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No. 569095
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>>569079Yay, I've wanted to see a thread about language learning for a while. Thank you OP.
I just recently (like a week ago) started learning Arabic and, oh boy, the alphabet is so complicated. My native language is Hebrew so I thought nothing could be worse than having no vowels but having multiple versions of the same letter based on location in the word really gets confusing. Hopefully after the lockdown completely ends I can find some classes and it'll be easier than learning on my own.
Oh, also, I'd really love a language learning buddy, not necessarily someone who is also learning Arabic but just someone that can I can talk about study tips and hold each other accountable in case we slack off or something like that.
No. 569104
>declensionsI'm
triggered anon, I'll never forget how my german teachers never taught me this but expected me to know them because everytime they taught it at school I had appointments at the doctor's. Don't get me started on the useless latin classes. I should have picked up spanish classes in middle school, and I'm considering starting learning it on duolingo or a similar app for fun. Maybe I should pick up german again as well and learn it at my own pace this time.
>>569095>I just recently (like a week ago) started learning Arabic and, oh boy, the alphabet is so complicated.My mother's first language is Arabic, but it's a specific dialect not from the middle east at all. She told me that learning the actual standard Arabic at school was hell on earth. Good luck anon.
No. 569119
>>569111Kek, I had a latin professor who gave absolutely no fuck at all.
Taking latin was supposed to be an "elite" thing to do but all versions were graded by peer review, which meant just handing it to your class neighbor and winking so he would give you all the points and doing the same for him.
It was an absolute shit show.
No. 569120
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I spent 2 years learning Spanish at school and the only things I know today are insults, a few words here and there, how to greet people and tell them my name, and the infamous "en mi habitacion es una cama"
No. 569122
>>569119Lol, I get the feeling nobody got anything out of learning latin. I only took it because my dumbass 6th grade self hated french and I had to live with that decision all highschool long. I could have gotten at least something useful out of it but no. I could go on such a rant right now.
>>569120I love this gif, its so cute
No. 569123
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>>569079Unless you live in the big cities learning multiple languages here is a necessity
No. 569129
>>569104I studied declensions in Latin for a year and wanted to study German because I was into German rock for a bit in middle school…gave up on that real quick because I suck at grammar lmao.
>>569108If studying on your own is a challenge rn, and you can actually drag yourself to night classes in the cold, then go for it! I gave up on Korean night classes because the previous teacher fucked up so we had to learn 80 words per week, and guess what the 6 grammar points meant…then somehow focus at 8pm after classes. I couldn’t do it lmao.
>>569125try to self study and maybe find communities for fellow spanish learners? finding the happy medium between discipline and fun will help with self study. Personnally it took me a few attempts but I think I got it down for my personal goals. Good luck!!
No. 569169
>>569079Time to felx, of this map
>>569123I can speak Punjabi, Seraiiki, Urdu, English and Pashto
No. 569173
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>>569163Fuck latin and fuck ancient greek.
No. 569306
>>569126never heard of that before but it looks interesting, thanks anon
>>569129yeah i found a few, even some meme pages lol, also been watching some spanish lifestyle youtubers (at 0.75 speed lmao why do they talk so damn fast) and it's great practice and fun at the same time. Thanks anon!
No. 569348
God in the last few days I’ve basically reinvented myself as a studyblr/langblr girl, I’ve ordered fancy notebooks, pens, highlighters… I’m enrolling on an intensive language learning course soon (daily 9-5 + homework in the evenings) because I’ve been trying to self-teach for years but I really lack discipline. I’m looking forward to it!
>>569285Sut mae anon, I’m learning welsh too! Tsk tsk, you shouldn’t call it a dead language though when there’s such a vibrant music and arts scene! I’ve gone to a lot of gigs in big venues where the crowd all speak cymraeg, not to mention all the english celebs who’ve started learning recently.
What made you want to learn welsh?
No. 569419
>>569401Sounds like you need proper immersion to improve. At a certain point you probably can't progress much without being surrounded by other people speaking Russian, or at least consuming Russian content constantly.
On that note I took Russian classes for like 6 months and studied a bit longer than that, and goddamn it is hard as balls even at the very beginner level lmao. The words are so long, cases are incomprehensible, pronunciation can be hard… I found it so fun to speak though, I'd love to learn it for real but I just don't have the energy after trying and failing with Japanese for so long (which I consider way easier to learn, esp because I get so much more exposure to it through pop culture).
No. 569437
>>569419 Yeah I’ve been watching Russian YouTube for about 2 years now, but I’ve reached a peak in what I can passively absorb I think.
I can’t imagine learning Russian as a adult, it honestly seems impossible to get fully native based on YouTube videos Ive seen.
No. 569524
>>569520my mom started studying french grammar through textbooks because she never learned it formally and was tired of making obvious mistakes when writing. whenever she’d explain grammar points to me i’d be so confused even though i barely make any of those mistakes myself. i hope you can find joy in learning that hell language eventually!
(also idk if this will work for you but to me the french R is like a soft spitting sound. y’know the gross sound people make in the back of their throat before spitting? that but really soft)
No. 569583
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How do I learn Urdu when the only language I know is English? I sorta know how words would be pronounced when I read them, but I have no clue what they mean, don't understand the grammar and I struggle to retain the meaning of words
No. 569605
>>569583Why do you even wanna learn urdu anon? I guess the poetry is nice.
Hindi and Urdu has pretty similiar grammar and Hindi is more known so some of it's resources can help with Urdu too? Because I really haven't seen a lot of resources online for learning Urdu. Best would be to consume Urdu media and talk to some people who know the language. Judging from what you said you barely know the language so it would be a lot of effort because the structure of the sentences is totally different for example the subject and object come before the verb. Like,
I love you. (S-V-O)
میں آپ سے پیار کرتی ہوں۔. (S-O-V)
which is just one thing.
Good luck though anon!
No. 569631
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scairt amach to the other gaeilgeoir anon I was chatting with a while back.
No. 569661
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Are there any good apps to re-learn Russian for someone that has forgotten it? I used to speak it fluently as a child but since then I've actively refused to use it out of sheer spite and now I've forgotten most of it apart from a few phrases and words. I never learned to read in it either since I wasn't raised in Russia.
No. 569665
>>569661maybe just go through normal textbooks to learn russian? it may be boring at first since you could remember some grammar and words but since you don't know cyrillic you could use some practice reading. sometimes you also have to take the L and realize you forgot more than you care to admit.
this post was written by the I Forgot My Immigrant Parents' Language Gang. :(
No. 569686
>>569661Check out
https://www.reddit.com/r/russian/wiki/full_course !
Personally, I used Duolingo to start out with learning my target language, although a lot of people say that it's not very effective. I think it's fun though and pretty good to start out and learn the basics. It's usually recommend to start listening and reading stuff in your target language early, even if you don't understand a lot at first.
Look for resources for Russian beginners. It's good to have a vocabulary app like Anki to note down words you don't know and try to practice a bit everyday. Find ways to incorporate learning Russian into your daily routine in a fun way (like tv shows or music), so you don't get burnt out. You can also find a penpal (HelloTalk, interpals), get cheap Russian lessons (iTalki) or just talk to your Russian relatives of course.
>>569676Pronouncing parle is easy to me, maybe because in my native language we pronounce "R" the same way as the French do? A lot of French learners struggle with that letter (especially anglophones), maybe that's the issue and if so, try practicing the letter on its own, there are quite a few Youtube videos that help with that.
No. 569871
>>569079As a Korean speaker, it hurts to see people mispronounce Kim Jong Un's name incorrectly.
(Kim Jong Un's name is romanized in McCune-Reinshaur (The romanization system North Korea uses, South Korea once used it, but they abandoned it for Revised Romanization of Korean in 1999), so you pronounce the "U" in "Un" as the "oo" in "good".)
No. 569874
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>>569839>>569605anon don't be discouraged, like 70% of Pakistanis can't even speak Urdu properly, its not native to the land and often people will have thick accents when speaking Urdu
No. 570022
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reading japanese books hurts so much. i’m at a high level and yet all i can focus on is trying to understand the kanji while having trouble figuring out if i’m misinterpreting sentences or if the story really is like that. i’m reading shit from pre-war japan so maybe it’s my fault but god damn. i’m not an avid book reader either so :)
anyway i feel overwhelmed because i want to spend lots of time with my loved ones but i also want to do my daily kanji study and go back to portuguese and start on basque but it’s not happening as smoothly. when my bf was away for a little bit i did a bunch of kanji without a hitch and now i’ve studied 4 kanji in 4 days. i need a portal that allows me to go into a dimension where time doesn’t flow or something
No. 570031
>>569120Spanish insults are very effective. It’s like the whole language is meant for swearing. I know some swear words even though I never studied any Spanish.
I’m struggling with Swedish at the moment. i know it’s not hard, especially if you figure it out using english. I’m Finnish and it’s mandatory pain in the ass in our country. I associate it with my elementary school years when I was struggling with my untreated ADHD and it was the subject I had most problems with.
No. 570085
>>570074i'm currently studying with intermediate kanji book vol 2, i'm more than halfway done with it. i actually really like working with that and i basically learn what kanji roughly mean by simply reading stuff online. a lot of the kanji i'm learning rn is stuff i could already recognize but simply couldn't pronounce, write and/or translate 100% accurately.
i love kanji now but reading a novel, seeing words like 前垂れ, asking a japanese person what it means, getting a "idk lol" then finding out it's an old ass word that's been replaced by エプロン makes me want to tear my hair out lol. just a little vent because i love/hate these old ass books.
that's an interesting method though. might steal a pdf to see what it's like.
No. 570488
>>569537There are some sounds that those two languages share pretty well. Some pronuntiations will vary depending in wich part of latin america you are listening, of course. Not perfect, but definetly closer than english speakers.
I want to learn kana just to upgrade my weebness and not wait for official or fan translations. Just for reading, nothing more. Any book/app reccomendation? So far I'm playing around with Memrise (pc) and Kanji Study. I might pic some 4komas and try to translate them until I memorise every symbol.
No. 571220
>>571206I'm somewhere between HSK 4 and 5. I studied it for 4 years in college, but I haven't actively studied it for a couple years now, so I've regressed a lot RIP.
>>570022Just learn Chinese, anon.
No. 571229
I'm just going to write what worked for me,
Apps:
>Duolingo
If you actually take the time, about 30 minutes a day on the app, I guarantee you'll be on a good writing/reading level. Duolingo is decent for grammar but not the best for it. Pro-tip, using the browser version is almost identical to using Duolingo Plus on the mobile without paying for it.
>Drops
I use this for vocabulary and learning the alphabet, it also allows you to draw the character with your finger. 5 minutes a day for the free version.
Media:
>Children Books
This is a good place to start after you've learned the alphabet and some basic words. It will help you with some sentence structures without being too difficult and frustrating to understand
>Movies/Drama/Anime
Immerse yourself in the culture, BUT instead of using subtitles, studies have shown if you use your learning language as subtitles you are more likely to learn something and retain the information. If you're watching anime and know the alphabet, use Japanese subtitles. I recommend "Learning Language with Netflix" google chrome extension if you click on the words you don't understand it'll bring you up definition for you.
>Twitter
This helps with seeing how native speakers naturally converse with one another. Speech within media is professional and robotic sometimes so this will help you if all you can muster is "Hello, how are you? I'm fine thank you."
>Singing
Sing songs! It's a fun way to get used to speak the language! Find a song you like try singing it in said language while learning each word/meaning.
Tips:
The above is mainly for reading and writing, however, I would also recommend you repeating whatever lines you hear/see, out loud. Vocalization is important to get used to speaking a new language. Familiarize yourself because yo tongue ain't ever move like this before. I'd also like to note that you should keep a diary in a different language, critical thinking will help the language stick while your creativity will help to ease the frustration.
No. 571230
>>571216It is literally about learning a language
>>571215 sorry anon, i'm the one who thought you were esl, you've gone through a lot
No. 571261
>>571178Hello fellow korean learner who just wants to watch shit without subs
A lot of variety shows have subs and if you're confident you might pick up some words that are used commonly used in daily conversations. If you learned the basic grammar it should be quite easy to pick and choose words.
No. 571293
>>570959>>570960The main thing about being 'too old' is that it's harder for your mouth to make the sounds of your target language (thus stronger accent w/o a lot of working at it). OP might have avoided this if they've been speaking it (even infrequently) since childhood.
Anyway, if op reads this: keep at it! The main thing is logging hours listening to your target language. Find a show you like or music to listen to. Your speaking will naturally get better the more you understand (more input leads to better output)
No. 571580
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>>571399I'm pretty sure these subconscious learning techniques are bs
No. 571840
>>571503I'm only a learner, but I listen to OOMPH, Drangsal, Nina Hagen, AnnenMayKantereit, Einsturzende Neubauten, SPARKLING, Fehlfarben, Abwärts, NEU!, Messser, Aus Rotten, Pisse, Can,.. The list can go on and even further. It's a bit "everywhere", mostly post-punk, but maybe one of these artists can get you started to discovering new German ones.
Series are "Dark" (never seen it, but apparently good), "Freud" (it's okay imo, but I stopped watching it - the plot was too frustrating for me), and "How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)" (never seen it) - All of which are on Netflix. "Babylon Berlin" and "Deutschland 83" are good, too, I've heard.
