Oh Bilby this would be perfect....can you tell me about the hotel via PN?



Bye..see you later....my visitor is coming....

[LittleBee]

Hello Beauties!

I hope that you don´t mind if I join you?

I lived in Birmingham and London for a while and I miss speaking English and being able to go to a decent pub.

[Gloriaviktoria]

We can help about speaking English but not about the pub

[Sshaythiel]

Oh I am glad we have a decent pub here in the city.....and well speaking english....not this much usually ....but reading a lot and writing sometimes...

[Laverne-a-vù]

I should start reading english again.. I startet reading the last Harry Potter and stopped after a few pages.. maybe I should try again..

[Gloriaviktoria]

I think that Harry Potter is quite a good idea, because especially in the first books the language is not too complicated. Well, at least it is a book for children

I found Elizabeth George in English really exhausting because I had to look up a lot of words. I like her books very much, but only in German please

[Bilby]

I can read English books quite easily (this is what I'm reading at the moment) but my spoken English is getting pretty rusty ... :leiderja:

[Gloriaviktoria]

Do you look up unknown words immidiately? Usually I am too lazy and I look up the words only if I feel that they are really important to understand the plot or if the pop up regularly and I am curious about the meaning.

[Bilby]

I never look them up No, seriously: I started to read books in English about 15 years ago. In the beginning I needed to look up words every now and then and so my vocabulary became better and better. Today, my passive vocabulary is much broader than my active one, I'm afraid. I think this happens to quite a lot of people who don't speak a language regularly.

Of course I don't understand every single word in a book but I get the context without any problems ... I don't even recognize unkown words anymore.

[Gloriaviktoria]

Today, my passive vocabulary is much broader than my active one, I'm afraid. I think this happens to quite a lot of people who don't speak a language regularly.

It is quite normal and I think it happens to EVERY non-native speaker. Well, I had to look up "wand", when I read Harry Potter first, but that is not such a common word, so I think it's okay

[Daffodil]

I was irritated by the word "wand", too. But after a few minutes I understood, that it meant "Zauberstab"

Today I started reading "It" by Stephen King. Last year I read "Pet Sematary" and I liked it so much better in English than in German. And now I'm really curious about "It", I haven't read it yet - not even in German. But usually I like books by Stephen King


Bilby, I think this is normal. My passive vocabulary is much broader than my active one, too. But I don't speak English very often. I think the last time I spoke English was last year when the french exchange student of a friend of mine was in town.
Okay, I spoke English in school, but it's been quite a while since I had my last English lesson. And I must admit that I really miss it - not just my English lessons, but school in general

[Bilby]

Moonrise, I understand that you miss school. When I left school I was even younger than you are (18) and I found it terribly hard to give my life a new direction, to find out what I wanted to do in the future.

Looking back, everything has turned out fine for me. The only thing I regret a litte is that I didn't take a year off after finishing school. I really wanted to go abroad for a while, even back then; but I knew I wouldn't make a good au pair and I was too young/naive/scared to look for other possibilities ...

What are your plans, moonrise? I suppose you're enjoying some free weeks and months now before starting an apprenticeship or enroling for university?

[Daffodil]

I wanted to start an apprenticeship in August, but it doesn't look like I'll get one. So I enroled for university last week. There's still a tiny chance to get an apprenticeship, but I don't want to hang around longer. I finished school in march and it's getting really boring.
And maybe it's even better to go to university. I wanted to be a teacher for years and I still think it's a job which suits me. But I'm not so sure if I'm gonna like the studying ^^
Let's just say I'm not really sure what to do with my life. Before I left school I absolutely wanted to do an apprenticeship but at the moment I'm more into going to university But one way or another, I'm sure it'll work out fine

Two years ago I even thought about beeing an au pair in the USA, but after a while I dropped this thought. Maybe I would make a good au pair, but to be honest I was scared of going to another country all alone.
I'm actually scared when I think of moving to another city to go to university, even though it's not THIS far away from my hometown.

[sleeping sun]

Hello!

Because of another thread I found this one.

A few days ago I started to write sms with one of my friends in english and it is a lot of fun! One of us starts it as a joke (i don´t know which one of us anymore) Now it is strange to get a german message from her we´ve got used to it.
After school i didn´t really practiced anymore. But I want to learn again! It´s a great language and I like it much.
I have to look up so many words! Will it gets better some day? I´m really bad in memorizing! What other possibilities do I have to learn more?

Hope I can talk with you a little bit.

And please correct me if I´m wrong! I want to get better!

[Bilby]

Hi sleeping sun!

I think I know which thread brought you here

It's nice that you want to brush up your English. Writing text messages (I think "texting" is the correct English verb for that) in English is a good start! I can also recommend watching films (maybe you could start with one you already know) and especially reading books! You will be surprised how much you can understand and I promise you won't need to look up every word you don't know

Best of all is, of course, to speak English more often. But that's not so easy, of course!

[sleeping sun]

I´ve realized that I understand a lot (i was surprised how much) but speak or write in english seems very difficult to me. Mostly when I looked up a word I think "Oh you already now it!" But it´s like I can´t keep the words in mind. I hope this will get better with more practice.

I ordered the twilight books () in english. I want to start with them, i´ve got the german ones, too. I think it could be a good excercise, cause they are teen books.
And I want to watch some movies in english. I´m glad that the most german dvds are in english, too.

