# Language Learning / Bilingual / Polyglot Thread



## Dark Mirror Hole (Jul 7, 2013)

What languages do you know or wish to learn?


----------



## Da Pickle Monsta (Jul 7, 2013)

I'm only fluent in English, my native language.  I took three years of Spanish in high school but I've never claimed to be fluent.  I also studied Japanese for a semester when I was living in Japan and learned out to read Katakana, but I've forgot most of it now.

I picked up only a few words of Korean when I was stationed there.  Yes, please, thank you, one ticket, things like that.  

My wife is Filipino and she and I are actively ensuring that the kids will be billingual.  This means that I've picked up some words of Tagalog and I'll pepper them in my normal conversation now without thinking about it.  Like "Opo!" when I want my two year old to get down from wherever she's climbing, or "balik!" when I want her to come to me, or even "zapatos" or when I want her to bring me her shoes.  

(No, I don't know how to really spell those words.  Apologies to our Tagalog-speaking members of the forum.)


----------



## Pikimon (Jul 7, 2013)

I speak the language of _*LOVE*_

Me-ow!


----------



## The Hunter (Jul 7, 2013)

I wanted to make a really big post, but I got logged out and lost FUCKING EVERYTHING, so I'll sum up.

Known:
English (first language)
Spanish (poor)
Russian (poor)
Japanese (very very poor)

Want to learn:
Native American languages (Cherokee, Numic dialects like Shoshone and Comanche, etc.)
Russian
Italian (maybe)

Gave up on learning:
German
Japanese

Also, I sing to myself sometimes in Spanish, Russian, or Japanese. Helps me get a feel for the languages.


----------



## Niachu (Jul 7, 2013)

I usually understand written German but I can't speak it. I'd like to find a place where I can learn Yupik.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Jul 7, 2013)

Yay, I freakin' love languages!

Right now I'm trying to learn Spanish and French. I met a Frenchman on meetup.com and I meet with him on the second Thursday of the month (that's this week - yay!). There are supposed to be other people in the group, but the first meetup there was also an 8th grade girl. The last time it was just the Frenchman and me.

I took 3 semesters of Spanish in college for the heck of it.

I would also really like to learn Japanese and Chinese, but especially Japanese, because I took culture courses about China and Japan and really enjoyed them. I took a free Chinese course in college but stopped going halfway through because the Taiwanese teacher was using songs and picture books to teach, which is how she taught her kids.

I also significantly dabbled in Latin and Esperanto (an artificial language with a small but enthusiastic following) but stopped learning because I didn't really know how I could use them. Spanish, French, Japanese and Chinese are all used where I live (they all have groups on meetup.com) so I know I have places to use them. I might try Latin and Eo again sometime but I want to learn more useful languages first.

tl;dr

What I plan to learn now:
Spanish
French
Japanese (not so much right now, though) - I suggest this video series for people who want to dabble in nihongo

What I would like to learn someday:
Chinese
Maybe German; I'm German on both my mom and dad's sides of the family
Maybe Italian
I've been thinking recently I might want to try ASL (American Sign Language)

I have several books on various languages that I wanted to study at one time or another.


----------



## TastyWoodenBadge (Jul 8, 2013)

I used to take French in high school from years 7-9, I used to get pretty good grades as well and could at least string a few sentences together fluently, but like most things I learned in school I've pretty much forgotten it


----------



## Great Unclean Chris (Jul 8, 2013)

I am fluent in African-American Vernacular English, High-elven, Mandalorian, Shyriiwook, Klingon, Atlantean and Esperanto


----------



## Night Terror (Jul 8, 2013)

I can only speak English but I can mostly understand simple written French. Can't speak or write it to save my life.
I love languages, though. If I had three wishes, one of them would be to be fluent in every language. It'd make getting lost in a foreign country much less complicated. Plus I could import games from anywhere. :V


----------



## pickleniggo (Jul 8, 2013)

I took Italian for six years of my life in high school and as college credits, but my high school sucks and the teachers did the bare minimum in order to pass everyone, where classes should have been tiered so I wouldn't have to go through the same thing over and over again. 
I would love to learn German because it's my heritage, but I don't know if I have what it takes to teach it myself.


----------



## GV 002 (Jul 8, 2013)

I'm a bit of a sucker for languages, but lack of use has caused me to lose touch with most of what I used to know.

Fluent -
English

Passable/conversational - 
French
Spanish
Japanese

Poor - 
Mandarin
Cantonese
Latin
Russian
Italian

Currently learning - 
Dutch (Belgian dialect)

Would love to learn - 
Swedish
Finnish
Danish
Swedish Chef
Icelandic

I learned French and Spanish in school up to GCSE, then took Japanese as a WJEC for two years during 6th form for a challenge.  The rest I either taught myself, or picked up from friends who happened to speak the language in question.  My boyfriend is teaching me Dutch as he's half Belgian and would like to take me to see his homeland at some point, so it's a perfect excuse to learn a new language!


----------



## TheIncredibleLioness (Jul 8, 2013)

I'm only fluent in English, but I know a little bit of French, thanks to grade school, and later, a few classes in university. I never really put in the extra effort to become conversational in it, mostly because all the other Feench speakers I knew were the teacher and my classmates. I could get the gist of what was being said in class, but couldn't really hold an I depth conversation or anything. It's been about a year or so since that class so my grasp on the language has probably gotten worse.

I'd like to really learn the language, since where I'm from bilingualism is an asset. I'm also interested in Esperanto, but there's little practical use for that.


----------



## shutupman (Jul 8, 2013)

First language is english, so I'd hope I'm fluent in it. I know quite a bit of french and german, with spatterings of spanish, italian, danish, swedish, norwegian, finnish, faroese, and gaelic.
I've got Rosetta Stone packs for russian, portuguese, brazilian portuguese, spanish, south american spanish, arabic, hebrew, mandarin, and a few others, but haven't even tried using it yet.


----------



## c-no (Jul 8, 2013)

I'm fluent in American English due to being born in America. I learned Spanish during middle school and high school though my grasp of the language isn't great due to not speaking the language, which I could of spoke to friends who are native Spanish speakers. I'd love to learn Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, since I visited the country a few times and I like to grow more connected to my Filipino heritage.


----------



## Fialovy (Jul 8, 2013)

I'm gonna learn the dragon language!


----------



## Da Pickle Monsta (Jul 8, 2013)

c-no said:
			
		

> I'm fluent in American English due to being born in America. I learned Spanish during middle school and high school though my grasp of the language isn't great due to not speaking the language, which I could of spoke to friends who are native Spanish speakers. I'd love to learn Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, since I visited the country a few times and I like to grow more connected to my Filipino heritage.



What part did you visit?  My wife is from Mindanao, near General Santos City.  I've never been to the Philippines myself but we're thinking about taking a trip to Manila.


----------



## Trombonista (Jul 8, 2013)

English is my first language. I started studying Italian in middle school and Japanese in college. I also know a little Spanish and Hebrew. I'd like to learn Czech, Mandarin, Arabic, and Finnish.


----------



## Lady Houligan (Jul 8, 2013)

I took French all four years of high school, but I haven't practiced speaking it in years so it's gone down the shitter. I'd like to learn German since my father was born there, or Russian just because.


----------



## The Hunter (Jul 8, 2013)

Well, Russian's definitely a lot of fun for me. It's kind of a thrill to be able to read and speak something with an entirely new alphabet. Actually, you could probably get started on the alphabet now. There's a good amount of letters that are the exact same as their Latin script counterparts.







