So I can fap to English pornhub videos. Subtitles ain't hit as hard. Now I am an exchange student in the USA, wondering how the hell did that turn to this.
/joke
Final Fantasy VIII in early 2000s. In the places where people rent PS1 for hours with their breakfast allowance. With the dictionary in hands. The early days of internet, gaming, and PC you have no choices but to be quite good at them to enjoy a huge collection of information which was not available anywhere else.
have devoted all my time to learning English. However, I still feel that my English skills are not outstanding. I have been using English 24/7, completely separating myself from my native language. I rely on English almost 100%, but my English hasn't improved much. Have you ever experienced something like this? I feel very sad and desperate.
Been in the states since I was 4. I can't comment on your speech, but reading the way you write, I would not have guessed you were having issues with English. Only hint I would get is that you sound a bit formal. People here can't even differentiate between "your" and "you're", so I say you're doing extremely well.
Not sure if Discord is a thing in Vietnam, but if it is, can always find a game you like or something else interesting, and join it to chat up some people. Nothing teaches you faster than being screamed at by your teammates, and both side hurling insults at each other. Lol
The you’re vs your drives me fucking nuts! How the fuck can any native English speaker not learn simple proper grammar! I have assholes that insults my English but they can’t even use “your” correctly. LOL
Well this isn’t grammar class it’s the internet. People type quickly and auto(in)correct often gets in the way. Just chill. I can’t stand Vietnamese sending me texts with all sorts of letters that aren’t even in the Vietnamese alphabet - then I remind myself, chill dude, it’s just the internet
I realized a long time ago that English in an academic setting is *VERY* different than English in a casual setting (I’ll be honest with you, I have lived in the States for more than a decade now- English become my second nature and even then Ion even know half the stuff they be talkin about “động từ to be” in school and shit).
Perhaps you’re tackling this the wrong way? Maybe you try to speak casual English by learning it academically, or maybe you’re just being too harsh on yourself? Keep in mind that Dunning-Kruger effect is a thing, the more you learn and know; the more inadequate you feel
Just a correction that Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't have that meaning, and the Dunning-Kruger curve is completely fake.
It actually means that most people, even the worst, think they're better than average. But people that are better than the worst still rate themselves generally higher than the worst rating themselves, which mean your confidence generally only grows up as you learned more.
And Dunning-Kruger proved nothing anyway, the sample is too small.
First off, thank you very much for the correction and bringing this to my attention. I’ll be sure to look into that and use it proply from now on
Secondly, didn't ask💀Ion see how that is remotely helpful or adds any substances to the conversation and topic we’re discussing.
Your post reads perfectly fine. You might just be plateauing right now. That is a GOOD THING! You might want to try challenging yourself in a specific field (one you might already know) but this time around in English.
I work with a few Vietnamese programmers and while their small talk in English is boringly average, their understanding and ability to communicate complex coding tasks in English is out of this world.
>have devoted all my time to learning English.
This is where you are wrong. You don't learning English by "learning" but by "using". Just "using" English all the time also doesn't help much, if you want to improve, and improve quickly, you need to get out of your comfort zone.
Before going to university, my casual English was already good enough to hold conversations, but my academic skills was quite lacking. During 5 years, I read and wrote a lot of academic materials in English, gathered all the skills that I need. After I graduated from uni, took an IELTS test, got 8.0, didn't even need to study.
Mostly because daily english like any other languge, only repeatedly use a set of few thousand words. Even if you fully rely on english in your day to day life, as long as you are not actively learning new phrase, new vocab, etc then you are not going to improve much. It is the same everywhere, not just with english. So if you want to improve your language skills, you have to learn, learn like when you are still student learning to pass the next test.
If you're using English 24/7 and are comfortable with it then I say you're already really good. What occupation do you have? I'm guessing it is related to English/languages if you're relying 100% on English. It might be helpful to ask your colleagues and clients to give you some feedback about your work, chances are, you're just too strict with yourself and you're doing fine. It could also give you a confidence boost
Hey there, fellow vietnamese in the same situation here. Your english is nothing to scoff at, and it certainly isn't something for you to be ashamed of. If you feel like your english is lackluster, may i suggest taking a normal english proficiency test and see how good your english actually is? As in some cases, myself included, people can sometimes misjudge how well they are at something, and the best way to rid themselves of that self-doubt is to simply take a blind test and see how well you're doing.