Movies - "The Lives of Others", "Goodbye Lenin", "Fack ju Göhte", "Lola Rennt", "Das Boot", "Er Ist Wieder Da", "Downfall", "A Coffee in Berlin", "Nowhere in Africa", and any Fritz Lang movie if you enjoy older films (i rec "M").
If anyone has any good German Youtube recommendations, I'd appreciate them.
No. 571868
>>571840Personally not too much into "Youtube-Deutschland" but I like/liked Walulis (it's a bit like a late night talk show), Ultralativ (talking about trends in Germany in avery analytical matter), Okay (LGBT centered channel), Space Frogs (very conventional youtube comedy) and if you like that maybe check out Funk in general. It's the online presence of the public media in Germany.
And then there's the woman, the myth, the legend coldmirror who's just classic 2010s Youtube in a nutshell.
On music I think
>>571840 already did a very good job but if post-punk isn't your thing check out Deichkind
no bully I actually like them, Nena and Neue Deutsche Welle as a genre.
No. 571870
>>571868samefag but if you're into rap you can check out alligatoah, Zugezogen maskulin, K.I.Z. and Trailerpark. And if you want to be like all the real
middleaged germans you can start watching Tatort.
No. 572310
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>>572075The thing with star = byul, english = korean is that sometimes we have to go through our english brain to get to korean and that isn't every efficient. I think you should learn through objects instead of word to word.
>apparently associating the word with the picture is how to achieve fluency.Yeah! Kids learn through seeing objects first before the words. So if you look at a computer don't think computer in korean is ___, but think that object is ___. Learn like how a kid would learn! association of words with objects not with the translation.
> 1) discouragement and 2) laziness after discouragementIt's about discipline just like any aspect of life, you do not get knew skills unless someone forces you or you take the time and have discipline to go through with it. discipline in and of itself is a learned skill, so I'd focus on doing that first. One tip I found is don't think about doing it but just go ahead and get through with it. If you think "man i have to water the garden, I'll do it at 12pm" it opens up for procrastination. You just need to get up out of your chair and get it done.
Personally for me I have trouble falling asleep because I tend to scroll through social media, before bed I take that time to open up duolingo, drops, memrise on my phone and that helps me fall asleep. It's not really healthy to learn this way, but it's what has been working okay for me.
No. 572367
>>572075>>572310agree with other anon, for basics, try to find anki flashcards already made by other people? i liked using quizlet for a while and there are public vocab lists for famous textbooks or random lists put together by fellow learners.
but for abstracts i don't recommend using drawings; words like "lawsuit" and "freedom of speech" are too annoying to even illustrate.
as for laziness and discouragement, you're gonna have to try and find your own routine.
i'm a nihon-ese learner and what works best for me at this point in time is almost-daily kanji practice and then one or two days a week where i do more work (exercises at the end of my kanji lesson, some grammar, maybe newspaper reading…). thinking i Have to get through N2 grammar every single week powered only by my motivation makes me want to do nothing at all, tbh.
No. 572815
>>572807I had been struggling to motivate myself recently because I was going to do the JLPT in July, which got cancelled. And they are not having one in December now either. So I don't have a time limit anymore. It also didn't help that I would listen to podcasts and go over my flashcards on my commute which I don't have anymore because of lockdown.
I've got my motivation back and I'm back on the horse. So let's both do well 頑張って！
No. 572891
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I would like to learn Korean and/or Mandarin but I honestly think I'm too dumb for the latter (plus stuff like
>>571180 is pretty demotivating).
I was a weeb when I was younger and therefore went for Japanese but I gave up after 2 years of half-assed studying, mainly because I was too busy and lost interest in Japan in general but also because my progress was so slow, I just couldn't memorize kanji. I regret wasting time on useless romance languages as a kid, now my brain is just working so much slower lol
I read that the korean alphabet is supposedly very easy to learn, can anybody confirm? I don't think I want to take up Japanese again, so what would you advise me to choose?
No. 572905
>>572891Yeah Hangul is easier as you only have to learn one set of characters. However Korean has very difficult grammar on par with Japanese. Mandarin has easier grammar but then you have the writing system which is like Kanji.
Honestly it's up to you. No language is going to be easy and asian languages are a lot harder than romance or germanic ones for english speakers, but you can make it easier when you find a method of learning that works for you. Consistency is key and it will take a while to get good.
No. 573036
>>572891well, mandarin is all kanji with more difficult pronunciation. the usual pace at my school (cant speak for anywhere else) was 20~25 kanji a week (+ vocab for each one) while for chinese it was 50+ hanzi a week. japanese was the easy one because hiragana/furigana are a thing.
so go for korean. korean grammar is more difficult than mandarin and japanese but it’s not german-declensions-level of mind breaking.
No. 580508
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I'm a huge shill for the old Pimsleur audio tapes: I recommend them to everyone. Not the newer stuff, mind you–that's more of a subscription-based service–the old stuff ripped from audio tapes that you can find torrents of all over the place. The Pimsleur method itself is very simple: spaced repetition and a strong distinction between written and spoken language, but it's consistently effective throughout the entirety of the program.
I'm not saying you don't need to supplement it with tools like Anki, more formal education, and just consuming media in general, but it's very good as an educational tool for getting thoroughly acquanted with a foriegn language, once or twice a day (between 9-hour periods, as per spaced repetition theory) is just as good as if not better than reading a textbook and assembling flash cards on Anki, in contrast with scams like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone that only superficially observe language learning techniques.
No. 580532
>>580493girl how do you have "everything nailed down" but can't follow the baby grammar
>>580508i'm a french speaker so idk about any material but if they actually teach the difference between written and spoken french, that's really good. i feel so bad when i have to inform a learner that what they learned in class is both correct and extremely unnatural…
No. 580701
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how hard is it to learn french? I did a couple of lessons on it on duolingo and never picked it up again because of laziness. At most I can uhhh just introduce myself with a funny accent And i'm looking for other resources to learn it when I eventually move out lol
and whats the difference between the canadian french and like…french french? i dont know if that made sense
No. 580998
>>580532Failing to emphasize inflections imo is probably the biggest failing of language education. Every highschool has unfortunate teenagers memorizing massive amounts of vocabulary they have no concept of (and poorly, for that matter) without even teaching the IPA or even the concept of phonics. And then they read while the teacher
(or, more likely, some video) speaks and end up relying on their native-language's conventions as a crutch to comprehend the curriculum. Pimsleur gives you the opportunity to exercize your listening skills, while also letting you be more attentive to pronounciation and pacing.
I learned Esperanto with one of those "Teach Yourself" books just a few months ago, and I remember struggling to understand the audio tapes included for about two days after I started, because I'd only really followed the writing in the book. I even struggled to kick the habit of mispronouncing things for a day because I only relied on the written material. Fortunately, Esperanto is designed to be easy to learn, but you can imagine how that scales for a real language with a massive vocabulary, illogical grammar, and arbitrary grammatical conventions.
Honestly pathetic to think that something we humans can naturally pick up as adolescents under the right circumstance is still not reproducible in a formal setting.
No. 581101
>>580999Do you want to speak it or just understand it?
I had to learn latin in high school but the approach wasn't like other living languages. We started with chunks of texts, where the teacher would just show us the basic tenses and grammar that shows up in the text and then we'd use the dictionary to translate word by word. And we'd work our way up to more difficult grammar.
We never learned phrases like thank you, hello and such.
No. 581193
>>580999Maybe pick up a text book in your language? The way we did it in highschool was by having a certain set of vocab and then a small text made up of said vocab. At the end there would be a small section about grammar. Maybe start with learning the type of declension of your vocab, declensions itself and then work your way up to Verbs, their types and lastly tenses
which are the worst shit about latin imo and special grammatical structures. I personally don't think it would be helpful to start with Italian if you just want to learn latin. It would just be confusing.
No. 582776
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I keep forgetting basic phrases and it's starting to really annoy me
can memory even be improved? I wish I were one of those people who can just pack in knowledge at extreme amounts and be able to just recall it on a whim, must be nice. wouldnt be surprised if I had low IQ
No. 582793
>>582776I have this too anon. I don't even do drugs but I forget words for every day objects as badly as an elderly dementia patient does.
If it's bothering you, those "brain training" games really do help with your memory, like daily word puzzles and sudoku etc.
No. 593799
File: 1596192670728.jpg (236.84 KB, 650x330, wabisabi.jpg)
I'm trying to get to a better level in a 4th language and so far I'm pretty motivated, more-so than I've ever been for any language learning. I feel like I don't need a teacher to kick my ass for this one.
But school's starting in September so I don't know if I'll be able to stay motivated. I'll probably finish my homework and just lay down in bed for 5 hours scrolling through LCF and KF. I hate myself. Pic unrelated
No. 603905
File: 1597358026686.jpg (5.23 KB, 300x168, images.jpg)
I speak a few languages already but it's been my lifelong dream to learn Japanese. It wasn't an option for me to learn at school so I feel like I've missed out on those crucial years when your mind picks up languages more easily. I wish I could turn back time. I've tried learning apps like Duolingo and some workbooks that I've ordered online but I really struggle with picking up a new alphabet.
Wah I just want to watch anime without subtitles!
No. 608232
>>608218Well, you don't have to learn a one-country-language and even in a particular country you'll find many sub-cultures that will keep the things interesting.
Assuming english is your mother language, you could learn spanish and inmerse yourself in 21 different countries' cultures, and inside each country there are different accents, dialects, slangs and variations from the same language.
Languages are so beautiful, I hope you find one you really like and enjoy your experience!
No. 608757
>>608724The most commonly recommended workbook is Genki, but I've seen some of it and personally I find the way it's organized a little odd. There are some really incredible free resources that do a much better job building on knowledge and provide more thorough explanations on grammar points.
My favorite would be IMABI (
https://www.imabi.net), probably start at Beginners I - Kanji Intro and then go through everything from there. I still use the site today; it can take you to the point of holding basic conversations very easily in conjunction with studying vocab.
Another one I like is Maggie Sensei (
http://maggiesensei.com/index-main-lessons). She's less organized in that the site is a broad collection of grammar points, but she has tons of them (useful for looking up a format you don't recognize), and as a native speaker she's able to comment on what sounds the most natural rather than some of the stilted, more formal language you tend to learn from workbooks.
No. 608940
>>608757Thank you! I'll check these out. I've heard good things about Tae Kim's guide as well.
>>608895Why not?
No. 609222
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>>569079This is a bit of a general ask, but I honestly am curious. For those of you who've learned more than 2 languages, how do you retain a memory of them all? Especially when you know languages with very different grammar rules, characters, speech, etc.
No. 609236
>>608895people i know who started with mnemonics hardly get past the intermediate level in kanji (even as intermediate learners they're lacking a lot) and they always see kanji as big messes of strokes, rather than seeing that kanji are made of radicals.
but then again i wonder if they needed mnemonics because they just suck at kanji or if mnemonics fucked them up.
kana isn't difficult, just learn them. don't think of them as little animals or whatever.
as for kanji, 木 does look like a tree but 頭 sure doesn't look like a head.
>>609222compelling imput. music, shows, social media, youtube, whatever it is, on top of actually using the language.
No. 609617
>>609236I don't know why you have such a distaste for mnemonics solely because a few people you know don't make good use of them. That doesn't mean they're ineffective for everyone. It's a proven technique that's been used to help people remember a broad variety of things and very useful to beginners. I don't use the key → き pathway in my mind to this day, now I just know the character itself, but it certainly helped when I first needed to digest 92 characters. Not everyone is good at brute force memorization.
The IMABI page expressly covers radicals, but I believe mnemonics can be helpful there as well. Many kanji are literally pictograms, but you can make your own associations. It's true 頭 doesn't look like a head, but 頁 is the "big shell" radical and so you could remember that turtles have a shell that can cover their "head."
No. 609627
>>609236There's nothing wrong with using mnemonics as a complete beginner, it just can't be a crutch forever. I used mnemonics for hiragana/katakana when I started learning Japanese (i.e. back when my ability to read hiragana/katakana was still clunky af) and it was good to get me started.
Ofc it doesn't work for high-level learning but if you're at that point, you should be able to read basic characters with ease and at least have some knowledge of radicals and what kanji they were derived from.
No. 609644
>>609638The honest truth about arabic, and only arabic, is that you can't speak it the way it's taught in textbooks. Textbooks teach you something called "fus-ha" which means formal language. if you spoke that way in regular every day conversation, you'd be laughed at. Learn basic grammar like pronoun usage and basic nouns like school, store, etc. The rest needs to be done verbally. If your boyfriend speaks arabic, have him speak it with you.
Also, watch arabic tv shows.
Memrise is a good, free website to learn basic phrases and words.
No. 610563
>>610504try shadowing and watching videos while paying attention to the sounds.
tbh pronunciation for any language is both easier and more difficult than it seems. getting the general sounds right is not impossible but everyone struggled with intonation. practice and time make perfect! good luck anon.
No. 620696
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>>608724I've been in a weekly class for the past 2 years and we started with this book, it is an extremely friendly intro for those who know basically no Japanese:
https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Busy-People-Romanized-Version/dp/1568363842They have accompanying video/audio exercises you can follow along with in the book. It comes with a "CD" - whatever that is - but you can find it on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp9O6yynrjo&list=PLjukS9Q50PXo9kbNZC157lZzPF1LNhWFsI know people may disagree but I personally would recommend the romanized version since the focus is more on the basic building blocks and if you're a new learner it can be difficult to have to decode on top of that.
