EPTHowever it's true that a native English speaker will have an easier time learning French, since English borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from it. It makes reading especially easy.
Language Learners' Thread - Page 3
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Fatalize
France5210 Posts
However it's true that a native English speaker will have an easier time learning French, since English borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from it. It makes reading especially easy. | ||
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Pucca
Taiwan1280 Posts
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VeryAverage
United States424 Posts
On April 22 2014 04:32 Fatalize wrote: Having studied German 9 years, I wouldn't say the grammar is more complex than French. It's definately not the same kind of complexity though, German has very precise and consitent rules whereas French is an amalgation of retarded exceptions. However it's true that a native English speaker will have an easier time learning French, since English borrowed a large amount of vocabulary from it. It makes reading especially easy. I will never not hate adjective endings. I know they aren't incredibly difficult, but screwing them up makes you sound like an idiot and they feel unnecessary. Why does there have to be a difference between ein neues Auto and das neue Auto just because the article changed? I would secretly try to move all my adjectives onto indirect objects during tests so I wouldn't have to remember them. | ||
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Fatalize
France5210 Posts
On April 22 2014 05:15 VeryAverage wrote: I will never not hate adjective endings. I know they aren't incredibly difficult, but screwing them up makes you sound like an idiot and they feel unnecessary. Why does there have to be a difference between ein neues Auto and das neue Auto just because the article changed? I would secretly try to move all my adjectives onto indirect objects during tests so I wouldn't have to remember them. Yeah declensions feel incredibly pointless and hard not to mess up. But I guess it's like that for all languages. There are always grammatical rules that feel stupid and useless for a languge learner that actually have a value for a native speaker. | ||
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Skullflower
United States3779 Posts
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Corazon
United States3230 Posts
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
On April 22 2014 06:47 Corazon wrote: Thanks for the music suggestions and the resource suggestions! Just remembered this funny song today. It was Eng Subs too! :D | ||
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Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
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Toadesstern
Germany16350 Posts
On April 21 2014 22:22 Zocat wrote: Anki vs memrise: Both have their advantages and disadvantages. As you said - in memrise a typing mistake fucks you over. In Anki you can just say "Yeah worked!". On the other hand in Anki you can say "I know the word" even though you made a small mistake - which is bad  Biggest problem in memrise are "bad" examples/words. i.e. when the course doesn't specify if it's the formal/informal version. Or for family relation if it's from the male/female point of view. And - as a German - it's sometimes easier to put in the German translation into Anki, because we have a better word compared to English. My biggest problem with Anki on the other hand is that you have to put in the stuff on your own. Which leads to mistakes, or to situations where I would be down to learn new vocab, but was too lazy to enter new words. Premade decks had the problem with duplicates and overall I had troubles finding good ones. I personally feel a combination of both is the best way to learn for me. Easy words are better in memrise and the perfection of words also works better in memrise (less forgiving). Words that I have trouble with I copy into Anki, since I get them 10-15 times a session. I also like using Anki for grammar. I haven't really gotten the problem of having few good decks but imo it comes down to this: If you start out with it and want to give it a try start out with Memrise. If you want to continue you can consider switching over to Anki. Memrise is amazingly convenient and that's really the biggest advantage there is to it. Everything's done for you, you just start the course or whatever you want to start and that's it, you focus on what you're trying to do rather than spending time on setting things up. It looks really nice, which to be honest, does boost motivation a little compared to looking to a blank black and white screen that has nothing but text on it, which Anki does look like if you just put in some words and nothing else. Anki on the other hand is incredibly flexible and you can change about everything you want to. You want another "field" to show up? Like additionial info on a word, what kind of conjugation group it is, how to use the word, or a hint field in a spoilertag to click to get a bit more in detail information to not mess up with synonyms or almost synonymous stuff? No problem at all. I did add a field for my stuff that shows what kind of conjugation something is and wether it's an intransitive verb or a transitive verb (assuming it's a verb in the first place) for example. I don't know if memrise had that latter one in particular. Searching in your database the way you can filter and search stuff in Anki is also really (!) awesome. But you've got to do that all yourself and the styling does take some time to make sure it isn't just plain text. That being said, I'd sake Anki over Memrise any time if you've got it working for you properly. | ||
