[Oneday]

Hi, English is partially second language for me, so its difficult for me to justify this. But is the language of CPA exam material difficult for native English speakers? I was born and raised most of my life in the U.S., but the readings are quite difficult to understand. I feel like they are way more difficult than college materials, which I’m used to. This includes some Ninja MCQ.

Do you guys feel this way? Or should I look into ways of improving my english skill?

I’m afraid of not being competent as a CPA for not being skillful in English. I believe anyone can pass the CPA with effort, but I think real-world work would be different.

I’m studying REG by the way..

[JohnWayneIsGod]

I'd say the thing a non-native speaker should really grasp is the meaning of the word ‘subsequent', and how the word ‘respectively' affects a question.

I'll give an example: There is a blue car and there is a red car. They cost $30,000 and 50,000 respectively.

This is just a different way of saying ‘The blue car cost $30,000 and the red car cost $50,000.' As you can see, the order of the two cars in the sentence are in the same order as the dollar amounts.

May I recommend reading a little bit every day as part of your studies? Perhaps reading the news on CNN could help you build up your English comprehension skills. You can do the CPA, but it will just take a little bit of extra work and you'll need to be aware of some of the idioms and vocabulary that we use so that you understand the question.

FAR - 80

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.

-John Wayne

[Oneday]

Good to see you again JWG!

I am very well accustomed to those (subsequent, in respect..). I've been in the U.S. since elementary school 🙂

I usually have problems when I read very long sentences like this:

“Consummation of a plan of merger to which the corporation is a party if shareholder approval is required via statute or the articles of incorporation and the shareholder is entitled to vote on the merger or if the corporation is a subsidiary and merged with its parent” – from Revised Model Business Corporation Act Sec 13.02

Understanding the overall sentence is the major problem. I understand the vocabulary used in such sentences…

But thanks for the suggestion. You've made a good point about the idioms.. I misunderstand them from time to time.

[JohnWayneIsGod]

Oh, ok. English is my wife's second language, and she didn't come out here until she was well into her teens so I I know those things that I mentioned would throw her off. But I better understand where you are at now. Anyway, that sentence you put up was confusing even to me. I was able to get it, but I had to read it a few times. When I see long sentences, I try to break them up into bite-sized chunks. Once I understand the chunks, then I try to put it all together.

FAR - 80

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.

-John Wayne

[Anonymous]

ha-ha I remember somebody told me to watch CNN when I just moved to US, I tried but always ended up watching next american top model

I also have problem telling what's subject and what's predicate in long sentences like that, maybe because there is no transgressive in English. And sometimes I can't tell if the word is being used as a noun or a verb and that messes up the whole sentence.

I honestly don't think you can really improve these skills fast

[Oneday]

JWG//

I totally agree with you. Those are some of the difficult concepts of English for foreigners to understand. Unfortunately for me, I'm not that great with both of my native language and English lol. But thank you for the chunking method! I'll try to do that.

Anjanja//

Sigh… Hopefully things would get better by the time I get a job as a CPA (or an intern). But wow, nice scores! Would you mind if you share an advice? I'm taking REG in 7 days.. Ninja MCQ trending score's 67% but occasionally i score well above 70% lately.

[Fat Bunny]

If you learned your accounting courses in English. you will be fine.

Converting English accounting terms back to your original language is probably really hard.

REG - 77, 10/18/2014
BEC- 84, 2/26/2015
FAR - 78, 7/16/2015
AUD - 86, 8/27/2015 (Yes!!! I am officially done )

[Anonymous]

fyun89,

I spend 3-4 months preparing for one test and I re-write notes. When re-writing notes, I am trying to reword them which I believe helps with memorization and language

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I'm a native English speaker with fluency in Spanish, French and Italian. I THINK I GET language! That said, some of these questions are SO POORLY structured it drives me bonkers. And of course its not like you can ask questions for clarification during the exam!!

[ohiostategirlcpa]

1. It is not just what is your first language but what is your best language. English is my fourth language, but now it is my best language.

1.a. What language do you speak at home? If it is not english you will have difficulties testing in english.

2. The CPA test is also about legal language and tricky language. Can you protect your clients from a legal scam, couched in complicated english? Try reading the fine print of any of the online agreements you “agree” to. You will see the CPA test is much easier.

3. Languages do not exist independent of each other, but exist in groups. The Indo-European group includes most European languages, Persian, Hindi and some others. They have the same structure. If you know a language in the same group, the others are easy to learn. The Latin languages are a subgroup, the Germanic languages also a subgroup, the Slavic languages, etc. These subgroups are 70-95% similiar.

4. Chinese and Arabic are not Indo-European thus very difficult to learn because they cross to another language group. It is as hard for Chinese to learn english as it is for english-speakers to learn chinese. Think about that.

F91 A95 R90 B94
CMA since 2015
(Gleim books/PDFs, MCQs, SIMS)

[Author]

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