.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 ^^)
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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... -.-
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
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.
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)
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
On April 21 2014 00:02 Corazon wrote: Any recommendations? I'd like to have French music in order to enjoy French more and expand my vocabulary :D thanks
I'm learning: French : got my B2 Spanish : got my B1 2 years ago (going on B2!) Portuguese (BR) : Could pass a B1 exam if I study properly for a few months, but there aren't any exams for Brazillian Portuguese here German : Could get A2 if I study for a few months
Please PM me and we'll chat via Skype or MSN, or if you just want to chat with someone from Malaysia, especially if you love music :D ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conversationexchange.com is a great place to find people too. My sister and I found way better people from there than from sharedtalk.
I learn by listening to audiobooks such as Michel Thomas (not really useful for Chinese or Japanese) and Pimsleur. Both have their pros and cons but both of them complement each other really well. I recommend finishing Michel Thomas then listening to Pimsleur and go back again.
Michel Thomas
Pros: Builds a VERY STRONG foundation in your understanding of the structure and grammar of the language.
Cons: lacking badly in vocab
Pimsleur Pros: Builds fluency and aides remembering phrases and grammar effortlessly, listen to the native speak in imaginary scenarios. Complements Michel Thomas perfectly after you've listened to it.
Cons : It's targeted for married businessmen, doesn't explain the grammar rules in detail, just makes you repeat it, which is why I recommend listening to Michel Thomas first. Vocab is better than Michel Thomas but not better than Memrise or Anki but at least you get to hear the words in sentences. Russian one has phrases which are quite different than what a native would say, I don't know why
On April 21 2014 00:02 Corazon wrote: , 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
Lyrics in the description
It's pretty hard to find good French music, and I'm not sure if it's a good way to learn things from. Personally I find listening to English songs not too helpful to improve my oral understanding
On April 21 2014 00:02 Corazon wrote: , 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
It's pretty hard to find good French music, and I'm not sure if it's a good way to learn things from. Personally I find listening to English songs not too helpful to improve my oral understanding
I dont even know what most of the singers sing (in english)
I don't think songs are a good way to learn a language, unless you dedicate yourself to it. Lyrics in all languages are filled with very particular poetic twists and odd phrasings; it is also really hard (in my own opinion) to find good lyrics that don't end in dreamlike hallucinations. I feel that anglophones in particular are not very demanding at all in this aspect. Most legendary songs and bands have terrible lyrics that merely represent any musical interest and make little to no sense whatsoever. France in particular is very fond of witty stories and wordplays, which is why most French songs are perceived as terrible in their writings attemps - even though they stress that side of the song at the expense of the musical one. If only French people understood the lyrics of foreign songs they love, they would probably have a problem with those too.
If you want to improve your french, watch our movies and some series. Engrenages, widely acclaimed police drama (2005 I think). Les Revenants, a must-see if you're tired of so-called "psychological" zombie stories - here, dead people come back as if nothing had happened and haunt the life of a small village (2012). Anything from the French Nouvelle Vague ranges from good to excellent - don't bother with our current production. Truffaut's 400 coups, Godard's Pierrot le Fou, Rouch and Morin's beautiful Chronique d'un été are all influential masterpieces. Such movies typically contain a lot of talking, too.
But if you really want a song, here's Muchel Fugain's Une Belle Histoire :
I only know English but have started with French using the FSI courses. Thanks for making this OP, and the post above this one with the French movies and stuff looks really helpful too. It would be neat if TL had a subforum where non English was allowed.
On April 20 2014 20:05 Zetter wrote: 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.
What methods do you use? I'm more interested in reading/translating as well.
I studied German for 3 years in school and have used memrise for German as well as finding translations for little bits of text I stumble across here and there.
I wouldn't say I'm advanced or near fluent, probably intermediate though. I'm hoping to live in Germany or Austria for a year or two later this year after my Europe backpacking trip and am really making an effort to become as fluent as I can. My grammar needs some touch up and I could always learn new vocab, but I think I have a good understanding of the fundamentals. My listening skills need work as well. I can understand by reading much better than I can understand by hearing. I need people to slow down a bit to pick up what they're saying even though I understand the words. :/
I got kind of bored of memrise even though it was great for learning new words. Was considering trying Rosetta stone, but I've heard mixed things.
Hi all! I'm a Spanish native speaker and I have a decent level of English too, which I got mostly from reading IT related books and stuff on the internet. I am able to speak English and communicate well but sometimes I have a hard time at listening -.-
My plan is to visit Asia maybe next year and I'd like to at least be able to read the signs on the street and to make basic questions/answers. I haven't yet decided in which Asian language I should invest in tho (I doubt I'll have enough time to learn more than one). I'll probably go with Korean but Japanese is also tempting.