No. 624155
File: 1599406169716.jpg (3.54 MB, 3000x1876, irish-flag2.jpg)
I started Irish/Gaeilge for almost no reason.
The pronunciation is super fun, I have absolutely no expectations to keep learning it and it's a lesser known language so any enthusiasm for it is probably good.
Dunno if I'll even keep it up but it's a fun pass time rn.
I might get to go next year though. Can't wait to say "Dia dhuit" in a pub and immediately switch back to English.
No. 624212
>>624155Irish anon here. That's really cute that you decided to learn Irish, are you doing it through Duolingo or?
I presume you know that Irish isn't really spoken much in Ireland, which is really unfortunate. There are small pockets in Ireland called 'Gaeltacht' areas (usually around the west coast of Ireland) who are fluent speakers and use it as their primary language, so if you do get to visit in the future hopefully you can put your 'cúpla focal' to good use.
Just some tips, I don't know where you're from, but we have an Irish TV station called TG4 and afaik you can watch their content on their iplayer from all over the world. Also you should check out some gearrscannain (short films) that are on Youtube.'Caca Millis' which stars a younger Brendan Gleeson and 'Yu Ming Is Aimn Dom' are classics which we watched in school.
Go n-éirí leat.
No. 624224
>>624212Ay! Using Duolingo but I quickly got tired of the lack of grammar and…anything truly useful so I'm using a couple of other websites as well for grammar and additional pronunciation input.
Speaking of TG4, the way "4" is pronounced in Irish is 40% of why I decided to check it out more seriously. It sounds so cool!
Go raibh maith agat for the tips!
No. 707451
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>>706558Not going to lie I was going to bump the thread to ask if people have continued to learn their target languages past quarantine season. Because not gonna lie, I've been fucking slacking.
I do not know that mega though, I'm sorry. I'd say try your luck finding resources for your target language on 4chan's /t/ but I don't know the board culture well, I don't know what asking will result.
Here's a japanese resource masterlist for those interested though:
https://djtguide.neocities.org/cor.html#study No. 708297
I'm
>>706558I ended up finding the pdfs for what I needed on this website: www.academia.edu
You can't download the pdfs with a free account but honestly it works just fine viewing the pdf embedded on the website. Just leaving this here in case anyone else is looking for specific books.
No. 712324
>>712303Japanese is so much fun, I also wish I sticked with it, I stopped in 2016, if I hadn't I'd probably be fully fluent by now. Don't give up this time anon!
I'm learning Swedish rn idek why, I like how it sounds and I think I'd like to live in Sweden? Maybe? Anyways I'm using Memrise to practice vocabulary, 10/10. The web version is friendlier than the app, for some stupid reason the app only lets you find courses in your phone's language and the courses in Spanish are terrible
No. 740851
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Just cyberbullied someone in Finnish! Stay winning queens! #girlboss
No. 740937
>>740187I try to make the study something part of I already do daily without thinking. Listening to podcasts, videos (even if you can't understand most of the dialogue) about topics I like. Games are good too if you're at that level. Because when you play you're not slacking, you're actively studying. The only content I seem to miss with this technique is content with furigana of topics that I enjoy, it feels like I only find reading content at my level (N5) in books.
Make studying part of winding down, it'll feel more relaxing and natural the more you get used to it.
No. 741663
>>741656I don’t think it’s the greatest but see some value in it. Of course if you only ever use Duolingo then you’re going to be very limited in your progress - it should only be used as a supplement to your main study. It’s good in that it’s free, the game elements can be motivating, and it’s a quick way of practising if you’re short on time. It has improved in the past couple of years in that it offers some grammar tips (after you’ve made a mistake) and the stories show you what a real conversation could be like.
Personally I like the approach of (kinda) learning through immersion. Grammar charts and vocab lists are necessary at times but I learn better seeing/hearing words in use over and over again until it feels natural. That’s how kids learn, and even completely illiterate ones make relatively few mistakes when speaking (and those they do make are usually learned from their family). Observing natives speaking is best but Duolingo is an okay substitute.
Yeah it’s not going to get you fluent, and they shouldn’t be claiming that 30 hours on the app is the same as a semester of uni language class. But it has benefits as a study aid.
No. 741813
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I want to learn the made-up language, Europanto, because it seems fun, but i cant even find where to learn it.
I heard Esperanto its close to it, but i looked at some prhases and it doesn't feel the same…
Someone has any advice for any of this two?
No. 741848
>>741813>http://www.europanto.be/europanto.html#top>In conclusion, although it is not a language as such, Europanto does exist. But it is, as yet, rather amorphous and any attempt to try and describe the language and write down its grammatical rules would be rather like planting a seed and wanting to take a photograph of the tree. Instead of wasting time on this futile pursuit, it is far more useful at present to observe the development of the language and leave the analysis of its forms until later. As in the case of all other languages: the language comes first and the rules follow.It's a mock language. He basically just wanted to capture the way european people end up talking when in an international environment, you can pretty much just use any word that you think most will understand in any language (and that's usually because they have latin or old greek origins anyway), it's all on his old site, as well as a bunch of texts he created. You're better off with Esperanto, since that at least has actual rules and grammar as far as I know.
Here's a video of Diego Marani using it:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdlgqj No. 742399
File: 1613644732792.png (16.22 KB, 969x249, Capture d’écran 2021-02-18 101…)
>>706558Just discovered this thread, are you talking about this ?
►
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1y9iMHcJBe_4_GgSaZ2xIkQp1MBQ6YCAyIt has materials for a shit ton of languages, even programming ones
and dead onesfound it on tumblr recently, knock yourselves out nonnies
I sifted through the thread quickly and I want to fight the anon who said that the Quebec French accent is ugly. I'm from France and it sounds cute and funny af shut up No. 744537
File: 1613867732407.jpg (19.12 KB, 410x273, _95279965_4abb443d-1c90-4f4f-9…)
>>742399THANKS mommy you have truly provided for us :)
No. 744665
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Kinda OT but do people (including you guys) assume you're a Koreaboo if you're learning Korean voluntarily? I'm curious bc my dedication to learn the language only emerged after becoming interested in the country itself and its relation to my personal research. I don't wanna live there but I'd love to have an internship there for my research at most. I also don't mind the benefit of knowing the language because I like keeping updated in their current events and also casually like a new-ish kpop group, which I'm not vocal about it at all; in fact I pretended to have little to no idea about kpop when I visited Korea because I didn't wanna be one of those. Nowadays even though my commitment lies in my studies/research on Korea and it's my motivation to even learn the language I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I'm learning Korean bc I people automatically will think of me as a Koreaboo. I've been asked if I'm a Koreaboo in America at least even though I look nothing like a kpop fan and give off no signs except saying "I'm learning Korean". It's particularly bad with Asian men because they seem to think as a foreign woman that your interest in the language and culture is solely because you have yellow fever. The popularity of videos like picrel are just one of many reasons for why foreign women are seen as only having yellow fever.
No. 744724
>>744665Perhaps in certain communities, maybe. However your average normie will not connect learning Korean to this "koreaboo" archetype. Mostly because they have no idea what that means.. especially for people over the age of like 30.
Even the yellow fever thing, which is pretty rare in women, sounds more like the projected perversions of the person you're taking to.
No. 744741
>>744735I'm not sure how far you are with the language but I've found that composing sentences, where you have to read and fully understand the kanji within context, to be really helpful. Making sentences over and over and over is where most of the learning happens, for me at least.
I'm still on the Genki books but kanji like 食、女、男、行、時、金 are effectively burned into my memory just from how often they are encountered in grammar practice.
Hand writing them out, having that ability, might not be as important these days considering how much of our communication is through text. I think it is probably enough to just be able to read and pronounce them. But if it's important to you to be able to hand write them well I sympathize with you there. It's really quite the challenge to memorize all that.
No. 744745
>>744735Maybe you could do RTK, it's meant to be good for memorising and differentiating kanji. Super time consuming and doesn't teach vocab/readings though, which is why I haven't done it, but if it's your weak point it might be worthwhile. I'm also still probably under <1000 kanji so it's not too overwhelming yet.
Kanji is weird because it's so hard to know if you've actually learned it. You might know the meaning but not the readings or vice versa, you might recognise it in certain words and not in others, you might know a character in context but easily mix it up with similar kanji that has one different radical. And it's totally random which ones I can easily remember and which ones I can't, sometimes complicated ones are easier than simple ones. It's a weird learning process.
No. 744785
>>744720Can recommend listening to Кино.
Also, don't stress about it too much. Russian is pretty tough, especially the pronunciation/ natural melody of the language. My old Russian teacher would taunt us with how irregular it was and how we'll never be able to apply strict rules like in Polish (where the emphasis is literally always on the second last syllable which probably sounds ridiculous to Russians.)
No. 744812
>>741656It's for people who want to deceive themselves into thinking they're studying a language but want to put 0 real effort into it. I think I'll roll in my grave if I see it being recommended once more, it has no added value for anyone who's serious about learning a language.
>>744660I'm studying German too. I've been watching some German tv, listening to the German podcasts 'Slow German' and 'News in slow German' and a couple of movies and tv-sjpws I had already watched before but German dubbed instead.
If you want to pick up a studybook, I've been using Menschen kursbuch and arbeitsbuch, I believe it's what they use at the Goethe institute too. I'm working through B1.1 right now and it's quite nice.
No. 771970
>>771963http://www.mansioningles.com/ejercicios00.htmI liked this one, I think it has been of use for the basics and such.
https://www.ejerciciosinglesonline.com/This one seems nice as well.
I hope you like them!
No. 772082
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For any Swedish speakers learning Japanese I highly recommend picrel for grammar, it's specifically made for ppl having Swedish as a reference point. My only complaint is that many sample sentences are outdated (book was published in the 90's).
No. 772543
>>772100You have to find a reason to use it. I've forgotten all the Spanish I learned in high school because I never used it, but I use my Japanese knowledge every day even if it's just watching a Youtube video.
>>772101Try to find a frequency list and make the cards yourself. It helps with the memorization.
No. 772566
>>772100try to change your mindset about learning the language. i tend to give up on languages if i'm taking a non-credit class or putting school-like pressure on myself to reach x chapter by x time. accepting that i'll sometimes spend two weeks not learning a single point of grammar helped me, cuz then i just make time for quicky vocab review and take it easy until i wanna open my textbook again.
i agree with the other anon: listen to spanish music, or any other exposure you might like.
>>772101you could make the cards yourself. i know quizlet lets you use pictures instead of words.
No. 772981
>>772140I have Drops and paid for it as well! How do you like it?
>>772543>>772566Thanks anons, I think I'll just try the frequency list thing and keep up with Anki.
I just downloaded Lingodeer and it's really neat. Right off of the bat they have you watch a video and answer questions which is much more immersive than Duolingo is. Also for anyone learning Korean there's the Quick Korean courses on Youtube that are excellent with teaching grammar. Though their vocab kind of comes out of left field if you're just watching the videos.
No. 779203
>>779198Well I reread it more carefully and the time coordination error that threw me for a loop is actually only in the first paragraph : "Par le passé, Rye a été abandonné dans les bidonvilles" it should definitely be "avait été" to make it coordinate with imperfect in the rest of the sentence. Or you can use "a été" but then the rest of the sentence should be present.
And the rest of it is fine, it alternates imperfect and past simple which is the standard way to tell stories (althought beware the use of imperfect or past simple really changes the meaning of a sentence, like "Quand les autres enfants s’étaient séparés de lui" means he's been left alone for a long time whereas "Quand les autres enfants se furent séparés de lui" denotes that it is a temporary action and the man took opportunity of Rye's sudden solitude to contact him. I can't really tell what you meant to say in the original text).
No. 779594
>>779198I get the sense of time might be strange because I wrote the short as a supplement to the main story where the character is an adult. The short is meant to be a independently readable, yet the additional information about the character isn't part of it.
I hope that didn't impact the rest of the translation beyond "Par le passe, …". (That sentence was actually my bad because the translator used a different word processor and I had to manually paste some changes.)
>but I don't know much about the art of translationI don't really know either, but I understand translation is rarely perfect and never 1:1. This was my first try commissioning one. I'd like the text to be as good as possible. There were some parts where I asked for accuracy e.g "cheveux noirs" as noted, and some other parts where I let the differences slide.
No. 808608
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Is anyone else at this stupid in-between level where you understand everything you read and hear but for the life of yours can't talk? It's actually kinda fine when I'm talking all to myself (probably because I don't notice my mistakes), but when it comes to talking to others (or rather, somewhere where native speakers could see it) I'm overthinking everything and then will only say single-word sentences… I guess this means this is just some kind of stage fright I'll have to overcome and I reaaaally don't want to, even if I know I have to.
No. 809311
>>808608Yes, it's normal to be able to find constructing sentences harder than understanding them. I think you'll get there soon enough, if you have anyone you know speaking your target language that helps, at least talking to french speaking family helped me a lot.
Also wtf is the picture you just dropped kek
No. 809379
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I started learning Finnish a few weeks back and I'd be lying if I said that decision wasn't at least a little bit influenced by the notoriety of Finnish posters here. Anyway, I just think it's a cool language, but it definitely is intimidating. The written form is difficult when it comes to grammar, and from what I heard the spoken/casual form of Finnish appears to be very different from the written/formal form? I'm afraid that I'll put a ton of effort into learning to read it on a basic level, only to find out I still can't hold or understand a normal conversation.
