I finished my first university year in China, but as my family decided to immigrate to Canada, I am now living at Toronto and have to face up to a English world.. But I feel I am goint to die...The problem is, the daily English is too oral and a lot of slang and phrase to understand, and the literary and formal English in classic books are too difficult and complicated to understand..what a hell I am now puzzled, I memorize vocabulary everyday and the next day find out that I am meeting new words, anyone could give some suggestion to a new English learner like me. And anywhere can I find some basketball English terms so that I can get used to use English to talk about basketball? The only good news for me is that I can see the NBA game live at the court now, and I am now waiting for ROCKETS coming next season to Toronto,
Don't worry. I'm guessing you are young (under 20) and now that you are living in Canada you are immersed in English. You will pick it up quickly. I have the same problem visiting China and Hong Kong since my Chinese is very limited but I notice being there even though I'm an old guy (late 30's) I pick up things quickly since I am surrounded by it.
It seems that your mastery of the English language is already better than half of Americans, so I'd say you're in pretty good shape. Just remember one rule...nobody uses any words that end in "izzle" anymore...well, except for fizzle, drizzle, and sizzle...but that's it!
immersion is the best thing when learning a new lang. don't worry you'll pick it up a lot faster than you think
I immigrated from Hong Kong when I was 9, so I have experienced what you are currently experiencing. Here are some of my advices: 1) Make friends with people who are willing to help you with the language. Sometimes it is frustrating for people to explain the language, but sometimes, you will find people who has the patience and the willingness to teach you. It is important for you to identify such people and make friends with them. 2) Many immigrants prefer the company of other immigrants because it is easier to communicate with them. However, this will slow your growth in learning the language. I would encourage you to take the more difficult road and force yourself to communicate in English. It can be incredibly frustrating and sometimes embarrassing, but it is an essential step to learn the language. 3) The memorization of vocabulary is not as useful as learning how to actually use the words. There are definite benefits in doing so for school work, but I do not think it is necessary to memorize words outside of school. Instead, you need to let the language come to you. Don't be afraid to ask people what do they mean when they say something you do not understand. 4) If you are embarrassed about asking us questions on basketball terminologies, please feel free to send me a private message.
Just keep at it! You seem to be doing well already - don't give up! The best thing you can do is to immerse yourself in the culture and get some good friends who will help you when you have questions.
Thank you so much..... And I am curious to know that if you guys found words can not understand when you are reading. I feel like that there's a great difference between Chinese and English, in English, there are such a big amount of words, countless synonyms, you can use lots of different words to illustrate the same meaning. And when I am reading English book, I am always looking up words in dictionary and at the end I found that I did not catch the meaning of the paragraph but what all I got is a wordlist
If I could write a Chinese e-mail and it was half as understandable as your English e-mail I would be very happy. You probably don't realize how much you have learnt because you only see how much you don't know. Good Luck!!!!!
*yawn* your English is fine. you learn things as you go along, don't sweat it (don't worry about it).
Go out as much as possible and pick everything up, gradually you will get accustomed to it. If you can make it to an NBA game, followed by dining out, followed by a bar/strip club and come back to your home without a problem.. congratulations you aren't going to die. Though.. don't a lot of people also speak french in Canada? BTW when your at that NBA game, constantly scream out how much the Raptors suck and how the Rockets are going to lay a beat down. Nothing will test if you can survive or not then pissing off a bunch of canadians, canadians are a great start to learn how to trash talk from since they are peaceful wimps and so easy to get along with. After you master that level, go to a Hockey game in canada and try it out there, just be careful *Note this post is filled with hidden sarcasm, just part of the english language Please don't take offense. .
Remember to refer to men as "Hoser" and watch this video to help you blend in. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/h1CwZgb_iAI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/h1CwZgb_iAI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Well, looks like you already have a good grasp of written English. Since you emigrated to Canada, I would advise you to try to speak English more like an American and not like a Canadian. Canadians have accents that make them sound like wussies.
