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.Hello everyone, I thought I would make a language learning thread where people who are interested in/are currently learning a foreign language. Since there is a such a big user base for the TL Forums, there have to be at least a handful of us who like to study foreign languages! Feel free to post what languages you speak and what languages you are currently learning and any general language discussion you see fit.
Please try to keep the posts mostly to English, as posting only in English is part of the TL Commandments. I'm guessing writing tid-bits of non-English in an attempt to talk about other languages is allowed, but I don't think the mods want to see a message composed entirely of Hangeul.
My current foreign language process:
English - Fluent
Spanish - Advanced Conversational Level (Studied for 4 years, I'm probably a ways off from fluency but it is very easy to speak and have a conversation in Spanish. The most difficult parts for me are listening (especially to women speakers) and vocabulary)
French - Basic Conversational Level (Studied for 2 years, a long ways off from
conversational level but I could get by if needed)
German - Basic (Studied for 3 months, probably not going to continue this one after my German I class ends. It's just not for me)
My future foreign language plans:
[Near Future - This Summer]
Italian - My heritage is Italian, plus it should be decently easy from Spanish
Korean - A lot of things I do revolve around Korea (Starcraft, Taekwondo, my love of Korean women and Kimchi) so I think it would be really cool to learn at least the basics of the language
[Far off Future]
Portuguese - Would be an easy jump from Spanish and I'm into Sertanejo music, so I think it would be fun to do Portuguese ^^
Catalan - I'm basically in love with Catalunya and Barcelona. I would love to learn Catalan and get my regional pride on :D
Dutch - Considering doing it, have a lot of Dutch friends from Grubby's Mod Squad ^^
Lastly, I would like to provide some basic resources for anyone wanting to get started with learning a foreign language.
Fluent in 3 Months is a blog written by Benny Lewis, the "Irish Polyglot". He travels all over the world and while his blogs have basic information about learning a language, it is still very entertaining to see his travels all over the world.
r/languagelearning - a subreddit that deals with learning languages. It also has a lot of links to various subreddits of individual languages.
r/duolingo - A subreddit about Duolingo, which will be linked below this one
Duolingo - One of the best free apps/programs for learning a language. The programs are all written by natives and they offer 5 complete courses (and many more on the way). Very good for learning grammar.
Memrise - Another good app for language learning - it helps immensely with vocabulary. It's basically online flashcards that not only teaches you vocabulary (using great word association pictures) but reinforces it as well.
FSI - These courses were designed by the US government for diplomats and now they are free to access online. (Thanks REDBLUEGREEN)
DLI - Similar to FSI, simply for military use. (Thanks REDBLUEGREEN again ^^)
TL Language Exchange and Learning Tools Thread (Thanks JieXian)
Laoshu505000's Youtube Channel - This guy basically goes balls to the wall and goes out to find other people to practice speaking languages with. He knows a ton of languages and his method is probably one of the best (if you are brave enough to go out and talk to strangers, like I am not). Definitely worth checking out. (Thanks hp.Shell)
Openculture.com - Language learning resources for 46 languages. (Thanks Mothra)
Let me know if there is anything that I can add to this section!
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Pretty good list of resources. Haven't used all of those.
I was using Rosetta Stone to learn Japanese (because of anime, of course). Really liked it, but lost it when my computer died and just haven't had the motivation to get it back.
I've had a growing interest in learning Russian recently, for some reason. I don't know, think it sounds cool.
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I'm fluent in French (mother tongue) and advanced in English I'd say.
Well for English right now my biggest issue is my awful accent... and the only way to get rid of it seems to just be in an english environment. I write/read/listento a lot of English content but I seldom speak it.
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Netherlands6183 Posts
Yay for this thread!
I am an english speaker, have done about four years of french (which I haven't spoken in 5 years!), done 8 years of Shona (native language here) but still can't speak it although my understanding of it is pretty good. I have been trying to teach myself German using Duolingo, but it was going so slowly I semi gave up. I am planning on trying it out again at some point. I also tried a bit of Hangul and Mandarin at some point but I basically only got as far as greetings.
At the moment my focus is on trying to brush up on my French and fix that before I go on to learn German. I'm doing this using Duolingo and the help of my sister who is studying French at the moment to help me get back into conversational French.
