How does it feel to be fluently in English? Can i become that?

Yeah! Hello everyone. I am from Sweden and speak Swedish fluently, but i have always wanted to be able to speak and understand English fluently aswell. I am very interested in this! English is such an awesome language. Well we learn English in the school here and English is all around us via movies, songs, Internet etc. but i don't find it to be enough to actually be a very good English speaker. Learning a language as a kid is the best way to learn a language fluently, i know that. But the fact is that i am not even an adult yet, i am basically still a kid, a teenager. I want to move to the US or something, because Sweden feels like a boring country. I wonder if it is possible for me to learn Englishg fluently if i move to an English-speaking country when i'm not "too old"? The typical "swedish-english accent" will probably remain since i didn't grow up with English as my first language, but if i live in the US long enough and from a young age i should be able to get a more american accent after some time there, or what do you think?

Please let me know what your thoughts is! And btw, i have always wanted to know how it would feel like to speak with non-native English speakers as a Native-speaker? Is it annoying? When immigrants talks Swedish, it kinda sounds terrible sometimes. Very annoying accent. Does it sounds like that when we Speak English? :O

 

If you want to be fluent in a language immerse yourself actively in it. Just by saying that there's lots of English (or dare I say, American) media all around you isn't enough. Start watching news in English. If there isn't something like CNN or BBC on your TV then go online. Movies? Watch them in English. Do not use subtitles. Music is perhaps the easiest to dissect and analyze. Up next is reading. Read at least an hour a day. Replace the daily websites that you visit with English websites. Read then read some more. Reading is essential to building that internal monologue that native speakers have. Basically you have to start thinking in English as well. Every thought you have, rethink it in English. After a while this will come naturally to you.

Don't worry too much about the accent. The accent is there mainly because your brain isn't yet accustomed to reproducing the sounds found in the English language. As you practice more and more, your speech will become fluent and you'll be able to "mask" this.

 

This piece of advice is exactly what I was going to mention.

 

Thanks for your answer! I will start doing this! It would be so much easier if you had to speak English, so travel to an English-speaking country would be good i guess.

 

Go to a school specializing in english language...

 

Usually this kind of schools requires some payment. I learnt English at home and i can say it did great for me.

 

Well make some friends who knows well English and practice daily with them in the form conversation on different topics. You will be learnt very well English.

 

I have been thinking about how much good it would do for language diversity if everyone would learn at least one majority and one minority language in addition to whatever language they are already fluent in.

 

One can learn English without the need of spending too much money.

 

The best practice is to speak English as much as possible. Bring it to use within your daily conversations. With time it will improve and you will gain more confidence.

 

Nobody in this world is born completely perfect. Each and every individual has to learn by themselves. Talking about English it is one of the easiest language. When there is a will there is always a way. so just learn it in easy method read books of elementary level and try to talk in English with your friends they may laugh at you but you should not give up and keep steady in your will one fine day you will succeed completely in speaking English.

 

There are many class who teach English you can join that, to improve it you should regular read a english newspaper, Magazine and try to talk in english it will help you lot.
ya the English speaking experiences is nice when someone talk and we also response in the same english that feeling is very nice.

 

Ofcourse you can be fluent, read English books and watch English movies, try to speak always too.

 

Just my opinions, study and learn French first! I think one of the biggest problems that Asians and Europeans have is that they are lazy writers and speakers. They often skip words when speaking and writing. You have probably noticed this on DP when reading others posts. I often think that it's because they are use to scamming so much that they can't possibly discipline themselves enough to spit out the entire lingo. In other words they are use to playing dumb to enhance their scamming abilities. Another example of this mentality is most of them don't volunteer themselves to help their fellow man without an ulterior motive in mind. My advice is to not be lazy when speaking and writing and if you are a scammer then go to therapy first to try and get yourself some help.

 

Here's an example of a thread starter on this page, "Do u won the lottery". Now someone can overlook the u as being you because this can be looked at as creativity however if we say, "Do you won the lottery" it still doesn't make sense. It's like a scam or showing the personality of someone who's conditioned to ms-lead people when speaking or writing. The correct way to say it in the shortest context would be, "Have you ever won the lottery?" or "Have you won the lottery?"

 

Yes.. Surely you can be fluent in English. To be a bit honest its not at all a big task. I am from a non English country, and till i was 12, i has very lil knowledge of English. But later i tried to learn this language and within no time, i was fluent in it.. As it seems from the post you wrote you don't seem a beginner in English. you have a nice writing skills in English and you can implement them in speaking too.. One more thing to keep in mind is that, listening to music and watching movies can only make you understand English better.. If you really want to be fluent in speaking, that will come by practicing. Get some friends from English speaking countries or any of your friend who are good at English. Try that you speak in English when you are with that friend. If you really want, i can help you a bit in this.. Just let me know.. wishing you luck in your process to be a fluent in English...

 

Only some people get annoyed lol, it depends what your saying I suppose.

 

English is clearly the second language of the poster that started that thread. They're probably trying to improve by communicating in English with native English speakers. This doesn't mean that they're a scammer, or that all people that can't speak English perfectly are scammers. There are scammers out there but their ability to speak English has nothing to do with being able to to tell whether they are one or not. In fact if anything someone that spole English perfectly would have more chance of pulling off a scam on an English person in my opinion. You're saying that people from Europe or Asia don't help out their fellow man, I can't agree with that either. It's a pretty xenophobic opinion, I'm not sure where you're from but there are good and bad people all over the world. Europe and Asia are pretty large continents you know and there are all sorts of people found in both.

 

Don't get me wrong. I have a big respect for everyone trying to learn Swedish, but the accent often sounds far from smooth and it feels like we should be able to talk English with a different accent, not like when someone talk Swedish. This is just messed up, as i said, please don't get me wrong it's just a fact and pretty obvious. Would be the same if I talked arabic, spanish, german or something else.

Then i want to thank everyone for the answers! Very interesting. But your answer about moving to US, it seems like you mean that i shouldn't prefer to live there? Or was it just a tip? US seems like a perfet country from the outside.