A thread for Dopers who learned English as a second (or third, fourth, etc.) language. What’s your first language? How old were you when you learned English? Do you remain fluent in your original language?
My native language is Finnish.
I learned English at the age of 4, when we were living in Syracuse, New York. My father was studying at Syracuse University and my mother was taking care of my 4-month-old little brother, so to make things a little easier they enrolled me in a local daycare. I knew two words of English: “hello” and “dog”. These did not get me very far, so for the first few months I mostly communicated by whistling and pointing at things. A four-year-old learns pretty quickly, though, and by the time we moved back I spoke English like a native.
I’ve retained fluency in Finnish because I’ve lived in Finland for most of my life, and fluency in English because my schooling has been mostly in English. I consider both Finnish and English my native languages since I’ve been speaking both for roughly the same amount of time.
My first language is Dutch.
I have learned English from watching subtitled movies on video.
I was about 10.
I am still fluent in Dutch, although my English is getting worse with the years.
My first language is: Portuguese (brazilian version)
I learned english while growing up in the US and studying in International and American schools throughout my life. (Even got better grades in English than most US kids)
Since I’m living once more in Brazil… yep I’m still fluent.
I grew up speaking English and Farsi at the same time. Farsi was the primary language I used though since it was my mother’s language.
By kindergarten English took over. My education was in the language. Farsi became more difficult for me. It just wasn’t practical unless I was around my extended family. My mother and I speak English with each other. It’s the only way we can have adult conversations. My Farsi just never developed beyond a 5 year old’s level.
Now if I’m exposed to a lot of Iranians for a while my vocab will pick up and I can speak it with a bit more ease. For the most part though I’m only around English speakers.
My first language was Hindi. I learned English mostly from my adored kindergarden teacher, Mrs. Cook.
I forgot Hindi for a good many years because my parents really wanted me to learn English. Then around age 8 or 9, they started teaching it to me again.
So I still speak the language. Around 16, I attended a home-schooled course on learning to read and write it, held by one of the Indian women in the neighborhood.
So I am pretty nearly bilingual, I think. I think in both languages, depending on my frame of mind!
Born in Korea, immigrated to Los Angeles on my 4th birthday, and lived there most of my life. Learned English from school, but TV and movies have had the most impact.
I haven’t thought in “Korean” in so long, that I can’t remember the last time. I can barely speak it now. I have been told that I sound like the many Irish priests that are sent to Korea. Apparently it is still locked in there somewhere, because my wife once woke me up from a deep sleep. I didn’t remember where I was or who my wife was, and I exclaimed in perfect Korean.
I have been told by one person, that I have Asian Accent II, which is a tendency to not use contractions and over-enunciate, but I consider that proper King’s English.
My first language is Spanish. I regard Catalan as my second because, although I did not start actually “speaking” it until I was in college, I’d been hearing it my whole life. Catalan is my mother’s native language.
Catalan is a romance language (thus, very similar to Spanish) spoken in parts of Spain, France and Italy. It is one of the two official languages of Andorra (the other one is French) and one of the three “regionally official” languages of Spain.
I started learning English in 4th grade, had it in school until my first year of college, included. I’ve lived in the US for a total of 5 years, in two separate periods; been living in Philly and Miami, have spent one month or more in Houston and New Hampshire, have set foot in over 20 states. Now I’m back to living in Spain, and in a Catalan-speaking area, so I use both Spanish and Catalan.
My college required Chem Eng students us to pass tests in two languages: English and your choice of either French or German. They started providing English classes on the year I started; for the other language you had to learn it on your own. I took German classes but found them very unsatisfactory so took the French exam instead (got 100 out of 100 so it must’a been a Good Idea; no “curving”). When I was 4 years old I’d gone to an “inmersion school” for 3 months, you had to do everything in French. I’ve also taken one year of French in the Official Language School, but had to stop midway through 2nd grade due to my job hours.
I also had to take Latin in high school (compulsory for all students, and it sure made German grammar a lot easier), and I can cuss quite proficiently in Italian, after 8.5 weeks of work there a couple of years ago.
One of the things that I found most useful for my English is reading novels “in the original English”, plus it saves me from translations. When I had to take the TOEFL I picked some books on subjects I didn’t give a bleep about… I will never, ever again read a bodice ripper but some of the new words I found there came up in the test 
Fell 7 points short of a perfect score, so not bad.