I was just wondering about all the Europeans (excluding UK)… like do y’all understand… say, an American movie or TV as well as those in your national language?
Fluent enough that Americans think I’m Canadian, Canadians think I’m British, and brits think I’m Texan.
It’s pretty good. I normally consume all english content in its original language.
English is my third language.
I’m dyslexic and socially awkward, so when it comes to speaking all three are pretty bad.
Writing, reading, and listening (if I’ve got my glasses on) is easier, so also about the same, but better than speaking.
I watch and read mostly English spoken media (at at least 1.5x on youtube and 1.33x when it comes to series and movies, so I’m fairly fluent, I suppose, though sometimes it’s hard to find the right word or phrase (that’s probably the dyslexia, though), and I’m quite certain I tend to accidentally mix English with whatever they speak in the US, since the majority of the media I consume tends to come from there.
I’m fluent enough that it irks me when people mix “its” and “it’s” or write “could of” or things like that, so there’s that, I suppose.
I also know what each of the words in the phrase “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” means, if that counts for anything, but only because I looked it up the first time I came across it.
I promise you no native knows the buffalo thing without googling it
who’s
whose
how fluent
:-P
An American movie or TV show I would probably have the same level of understanding as my native language, even on references, puns, etc… English from any other nation, not to the same degree, but I’d say comparable to an american. Speaking I would say I would be quite far off. I’d say I speak a sort of “Erasmus English”, meaning I have almost exclusively had conversations with Europeans, none of which native to english. That means we borrow words which may be common to us, but not english, or accidentally apply our native grammatical rules to english.
I used to actually be more fluent in English and russian than Ukrainian until the 2022 invasion. Lots of people in Kyiv used russian for day to day conversation, and that, sadly, included my friend group. At the moment I think I’ve restored my fluency in Ukrainian, but I still sometimes have easier time finding the correct word in English.
As for my fluency in English, I can usually watch shows, play games and read books in it without any issues, tho at times subtitles help (like when parsing an accent I’m unfamiliar with).
Pretty fluent I guess. Most of the media I consume are in English and I never have issues understanding things (at least for US and UK content). I also think in English about half of the time. The main problem is my accent, which is terrible and trips me up a lot when trying to speak. This is one of the parts you don’t train too much when most of your communication in English happens with other non-native speakers.
I can sometimes come across as a native speaker. The accent goes all over the place, australian, south african, brittish.
I’ve been consuming English media for many years. My computer and phone have used English since the 90s. I got used to it, so today, even if I could switch my phone to my native language, I don’t, it sounds strange.
These days I consume most media in English (US, UK, AU) - movies, tv shows, YouTube, websites, books (paper, audiobooks). I have no trouble understanding content, but I do keep subtitles on out of habit, and that helps when there’s a stronger accent.
I’ve been using English at work exclusively for more than 10 years, and where I live now, I hang out with an international crowd. We speak English to each other, even though it’s not anyone’s first language most of the time.
I take notes and journal in English, even privately. I sometimes even think in English.
I still have an accent and I’m missing some vocabulary and the occasional grammatical rule, but I consider myself fluent in English.
Fluenty enough to know it isn’t who’s but whose. But not enough to properly understand a movie or a tv show. So the worst of both worlds.
German here, usually fluent enough to understand movies and tv shows unless the characters have poor pronunciation or a heavy accent. Also old english Shakespearean fancy words sometimes give me trouble. I consume most media (YouTube, games, etc) in English.
Portuguese. And it depends on the day.
I started picking up english even before being formally taught. I can easily follow a film, a podcast or some other media in full english with no need to dedicate the entirety of my attention to it. I can pick up humour and innuendo, along with cultural cues. Even some degree of lingo and slang.
Speaking can sometimes be challenging as I speak very fast in my native language and I tend to try to achieve to same in english, only to sound like a washing machine full of marbles on high speed.
When can I get a bit lost? Very dense accents, like scotish or some from the US. The Louisiana one throws me off completely. The australians are cool, except for their local wording that can be a bit harder to follow. Took me ages to figure what a sheila was and that calling someone a dingo was an insult.
And by the way: why can a kangoroo be a wallabee and just to rub salt on the wound most people will call it a 'roo?
My wife is from a non English speaking country and her English is better then my Australian English.
I was more of thinking of like people who learned English in their non-English country simply because its Lingua Franca, not as in immigrants.
As in: a someone that just learned it from going online and like browse social media / forums, and watching movies but never stepped foot inside a native-English-speaking country
Cuz that really would be impressive
As a native English speaker foreigners often have better technical English because they have to learn the actual rules of grammar properly
We don’t actually get a thorough education in America for our own language. Some people do but most just get the basics and the rest is on us to absorb
Meanwhile, my mom still says: “I today went to the store” (from 我 今天 if you don’t change the order it’s “I today”, lolz) and she changes between “he” and “she” between sentences for the same person lol, it almost sounds like misgendering someone
And like “Why you no [do X thing]” (because it’s 为什么 你 不 --> “why you no”)
Whatever, doesn’t really matter, it’s understandable, abeit funny to hear; immigration officials approved citizenship so it must be good enough. Good enough to do bussiness here… so… whatever
It’s funny how sometimes one word changes the entire sentence and other times it has basically no effect at all
Can actually mess up quite a few words and still successfully communicate which I think is just great
Not sure how flexible other languages are about that kinda stuff
My wife did lean it in her home country I’m the one that moved to a non English speaking country.
I can communicate with native English speakers very well. I have difficulties following an English-spoken movie or series tho.
That’s weird
I thought passively watching content is easier than actively expressing thoughts
For example: I have trouble speaking Mandarin/Cantonese but I can understand 90% of those tv shows
I’m pretty much a fluent English speaker. My native tongue is Dutch
There are certain sayings, phrases or slang that I may not be intimately familiar with. And sometimes I can’t think of a word that I really should have known and I need to look it up (but I get that in Dutch too)
But generally my thoughts are in English, when I speak English, which I think is a decently good sign of fluency.
Following movies is no problem, but I still prefer to have English subtitles under them in case I miss anything. Watching with subtitles is just something I’m used to anyway, because most movies in the NL are not dubbed, but rather the OG language (often English) with Dutch subtitles
I also speak a bit of French and German, but I’m nowhere near fluent in those.
There are certain sayings, phrases or slang that I may not be intimately familiar with.
This says nothing about your fluency. There are tonnes of English slang that Americans are unfamiliar with, and vice versa.
Hell, there’s a lot of Singaporean English that doesn’t exist in the minds of Brits and Americans, but Singaporeans are still fluent in English, it’s just different from what people consider “true” English.