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aicaramba
Netherlands110 Posts
Dutch - mother tongue English - fluent, I suppose German - I can understand it pretty well, but speaking it seems more like dutch with a german accent French - Very very basic knowledge of words Spanish - Learning at this time. I would say I'm at a basic conversational level. I have been using memrise, duolingo and pimsleur audio course to learn Spanish. Memrise was pretty useless I think, because I did not know any grammar at that point. Duolingo was very useful to learn the basics. The more advanced part of the course is a little lackluster, but it at least introduces you to all verb forms, etc. Pimsleur is a nice addition to duolingo as it focusses on speaking, rather than grammar. It also focusses on somewhat different things. Even though a lot of it is rehearsal, it does help me look at things from a different perspective. When trying to speak Spanish, I often get stuck on specific words, but in general I think my speaking skill is decent. I struggle with listening a lot. I hardly recognize the language and I really need to focus to pick up words in order to know what the subject is about. When I know what the subject is, I can somewhat follow conversations. My girlfriend is Spanish speaking, so I should be able to get more familiar with listening to Spanish rather easy. | ||
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Pucca
Taiwan1280 Posts
On April 22 2014 16:07 Blisse wrote: I think I'm going to attempt to pick up Mandarin Chinese when I have the time to. I have native nooby but sufficient Cantonese Chinese down pat, but I feel like I miss a lot of opportunities because of my lack of Mandarin training. I decided to quit Mandarin school when I was young because it was not good for me (replaced it with Math which I'm happy about tbh). As you know, Mandarin is a tonal language, I found my biggest mistake was not seeking oral comprehension as a starting point. Once you can understand people and here the difference in tones it makes the language much easier. As we would speak don't speak bird languages, just speak Chinese ~haha If you want something funny: | ||
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miicah
Australia2470 Posts
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Archaeo
United States397 Posts
So far, I'm only familiar with Neo-Assyrian cuneiform signs. Mari cursive signs are incredibly difficult for a beginner such as I  .I plan to learn Sumerian next Fall, which will be another ancient language under my belt. In the future/graduate school, I hope to hone my skills in Akkadian and learn Old Persian and Elamite. However, this summer I plan to learn French. Not sure how difficult that will be, but I hope to stick with it especially since I need it for grad school. I'm supposed to learn German as well, but I learned it and lost it too many times from not speaking it enough. It's kind of sad how I know more about ancient languages than modern languages, oh well. If anyone wants to know more about the grammar of OB let me know!  | ||
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REDBLUEGREEN
Germany1903 Posts
On April 23 2014 13:29 Archaeo wrote: Been learning Akkadian/Old Babylonian for a while. Currently learning the Mari dialect. Of course, I'm not speaking it unless I'm expected to read my normalizations aloud. Most of it is deciphering letters sent within Mesopotamia and whatnot. I started out translating the Code of Hammurabi then moved onto Mari. So far, I'm only familiar with Neo-Assyrian cuneiform signs. Mari cursive signs are incredibly difficult for a beginner such as I .I plan to learn Sumerian next Fall, which will be another ancient language under my belt. In the future/graduate school, I hope to hone my skills in Akkadian and learn Old Persian and Elamite. However, this summer I plan to learn French. Not sure how difficult that will be, but I hope to stick with it especially since I need it for grad school. I'm supposed to learn German as well, but I learned it and lost it too many times from not speaking it enough. It's kind of sad how I know more about ancient languages than modern languages, oh well. If anyone wants to know more about the grammar of OB let me know! Very cool. I got interested in Akkadian when I learned that the Ashlander names in Morrowind like Asha-Ahhe Egg Mine, Ashur-Dan or Ashurdiapal were borrowed or inspired by Akkadian names ;D Did you decide to learn Akkadian because you are interested in archeology and history in the middle east? I would like to learn something like Bactrian or maybe Tocharian sometime since I am interested in that region and history. Is there enough interesting stuff to translate in Akkadian though? I think I read sometime that most of the surviving texts are just stuff like tax records and other administrative records? | ||
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Archaeo