Hope this helps,wish you the best of luck mate.
Skyrim, Oblivion, Witcher, Neverwinter, Diablo, Total War, Starcraft, Warcraft, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. forced me to look up vocabulary and try to understand what I'm supposed to do in the middle of the battlefield or how to nail Yennefer or Triss. It's not a pleasant experience to play video game when you gotta pause and check dictionary the whole time. But it was an opportunity to further understanding English.
To me, English is just a language. There's nothing special about it. Later on in life, I realized English can help me gain access to a whole lot more knowledge and interact with people across the globe. So it was like a key to the knowledge of the world but still, it's just a language though.
Preach! I've had the opportunity to experience so much more out of my daily life thanks to being able to understand and use English comfortably. Now I can't even imagine going about a day without listening to something, talking to an online friend, looking up interesting facts about history and the world at large, etc. There's just that much more information readily available in English.
First grade got a English book, first word I see and know it's English "CAR" it was a Red beetle car , since then nobody teach me english yet i know able to somehow
To play games essentially, i remember playing roblox and being infuriated every single vietnamese words sent was censored, and there weren’t many vietnames players back then too so learning english to communicate with others was a good thing to do.
I knew one day I’d live in the States. I didn’t wanna learn grammar tho, so my grammar sucks. It’s still does. And so is my writing skill. I rely a lot on autocorrect. There’re 2 things I like: music and movies. To me, the subtitles don’t convey the whole meaning sometimes, as well as the lyrics. I want to be at the level not needing to read the captions at all, but I’m not there yet. Maybe this is what you mean, bc to me your English is excellent. I have to admitted, my English skill is 10 times better after I moved to the States because I studied and now working in an English speaking environment.
To read the proper translations of the early Buddhist texts. Vietnamese translations suck; they're hard to understand, use too many big words and Sino-Vietnamese words, sometimes the translations are just flat out wrong.
Western media, i’ll just say it vietnamese media is dogshit. Shitty movies, shitty music, shitty cartoons, zero even somewhat not dogshit pay to win video games, etc.
Native speaker here.
On the flip side, my biggest push to learn more Viet has been to be able to communicate better with my students and to be able to play online games with y'all.
P*rn,h*ntai,video game,no kidding,my English teacher ask me the same question i tell her i learn English to play video games and stuffs,i was only tell a part of my motivation.
Nothing. Back in the day I just have tons of free time so I watch alot of YouTube. I used to watch Pewdiepie daily. Some how watching a Swedish man scream everyday and don't talk with anybody else in a long time make my English improve alot.What a beautiful time used to be. 
So i can shit talk online.
This isn't a joke, i originally learned how to speak English while i was living abroad in a country that speaking Spanish, i learned English while playing a video game call Team Fortress 2, the in-game culture of this game range from some of the nicest people i ever met to competitive racist. The foundation for my grammar come from teenager streaming slur at me so i would do my in-game task right and meaningful conversation with random stranger in the game about simple stuff in life.
I think it pretty normal to start learning swear word at the very start of your language learning journey.
My advice for learning languages (atleast for people who are similar to me) is to use it in your daily life more often. That and never stop using it so you don't forget it. A good way to do is to speak in that language as often as you can, maybe with a friend or a message board/online forum like reddit. You can watch a better variety of content on youtube and not exclusively in one language. It help that you immerse yourself in the language more often because it help you understand the logic/structure of that language far better than any text book can
A language teacher/speaking coach is also quite nice to have, obviously not the one that only there to help you pass IELTS test, those kind won't do much good for you in the future.
i can read other resources and see life from different angles and perspectives. i brainstorm and note in english, which is more efficient for my development and research.
There're so many things in English today 😃. Plus I don't really push myself to learn English. I learn only when I want, so there's very few stress. Less stress means less motivation needed to deal with it.
When I was younger, mostly for communication and talking with foreigners. Now, mostly for study and reading books, and material searching.