The chart's a good start, but it'd help to visit some websites or talk to some people to get to know how to properly pronounce some of those. For example, you'll notice J isn't there, but "zeh" (whatever the hell that is) is. The ZH you see there is the only letter that resembles J. Although if you're a Spanish speaker and your J's sound like H's in English, that sound is the X (kh) sound on the chart. Remember, Russian has a lot of grammar rules just like how I always comes before E except after C in English. Certain letters can't follow other letters like that. I *think* (and don't quote me on this) T can't come after G in Russian. But there's a fair amount, and I'm always forgetting the rules because I speak based on my vocabulary.

Or if you guys are just immature shits and want to hear a few curse words, I can say those too.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Jul 8, 2013)

If you want a good method to learn the Russian alphabet try Uncle Davey's Russian course

I don't want to hijack this thread, but there are a lot of great language learners on YouTube if you want to check them out.

I'm glad that a lot of American and British users are interested in learning languages. Our countries are far too monolingual.


----------



## Maple (Jul 10, 2013)

I've been trying to learn Japanese through Rosetta Stone, but I've had a hard time committing myself to it. Mostly I want to learn the language to enhance subtitled anime watching.


----------



## champthom (Jul 10, 2013)

Let's see, I know English obviously and I know a bit of Spanish. 

I'd like to learn Latin and Ancient Greek so I could read the classics in their original form and I'd like to also learn Chinese so I could welcome our Chinese overlords. 

I've tried learning Esperanto, I know a few words like how to say "How are you?" and "Hello" and I sorta remember some of the grammatical rules, but I kinda put it aside. It's really easy, like if you want to make a word a plural, you just add a -j, there's no irregular verbs like most languages, you add an -n to indicate the object of the language, it's super simple. You know that George Soros is a native Esperanto speaker? Apparently his parents were big people in the Esperanto movement and raised him to speak Esperanto.


----------



## José Mourinho (Jul 10, 2013)

I know English obviously and know some Chinese.


----------



## The Dude (Jul 10, 2013)

I wish I knew German, Russian, and Japanese.


----------



## TheRedBaron (Jul 13, 2013)

I of course fluently know English but I want to know German I know some words and I can sing some songs but I cant even speak it poorly


----------



## The Hunter (Jul 18, 2013)

I just realized I used to sing this song to myself all the time.

[youtube]n9FMvfvkBro[/youtube]

I used to sing it in Italian only, though. I actually had trouble singing it in English even though I knew almost exactly what the words translated to.


----------



## Sakamoto (Jul 19, 2013)

English of course, and a working knowledge of Japanese (spoken and written).  I'm not fluent, but I'm there at least once every year so I had to learn, and now I can get by pretty well and am often asked to translate for people.



			
				Maple said:
			
		

> I've been trying to learn Japanese through Rosetta Stone, but I've had a hard time committing myself to it. Mostly I want to learn the language to enhance subtitled anime watching.



Learn to read hiragana & katakana before working on spoken Japanese.  That will not only make learning to read easier later, but more importantly you'll become familiar with the sounds used in Japanese which will make it easier for you to remember and pronounce the words.


----------



## Lefty (Jul 20, 2013)

English is my first and I studied Spanish for 3 years only to not know shit the moment after I took my final test. I'll be starting Japanese classes in the fall. Their status as full blown languages is debated but I understand and speak Gullah and Jamaican Patois. 

I want to be fluent in: Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and an African language, preferably west coast but something mainstream like swahili would be fine.

In a perfect world where I could just learn all the languages I want: Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, African language, Malay, French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, maybe Thai.


----------



## c-no (Jul 20, 2013)

Da Pickle Monsta said:
			
		

> c-no said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well, through all the trips I had to the Philippines as far as I can remember, I've only been to San Isidro (I'm pretty sure that was the name of the area since I always visited the farm that most of my relatives lived at), near Olongapo, which I also visited. I have also gone to Manila though only a very few times, most of which was just going to some mall. Two visits back, I actually managed to go to Iloilo, a region in Visayas, with my mom and few relatives. I pretty much learned that it was the province my mother was born in.


----------



## Aiko Heiwa (Jul 20, 2013)

I speak English and a bit of Spanish.

I know various words in other languages as well.


----------



## cypocraphy (Jul 20, 2013)

I took German for four years in high school, I always did well in it....but I'm very rusty these days.

so ein mist.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Sep 18, 2013)

I love foreign languages! Unfortunately the deeper and more advanced you go the more exacting and difficult learning the language becomes.

I know English obviously. I've known Spanish since middle school and plan to get my minor in it soon. I've taken beginning level classes in French in high school. I've also taken beginning level Arabic classes in college but stopped there since I took those for fun and they weren't part of my major. I'd really like to learn more Arabic eventually because the language and culture is beautiful and I think we should try to understand the Middle East before we bomb and war against them.

In high school I attempted to self-teach myself a whole gaggle of languages: 
-Japanese (due to being a weeaboo at the time)
-German (I was also a borderline GERMAN WARFARE BITCH back then who loved listening to Rammstein)
-Russian (it sounds fascinating)
-Portuguese (it's a language closely related to Spanish, so why the hell not??).   

I'd also like to learn Mandarin Chinese since it's part of my heritage. I'd also like to be able to visit my sister in Taiwan or mainland China and not be lost in translation.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Sep 18, 2013)

I'm learning to read Spanish right now, using the book "Spanish for Reading." I also have the two other books in that series, for French and German. I'm trying to finish the Spanish book by the end of the year, which shouldn't be a problem because I'm about halfway through and I just started in August. Then again, I had 3 semesters in college, so I have a basic knowledge.

I'm really wanting to try German, not because I'm a GERMAN WARFARE JERK but because I think the language is very beautiful and I want to learn it, I like reading about Germany and I have German ancestry on both sides of my family. 

After those three I'm thinking about Latin, also an incredibly beautiful language, and maybe Portuguese because I dabbled in it and thought it was fun to learn. 

I also thought about an East Asian language, like Mandarin or Japanese, but I think they'd be really hard to learn. I tried to learn a bit of them and they were just too foreign for me.


----------



## c-no (Sep 18, 2013)

Earlier in this thread I mentioned wanting to learn Tagalog. Since last month, I have been learning the basics of Tagalog.


----------



## exball (Sep 18, 2013)

I'm currently learning how to speak Latin.


----------



## Kamen Rider Black RX (Sep 18, 2013)

I want to learn German.


----------



## SlowInTheMinds (Sep 19, 2013)

Dutch (main language)
English (pretty much secondary; learned through Pokemon like everyone else my age)
French (a little, learned in school)
German (also a little, also in school)

and a few words in Spanish and Papiamento (Netherlands Antilles language)


----------



## Stalin (Sep 19, 2013)

Well I can speak/read/write in Russian and English.

I know some French and can read it fairly well. I also know some basic German. 

I would really like to be able to speak French fluently.


----------



## Dr. Meme (May 8, 2014)

私は英語を知らない
私は私がGoogleから受け取るの翻訳を知っている


----------



## Venusaur (May 8, 2014)

I'm fluent in English and Spanish. The language I really want to learn though, is German. I've met so many awesome Germans recently that its made me interested in the language.


----------



## Guardian G.I. (May 8, 2014)

I know Russian, Belarusian (a bit worse than Russian) and English (a bit worse than the previous two), plus I understand (but can't speak) Ukrainian. I'll be studying German at my university in a few years.
Now, languages I wish I knew... they are Korean (because of my interest in North Korean stuff) and Serbian (because Serbia Stronk).


----------



## FramerGirl420 (May 8, 2014)

Mm, yeah. 
Obviously fluent in English, since it is my first language. 
Can usually understand Spanish, but cannot write or speak it. (Thanx Mum!)
Can understand/speak some French and Icelandic.