On that note, if anyone would like my help with learning or practicing English I am always happy to help out. Just pm me. ^_^
Edit: Greeeeeat now I'm learning the cyrillic alphabet at 8am on a Sunday morning.
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Hello!
I am a born and raised English speaker, but learned Spanish fluently through 8 years of school. Currently attempting to learn Korean and Japanese through classes and self-lessons. So far, it is really difficult, but that is because it is not my main focus as I am still in university and work 30 hrs a week.
I bought multiple textbooks and have used some sites in the past, as well as Rosetta Stone which was terrible. Hoping to find some better PC resources!
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Don't go for dutch; every dutchman speaks english well and there's very few languages you can learn that have less native speakers than dutch.
I like the idea, by the way! I'm trying to learn Italian and Arabic now, which is haaaarrdd man 0.0!
By the way, there's this program called 'Memrise', that promotes language learning, Might want to check it out! Edit, I should stop skimming threads too fast... -.-
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Uhm so how can this thread be and live without actually writing in other languages? maybe an exception can be made here from the general TL policy? if not this thread will die quickly
I speak fluently English and Italian. my English writing skills are lower and i tend to do more mistakes. Studied and lived in France for one year, love the language and most things about France.
I would love to learn some Hangul. I tried and there are different websites out there; what would be best for me is a teacher, i can' t even get started with those ideo-grams or what-ever they are called.
BUONA PASQUA!!! that means happy easter in Italian
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dutch is going to be a bitch. so many rules and stupid things that change all the time that it is hard to keep up.
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i thought this thread already existed here in TL. good to know there are a lot of learners of other language. been trying to learn japanese but just as a hobby .. you know self learning yow .. not a language major
I have no idea how to read/write but i already know the basic greeting and other random words but not yet conversational level.
any tips ?
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On April 20 2014 17:01 goody153 wrote:
i thought this thread already existed here in TL. good to know there are a lot of learners of other language. been trying to learn japanese but just as a hobby .. you know self learning yow .. not a language major
I have no idea how to read/write but i already know the basic greeting and other random words but not yet conversational level.
any tips ?
Don't bother learning Japanese, if don't want to move to Japan or use it in your job. I'm serious. You need to invest far too much time to become good at the language, at least if you want to be able to read and write as well. Being only able to speak Japanese doesn't help much in my opinion. Except for understanding anime maybe, but they also use very specific vocabulary that you won't be able to understand.
Languages I'm able to speak:
German - native speaker
English - Fluent
Japanese - Advanced level (studying Japanese for 4 years now, written and spoken Japanese)
French - somewhere between basic and advanced (studied for 6 years in school, but haven't used the language since then, so I forgot most of it. Would be able to become more fluent if I picked it up again though)
Korean - Basic (studied for 2,5 years, but focused on Japanese most of the time)
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On April 20 2014 17:27 ScoutWBF wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2014 17:01 goody153 wrote:
i thought this thread already existed here in TL. good to know there are a lot of learners of other language. been trying to learn japanese but just as a hobby .. you know self learning yow .. not a language major
I have no idea how to read/write but i already know the basic greeting and other random words but not yet conversational level.
any tips ?
Don't bother learning Japanese, if don't want to move to Japan or use it in your job. I'm serious. You need to invest far too much time to become good at the language, at least if you want to be able to read and write as well. Being only able to speak Japanese doesn't help much in my opinion. Except for understanding anime maybe, but they also use very specific vocabulary that you won't be able to understand. Languages I'm able to speak: German - native speaker English - Fluent Japanese - Advanced level (studying Japanese for 4 years now, written and spoken Japanese) French - somewhere between basic and advanced (studied for 6 years in school, but haven't used the language since then, so I forgot most of it. Would be able to become more fluent if I picked it up again though) Korean - Basic (studied for 2,5 years, but focused on Japanese most of the time)
I am about to graduate in about 1-2 years from now. I'm an IT and working in japan is also an option for me maybe in later years but if i think about it i don't really need to learn japanese i just wanted to. hehe 
My brother's gf learned speaking conversational level japanese in about 2-3 months but she had a japanese friend to practice with that daily although she doesn't know how to read/write. So i thought it would easy but damn i suck. 
