Language Learner's Thread - Cunning Linguists Welcome. - General

[QUOTE=peterson;49833426]Most English teachers in Japan are pissing me off. They need to pretend like they are a dire importance to all Japanese and most of them love to circle jerk in their methodology and 'show it off'[/QUOTE] Are you working as a JET over there or are you just pissed off at white people with a saviour complex heading over to asia to teach english in general?

I'm the opposite, I really want to go to China and find work after graduation but I don't know what to do, I can't really see myself teaching English benefiting Chinese people very much. My English is good but I have next to no teaching experience.

[QUOTE=reevezy67;49835190]My English is good but I have next to no teaching experience.[/QUOTE] If you really want to, you could read on teaching and look for some good teacher training courses. Nothing better than a teacher who knows what they're doing. I hope to do it one day.

Woah, way to see this thread back. My friend told me if I learn C he'll learn French. So this post isn't about my languages, but hopefully I can make someone a not-uncultured swine?

I've been wanting to learn how to speak Spanish for a long while. Decided to actually spend time on it. [url]https://fluent-forever.com/the-method/[/url] Gonna follow this method. Hope it works out, wish me luck. I hope to learn Spanish and, someday, learn Mandarin. Then I'll know the three largest languages in the world; Mandarin, Spanish, and English. Then I'll be set. I figure Spanish is the much more manageable task so I'm going to start with that.

My friend has recently decided to learn Japanese too (Japanese music claims another victim), since I'm far ahead of him I'll half teach him since Tae Kim's guide is amazing already and I'm awful at teaching. He should in theory progress faster than I did since he will have someone to ask when something doesn't make sense. I'd like to go to Japan someday but I don't know if I could do teaching. Won't be for a few years at the least any way, wouldn't want to have to rely on English over there. Really wish learning vocabulary didn't bore me so much. Maybe it's just the ordering of this list putting 訴える (to sue) at 684 and other mostly useless words like 首相 (prime minister) at 409 that's annoying me. 日付 (the date) is clearly not a useful word so it's 5986th. Optimised vocabulary they said. Seems everything that I actually give a shit about sticks way better, haven't forgotten けだし despite only using it once a few months ago when I looked it up for some post I wrote.

I'm currently learning German; I absolutely love the language. My favourite languages are English and German. I have always wanted learn Japanese and I tried learning it on my own when I was 12 (in 2008), but I gave up soon after because I found it quite difficult. I can speak Arabic, but I honestly don't like it that much. I would like to learn Syriac someday because it's the language of my family's roots. I know that it isn't a language that is used very often, but I would like to learn it in order to preserve it in hopes that it won't die.

[QUOTE=Reflex F.N.;49868468]I'm currently learning German; I absolutely love the language. My favourite languages are English and German. I have always wanted learn Japanese and I tried learning it on my own when I was 12 (in 2008), but I gave up soon after because I found it quite difficult. I can speak Arabic, but I honestly don't like it that much. I would like to learn Syriac someday because it's my family's root language. I know that it isn't a language that is often used, but I would like to preserve it in hopes that it won't die.[/QUOTE] ich lerne auch deutsch, brud du kannst mich schreiben, wenn du ubungen machen willst, wahrscheinlich kannst du mir auch helfen weil mein deutsch vollig scheiß ist

[QUOTE=inebriaticxp;49868494]ich lerne auch deutsch, brud du kannst mich schreiben, wenn du ubungen machen willst, wahrscheinlich kannst du mir auch helfen weil mein deutsch vollig scheiß ist[/QUOTE]Jetzt lerne ich gerade Deutsch A2, deshalb mein Deutsch ist noch schlecht auch, aber ich hoffe dass, ich mein Deutsch verbessern kann.

So here's a tough one. I'd love to learn Croatian but I'm having a tough time trying to find good places to learn pronunciations, grammar, etc. without having to shell out a lot of money on something. As big as rosetta stone is, I would have figured they might have it yet sadly they don't. I was actually surprised as to how few languages they do have. Anyone have any ideas?

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49871979]Studierst du noch? [/QUOTE]Ja, ich habe noch viel zu lernen. Ich will nach C1 lernen.

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49872461]Studieren bedeutet Universität in Deutsch. Und ich bin kein Deutscher aber ich würde " bis C1 " sagen.[/QUOTE]Ich studiere Informatik.