So if anyone is also learning those and want to learn together, send me a PM (or if you need a Spanish and/or English practice partner too!). I'm in front of the computer like 12h a day (!) so just ping me and I'd be glad to help
I'm a native Dutch speaker. I've been studying French since I was 10, English as soon as I could read, and German since I was 16.
My English level is C2 (I never grow tired of the faces of British people when I tell them I'm Belgian), French C1 and German B2. Planning to take up Mandarin and Malay in the near future.
On April 20 2014 17:53 Catch]22 wrote: 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.
On April 20 2014 20:05 Zetter wrote: 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.
nice to bump on this... thanks...
me too... to be able to speak multiple languages and dialects is one of my dreams currently knew 4
Cool topic. I wanted to learn Japanese for a while, but I'm finding less time for that these days. I could probably still learn it if I dedicated a specific chunk of time for it, but I'm not at that level of organizational fluency yet.
I've been learning about European culture a lot and I saw this Rick Steve's Europe tv episode (he travels all over Europe and shows you the touristy stuff and some nice cultural tidbits) and he was talking to a lady over a meal, and she mentioned all the languages she knows. She said most of the people in the area know French, German, English, ... (something else, Spanish maybe?) and sometimes one or two foreign languages, that is, she categorized all of these languages as non-foreign. That was awesome!
As an American living in the United States, I was thinking that Spanish seems to be more of a non-foreign language for us, in terms of the people around us that we could talk to, so that's leading me toward wanting to learn Spanish first. Once I have my non-foreign languages down (English, Spanish, maybe French?) THEN I can go learn Japanese.
I have been using memory palaces to store vocabulary and their definition as mnemonic imagery. Actually I haven't started the actual storing part yet, but I have begun to make large memory palaces so I can easily learn any language quickly when I decide to start. For more palaces, I highly recommend using the homes you can buy in Skyrim, fully furnished. It's easy to memorize each piece of furniture, and once you have a rule for each type of furniture (e.g. "each shelf will have three images or loci: one on the left, one in the middle and one on the right side of the shelf") it's easy to go through the stations and keep them ready for new vocab. I like to count them so I know how many loci I have in that palace, so if it's full of words and you're walking through recalling all the images/definitions, you don't miss any.
Another thing I recommend is this guy's youtube channel. His passion in life is languages, and his major method is intense study beginning with memorizing conversational phrases in a beginner's book. He then goes to a public place and looks for people who he thinks might know the language he wants to practice. E.g. if he's learning Russian he goes to a Russian corner store and talks to the workers there, etc. For this reason, he also will learn a few questions and answers to get him into those first few conversations. Stuff like "How are you learning the language? I'm teaching myself. Why are you learning it? I like [insert language here] and I think it's fun to talk to native speakers." etc.
I think those two methods are probably the best for rapid language learning. It's easy to recall words you've learned using the palaces. Conversational fluency builds by talking to strangers. Combine that with reading in the target language and chatting on voice chat or text chatrooms in the target language via the internet, and you've really got something.
On April 21 2014 00:02 Corazon wrote: , 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
Lyrics in the description
It's pretty hard to find good French music, and I'm not sure if it's a good way to learn things from. Personally I find listening to English songs not too helpful to improve my oral understanding
I second, it's hard to find good french music nowadays, with good lyrics. (I say that but I don't listen to the radio since i am 13 or so : D)
You can still try a few singers like corneille, maybe "grand corps malade", could try Hocus Pocus (hiphop with great lyrics, check the 73 touches album http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlgeScZooxU) and whatnot, pop music. You also have the Fatal Picards, Louise Attack. More Metal style could be Pleymo, but it might not be the best music to learn french from.
But if you really want to improve your voc, the better way is to listen to french varieté the likes of George Brassens, Charles Aznavour, Charles Trenet, Jacques Dutronc, etc... these last ones are old, from the 1940 to 1970 easily, but great lyrics if you want to learn proper french (it is like learning UK english compared to american, sorry for the comparison)
On April 21 2014 03:17 Mothra wrote: I only know English but have started with French using the FSI courses. Thanks for making this OP, and the post above this one with the French movies and stuff looks really helpful too. It would be neat if TL had a subforum where non English was allowed.
On April 20 2014 20:05 Zetter wrote: 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.
What methods do you use? I'm more interested in reading/translating as well.
