Foreign languages, anyone?

[nikewong]

personally, i think it's an advantage if you know more languages.. and if it is possible, you can try to translate good articles in other language into another one, this helps you to read the article word by word and better understanding, it also good for others who don't know the language for people who don't know the origininal text's language

[Mew]

I'm fluent in french (studied 5+ years), and I know some japanese (studied two years). Learning french was great since I now have a better understanding of the english language as well.. I can imediately understand words like "facilitate" (for example) without having ever seen them before.

[Magnus]

Wow, a lot of people like Japanese here it seems. I did the whole exchangestudent gig in 2002 (my last year of highschool). I learned a lot, not only the language but also about the culture. I went back and lived there for a time afterwards as well.

I would say that the best tip on learning a new language is to get yourself a girl-/boyfriend (whichever applies for you) and ask them to help you. This might not be a viable option if you already have one though.

I also read this book about memory (your memory by Kenneth L.Higbee) where the author briefly touches upon learning/remembering foreign phrases or words. By substituting words in the phrase with similar words in your own language, it's easier to remember.

Recently during a short trip to Iceland I tired this to learn a few phrases. Like "Orkestura flottur rass". I still don't know the correct spelling for this, but I remembered it by picking these words: Orkester, flott, (bacardi) razz. In Swedish (my native tongue) Orkester means Orchestra, flott means grease and bacardi razz is the same (a drink). Then I put this into a sentence like "Orkestern är flottig med Bacardi Razz" (The Orchestra is greasy with Bacardi Razz). It doesn't have to make any sense, in fact that is partly the idea. The more outrageous, the easier it will stick in your memory. So now I just work from that phrase backwards. Still remember it today, months afterwards.

What it meant? "You have a great ass". Sadly, I was recommended not to actually say this to any girls though. Wonder why...

[Magnus]

I almost forgot. A link for those of you who want to learn written Japanese. Try this recource http://www.japanese-kanji.com. A free online kanji vocab drilling java app. It's great!

Use this for translation of kanji that I don't know: Free Online Bidirectional English-Japanese Dictionary.

Minnasan, nihongo no benkyou ganbatte kudasai. Watashi mo ganbaranai to mou sugu hotondo wasureshimau.

[Waffle]

I am currently not learning any foreign languages.
As a Singaporean, I speak English, my mother tongue (Mandarin) and my dialect (Teochew).
I am interested in learning the Japanese, Korean, German, French languages and cultures.
I hope someday I would be able to land myself in these countries for some time to get to learn about them.

[Vinny]

I am currently learning Japanese, French and Itailain

[Joan Minguet]

I second your philosophy and I try to learn as many languages as I can too. At the moment I manage pretty fluently catalan, spanish, english and german. I'm improving my french and trying no to let english and german get too rusty .

[MichaelL]

I really regret not taking any languages throughout my time at high school. I never really thought about learning a language until recently. I figure French would be a good one since it is similar to a couple of languages (Spanish and ? - can't think of the others atm). I would also like to learn Japanese and Chinese (Which one is the 'better', or more widely used one, cantonese or mandarin?). What is the best way to go about learning a language, those cliche cassette tapes?

At the moment I speak English and very rudimentary levels of Maori (Second language of New Zealand)

[SenorKaffee]

German is my mother tongue, my english is also pretty good since I need it on my job and on the internet every single day. I work for a dutch company so I learned some dutch, enough to read and understand it, but enough to write or speak it. At school I also had latin, but forgot most of it.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by MichaelL

I figure French would be a good one since it is similar to a couple of languages (Spanish and ? - can't think of the others atm).

French is a latin language, so it's close to Spanis, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian (and latin of course, if you find any utility for it). But I think Spanish - Potuguese - Italian are closer to one another than French is to any of these 3 (Native speakers of these 3, please correct me if I am wrong)

What is the best way to go about learning a language, those cliche cassette tapes?

Surprinsingly they are a pretty good way to start, but it's much better if somebody can help you get started. This is how I started to learn English. After a while you need to get serious about the grammar, though.

[Zach]

Originally Posted by aelle

French is a latin language, so it's close to Spanis, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian (and latin of course, if you find any utility for it). But I think Spanish - Potuguese - Italian are closer to one another than French is to any of these 3 (Native speakers of these 3, please correct me if I am wrong)

No offense intended to anyone, but Portuguese and Italian sound to me like more informal forms of Spanish, but they extremely similar. Like the author of a book that I read said, "Portuguese sounds to me like Spanish that's been damaged on delivery."

[TechnoGuyRob]

I speak English (duh), Polish, and Dutch fluently, and I am learning Japanese. In the past, I have studied some French.

[Lotus]

In Latina, si placet?