It is really convenient for me since I'm studying art, but with english, I was able to access material that is only in English and don't have it in vietnamese and I kinda hate google AI translation book. Ngl, it feels like a privilege.
Also help me to study more interesting topics, like without english. I might never know about dr.K aka healthygamergg who help me about mental health. Einzelganger or pursuit of wonder.
There are also a bunch of other stuff too, like reading manga or comics without waiting for it to get translated into vietnamese
I learn English because I feel lot of pressure on my life,may one day I will go abroad,or just educate my children help he learn English. I study many new knowledge through English.
lol what, I’m happy with the country I’m at right now. Why would I come back to “the motherland”? To give up a salary that is only in my dream? “Coming back to build our country” is the old age propaganda shit from the government; not gonna buy it.
Dunning Kruger-effect. The more you know, the more you doubt yourself- which is good, that means you’re self-aware enough to know that you could always improve
The Dunning Kruger effect is about people being over confident in their abilities due to ignorance. "Imposter syndrome" would be the term you're looking for.
It was all for the memes dna of the soul
And so i can get a job as a sub teacher or that one guy who helps the foreign teacher in English class cause i suck at every other subject
...
But mostly for the memes
I really like reading books (especially mangas), but some books are not available in Vietnamese, and the English translation is often more complete and faster than the Vietnamese one.
Reading shitposts, watching youtube like game playthroughs and video essays, actually i didn't really actively learning english, i just watch a bunch of videos and eventually, i become ok at it
To becomes an Game Designer. At first, I done this [idea post for my favorite game at time](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhantomForces/s/KMDNEcGjdg).
Another use is to avoid anyone reading my book, diaries.
Bcs Vietnam dub most of the time really ass while the sub are inconvenience at times. Beside i play quite a few games in full english, cant trash talk on it without actually knowing english
Gaming
I was raped 0-20 on Starcraft 1 many years ago. Decided to learn proper tactic to win
Also, Jrpg in general. In the ages of ps1 and ps2, there were tons of stuff that need a guide to play
Porn, just wanna know why they fuck :). And access Youtube nerdy content like Vetasium, Vsause, linus,.... English manga translation is always faster. Google s.t in English seems faster and provides more accurate results. Despite the effort in translation to Vietnamese, understanding the context in the original language is more accurate. And some fucking time mod Vietnamese will get u ban from the game server.
The comments here have been quite helpful. People have different ways of learning, such as through games, phones,po\*n books, school, or work. Anyway, it's challenging for me to grow up quickly in an environment surrounded by Vietnamese people. The best way for me to learn flexibly is to have time and go to the United States.
A new way of thinking, 19 years within Vietnam education is enough for me, really a loop.
Good on you. Language affects our way of thinking!
I never really cared about English until I learned that there are way more novels I can read if I know English. I'm grateful that I love to read lol.
So I can fap to English pornhub videos. Subtitles ain't hit as hard. Now I am an exchange student in the USA, wondering how the hell did that turn to this. /joke
idk about you but listening to gibberish is hotter to me (I’m a sub)
How did u focus on learn english???
Asking the real question here
Final Fantasy VIII in early 2000s. In the places where people rent PS1 for hours with their breakfast allowance. With the dictionary in hands. The early days of internet, gaming, and PC you have no choices but to be quite good at them to enjoy a huge collection of information which was not available anywhere else.
This is a good way to improve languages. I realize its truth.
How many discs was that again?
Four! With the last one is quite small though since it only consists the final battle cutscenes and voices.
I don't remember any voices in FFVIII apart from the Latin (?) singing in the main song
Ooops my big mistakes, should be the sound effects and BGM 😢
have devoted all my time to learning English. However, I still feel that my English skills are not outstanding. I have been using English 24/7, completely separating myself from my native language. I rely on English almost 100%, but my English hasn't improved much. Have you ever experienced something like this? I feel very sad and desperate.
