"Chupo" wrote in message
...

snip

Your English is perfectly understandable by the way, no need to apologise
at
all. Bear in mind that most of us native English speakers cannot be
bothered
to learn a second language, so I admire anyone who can master English to
the
degree you have.



Thank you, those (or should I say 'these'?) were very kind words.


I simply speak the truth as I see it. Some native English speakers, not
necessarily a majority, seem to assume everyone should speak English, and
are stupid if they get it wrong. What is ironic is that many people who
speak English as a second language often do so better than some native
speakers! They're usually a lot more polite as well IMO.

Well, I was learning English since 3rd grade (basic school) till end of
the high school (not extra classes, only as one of the compulsory
subjects) and I was always lucky to have an excellent teacher. Later,
we've had some techinical English classes at the university - with
American teachers. Bonus is that we are watching movies with subtitles
(I am from Croatia) so I hear English practically every day. +, I've
had a lot of conversations with Hungarians, Russians, Australians,
Belgians & Germans. That is why I am not sure if some of my sentences
sound funny to the native English speaker, because each of the former
mentioned have their own 'English grammar' :-)) For an example, in
Hungary you can hear: 'I have to toilet' instead of 'I have to go to
the toilet'. That is because of the nature of their language applied to
the English language.

And, of course, I occasionally use small Webster's English to English
dictionary to find out the spelling when I am not sure :-))

BTW
I must say, the education in our region (former Yugoslavia) was very
good, it was for free (as was the medical care) but very good, I would
say outstanding, until the war. Nowadays, I am not sure, in fact I can
say the education is not so good as it was. Furthermore, There was a
lot off different languages that one could easily learn because we were
all mixed, from the six former Republics. So, everyone older than 20-25
can understand Croatian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, not
to mention the dialects. Even Russian, Slovakian, Polish are not too
hard to understand if you would have lived here. I have always been
interested in learning languages so I have even learnt some Hungarian
during my 1 year working period accross the border (and believe me,
Hungarian is not so easy to learn :-) ).

OK, this was rather offtopic, but you (or someone else) may find it
interesting.



I do indeed find it interesting. I am fascinated by Eastern Europe and the
Balkan countries. I intend to take a driving holiday one day and tour all of
eastern Europe and the Balkans, perhaps even Ukraine, Belarus, and the
Baltic countries.

I actually had a holiday in Croatia when it was still part of Yugoslavia and
under communist rule. It was a real experience for a 15 year old and no-one
else I knew had been to an Eastern European country back then.

We stayed at Porec on the Istrian peninsula, and had an interesting day trip
to Trieste, which meant we crossed through Slovenia and crossed the 'Iron
Curtain' by road into Italy. Exciting stuff for a kid! I have to say though
that Porec was disappointing and I believe it to be too heavily geared
towards tourism to give a taste of the real Croatia. If it had been my
choice, I'd have preferred to have gone inland and seen the real Croatia,
I'm not into resorts and much prefer seeing what countries are really about.
The scenery on the journey from Pula airport to Porec was very nice though.

I know what you mean about Hungarian. It's distantly related to Finnish
which is also rated as one of the most difficult languages to master, at
least for English speakers. The pronunciation alone is extremely difficult
for Western Europeans. Having said that, I understand English is difficult
for people used to certain languages.


Thank you again for answering me,


No problem, it's nice to talk to you.

Dave