Is learning jap really a bad idea ? how long do you think would i need to learn conversational level jap ?
if i would not learn nihonggo.. i would like to learn chinese(mandarin) or is it also not worth it ? korean ? no?
i know about two native language and ofc i know english. That's about it.
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I strongly disagree, if you want to learn Japanese (or Mandarin for that matter) go ahead and learn it. All languages take time to master, dont let that discourage you.
我祝你好运
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I'm really a language enthusiast, there's already some languages I speak and a lot of languages I still want to learn.
German is my native language, so I speak it more or less fluently. 
I've been studying English since I was 8 years old, I guess I can speak it fluently, too.
8 years ago I began studying Latin. I'm not great at conversation, but I can translate well. 
Ancient Greek is my favorite language, again no conversation, it's mostly about reading.
At Japanese I'm at a pretty basic level, even though I started 2 years ago. I'll take a language course in September and be in Japan for 5 weeks, so I hope I'll get better.
Hebrew is another language I've been studying. I can understand some modern Hebrew, even though ancient Hebrew is more of my field. There'll be a language course for modern Hebrew starting next week at my college, unfortunately it's badly scheduled so I can't take part.
I'm at a basic level at Esperanto, too. I haven't really been studying it, I just began learning a few things. It's so easy that I'll probably be at a conversational level quickly once I start to focus on it.
I still want to learn Korean. I've been exposed to Korean for more than five years on BW and SC2 streams and I'd like to understand at least something they're saying. I also want to visit Korea some day, so language skills should come in handy.
I'd also like to learn at least some basic Swedish and Finnish. I've been to Sweden and Finland before, so I know a few phrases, but they're just such beautiful countries that I guess I'll visit them many more times in the future.
On April 20 2014 15:38 SC2Toastie wrote:
Don't go for dutch; every dutchman speaks english well and there's very few languages you can learn that have less native speakers than dutch.
I like the idea, by the way! I'm trying to learn Italian and Arabic now, which is haaaarrdd man 0.0!
By the way, there's this program called 'Memrise', that promotes language learning, Might want to check it out! Edit, I should stop skimming threads too fast... -.-
While it's true that dutch has few native speakers, I think it's a good idea for OP to learn dutch instead of other languages, if he has dutch friends, especially since dutch is the most similar language to english. Learning Mandarin just because it has the most native speakers is not recommendable, if you never plan to go to China or have chinese friends.
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On April 20 2014 17:37 goody153 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2014 17:27 ScoutWBF wrote:On April 20 2014 17:01 goody153 wrote:
i thought this thread already existed here in TL. good to know there are a lot of learners of other language. been trying to learn japanese but just as a hobby .. you know self learning yow .. not a language major
I have no idea how to read/write but i already know the basic greeting and other random words but not yet conversational level.
any tips ?
Don't bother learning Japanese, if don't want to move to Japan or use it in your job. I'm serious. You need to invest far too much time to become good at the language, at least if you want to be able to read and write as well. Being only able to speak Japanese doesn't help much in my opinion. Except for understanding anime maybe, but they also use very specific vocabulary that you won't be able to understand. Languages I'm able to speak: German - native speaker English - Fluent Japanese - Advanced level (studying Japanese for 4 years now, written and spoken Japanese) French - somewhere between basic and advanced (studied for 6 years in school, but haven't used the language since then, so I forgot most of it. Would be able to become more fluent if I picked it up again though) Korean - Basic (studied for 2,5 years, but focused on Japanese most of the time) I am about to graduate in about 1-2 years from now. I'm an IT and working in japan is also an option for me maybe in later years but if i think about it i don't really need to learn japanese i just wanted to. hehe My brother's gf learned speaking conversational level japanese in about 2-3 months but she had a japanese friend to practice with that daily although she doesn't know how to read/write. So i thought it would easy but damn i suck. Is learning jap really a bad idea ? how long do you think would i need to learn conversational level jap ? if i would not learn nihonggo.. i would like to learn chinese(mandarin) or is it also not worth it ? korean ? no? i know about two native language and ofc i know english. That's about it.
I've been living in Japan for a year and I'm at an intermediate level. I think Japanese is unusually difficult in that to achieve fluency, you have to learn to write Chinese characters and learn several different ways of saying the same thing (normal, respectful, strong, formal, humble) and know when to say it. It is a pretty heavy investment if you're not familiar with Chinese characters and Japanese is not spoken commonly outside of Japan.
