Re: CHAT: Synesthesia and conlanging (was Re: The ConlangInstinct)

Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

> Speaking of which, for you non-native speakers of English, what was your
> original impression of English before learning it?  Did you find it
> beautiful or ugly, and what gave it that impression?
I hadn't had much contact with English (or any other foreign language,
for that matter) before I began learning it (at about 12). I knew of
it but only heard it in movies (in the cinema, since there wasn't
much of a cable TV system here then). I remember wanting to make a
list of English words to learn it for myself when I was 9 or 10 at
the most, and using a dictionary with glosses and simulated (Spanish)
pronunciation. I think it sounded weird to me, but I simply hadn't
contact with the spoken language. My mother wanted me to learn it
in a well-known academy-ish place here, but I was terrified at the
thought of having to go to a "second school" (I was very introverted...
I still am, but not a sociophobe anymore) where I would have to talk
to a lot of people in a strange language.

At 12 I went to a private informal teacher and found some good fellows
there; then I went to this academy a couple of years, and I loved it.
I passed all my exams with A's or A+'s and then I left at 18 (just
before beginning the university). All this time I was just satisfied
that I could learn a flexible language with so many chances of practising
it, etc., but I was already thinking of English as a second language,
without esthetic considerations -- if I had any at any time, I've forgotten
now.


--Pablo Flores
  http://draseleq.conlang.org/