Any other anons here have tips for learning Finnish?
>>808608I have the same issue rn with French, but with Japanese I was able to overcome it a while back. Honestly, the one thing that helps is booze. A few years back I was at a bar and tipsy me just talked to this guy in Japanese for maybe 5 hours on end. Sure, afterwards I was cringing about the grammatical mistakes I probably made and how clunky I might have been, but in the end I felt great actually having done it without restraint and I haven't been nervous about it since. Not saying you have to get drunk or anything, but basically the more relaxed you are the better.
Question to people ITT: do you ever dream about speaking a certain language (that you aren't fluent in)? How does it go? I frequently have dreams where I'm in a different country and have to communicate in a language I'm still learning. When I wake up and think back it always surprises me that the things other people and I said are mostly completely correct and make sense in that language, even though I don't speak it fluently. Almost feels like I'm practicing it in my sleep.
No. 809441
>>809379Finnish is hard because it's basically the only alive language in its family besides Estonian which sounds similar but they're mutually mostly unintelligible. Don't know about good tips but the many grammatical cases are usually the toughest part for people learning the language so that's an important one to study. One thing that makes it a bit merciful is that the language isn't gendered at all so no memorizing the genders for words and that irregular verbs don't exist, all verbs are considered regular and follow the same form of conjugation.
>the spoken/casual form of Finnish appears to be very different from the written/formal formSomewhat, but it's more comparable to someone speaking casual English internet speak vs. prim and proper English. Depends on how deep of a dialect/slang the speaker has but if you know textbook Finnish then you'll understand the casual form just fine. Some of the anons in the Finnish thread are typing in an exaggerated, obfuscated form on purpose as they don't want Anglofags to be able to Google translate. I wish you luck on your journey, I've met plenty of foreign people who have learned Finnish.
No. 809448
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>>809379doubleposting but YAYA we're both learning Finnish that's so cool! You seem to be doing a higher level than me but I also started a few weeks back, I like leaving post it notes on objects to remember their name.
Which resources are you using to learn? Are there any recommendable textbooks? I really like this language but I fear it may be difficult to learn and next to useless oops. If you've already learned Japanese you must be a pretty good learner with languages, I hear it's super hard.
No. 810837
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>>810773I think it depends on my hobbies.
I do a lot of work with textiles, stains/paints and little notions here and there. Generally speaking, It's good to assume a bulk purchase from France, ordered from a french catalogue/shoddily translated, will not be money squandered. You can find a lot of stuff on the english speaking web, but I decided it was a better idea to really understand what was going on "under the hood" there.
I'd usually relate it to xyz hobby. If there's an artist/creator of x nationality you admire, there's always a million more interviews in that native language. There's more tutorials. I know I've seen some farmers say Japanese craft tutorials are usually better produced and often have better results. I think you just go off of what it is you like to do and work from there.
Definitely factor in a learning curve, too, especially if you are easily intimidated or particularly busy.
No. 810897
>>810773 Secunding other anons, i picked languages relating to my hobbies
As a historyfag, depending on the historical figures or epochs you're interested in you're gonna find more shit written about them in a particular language. eg. if you're into, say, Louis XIV, sources will be in French and you'll find a lot more scholarly works in French. But if you're into age of sail shit most books are gonna be written by British historians etc etc.
Like I picked up English bc i wanted to read about naval history and there was jack shit about it in my native language lol
No. 811721
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>>569079I'm currently trying to learn French because I'm a leaf and may have to move to Québec for work in the future. Can any Québecois anons please tell me if the people in Québec prefer it if you speak standard French or Canadian French (when you're originally an English speaker)?
If you have any insights, podcasts, or resources you like please share them :) I would appreciate it so much!
No. 812740
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>>812709i'm french from france and i can confirm that depending on how pronounced their accent is, Québec people can be hard to understand. It really depends on the person and how pronounced their accent is, most of the time it's mutually intelligible but someone with a strong accent who uses a lot of dialectal terms can be almost impossible to understand. As in, french TV will use subtitles fir some québécois speakers.
There's much more difference between québécois and standard French than between other European variants of French.
It would probably be more useful to learn standard French than dialect though, because people in Québec will likely understand standard French, but other francophones might not understand somoeone who only knows Québec French.
No. 815662
File: 1621967064419.png (19.34 KB, 523x204, zzz.PNG)
https://www.fluent.co/it helps you build your vocabulary by changing common words on the page to spanish/french (there's a waitlist for new languages, too.)
No. 864248
File: 1627339489996.webm (1.9 MB, 1440x1080, 1621701783933.webm)
bumping. Also, does anyone know any good Spanish-speaking youtube channels and/or musicians?
No. 864273
>>864248What anime is this?
>>864251I'm fluent in spanish so I can recommend some stuff. What are you looking for? what are your preferences?
No. 895377
File: 1630322130408.gif (19.04 KB, 220x164, e.gif)
Trying to learn a new language at age 20. Is it possible? It's Russian.
No. 895388
>>895377Totally, anon! I know plenty of immigrants who have learned my language
Finnish, regarded one of the hardest to learn languages in the world after immigrating in their 20's. It's absolutely possible. Don't believe the claims about new languages being impossible to learn after your childhood, according to studies adults learn new languages just as fine.
No. 895413
File: 1630325440991.gif (1.81 MB, 480x270, aaaaa.gif)
>>895388>>895392Thank you for the encouragement, anons!
No. 898351
>>898324Honestly, that’s why I signed up for a proper class lol I believe mine’s through Carmarthen and is an entry level 1&2 course
If you’re curious—See if there’s any courses on learnwelsh.cymru that can fit your schedule! They’re half off at the moment (usually £90 but are £45 until the end of September)
No. 898458
File: 1630565648887.jpg (10.52 KB, 224x225, e9edd07b66a0c33025a0150fc073f8…)
>>898450For appa, I'd recommend
>kanji study by chase colburnit's paid but it's very complete, imo. The best out there. It's not super expensive either
>BunpoAnother paid one, but this one I actually pirated lol it's simple and good.
>Easy japanese news by todaiRead this daily. Short news with assigned JLPT difficulties and translation of key words.
Also practicing irl. I think that the fact that I was going to a japanese association with a lot of the higher ups speaking solely japanese (although I'd mostly answer on my native language) also helped a lot. I'd learn words by context, would check them on my dictionary later (I use the takoboko app) to confirm it and that process made me memorize stuff quicker and easier. If you have anyone to practice with, please do it!
Good luck,
nonnie No. 898481
>>898458The first app looks great, it's even in my first language so I can have an easier time understand translations and the app's settings. I'll see if I'll pay for it a bit later. I tried to practice irl in Japan thanks to my working holiday visa but because of COVID it was just not possible. And I couldnt stay the whole year on top of that so forgot a lot of words and kanji I was really used to back then. I'll see if I can practice in my country.
>>898466True, although I've seen a lot of job opportunities requiring a N2 certificate. My goal is to see what's my current level and make some progress little by little, I don't think I'd be able to pass the N2 just yet. The biggest problem for work is keigo though, I hate that shit so much. I have some rl friends who passed the N1 and still have a hard time with keigo.
No. 898556
File: 1630579370137.png (144.79 KB, 322x600, 47308925-F601-41B7-B1D9-99671B…)
My girlfriend baby talks to me in her native language. I learn more from those little conversations than any of my study resources. Maybe that's because despite not really understanding her or knowing how to formulate a proper reply, I still feel so so happy and I can tell she's enjoying herself, too. I just love her tone of voice. It takes off all the pressure of being perfectly correct. I also think this approach mimics the natural acquisition of language, closely enough that even my adult brain latches on. I'm really grateful to have a patient and loving teacher.
No. 898559
>>898517Do you learn with a teacher or alone? How hard is it?
I have always wanted to learn an Asian language (years ago I tried to learn Japanese because I like the culture and used to be a weeb but recently I was thinking Mandarin might be more useful)
No. 928551
>>923528Of course it's worth learning the language if you're planning on living here long term. Most people, especially younger people, speak well enough English to hold conversations with you in English but if you don't want to get stuck in an expat bubble and make connections with natives, you should probably learn the language. We also appreceite it if you make an effort to learn Dutch despite generally willingly speaking English with foreigners. And if you speak English on a native level, Dutch should be one of the easiest languages for you to learn since they're closely related so that's nice. r/learndutch has a list of various recommended resources in the sidebar you may want to take a look at.
To satisfy my curiosity, why are you planning on moving here?
No. 929323
>>929316If that folder is the one I'm thinking it is (
>>771165 ), check salvadorbonaparte on tumblr. They just moved it to a different site.
No. 929464
>>929411You needn't roll Rs in french. The grammar is pretty tough tho.
Also I'm horrible at rolling Rs and still manage to speak decent Russia . Apparently not rolling your Rs makes you sound like a bit of a snob but in my experience it wasn't detrimental to getting understood.
No. 929470
>>929411I had a friend who couldn’t roll his R either, the way I could find to teach him how to do it is to say it as if you were saying the letter D in “taddah” in like an American accent, since you put your tongue in a similar place when pronouncing the rolled R. Then you start to say it faster and faster until it becomes “tra”. It’s more of a very soft roll and but it’s better than not rolling your Rs at all. I speak Portuguese and not Spanish so our rolled Rs are much less intense, but I still think that could work fine with Spanish. And with practice you can learn how to do it the “right” way.
Don’t give up on learning a new language, anon, unless you have no genuine interest in it. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible either, the key is to keep consistent in your learning journey. Good luck!
No. 929488
>>929009Try uninstalling and reinstalling it? Or check if it needs an update. You can save your decks to your hard drive before you do that so you don't lose any progress.
>>929411A lot of languages don't require rolled rs (moonrunes, mandarin, turkish, german, basically anything that's not a romance/slavic language)
No. 929540
>>929530God, I wish other languages were as easy to learn as English. Read a book, watch a movie, get into Twitter arguments with Brits – done. English pronunciation is tough and I bet I already fucked up the sentence structure in this post, but the lack of grammatical gender as well as noun and verb declension makes it so easy to get into… and then Russian comes along and knocks you over with pronunciational anarchy, three genders
and 6 to 15 grammatical cases.
No. 929543
>>929411>>929464Yeah, you don't need to roll the R in French (or German), you just have to gargle and/or make scraping sounds that will make your throat hurt kek.
Have you tried trilled Rs?
No. 929615
>>929600idk, i suppsoe the overabundance of english media plays a part but english was definitely the easiest language i ever learned. the grammar is straightforward.
you get the nuances after a while if you pay attention to what you're reading/watching.
i picked up english on my own by reading books (first english versions of stuff i already read in translation, then expanding my horizons) and i have a much greater degree in fluency in english than in some languges i've studied formally.
No. 931401
>>928551Sorry for the long wait for a response, I forgot I wrote that down in the thread. Personally it's just somewhere new as i've been tired of living in the UK.
My curiousity of the country started out of the blue when i was a teen, and when I went to amsterdam for a few days it sort of solidified my want to move. Of course I want to make some Dutch friends too so for me learning the language is important. This makes me sound like some sort of Dutch-weeaboo I promise I'm not. Hopefully next year I'll get to visit again to go to other cities such as The Hague.
No. 931473
>>929600Do you speak any other language? We got a list in school with irregular verbs in English and it's like 200. 3 forms to memorize. Swim swam swum. See saw seen. Everything else is just -ed. That's ridiculously easy compared to other languages.
Yeah, the order of adjectives is the one weird trick English has to offer, but there's a rule (quantity, quality, size, age, shape, color…). And do you have adjust these adjectives according to the gender and number of the noun you're describing? Nope.
In German the teacher "lehrte" (lehren), the Preacher "betete" (beten), the swimmer "schwomm" (schwimmen), the drinks "wurden getrunken" (trinken). There's nothing unusual about what you listed. It's just that the structure of our native language tends to be less obvious to us because we learn it intuitively.
If you want your mind completely blown read up on aspect in Polish. The concept is actually easier to understand for English speakers, but it's still crazy that we have two different verbs instead of just different forms.
widzieć (to see, imperfect)
zobaczyć (to see, perfect)
ja widzę
ty widzisz
on/ona/ono widzi
my widzimy
wy widzicie
oni/one widzą
(repeat for "zobaczyć")
vs
I see
You see
He/she sees (BOOM)
We see
You see
They see
No. 931486
>>931473samefag. I realize I messed up the sentence structure re:
>>We got a list in school with irregular verbs in English.Should have said "In school, we got a list with irregular English verbs" instead. I didn't delete because I wanted to give anglo anons the satisfaction that there
are parts of English that aren't super easy (sentence structure and pronunciation vs spelling).
Btw. I love English for it's simplicity. It's an extremely effective language. Learning English made me hate German even more because it doesn't just sound dreadful, it's also bulky and unwieldy.
Fun fact: English has more words than German. It's very versatile. I always struggle to find German translations for specific English words because there are fewer choices (no, compound nouns don't count).
No. 931488
>>931473nta but i had to learn aspects in russian too and they drove me bonkers. verbs of movement too. the grammar was a nightmare, ad i come form a language with a very complicated grammar already.
english is so simple in comparison.
No. 933265
>>9315853% is pretty good.