Still, if you just want to hold a basic conversation, it doesn't take too long. The rules are pretty arbitrary but consistent and not too complicated.
I know this will sound glib, but you should learn languages where you have a sincere interest in the culture and people. Japan marches to the beat of its own drum, which people love and hate. But it's not really a culture you can understand as a passing interest. It's consensus-driven but top-down, rationalist but spiritual, animist but modern, expressive but subdued, nuanced but blunt. It's a very interesting mix IMO, but it's maddeningly unique.
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Wow, I didn't expect anyone to reply after the thread went dark for a few days! Good to see that there are a few other language learners here!
About learning Dutch, I don't think you should consider what languages you learn by their usefulness, by but what interests you. If you want to learn Japanese, why not? Even if you decide you don't want to after studying for a while, you can just stop without any penalty (unless you pay for something, and don't ever pay for a language learning tool unless it's highly recommended by the language learning community there are a lot of rip-offs).
I'd like to take language learning resources and sort them by language so people could easily find resources for whatever language they are learning. It would be nice to have some more resources for other languages before I start that, however.
Lastly, if any francophones could help me out, I'm looking for some French music I can listen to. All of my foreign friends either listen to "English" music, like American/British Rock and Metal. I like listening to rock and decent pop songs (like for example, I listen to classic rock and I enjoy Maroon 5 and Jack Johnson. I also listen to a lot of Spanish artists such as Juanes, Mana, etc.). Any recommendations? I'd like to have French music in order to enjoy French more and expand my vocabulary :D thanks
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On April 20 2014 17:01 goody153 wrote:
i thought this thread already existed here in TL. good to know there are a lot of learners of other language. been trying to learn japanese but just as a hobby .. you know self learning yow .. not a language major
I have no idea how to read/write but i already know the basic greeting and other random words but not yet conversational level.
any tips ?
learn the kana first
then i'd just try to read some manga or light novels and cram unknown vocab into anki and drill the decks every day.
i'd recommend anki or any other good flash card software for memorizing vocab in any language.
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Canada7170 Posts
I would add lang-8.com to that list. I can best describe it as a crowdsourced diary style language exchange. You post in the language you are learning and get feedback from native speakers, while you correct other blogs that are in your native language. You get feedback within almost a day.
On another note, I despise Memrise. I was on it during "beta" and when they made the transition to the new UI, they put their priorities in the wrong place and I gave up on it.
I'm learning Mandarin, trying to get the vocab down for HSK5 (EDIT: I use Pleco + handwriting addon + flashcard addon).
Learning Japanese, conversational.
On the todo list are Spanish, German, Italian, French, mostly basics. I downloaded the all-language pack on iOS called MindSnacks and while the lessons are not perfect, the games are fun enough to pass time when on the toilet.
My house rule is that if I travel to a country, I need to at least have the basics before going or have a travel partner that speaks the local language.
EDIT: Moved your apostrophe.
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http://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/
https://jlu.wbtrain.com/sumtotal/language/DLI basic courses/
Greatest free resources ever. Hours upon hours of audio tapes and drills. The courses vary a bit in quality and can be a bit dry but if you have the determination to tackle them they are the most thorough courses out there. Some courses are 50 years old or older, so you will probably learn a few outdated things, which should be no problem though if you don't make it your only resource.
The FSI courses were developed for US diplomats, so the vocabulary is tailored towards them and so you might encounter words like "embassy" in the 2nd lesson.
The DLI courses were developed for the military and you will encounter military vocabulary.
Big thank you to you US taxpayers for making such fantastic free language courses possible ;D
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Finnish is my native language
I think I can speak/write english pretty good. Fluently? idk
Bad swedish...In Finland you HAVE to learn Swedish in schools. ( It's been 3 years when I last time studied)
I always wanted to learn dutch coz when I was little boy back in 2006(?) my clan leader in swbf2 was dutch. I was taught some words(I still remember all) and sentences like hoe gaat het?
Im thinking about learning russian coz I think it might be pretty usefull here in east Finland. I might start learning russian in University of Applied Sciences if it's possible
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EPT
