1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Learning a new language!

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by Chiroptera, Sep 8, 2018.

  1. Chiroptera

    Admin Team Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2014
    Messages:
    2,504
    Likes Received:
    1,383
    Location:
    Brazil
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Hey everyone!

    This is a subject that pops up from time to time in the forum, but it has been some time since i saw someone discussing it.

    Which languages do you speak/know/want to learn? Do you have any strategies to make learning a new language easier?

    I know English and Portuguese (my native language), and today I took some online lessons on German. Actually, it's my first time sitting down in my chair and thinking "ok, i want to learn a new language", since I learned English mostly by playing videogames (I love RPGs, so i wanted to understand the story! And it was also needed to play MMOs while interacting with other people, since Latin servers weren't a thing when i started playing online).

    These online courses seem a little stupid at first, so i'm not sure if they are a great idea. Maybe it's a start? At least now i know how to write "I eat bread", and some pronouns (pronouncing German correctly is something that seems impossible at the moment).

    If anyone has any tips or any comments about this subject, i appreciate it! :slight_smile:

    (Note: Please remember to keep all communication in English)
     
  2. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I learnt German as a non-native language. The one thing I'd caution against is self-teaching entirely - German grammar is complex and needs to obeyed quite rigidly in order to be clearly understood. Whereas you can learn English as a non-native language quite well without a strong grammatical foundation, you need to have a clear understanding of cases, declension and sentence structure both to understand and to speak decent German. With German, it's important to front-load learning the basics of grammar before touching on any substantive vocabulary.
     
    #2 Aussie792, Sep 8, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2018
  3. Chiroptera

    Admin Team Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2014
    Messages:
    2,504
    Likes Received:
    1,383
    Location:
    Brazil
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Yup, i noticed the grammar is quite complex! That's a challenge for me, because i'm terrible with grammar - even in Portuguese, i know how to speak and write, but i can't explain the rules.

    I think i'll use these online courses/tips as a first approach and, if i like it, then i'll search for classes or something else that allows me to practice with other people.

    Thanks Aussie792 :slight_smile:
     
  4. Chierro

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 10, 2011
    Messages:
    1,059
    Likes Received:
    186
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    I took three years of Latin in high school and kind of wish I was able to have taken more. I was actually weirdly goof at translating and understanding Latin. Sadly, my school cut our Latin Program my sophomore year and a small group of us had to fight to even do Latin 3. My university supposedly offers Latin, but I’ve never seen it offered.

    Something I’d love to learn is ASL. I’ve picked up words and phrases here and there but I don’t think “It’s raining bears” or “Keg stand” will help me much when communicating with someone. Some of my friends have taken ASL and are fairly fluent, so I get jealous when I watch them communicate.
     
  5. tystnad

    tystnad Guest

    i speak english, swedish and dutch fluently, not necessarily by choice but more out of necessity because i have lived and am closely connected to sweden, the netherlands, and belgium (the dutch speaking part). and with having such small languages as your native language, not learning decent english is not really an option ! i also have a decent understanding of french and german at a high school class level, and speaking swedish and dutch i’m lucky enough to, to a very large extent anyway, be able to understand danish, norwegian, frisian and afrikaans as well. all these languages (except english, and french and german which i’m not even near fluent in) combined still make it that i can only communicate with a VERY small part of the world though...
    interestingly though, i have been completely incapable of learning languages more recently... it kind of feels like learning three languages at a young age and then being forced to learn two more in high school just kind of drained me. i know that’s technically not possible but the more languages you know the easier it is to mess them up, especially if they’re in the same language group... like when learning german in high school i had the advtange of being able to understand it quite well due to knowing three germanic languages already (dutch especially is helpful) but when trying to speak it i just mix up all the languages and blurt out the weirdest stuff from other languages! which can get super awkward when you get to words that are the same thing but mean something completely different or are used in different ways (the german word “geil” is a good example - germans use it all the time to say “cool” or “fun”, but in dutch it can exclusively be used to say “horny”. trust me, that can get awkward!)

    i’d really like to learn icelandic and/or finnish someday though (clearly i’m not seeking to add too many people to the list of people i could communicate with in their native language!), icelandic should be doable because of its connection to other nordic language but finnish, being one of the few non-indo-european languages in europe is pretty tough with its, what, 14 cases? if i couldn’t even do german cases how can i ever do 14?! but it’s a stunning language for sure, i love how it can just throw an entire sentence into a single word!