----------



## exball (May 8, 2014)

Guardian G.I. said:


> I know Russian, Belarusian (a bit worse than Russian) and English (a bit worse than the previous two), plus I understand (but can't speak) Ukrainian. I'll be studying German at my university in a few years.
> Now, languages I wish I knew... they are Korean (because of my interest in North Korean stuff) and Serbian (because Serbia Stronk).


----------



## Rio (May 8, 2014)

Zhey Drogo ast me-Dothraki thasho h’anhaan ven anha ray yol mehas. Me azh maan athjahakar.


----------



## Foulmouth (May 8, 2014)

Rio said:


> Zhey Drogo ast me-Dothraki thasho h’anhaan ven anha ray yol mehas. Me azh maan athjahakar.


 
It is known.


----------



## OtterParty (May 8, 2014)

Foulmouth said:


> It is known.


It is known.


----------



## exball (May 8, 2014)

Yeah but is it known?


----------



## Sexual Stallone (May 8, 2014)

I know AMERICAN ENGLISH DABES ENGLISH (AMERICA #1) Ese talk, European fag language (Portuguese) and I would love to learn the click speak the darkies use in "The gods must be crazy".


----------



## Pikonic (May 8, 2014)

Guardian G.I. said:


> I know Russian, Belarusian (a bit worse than Russian) and English (a bit worse than the previous two), plus I understand (but can't speak) Ukrainian. I'll be studying German at my university in a few years.
> Now, languages I wish I knew... they are Korean (because of my interest in North Korean stuff) and Serbian (because Serbia Stronk).


Korean is very easy to read, the symbols are syllables and unlike English they never change, I think there's only 20-something too. It's one of the few that you can read, but not speak


----------



## Dr. Mario (May 8, 2014)

Known:
Brazilian Portuguese (first language)
The Glorious Nihongo (fluent)
English (not too shabby)
Italian (poor)
Latin (just the formal terms)
French (very very very poor)

Want to learn:
German



exball said:


>


Since I'm into MMORPGs, I think I'll learn Korean sometime.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (May 8, 2014)

I'm trying to learn Spanish and French, but it isn't going so well.


----------



## The Fair Lady (May 8, 2014)

Can:
-French
-Some Japanese
-Some German

Want to:
-Japanese fluently
-Latin


----------



## The Dude (May 8, 2014)

I speak, read, and write English. I know a small spattering of German, Russian, and Spanish. I would love to learn more Russian, German and maybe Japanese.


----------



## TL 611 (May 8, 2014)

I have a GCSE in French,yeaaah motherfuckers.

But yeah my French is appalling, the only language I can really speak is English


----------



## Strewth (May 8, 2014)

Melchett said:


> I have a GCSE in French,yeaaah motherfuckers.
> 
> But yeah my French is appalling, the only language I can really speak is English



My French teacher told me I was going to fail my French GCSE.
I really stuck it to her by getting a D.


----------



## exball (May 8, 2014)

The Dude said:


> and maybe Japanese.


Weeboo.


----------



## Dormiebasne (May 8, 2014)

My ability to hear or speak Spanish extemporaneously isn't that great, but I can read and write it on a pretty high level. Obviously, I know English as a native language. I have a novice understanding of Latin and Ancient Greek. My French is extremely poor, but I can comprehend a little bit of it. Portuguese I can only comprehend because of its similarities to Spanish.

I wanna get better at hearing Spanish to where I can understand all the different regional accents/dialects. I also want to better my French and Portuguese, since I work in a pretty international setting. Haitian Creole also appeals to me, since a good number of my co-workers speak it and I want to get an understanding of its mechanics, since its development is extremely unique.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (May 8, 2014)

I should say I want to learn Spanish, French, German and Japanese so I can be like Liquid Chris 

But really, Spanish and French should be enough.


----------



## FifthColumn (May 8, 2014)

Russian/Italian/Spanish/Portuguese.
The romance languages are all pretty and useful (especially Italian.)
But I would love to learn russian. It is such a harsh, but simultaneously beautiful language. The works of russian authors ( dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pasternak) contain very deep thoughts, whos true meaning could likely be appreciated even more in the original russian. I just like it, and am intrigued by it... hard to explain..


----------



## sm0t (May 9, 2014)

I can only really speak English fluently; I took a couple years of Spanish in high school but I never really conversed or practiced outside of class so I didn't retain it.   So now I want to re-learn it.

I would love to learn how to speak German, Farsi, and Japanese.  I kinda want to learn Russian too.


----------



## Puranjin (Sep 30, 2014)

Second, third, fourth... (any omniglots out there?)

I didn't check whether there already was one, but I think no off-topic forum board about autistic manchildren is complete without a languages thread! 

Anyone learning another language? Or anyone want to discuss the only language that matters?

Hell, I wouldn't even mind analysing the finer points of lolcow dialect.


----------



## Ariel (Sep 30, 2014)

I can understand and speak French very poorly.


----------



## Watcher (Sep 30, 2014)

I only speak American


----------



## Dr. Mario (Sep 30, 2014)

Brooo' I think there's already a  thread like this one.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Sep 30, 2014)

I know there's a language thread somewhere, as I posted in it a very long time ago. 

http://cwckiforums.com/threads/languages-you-can-want-to-speak.1416/#post-90874

@The Hunter  merge the topics please.


----------



## The Hunter (Sep 30, 2014)

Mourning Dove said:


> @The Hunter  merge the topics please.


Uuuuuuuuuuh... hey, this is funny...

I forgot how.


----------



## Da Pickle Monsta (Sep 30, 2014)

I only speak English, but I can usually figure things out in Spanish due to the three years of it I took in high school.  I took a semester of Japanese in college but I've forgotten most of it.  I'm also learning snippets of Tagalog.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Sep 30, 2014)

I took Spanish and French in high school, 3 semesters of Spanish in college and I took some Mandarin Chinese lessons on Saturdays for free in college.

I'd like to learn all of them if I can.


----------



## exball (Sep 30, 2014)

Cuddlebug said:


> I only speak American


Nice try you god damn maple leaf.


----------



## Artard (Sep 30, 2014)

I speak French fluently and mostly without accent; my parents are French and spoke it as a first language.

It has no practical benefits; it's most useful in pretending to be a foreigner who speaks no English when people bother you on the street. (I've thought about pretending to be French for awhile but I'm pretty sure something Costanza-like would happen to me, like I'd get a $1m/year job offer or be recognized as the authoritarian leader of a new cult under condition that I pretend to be French forever.)


----------



## Mourning Dove (Sep 30, 2014)

The Hunter said:


> Uuuuuuuuuuh... hey, this is funny...
> 
> I forgot how.



Welp that means I'm going to post about my languages again!

I know English of course, and had been taking Spanish classes since middle school. But I switched my college major from Spanish to Environmental Studies so I don't know Spanish as much as I'd like. I took French 1 and 2 in high school. I took beginner's level Arabic in college. I know smatterings of Portuguese, Russian, and German from my foreign language obsession in high school, and I know smatterings of Japanese from my middle school weeaboo phase.

I'd like to learn as many foreign languages as I can, but especially the Indo-European ones I already mentioned, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Sep 30, 2014)

exball said:


> Nice try you god damn maple leaf.



Canada is in NORTH America, so it still counts as American! (sorry double post)


----------



## Trickie (Sep 30, 2014)

I took three years of Japanese in high school and... I've forgotten pretty much half of it. Only thing I know now is the odd phrase here and there like "omelette au fromage" and stuff like that.