I started reading Harry Potter in my target language and my kindle's time prediction for the first chapter is 38 minutes lmao So far I've written down 60 words and I'm only half way through the chapter
No. 950901
File: 1635315349819.png (1.49 KB, 296x170, descarga.png)
Can a russian anon tell me in the most simplest of terms that even retards can understand what palatals or soft consonants are. I've heard audio and seen videos but I just… don't get it. I don't want to give up. I've seen subbed versions of your literature and cinema. I just want to be able to actually understand it fully.
No. 950903
>>950780lmao
like… the msot common ones? you know there's such a thing as Modern Standard Arabic right? and Putonghua?
No. 953588
>>950780Modern Standard and then pick a region to specialise in. Egyptian is probably the most useful as it where lots of movies come from. The best interpreters are familiar with all the major regions.
>>951335Sounds like you are trying to learn random ones using flashcards or rote learning like Chinese people do at school. This is the worst way to learn. As the other anon said, you need mnemonics. Get "Remembering the Hanzi" and the corresponding Anki deck. The order will seem a bit random at first but just stick with it and everything will work out.
No. 953596
>>950780Oh, and same for Chinese. Pick a region to specialise in. Mandarin is the most useful for most of China and Singapore but everywhere else in the world is more Cantonese. The language is written pretty much the same for most Chinese languages, but Cantonese for example has some of its own characters and grammar. Cantonese language learning resources are pretty limited though and Cantonese has more tones with Mandarin so it would probably be pretty difficult to learn.
For both Arabic and Chinese, the less common the dialect you learn, the more money you can make, but the less call there will be for it. Different regions will have more or less need of different dialects too.
Try and think where you want to work, how much of a work/pay balance you want, what type of language learning resources you want to be available, which dialects sound the best to you, and are you willing to learn a second dialect, then ask some Chinese and Arabic learning forums (or interpreting forums) what they recommend from all that.
No. 959743
File: 1636061961079.jpg (46.45 KB, 564x705, 30653b1c8eb73a3ab8fe8768ab068c…)
I have this problem where I can understand intermediate-ish japanese just fine, but I can't translate that into speaking. I just become a mess. Sometimes when I am talking to my japanese superiors, it looks like the scene from a movie become they speak in japanese and I answer in my native language lol so far it hasn't been a problem since I'm still in my native country, but when I get to Japan again for a more business/academic oriented purpose, I don't wanna embarrass myself like that.
Is there a site or app that focus mainly on sentence making? Like, not tests that you have to pick from 5 different answers, but actually constructing the sentence or at least putting in order? I feel like studying and practicing sentence's structures like that daily would greatly help me to get better at speaking, since my problem is not basic vocabulary or even grammar when it comes to forms of the verbs and such.
Hope I made sense, and thanks in advance!
No. 960348
>>959743I think this problem is normal just because of how Japanese works in the complete opposite way of some other languages. I'm taking lessons right now and I've realised that while I can understand the current intermediate textbook fine, I'm only ok talking spontaneously using the grammar patterns from the previous book. I think this is because I need lots of examples to feel more confident using a pattern without thinking about it too much. Probably when we move onto the next book, I will feel better about using patterns from the this one.
Besides just listening and reading a lot, I recommend using Bunpro as it keeps the grammar patterns you learn more fresh in your mind and makes you fully realise how to use patterns, such as the correct conjugations, particles, etc that go together. Don't just type the answer though, read the sentence out loud and complete it, then type the answer. If you get it wrong, use the "oops" feature and type it over and over until you get it right.
Also find someone Japanese that you can practice speaking with and feel comfortable trying out new patterns with, such as a paid teacher who has experience of Western learning styles. Japanese people in the wild (and Japanese teachers without much Western experience) can be a bit rude and laugh in your face when you get something wrong. Somehow that seems to be acceptable in Japanese culture but not really great when you need experience speaking.
No. 980313
>>975526As I said, it's very very basic. You learn simple grammar a la "X wa Y ga suki desu", daily vocabulary like colors and clothes, and get to practice kana. Not sure about kanji, I never finished the entire game, but I think they aren't even taught, since I once cheated every lesson done on a second account and even the last lesson still used kana. Gotta be careful about the writing sections too, since the game either didn't care about or even actually taught the wrong stroke order, not sure which one of those it was. I'm talking badly about it, but honestly, for twelve year old me it was fun enough. You have to amass a certain amount of points for each lesson point (I think it were ten per lesson point with ten per lesson? Basically 10x10) to pass onto the next lesson, and you get them by playing mini games like word search, multiple choice reading, multiple choice listening, writing out what you hear and the like. Since the lessons were pretty short in itself, it was satisfying for my monkey brain in terms of instant gratification, which I think was the reason why I still had fun even though it can get a bit repetitive lol. You have each vocab voiced and can record yourself, too, to compare the pronunciations, and it also has a dictionary, so that's pretty convenient. Can't talk about apps, since I never used them.
tl;dr if you know anything more than the basics you'll probably not get much out of it, otherwise, go for it but keep harder material ready
No. 981825
>>981821I say just befriend some English native speaker and practice English with them, actively ask them to correct you when needed. There's plenty of language exchange websites and communities, I'm sure you can find someone willing to help you out, especially if you offer to help them in your native language in return.
Also is your written English really that bad? It doesn't seem bad to me from these few posts, but I'm not a native speaker either.
No. 981986
>>981825Every English speaker I befriended is too lazy to actually explain my mistakes. I do wish I had at least one grammarnazi friend. I doubt anyone will be interested in language exchange with me, but I will try. Thank you
nonnie!
I share a server with many ESLs and even they get
triggered by my mistakes.
No. 982009
>>981825>I say just befriend some English native speaker and practice English with them, actively ask them to correct you when neededyeah, no one is going to want to play teacher for free
>There's plenty of language exchange websites and communitiesno offense but this is trash advice. it's the sort of free advice that is always thrown around on blogs so they can clickbait the idea that language learning is free and super easy. most people can't explain why their language is that way or have the motivation to do it regularly. yeah you might find someone that can do it but what usually happens in this situation is either it goes nowhere or you become friends and whoever has the stronger language ability takes over and you only speak that language. good for them i guess but you're honestly just better paying for a tutor for all the hours you have to put in
No. 982045
>>959743Genuine advice since I’ve also experienced what you’re describing: Talk to yourself in Japanese constantly.
I walk around the house like an insane person. Ask myself what I want to eat out loud, explain what I’ve done during work today, pretend I’m a celebrity telling my childhood story to Oprah. All of that in Japanese every single day. It forces me to create sentences about everything. It has helped me an insane amount since I eventually notice what words or grammatical things I’m struggling with. It also makes you more comfortable talking in Japanese.
No. 990149
File: 1639095779278.png (289.24 KB, 1600x902, language.png)
>>990062Same as
>>990125 said. Depends on your area and industry, e.g. Italian and French will be useful for the fashion industry and in countries that speak those languages but not as useful if you want to work in Poland and open a Barszcz restaurant.
No. 992223
>>990408I’ve enjoyed it! I’m an anon that posted up-thread about learning it and being American and… having to be up for a 3:30am class once a week, but in general everyone has been so nice and it has been a great environment because we aren’t afraid to make mistakes. I’m one of the younger ones in the class, which I thought was interesting. It’s mostly middle-to-70 year old people learning it because of where they moved to recently or something to do while in lockdown. But we have a couple WhatsApp groups (one for class-related work and one for general life chat) so I’ve been delighted by how welcoming everyone has been because I will admit, I was a bit concerned about coming off as “too American” but apparently that’s not been the case.
The language, as a whole, has been fairly straightforward. Once you learn the verb conjugations, it’s pretty easy. Soft mutations can be annoying, but I’m getting better remembering which letters do it, I just have been slacking on some outside prep because , turns out, I’m bad at allotting time for studying. I can do well enough in class though, so that’s good.
… I realize this post has been both sort of about the language and the class, but I think it’s because I do like the class-aspect as well. Check out learnwelsh.cymru ! That’s where I’m doing my class through and they have a bunch of online resources that you can access for free as well!
No. 993196
>>990125I realize now that was kind of a dumb/vague question to ask because obviously it would depend on your field. It's just that knowing a language can get you more job opportunities in some fields, I'm in America and it seems like most interpreter/translator jobs want you to speak Spanish. But knowing Chinese or other languages can get you ahead in the business world- but who am I kidding, I have no interest in being in the business world anyway. I just wondered about European languages because most of the languages I want to learn are European, I mostly want to learn German.
>>990149Thanks. Also I had no idea German had the 2nd most speakers in Europe, I wouldn't have guessed that.
>>990464Interesting, I didn't know that. I really like French too so I will look into that.
No. 1042512
File: 1643227666490.png (634.32 KB, 1110x1600, BEB2C48B-9B33-4CCC-B906-E17A60…)
>>1015474nearly 900 kanji, anon, damn! I applaud you.
With kanji I don't memorize them individually either, it's hard for the characters to stay in my brain unless I use them practically everyday (by reading, crafting tweet, translating).
picrel is an example how I often recall a kanji.
manga is Ikoku Nikki by Yamashita Tomoko No. 1049278
File: 1643750044118.jpg (73.89 KB, 900x661, srtdfjkhjl.jpg)
>>898458Anon, I'm retarded. I downloaded Kanji Study as soon as you posted about this and I got lazy and literally didn't do anything at all. Since then I got myself a new smartphone and I have a better job with less nonsensical shifts/more free time, maybe it's time for me to start studying, especially when I get bored while working from home and I'll pay for Kkanji Study because it seems like a very complete app. I'll try to aim for N3 this year
in December, there's no session in July because fuck France I guess but if I feel confident enough I'll change my mind and go for the N2 test.
No. 1049870
File: 1643813733142.jpg (46.94 KB, 317x480, 01216499_get-started-in-swedis…)
Anons who learned Swedish, can you rec a good course book for self study? I've been eyeing picrel
No. 1049872
File: 1643813773161.jpg (40.34 KB, 312x480, 01999223_complete-swedish-begi…)
>>1049870…and this. Not sure which to pick. Complete beginner btw
No. 1050168
>>1049878>I never started on it though lollmao I fear that this is going to be me as well
>a computer that doesn't have a disc driveshit, mine doesn't have one either…is there no option to download the audiofiles from their website or something?
>>1049880>lycka tillah I learned my first Swedish phrase haha! thank you
No. 1051078
File: 1643908666614.png (83.78 KB, 220x223, 5EC1F892-609A-4B03-8B06-659982…)
That’s it nonnies I’m learning Norwegian now!! As a german it feels like it’s gonna be easy. Not sure how to start. I did language courses before but dropped out every time because they too slow for me. I have book in picrel but i haven’t started any exercise. I mostly use drops and Duolingo right now.
No. 1126916
File: 1649364104569.png (160.19 KB, 1100x365, busuu.png)
Anyone here using busuu? I keep seeing it advertised everywhere as free with premium only for some additional functionalities, but I've started a course and just 6 lessons in (out of 80) it already tells me anything more is only accessible with premium. I thought it may be a daily limit thing, waited a day, nothing changed. Am I missing something there?
No. 1141918
>>1126935I think Slow German's youtube channel is great for getting exposed to more vocab and natural speech. I read the German subtitles and listen even though I'm only at an A2 level and can't understand everything. Don't worry about understanding everything, try to take it in.
Coffee Break german's podcast is good too.
One more thing, I'm interested in cooking, so I like to read German recipes. Just a way to pick up more vocab and sentence structure in areas that are relevant to you
No. 1196704
>>1196628Very interesting video thank you!
>>1196637>The way I study all of this at once is by writing my vocab in kanji and keeping in mind their meanings.This is good idea, I will try this out!
>important readingsHow do you decide which reading is the most important?
>>1196677>there's definitely no way you'll be able to read any manga or game if your kanji level is only at the second grade kekI was talking about learning to second grade kanji and their meaning, not words.
No. 1208820
File: 1654229964208.jpg (313.2 KB, 1078x781, 1j8ickpta7261.jpg)
I want to start learning French again. It's stupid because I technically could have known French bc my grandmother speaks it, but for whatever reason she didn't teach us growing up. I know languages get tougher to learn later in life, I did take French in school but don't remember too much of it. I'm wondering how practical it would be to learn one version of it, since French has many different varieties, like Canadian french is a little different from french spoken in France and Cajun french…
No. 1208955
File: 1654239934024.png (83.74 KB, 390x390, Hindi-Alphabets-Vowels-Chart.p…)
>>1208859that's awesome nona!! I tried to do that a couple times, but my brain cannot compute hangul.
I'm learning the devanagari script for Hindi and it's so easy to remember in comparison, idk why.
No. 1209208
glad to see my silly little thread active lol
>>1208732a lot of people have been having conflicting feelings in regard to learning russian with everything going on but you shouldn't be ashamed! languages build bridges between people and that's nothing to be embarrassed about even if their leader is a fascist
>>1208820tbh forget all about how you "should" already know french and just start learning! just be patient and allow yourself to fail.
standard french will get you far everywhere tbh, but if you live in canada, learning québec-specific french as well could be useful.
No. 1209296
>>1209246I sometimes notice someone is ESL when they're perfectly proficient in English but slip up and end up using literal translations or their native grammar structures. The thing that outed me as an ESL one time was asking
how something was called instead of
what. I have a Japanese friend who uses
right? and
you know? a LOT, and it's always in places where she'd use
ne if she were speaking Japanese. I recognize people from my country often because they tend to overuse
that as a conjuncion and what I feel like to be always start sentences with
because lol. I think people from my country use a lot more commas, too, again, using native grammar. And the one thing that'll forever out me are prepositions. I'll never understand the difference between at, on and in. I had 74 out of 75 points in my English finals in school, and that one missing point was me using on instead of in in an essay.