    i agree with aussie though and not just for german - no online course can ever replace a classroom setting where you can actually practice speaking the language with others (unless you live somewhere where the language you’re learning is spoken) because speaking is the hardest part to practice for sure. i mean, you can do reading, listening, writing at home alone... but speaking alone isn’f nearly as effective. also, i can absolutely recommend going to language cafes. maybe your library or the local university offers them - they’re generally just get togethers where people speak languages they’re learning! even if you just know very little it can be helpful, because you learn more from an actual conversation than from weird duolingo phrases (“the pretty horse killed father” is not a sentence you’re likely to ever use in the real world, for example!). also! if you can, talk to kids in the language you’re learning! they’re unlikely to use very complicated language so you can actually understand them, and they’re less well-versed in societal norms so if you say something wrong they WILL tell you instead of letting you make the mistake again. use their honesty in your advantage!
     
  6. BMC77

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2013
    Messages:
    3,267
    Likes Received:
    107
    Location:
    USA
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    I studied both French and German many years ago. So many years ago that it was not long after both languages were first invented. LOL.

    My ability, at best, was probably 1st year college level.

    I have forgotten most of both languages. It's been 28 years, and language does seem to be one of those "use it or lose it" things.

    German did seem more complicated. I think I did find it interesting to study (at least at the best of times). But with a bad teacher, it could be hugely frustrating (although the same could be true of any language).

    I'm not sure I agree with Aussie792 on the problem of self teaching because of complicated grammar. That is a valid point, but from what I recall, the rules were logical enough that they probably could be learned if one has good learning material. I'd bet one could learn from a good college text book. But I remember hearing that a German professor (IIRC) at my college did not like a lot of self teaching material. I think it was an issue of not teaching important grammar aspects, but I can't remember for sure. I think he had the feeling that self teaching could teach enough so one could bumble around Germany, but chances were that one would forget the language pretty quickly.

    In my experience, a teacher was helpful in being able to address pronunciation errors. Plus good teachers would force one to use the speak the language the way it's spoken, albeit on an elementary level. It wouldn't be just a canned "repeat this dialog." By the end of 1st year French, I was able to have very elementary conversations with my professor when I ran across him. I even had a basic conversation with his French in-laws when they came to visit.
     
  7. Chiroptera

    Admin Team Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2014
    Messages:
    2,504
    Likes Received:
    1,383
    Location:
    Brazil
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    @Chierro: Latin is awesome! The few words I know were taken from Google Translate to use in RPG to cast some spells, hahaha. Sign language is another important type of language we usually forget about. I know a few words in Libras (the brazilian sign language), but it's also something i want to study eventually.

    @tystnad: Thanks for the tips! At this moment, there aren't many options from me aside from these weird online courses, unfortunately. My university only offers Spanish and English courses, and i don't have money to pay a course in German. I also live in a considerably small city, so there aren't any language groups/language cafes that i know of here (aside from English and Spanish). It's something i would probably find in São Paulo, but not at my currently location (but definetely worth checking out if i move to a bigger city!).

    In the future, i also need to improve my English speech. I can write and read without huge problems, but I'm still not really good at speaking. I think people would understand me, but they would have to be patient. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

    @BMC77: Thanks. Yes, if i had access to a teacher, things would be easier!
     
  8. BMC77

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2013
    Messages:
    3,267
    Likes Received:
    107
    Location:
    USA
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    I remember my French professor talking about how one learns some aspects of a language faster than others. IIRC, he said speaking tends to be a skill that lags behind other skills in language study.
     
  9. Aussie792

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2013
    Messages:
    3,317
    Likes Received:
    62
    Location:
    Australia
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    This is a good point. The rules aren't impenetrable for a self-taught beginner. My advice was merely that to speak German well, rather than merely to be understood when asking for directions, it's inadvisable to teach yourself the language. It's important because bad, self-taught habits (for example, the incorrect pluralisation of nouns or incorrect sentence structures) entrench themselves without having them corrected early. It's easy enough to do this in English, where the rules are far more flexible.

    It is possible to learn which verbs are strong and which are weak on your own and which prefixes are seperable and which are not. But without systematising these sorts of rules before learning lots of new vocabulary, the same words put into different contexts might be learnt with unnecessary difficulty, as if they were unrelated. To that extent, I'm saying that it is burdensome to learn a fairly formal language haphazardly.
     
  10. Chiroptera

    Admin Team Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2014
    Messages:
    2,504
    Likes Received:
    1,383
    Location:
    Brazil
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Yes, I've heard something like that too.
     
