[QUOTE=Glorbo;36605544]Arabic is one I would really love to learn.[/QUOTE]
A friend of mine is currently studying in a school of Journalism, and they learn Arabic there.
From what I gathered it's much easier to talk than to write.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;36606030]A friend of mine is currently studying in a school of Journalism, and they learn Arabic there.
From what I gathered it's much easier to talk than to write.[/QUOTE]
Yeah they don't write how we do you know from left to right, instead they do the complete opposite from right to left.
I did German for about ten months at my school a year or so ago. I can still remember most basic phrases and I can construct a few of my own, my grammar is okay (or at least I think it is, I don't really have anyone to check it with anymore), and I can just barely translate some conversations.
the thing is I'm starting to forget it all at a worrying rate, so does anyone have any tips for remembering what I was taught and keeping it in use? I wanna go to Germany at some point, and I at least want to be able to say "I used to speach German but then I forgot it" when I have to ask where the bus station is.
[QUOTE=Cone;36606992]I did German for about ten months at my school a year or so ago. I can still remember most basic phrases and I can construct a few of my own, my grammar is okay (or at least I think it is, I don't really have anyone to check it with anymore), and I can just barely translate some conversations.
the thing is I'm starting to forget it all at a worrying rate, so does anyone have any tips for remembering what I was taught and keeping it in use? I wanna go to Germany at some point, and I at least want to be able to say "I used to speach German but then I forgot it" when I have to ask where the bus station is.[/QUOTE]
Just practice practice practice and immerse yourself in the German language whenever possible, whether it be TV, movies, or just listening to audio.
I'm learning Korean from English and German, and it can be quite difficult. I have basic vocabulary and suffixes down as well as short sentences. What really helps me is watching Korean TV, for both vocabulary and repetition.
[QUOTE=Hell_Kyrone;36606526]Yeah they don't write how we do you know from left to right, instead they do the complete opposite from right to left.[/QUOTE]
That and also a lot of letters are very similar to each other from what I know.
[QUOTE=David Tennant;36599948]Is it really possible to learn a language (German to be exact) by immersing yourself in that language, such as watching German films/television and listening to German music?
I thought I'd ask as surely this isn't possible without having to literally go through hundreds of thousands of hours of listening to the language before it sinks in.
Or does viewing foreign entertainment just help the learning process and fluency in the language, and can only be used as aid rather than a core learning process?[/QUOTE]
watching movies/tv in that language definitely helps. i know my boyfriend learned english almost exclusively from watching tv. i personally studied french in school for several years, but everything i remember of the language is based on my experiences in french-speaking countries or from french films/music.
[QUOTE=Taepodong-2;36600473]I took Spanish in school for a couple years and shit was easy as fuck. I tried to learn Russian a few years ago but it was confusing as fuck and now all I have for Russian is the ability to read the alphabet (it literally took me 15 minutes to learn this), some basic vocabulary and decent pronunciation. I should probably try again now that I'm older and have more patience.
[editline]2nd July 2012[/editline]
By listening to Russian music and watching Russian TV shows and movies with English subtitles it helped with pronunciation and I learned a little bit of vocabulary. It should be similar with other languages.[/QUOTE]
i'm considering studying russian (my boyfriend is russian), do you have any sources you'd recommend?
Ég er að reyna að lera mér íslensku
[sp]"I'm trying to learn Icelandic" in Icelandic[/sp]
And I'm Norwegian so it shouldn't be too hard
[QUOTE=Krinkels;36599552]I'm not too familiar, but maybe you could look into lojban.[/QUOTE]
Whats lojban?
As a french dude, I'd say that learning english is way easier than learning french. Lots of grammar rules, shitty accents, é è ê ï everywhere. Lots of french people are confused with those.
I've been in a german class for years (living near the german border), I still suck.
but...
I'm definitely in love with the english language.
I'm about to start learning German using a program I found called Living Language. It's got a lesson book, audio cds, all the fancy stuff, and it was only 30 bucks, so I won't feel as bad if it isn't great. I'd get Rosetta Stone but holy shit it's expensive. I've got six months to get the basics down before I move so I'm not terribly worried.
I'm Canadian so French is my second language - we're only taught it from between Grade 5 (11 years old) and Grade 9 (15 years old) compulsory. I kind of gave it up because at the time I wasn't interested in learning it.