----------



## Puranjin (Oct 1, 2014)

Marella said:


> Brooo' I think there's already a  thread like this one.



Oh drat. :S My bad. And it wasn't even that old either...

I've been learning Italian for a bit, another one that, on reflection, has no practical benefits. My father and grandmother both spoke a kooky dialect of Italian (pretty much pidgin, considering they were from the south, and moved to Australia a long while ago), which really got me interested into the variations/dialects of languages.


----------



## John Titor (Oct 1, 2014)

I poorly know Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. Enough to be able to read some words and take a wild guess at what it's saying.


----------



## Phil Ken Sebben (Oct 1, 2014)

English obviously.
French fluently.
Spanish passably.
Italian occasionally.
Japanese poorly.


----------



## Silver (Oct 2, 2014)

Learning Italian at uni now. Hoping to become fluent in it.


----------



## Cotton Pudding (Oct 3, 2014)

Took Spanish in high school but only remember enough that would help me very little.

My girlfriend and I have been looking into learning German together because we both have German ancestry and because it sounds badass.


----------



## Beth (Oct 3, 2014)

Well...I think I speak English and Hungarian well. My German skills are alright, I just unfortunately barely use it and my Japanese and Chinese (Mandarin) skills are pretty basic.


----------



## fuzzypickles (Oct 25, 2014)

English is my native language, and I understand a little bit of Spanish as I took classes in the language (and it also helps that I live in a town with a large Latino community). 

Mandarin Chinese was a language I studied for a few semesters, but because I haven't practiced it in a while, I forgot a few things. I can still understand a few phrases, written or spoken, in Mandarin.

Lastly, I took Italian as a freshman in high school, but I've completely forgotten the language as I haven't studied it since.


----------



## LU 961 (Oct 26, 2014)

Spanish is my native language, and I can speak English fluently (literally without any accent; I've tried to pass myself as a tourist if I don't want to be bothered by people on the street). I'm also learning German, and can probably understand a decent chunk of it.


----------



## GRANDnumberofMULTIPLES (Oct 26, 2014)

English is my native language and I started learning French when I was 5. Still native-level proficiency there to the point where people ask where in France I was born. Took a year of Mandarin my senior year of high school and sadly retained just enough to get by in Chinatown, basically. Learning characters was really difficult for me.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

In this thread we converse in some other language, any language. Maybe someone else will understand you well enough to reply! It doesn't matter if you have to use Google Translate. Have fun!

Ahora mismo es demasiado temprano para estar despierto. Sin razón, me levanté en la seis en la madrugada...

Meu português é horrível. Oi falantes de português!

وأنا أحب الحمام


----------



## Sussuro (Apr 15, 2015)

Cur mane evigilabas?
ちょっとラテン語を忘れたよ！

edit: ラテン語をちょっと忘れたよ！ (word order change - seems I'm forgetting my Japanese a bit too!)


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Mi suplemento melatonina se disipó.


----------



## TrippinKahlua (Apr 15, 2015)

Buey maan wat da FUCK is dis shit? We'spose to talk in 'notha language? What kind of wibe is that bey? Vel mudda sick!

Oooooowwwwhhhhh bey you don' wanna hear dis nonsense, dis foolishness.

Now stop me from going too Bahamian, you wouldn't want me to Juk you! I'd rather stick to juk'in fish!


----------



## José Mourinho (Apr 15, 2015)

你好吗？


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Je suis bien aujourd'hui. Merci!


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Apr 15, 2015)

hola a todos - ahora voy a ir a la librería para leer libros, tomar cafe y pensar 

Estoy muy contento hoy, pero necesito buscar un trabajo


----------



## Sussuro (Apr 15, 2015)

Dit klink goed. Ek wil ook net biblioteek toe gaan en koffie drink. Maar ek het uiteindelik werk gekry en het nie tyd daarvoor nie. Ek is sommer lus om op te gee en weer te gaan swat. 

@Ravenor kom praat ander tale saam met ons!


----------



## TrippinKahlua (Apr 15, 2015)

Maaaan whuchu all SAYin?


----------



## Philosophy Zombie (Apr 15, 2015)

Alan Pardew said:


> 你好吗？



你好。我只可以说一些中文，虽然我的家庭是中国人。



Saluton. Mi ŝercas. Neniu parolas Esperanton. Tiel por "monda lingvo", ĉu ne?


----------



## TrippinKahlua (Apr 15, 2015)

Bey remember Crass and Champ? Ivy's pet Soldier Crabs?

Dem tingum was funny.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Philosophy Zombie said:


> 你好。我只可以说一些中文，虽然我的家庭是中国人。



No hablo chino, aunque soy parte china. Me gustaría poder hablar chino mucho.  Mi hermana es fluida en chino porque ella siempre viaja en China, y tengo celos.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Apr 15, 2015)

Quiero andar en el parque hoy porque hace buen tiempo.

Tambien quiero aprender el chino pero ahora estoy aprendiendo español y el chino es demasiado dificil para aprender ahora, quizas en el futuro, y necesito un profesor. Estudio el alemán a veces porque pienso que es un idioma bonito - estoy aprendiendo leer en el alemán, estudie un poco en la semana pasada.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

También he tomado clases de francés y árabe en el pasado. Sin embargo, necesito revisar y practicar esas idiomas para conversar.


----------



## Stratomsk (Apr 15, 2015)

О, Боже, что я должен сказать его так неловко ... хотите, чтобы некоторые доморощенной водку?


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Hecho divertido: una vez, mi amiga estaba hablando español a su amiga, que hablaba italiano con ella. De alguna manera, ellas podían entender a la perfección. Esta discusión me recuerda de eso.  (Gracias a Google Translate)


----------



## AN/ALR56 (Apr 15, 2015)

Vão da o cu seus fdp feio

PS:Quero comer o cu de vcs tudo,estupro mesmo
sou um trollzinho edgy que gosta de fazer piadinhas gays.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Nunca supe que "trollzinho" era una palabra portuguesa hasta ahora. ¡Aprendo algo nuevo cada día!


----------



## AN/ALR56 (Apr 15, 2015)

Mourning Dove said:


> Nunca supe que "trollzinho" era una palabra portuguesa hasta ahora.* ¡*Aprendo algo nuevo cada día!


trollzinho=little troll.
Agora,vem pro brazil huehuerizar também!


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 15, 2015)

Supongo que trollitas existen en todos los idiomas.


----------



## Dr. Mario (Apr 19, 2015)

Eita porra, alguém segura esse menino!!


----------



## Ravenor (Apr 19, 2015)

post ghewmey reH shit jIH, 'ach HeghDI' 'oH jIjatlhpu' qaStaHvIS tlhIngan, je Hero qaStaHvIS lang pa' 'ut meH bIQtIq Hub'eghtaHvIS, 'ach wa' Duj meH.



Spoiler: translation



I don't always shit post, but when I do I do it in Klingon, also in this con lang there is no word for bridge crossing a river, but there is one for the bridge of a ship.


----------



## exball (Apr 19, 2015)

Ravenor said:


> post ghewmey reH shit jIH, 'ach HeghDI' 'oH jIjatlhpu' qaStaHvIS tlhIngan, je Hero qaStaHvIS lang pa' 'ut meH bIQtIq Hub'eghtaHvIS, 'ach wa' Duj meH.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


QaH bIQ Hub'eghtaHvIS wej nIS tlhIngan.


