LANGUAGES!

You probably know this, but the NHK puts out a Japanese-language news podcast that's moderately interesting, imo. I appreciate the autodownloading onto my computer. I'm shamefully out of practice with languages, though; I think I lost my sperging about them.

 

I don't know much of any language outside of English, but I love the shit outta English. Linguistics, history, all of it.

I know bits and pieces of Japanese and Latin and I want to learn basically everything, though.

 

I've been learning Japanese since I was 12 and I'm now doing it at an advanced level at uni, buuuut I would not say that I am fluent. I can hold a decent conversation on mundane things, but I couldn't read a newspaper without a kanji dictionary, and my vocab kinda sucks.

I'm currently learning Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and it's a lot of fun! But I'm only a beginner, so I would be able to awkwardly sign at someone for a little bit before we'd have to revert to writing or typing.

Aah, I have this problem too! My grammar is great, but I think I rely on dictionaries too much for my vocab.

 

I speak english and I'm trying to learn spanish right now. It's pretty fun :D

I'm only using duolingo right now and I'm not super far into it, but I can say "I [cook/eat/see] [a/the] [various foods/animals]" with a good amount of confidence!

 

I can only speak English, despite taking 3 years of Spanish in high school (and somehow passing with an A each time???) and living in Okinawa for 2 years due to having a military dad.

I feel I didn't retain or really get into Spanish/Japanese because I'm too much of ADHD kid... but one of these days, I want to learn German and Tagalog, since my grandma speaks the latter.

 

I started teaching English to myself when I was about... thirteen or fourteen, I think? Motivated by how painfully slowly my favourite shows were getting subbed into my native language. English subs were much faster, better quality, and didn't "adapt" jokes, which is my huge pet peeve about translating. I started surrounding myself with the language however I could; installing software in English, playing games, watching subs and trying to read books with a dictionary, looking up vocabulary about subjects that interested me. I learned grammar via pattern recognition, basically, which lead to frustrating situations in school (I don't know why this sentence is supposed to be this way, it just IS, stop asking me) Six years later, what I have the biggest problem with is speaking, as I never had much opportunity to practice it.

Due to my interests, I'm trying to attempt the same feat with Japanese, but it's diificult, and what I managed to pick up is very inconsistent. Recently, I translated a whole song, and sometimes I can understand the gist of a show I watch without subtitles, but most of the time I only understand random phrases. I get really excited when I manage to figure out some random grammar rule, though. For the example, I recently realized that "no" doesnt' always denote possesion, but can also denote a defining characteristic! *o*

 

i don't know anything about japanese, so i'm kind of guessing here: do you mean that "no" can be used kind of like english "of", in that it can be used both to say "the toy of the cat" (a thing that belongs to the cat) and "the speed of the cat" (a thing that describes the cat)? or am i completely off?

 

Butting into the conversation to tell you that yes, that is exactly it! "no" indicates both possession and qualities of a thing. I think of it being like, the quality of something also belongs to it, which is why "no" makes sense, I guess? So the cat's speed also belongs to the cat, as does the toy.

 

i speak german and english, and, theoretically, a little bit of french after 5 years of french classes in school. as in, i can and understand simple texts.
(i do not like the language, but thats a personal thing)

theres a lot of languages i want to learn, and i want to see if i can get into a language class next semester.
(languages on my list: finnish, turkish, norwegian, swedish, danish, dutch, arabic, klingon, irish)

 

See, I think this way too... and then I try to tackle something like German where there are way too many verb tenses for a newbie to keep straight. (Or, y'know, entirely different writing systems. Cyrillic was easier than Mandarin, but still took some doing to remember, and I still leave letters out if I try to go through the entire Russian alphabet.)

...Maybe I should pick one language instead of trying to learn three at once. That might help. (But they're all so interesting, why can't I teach myself Russian and Italian and German and Finnish and--)

 

I want to learn Japanese so I can read Japanese railroad magazines, because they're the most beautiful ones in the world. Seriously. The photography is exquisite, as is the production. I've made attempts and then lifeshit happened and I didn't have the time anymore.

 

i was given a link to a really neat website recently: lexicity, which is a collection of resources on learning ancient/dead languages. i feel like this thread would enjoy it.

 

Yo hablo español un poquito. Estudiaba para cuatro años y durante esto año pasado y esto trimestre en mi universidad.

Spoiler: translation

I speak very little Spanish. I was studying for four years and during this past year and this quarter at my university.

I also speak, read and write fluently in English. I can read Spanish better than speak it though. Unfortunately all of my Spanish learning is academic and not through the family line despite being Puerto Rican. I have a fascination with languages and their relationships with other languages and the effects of language on the brain and perception of reality.

 

Hispanohiblantes, ¿gustaríais otro hilo? Estoy desesperado por practica y Duolingo no es util por mio.

Spoiler: Translation in case I got it wrong

Spanish speakers, would you like another thread? I'm desperate for practice and Duolingo isn't cutting it.

 

Languages I speak: Polish, English and Russian. BONUS: some basic French I remembered from elementary school. Oh, and I also know how to say "car wash" in Danish!
What I'd like to learn: Sign Language (I kind of want to learn American Sign Language because a friend of mine can "speak" it, but Polish dialect would be more useful for me... MAYBE BOTH?), German, Ukrainian, Finnish.

Also, a fun fact: I live in the city L. L. Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, was born in :D