Language learners thread

[Synz]

Search turned nothing up and since this forum is somewhat of a multicultural gathering point, it doesn't make sense not to have a thread like this. Learning foreign languages has so many benefits, both professionally and personally, that I figured this would be the perfect place to find others like me

I personally love language and how it defines us and affects our lives. Of course, other languages are also very helpful when it comes to communicating with the giant portion of the planet who don't speak English.

This thread is about helping yourself and others take your language skills to a new level, or maybe just inspiration to get started. If you have a question, suggestion, tip, or just want to discuss languages and learning, post about it here!

Currently my focus is on learning Russian, with French and German on the backburner. Eventually I'd like to tackle a bunch more but I'm trying to keep focused on my main goal until I'm satisfied with my conversational skills in the language.

I'd love to hear from others about their language projects and goals. If you have something interesting to say on the topic of language that isn't necessarily about learning (for instance I read this really cool book about idioms and the like from around the world the other day) you're more than welcome to post your thoughts here too

 

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[H. Palmer]

Dobre Denya.

I am native in Dutch and semi-native in American English.
Becoming fluent in German.
Conversational level in French and understand a bit of Spanish and Swedish.

These days I mainly use Youtube to get more fluent in any given language.
I sit working or playing or doing anything and have a Youtube clip running on my headphone with an interview or an audiobook.

It's a matter of how many hours you put into it.

 

[FionaS]

I love languages. My first business was all about them.

I speak Dutch and English fluently, conversational in Russian and Spanish, beginner in German. Used to dabble in a lot more languages (I've studied everything from Chinese, to Irish, to Latin, to Manx, to Esperanto), but once the kids were born I had to focus my priorities a bit.

My most visited forum, other than TMF , is a language forum, and I'm trying to learn more about them all the time.

I am actually currently putting together my next '12 week year' (a la The 12 Week Year), and language is, as always, a big part of that. Hoping to improve my skills quite a bit these next 12 weeks. It's hard to balance with business, though, especially if you try to stay immersed in a language 24/7, which is what my ideal language-learning environment would be.

 

[Mattie]

I've been in the Netherlands for a year. This year I will be starting to learn Dutch. I don't think it's very easy though by sound because I listen to it all the time. Not to mention they have their dialects all over the country. I know it will have a lot to do with my business going back and forth between the U.S. and Netherlands.

 

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[MakeItCount]

Over the past 2 years I've learned some spanish, polish and german in addition to french & irish which I've had since school.

The most helpful resources I've come across to date are the Duolingo app and the Michel Thomas' audio books (the spanish and german versions are top class).
If you're learning a language, I highly recommend getting an audiobook as you can be listening & practicing anywhere.

 

[Synz]

I love the Michel Thomas courses. I think the assimil courses are pretty good so far but I haven't finished one yet so can't say for certain.

I think a combination of those 2 plus native input is pretty much the best start to a language you can have

 

[ArthurDayne]

I learned fluent Mandarin over the course of about 5 years, a few of which were spent going to university in China and taking mandarin-only courses. Definitely my proudest achievement, and it led to my career here in Hong Kong. Languages are certainly a life-changer.

 

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[MakeItCount]

No language courses can compare with being thrown into the deep end !
I started learning spanish whilst working in spain in a hostel where my coworkers had no english, so your forced to improve fast.

If you want to learn a language fast, get a job at a hostel in the country itself and immerse yourself everyday in the language.

 

[H. Palmer]

I've been in the Netherlands for a year. This year I will be starting to learn Dutch. I don't think it's very easy though by sound because I listen to it all the time. Not to mention they have their dialects all over the country. I know it will have a lot to do with my business going back and forth between the U.S. and Netherlands.

Well, Limburgian is considered almost a language of its own, LOL.

Might I ask what your business is?

 

[maniek00000]

If you want to learn a language fast, get a job at a hostel in the country itself and immerse yourself everyday in the language.

Yeap, agree. One year ago I went to London, no English, no friends. Got a job in a construction, spent a lot of money for beers with English speaking friends (after few beers, I tried say something ). After 5 months started work in a 5 stars hotel to deal with VIP guests. I am not fluent yet but can read books, watch films and speak easly.

 

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[Mattie]

Dutch is a little more challenging than English just for the fact they switch dialects. Like he said above it's different just by a small area. I've witnessed this already. lol Not to mention I'm on the border of Germany and Belgium. So they'll start talking Dutch and for some reason we laugh because they start speaking German and don't know either language. So this is my priority to learn all three and maybe French. One at a time of course.