No. 1209369
>>1209246When they use the wrong prepositions, like in instead of on or vice versa.
Ex: saying being on bed instead of in bed, saying I’m on the car since you can get in/on the car
No. 1210826
File: 1654332929575.jpg (96.26 KB, 820x546, 2013-12-14.jpg)
Which one do you guys think is easier to learn as a monolingual native english speaker, german or dutch? I've always wanted to learn another language but french and spanish seem a bit too difficult to me whereas german and dutch are at least somewhat more related to english.
No. 1210854
>>1210826I remember seeing a table that put the Germanic languages (so including Dutch and German) all in the category "easiest to learn (for a native speaker)" and the one exception was German that was put in it's seperate category with a little more hours. So Dutch would be easier.
Do think about if learning Dutch is worth your time though. Everyone in the Netherlands speaks English so you'll get little practical use out of it if you're not moving there or whatever.
No. 1214319
File: 1654544442610.gif (406.03 KB, 500x281, vcn2o1_500.gif)
>>1196615Get rid of this "kanji is evil" mentality asap. Kanji is your best friend and amazing for navigating Japanese, a system used out of necessity for a language with obscene amount of homophones. Especially if you are learning to
read more than to speak.
Yes the learning curve seems daunting at first because you are forced to use pattern/image recognition and recall. Japanese/chinese people tend to score higher in visual memory tests some parts due to this.
But, once you have gotten a few hundreds kanji and a thousand vocabs under your belt, magic happens. Sentences start to decode themselves before your very eyes. Even if you had forgotten a word, you can still recognize its meaning. Repetition works I promise.
On the topic of stroke order, it should help learning kanji not obstruct it. Yes I know it
seems like a drag. IMO you don't have to get them right 100%. But just from knowing the approximate rules of stroke order, you can deduce just about how to write every kanji. You will see how many words have the same "parts" and belong in the same "sets" and have loose connection to each other. Look for a kanji-learning app that you like and try to use it every day. Practice making simple sentences with learned vocab to commit them to working memory. You can do it!
Ps: 右 is written with ノ stroke which goes from right to left. 左 is written with 一 which goes from left to right. Maybe think of it like that ♥
No. 1214747
>>1209246I recommend the book "How Languages are Learned" by Patsy M. Lightbown & Nina Spada, it talks a lot about ESL and patterns in second language learners (not necessarily English learners)
>>1209264I doubt it has my fav anime tho
>>1214319>Get rid of this "kanji is evil" mentality asapthis, it really isn't that bad. Just don't think about how many kanji there are, you'll learn them naturally little by little by becoming familiar with them.
No. 1435767
File: 1670417834097.png (190.71 KB, 1372x1372, -1177292656.png)
bumping this thread because duolingo wrapped just happened. anyone else wants to show off their? ngl i'm surprised i'm in the top 4% didn't expect that
No. 1437178
>>1435770>>1435813i started with polish and i already achieved fluency so i moved on to other languages, mainly spanish and german. i don't use duolingo as my main source for language learning, i only use it to stay consistent even on days when i don't have time to study or revise older materials. i find that practicing 5-10 minutes a day keeps me consistent enough to not completely forget everything in between my main study sessions. i also like to pick a random language from time to time when i'm really bored and learn the basics lol
i'm kinda bummed about the new update though, i was thinking about uninstalling. you can't exercises via topics anymore, and i hate the linear progression. sometimes i just want to practice the vocab in a specific topic and i can't do that anymore
No. 1450913
In late summer I started learning Japanese on my own. First, it was using apps.
>Hey JapanMy very first app I started using in this time of “serious” learning. Has sections about writing, speaking (voice recording + pronunciation), choosing the answers and some sort of chatbot with the app’s mascot. Words and grammar. I must admit I like it and it has funny achievement but one thing bothered me a lot: at some point
you can’t progress further without purchasing the premium, full version. The limit is that you can do the whole first “section” (9 big topics + review) and then, you can’t open the new ones because a notification pops up that to unlock the session you have to buy the app either for a lifetime or for 6 months. I’m not spending money on that so I repeat the
> Hiragana Pro & Katakana Pro (both by Gerson Luca)Used before for remembering the kana. You learn all the kana and their sounds and the test is always choosing which kana it is, you have it above a few answers and choose the correct one. Each time you click the answer, a sound plays.
Hiragana Pro is now called Kana Pro and has both hiragana & katakana in it (?), there was some update which changed the appearance of apps and I don’t use these anymore but I found them good for repeating the process of kana learning.
They’re free, have some paid features but it’s all good without the paid options.
>Write Japanese (Write it! Japanese by Jernung)App for learning how to write hiragana + katakana, pretty simple and I found it useful for remembering stroke order. You practice a few kana in each little “chapter” and then have a test from these. The test includes writing or choosing the correct answer.
>Learn Japanese Phrases - BravololI knew this app before, used it sometimes for learning random phrases and right now I don’t use it much but plan to move just to remember the phrases. You can just listen to them and record your voice too and compare pronunciation.
>Learn Japanese - Drops (part of the Drops series)A phrase which has vocabulary + phrases. I found the appearance good, I like using it for building daily habits (of learning kanji and vocabulary). The app also has some short pics with “motivation phrases” you get as you have more correct answers but you can turn it off if you don’t wish it to appear in your session. The way of testing is quite entertaining: not only classic “choose the correct answer” but sometimes building the words from parts of it, also writing practice for kanji. No speaking though.
You get everyday about 5 free minutes, can be given more time as you keep the streak everyday (I do), also ads sometimes give additional time.
You can’t unlock everything without full version (paid) but I found it unnecessary since it was possible to unlock a few further topics with watching ads and now when I am close to finishing one topic, the next one becomes unblocked naturally. So, it’s good without paying and there’s one more reason:
Please don’t buy the full app because once while scrolling through the topic, I found their put tranny shit somewhere there. Not an obligatory topic luckily, but still it is.
I guess some features could have been added by users’ requests or maybe because of Pride Month but it’s bad. It seems there are words associated with transition and gender shit. For real.If you have to, use the app, but don’t give them money.
>renshuu A free app with some paid features but it’s perfectly good without paying. It also has a community and various game-like methods of learning beside the classic ones. No speaking practice (as far as I’ve seen?). I found it very useful. It also offers kanji + grammar + words vocabulary which is very helpful. Everyday you get some goals and if you complete them, you have additional points for levels.
Although there are animations showing how some kana/kanji are written, so far I never had a casual course exercise (in section called Mastery schedules) to write any, it’s just “choose the answer”. Games are different though, there is one that actually teaches you writing (Quick Draw). I also like Shiritori (word chains). I also found it really interesting how this has a few tools, for example Kanji Index and you can look up some kanji and get worksheets to practice stroke order or with a grid for writing essays.
There is no time limit in this app, you can choose whatever you want to do. Of course in the course the new topics unfold as you practice the previous ones. I also find it good to use daily (at least I began to use it that way) to build habit and spend at least five minutes everyday using it.
Additionally, recently I also got myself a course book + exercises (from a publishing house which specializes in language learning materials) and it was very good to get since I needed to practice writing in real life, beside the apps. It’s also more structured to have a book and I also began to keep a notebook in which I practice kana & kanji + rewrite some phrases or vocabulary.
>>1214319Good tips in that post too.
No. 1451222
File: 1671366819272.jpeg (15.97 KB, 265x190, A327E4A0-A189-4912-9328-6840D0…)
i want to learn swedish so im doing it the same way i learned english, by simply consuming things on the internet, assuming what they mean and looking them up for confirmation, interacting with the content and using the language myself until i get more and more comfortable and therefore knowledgeable. just need a friend who wants to do the same and i'll be set
sorry for the garbage picrel kek it wouldnt load so i just downloaded it anyway
No. 1451339
File: 1671371652799.jpeg (231.45 KB, 1280x720, gaelic.jpeg)
I want to learn Irish. My parents are Irish and taught me a few things they learned in school but I would love to one day be fluent. My goal is to be able to write and sing in Gaelic.
However, I hit a bit of a slump with learning. I use books, videos and duolingo but feel I really need something more engaging. So I'm thinking I will start learning Irish songs at this point.
Anyone else learning Irish? What is your reason for wanting to learn and how will you put it into practise?
No. 1451347
>>1451339samefag. this is one of the songs I would like to learn.
'Bean' = woman (or in the context of this song, 'wife')
No. 1451407
File: 1671375095712.jpeg (150.26 KB, 720x1029, based irish woman.jpeg)
>>1451380Do it nona! I am very proud of some of my cousins who went onto study it and are now fluent, using it as regularly as possible. I'm in Bongland (I know, land of the oppressor) but visit my family at least once a year, so I can practice with them too. There does seem to be a renewed interest among the younger generation which gives me hope.
Also some inspiration from this based woman in pic related. We need more people like her.
No. 1451424
File: 1671375953464.jpg (16.33 KB, 362x482, cyrillic-alphabet.jpg)
Does any one have any tips for learning Russian? I'm vaguely interested in learning a little bit
but i should also practice more on my German because I am so rusty
No. 1456655
File: 1672241358147.png (1.61 MB, 2168x1701, kys.png)
>be watashi
>learn nihongo for close to a decade
>understand p/ everything heard, seen and read
>picrel
I don't think there'll ever come a time where I can use both with 100% certainity no matter the situation. I'm pretty sure I've read everything there possibly is to read about it on the internet, starting from the ever so useless は is a topic marker, が is a subject marker to は epmhasizes the following while が emphasizes the preceding to reading linguists bachelor theses on it, but still, I'm only sure about the correct usage in 8/10 cases. At this point I've opted to just omitting it whenever possible, coping by telling myself it sounds more natural that way anyways, but I know I'm just running away from my problems. The one thing I've found to help best is to find a sentence where I really understood and internalized why one is chosen over the other and use it as a base whenever I have to use it myself, but this obviously won't always work lol. I'm not particularly looking for advice or anything by the way, just wanted to rant for a bit to people who might understand me lol.
No. 1456775
>>1456766Wow that's interesting. I had started with Kazakh and didn't find many resources, since they are both Turkic languages and I have been planning to visit Turkey I decided to try it. Turkish sounds lovely to me, not difficult to pronounce.
My question now would be, are there any irregular conjugations with verbs or cases? So far it seems consistent and straightforward, unlike Russian which I also have been learning for a while.
No. 1456794
File: 1672253406654.png (554.61 KB, 923x669, a_little_salami.png)
i'm trying to learn a relatively obscure language that has been colonized into not being widely spoken (carpatho-rusyn lemko). i have some ancestry from lemkovyna and i think it's a really interesting language. i have a textbook, i listen to one radio station in the language, and i am fortunate enough to be in contact with a native speaker - but it's still difficult with the lack of resources out there and how difficult it is to immerse myself in it. i want to visit the region eventually but i don't have the money rn.
does anyone have experience with learning less popular languages that don't have a ton of resources out there?
No. 1456836
File: 1672258142990.png (55.52 KB, 540x516, tumblr_pbmlqoo0HR1soyfmao1_r1_…)
okay nihongo-nonnies I'm moving to Japan in April and want to learn a basic level of Japanese until then (I know it takes time but I really mean a basic level). I already know hiragana and katakana and have a decent understanding of vocabulary when I'm listening to Japanese. However, I think grammatically there must be some huge issues since I barely can string a sentence together when speaking.
What would you nonnies suggest to be my next step? Is there a specific textbook or app you think would fit my situation?
No. 1456840
>>1456837>yutaHe's extremely scrotal so no. He disgusts me to a next level.
>>1456836Try Miku real japanese.
No. 1456974
>>1456775I would say turkish is pretty regular in terms of verbs. There are a lot of conjugation rules but most things follow the rule. I can think of some that dont follow the rule you thought it would fit into, though.
Idk what your level is but for example, "bulmak" (to find) becomes "bulurum" (i find) instead of "bularım", although classic vowel harmony rules might make you think 2nd one sounds correct. Still, i would say there are very few verbs that just dont follow a rule. The main issue i see with turkish learners is them getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of rules. So like
Gitmek (to go) → gider (goes)
Almak (to buy) → alır (buys)
Ölmek (to die) → ölür (dies)
Most of the time, you add something with a consonant (like -r) and then you fill the space between the verb and the conjugation with a vowel, like above. My advice would be to understand that these assignments are actually very natural and all follow a harmony. Idk maybe because im native i am biased, but it feels like in turkish if something sounds correct and "harmonic" - it probably is correct.
Hope your journey goes well nona
No. 1457228
>>1456974That's really helpful thanks.
I tend to learn things quickly, I can recognize a bit of the grammar in writing but I am learning to apply it myself, and I also cannot understand it spoken besides the basics. But it's been only a couple of weeks so far.
No. 1467147
File: 1673201332827.jpg (325.94 KB, 1200x1135, r.jpg)
any tips on improving fluency and pronunciation without immersion? my pronunciation doesn't suck too much, but i want to retain it at the same level when i speak fast. i don't have access to a native speaker outside of class, so i try to read aloud from books in my target language. it's been months, and i feel like i haven't made any progress. still sitting in my bedroom stalling at every fifth word like an ooga booga caveman. i've been listening to podcasts too, but it mostly just helps with understanding and thinking.