Four years of sweet, sweet Latin. By proxy, I'm also semi-fluent in Spanish, French, Italian, and English... *cough*

All of my interest in languages stems from my obsession with etymology and semantics. Thus, I gravitate toward the old and dusty.

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur...

I also speak Signed English and some ASL.

[stalker]

Originally Posted by aelle

But I think Spanish - Potuguese - Italian are closer to one another than French is to any of these 3 (Native speakers of these 3, please correct me if I am wrong)

I am a native Romanian. I can say that Romanian and Italian are the closest to Latin and to each other. I can understand most written Italian and some spoken without having learned it at all. Spanish is also pretty close - I can understand a few things of it. French and Portugese are more far away, although knowing Romanian helped me a lot while learning French.

[JoaquinFox]

Hey all-

I thought I was doing something different by studying Japanese, but I guess I'm just like everyone else. I also speak Italian, French and I can fake my way through Spanish (maybe I know more Spanish than I think).

Anyway, wanted to ask how you Japanese students are doing with your Kanji? I really like James W. Heisig's book "Remembering the Kanji: A complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters". Anyone else using it? I got lazy with it after a while, but now that I'm currently visiting Japan I'm finding that I've maintained more than I thought.

[Light]

Originally Posted by JoaquinFox

I thought I was doing something different by studying Japanese, but I guess I'm just like everyone else.

A lot of people try, but few succeed. Try to be one of those who do!

I wish I could visit Japan, I'm sure that's extremely helpful in the learning process.

[Margot Stepien]

I love learning languages!!!
I speak fluently Polish (my mother tongue), English and German.
I can make a conversation in Spanish and Russian.
And I can speak some French and understand Czech and Slovak (since they are quite similar to Polish).

My next steps:
1. Bring my Spanish to fluency within 1-2 years
2. Bring my French to conversational level within 1-2 years

After completing these 2 steps I will start to polish my Russian.

[thomasinalhama.com]

I speak

1) English
2) Cebuano & Pilipino
3) a bit of Thai & Vietnamese (very very basic)
4) and now INTENSELY studying Spanish

[Frans]

I agree with marieke.

The reason is simple: as nobody in the world understands Dutch, we are obliged to learn other languages

Here in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium), children learn at least 3 languages: Dutch, French and English and most people speak or understand German.

[ahimel]

Originally Posted by Pavel Alasheev

And actually i don't see the point in learning many languages. It's a huge time investment and what do you get in the output?

I haven't been able to classify the advantages, and I have to admit the possibility that I'm just a nutcase. But the majority of bilingual people agree with me:

The vast majority of people who speak two or more langauges, when asked, "If you could only speak one language for the rest of your life, would you feel restricted or deprived?" answered with a resounding YES.

[GenkiRichard]

Does have anyone have any good links or resources for learning Korean? Preferably something I can put on my ipod.

Ideally something like the excellent chinesepod.com would be cool!

Thanks,

Richard

[Vektor]

Finnish: mothertongue
English: pretty good
Swedish: pretty bad but eager to learn more
at least German, Russian would be nice to learn too.

[Scott B]

I took four straight years of French but given my discomfort with the American educational system, I became apathetic. It's almost impossible to learn it in our schools. I didn't go to college for several reasons (to date I wish I had) so I never gave myself the chance to learn. I'm not that great with French and have interest in Russian, Dutch, Spanish, and Mandarin, all of which I've attempted. By the way, to that one fellow, I'd love to learn Russian.

[Valeria]

Hi...I'm American...speak German and French. Lived/studied in Germany and Switzerland (Geneva)...now planning to get a tutor for Icelandic, because my goal is to be conversational by June. After that, Danish.

I can read basic newspapers in Dutch, but can't speak it at all. Took a couple of classes in Russian, but I only remember the alphabet.

i'd love to learn Swiss German as well...and some French Creole, not particular about which one...whether Haiti or Martinique...any one is fine.

My daughter wants to learn Japanese, so I've got to figure out how to work that in. And my son is kind of interested in Latin.

But for now I'm only fluent in 3.

- v

[Mnemosyne]

Has anyone heard the Lakhota language spoken? I can't say that I've heard a lot of other (non-English) languages spoken, but of all the languages that I've heard, Lakhota sounds the most beautiful. I tried studying it when I was younger and would love to be able to speak it fluently, it truly is a beautiful sounding language.

I took 4 years of Latin in high school, and all I have to show for it is "Duo Romani puellae, nomine Aurelia et Flavia, sedent sub arbore et cantant." Actually, by taking Lating I leared a lot about English, not just interesting derivitives, but the structure of the English language and how it differs from other languages (such as Latin).

In the past I've dabbled in Greek, Russian, and Italian; and I think Middle Eastern languages would be interesting to learn.