 

[FionaS]

I feel like living in Europe, it is so useful to know at least German, Dutch, French and English. Even growing up in the very middle of the Netherlands as a kid, I had friends that spoke a variety of languages, and had to be able to communicate with them and their parents in all of those languages, to some extent. I've lost a lot of those skills (other than Dutch and English) once we moved, though, so it'd be great to get it back.

I think next time we visit Europe, I'll make an argument to spend a week in each France and Germany... immersion is really the best way to learn.

 

[Mattie]

I absolutely love it here! Very beautiful! I like the European flavor. lol

 

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[Ajay2390]

Just came back from Cuba...I was using Duolingo app prior because I barely knew any Spanish, its very helpful. But there's nothing better than getting thrown into the deep end. I was literally forced to pick up the lingo. Now I love the language and I continue to learn daily. I do have trouble when the reply from somebody is spoken too fast. I lose complete focus and catch on to a word or two. I will practice more Great Thread!

 

[stranger]

Russian is my native language. My 2nd one is Ukrainian. My English isn't perfect, but I work on it.

 

[Forza Maggiore]

I learned Spanish in a year, in Pennsylvania, US, of all places, just by speaking to people in Spanish regularly. Submerse yourself in any language you want to learn, and when you give yourself no choice but to speak that language and mainly nothing else, you learn very quickly.

I'm now trying to do that with my 4th & 5th...Italian & French. Unfortunately, it's more difficult because there's less of a population for that here. It's my firm belief that you don't necessarily have to move there to learn it, it's just easier that way.

 

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[FionaS]

I learned Spanish in a year, in Pennsylvania, US, of all places, just by speaking to people in Spanish regularly. Submerse yourself in any language you want to learn, and when you give yourself no choice but to speak that language and mainly nothing else, you learn very quickly.

I'm now trying to do that with my 4th & 5th...Italian & French. Unfortunately, it's more difficult because there's less of a population for that here. It's my firm belief that you don't necessarily have to move there to learn it, it's just easier that way.

With the internet, it's getting easier and easier too. I have a ton of 'language partners' on Skype that I chat in... 30 min or so in my target language, and then 30 min or so in English. Works great.

 

[SarahSH]

I majored in Russian and Spanish in college. I lived in Germany for 4 years. Learning languages is great and I think it is definitely a worthwhile skill to have if you are into business because it widens your horizons and potential markets. I saw this video from a TEDx talk about language learning process
Lignan U Tedx talk

From my experience, I think this gentleman is spot on in regard to his process. When I lived in Germany, I unknowingly applied his techniques - really just a method of immersing yourself and modeling or imitating others. If you have someone who will regularly converse with you in your new language of choice, you can easily learn to speak.

The thing that trips me up the most in learning a new language is just being able to hear the different sounds unique to the language and the breaks between different words. To get past this in German, I watched a lot of German tv and listened to a german language tape to get the basics.

I then began talking to just about anyone who would converse with me...from the people on the city bus to the waitress at a restaurant or someone selling potatos in the marktplatz. Throwing aside all inhibitions, I used the words I did know with confidence from tv and the audiotape and combined those with hand motions and some made up words (ie English words with a german accent and german prefix or suffix) Usually I would be corrected and taught a new/proper word for what I meant. I also probably sounded like a caveman to those I communicated with but you can easily get your point across this way and it is pretty affirming when you finally are able to communicate with people.

 

[tafy]

Ok great stories from everyone here and I would love to speak some languages but I am a total left brainer

Was 2 years in Thailand and left knowing like 50 words and probably couldnt say them correctly because I am tone deaf

Pretty shit eh, In Thailand they are a tonal language which was a new concept to me too!

Basically every word can be said in 5 different tones and can mean 5 different things, when you are tone deaf like me it means its super impossible to learn anything

Example: Chob Kee Maa (can mean many different things depends what tone you say it)
1. I Like to ride a horse
2. I like to eat dog shit
3. I like to eat horse
4. I like to ride dog
etc

 

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[DeletedUser394]

I'm going to bump this thread, because I'm running out of time to add a language to my upcoming academic year.

I have the following options;

Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian.

Going through them;

I've eliminated Greek because of such a small geographic area where it would be useful.. beautiful country but shit economy, etc.

Spanish and Italian are out because I already speak a romance language (French) so those are easy enough if and when I wanted to learn them on my own.

German isn't really that useful as most Germans, especially the younger generation speak english. Not sure about Austria/Switzerland, but I can communicate with the french part of Switzerland which is good enough for me haha. Also I don't find the language phonetically appealing/attractive.

Japanese is full so that's out.