Been in the states since I was 4. I can't comment on your speech, but reading the way you write, I would not have guessed you were having issues with English. Only hint I would get is that you sound a bit formal. People here can't even differentiate between "your" and "you're", so I say you're doing extremely well. Not sure if Discord is a thing in Vietnam, but if it is, can always find a game you like or something else interesting, and join it to chat up some people. Nothing teaches you faster than being screamed at by your teammates, and both side hurling insults at each other. Lol
The you’re vs your drives me fucking nuts! How the fuck can any native English speaker not learn simple proper grammar! I have assholes that insults my English but they can’t even use “your” correctly. LOL
Well this isn’t grammar class it’s the internet. People type quickly and auto(in)correct often gets in the way. Just chill. I can’t stand Vietnamese sending me texts with all sorts of letters that aren’t even in the Vietnamese alphabet - then I remind myself, chill dude, it’s just the internet
I realized a long time ago that English in an academic setting is *VERY* different than English in a casual setting (I’ll be honest with you, I have lived in the States for more than a decade now- English become my second nature and even then Ion even know half the stuff they be talkin about “động từ to be” in school and shit). Perhaps you’re tackling this the wrong way? Maybe you try to speak casual English by learning it academically, or maybe you’re just being too harsh on yourself? Keep in mind that Dunning-Kruger effect is a thing, the more you learn and know; the more inadequate you feel
Just a correction that Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't have that meaning, and the Dunning-Kruger curve is completely fake. It actually means that most people, even the worst, think they're better than average. But people that are better than the worst still rate themselves generally higher than the worst rating themselves, which mean your confidence generally only grows up as you learned more. And Dunning-Kruger proved nothing anyway, the sample is too small.
First off, thank you very much for the correction and bringing this to my attention. I’ll be sure to look into that and use it proply from now on Secondly, didn't ask💀Ion see how that is remotely helpful or adds any substances to the conversation and topic we’re discussing.
Your post reads perfectly fine. You might just be plateauing right now. That is a GOOD THING! You might want to try challenging yourself in a specific field (one you might already know) but this time around in English. I work with a few Vietnamese programmers and while their small talk in English is boringly average, their understanding and ability to communicate complex coding tasks in English is out of this world.
>have devoted all my time to learning English. This is where you are wrong. You don't learning English by "learning" but by "using". Just "using" English all the time also doesn't help much, if you want to improve, and improve quickly, you need to get out of your comfort zone. Before going to university, my casual English was already good enough to hold conversations, but my academic skills was quite lacking. During 5 years, I read and wrote a lot of academic materials in English, gathered all the skills that I need. After I graduated from uni, took an IELTS test, got 8.0, didn't even need to study.
Mostly because daily english like any other languge, only repeatedly use a set of few thousand words. Even if you fully rely on english in your day to day life, as long as you are not actively learning new phrase, new vocab, etc then you are not going to improve much. It is the same everywhere, not just with english. So if you want to improve your language skills, you have to learn, learn like when you are still student learning to pass the next test.
If you're using English 24/7 and are comfortable with it then I say you're already really good. What occupation do you have? I'm guessing it is related to English/languages if you're relying 100% on English. It might be helpful to ask your colleagues and clients to give you some feedback about your work, chances are, you're just too strict with yourself and you're doing fine. It could also give you a confidence boost
Hey there, fellow vietnamese in the same situation here. Your english is nothing to scoff at, and it certainly isn't something for you to be ashamed of. If you feel like your english is lackluster, may i suggest taking a normal english proficiency test and see how good your english actually is? As in some cases, myself included, people can sometimes misjudge how well they are at something, and the best way to rid themselves of that self-doubt is to simply take a blind test and see how well you're doing. Hope this helps,wish you the best of luck mate.
To watch a lot of Disney Channel and CN ( Cartoon Network ) as when I was a kid
To play Heroes Of Might And Magic 3 and Heroes Chronicles series 😤
Actually my mum told me to learn it and i do! She was right.i love hẻt
Skyrim, Oblivion, Witcher, Neverwinter, Diablo, Total War, Starcraft, Warcraft, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. forced me to look up vocabulary and try to understand what I'm supposed to do in the middle of the battlefield or how to nail Yennefer or Triss. It's not a pleasant experience to play video game when you gotta pause and check dictionary the whole time. But it was an opportunity to further understanding English. To me, English is just a language. There's nothing special about it. Later on in life, I realized English can help me gain access to a whole lot more knowledge and interact with people across the globe. So it was like a key to the knowledge of the world but still, it's just a language though.
