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

Language textbooks are boring so I got a [URL="https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%80%8C%E3%82%AB%E3%82%B2%E3%83%AD%E3%82%A6%E3%83%87%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA%E3%80%8D%E3%81%A7%E4%B8%AD%E5%AD%A6%E6%AD%B4%E5%8F%B2%E3%81%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%99%BD%E3%81%84%E3%81%BB%E3%81%A9%E3%82%8F%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8B%E6%9C%AC-%E3%81%97%E3%81%A5/dp/4046015896/"]history book[/URL] instead. It's confirmed my suspicions that furigana reduces reading speed, even words I know well I end up stopping and looking at the furigana for (which takes ages because they aren't even a millimetre tall). Forgot about the things on the box you are meant to press to release the tape and cut it instead so I'm going to have to buy something else to figure out how that works.

Yeah but they're the fastest way to learn new vocab with context if you're willing to sit down and out a lot of effort in. Oh course if so you did was that you would burn out really fast.

Could someone explain to me the topic and subject of a Japanese sentence? I don't really know what it is in English either, so I think that would kinda be nice to know too.

[QUOTE=gokiyono;51194225]Could someone explain to me the topic and subject of a Japanese sentence? I don't really know what it is in English either, so I think that would kinda be nice to know too.[/QUOTE] Topic is what is to the left of the topic particle (は) but it's left out most of the time because Japanese people are [del]lazy[/del] efficient. [URL="http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2007/09/03/repeat-after-me-there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-subject/"]Japanese doesn't have subjects[/URL]. That has a link to a blog post in Japanese explaining it. Basically it says that in highschool Japanese grammar (as in that which is taught as a second language in high school) 花は and 花が are both taught as being a subject (which is wrong), whereas in university Japanese 花は is taught as a topic and 花が is taught as nominative case. I have no idea what nominative case is though. Then there's a bunch more explaining it with a recipe as an example but I don't feel like whipping out a dictionary to read the rest.

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingulu_language[/URL] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/M9KNTfI.png[/IMG] :why: [sp]being facetious btw no need to lecture me on grammatical gender[/sp]

I have been thinking of lerning Dutch myself.

Anybody learned Chinese on their own before?? I wanted to use Duolingo but the app doesn't support Chinese yet.

How does one learn to read and comprehend the language they're studying without first translating it to their native language. I'm trying to learn French and I can't seem to stop myself from translating or just skimming over words.

[QUOTE=Adelle Zhu;51276145]How does one learn to read and comprehend the language they're studying without first translating it to their native language. I'm trying to learn French and I can't seem to stop myself from translating or just skimming over words.[/QUOTE] From my experience, you'll start by doing that and then eventually just memorise what the words mean intuitively, and you won't really pause. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll eventually get it.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;51276231]From my experience, you'll start by doing that and then eventually just memorise what the words mean intuitively, and you won't really pause. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll eventually get it.[/QUOTE] Using Clozemaster on the advice of reddit. I started out with Duolingo to relearn what I had from school but I found its methods so infuriating. As with textbooks and Rosetta Stone, it assumes people immediately want to talk about cheese sandwiches.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;51276231]From my experience, you'll start by doing that and then eventually just memorise what the words mean intuitively, and you won't really pause. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll eventually get it.[/QUOTE] Took me about 6 months to stop actively trying to translate, about a year for it to basically stop completely. Eventually it just [I]clicks[/I] and it's amazing. Not even sure why translating it is a natural response, translation is hard as fuck. [editline]29th October 2016[/editline] "What are you laughing at" "Japanese joke" "Oh translate it" "I cannot"

And I don't really reckon there's anything inherently bad about translating it back to your mother tongue. If you understand it, you understand it. The end result is what matters, really.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;51276451]And I don't really reckon there's anything inherently bad about translating it back to your mother tongue. If you understand it, you understand it. The end result is what matters, really.[/QUOTE] It's fine at the start but when you start nearing fluency, if you are still doing it you are just going to sound off because you aren't really speaking the language. A bit different for Germanic languages since they all have basically the same grammar but if I thought of things to say in English and then translated them to Japanese instead of just thinking them in Japanese it would come out like a Chinese Ebay description.

Just think of foreigners speaking English with very awkward sentence structure and doing things like leaving out articles, I'd venture to say it's often because they're doing that.

[QUOTE=helifreak;51276549]It's fine at the start but when you start nearing fluency, if you are still doing it you are just going to sound off because you aren't really speaking the language. A bit different for Germanic languages since they all have basically the same grammar but if I thought of things to say in English and then translated them to Japanese instead of just thinking them in Japanese it would come out like a Chinese Ebay description.[/QUOTE] The end result is to be understood as clearly as possible. There's nothing wrong with becoming so fluent that you don't need to think in your original language, but I wouldn't say it's mandatory. Though, apparently I speak swedish like a 'blatte' (dumb foreigner) so what do I know

I want to become fluent in Danish so I've started speaking with a friend who has pretty good Danish on skype. It's going pretty well but he only has time for one session a week, do you guys know of a good site for this kind of thing? I'm currently on conversation exchange but there are like 4 Danes there who aren't active.

