This makes me wonder, there's so many people here who appear to speak Japanese, why is there no Japanese chat thread? Or Spanish, for that matter.
Or would it just be pages upon pages of learners speaking very broken Japanese :v:
[QUOTE='Rain [Amber];38791481']This makes me wonder, there's so many people here who appear to speak Japanese, why is there no Japanese chat thread? Or Spanish, for that matter.
Or would it just be pages upon pages of learners speaking very broken Japanese :v:[/QUOTE]
I've searched, there is none...
I'll make one now.
[editline]11th December 2012[/editline]
The deed is done.
My favorite thing about learning German is the mistakes that can be made while learning it. Once you learn your way around the cases and genders, often times the errors people make are laugh out loud funny. For example, I just learned the difference between Accusative case and Dative case. The difference is that Accusative is metaphorical, in a way, and Dative is very very literal.
Beispiel A (Example A):
"Ich werde nach der Schule [b]auf meinen[/b] Vater warten" - I'll wait for my dad after school. This is in the Accusative case and makes complete sense.
"Ich werde nach der Schule [b]auf meinem[/b] Vater warten" -I'll wait on top of my dad after school.
Now, the reason this is so easy to screw up is because when you learn German, you are taught that there are certain prepositions that correspond with certain cases. In addition, you are taught that when you are talking about location, you are ALWAYS going to use dative. If you are talking about movement, you are ALWAYS going to use Accusative. So most students think about translating my sentence in English and go "Well, 'auf' means on, and there's no movement involved with waiting, so uhhhh yeah! It's dative! MeinEM Vater!"
Except that if you say "Auf meinem Vater" and use dative, you are saying quite literally that you are going to climb on top of your dad and wait there after school. It switches to accusative because the verb is directly connected to your noun (mein Vater). An easy way to think of this is:
I'm waiting. For whom am I waiting? My dad. Therefore, the fact that you are DOING the waiting for your dad means that it has to switch to Accusative rather than Dative. One of the many reasons I love German and it's subtle nuances.
For a particular language there really aren't that many users on facepunch.
There are exceptions, ie. there are a lot of Swedish speakers here, but there are maybe at most 10 people who can read Chinese, 20 who can read Japanese etc. This thread - containing most language learners - is inactive enough as is.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;38792950]For a particular language there really aren't that many users on facepunch.
There are exceptions, ie. there are a lot of Swedish speakers here, but there are maybe at most 10 people who can read Chinese, 20 who can read Japanese etc. This thread - containing most language learners - is inactive enough as is.[/QUOTE]
German and Swedish have huge footholds.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;38792950]For a particular language there really aren't that many users on facepunch.
There are exceptions, ie. there are a lot of Swedish speakers here, but there are maybe at most 10 people who can read Chinese, 20 who can read Japanese etc. This thread - containing most language learners - is inactive enough as is.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure we have a lot of french speakers too. Including a certain mod.
[QUOTE=FFStudios;38792925]I'm waiting. For whom am I waiting? My dad. Therefore, the fact that you are DOING the waiting for your dad means that it has to switch to Accusative rather than Dative. One of the many reasons I love German and it's subtle nuances.[/QUOTE]
If you think abiut it there was movememt!
Because you are waiting means your father isn't there. Your father still has to get there.
And the one with the question is good as well. Keep doing it. You are in the german thread sometimes and from what i've seen you still make a lot of Fallfehler(is there an english word for that?)
Asked the same thing in fast anime just in case-
Is there anywhere I can read manga online in Japanese? There's plenty of sites for doing so in English but I can't for the life of me find one for Japanese
[QUOTE=Lord_Schrotty;38798839]If you think abiut it there was movememt!
Because you are waiting means your father isn't there. Your father still has to get there.
And the one with the question is good as well. Keep doing it. You are in the german thread sometimes and from what i've seen you still make a lot of Fallfehler(is there an english word for that?)[/QUOTE]
Yes, when you think about it, there really [i]is[/i] movement involved; but you can see how an early German learner could make the mistake. To say that same sentence in English, you'd use Accusative because we're using the accusative preposition "for". But I think I speak for myself as well as millions of native English speakers when I say that when we're speaking the native language, we really don't think about case because it just comes naturally to us.
That's why when I first started German, my teacher always told us "Do not translate from English to German. Think about what you want to say [i]in German[/i] instead."
[editline]12th December 2012[/editline]
And we don't have a word for "Fallfehler" per se, but I think you mean "accidental errors".
[QUOTE='Rain [Amber];38799619']Asked the same thing in fast anime just in case-
Is there anywhere I can read manga online in Japanese? There's plenty of sites for doing so in English but I can't for the life of me find one for Japanese[/QUOTE]
I know this is a bit extreme. I'm being completely serious when i say the best source of un-translated native japanese text of all levels is hentai manga. I watched my friends skills triple after picking up a translation job. Constantly interacting with japanese and finding new kanji helped him a lot. If your skills are good enough, try out for little white butterflies. Then pick and chose translations. Pick and chose has an advantage of you being able to translate anything, doujinshi's don't have to be H either. If you really aren't into translating, there is a wealth of untranslated material sitting on fakku and E-hentai. When i say this i'm 100% serious and not joking. Porn is literally the best source of language learning material around. Well, for Japanese. The Finnish aren't too preoccupied with writing porn while they are being attacked by polar bears or whatever Finnish people do, for example.
Does that also count for German and German porn?