----------



## Night Terror (Apr 19, 2015)

ya faaaaahkin kaaaants m8 das rite u fahkin erd me priks ill duff u up kunt yeh? ill ring me croo, da newcastle massiv, n well merk ya so ard ye nanll feel it kunt. u fahkin erd me prik. u fahkin wasteman m8. ere m8. wheres da paahnd shop yeh? gimme sum revels like? an sum scratchies kunt. cheers bruv.


----------



## SpessCaptain (Apr 19, 2015)

Tion'solet jorhaa'ir Mando'a?
Ni mirdir jetiise bal darjetii di'kutla.

Null te al'verde cuyir shabuir. :^)


----------



## Strewth (Apr 19, 2015)

Strewth, ichi-ban!


----------



## exball (Apr 19, 2015)

Valiant said:


> Null te al'verde cuyir shabuir. :^)


Elek, Ni bu'la'ya


----------



## SpessCaptain (Apr 19, 2015)

exball said:


> Elek, Ni bu'la'ya


Adramte at haa'taylir cad olyay nayc hut'uun o'r gar.


----------



## Yog-Sothoth (Apr 19, 2015)

Мен қазақ говно орналастыру тұтамын анашым Look.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 19, 2015)

Hoy en mi trabajo, yo pude entender el español de un cliente. Y el cliente llamó mi propia española hermosa.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Apr 20, 2015)

el domingo he almorzado con amigos y comí un gran bistec con cebollas y champiñónes

y ahora no puedo dormir, no estoy cansado y son las dos en la mañana


----------



## The Joker (Apr 20, 2015)

Yo ah be from Detroit an' dis here iz da language o' muh motha fuckin niggas Ya' know what I'm sayin'?


----------



## Conrix (Apr 20, 2015)

_Gero Domus Durbentia, exhi'ma infirmux._



Spoiler: Translation



I have Dark Wisdom, shit foreigner.


It would have said shitlord but Domus Durbentia canonically has no word for "lord" or any kind of leader figure.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 20, 2015)

صباح الخير جميعا! كيف حالك اليوم؟


----------



## The Knife's Husbando (Apr 20, 2015)

Bock. Bock-bock-bock-bock,bock. Bock bock, bock.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 20, 2015)

The Knife's Husbando said:


> Bock. Bock-bock-bock-bock,bock. Bock bock, bock.



I don't speak chicken, but owls are cool too.


----------



## Sigyn (Apr 20, 2015)

Mi dispiace che non parlo piu di queste lingue, ma parlare italiano è molto divertente. Qualcun altro parla Italiano?

EDIT: Fuck spelling errors, man.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 20, 2015)

Sigyn said:


> Mi dispiace che non parlo piu di queste lingue, ma parlare italiano è molto divertente. Qualcun altro parla Italiano?



Puedo entender un poco de italiano, aunque no uso un traductor. Español es muy similar al Italiano porque son idiomas románticas.


----------



## Sigyn (Apr 20, 2015)

Mourning Dove said:


> Puedo entender un poco de italiano, aunque no uso un traductor. Español es muy similar al Italiano porque son idiomas románticas.


Si, Io capisco un po di che tu hai detto , ma non ho capito tutto . Che strano ! Da quanto tempo parli Spagnolo ?


----------



## Picklechu (Apr 20, 2015)

Taco taco taco burrito. Enchilada.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 20, 2015)

Sigyn said:


> Si, Io capisco un po di che tu hai detto , ma non ho capito tutto . Che strano ! Da quanto tempo parli Spagnolo ?



He conocido la lengua española durante más de una década. Era mi especialidad en la universidad  



Picklechu said:


> Taco taco taco burrito. Enchilada.



Si tengas hambre, debes comer algo!


----------



## Red_Rager (Apr 20, 2015)

1|= u k4N r34d 7h15 u n33d 2 g37 |41d


----------



## Sigyn (Apr 20, 2015)

Mourning Dove said:


> He conocido la lengua española durante más de una década. Era mi especialidad en la universidad
> 
> 
> 
> Si tengas hambre, debes comer algo!


Che interesante! Io la Studierei piu nella mia scuola, ma non ci sono classi avanzate lì! Io frequentavo il  piu dificile classe nel mia scuola gia!


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 20, 2015)

Sigyn said:


> Che interesante! Io la Studierei piu nella mia scuola, ma non ci sono classi avanzate lì! Io frequentavo il  piu dificile classe nel mia scuola gia!



La mejor manera de aprender un idioma es por medio de la inmersión, como en estudiar en el extranjero. O escuchar a los vídeos de YouTube en su idioma es útil también.


----------



## exball (Apr 21, 2015)

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00101110 00001010 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110110 01101111 01110010 01110000 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101001 01101100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 01101011 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01100011 01100101 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100010 01101001 01101100 01101001 01110011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011 00101101 01101111 01100110 00101101 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110010 01101001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100111 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110101 01110100 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000001 01100100 01100101 01110000 01110100 01110101 01110011 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110011 01100011 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00101110


----------



## Picklechu (Apr 21, 2015)

exball said:


> 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00101110 00001010 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110110 01101111 01110010 01110000 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101001 01101100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 01101011 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01100011 01100101 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100010 01101001 01101100 01101001 01110011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011 00101101 01101111 01100110 00101101 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110010 01101001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100111 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110101 01110100 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000001 01100100 01100101 01110000 01110100 01110101 01110011 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110011 01100011 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00101110


I keep turning my screen upside-down, but it won't spell "boobs."


----------



## exball (Apr 21, 2015)

Picklechu said:


> I keep turning my screen upside-down, but it won't spell "boobs."


01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001101 01100101 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101001 01100011 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01101001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101101 01101101 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100111 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100001 01101011 00101110


----------



## Hornets (Apr 21, 2015)

Maintenant, nous parlons en Français seulement! Honhonhonhon


----------



## Sigyn (Apr 21, 2015)

exball said:


> 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01110010 01110101 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01100111 01101111 01100100 00101110 00001010 00001010 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 01110101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101100 01100101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100110 01100110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01110110 01101111 01110010 01110000 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101001 01101100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 01101011 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01100011 01100101 01110011 01101000 01101001 01110000 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100010 01101001 01101100 01101001 01110011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01110011 00101101 01101111 01100110 00101101 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100011 01110010 01101001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110011 01110100 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100111 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01110101 01110100 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000001 01100100 01100101 01110000 01110100 01110101 01110011 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100101 01100110 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110011 01100011 01101111 01110000 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010000 01110010 01100001 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00101110


Where is this quote from bc I s2g if you just came up with this I'm going to be so mad


----------



## exball (Apr 21, 2015)

Sigyn said:


> Where is this quote from bc I s2g if you just came up with this I'm going to be so mad


I'm no where near poetic enough to write that. 

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Quotes_Adeptus_Mechanicus#R


----------



## cypocraphy (Apr 21, 2015)

Mamaguevos


----------



## exball (Apr 21, 2015)

bungholio said:


> Mamaguevos


R.I.P Hal.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 21, 2015)

Me encanta esta discusión. Me ayuda a practicar mi español.


----------



## Kirby (Apr 22, 2015)

ni hao wo de ming zi shi kirby
wo de hanyue shi bu hao 
wo shou hanyu hen xiao 
wu bu zhi dao han zi
danshi wo dao xiao pinyin
dui bu qi


----------



## TrippinKahlua (Apr 22, 2015)

Monkey toe dread, the wibe yall talkin bout


----------



## Falcon Lord (Apr 22, 2015)

Exsucez-moi, parlez-vous anglais?


----------



## Overcast (Apr 22, 2015)

gniyas era syug uoy drow a dnatsrednu t'nod I


----------



## TrippinKahlua (Apr 22, 2015)

How girls from the Capitol of the Bahamas talk.