That leaves me with Russian and Mandarin. Likely to learn both eventually. From an economic perspective there are 3x-4x more Mandarin speakers than Russian. Not to mention all the interesting things transpiring in Russia at the moment.. China is set to become the world's largest economy eventually, so Mandarin seems like the best bet... Plus from a cultural perspective, I, being a white guy in Canada, don't know any fellow white dudes that can speak Mandarin, but I know a handful of guys in my demographic that can speak Russian. Mandarin could give me an edge.

Plus from a geographic point of view, it's much easier for me to get to various cities in China than it is to get anywhere in Russia other than Moscow.

@ArthurDayne

I'm leaning towards Mandarin so I'm wondering of those that can speak it, what was your experience learning? Can you read a lot of characters?

I've been watching quite a few online vids, and I actually find the tones quite interesting.

It's a shame that Hong Kong is primarily Cantonese, but as I understand it there are various other dialects on the mainland but most are more or less compatible with each other.

Cheers

 

[Mattie]

The purpose of Language would be for business opportunity? Would depend on where you plan on operating business. Do you already have this planned? I know in the United States they recommend Spanish for business purposes. It is true most of European's learn English, but frankly from what I experience is they don't know it all that well, unless they took it seriously.

They understand to a certain extent yes, but have a hard time talking to me at times and asking others for words. lol So yes and no, they know English, but learn also British English. As I picked up the Dutch/British. So it's up to you on that one. German's same thing since I go there a lot. When I go to restaurants they don't have a clue what I'm saying and they usually are younger. I have to have other's order my food, and when you talk to a German cashier, they don't know English either. So I'm not sure if everyone takes is seriously to learn, or if they keep it up Online. If you don't use it, you will lose some of it.

The other one's I'm not sure about.

Really, If you know where you will be and do a lot of business should be your target areas.

 

[DeletedUser394]

It's more so for cultural purposes.

95% of my business interests are, and for at least the foreseeable future will be, in Canada. I've got English and French covered already.

German is definitely out. No real interest in Germany or Austria. Switzerland yes, but sticking to Geneva is fine for me.

I will definitely be learning Spanish, but I can teach myself the language so that's not a problem.

The one knock on Chinese is that it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to read novels than it would be in Russian.

 

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[H. Palmer]

I'm going to bump this thread, because I'm running out of time to add a language to my upcoming academic year.

I have the following options;

Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Russian.

Going through them;

I've eliminated Greek because of such a small geographic area where it would be useful.. beautiful country but shit economy, etc.

Spanish and Italian are out because I already speak a romance language (French) so those are easy enough if and when I wanted to learn them on my own.

German isn't really that useful as most Germans, especially the younger generation speak english. Not sure about Austria/Switzerland, but I can communicate with the french part of Switzerland which is good enough for me haha. Also I don't find the language phonetically appealing/attractive.

Japanese is full so that's out.

That leaves me with Russian and Mandarin. Likely to learn both eventually. From an economic perspective there are 3x-4x more Mandarin speakers than Russian. Not to mention all the interesting things transpiring in Russia at the moment.. China is set to become the world's largest economy eventually, so Mandarin seems like the best bet... Plus from a cultural perspective, I, being a white guy in Canada, don't know any fellow white dudes that can speak Mandarin, but I know a handful of guys in my demographic that can speak Russian. Mandarin could give me an edge.

Plus from a geographic point of view, it's much easier for me to get to various cities in China than it is to get anywhere in Russia other than Moscow.

@ArthurDayne

I'm leaning towards Mandarin so I'm wondering of those that can speak it, what was your experience learning? Can you read a lot of characters?

I've been watching quite a few online vids, and I actually find the tones quite interesting.

It's a shame that Hong Kong is primarily Cantonese, but as I understand it there are various other dialects on the mainland but most are more or less compatible with each other.

Cheers

Living in the Netherlands, I roughly have to second what Mattie says.

First off, as someone with a working understanding of French since age 16, take it from me, mastering French to a certain extent will not be sufficient to understand Spanish or Italian, let alone speak these languages. You will have to study them for a number of years to reach working proficiency.

Germans speak English? Give me a break. The average German can't find his own behind with his 2 hands in the English language. No, neither does the younger generation. The "younger generation Germans speak English" thing is a perpetual myth that is recycled constantly. It's not true. Most young Germans' English vocabulary is hardly a few hundred words. Understanding two sentences after another is out of their reach.

Germans speak German, think German, hear and read only German in all their media. They don't even use subtitles for English language movies, they let a German speak the words in German. They have never heard the voice of people like George Clooney, they think he is a German.

