It’s actually a very good way to learn a new language. When you want to engage in conversations online you are forced to learn it quick and will become fluent without much effort at all, and writing is probably the most difficult of the four foundational skills. Once you get that going the other three will be extremely easy to deal with.
I attribute my level of English to joining a forum about a tv show like 9 years ago or something. Many L2 English speakers on reddit have also stated the same.
The problem with the Chinese language is 99% of the people you interact with are Chinese. And in simplified.
You can understand our problem compared to learning English online.
why this doesn’t happen to me 
Neoseeker anyone?
It must have worked. Your English is excellent for a non-native speaker.
I’ve been slowly spending less time online. Mostly because I’ve been too busy lately. And I don’t really want to talk about anything serious if I have free time.
I agree, but disagree about writing being the most difficult. Unless, you mean, for you specifically, in which case I have no business questioning.
It’s a good way of increasing your reading and writing (and typing) skill in my opinion, along with vocabulary perhaps, but speaking and listening terrible, for obvious reasons.
People who meet me in real life after a letter or email exchange are typically surprised at how totally incoherent I am verbally. I make Boomhauer from King of the Hill sound like Carol Vorderman. It used to bother me when I was a lot younger, but meh, whatevs. I’m fabulous.
So I was talking with my neighbor here in Taitung and asked him what he thought the effect on Franco-American relations in the 1800s would be if the French Revolution had produced a Constitutional Monarchy? (To bring up a current chat on the Alternate-History website.)
I also asked my niece from Taoyuan if she thought Robert A. Heinlein’s science fiction novels for juveniles were a reflection of American political and economic dominance in the post-WII era? (Ditto for a thread in an SF site’s “Classic Science Fiction: pre-New Wave” forum.)
Chatting on the Internet can also put you in touch with people who are interested in the same thing you are.
This. My areas of interest often aren’t even recognized by 99.9% of the people I meet in person. They think I’m speaking gibberish.
Really. I always assumed you were a native speaker. Now i know. Job well done.
Well, hopefully, you also talk to real life meat people.
I thought you were British.
And here I am pleasantly surprised that you’re more than a Trump basher. Way more it seems. 
“I am large, I contain multitudes”- well, large anyway.
Ah, the hairy bard.
Is there a popular Taiwanese forum I could read on a weekly basis to improve my reading? Needs the traditional Chinese characters. About sport would be great.
Thank you
I am, but I don’t speak the Queens. What-O