(Vocaroo code if it doesn't work: s1OvDPmjxPFo)


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Apr 22, 2015)

he cenado con mi hermano en Chipotle anoche porque mis padres estan en vacances. Voy a conocirle mañana en la noche para cenar antes de mi clase.


----------



## Philosophy Zombie (Apr 22, 2015)

Victor Hatherley said:


> Exsucez-moi, parlez-vous anglais?



NON.

Je ai une dixième année de la connaissance de l'école secondaire du français. Cela me fait couramment évidemment.

J'étais la plus intelligente dans ma classe. 

Español probablemente tendría más aplicación al mundo real donde vivo (por supuesto no mucho más; yo no vivo en cualquier lugar cerca de la frontera), pero no puedo lanzar mi erres. He oído que usted puede aprender a hacerlo, pero yo no estaba dispuesto a poner en el esfuerzo.


----------



## Mourning Dove (Apr 22, 2015)

Philosophy Zombie said:


> Español probablemente tendría más aplicación al mundo real donde vivo (por supuesto no mucho más; yo no vivo en cualquier lugar cerca de la frontera), pero no puedo lanzar mi erres. He oído que usted puede aprender a hacerlo, pero yo no estaba dispuesto a poner en el esfuerzo.



No vivo en cualquier lugar cerca de la frontera entre México y los E.E.U.U, pero todavía hay una gran cantidad de hablantes de español en el que vivo.


----------



## Philosophy Zombie (Apr 22, 2015)

Según Google, hoy es el Día del Idioma Español. En honor de la fiesta voy a mirar un artículo Wikihow y tratar de aprender cómo hacerlo durante cinco segundos antes de abandonar. La ONU dice que es el 12 de octubre sin embargo.

But apparently tomorrow is UN English Language Day! (This is getting really confusing.) Well, fortunately that's at least easy to celebrate because all I need to do is be an asshole whenever someone mispronounces a word, which I do already.


----------



## Picklechu (Apr 22, 2015)

Boku wa shirafunai desu. Soshite, boku no nihongo no sofutouea wa kon konpyuuta jo ni arimasen.


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Apr 23, 2015)

necesito tomar clases de espanol en Skype en el futuro porque no me gusta manejar por mucho tiempo y tomar clases en la noche.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 4, 2016)

How do you feel about learning languages?
Is it too difficult, too easy? Not taught well enough? Etc.


----------



## polonium (Oct 5, 2016)

Babies can do it and they're fucking idiots who shit themselves.

You're not dumber than someone who shits themselves, are you?


----------



## AnOminous (Oct 5, 2016)

polonium said:


> Babies can do it and they're fucking idiots who shit themselves.
> 
> You're not dumber than someone who shits themselves, are you?



At learning languages, you actually are.


----------



## Doc Cassidy (Oct 5, 2016)

Japanese is pretty easy. I've watched a lot of anime (subbed of course) and I'm pretty much fluent in Japanese by now. There's no reason you can't learn a new language unless you're a baka or something.


----------



## DuskEngine (Oct 5, 2016)

Immersing yourself in a language works better than taking classes in my experience. Most of the rules of grammar are implicit and most vocab words can only be really well understood in context.


----------



## LagoonaBlue (Oct 5, 2016)

DuskEngine said:


> Immersing yourself in a language works better than taking classes in my experience. Most of the rules of grammar are implicit and most vocab words can only be really well understood in context.



I know at least 2 people who have done that and it worked for them.

I studied French and Spanish at school (French for 3 years, Spanish for 2).  I enjoyed learning them whilst at school, however I don't know enough of the languages to consider myself fluent and I am not sure if I want to go back and improve on my language skills.  I really want to learn German at the moment though.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 5, 2016)

LagoonaBlue said:


> I know at least 2 people who have done that and it worked for them.
> 
> I studied French and Spanish at school (French for 3 years, Spanish for 2).  I enjoyed learning them whilst at school, however I don't know enough of the languages to consider myself fluent and I am not sure if I want to go back and improve on my language skills.  I really want to learn German at the moment though.


German is a very interesting language. I dabbled a little into it, but I was nowhere near able to speak it. I found learning three genders(masculine, fem., neutral) to be very confusing. But, if I had the time, I would definitely study it more.


----------



## Bassomatic (Oct 5, 2016)

Some people are gifted in it others not so much, that to be said anyone can do it.

I really think being around it (immersion) is the way to go. My German spoken is kinda rough, and with that I can half ass a touch of Swedish, I know a tiny bit of Mandarin and hand ful of Latin. When I was dating a Jewish girl I picked up a few words of Hebrew but I wouldn't call myself a speaker, but it's interesting that's been over 5 years with no upkeep and if I hear a number or letter it clicks instantly. 

Everyone should know a few basic traveler phrases and more so foods. SJWs be damned, any time no matter how broken I order a meal in native language you get hooked the fuck up and it really seems to honor people. 

I'm rather lucky I'm kinda quick on spoken, reading and writing more so are very difficult for me to pick up.


----------



## FemalePresident (Oct 5, 2016)

English is not my first language, and I learned it pretty much by myself. Still improving, though. I know my english is not perfect.


----------



## MrTroll (Oct 5, 2016)

I'm American, foreigners are supposed to learn my language and culture to accommodate me, not the other way around.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 5, 2016)

Bassomatic said:


> Some people are gifted in it others not so much, that to be said anyone can do it.
> 
> I really think being around it (immersion) is the way to go. My German spoken is kinda rough, and with that I can half ass a touch of Swedish, I know a tiny bit of Mandarin and hand ful of Latin. When I was dating a Jewish girl I picked up a few words of Hebrew but I wouldn't call myself a speaker, but it's interesting that's been over 5 years with no upkeep and if I hear a number or letter it clicks instantly.
> 
> ...


Its the other way around for me. I find speaking extremely difficult, but writing is a breeze. (Unless you are doing japanese or chinese then rip)


----------



## polonium (Oct 5, 2016)

UrbanDecayLover said:


> I found learning three genders(masculine, fem., neutral) to be very confusing.


I was always under the impression English had neutral gender (he, she, it)


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 5, 2016)

polonium said:


> I was always under the impression English had neutral gender (he, she, it)


He is masculine, She is feminine, it is neutral.

The only other neutral pronouns(I believe don't quote me on this) are:



Spoiler: Block of grammar



I, me, we, us, you, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, somebody, someone, something, both, few, many several, all, any, most, none, some, myself, yourself, itself, my, your, its, our, their, mine, yours, theirs, them, and they. 

Sorry for this, I just really love grammar.


TD;LR version: There's a lot of neutral pronouns, but not all of them are.


----------



## Harold (Oct 8, 2016)

I love learning languages, and I basically taught myself English.
In my opinion, it depends on the language you're learning. If you learn a language completely different from yours it might be a bit complicated at times. Nevertheless, you will be able to learn it if you study hard.
The easiest way to learn a new language is picking one that kind of resembles your mother tongue. For example, English and Spanish. They are both pretty easy to learn, share the same alphabet (except for the Ñ) and share some few grammar rules. (But obviously the pronunciation is completely different)


----------



## XYZpdq (Oct 10, 2016)

I took American Sign Language in high school. I remember the usual none of it that most people keep of their high school language but it was  good exercise in thinking in different ways, trying to parse gesture / expression language with structure roots in French.