No. 1467181
>>1467147One thing I used to do was look up tongue twisters in that language, or recording particularly hard sentences/phrases and seeing if I could beat the original time while still keeping it intact and sounding natural.
It might help to find "conversations", or parts of a movie you could recite as a back-and-forth. Something like that so you can probably get a better feel for the flow of conversation.
Sometimes if you look hard enough on Google, there are audio files set up just for this or study files for scripts.
No. 1467332
File: 1673214042130.jpg (45.13 KB, 750x690, s.jpg)
I am learning Russian and French.
Russian is incredibly hard, and I honestly don't think I'll ever be anywhere near fluent, but Russia as a country fascinates me. My goal for now is to be able to read written Russian and interact with Russians on the Internet, but I also really want to visit Russia one day.
The most frustrating thing about learning Russian for me isn't even the million cases or anything like that, but the lack of immediately recognisable vocabulary. I can watch a French show with French subtitles and broadly figure out what is going on just by virtue of how similar the vocab is to English (plus some really basic leftover memory from school). With Russian meanwhile I can't even read a simple text because none of the words I haven't specifically studied before can be guessed or figured out from context like they can with French. It's really discouraging.
For anyone also trying to learn Russian, I recommend looking for Russian meme channels on Telegram. There are loads of them, it's an easy way to get some daily input, and it feels rewarding to actually understand a meme without having to look anything up.
I feel much more confident with French compared to Russian. I learned French in school for four years, but like many others I had a terrible teacher who made me loathe the language even beyond the point I was able to finally drop it from my schedule. Now that I have actually been to France a few times though, I became a bit of a francophile (yeah cringe whatever, my younger self certainly wouldn't have believed it) which made me want to learn French for real. I forgot most of what I learned in school unfortunately, but at least I didn't have to start from zero. I really hope that I can make it to B1 or even B2 this year. Maybe I'll move to France one day (fortunately easy as Eurofag)
No. 1467489
File: 1673224815535.jpg (137.83 KB, 889x1080, ZwblBf9bDfQ.jpg)
>>1467332aw nonna, i am russian and i want to wish you all the best. it's always so heartwarming to hear that other people want to learn your language. i wish i could share my knowledge with you.
No. 1467535
>>1467525Nta, "Мужики" translates as men. Music is музыка. The rough translation is smth like this:
Nobody:
All the men in the world when it comes to the length of their penis:
13 (21 is written in white text)
No. 1467633
>>1467535Isn't it Mushchiki?
Shch is my special interest.
No. 1469968
File: 1673475495633.jpg (25.95 KB, 430x315, mongolian_man_lifting_a_cow.jp…)
one day I want to learn mongolian, but my only reason would be because I like the sound of it.
No. 1524804
File: 1678939353497.png (18.09 KB, 1120x508, toucan.png)
im trying to learn spanish for real this time. when i was in school that was my language class of choice, but then i left school young and that was that. ive tried learning on and off since then, and spent time living and working around spanish speakers, but not enough to comprehend much spoken word, so many flavors of the language and they speak too damn fast and slur words into each other which goes way above my head. reading is better though. my bf's family is from a spanish-speaking country so i want to feel less left out when they are talking around me. i redownloaded duolingo (last time i used it was 2012 kek). the app is absolute trash now there is an ad every minute. are there better tools now? especially if canarian or caribbean spanish… i downloaded the toucan browser extension so ive been using that but im mostly been on my phone lately so thats useless.
No. 1548921
File: 1681482322125.jpg (31.22 KB, 1080x793, Spanish.jpg)
can you pronounce thus nonna's ?
No. 1583308
>>1583302www.practiceportuguese.com
r/portuguese also has some free resources for PT-PT in their wiki. Boa sorte nona.
No. 1583668
>>1583648"-ta" and "y" are a diphthong. So it'd be something closer to "ty" (assuming you're American).
Not pronouncing diphthongs between the end and the beginning of two different words is one of the biggest sings of a Second Language speaker.
No. 1583854
File: 1684716334936.gif (3.93 MB, 498x498, IMG_7890.gif)
>>1583308Thank you
nonnie!
No. 1584081
>>1584077>Jo, djo, yoIn Spanish, or at least most dialects of Spanish, the difference between all those sounds doesn't matter. Sometimes it depends on accent and dialect, other times the sound changes because of the sounds preceding and following it.
For emphasis, you would probably end up pronouncing it with a harder "dj" sound. When speaking casually and/or lazily, it might come out as "y". Stereotypically, Argentinians would pronounce the Y in "yo" as a sh. It doesn't matter which exact sound you make, it varies a lot.
Spanish doesn't distinguish a lot of sounds (this might vary a bit depending on which variety of the language we're talking about). Perhaps the most obvious example is the lack of a v/b distinction (this might be the reason "
vaquero" resulted in the English word "
buckaroo"). It's the same with the y/j/dj sounds.
No. 1642337
File: 1690178603088.jpg (31.95 KB, 445x759, Arabic-alphabet-table-001.jpg)
>>1637530I don't really have any tips other than to memorize the letters. Try making flashcards. I'd recommend memorizing the individual letters of the alphabet first. Then, once you're familiar with them, learn how they change based on their position in a word. One thing to keep in mind is that the 'dots' on a letter never change so that will help you recognize a letter. For instance, ت (taa) has two dots. When in the middle of a word (متى), it still retains those dots. Over time, you'll learn to recognize the different patterns
No. 1642462
>>1641876Kek anon maybe you're just not that passionate about learning any of those languages (which is fine)
>>1467332I know I'm replying to a 6 months old post
>but the lack of immediately recognisable vocabularyThis is why I'll probably never attempt to study a non-Germanic or Romance language.
No. 1645235
>>1645202You can always google "grammar topic" + worksheet. There's plenty of that on the internet, usually made for teachers by teachers.
>How quickly do youI'm a bit autistic about it and do everything twice. Say, I've finished Unit 1. I go and finish Unit 2, go back to Unit 1 and review it.
No. 1679443
>>1679345Unless you need to do it for school credit or to get a certificate, I don’t think a beginners class is worth it. The pace will be slow (especially if there are students who never studied any language before). If you study extra outside of class, you’ll still be held to their pace which is frustrating. You won’t learn much from interacting with classmates. The information you will learn is usually easily accessible online, for free, unless the language is niche.
Maybe look at some reviews of the specific course? There are probably some intensive courses which are worth your time, but the courses I’ve done like this haven’t been.
No. 1689357
>>1689288Input, nonna. What do you like to do in your free time? Playing games? Change the game language to Russian (sims is great for this). Like music? Find some Russian singers/bands to listen to and try to translate the songs. Etc.
>>1689319You need to read - news, blogs, the german thread here and see how natives make complex sentences and try to identify the structures you learned and then try them yourself.
No. 1689572
>>1689357I listen to a few russian bands like Ploho, БИ-2, Буерак, BrainStorm, КИНО, Танцы Минус and Земфира . I know that there's more, but I feel a bit overwhelmed when looking for new ones bc it feels like an endless catalogue and I don't wanna get fatigue from Russian music so soon.
I thought of changing my pc language to Russian, but wouldn't that be a bit too extreme at once?
What makes me frustrated is that I'm learning Russian from English sources, and I'm ESL already, but it's bc there's not a lot of good material in my native language, so it makes things extra hard to learn.
No. 1689597
>>1689572If you use your computer for work or school changing the language isn't a good idea if something comes up. Video games, or just certain programs you use often would be fine. If you use netflix you can change the subtitles and dub think.
I'm ESL too, I know the struggle.
No. 1698245
>>1689597But do you know at which proficiency level is possible to switch a game's language to Russian and, even if a bit quite difficult, be able to navigate and learn new words?
Proficiency as in: how many words I should already know and how much of grammar knowledge?
No. 1698426
>>1689288I’d recommend something I did with English when I was a teenager. Just find something you like in the target language, and watch it with subtitles in the language you understand. This way, if the thing you watch is long enough, you can remember some words and phrases. For example, you can watch To the Lake - it’s on Netflix, and it has English subs. There is ton of Soviet stuff on Youtube, old movies, cartoons, etc. most of them are with subtitles. Or you can watch pirated content with pirated Russian dub.
i would honestly advice against changing your PC/smartphone language to Russian. It won’t get you anywhere - the best case scenario is that you learn some computer vocab in Russian, but it’s mostly loan words from English. You can learn that “My computer” is «Мой компьютер», and “Disk C” is «Диск C». I really really don’t think it helps.
No. 1746669
File: 1698804593036.png (61.69 KB, 1057x793, lagartixa bebedeira.png)
Trying to learn russian.
I've always thought it to be a pretty language since I was 14, but learning a language alone at that age doesn't always work, so i gave up and only started it again recently.
I'm using Penguin's russian course for beginners and youtube videos for some tricky pronunciations (like the difference between soft and hard consonants).
No. 1752194
>>1752155Spanish is much easier than Turkish for a native English speaker.
Check this link for resources
>>929662. Also look up if there's a Turkish/Spanish learning Reddit sub, those language learning subs usually have decent recommended resources in the side bar and then just pirate like a good work book and a grammar book or something like that. Import most common vocab into anki. Look for some easy reading material (There's books made for learners rather than kids' books too)) and consume native content.
No. 1752218
File: 1699131259600.jpg (232.47 KB, 1619x1073, 20170512165754_5IOYE0KA.jpg)
>>1749436I really liked Ode to Joy. It's very female-centered compared to most cdramas
No. 1829868
File: 1703660905066.gif (527.48 KB, 220x220, FC13F892-23D2-4C60-97F7-B5D61B…)
Yo leer los libros en español y mirar los peliculas en español porque quieres estudiar español y hablar muy bien. ¿Entender a me?
>anons fluent reading this maybe
Soy tres Dias en estudiar español!
No. 1829873
>>1829868wait you've only studied three days?
that's pretty impressive anon
No. 1829892
File: 1703663112818.gif (1.18 MB, 300x225, Soraya Montenegro.GIF)
>>1829868> ¿Entender a me? ¡Muy bien Nonita! A pesar de no ser perfecto entendí perfectamente lo que quisiste decir. Me parece que si sigues estudiando sin duda que pronto lograrás hablar español fluidamente.
If it’s any encouragement, most Spanish speakers, in the Americas at least, are very accomodating to new speakers. No. 1830869
>>1830754Depends on the content you wanna consume. I remember when I moved to Germany as a 13yo with only two years of learning German where I come from (which is more learning grammar than anything), I watched a lot of SpongeBob SquarePants and anime that would run on TV. And then soon after thanks to friends at school I'd buy manga for young teens in German with my allowance and it helped tremendously.
Depends also on the level of interest, if you're naturally inclined to watch travel content in you native language, you can try to watch travel content in the target language, or insert whatever suits your interests here.
Besides nowadays a lot of digitalized stuff has captions or subtitles.
No. 1831212
>>1829868Very good start! Minor critique: "Ver" is the better word to use instead of "Mirar" when talking about movies. Mirar is more like "to look at" and Ver is "to see/watch." Keep up the good work!
>>1830754As the other response says, it depends on how you wanna go about it (casual vs by the books). Music and subtitled reality shows are a good way to hear the language spoken naturally and fluently while books and educational videos will focus more on grammar and vocab. Imo a good balance of both are very important to your learning, on top of actually getting practice speaking the language, be it with another person or through apps where native speakers can review your recorded speech. The tv shows and music is the easiest/fastest way to get your feet wet in your target language, and if you have a pen and paper with you you can pause the media to google vocab used or certain phrases
No. 1840475
File: 1704489941998.png (216.99 KB, 393x503, 44c7-b45e-1f5317a8b799.png)
I need to do my best to learn the local arabic here, people in the workplace use english but i don't want to feel behind others and i want to be able to talk casually even if i know that it's a hard language.
I've memorized some words but at the moment i want to learn the alphabet and be able to read arabic letters, i'm used to my very basic sounding language so making certain sounds is so difficult and i get a bit embarassed when i try to practice pronunciation both in front of others or alone but i hope i can make it.
No. 1859444
File: 1705543525553.png (326.54 KB, 417x514, pastanon.png)
>>1840501Pasta-sister! I'm still learning the basics, but do you know what kind of arabic it is? Back in Italy there were lots of people from Morocco or Algeria in my place.
It seems that the standard arabic is kinda different from the arabic of specific countries, kinda like our dialects, i didn't understand it very well yet but it seems like some states just have different accents, while others have different idioms so they could have some trouble understanding other arabic languages?
Still i think that standard arabic is a good start, getting used to the letters and sounds, then maybe you correct it depending on the type you're interested in, not sure.
I'm living with my arabic friend so i sometimes bother her with it, but i've been to a bookshop and they had lots of english-to-arabic books that didn't mention religion, maybe it's more common to find something like that online or maybe you're following sources from countries that are much more religious.
I always look for english guides when i want to learn something new, but that's mostly because they usually have more content.
No. 1859529
>>1859444you have modern standard arabic (msa), which is usually what you learn when you learn arabic in school, and then a bunch of dialects yeah. dialects aren't always mutually intelligible and they reflect the country's history. for example tunisian dialect has a lot of italian and french loanwords, moroccan dialect has more amazight and spanish loanwords etc. meanwhile syrian/lebanese dialects are closer to classical arabic.
if you want to learn the language it's probably a good idea to start with msa which is understood by more people.
classical arabic afaik is useful for scholarly pursuits, not so much to talk with people.