I try to take part in language courses if possible. Finding a good teacher has for me always been the most important part of learning a language. Fortunately there are many opportunities at my college to learn (ancient) languages and in Germany there's also the Volkshochschulen where often times courses on foreign languages will be offered. In general the most important part about translating is grammar, especially in ancient Greek and Hebrew, because words are extremely warped through grammar you'll not be able to recognize them. In both of those languages I began learning with a regular textbook recommended by my teachers and only learned basic vocabulary (around 500 different words and important phrases). Afterwards we just began translating texts with a scientific dictionary and a grammar book, while we kept learning grammar. For a good translation you'll need to look up the words anyways even if you know them just to catch any nuances that may be indicated in the text. But all of that is mostly for being able to translate texts of Plato, Aristotle or any other authors that wrote extremely hard to understand texts.
If you're more interested in reading regular texts fluently, then depending on the language vocabulary will be of more importance. In German for example a lot of verbs and nouns are irregular, so learning these irregular forms is the most important part for being able to read, while you only need a basic grasp of grammar and don't really need to know how all of it works and is applied in different situations. In that case I'd recommend to focus on always learning the stem forms while expanding your vocabulary (An example similar to english: gehen - ging - gegangen: go - went - gone. Learning grammar won't help you for those forms ) I'm no expert at French, but as far as I heard it's relatively similar to German in that regard. But all languages are different, so there's nothing general I can say about which way is best to learn French.
I've needed a boost in my language learning. I've lived in Korea for nearly 10 months now and can't really speak it much. Seeing that "3 month fluent challenge" site really showed me how little I've actually tried.
At the moment, to learn Korean I use talktomeinkorean.com and memrise. Some people prefer anki so you don't have to keep inputting the same stuff if you make a mistake but memrise is more involving for me, what with the typing in Korean, quick learnings of vocabulary and not having to sort through a bunch of flash decks.
I used lang-8 a little bit but I never wrote anything, just corrected a bunch of English writings. I shall get on that for realsies, learn grammar and sentence structure from TTMIK, vocabulary from memrise and get speaking practice using the italki.com.
I should also make an effort to get some real speaking practice. I taught 36 hours at a nearby university and the students were pretty eager and could speak fairly decently.
If i tried i could probably become pretty fucking fluent...just gotta do it baby.
I also used memrise for Japanese. I learnt all the katakana, the kanji radicals and learnt maybe 100 kanji but I kinda gave up after having to remember all the different ways of saying them using both the Japanese way as well as the Chinese way.
On April 21 2014 21:53 ToT)OjKa( wrote: At the moment, to learn Korean I use talktomeinkorean.com and memrise. Some people prefer anki so you don't have to keep inputting the same stuff if you make a mistake but memrise is more involving for me, what with the typing in Korean, quick learnings of vocabulary and not having to sort through a bunch of flash decks.
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.
On April 21 2014 03:17 Mothra wrote: I only know English but have started with French using the FSI courses. Thanks for making this OP, and the post above this one with the French movies and stuff looks really helpful too. It would be neat if TL had a subforum where non English was allowed.
On April 20 2014 20:05 Zetter wrote: 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.
What methods do you use? I'm more interested in reading/translating as well.
I try to take part in language courses if possible. Finding a good teacher has for me always been the most important part of learning a language. Fortunately there are many opportunities at my college to learn (ancient) languages and in Germany there's also the Volkshochschulen where often times courses on foreign languages will be offered. In general the most important part about translating is grammar, especially in ancient Greek and Hebrew, because words are extremely warped through grammar you'll not be able to recognize them. In both of those languages I began learning with a regular textbook recommended by my teachers and only learned basic vocabulary (around 500 different words and important phrases). Afterwards we just began translating texts with a scientific dictionary and a grammar book, while we kept learning grammar. For a good translation you'll need to look up the words anyways even if you know them just to catch any nuances that may be indicated in the text. But all of that is mostly for being able to translate texts of Plato, Aristotle or any other authors that wrote extremely hard to understand texts.
If you're more interested in reading regular texts fluently, then depending on the language vocabulary will be of more importance. In German for example a lot of verbs and nouns are irregular, so learning these irregular forms is the most important part for being able to read, while you only need a basic grasp of grammar and don't really need to know how all of it works and is applied in different situations. In that case I'd recommend to focus on always learning the stem forms while expanding your vocabulary (An example similar to english: gehen - ging - gegangen: go - went - gone. Learning grammar won't help you for those forms ) I'm no expert at French, but as far as I heard it's relatively similar to German in that regard. But all languages are different, so there's nothing general I can say about which way is best to learn French.