If you want to deal with Germans, you have no other option than learning German.

 

[DeletedUser394]

Strange, I've been to Frankfurt on multiple occasions. Never had an issue with english. Half spoke better than I do.

French is my native language, and I can already passably converse in Spanish. I've noticed a massive overlap of french and spanish words, as well as sentence structure and the general usage of the languages.

I'll say it again, I have no interest in Germany or Austria, rendering German useless to me, so whether or not they can speak english (as has been my experience, they can) makes no difference.

Maybe I wasn't clear but I will be taking formal lessons in a foreign language, so I'm trying to choose one that is typically more difficult out of the one's that I eventually want to take.

You can not tell me that Spanish is anywhere near the level of difficulty of Russian or Mandarin for a native speaker of a romance language, which is the whole point. This is about opportunity cost. I can't take them all now, so I'm going with one of the more difficult ones which would be harder for me to learn at a later date on my own, outside of a classroom setting.

 

[H. Palmer]

Strange, I've been to Frankfurt on multiple occasions. Never had an issue with english. Half spoke better than I do.

If by Frankfurt you mean the financial district, yes, there is an enclave of Germans that have mastered English to a serious level.

Excuse me for not understanding you are a native French speaker. In that case Spanish must not be a huge undertaking for you.

 

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[chrischapman]

I am very biased: you should learn Spanish.

You're half right about the romance language point. Sure, French and Spanish are both romance languages but you'll find that French is a little more different than you think.

On the other hand, if you said you knew Italian or Portuguese, I would agree with you that you could pick them up super easily - like crazyyy easy. I know Spanish and can read Italian and Portuguese with good comprehension. I can't do it with French and I studied French for 5 years (waste of 5 years - I don't know French very well at all). But yeah, French/English will make it easier.

Also South Americans are very cool and nice and wonderful. Also, you should come chill with me in South America when you learn Spanish.

I will definitely be learning Spanish, but I can teach myself the language so that's not a problem.

Yep. If you know French and English then Spanish is a breeze. Unfortunately the payoff in ease of learning is mostly regarding later vocabulary and not SO much with starting vocabulary and the more common words.

I learned fluent Mandarin over the course of about 5 years, a few of which were spent going to university in China and taking mandarin-only courses. Definitely my proudest achievement, and it led to my career here in Hong Kong. Languages are certainly a life-changer.

Nice. Mandarin is ridiculously hard compared to learning languages like English.

Learning Mandarin is an damn awesome achievement to be proud of, I'm impressed.

Learning Spanish/French/Italian and maybe German is a cool skill imho.

 

[DeletedUser394]

If by Frankfurt you mean the financial district, yes, there is an enclave of Germans that have mastered English to a serious level.

Yeah pretty much this. ok, so that makes sense. I use Frankfurt mostly as a stopover so I'm not immersed in Germany or anything.

 

[DeletedUser394]

I'm not trying to discount how difficult learning any language is. I'm just pointing out that for a Westerner, a language like Spanish is far easier in relation to an eastern language. This is essentially a fact... bad choice of word, so maybe a 'generally accepted principle' works better.

You can reasonably expect to have a functioning understanding of a language like spanish if you study mostly on your own and put in enough hours and dedication.

For example I can already say random sentences in Spanish, I can ask for directions, conjugate basic verbs, know the months, days, numbers, etc. I haven't put much time into the language, but the words are similar enough that it makes it easy to remember even if I haven't looked at it in a couple of years at this point.

The same can't be said for languages like Russian and Chinese (for an English speaker.. or even any Latin based language). It can be done sure, but it's going to be insanely difficult.

So, having the opportunity to take university level courses in one of those three languages, it would be a shame to spend it on Spanish all things considered. I do intend to continue with that language eventually.

I'm looking forward to @ArthurDayne 's input on Mandarin. The one knock on it as I can tell is the sheer difficulty of being able to read it. Russian wins in that regard.. sure you have to learn a new alphabet, but it's easier than the thousands of Simplified Chinese characters.

Problem is, most Chinese expats speak Cantonese.. not sure how useful Mandarin outside of China would be.

 

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[chrischapman]

a language like Spanish is far easier

yeah it is almost nothing compared to learning something like Arabic or Chinese. the common basis of vocab and sentence structure makes it crazy easy

So, having the opportunity to take university level courses in one of those three languages, it would be a shame to spend it on Spanish all things considered.

i didnt know you would be spending money on a language course at uni. no way would u spend it on an easy language. ur right

 

[DeletedUser394]

Currently my focus is on learning Russian

Still learning Russian? How do you find Cyrillic?