[Bilby]

Oh, "Twilight" is definitely a good start! I just wanted to recommend it to you I read the first book of the series in English and it was not very difficult

[Daffodil]

I read Harry Potter 1-5 in English last year. I think they're also great to improve your English even though I like the german translation better - yeah, that sounds a little weird, but in the english version J.K. Rowling almost always uses "he says" "she says" etc. That's just so disturbing, I'd like it better if she'd used other terms like "he mentionned", "he asked", "he answered" etc.

At the moment I really like reading Stephen King's book in English.
And I watch a lot of TV shows and films in English. My favourite TV show is Charmed, I have 6 seasons on DVD and always watch it in English.
I tried watching it in French once, but I couldn't understand a thing even though I learned French in school. I think they just speak much too fast in the french version

[sleeping sun]

That sounds great! Thank you, Bilby.
I hope they´ll be delivered soon. I bought them on amazon and sadly they wrote 1 to 3 month delivery time.

[Lewelya]

Yaaaay... an English-Thread... what a great idea

I really love speaking English. When I was in fifth grade and just started out learning English (you know: these things like counting to twenty, car, apple, banana and so on and so on) I asked my parents if the didn't want to talk English at home... but guess what they didn't want to (my parents are German and when I heard my dad speak English on our vacations when I was a better speaker myself I knew why they didn't).
So I had to teach myself asides from school and I started out with reading English books from the library, the first series I read was "the little vampire".. in about 7th grade I started Lord of the Rings and let me tell you, I didn't understand a lot It was only after a friend of mine told me that I understood that Saruman und Sauron were two different characters

(by the way: it's quite funny to write in English and then insert a smiley while writing "lautlach")

As I advanced my literature grew more complicated and I started to get a hang on what was going on
Until now I read the Lord of the Ring series (I read it again and now I really honour Tolkien's work(s)), Harry Potter, the Twilight Series and a lot of Jeffery Deaver books.
My aunt gave me my first Jeffery Deaver book as a birthday present when I was 16 years old and with that she started a chainreaction. Up til now I have almost 30 books - yes, he is my favourite author

I have a question to those not native speakers and those who didn't grow up bilingual.
I think of myself as quite good as far as English is concerned. I think I understand a lot, know a lot of words and can write quite decent texts... BUT if I have to speak to a native speaker (my former dancing teacher for example) I'm getting all nervous and mess up. I start mixing words and use grammar in the wrong way cause I'm all excited about showing that I speak better than the average School-English.
Does anyone of you know what I mean? It's really funny because as soon as I say something wrong my mind starts working about so many ways I could have expressed myself in a better and more "sophisticated" way

[tratschwelle1978]

That sounds great! Thank you, Bilby.
I hope they´ll be delivered soon. I bought them on amazon and sadly they wrote 1 to 3 month delivery time.

That's a long time! I hope, it will be sooner! (OT: It's great, you are back again, sun! )

I love this language, because it is shorter than german. I read a lot of books and see series. I don't want to forget, what I've learnt so hard

I can't speak it very well, I haven't enough practise. I don't know anyone, who comes from an english speaking country.

Funny, I read the other thread. Some people are extremely bored

[sleeping sun]

Hey tratschi! Yes, I grant, I´ve written nothing much the last time. I´ll better myself.
Maybe you can cross your fingers for me, I´m curious about reading the books in english.

Now, my working day is over. I´ll spend some time with my boy-friend. We have an anniversary today.

[tratschwelle1978]

Congratulations! Have a nice and "lovely" evening!

[Jools]

I'm so excited

Hey girls!
My boyfriend's returning from his six-month-stay in the US tomorrow . It's kind of funny to talk to him, though. He always uses english expressions and german words now . Gosh, I can't wait for tomorrow morning.

Now I'm going to finish reading the enjoyable 'Übersetzungs-'thread. By the way, I kind of have the same problem the other way around. I frequently come across people (mainly on studivz) who love using English even though their language skills aren't good at all.
edit: I didn't mean it to sound so snotty! I just don't understand why people would use a foreign language to express their feelings if they aren't really able to speak it.

[Trivia]

Hello, there!

Bilby, I wonder if you have had the chance to take a look at Toytown?

[COLOR="Blue"]Does anyone of you know what I mean? It's really funny because as soon as I say something wrong my mind starts working about so many ways I could have expressed myself in a better and more "sophisticated" way

I know exactly what you are talking about ...

The more you talk the better it will get.

I have some American and English colleagues at work ... that helps a lot!

I hope they´ll be delivered soon. I bought them on amazon and sadly they wrote 1 to 3 month delivery time.

Hopefully you will get them sooner!

[Pacific_Palisades]

Hi there,
I'm glad for finding this thread. I too don't have enough chances for improving my English. I only have a few email pals from the US and UK and I read and write a little bit on English internet boards. I also read English magazines and watch some TV in English.
I've been several times to the US and that has been my best time for improving.

I'm sitting at my laptop, waiting for my hubby, he is at a parent-teacher conference.

[sleeping sun]

A friend of mine expects a visitor from the US today. Lucky one! A very good chance to practice speaking! Unfortunately I don´t know anyone from an english speaking country.

@ pacific: Where have you been in the US? Did you liked it there? And where did you get the pals from?

[Gloriaviktoria]

Sometimes I have difficulties in understanding US-English. I am very much used to British English (or Scottish ). Of course it depends on where the people are from, but some really do speak as if chewing on a gum all the time

[sleeping sun]

I think the people of the southern states do this
I noticed that I have many problems to use the auxiiary verbs right. Does anybody have an simple explanation for this?

[Gloriaviktoria]

What exactly do you mean?