Thanks for the tips. Ancient Greek is another language I'm interested in but thought French would be easier to begin with.
I did a search and Mademoiselle chante le blues - Patricia Kaas doesn't count
On April 21 2014 00:02 Corazon wrote: , 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
Like the others said, listening to music is fine but you learn more from having friends and just force yourself to think and speak french and try to get them to not speak to you in English, and watching movies and TV shows, since that's closer to how people speak.
Random movies I like are : Intouchables, Un Prophète, and less serious ones like Le petit nicholas, nos jours heureux. Alternatively, I'm sure there's a list of French movies on IMDB.
That aside, I find that enjoying music in a language is a good motivation to learn the language. I have trouble finding french songs I like too, most of the famous ones are DIVA types and it gets corny after a while. One I really is Tété for great live vocals and his great live guitar skills and his creative alternative non cheesy, non conventional, non boring pop-folk
And even more "hardcore" folk (not in the metal way), with clearly pronounced lyrics. + Show Spoiler +
On April 21 2014 19:17 Zetter wrote: I'm no expert at French, but as far as I heard it's relatively similar to German in that regard. But all languages are different, so there's nothing general I can say about which way is best to learn French.
Haha nawww man German is a pain in the ass to learn as a English speaker, as compared to the French and Romance languages, because of less overlapping vocabulary and more complex grammar. You would understand the pain were it not your mother tongue
On April 20 2014 17:53 Catch]22 wrote: 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.
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.
English natively as an American. Been studying Mandarin for 5 years, going to Taiwan for study abroad this Augest to bolster oral comprehension and to start learning Taiwanese. Hope to learn Tagalog after achieve fluency of Mando.
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.
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.
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.
I'll definitely have to look into some of these. English was my second language as a child but I no longer speak my first language fluently anymore (Spanish).
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).
On April 21 2014 21:53 ToT)OjKa( wrote: At the moment, to learn Korean I use talktomeinkorean.com and memrise. Some people prefer anki so you don't have to keep inputting the same stuff if you make a mistake but memrise is more involving for me, what with the typing in Korean, quick learnings of vocabulary and not having to sort through a bunch of flash decks.
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.
My languages: 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.
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
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!
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?
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?
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.
About 50 replies and not a single person learned/knows Arabic? :O Whelp, that's disappointing XD As for me, I'm fluent in English, Arabic and I used to know decent enough french but it's been such a long time since I've used french so I don't remember anything from that lol. I'm thinking of starting up french again. It shouldn't be hard to remember what I used to know and it would be very beneficial.
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.
So who around here can help with Hungarian? Just started learning it but it is just so damn difficult to stay motivated. Any tips or further links will help - not even Rosetta Stone took the time for Hungarian...
That Tedtalk was interesting, indeed it has some good advices. Now I would recommend to skip to the 6:30/7 min mark right away, what is before that mark is but an introduction that's not so worth listening to imho.
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
Russian - first language, still read/speak/write daily 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.
Yeah, I think many people overfocus on reading and vocabulary practice when they'd benefit alot more from speaking the language with native people (skype etc) or actively writing stuff outside of the "school format".
Unrelated, I recently started learning Esperanto, and it's great fun! I'd recommend it to anyone who wants an easy language that will help them learn subsequent languages. There have been a lot of studies done on the propaedeutic value of Esperanto, for example in one case, one class studied French for 4 years while another studied Esperanto for 1 year and then French for 3 years, and the latter group ended up with a higher level of French than the former. A good resource to start with is www.lernu.net.
On July 04 2014 19:32 StillRooney wrote: Yeah, I think many people overfocus on reading and vocabulary practice when they'd benefit alot more from speaking the language with native people (skype etc) or actively writing stuff outside of the "school format".
Unrelated, I recently started learning Esperanto, and it's great fun! I'd recommend it to anyone who wants an easy language that will help them learn subsequent languages. There have been a lot of studies done on the propaedeutic value of Esperanto, for example in one case, one class studied French for 4 years while another studied Esperanto for 1 year and then French for 3 years, and the latter group ended up with a higher level of French than the former. A good resource to start with is www.lernu.net.
The trouble is finding those people to practice speaking with, and also getting to a point where you can actually have even a basic conversation in the language. I try to talk to myself in French when I can but I rarely know enough words to complete a natural sounding sentence.
Also about Esperanto, what is it about the language that makes subsequent languages easier to learn, and do people actually use that language outside of academically?