United States397 Posts
On April 27 2014 00:50 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: Very cool. I got interested in Akkadian when I learned that the Ashlander names in Morrowind like Asha-Ahhe Egg Mine, Ashur-Dan or Ashurdiapal were borrowed or inspired by Akkadian names ;D Did you decide to learn Akkadian because you are interested in archeology and history in the middle east? I would like to learn something like Bactrian or maybe Tocharian sometime since I am interested in that region and history. Is there enough interesting stuff to translate in Akkadian though? I think I read sometime that most of the surviving texts are just stuff like tax records and other administrative records? Yes, I plan to go to graduate school for Near Eastern Archaeology sometime after I do some research, hopefully a senior thesis. Several of the requirements involve learning ancient languages like Akkadian and Sumerian and modern languages like German and French to read academic literature published in those languages. I'm just getting a head start because my life doesn't feel complete without taking something complex and puzzling like Akkadian. Also, Bactria is very interesting region. There is so much work to be done in Afghanistan, but it's too bad there hasn't been access to it in a long time and...I don't think it will happen any time soon. There is plenty of types of genres of text to study and decipher. For example, letters like in ARM (Archive royales de Mari-about 5,000 letters of 20,000 tablets found at Mari) hold lots of information not just about historical political alliances, military movements, a calls for assistance, etc., but you also get a taste of the spoken language. You become familiar with the people who are relaying messages across Mesopotamia like Hammurabi, Zimri-Lim, Yashma-Addu, and Ibalpi-Il. You also get exposed to some Mari idioms, and the personalities of the senders. Letters are stressful to decipher, but they offer so much information. Other genres involve: Contracts (marriage, adoption, exchanges, dispute settlements, etc.), Administrative documents (economic stuff), Myths and Epics, Oaths, Poetry, Hymns and Prayers, Royal Inscriptions, Medical documents, Laments, Incantations, Omina, etc. So yes, there is plenty of different genres to study. Of course, each type of genre have some unique characteristics/nuances in its diction, rules, grammar, etc., and have their own challenge of decipherment. There are so many things to translate that will not get published, unfortunately, or see the light of day. Too much sieving of tablets across the world, but I digress. | ||
BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
I've been thinking about Korean and Japanese for a while now but I'm not sure about Japanese. I've been hearing how the time invested wouldn't be worth it unless I plan to use it and that you have to learn all the kanji and such so maybe I should avoid it? I watch quite a bit of anime so I figured it would be nice to be able to understand some of the language but ya, maybe I should pass. Korean seems like an interesting language and it does help that I'm on a starcraft forum and such. Spanish and possibly Mandarin are two other languages I've considered before. I'm definitely considering learning spanish though not sure about Mandarin. I have quite a bit of asian friends though english is the main way to communicate between us and themselves usually so I think it would be hard to pick the language up. | ||
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misssylph
1 Post
Any tips or further links will help - not even Rosetta Stone took the time for Hungarian... http://www.theonion.com/articles/first-disk-of-rosetta-stone-hungarian-just-urges-l,28421/ | ||
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TameNaken
Australia361 Posts
Came across this Ted Talk. It has good adivce and some interesting facts about language learning. Probably worth the 20 mins it takes to watch this. | ||
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anatase
France532 Posts
I was wondering, with all the mandarin learners around, do you have any ressources like audiobooks/songs (rock/metal kind of) and movie worth watching ? I have a few movies in mandarin with eng+characters subtitles, sometimes pinyin too but if you have any good suggestions to share, that would be great. (In fact it should have its own thread, mandarin ressources learning thread or something) Right away, as for movies i'd recommend to watch The Three kingdoms (historical/epic) Redhill (same) Drug War (contemporary china, pretty good), Swordsmen (18th/19th setting, thriller, kind of dark feel) Last two are the most recent I saw, Drug War is really nice, swordsmen is good too but i'd recommend Drug War more | ||
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[UoN]Sentinel
United States11320 Posts
English - fluent, probably moreso than Russian. I'm probably going to take Russian to fulfill my uni requirement so I can boost that back up to where it belongs Learning Finnish, right now I'm at a basic level but I'm getting there slowly. My bedside clock tells the time in Finnish, so the one thing I can remember nearly instantaneously is the numbers XD. I'll probably pick up German or Swedish afterwards. And Mandarin/Arabic after that. | ||
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