First Certificate

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Fixed it for you. Good luck taking the test. English is a hard language to learn.

I've actually heard that a lot of it is very easy for foreigners to learn in many ways, though tough in a couple, but I don't know about that, I've never had to learn English as a foreign language.

[seireikhaan]

Good luck! Not sure quite what its like for a foreigner to learn English, seeing as I learned it native. But if its as difficult as learning French was for me, then I feel sorry for all the people who've had to learn it(I had a terrible time w/ French, though I think my teacher might have had something to do w/ it, she was awful and my high school should have fired her a long time ago). If you can learn it in a few years, I'd like to use you as proof to my school system that we don't need to take it for 15 years.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Good luck! Not sure quite what its like for a foreigner to learn English, seeing as I learned it native. But if its as difficult as learning French was for me, then I feel sorry for all the people who've had to learn it(I had a terrible time w/ French, though I think my teacher might have had something to do w/ it, she was awful and my high school should have fired her a long time ago). If you can learn it in a few years, I'd like to use you as proof to my school system that we don't need to take it for 15 years.

I think immersion is the only way to really learn a language well. I never did all that well in Spanish, especially when it came to speaking, but during my time in Germany I got to a point where I could understand and express pretty much everything in German, and that was only in ten and a half months!

If you want to learn a language live in a country where it is the primary language and avoid speaking any other language and ask LOTS of questions.

[Sigurd]

[edit]: Rehash of Uesugi's post

The first and foremost trick to learn another language is; go were they are speaking it.
I was rubbish at English when I finished school.

For GvI this site has probably helped much... I remember him as a new patron and there was not much more to his posts than single words or simple phrases.

For me it was my many visits to Scotland in the mid 90’s that gave me an English vocabulary and later my studies in Australia that helped putting this vocabulary in writing.
I did grow a dependency on the Word editor for grammar and spelling which gave me trouble on my final exams. However, my other work was first class and I got decent grades after all. The chat room has helped me writing English without the aid of Word and its spelling check.

Learning a second or third language is hard, especially if you have to rely on the classroom as the primary source.
The best way is to put yourself in the situation where the only way to communicate with your surroundings is via this language.

[Husar]

I agree that Garci learned a lot already.

I'm actually a bit of an english fan, I even prefer english forums over german ones. That said, when is the .org teamspeak server due?

I mean Garci needs some actual speech practice.

[Andres]

I second the others.

You've learned alot already Garcilaso Congratulations

Just keep posting and don't be afraid to make a long post or to express complicated thoughts. And never hesitate to ask a question.

Off course, you'll also have to learn Dutch one day...

Good luck with the exams!

[FactionHeir]

So what is Caius native language then?

English was actually quite easy to learn IMHO. The worst was getting used to comma placement, which is quite different from German (I think).

Never heard of first certificate btw.