47 replies to this topic

[Bowsette]

Yeah I hate to break it to you, but that is no small feat.

 

Just as a small man is envious of a large man's strength, I am envious of your brain's capabilities.

If it helps, I'm not very good at physical activities/craft stuff.

[Epic?OhYes]

Hmmm, Today I went with my sister to a museum tour that was completely in French, everyone of course was much better than me, but I was catching up with help from my sister. Another language I can understand is Afrikaans , but I can't speak it. My mom spoke it to me as I was younger.. It is hard to find people around here that speak Farsi or Wolof so those two are pretty difficult. As for Korean, I go to a mainly Korean Church were the whole thing is held in Korean , but since I am younger I go to the Youth group with all my Korean-American friends who aren't that good at Korean. We have 4 our classes on Fridays and Sunday after service. I find the church really unique since even though it is "Korean" there are different nationalities that come to learn. Since it is such a diverse environment it is really amazing since we can all question each other about the languages we know!  Languages are so funnn!

[Calvary]

Do you have any tips for picking up a language? I'd love to understand your process of language acquisition, do you learn grammatical constructs and syntax for the language first or learn the actual lexis?

[Epic?OhYes]

Well I usually pick up languages really fast because I am more visual. Usually I listen to music at first, watch shows in that language and start to emerge myself in it and listen to people speaking it, you don't just want to learn the language, you should learn the culture also.  After that I learn simple words that are usually needed like apple and stuff. Little words, then I post notes around the house and whenever I go to that item I say the word in whatever language it is in. Then I move into grammar and structure, learn where everything goes, form sentences and stuff. While still doing all the other stuff. I then start reading books meant for children and little things. It is great to have a penpal to help you. Basically I start out how a baby would, listening to everything, learning simple words, playing games, then grammar structure. Buttt, if you are learning multiple languages at a time I would suggest 2 completely different languages to start off with and to not try to learn more than 2 at a time. For say, I wouldn't want to Learn French and Spanish at the same time because you can get confused since they are both romance languages. Say learn Spanish and Chinese because they are both so different and you won't get them confused. I would suggest at first to learn something really close to English , like... Dutch. Every language usually opens a door to another language. English to Dutch, and if you learn Dutch, it is really simple to learn Afrikaans. You have to practice everyday , but try not to over do it, maybe 30 minutes a day or something. You don't want to just memorize words though, you have to basically become a baby of the language, or at least that is how I learn. lol sorry this is so long.

[Calvary]

See that makes sense. I believe that L2 acquisition largely comes from reverting back to a child like state. The problem is we trade off the fact that we know how to use our speech organs for a dulling of the area of the brain that picks up new language. I was thinking it would help to learn phonetic sounds that are frequently found in the language you want to learn, phonics, prefixes and suffixes and grammatical constructs, similarly to what you say. It's why I'm surprised Rosetta Stone has success, but then I suppose all I've seen of that is a basic demo.

[SushiKitten]

Studied french in school, learned little to nothing. I was studying Japanese in my spare time the past year hoping to do an exchange program but lately it's died down since I realized saving money is hard. Also realized I spent too much time studying how to read so I'm pretty decent at reading and recognizing kanji but I suck at recognizing the same words when they're spoken. 

 

I'd be interested in looking at Norwegian and Swedish later on. 

[Rejected]

I speak English, Serbian, German fluently. I know Russian too.

I know a bit of French and a bit of Japanese.

Don't take it the wrong way, I don't really like learning languages, I just learn them by accident.

I accidentally learned to speak German fluently. It was from watching cartoons when I was younger.

Japanese from anime.

Russian from school since I needed a good grade.

English from internet

Serbian since I know it

French, my friend from France came here and angered me about me not being able to talk to him a little on French, a few days later I won the bet.

 

So yeah, all of this wasn't really for "speaking" purposes.

[The Robstar]

ME!!!!

 

I love learning new languages, new words, phrases and other cool stuff.

 

My friend and I took Japanese at high school so that we could hit on girls. lol Didn't work (well not at high school anyways)

 

But I love being able to communicate with people and learning their customs, the way they live, the way they think. Especially non western countries. 

 

i want to at least speak 5 different languages, including Spanish, Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) if possible.

 

I'm working on it and dedicate at least 20 minutes everyday to teaching myself how 2 speak fluent Japanese..... one day very soon

[fae]

I'm really bad at learning languages so I'm proud to say that I at least speak German and English fluently (My native language is a german dialect with fewer verb forms and a lot of french influence, so I still had to learn propper German at school). I also speak some basic french but only if the other person speaks real slow

[Calvary]

Why does everyone in Europe speak so many languages. D=

 

Living in Britain is the worst possible thing for becoming multi-cultured. Even language teachers don't know how to teach it here.

[fae]

Even language teachers don't know how to teach it here.

the best way to learn a language is to go somewhere they speak that language

[Calvary]

That's great if you've got plenty of money or a job to go to.

[fae]

Uh, sorry?! But there are plenty of seasonal jobs to apply for. For seasonal job you may even get lodging and meals on top of your pay.

[Calvary]

True but I'm a bit beyond the point where I can get by on seasonal jobs. I'm not bashing your idea of course, you are right, but it's not for me unfortunately. XP

[fae]

It was just an idea.

But I guess in the end there is never enough time to do all the things you'd like and you need to have priorities. Maybe there's an opportunity some other time.

[Calvary]

Necromancing an old thread instead of making a new one to show you all this amazing languages website:

 

duolingo.com

 

It's by the people who made Captcha and reCaptcha (which did you know means every time you input a reCaptcha code you are helping to translate an old book?) Any way, I know some people here want to learn languages so give it a go! It's really fun, kind of like a game. It does help to have a mic though.

[SpleenBeGone]

Could have sworn I posted a duolingo link a while back after watching their TED talk. >.>

[Calvary]

Omg you saw it from the TED Talk too? Well I did check to see if it was posted but maybe I didn't look hard enough.

 

Still, pretty cool huh? 

[SpleenBeGone]

I may have not gotten that far. >.>

 

Yeah, I think it's a really awesome idea.

[Spidermonkey]

I love language acquistion. Linguistics was my first undergrad degree.

 

I speak German fluently (have since I was about 8) but its a bit rusty now since I haven't spoken it in a few years (aside from watching German films and singing along to music). But I can also speak passably well in French, Spanish and Russian. I found that I had a lot of trouble with French until I started learning Spanish, and then it became a lot easier, but I also mix them up a lot now haha. Russian is my favorite though, it's super sexy.

 

And the best way to understand a language when you're listening to it, is to stop translating in your head. I used to do that with French, constantly translating it to English, but it just makes it way more confusing. You gotta FEEL that shit.