  11. Chierro

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 10, 2011
    Messages:
    1,059
    Likes Received:
    186
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Latin was weirdly fun to take. Probably because I was weirdly good at it. Latin 1 and 2 we kind of did the basic stuff, translations, learning words, practicing speaking, etc.

    Latin 3 I had to take as an independent study (even though I think there were 4 or 5 of us taking it) and I just had to check in with my teacher once a week (he also taught French, so I would just stop in during his French classes) to give him an update on what I was doing. For half the year I translated a version of Daedalus and Icarus, which was a lot of fun. I never finished that, though, because halfway through the year he swapped me to another story so I worked on translating a version of Phaethon.

    ASL, I've actually wanted to take all four years I've been at college. The only problem with the way they have it structured is that ASL majors get first dibs and then on the rare chance that spots are still open, those get snagged by upperclassmen. The classes are always full. So you can wait until your junior or senior year on the off chance you can slide into a section, but that's also risky because you need your language requirement to graduate. I ended up testing out of Spanish (since my university doesn't over a chance to test out of Latin and I took three years of Spanish as well) instead of waiting for ASL.
     
  12. BMC77

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2013
    Messages:
    3,267
    Likes Received:
    107
    Location:
    USA
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    A few people
    Probably true. I seem to recall the German professor I mentioned above suggesting something along these lines. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of you learn it badly, it will be very hard to relearn, and, at times (like when under stress), you'll revert to the first bad learning. Or something like that.

    I remember commenting about that to my mother, and saying that was a problem for me with French (I'd taken French before college, but had an absolutely horrible teacher. She was, bar none, the worst teacher I had in high school.) My mother made some crack that my high school French program was so bad that I probably learned nothing, and, for any practical purposes, I was learning properly from scratch. She may have had a point--we kept covering stuff in my college French class that I knew we'd supposedly studied in high school, but it almost felt like I was encountering it for the first time.
     
    #12 BMC77, Sep 8, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2018
  13. Secrets5

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2015
    Messages:
    1,964
    Likes Received:
    77
    Location:
    UK
    Gender:
    Female
    Gender Pronoun:
    She
    Sexual Orientation:
    Bisexual
    Out Status:
    A few people
    I know English and I learn a little French through music. I am doing beginners Latin this year (all the history department modules had pre requisits but Latin learn abut Roman history).
     
  14. OGS

    OGS
    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2014
    Messages:
    2,716
    Likes Received:
    728
    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I have studied French, Hindi, Sanskrit, Classical Latin and Biblical Hebrew.
     
  15. Destin

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2018
    Messages:
    2,055
    Likes Received:
    715
    Location:
    The United States
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I know a moderate amount of Spanish because it was required in school, and for some reason thought it would be fun to try to teach myself Gaelic since my ancestry is mostly Irish/Scottish and I look like it. It was not fun - long story short Gaelic is extremely hard.
     
  16. AwesomGaytheist

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 19, 2013
    Messages:
    6,909
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Gender:
    Genderqueer
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    I seriously wish I hadn’t stopped learning Spanish in high school. I was well on my way to becoming bilingual. I can still conjugate verbs, but my vocabulary has shrunk to a shadow of what it once was. :frowning2:
     
  17. ThatBorussenGuy

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2015
    Messages:
    2,054
    Likes Received:
    19
    Location:
    Between the posts
    Gender:
    Male (trans*)
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Other
    Out Status:
    A few people
    I can understand quite a bit of German and a little bit of Italian. Can I speak either of these languages yet? HAHAHAHAHAHA-
     
  18. the prince

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2013
    Messages:
    65
    Likes Received:
    9
    Location:
    Syria
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    I speak Arabic (native language), English (I'd like to think I'm C1 or B2 but excluding writing and speaking, it's embarrassing to speak to yourself :disappointed_relieved:) and French (like B1 or A2) but it's rusty.

    I wish I could speak Korean or Italian and @Aussie792 -like English :3.

    I agree with the others on the importance of having a teacher in the early stages of learning a language, especially German as I've seen a lot learners complaining about its grammar.
     
    #18 the prince, Sep 8, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2018
  19. Chierro

    Full Member

    Joined:
    May 10, 2011
    Messages:
    1,059
    Likes Received:
    186
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Out of curiosity, what do the letters and numbers mean in regards to languages? I've never seen that before
     
  20. the prince

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2013
    Messages:
    65
    Likes Received:
    9
    Location:
    Syria
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    You mean the C1 and B2 etc?

    "The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels; for each level, it describes what a learner is supposed to be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing." ~ Wikipedia