Despite not actively using it, I can understand a lot of sentences and words just from looking at them. For example,
[QUOTE=Cl0cK;36598337]Je parle Français assez correctement. Faut dire que c'est quand même ma première langue!
And I also speak English and yes French is a pretty difficult language to learn, at least for the English people I knew that tried to learn it.[/QUOTE]
"I speak French correctly. It's probably because it's my first language" is what I got out of that, and I don't know what 'assez', 'faut dire', or 'quand même' translate to. Learning a language from a young age like that really ingrains it in your head - I thought for sure I'd just forget all of the language once I entered Grade 10.
I'm working on learning Mandarin right now though and am currently below A1, but hey, practise makes perfect. Half of my friends are Mandarin (seriously) and so it'd be cool if I could just butt into their conversation once school starts again.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;36614302]I'm Canadian so French is my second language - we're only taught it from between Grade 5 (11 years old) and Grade 9 (15 years old) compulsory. I kind of gave it up because at the time I wasn't interested in learning it.
[/QUOTE]
What province do you live in? In Alberta I was NEVER required to take French and I'm pretty sure they still don't require it. And I don't know any French at all because I'm never going to go to Quebec and all the French people I know speak English.
Ontario
[editline]3rd July 2012[/editline]
[url]http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/fsl48curr.txt[/url] - Curriculum from grades 4-8
[url]http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/extra/eng/ppm/graduate.html[/url] - Need 1 credit in French (ie. grade 9)
I consider myself very fluent in French. There are only two things I don't like about the language:
-Half of all the letters a the words are never spoken
-It's used by the French
Other than that, it's pretty cool.
[editline]4th July 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Ldesu;36613264]Ég er að reyna að lera mér íslensku
[sp]"I'm trying to learn Icelandic" in Icelandic[/sp]
And I'm Norwegian so it shouldn't be too hard[/QUOTE]
One of the hardest languages in the entire world, if not THE hardest.
I'd love to learn Greek. Any tips or other resources that would be useful?
Does anybody know of any good learning Russian online resources? Trying to translate a sentence but it doesn't matter now :v:
I dedicate 3 hours a day to learning German so that I'm good enough to study it at University next year.
I use: Rosetta Stone, dict.cc, Languagesonline, Lyricstraining, Memrise, Duolingo, a Collins German Dictionary, various books from Germany, a large grammar book, a penpal, German gaming servers, Google.de and other various internet resources.
There are so many helpful resources on the internet that you can instantly look up any topic that confuses you. It's wonderful.
[editline]11th July 2012[/editline]
I mean wunderbar
[t]http://brightcove04.o.brightcove.com/35140843001/35140843001_96355629001_vs-96350082001.jpg?pubId=35140843001[/t]
Chus quebecois donc je parle francais ! :)
Anglais aussi ! World of Wacraft ma beaucoup aider a pouvoir avoir un dialogue avec quelqun sur ventrilo
I'm currently learning German through school, but in addition I am taking the time to learn Russian and Swedish. The concept of learning languages is fascinating to me. I can already say a two word sentence in Swedish; kvinnan äter.
四十
forty
一个女孩子
the girl
..I can't do much more in Mandarin than numbers and the simplest phrases, and even then I don't have the characters memorized so I have to use an English-Chinese character lookup. Does anyone know any good methods of memorizing characters from non-latin-derived languages?
:(
[QUOTE=Cypher_09;36726077]I dedicate 3 hours a day to learning German so that I'm good enough to study it at University next year.
I use: Rosetta Stone, dict.cc, Languagesonline, Lyricstraining, Memrise, Duolingo, a Collins German Dictionary, various books from Germany, a large grammar book, a penpal, German gaming servers, Google.de and other various internet resources.
There are so many helpful resources on the internet that you can instantly look up any topic that confuses you. It's wonderful.
[editline]11th July 2012[/editline]
I mean wunderbar
[t]http://brightcove04.o.brightcove.com/35140843001/35140843001_96355629001_vs-96350082001.jpg?pubId=35140843001[/t][/QUOTE]
Have you tried Anki? I find it's more convenient than Memrise
[editline]18th July 2012[/editline]
Also what I do is read the Spanish wikipedia article when I want to look something up and note down when there's a word I don't understand. I find what it means and then add it into Anki and then I'll end up remembering it forever.
Currently taking an online spanish course...
It's fucking abysmal, registers everything you do as wrong if it doesn't fit the exact format that it expects (which it doesn't actually tell you). This leads to things such as you answering "Electronics section", to which it goes "NO YOU STUPID FUCKER THE ANSWER IS "Electronic section".