No. 1859546
>>1859461That's curious! Here they have a lot of people from egypt too and it was cool how they could tell if a person is egyptian when i don't get it at all and sometimes when i try to pronounce something they tell me that i sound egyptian, haha.
>>1859529Yeah! MSA is what i'm going for at the moment, then just check with my friend to see how different something is in her dialect, don't feel like saying exactly which one it is here but it's from the gulf area.
Classical arabic is the one used for politics and religious writings right?
Maybe the other nona had troubles because she found guides for that instead of MSA….
No. 1881118
File: 1707353042568.jpg (125.95 KB, 700x510, Gaelic_league_posterRG.jpg)
I'm currently starting to learn Gaelic Irish! I moved to Ireland a year ago and it feels sad to not know the language of the country, though where I live not a lot of people speak it fluently, only the priests as far as I know. I'm really struggling with grammar since the only textbooks I could find online are in English (second language) and I dont understand some comparisons made with English grammar. I want to save up a little and maybe join some irl lessons, but until then I hope my pdf copy is enough kek, slán
No. 1884283
>>1883231Goethe is the most popular german poet and he was good but you might've read some of his poems already. If you haven't, I'd recommend 'Erlkönig' (1782) and 'Das Göttliche' (1783).
Eichendorff appeared about as often as Goethe in my german lessons and while he's boring he filled his poems with pretty words, he must be good for vocabulary. 'Mondnacht' and 'Nachts' are his prettiest.
'Belsazar' (1820) by Heinrich Heine and 'Der Werwolf' (1907) by Christian Morgenstern are my current favourites.
No. 1903254
File: 1709010109630.png (323.6 KB, 2000x2067, language tree.png)
>>1903247Well to give you a very brief answer: some languages are harder to learn because not all languages are directly related. To expand on that: it is easier for an English speaker to learn French than it is for them to learn Mandarin Chinese because French and English are more closely related. In fact, over 40% of words in English come from French. The easiest language for an English speaker to learn would be Frisian, a Germanic language spoken in the Netherlands, as it is the closest relative to English. French and English and Frisian are all part of the Indo-European family of languages, whereas Mandarin Chinese and Finnish are not part of that language family. If you look at picrel, you can see the Indo-European family of languages. In the graph, the red boxes indicate dead languages that are extinct and the green boxes indicate living languages that are still spoken. The Indo-European family of languages is one of many language groupings, there are dozens more. Even though all the languages of the Indo-European family are quite different from one another, they all share the same common ancestor.
No. 1903390
>>1903247like other anons said, it all depends on the languages you alreaady know and how closely related they are to the one you're trying to learn.
chinese is especially complex for a lot of people because while most languages use an alphabet or syllabary, chinese uses logographs which requires you to think in a completely different way. instead of constructing words out of a small fixed set of letters you have to make them by combining thousands of different characters, each with its own inherent meaning. it requires you to radically rethink the way you construct language. although one saving grace is that the grammar is simple.
other languages can be deemd complicated because their grammar is difficult (eg russian verbs are a headache for most learners) or their orthography is hard to make sense of (in french, many words derive their spelling from latin so it's not always easy to figure out unless you know the etymology).
>>1903254i love that graph. i'd have thought fr'ech would be closer to italian, ime standard italian is fairly easy to read if you know french and a pinch of latin.
also it's funny how closely occitan and catalan are related, my mother knows provençal aka the easternmost dialect of occitan and she can understand catalans from barcelona with minimal effort
No. 1903422
>>1903348Yep! Indo-European is a super large family of languages; it's interesting that even though today they are super different sounding, at one point Hindi, Polish, Dutch, and Serbian are all direct descendants from the same language spoken some 6000 years ago. Proto-Indo-European studies are super interesting because if you go far back, not only do languages become the same but also mythologies. The ancient Vedic pantheon is almost identical to the ancient Greek pantheon, and they share many similar mythological stories.
>>1903390>I'd have though French would be closer to Italian.The graph is a bit wonky because of how much info it's conveying, but Italian and French are very similar! They're both direct descendants from Italo-Western, standard Italian is from the Italo-Dalmatian group and French is from the Langue D'oïl subgroup of the Gallic group. So they're only about 1 degree of separation apart. Occitan and Catalan are cool! Your mum sounds dope!
No. 1909083
>>1908995Furigana is only a crutch and you shouldn't be relying on it, but as the other anon said you can find the raws online and then check if they have furigana. I highly doubt seinen manga would have it though. I've read some LNs and I've never seen furigana on them outside of names or obscure words.
If you're having trouble remembering things I would suggest you check out Anki, it has a bit of a learning curve but it's by far the most efficient way of making sure you'll remember new words after seeing them.
No. 1923578
>>1923573>I'm moving to China in a few months for a year or twoWow what field are you in?
Personally I would be scared af going somewhere I don't speak the language.
No. 1923617
>>1923582When I was learning my second language at my university during my undergrad I was paired up with native speakers for hour-long Skype calls twice a week. You should talk to your professor and inquire about any opportunities for practicing outside the class, if there aren't any available you could try to start a small study-group for meeting up with your classmates. A few of my classmates and myself did something similar in our advanced classes, it was a good way to improve and also to make friends with people with similar interests to myself.
>>1923578I'm in the tertiary education field, and I also do translation work and other copywriter stuff on the side. I started with assisting professors in their language courses during undergrad (I was in the advanced level helping to teach the beginner's level), and I really enjoyed the work. I continued with assisting until I graduated, then I launched my own private tutoring website. I eventually shifted from tutoring the second language to Anglophones into tutoring the English language to foreign speakers. I don't think there is a future for me in my country and I'm very pessimistic about my economic status if I choose to stay here, so that's what interested me in teaching overseas. I'm not scared of going overseas much, I think it will be a good experience for me to have in my life.
>>1923605I've been trying to prepare myself but I've had such difficulty with the tones and characters kek. The only people I can ask for advice are the owners of the convenience store I go to everyday, they're from Hainan they are excited that I'm going over there and they've told me that once I'm there if I go out and about it will be easier for me to pick it up. So far the owner has helped me with tones. I'm hoping they're right and not just trying to giving me good words.
No. 1923858
>>1923573>>1923617That sounds super stressful but also really exciting. I studied abroad in China and knew some people that came with like A0 level. I will say that they improved really quickly but not as much as I think actually needed to manage day to day life. I'd definitely track down some chinese classes once you're there. They should be super cheap and a private tutor might be even cheaper.
You don't have to worry about this though
>>1923605 Chinese peoples English level is way below Germans (having lived in both countries). In Shanghai or Beijing yyou'll get a handful of very educated or young people trying to speak English with you, but 90% of the population will barely be able to string a sentence together tbh. Also, Chinese people get super excited when people try to learn their language. I used to have people randomly come up to me if they saw me reading a sign or working on homework or something and offer to help all the time.
For tones, the most important thing is just to know they're important. If you have an ear for languages at all it'll be fine. Just make sure you're repeating words exactly the way you hear them. Characters are also not too bad. Until you finish A1, practice writing new vocabulary words by hand and have someone check them for you. After that, learn radicals and you should be able to pick up new vocabulary wwell enough to read and type.
No. 1983507
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i recently learned about the concept of the intermediate plateau, and i'm starting to feel like i've hit one but at a higher level… i am techincally C1 in my target language, but it feels like i'll never master it without actual prolonged immersion (aka moving abroad), since it's such a random language that the learning resources are limited to super basic stuff. idek, this is more of a rant than me asking for advice. i just feel so jealous of people in my class who have relatives and friends in that country and they don't abuse the shit out of this opportunity. reading books and passively consooming media can only get you so far.
No. 1983670
>>1983507I'm in the same boat except I'm between B2 and C1, it's so trash I feel like I get things and understand but it's still disjointed. I've lost like 90% of motivation and I'm taking a break from classes.
This year I though about applying to a university there and doing full immersion but I ended up missing the deadline, being in a different hemisphere completely fucked with my conception of when semesters start and end.
No. 1984296
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>picks up learning Chinese to read danmei (male x male romance) novels in the original language
>picks up the wrong kinds of Chinese for her needs and now she's lamenting
Where do ignorant idiots like her even come from? Is the state of modern education really so bad?
No. 2058291
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How do you learn Chinese tones if you're basically tone deaf?? No matter how hard I listen I can't differentiate between the different tones. I feel like such a dumbie kek. Does anyone have tips for mastering Chinese tones??
No. 2062131
>>1984296how dumb can you be? my chinese is really basic and i can still tell the difference from traditional and simplified at a glance.
>>2062116i wouldn't trust ai esp for languages with complicated grammar
No. 2062139
>>2062131Anyone who learned japanese, how important is it to know how to write the Kanji?
I can recognize them enough to be able to recognize most words but I'm still really basic and afraid down the line this is going to make it difficult to differentiate between words with similar Kanji. I don't care about writing japanese since I don't really see myself doing that
No. 2063258
>>2063149spanish is going to be useful if you live in the americas. french is spoken as a first or second language in a bunch of countries as well. by contrast german is only ever useful in germany/austria/switzerland, and then again a lot of people there will insist on speaking english if you're foreign. I've studied german for 12 years and i've never really had much use for it personally or professionally, same for most other germanists i know.
studying mandarin is a huge undertaking because it'll be a while before you get good enough to use any of it. it's a lot of effort bc the way the language is constructed forces you to rethink everything you know. japanese won't be much help.
in terms of usefulness i'd say continue with french or take up spanish. of course it also depends on what languages you're more interested in or feel connected to.
>>2062139dunno why you replied to me since i mentioned chinese and not japanese, but for chinese as well, you learn the hanzi by radical since it helps understanding the meaning.
No. 2063459
>>2063213Yeah I think I'll move in this way.
>>2063258>>2063258>>2063439This is my exact idea, I'm learning german because I'm going to live in germany for the next couple of years, and trying spanish and french because I can't decide if I want to live in South america or France, kek. I'd love to live in Cuba or Argentina, think I'll drop mandarin and keep my japanese learning to a minimum so as to not forget it - I'm already at a place where I can understand a lot in the media that I want. Thanks nonnies.
No. 2063920
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>>2058291Please does anyone have tips for this
No. 2091409
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>>2058291>>2063920im not sure how to hear tones if youre tone deaf but i struggle with 2nd tone so what i find helpful is to say it like a question. also its hard to remember but picrel is about when changing tones
No. 2100485
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English speaking nonnies can you help me make sense of this video title?
It says "beauty trends I want to die in 2024" which means she's going to talk about all the trends she doesn't like but for some reason my brain can't accept the formulation of the sentence kek. Is not "beauty trends, I want to die in 2024" or "beauty trends that need to die this 2024" so I don't know if her original sentence is correct or not and why does my brain think is not making much sense but I can understand it at the same time KEK
No. 2125646
>>2125640Samefag but I've been listening to a podcast for beginners that's just a guy taking in the language I've just started to study and I understand like 5% of what he says. My line of thinking is that I can at least get used to the pronounciation while I'm doing other things to get more out of my time but idk if that makes sense.
I'm also reading a book with short stories written for beginners and I have a reasonable understanding of what the chapters are about while learning a lot of new words and structures so that feels more productive but idk
No. 2172246
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My understanding of Japanese exploded after starting to read stuff on syosetu or fanfiction on pixiv. Currently I feel like I'm at about the same level of Korean as I was at Japanese back then, so anyone, do you know the Korean equivalent of AO3?
No. 2237295
>like most other girls obsessed with Paris as a kid, so I study French in school
>go through kpop phase in my late teens, so I start Korean but lose interest quickly
>study Japanese in uni (on top of my actual major) but quit because I was the only non-animefag plus I felt overwhelmed when my graduation came close
>love kungfu movies as a child and pick of watching Chinese movies and dramas again, want to study the language and sign up for classes but then get informed that the class won't take place because I'm the only person in that small town who signed up for it kek
>find out that Thailand is a really lovely place too…
Fuck, if I just stuck to one I could be easily on my 2nd or maybe even 3rd already. My little sister has to study Korean for uni now, so I thought I would join her but Korean probably interests me the least atm. I moved to a big city, so Mandarin classes would very likely be available now but I'm so scared of not making progress for years, plus I still can't let go of wanting to learn Japanese too. While I definitely struggled with French pronunciation, I nevertheless got good grades, same as in English and the other language I had to learn in school, plus I made reasonable progress in Japanese back then, so I'm not completely talentless but I still fear that now as a busy working adult I've turned too lazy, especially since I don't have my parents and teachers to hold me accountable.
Learning Thai is probably the weirdest idea but Thailand is just so nice and I've seriously contemplated moving to a warmer place for a while now. Sadly it seems the the only other foreigners interested in that country long term are creepy old moids.
Is anybody else also very indecisive or has experience with studying some of those languages (or studying more than one at a time)?
No. 2237998
>>2237295it may help if you pick a language that's closest to your interests and/or one you will use the most in your life, whichever that that may be. even if you're busy, spending even at least 10 minutes a day can still be helpful. i was busy and could only do 10 vocab per day, but it still built an okay foundation. and since you have experience already and seem to have a talent for it you'd probably pick things up faster with your free time.
i was in a similar situation with wanting to learn more languages and what i did was that once i reached a level i personally found somewhat satisfactory and wasn't in danger of easily forgetting, i used my extra time to pick up the other language i wanted to learn. you can switch any time.