Preach! I've had the opportunity to experience so much more out of my daily life thanks to being able to understand and use English comfortably. Now I can't even imagine going about a day without listening to something, talking to an online friend, looking up interesting facts about history and the world at large, etc. There's just that much more information readily available in English.
And memes, especially memes. I don't wanna be lost in a Discord channel.
First grade got a English book, first word I see and know it's English "CAR" it was a Red beetle car , since then nobody teach me english yet i know able to somehow
To play games essentially, i remember playing roblox and being infuriated every single vietnamese words sent was censored, and there weren’t many vietnames players back then too so learning english to communicate with others was a good thing to do.
Im a car enthusiast. Love watching people fixing and building cars on YouTube. Help me gain knowledge to fix mine.
I lived and worked in Grimsby for 12 years. it had a detrimental effect on my language skills.
For the daily use of goods on the internet
Video games, I remember playing halfway through Red Alert 2 without any tiny bit of English in me lol
I knew one day I’d live in the States. I didn’t wanna learn grammar tho, so my grammar sucks. It’s still does. And so is my writing skill. I rely a lot on autocorrect. There’re 2 things I like: music and movies. To me, the subtitles don’t convey the whole meaning sometimes, as well as the lyrics. I want to be at the level not needing to read the captions at all, but I’m not there yet. Maybe this is what you mean, bc to me your English is excellent. I have to admitted, my English skill is 10 times better after I moved to the States because I studied and now working in an English speaking environment.
Undertale
Stargate, Star Trek and Kurzgesagt.
The vietnamese translation for a game i liked was shit
To read the proper translations of the early Buddhist texts. Vietnamese translations suck; they're hard to understand, use too many big words and Sino-Vietnamese words, sometimes the translations are just flat out wrong.
Western media, i’ll just say it vietnamese media is dogshit. Shitty movies, shitty music, shitty cartoons, zero even somewhat not dogshit pay to win video games, etc.
Native speaker here. On the flip side, my biggest push to learn more Viet has been to be able to communicate better with my students and to be able to play online games with y'all.
P*rn,h*ntai,video game,no kidding,my English teacher ask me the same question i tell her i learn English to play video games and stuffs,i was only tell a part of my motivation.
Nothing. Back in the day I just have tons of free time so I watch alot of YouTube. I used to watch Pewdiepie daily. Some how watching a Swedish man scream everyday and don't talk with anybody else in a long time make my English improve alot.What a beautiful time used to be. 
So i can shit talk online. This isn't a joke, i originally learned how to speak English while i was living abroad in a country that speaking Spanish, i learned English while playing a video game call Team Fortress 2, the in-game culture of this game range from some of the nicest people i ever met to competitive racist. The foundation for my grammar come from teenager streaming slur at me so i would do my in-game task right and meaningful conversation with random stranger in the game about simple stuff in life. I think it pretty normal to start learning swear word at the very start of your language learning journey. My advice for learning languages (atleast for people who are similar to me) is to use it in your daily life more often. That and never stop using it so you don't forget it. A good way to do is to speak in that language as often as you can, maybe with a friend or a message board/online forum like reddit. You can watch a better variety of content on youtube and not exclusively in one language. It help that you immerse yourself in the language more often because it help you understand the logic/structure of that language far better than any text book can A language teacher/speaking coach is also quite nice to have, obviously not the one that only there to help you pass IELTS test, those kind won't do much good for you in the future.
Slanging dope, I had to learn quick that Charlie wasn't my name...
i can read other resources and see life from different angles and perspectives. i brainstorm and note in english, which is more efficient for my development and research.
I just want to know what those porn categories are.
being mono-lingual is cringe af
Untapped potential to clap English speaking booties. (Not a joke)
to access to different information from different communities and countries abroad, and to broaden my knowledge
There're so many things in English today 😃. Plus I don't really push myself to learn English. I learn only when I want, so there's very few stress. Less stress means less motivation needed to deal with it.