I would really (!) like to learn Czech since a big branch of my family tree originates from Prague.

[kat]

Greetings from another language nut

I speak English natively, Italian reasonably but imperfectly, enough Esperanto to get myself into trouble (or at least chat online), and little chunks of other languages (German and French at a "survival" level - I can glance through a newspaper, order food, ask for directions, and so forth, but a conversation beyond the very simple is still beyond me), very rusty minimal Japanese, and tiny bits of Swedish, Danish, and Dutch, as well as a decent understanding of Spanish via Italian.)

I'd like to pick up Arabic, Russian, and (Mandarin) Chinese - at a minimim, a passive understanding would be nice.

Right now, I'm playing around with the FSI courses (public domain language courses made by the American government - some people are kindly digitizing them), which are at FSI Language Courses
I haven't done much with that yet, but it seems to have improved my German accent a bit at least.

[Valeria]

Wow. I feel right at home.

Thanks for the FSI link -- I think I'll use it to help my daughter with her Spanish classes!

- v

[Phi]

Hmmm, guess I can't compete with the people in the this thread. Only Danish, English and a very small amount of French and German.

Why do you study all those languages? Do you need them because your live in foreign countries, travel a lot or is it just for fun?

[Valeria]

Originally Posted by Phi

Hmmm, guess I can't compete with the people in the this thread. Only Danish, English and a very small amount of French and German.

Why do you study all those languages? Do you need them because your live in foreign countries, travel a lot or is it just for fun?

Now, I'm American, which means I have to work a little harder to learn languages than some others, for example, whose proximity to other countries makes immersion easy.

But for me, anyway, there's nothing better than learning another language, another way of thinking. Learning another language is like tapping into a new set of friends.

Other than that, I don't know. I think I'm just wired to learn them, and to love to travel. I'm not happy when I'm living the monolingual life.

It's not natural.

- v

[kat]

Originally Posted by Phi

Hmmm, guess I can't compete with the people in the this thread. Only Danish, English and a very small amount of French and German.

Why do you study all those languages? Do you need them because your live in foreign countries, travel a lot or is it just for fun?

It's not a competition

I study languages for a few reasons - they boil down to geography and curiosity. I was born in the English-speaking part of Canada, but have been living in Switzerland for over a third of my life, and Switzerland has 3 official languages (or 4 if you count Romansh) - French, Italian, and German.

I started picking up Esperanto when I was minorly ill for a week once and found that I could chat online using a dictionary in it after a few days - at that point, I only spoke English and really terrible Italian, so that was really cool for me (I could understand a fair amount of Esperanto in written form before I ever studied it, due to shared vocabulary with English/French/Italian, all of which I could read to various degrees - nowhere near fluently in the latter two cases). I haven't studied Esperanto as much as I'd like to, and I'm still far from fluent, but how quickly I could manage basic conversations was an "oh wow" moment for me, after several years of very frustrating language study with extremely low marks in school (after 3 years of French in elementary school in Canada, I couldn't conjugate avoir, one of the most basic verbs, meaning "to have", in the present tense, and my first 3 years of Italian study were barely better, which was all-the-more frustrating as foreign languages were the only topic I'd had anywhere near that degree of trouble with).

I intermittantly study Japanese for several reasons: it's a non-Indo-European language, with totally different root words and a different style of grammar from anything else I know, the writing system interests me, and if I ever become proficient in it, I'll be able to see more of a distinct culture with a long historical tradition which isn't the one(s) I was raised in. And I like Anime

With other languages, like Swedish and Dutch (and to a tiny, tiny degree, Danish) I've dabbled a little - ie, read some web pages on the grammar, looked at wikipedia in them and tried to read a few articles, and chatted a little bit online with patient friends who were more than happy to teach me a little bit of their native languages (I've found speakers of all 3 languages to be extremely friendly when I try to pick up even a few words, which is neat).

I've travelled a bit; I picked up a few phrases in Arabic when I was in Morocco for a while, but not a significant amount, and I've forgotten nearly all of it, unfortunately.

The above also reflects my philosophy/style of learning: I like to dabble in a million things. I'm a computer science student, and I suppose I got interested in natural languages through computer ones, as I dabbled in everything from Smalltalk to Haskell and learned more about different ways of thinking and framing questions and thoughts. It's not a very guided way to learn, and it doesn't lead to quick competence, but I find it enjoyable, and it seems to work well for me over long time periods.
I've been more than mildly interested in human languages for less than 3 years, so given my approach, I'm still fluent only in English, although my Italian is coming along reasonably (I write it quite poorly, but can read it fairly well, and hold conversations, though quick group ones with lots of slang or dialect can still lose me.)

Long live fun.