[QUOTE=Trebgarta;49871979]Memrise for vokabulary. Definitely. For grammar, Id google. There ought to be something. Perhaps Montenegrin/Serbian? I dont know how similar they are, but perhaps, they might have similar grammar. AFAIK croatian and montenegrin are very similar, source is my dad, owns a shop in podgorica. He cant speak the language so I wouldnt be sure but worth checking?[/QUOTE] Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Bosnian are all the same language, but think of it how in Germany, there are many forms of German. Same shit here. We got three main dialects, of which only Shtokavian is of real importance, because that's the standard dialect from which the written language is based on. Besides slang words and other minor developments between the different languages, another major thing is the subdialects, of which there are three, only two being important. Ekavian, which is used for Serbian and Montenegrin, and Ijekavian, which is used for Croatian. I can elaborate on the differences if you'd like. Another distinct feature is the fact that, like other Slavic languages, one letter = one sound. None of that English bullshit where a group of letters are pronounced differently throughout different words. M is M, A is A, MA is MA, etc. Another thing that is useful is, if one is interested, Serbian can be used to jump into Cyrillic usage, as it is, to my knowledge, the only language to have a Latin and Cyrillic script. So, if you have trouble with reading Russian Cyrillic, you can always start easy.

[QUOTE=Damian0358;49875377]Serbian, Montenegrin, Croatian and Bosnian are all the same language, but think of it how in Germany, there are many forms of German. Same shit here. We got three main dialects, of which only Shtokavian is of real importance, because that's the standard dialect from which the written language is based on. Besides slang words and other minor developments between the different languages, another major thing is the subdialects, of which there are three, only two being important. Ekavian, which is used for Serbian and Montenegrin, and Ijekavian, which is used for Croatian. I can elaborate on the differences if you'd like. Another distinct feature is the fact that, like other Slavic languages, one letter = one sound. None of that English bullshit where a group of letters are pronounced differently throughout different words. M is M, A is A, MA is MA, etc. Another thing that is useful is, if one is interested, Serbian can be used to jump into Cyrillic usage, as it is, to my knowledge, the only language to have a Latin and Cyrillic script. So, if you have trouble with reading Russian Cyrillic, you can always start easy.[/QUOTE] If you wouldn't mind elaborating, I would appreciate it. Looking at memrise, I'm rather confused as to what language to really focus on. I started one lesson in croatian and then checked out the serbian-croatian lesson and they seem to clash. in croatian, dobro means "well" and dobar means "good". but in serbian-croatian, dobro means "well, good"?

[QUOTE=FrankPetrov;49875614]If you wouldn't mind elaborating, I would appreciate it. Looking at memrise, I'm rather confused as to what language to really focus on. I started one lesson in croatian and then checked out the serbian-croatian lesson and they seem to clash. in croatian, dobro means "well" and dobar means "good". but in serbian-croatian, dobro means "well, good"?[/QUOTE] Well, first things first, besides the subdialects, another difference is cultural influences. Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be inclusive, while Croatian ones are more purist. An example is in the word factory - in Serbian, it is fabrika, from the German word for it, while in Croatian, it is tvornica, basically a calque of the original Latin word. Another example is in the names of the months. As I'm not Croatian myself, I can't really explain the subtle/minor differences in phonemes, orthography, accentuation, phonetics, and so forth, but the topic has been discussed quite a bit online ever since Yugoslavia broke apart, so you could look up those differences. But there is no such thing as clashing in the language. Because of the diversity of the languages, it is easy to identify someone locally depending on the way they speak, such as the accent and the word choices. For instance, in Serbia, if you hear someone say "mlijeko" instead of "mleko" (both mean milk) or "kisik" instead of "kiseonik" (both mean oxygen), it is probably a Croat. In regards to the dobro/dobar thing in your post, it depends on context, as well as declension. Declension is going to be one of your biggest enemies, among other things like words. In regards to what language to focus on, it depends on where you are headed. If Croatia, go Croatian. If Serbia, go Serbian. If Bosnia, go Bosnian. If Montenegro, go Montenegrin. You see where I'm going with this. It's the only real answer I can give you.

[QUOTE=Damian0358;49886609]Well, first things first, besides the subdialects, another difference is cultural influences. Serbian and Bosnian language standards tend to be inclusive, while Croatian ones are more purist. An example is in the word factory - in Serbian, it is fabrika, from the German word for it, while in Croatian, it is tvornica, basically a calque of the original Latin word. Another example is in the names of the months. As I'm not Croatian myself, I can't really explain the subtle/minor differences in phonemes, orthography, accentuation, phonetics, and so forth, but the topic has been discussed quite a bit online ever since Yugoslavia broke apart, so you could look up those differences. But there is no such thing as clashing in the language. Because of the diversity of the languages, it is easy to identify someone locally depending on the way they speak, such as the accent and the word choices. For instance, in Serbia, if you hear someone say "mlijeko" instead of "mleko" (both mean milk) or "kisik" instead of "kiseonik" (both mean oxygen), it is probably a Croat. In regards to the dobro/dobar thing in your post, it depends on context, as well as declension. Declension is going to be one of your biggest enemies, among other things like words. In regards to what language to focus on, it depends on where you are headed. If Croatia, go Croatian. If Serbia, go Serbian. If Bosnia, go Bosnian. If Montenegro, go Montenegrin. You see where I'm going with this. It's the only real answer I can give you.[/QUOTE] Awesome. Thank you so much.