If written yes, oral, nope.
[QUOTE=The Aussie;38825795]If written yes, oral, nope.[/QUOTE]
Dare I ask why :v:
Because Germans speak very quickly and even porn, they'll use slang terms. It's not a good environment for someone who is learning German to learn in, unless you've been studying the language for 4-5 years. I have lots of trouble with understanding native speakers, and my German class is taught in 100% German; you lose points if you speak English.
Even when you don't know the word for something, you have to spell out the English word.
omelette au fromage
I speak Spanish (Mothertongue), German and English fluently, so if anyone wants to help, just ask.
[QUOTE=Maximo13;38842760]I speak Spanish (Mothertongue), German and English fluently, so if anyone wants to help, just ask.[/QUOTE]
Where do you currently live and where/how did you learn each language?
Also, maybe it's just a coincidence with the people I've met, but do a majority of Dutch people learn German? Or at least quite a few? Every Dutch speaker I've encountered is at least half-decent with German, but not the other way around. When I ask Germans if they know Dutch they laugh, one guy even said to me "Of course not, one day a drunk German tried to speak English and that's how they made Dutch. Why would I want to learn that!" :v:
Wow, I started using Duolingo today for German and it is simply superb. Is there another free site like that for Swedish and/or Japanese? The way the lessons etc are done I learn much easier than just reading phrases over myself
Gonna give this thread a well-deserved bump.
Anyone here have any good resources on learning Swedish for an absolute beginner? A lot of my best friends speak Swedish or the other Nordic languages. That's why I wanna learn. I think it would be a very special thing.
Perhaps I'll learn the other Nordic languages someday too, but I want to at least give this a try first.
Anyone got any good Arabic learning programs / audio lessons you'd recommend? I'm currently using Pimsleur and it's going great. I'm only interested in learning how to speak it, reading and writing aren't a priority right now.
[QUOTE=loopoo;39000715]Anyone got any good Arabic learning programs / audio lessons you'd recommend? I'm currently using Pimsleur and it's going great. I'm only interested in learning how to speak it, reading and writing aren't a priority right now.[/QUOTE]
Pimsleur is an excellent program for learning to [i]speak[/i] a language. If you aren't interested in writing or reading, and still want to use other programs to help your learning, i'd recommend giving Michel Thomas a try. Now, be warned, i'm not 100% sure on this. I am aware of the quality of the courses in OTHER languages. Be wary when it comes to Arabic. From what i've heard, the best courses are the ones done by Mr. Thomas himself. Stay away from the new versions and get the ones done by him. He teaches Egyptian Arabic too. Not Levantine or MSA. Buy from eBay if possible, the site is rather expensive. Good Luck! If you can't find an old version. There are other routes to getting it for little to no cost. One of which includes your local library.
For the multitudes of people asking about "Free online resources for -Insert language here-", i can only say that it is rather difficult to find these. They will never take you to a satisfactory level that a paid program would, or they will take you there in an extended amount of time.
Also, Y'all need to vist this site more often!
[url]http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp[/url]
It's pretty much where i've pulled 99% of my info from. I'm learning all the time, but when someone asks something i don't know, i'll spend the next hour typing up a response for you guys. I spent half an hour on loo's response up there. I'm no expert, in fact, i should probably put more of what i learn into practice! But from the little i've put in so far, i jumped from a mid C to a solid A in a semester, and amazed my teacher, a polygot of 8 languages, because of my rapid speaking progress. I've had my accent complimented by natives too, it makes me pretty happy.
Thanks so much, man! Pimsleur's course is going great. And I'm aiming to learn Egyptian Arabic (even though I'm from the Gulf, myself), so I'll definitely give Michael Thomas a try. Good thing is I've got some basic Arabic under my belt from my childhood, so that'll hopefully help me in the long run.
Cheers for the quick reply.
[QUOTE=The Aussie;39001039]For the multitudes of people asking about "Free online resources for -Insert language here-", i can only say that it is rather difficult to find these. They will never take you to a satisfactory level that a paid program would, or they will take you there in an extended amount of time. [/QUOTE]
I apologize for being one of the many who asked that question.
This thread is one of the motivating factors for me to learn a new language though, along with a few friends who are really into learning other languages. I'm thinking perhaps a friend of mine can learn Swedish with me, I don't know.
This could prove to be a valuable resource, although the forums you link scare me a bit, as I am too much of a newbie with learning languages in general. I do think I've found a few sites that teach some basic Swedish, but like you said, I'll probably need a paid course to get any good at it.
As much advice as i give out here, i would never dare give out advice on Htlal. The people there are well versed in Practical and Theoretical experience. I'm well versed in Theoretical.
I started French on Duolinguo today, and so far I am pretty good at understanding written French. When she speaks, though, oh my God. Pronouncing is hard too. Now I know how the Japanese feel with English.
je ne comprende pas
[QUOTE=Ast_risk;39002420]I started French on Duolinguo today, and so far I am pretty good at understanding written French. When she speaks, though, oh my God. Pronouncing is hard too. Now I know how the Japanese feel with English.[/QUOTE]
5 years of daily school classes and rapid, conversational French not spoken by our teacher still baffles me (slight mumbling, skipping of some sounds, etc). I wouldn't worry too much, just try hard to understand and recognize now while you're new and it should come easier down the line. I don't think my district focuses enough on spoken/conversational language.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;39002708]je ne comprende pas[/QUOTE]
oui