[QUOTE=Samiam22;51277380]The end result is to be understood as clearly as possible. There's nothing wrong with becoming so fluent that you don't need to think in your original language, but I wouldn't say it's mandatory. Though, apparently I speak swedish like a 'blatte' (dumb foreigner) so what do I know[/QUOTE] I don't know what the obsession is with trying so hard to learn a language that you sound indistinguishable from a local. It's perfectly okay to sound like a foreigner because you are a fucking foreigner. So what's the difference?

my view is that being understood and understanding somebody is whats the most important in a language honestly who gives a shit if you sound like a weirdo, a lot of native english speakers already sound like weridoes to me even though we speak the same language

[QUOTE=Teddybeer;51278714]It's applying how we are [del]teached[/del] thought languages in schools. Just a small bit off and your wrong wrong wrong! Sort of discourages me about speaking in English as I happily say the k in know and derail the entire conversation to OMG you don't say the K.[/QUOTE] If you want to be a snarky asshole back you can probably find plenty of grammar mistakes and dialect in their speech. Because literally nobody goes without those in daily life. Which is the most amusing part about people being elitist over dialect, their English to someone else is probably just as broken as whatever they're criticising is to them. To be fair to the classes at least, they are generally trying to teach a standard formal version of the language. And in that context you do have to be proper. Though I agree with Benny, fuck that stuff, learn to hold conversations with random people first, worry about perfecting it later.

Been using duolingo to refresh the French I learnt in school, despite it only being five years ago or so that I stopped, still seems to be a lot I don't remember, hoping to keep it ticking over now. Might look into learning some Spanish on there as well when I've got my French back up to speed, as my little sister's learning it in school and I thought it would be cool if I knew some.

I finally think I have Spanish down, and am ready to learn another. Split between Russian and German. plz vote and decide for me [Informative] for Russian [Useful] for German

[QUOTE=Zombinie;51285617]I finally think I have Spanish down, and am ready to learn another. Split between Russian and German. plz vote and decide for me [Informative] for Russian [Useful] for German[/QUOTE] The answer is always Finnish What do you want to get out of them?

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;51286221] What do you want to get out of them?[/QUOTE] Well if I learn German, I have some German speaking relatives I could talk to (but they speak English also) However if I learn Russian then I can understand Russians in Counter Strike

[QUOTE=Zombinie;51286644]Well if I learn German, I have some German speaking relatives I could talk to (but they speak English also) However if I learn Russian then I can understand Russians in Counter Strike[/QUOTE] Boris' videos already teach you all the Russian you need for Counter Strike though.

[QUOTE=helifreak;51286666]Boris' videos already teach you all the Russian you need for Counter Strike though.[/QUOTE] Didn't know about that resource, i'll look into it, thanks!

Jambo Jambo :)

Has anyone used FSI? Is it really as effective and masochistic as people make it out to be?

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;51433881]Has anyone used FSI? Is it really as effective and masochistic as people make it out to be?[/QUOTE] Had a look at the Japanese course. Seems to have an exclusive focus on only spoken language. Reading is given a single module at the end and only teaches numbers and a couple of signs. On the plus side it seems to all be actually useful vocabulary unlike a textbook which gives you mostly useless shit like major and economics to start out. [editline]29th November 2016[/editline] Seems like it would be good if you were going to the country and needed a quick intro that gets you able to order food and ask for directions etc. but you'll need to find something else when you want to start having meaningful conversations with people or enjoying native media. [editline]space[/editline] And it teaches no grammar so you are going to sound odd. "Which train go Tokyo?" "I want eat chicken"

I would like to start learning Japanese for business and personal reasons. My fiancee and I have been vacationing here for the past two weeks, and it's been an incredible time! Thanks for the resources in the OP! I will also give a scan through the thread for further help with Japanese. If you have any particular apps or programs I could use that aren't regularly covered in this thread, I would appreciate any advice you could offer! Thanks!

[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;51545825]I would like to start learning Japanese for business and personal reasons. My fiancee and I have been vacationing here for the past two weeks, and it's been an incredible time! Thanks for the resources in the OP! I will also give a scan through the thread for further help with Japanese. If you have any particular apps or programs I could use that aren't regularly covered in this thread, I would appreciate any advice you could offer! Thanks![/QUOTE] [URL="http://realkana.com/"]This[/URL] site helps a lot with remembering Hiragana and Katakana.