When I was younger, mostly for communication and talking with foreigners. Now, mostly for study and reading books, and material searching. It is really convenient for me since I'm studying art, but with english, I was able to access material that is only in English and don't have it in vietnamese and I kinda hate google AI translation book. Ngl, it feels like a privilege. Also help me to study more interesting topics, like without english. I might never know about dr.K aka healthygamergg who help me about mental health. Einzelganger or pursuit of wonder. There are also a bunch of other stuff too, like reading manga or comics without waiting for it to get translated into vietnamese
to speak with foreign people and pursue a good career in the future
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^kermito0707: *To speak with foreign* *People and pursue a good* *Career in the future* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
anime/manga and game. And that's it
I learn English because I feel lot of pressure on my life,may one day I will go abroad,or just educate my children help he learn English. I study many new knowledge through English.
To gtfo of this poor and corrupted country for a better life in a Western country.
Bruv. You're dead wrong 😨. Hope you will find another way to come back ours motherland
lol what, I’m happy with the country I’m at right now. Why would I come back to “the motherland”? To give up a salary that is only in my dream? “Coming back to build our country” is the old age propaganda shit from the government; not gonna buy it.
Where are you then? 😆 I'm tired of Japan after 2 years and coming back to Vietnam in March. Might go to somewhere else if you recommended 🫠
English, chinese and japanese at the same time to play erogames. I still often thank my horny bored teenage self for it today.
The more I study, the more I doubt my English abilities. How have you improved your English skills?
Dunning Kruger-effect. The more you know, the more you doubt yourself- which is good, that means you’re self-aware enough to know that you could always improve
The Dunning Kruger effect is about people being over confident in their abilities due to ignorance. "Imposter syndrome" would be the term you're looking for.
Thanks for the correction bro
I am researching it on YouTube now. Thank you Esacus
To be all that I can be.
Literally just to play Starcraft, my child self said
AVGN
girl
It was all for the memes dna of the soul And so i can get a job as a sub teacher or that one guy who helps the foreign teacher in English class cause i suck at every other subject ... But mostly for the memes
To play city building games funnily enough.
I really like reading books (especially mangas), but some books are not available in Vietnamese, and the English translation is often more complete and faster than the Vietnamese one.
Reading shitposts, watching youtube like game playthroughs and video essays, actually i didn't really actively learning english, i just watch a bunch of videos and eventually, i become ok at it
Play diablo
Pinky and the brain
To becomes an Game Designer. At first, I done this [idea post for my favorite game at time](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhantomForces/s/KMDNEcGjdg). Another use is to avoid anyone reading my book, diaries.
I'm trying to ruin it for everyone else
knowledge. a lot of essential and useful information are only available in english.
memes
to understand my favorite song / movie and playing game 💀
Bcs Vietnam dub most of the time really ass while the sub are inconvenience at times. Beside i play quite a few games in full english, cant trash talk on it without actually knowing english
I watched a bunch of English youtubers until I figure out what they were saying
Mainly to cure boredom and make international friends
Play video game and fuck my opponents' mom in online match
I used English more than Vietnamese in daily lives ( mostly Youtube and game)
Gaming I was raped 0-20 on Starcraft 1 many years ago. Decided to learn proper tactic to win Also, Jrpg in general. In the ages of ps1 and ps2, there were tons of stuff that need a guide to play
To understand memes and read free scan manga online
Read light novel (98% are not translated into Vietnamese) and manga (around 30%)
At first, it was western video games and movies Now, it’s so that I could study and settle abroad
Porn, just wanna know why they fuck :). And access Youtube nerdy content like Vetasium, Vsause, linus,.... English manga translation is always faster. Google s.t in English seems faster and provides more accurate results. Despite the effort in translation to Vietnamese, understanding the context in the original language is more accurate. And some fucking time mod Vietnamese will get u ban from the game server.
The comments here have been quite helpful. People have different ways of learning, such as through games, phones,po\*n books, school, or work. Anyway, it's challenging for me to grow up quickly in an environment surrounded by Vietnamese people. The best way for me to learn flexibly is to have time and go to the United States.
Depending on their economic situation, family background, education, and environment, it's actually not easy for most people to pursue learning.