Since then I've osmosed some idiot Japanese from watching stupid toy commercial shows for years. I don't know the word for bank but I know superdimension explosion.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 11, 2016)

XYZpdq said:


> I took American Sign Language in high school. I remember the usual none of it that most people keep of their high school language but it was  good exercise in thinking in different ways, trying to parse gesture / expression language with structure roots in French.
> 
> Since then I've osmosed some idiot Japanese from watching stupid toy commercial shows for years. I don't know the word for bank but I know superdimension explosion.


I have some question about american sign language, is it one word=one sign, or one letter= one sign?


----------



## XYZpdq (Oct 11, 2016)

UrbanDecayLover said:


> I have some question about american sign language, is it one word=one sign, or one letter= one sign?


There's finger spelling. That's where you sign out the letters one at a time with finger shapes. That's mostly used for proper names and stuff.

Then the gestures are usually one word=one sign (ish). Like the sign for the color "blue" is a single gesture. But if you want to modify it to a light blue or a dark blue you breath out lightly or strongly while you do it, where the breath functions as the modifier, rather than a sign meaning "light" then a sign meaning "blue".
Sometimes a sign might be more than one word in English, but usually functions as a single concept like how "What's up?" is a single gesture using both hands with the facial modifier indicating an open question, instead of "what" "is" "up".

In addition to ASL there's also "Signed Exact English" where you just sign word for word spoken English. 

As far as I understand as-of twenty years ago deaf people often used something of a pidgin of both for day-to-day communications depending on what was common in the local community.


----------



## Yaks (Oct 12, 2016)

I think people tend to go about learning language wrong. Formal classes are alright, but you can learn yourself using free online tools (there are a lot of conversational websites dedicated to mutual learning between participants and is far more helpful than just going over vocab words all day.) Or you can go the route of the US state department and just use Rosetta Stone. A cousin of mine (who was already fluent in English and Spanish) would be able to get around in about 2 months without much trouble after crunching that. They learned Arabic, Japanese, and French that way I think.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 12, 2016)

Yaks said:


> I think people tend to go about learning language wrong. Formal classes are alright, but you can learn yourself using free online tools (there are a lot of conversational websites dedicated to mutual learning between participants and is far more helpful than just going over vocab words all day.) Or you can go the route of the US state department and just use Rosetta Stone. A cousin of mine (who was already fluent in English and Spanish) would be able to get around in about 2 months without much trouble after crunching that. They learned Arabic, Japanese, and French that way I think.


DO NOT USE ROSETTA STONE!
It is not effective for learning languages! Duolingo, a free program, is miles above that horrid monster. I have personally tried rosetta stone, and I found it stupid. Whenever I tried to speak one thing it taught me with a native speaker, I just blanked out, with rosetta stone it just doesn't get in your head.(I did portuguese and tagalong)
Also, there are numerous articles explaining how idiotic it is.

One of the many articles:
https://language101.com/reviews/rosetta-stone/


----------



## Yaks (Oct 12, 2016)

UrbanDecayLover said:


> DO NOT USE ROSETTA STONE!
> It is not effective for learning languages! Duolingo, a free program, is miles above that horrid monster. I have personally tried rosetta stone, and I found it stupid. Whenever I tried to speak one thing it taught me with a native speaker, I just blanked out, with rosetta stone it just doesn't get in your head.(I did portuguese and tagalong)
> Also, there are numerous articles explaining how idiotic it is.
> 
> ...



I literally just said my cousin learned several languages utilizing nothing but Rosetta Stone for the state department within just a few months. Enough to easily get by on day to day activities. It's the program they used for their foreign officers. Maybe Rosetta Stone just wasn't for you, like many people not everyone learns language the exact same way. Thats okay. Being immersed in the language on a day to day eventually made her fluent. Also that link you gave me is an advertisement for another program and a nickpick of their shoddy marketing campaign.


----------



## UrbanDecayLover (Oct 12, 2016)

Yaks said:


> I literally just said my cousin learned several languages utilizing nothing but Rosetta Stone for the state department within just a few months. Enough to easily get by on day to day activities. It's the program they used for their foreign officers. Maybe Rosetta Stone just wasn't for you, like many people not everyone learns language the exact same way. Thats okay. Being immersed in the language on a day to day eventually made her fluent. Also that link you gave me is an advertisement for another program and a nickpick of their shoddy marketing campaign.


Ignore the marketing campaign part, and they have great criticisms against it. Yes, its obvious that they want them to use their website, but I have to agree with some of the points they made. Most of the people I've talked with that use rosetta stone absolutely despise it.


----------



## Zeorus (Jul 14, 2017)

When I'm not wasting time here or attempting to get some work done, my primary occupation is studying languages. I'm currently trying to improve my French skills while also learning Welsh and Breton (I also study Italian with my wife sometimes). Out of curiosity - what languages does everyone here speak?

In a similar vein, what resources do you use for learning? I'm a pretty devoted user of Duolingo and Memrise.

(Mods: I know that there have already been two threads about this, but I figured posting a new one was better than necroing either of those. If I've misjudged, I apologize.)


----------



## UncleFezziesPantsPuppet (Jul 14, 2017)

I would like to learn spanish. I always liked how it sounded, and i'd be able to understand the lyrics in a song better. Also where I live there are a lot of mexican families, so it'd be nice to have a conversation with them.


----------



## John Titor (Jul 17, 2017)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

Good way to remember words.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Nov 26, 2018)

I like languages along with their histories, differences, peculiarities and how they work, especially ancient ones like Latin, Greek and (((Hebrew))) or constructed ones like Esperanto, Pandunia and Elvish.

The topic I am currently into is Proto-Indo-European.

English is very simple compared to other languages in Europe. Neither does it use practical tools like grammatical case, nor does it have funny quirks like gendered nouns and also verbs do not show many forms.


----------



## Wärring Ornac (Nov 26, 2018)

https://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/art...ma-The-basis-of-Embodied-Cognition/Page1.html

Need help to differentiate figure 2 and figure 3. Fucking circles, how do they work?


----------



## Dr. Tremolo (Nov 26, 2018)

I'm huge into linguistic shit even if I don't speak that many myself.
Yeah, English has rather simple grammar, it has more in common with Chinese grammar than it does with many European languages. The fucked up unusual part that's hard to foreigners and even native speakers is the spelling.


----------



## wylfım (Nov 26, 2018)

Not a linguist but I read way too much on languages, AMA.
English has simple morphology (cases and the ways words are put together), but the syntax is really complex, and there are a lot of registers because half of our words come from Latin and a decent amount from Greek too. I would hesitate to say that makes the whole language any more different than others in terms of simplicity. Languages that are simple on one area tend to be very complex in others, and vice versa. 