It's just fuckawful, I hope I don't fail because of this kind of shit.
[editline]18th July 2012[/editline]
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12024286/Why%20the%20fuck.PNG[/img]
Shit like this is a perfect example
[QUOTE=Mr. Smartass;36829173]Currently taking an online spanish course...
It's fucking abysmal, registers everything you do as wrong if it doesn't fit the exact format that it expects (which it doesn't actually tell you). This leads to things such as you answering "Electronics section", to which it goes "NO YOU STUPID FUCKER THE ANSWER IS "Electronic section".
It's just fuckawful, I hope I don't fail because of this kind of shit.
[editline]18th July 2012[/editline]
[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12024286/Why%20the%20fuck.PNG[/img]
Shit like this is a perfect example[/QUOTE]
Is that for school or is it just a hobby? Either way that sucks
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;36829203]Is that for school or is it just a hobby? Either way that sucks[/QUOTE]
It's for school. I WANT to pass (I failed by ONE fucking point last year), but this bullshit isn't letting me.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;36828764]四十
forty
一个女孩子
the girl
..I can't do much more in Mandarin than numbers and the simplest phrases, and even then I don't have the characters memorized so I have to use an English-Chinese character lookup. Does anyone know any good methods of memorizing characters from non-latin-derived languages?
:([/QUOTE]
一个女孩子 reads more like one girl. If you were referring to a girl in a conversation, you'd just say 她. I think it's helped me to learn fill-in-the-blank sentences, learn how those sentences look, and gradually learn more words to put in the blanks.
ie. ___的哪里? ; ___dena3li3? ; Where is ___?
出口的哪里? ; chu1kou3dena3li3? ; Where is the exit?
Are you using a pinyin typer? It's helpful when you know the pinyin of a word but you're not sure how the character's written, so you can pick from a few. And it really helps to know people that are fluent to help you. My best friends are twins that are fluent and they've been helping me the whole time.
昨月我和我的朋友们去中国。我的朋友们的爸爸是大学老师。我认识他的学生。他不知道我可说中文。我说“很高兴认识你!“。他很惊讶!
[editline]18th July 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Mr. Smartass;36829283]It's for school. I WANT to pass (I failed by ONE fucking point last year), but this bullshit isn't letting me.[/QUOTE]
Do you have a teacher or is it completely automated?
Great thread man. High quality.
[QUOTE=Abrown516;36829473]Are you using a pinyin typer? It's helpful when you know the pinyin of a word but you're not sure how the character's written, so you can pick from a few. And it really helps to know people that are fluent to help you. My best friends are twins that are fluent and they've been helping me the whole time.[/QUOTE]
I've taken the first section of Rosetta Stone which was terrible and I've just started to try and learn vocab/grammar on my own.
Do you have any pinyin translator suggestions?
[QUOTE=Disseminate;36830974]I've taken the first section of Rosetta Stone which was terrible and I've just started to try and learn vocab/grammar on my own.
Do you have any pinyin translator suggestions?[/QUOTE]
Google translator is convenient because you can enable pinyin (phonetic) translations. The phonetic typing is essentially how a pinyin typer works.
[QUOTE=Abrown516;36829473]一个女孩子 reads more like one girl. If you were referring to a girl in a conversation, you'd just say 她. I think it's helped me to learn fill-in-the-blank sentences, learn how those sentences look, and gradually learn more words to put in the blanks.
ie. ___的哪里? ; ___dena3li3? ; Where is ___?
出口的哪里? ; chu1kou3dena3li3? ; Where is the exit?
Are you using a pinyin typer? It's helpful when you know the pinyin of a word but you're not sure how the character's written, so you can pick from a few. And it really helps to know people that are fluent to help you. My best friends are twins that are fluent and they've been helping me the whole time.
昨月我和我的朋友们去中国。我的朋友们的爸爸是大学老师。我认识他的学生。他不知道我可说中文。我说“很高兴认识你!“。他很惊讶!
[editline]18th July 2012[/editline]
Do you have a teacher or is it completely automated?[/QUOTE]
This looks crazy
How do you even see half of the lines without squinting all the time?
[QUOTE=Cypher_09;36836342]This looks crazy
How do you even see half of the lines without squinting all the time?[/QUOTE]
First you learn the characters, then you learn grammar and context.
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