I notice that many of the posters on these forums, are from non-English speaking countries.

I'm wondering how you learnt your English - did you simply study hard at school, or have you had experience in English speaking countries, or did you have private tutoring?

The reason I ask is that in Britain, we are terrible at learning other languages - even languages which are vaguely similar to English, such as French and Italian.

English is the "world language", I know, but that doesn't mean it's easy to learn.

Replying to [ChurchillUK]:I started to learn English from13 years old, and majored in English for 6 years. My English teachers were from Malaysia, Australia, US, UK , I have been worked with Indian, British, Pilipino, and south American people, although some of them are not native speaker, but because we spoke English to each other, it’s also kind of practice for me…
My English was very weak in the beginning, but after some years, I feel I am much better than before.
English training school are earning big money, because many people go to learn English
For Chinese people, English is a headache subject…

Replying to [ChurchillUK]: In India, we learn English from Kindergarden school. English is second language for many of us.

Replying to [ChurchillUK]:
I had been learning English for 11years, when I graduated from my college, I choose my first career logistic, I worked for it until 5 months ago. Then I left my first work had entered into international trade. For this reason, I must learn English hard for myself, not only written English, but also oral English. I hadn’t enough fortunately as heshelleyatgmaildotcom, I have no foreign teacher. And now I must learn English myself. I had seen the film from English and American, I had communicated with some people who mother tone was native English. I also View the English net through the internet. I do what can I do with my English improvement. Maybe it’s not enough now, but I believe I will do well in the future.

Ok, here's my story. I had once lived in a place next to an U.S military base so I had some chance to talk with some american soldiers; however, this is what I heard from my father and actually I have no memory as it was when I was only 3 or 4 and that just for a short period. My point is that I can't tell if that babyhood experience had any affect on my learning English later when I was 12.

I give thanks to my father, who passed away two month ago, for having forced me to study English and never slackend inspiring me. During the winter vacation before I entered a middle school, my father forced me to memorize most part of the middle school English text book and actually I did to avoid getting the cane.
To come to think of it now, that winter tranning became such a firm foundation for me to catch up with every English class through the school days.

By the way, it took me only a month to become aware that the intonation and the pronunciation I had learned from my father were all fakes ;)

Replying to [heshelleyatgmaildotcom]:
most of the students learn at schools,it is one of the major subjects ,so it is very important.

Replying to [ChurchillUK]:Its so easy how to spaek in English.anyway its a universal language so we have to practice and acquire it..We should be fluent and profecient in speaking in Enlish for the benifits of our own..

Professor Carl replying to nicladguy]:


That is an interesting history. I'm happy I came across it

replying to ChurchillUK

Replying to [Professor Carl]:

When we talk about word pairs like "learned - learnt", isn't the form with the "t" in the end used as an adjective?

For example:

"In my old job I learned many great techniques".
"In my new job I can make good use of my learnt techniques".

In the first sentence "learned" is a verb in past tense. In the second sentence "learnt" is an adjective to me.

How embarrassing - I have confused myself and am not sure which is correct?