[QUOTE=SGTNAPALM;49861700]I've been wanting to learn how to speak Spanish for a long while. Decided to actually spend time on it. [url]https://fluent-forever.com/the-method/[/url] Gonna follow this method. Hope it works out, wish me luck. I hope to learn Spanish and, someday, learn Mandarin. Then I'll know the three largest languages in the world; Mandarin, Spanish, and English. Then I'll be set. I figure Spanish is the much more manageable task so I'm going to start with that.[/QUOTE] My teacher told me to watch/listen to Spanish material, so I'm watching Spanish speaking youtubers' videos :v:

Starting Korean by the end of this month. Only girls signed up for it so far... Is it K-Pop effect? Anyway, Sweet :quagmire: And i already learned Hangul on my own, so i think it's not going to be very hard at first.

[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;49947069] Only girls signed up for it so far... Is it K-Pop effect? Anyway, Sweet :quagmire: [/QUOTE] You're fucking lucky, my spanish class has 5 engineer dudes and a chick who looks like a dude.

[QUOTE=AhoyMate;49954206]You're fucking lucky, my spanish class has 5 engineer dudes and a chick who looks like a dude.[/QUOTE] Dude, i know that feeling alright. I'm doing computer engineering. My first year had like 30 dudes and a lesbian chick. [sp]I'm dead serious[/sp]

Been trying to learn a bit of Filipino to entertain my partner's family, so far its actually pretty easy!

Getting to the end of the Duolingo course and Tae Kim's grammar guide and the grammar is getting a lot more obscure and difficult to grasp (but I understand the ず and ぬ endings that are used pretty much only in songs!). Reviewing one lesson each of present / past perfect tense took 50 minutes when I usually do 4 in 30. Really confusing when the explanations are all Japanese explaining the English version (if there is one at all, beta version) but what you gonna do. Was constantly confusing present perfect (has, テ形しまった) with past perfect (had, テ形しまっていた) yesterday. Amazing how I know all this grammar in English and had no idea what any of it was called a year ago.

[QUOTE=reevezy67;49835190]I'm the opposite, I really want to go to China and find work after graduation but I don't know what to do, I can't really see myself teaching English benefiting Chinese people very much. My English is good but I have next to no teaching experience.[/QUOTE] This post is ancient, but it's something that probably comes up a bit in the minds of English speakers who are interested in other languages. Nobody gets teaching experience without doing it, and if you're good at explaining grammar in an understandable way and talking with not natives with kinda bad English, you're half way there. I had zero formal teaching experience beyond being used as a dictionary for conversation groups before moving to Latvia (I'm English) and I'm working at one of the top schools in the city now, and while it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination, it's not like engineering or something, where you flat out need the training else you can't do the job. Also, chalk me up as another German learner. I'm doing Russian too, but kinda half-assedly, so I don't worry too much about proclaiming that from the rooftops.

A group of my classmates just got back from North Korea, so fucking jealous I didn't take the trip

[QUOTE=Cypher_09;49986635]A group of my classmates just got back from North Korea, so fucking jealous I didn't take the trip[/QUOTE] I think I'd rather visit South Korea more. We have an exchange program here with them at my university and they all seem really cool. There's a group of them that actually offer free Korean lessons for people interested in learning Korean.

Had my first korean class today. The difference between 가, 까 and 카 is way more important than i thought and you'll just not get understood if you don't pronounce it correctly. This gonna take some time, but at least it isn't chinese. 개 = dog 게 = to (preposition) 깨 = sesame All have same sound for untrained ears, or at least it's hard to pronounce them differently.

Do Korean and Japanese use inflections like Chinese does?

No idea about Korean. Japanese does but it's never written anywhere (so it has to be learnt entirely passively) and it's only ever either raising, falling, or flat tone. Bridge and chopsticks have raising and falling but I don't remember which is which. It's not required to be understood like it is in Chinese but not using them makes you sound foreign.

Just went to a korean restaurant with my classmates. Food now is one of my main motivations to learn korean. Best stuff i've ever eaten.

I speak Japanese, Chinese and Korean at varying levels and made a self-study guide with a list of resources for learning these languages, so I might as well post it here as I'm sure it'll be useful for someone. Take a look and tell me if there's something you think I should add to it! [url]https://cheezyrn.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/japanesechinesekorean-self-study-guide/[/url]