Here are some fun facts about PIE (proto-indo-european):
It was spoken originally around the plains of Ukraine, and it had a really complex (and unstable set of consonants). Simplified, it had p b and bh, for instance. Because there's a voiced aspirate series (bh) you would similarly expect an unvoiced aspirate series (ph), which didn't exist. So the system collapsed in the various languages into a more stable form, leading to a lot of the differences between, say, greek, german, latin, sanskrit, etc, depending on how they stabilized the system. Most of the ones in europe merged together consonant sounds. In India though, they added the missing ph series to stabilize it. 
PIE also only had one vowel (e), which changed forms depending on the grammar (this is called ablaut). This is similar to how English uses sing, sang, sung for tenses, though this developed differently and isn't related to the PIE ablaut. In old english, there were markers that indicated tone (like how we use -ed for past tense now); these markers were vowels, that the vowels before them then changed to mimic. For instance, if sing is the current tense, then singu → sungu would be the past tense. Over time the final vowel got dropped off (this is what happened to mess up English spelling and lead to the "magic e"— the 'e' in words like 'knife' was originally pronounced, but people got lazy and dropped it), and all that you're left with is sing vs sung, which speakers just memorize or reanalyze as the new tense. This isn't the exact specific example that happened in English (it was much more complex), but the idea stands.
Then we get into fun with vowel lengths: English used to have long (literally pronounced twice as long) and short vowels. In 'closed' syllables like "night" (the gh used to be pronounced like the german "ch" in "bach"), the vowel was short. When the 'gh' stopped being pronounced, it first lengthened the vowel. Long vowels then become dipthongs— in this case 'ai', which is why "night" is pronounced like "nait" instead of "nit". 
The long-short distinction is another reason english spelling is so bad. words like "knife" had a long vowel, hence "ai" pronounciation, whereas other words like "kit" had a short vowel that didn't change (much). But when English spelling was being standardized, they didn't mark whether or not vowels were short or long and wrote them all the same, so now you just have to know whether a word has a short or long vowel.

tl;dr I need a better hobby because I waste way too much of my life on learning useless things


----------



## User names must be unique (Nov 26, 2018)

Dr. Tremolo said:


> The fucked up unusual part that's hard to foreigners and even native speakers is the spelling.



Most of that was because of The Great vowel shift, a bunch of mush mouthed southerners couldn't talk properly so they just ignored the letters, you get more accurate pronunciations of English in Scotland. 




And some more were because some cunts just decided to ditch 6 letters from the alphabet to make their printing presses easier to import.

and then you get stuff that is totally arbitrary like the silent B in debt, It was added so the word looked more Latin, no-one ever used to pronounce the 'b' it used to be spelled dett similar to the french dette (debt).


----------



## nanny911 (Nov 26, 2018)

Supposedly colonel English sounded like deep south English and older Charlestonian is apparently a great example. Charlestonian is often non-rhotic (i.e. they don't pronounce syllable-end "r"s) and there's Canadian raising (even today) so "about" is rendered "aboat".  I met a 95-year-old who had lived in the deep south her whole life and she said things like "mah fathuh", "choose-dee" (instead of Tuesday), basically like Strom Thurmond.


----------



## wylfım (Nov 26, 2018)

User names must be unique said:


> and then you get stuff that is totally arbitrary like the silent B in debt, It was added so the word looked more Latin, no-one ever used to pronounce the 'b' it used to be spelled dett similar to the french dette (debt).


It was never pronounced in English, but it derived from Latin dēbitum, so at one point it was definitely there.


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Nov 26, 2018)

User names must be unique said:


> Most of that was because of The Great vowel shift, a bunch of mush mouthed southerners couldn't talk properly so they just ignored the letters, you get more accurate pronunciations of English in Scotland.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've seen people complaining that this guy isn't a good example of Scots, because he's a native English speaker who learned Scots as an adult.



nanny911 said:


> Supposedly colonel English sounded like deep south English and older Charlestonian is apparently a great example. Charlestonian is often non-rhotic (i.e. they don't pronounce syllable-end "r"s) and there's Canadian raising (even today) so "about" is rendered "aboat".  I met a 95-year-old who had lived in the deep south her whole life and she said things like "mah fathuh", "choose-dee" (instead of Tuesday), basically like Strom Thurmond.


One of my professors is from Virginia and says 'Tues-dee' and I find it incredibly annoying. Not as annoying as my other professor from Virginia who says 'rezources' and 'abzborbed', though.

On the topic of non-rhoticism, it's interesting to me how American English speakers who _are _rhotic will drop r's in certain words, like the middle of the word r's in 'surprise', 'governor', and 'reservoir'. (Here's a paper about it if you're interested).


----------



## nanny911 (Nov 26, 2018)

Crunchy Leaf said:


> On topic of non-rhoticism, it's interesting to me how American English speakers who _are _rhotic will drop r's in certain words, like the middle of the word r's in 'surprise', 'governor', and 'reservoir'. (Here's a paper about it if you're interested).



I do that, it's call "r-dissimilation" one of my most frequently misspelled words is "surprise" which I often misspell as "suprise".


----------



## mindlessobserver (Nov 26, 2018)

The most interesting thing I find about Language is how its the operating system of the mind. When you "think", you think in the language you learned as a child. Even when you speak another language, your brain automatically translates the foreign tongue you are speaking into the base language you learned as a baby. Which often leads to hilarious misinterpretations incidentally. More fun, deaf people who learn sign language think in sign language. 

The really scary shit happens in studies done on feral children, who never learned a language at all. they were literally high functioning monkeys, completely incapable of rational thoughts or control over their needs and emotions. Worse, how our brains define concepts that have no tangible real world existence is highly dependent on linguistic meaning. There are elements of Asian mysticism that have no good translation into english as an example, while African languages have no translation for concepts like "Time" or "Future". Such linguistic gaps may very well lead into radical shifts in how our minds view the world and our culture develops.


----------



## wylfım (Nov 26, 2018)

mindlessobserver said:


> The most interesting thing I find about Language is how its the operating system of the mind. When you "think", you think in the language you learned as a child. Even when you speak another language, your brain automatically translates the foreign tongue you are speaking into the base language you learned as a baby. Which often leads to hilarious misinterpretations incidentally. More fun, deaf people who learn sign language think in sign language.
> 
> The really scary shit happens in studies done on feral children, who never learned a language at all. they were literally high functioning monkeys, completely incapable of rational thoughts or control over their needs and emotions. Worse, how our brains define concepts that have no tangible real world existence is highly dependent on linguistic meaning. There are elements of Asian mysticism that have no good translation into english as an example, while African languages have no translation for concepts like "Time" or "Future". Such linguistic gaps may very well lead into radical shifts in how our minds view the world and our culture develops.


I would disagree by saying that pretty much every single mainstream linguists rejects the strong version of the sapir-whorf hypothesis. At most language influences thought, but it is not necessary to it or to understanding concepts. And with feral children, their issues probably stem from abuse, not lack of language.
As for concepts that are difficult to translate, you can still explain what a word means. Even if it takes you a paragraph to describe it, you can communicate the concept, regardless of if there's a word or not. You can explain to someone what snow is without ever using the word itself. They might not fully understand it like someone who has seen snow will, but the general idea still transfers.


----------



## mindlessobserver (Nov 26, 2018)

wylfım said:


> I would disagree by saying that pretty much every single mainstream linguists rejects the strong version of the sapir-whorf hypothesis. At most language influences thought, but it is not necessary to it or to understanding concepts. And with feral children, their issues probably stem from abuse, not lack of language.
> As for concepts that are difficult to translate, you can still explain what a word means. Even if it takes you a paragraph to describe it, you can communicate the concept, regardless of if there's a word or not. You can explain to someone what snow is without ever using the word itself. They might not fully understand it like someone who has seen snow will, but the general idea still transfers.



I would counter by saying most linguists are terrified about what the psychological literature on the nature of language and its cognitive function says. This is the problem with having two separate disciplines approaching an issue from opposite ends. Linguists like Tolkein and Orwell (who are more known for their fictional work then their language work) understood the importance of language on cultural development.

Now we could certainly argue that Tolkeins Morghul Tongue and Orwells Newspeak are simply fictional tropes, but they did stem from the hypothesis that there was more to language then simply putting a label on everything. Especially when we consider metaphysical concepts like Freedom, Time, the Future, Heaven, Paradise, etc. They are not like Road, Chair, Apple, Orange, Banana. We can wave the latter in someones face and say "this is what it is!" and the brain will index the information accordingly. But a metaphysical concept like Freedom? Its dependent on subjective definition. And that can be changed. Or even forgotten. And if we forget the word "Freedom", or warp its definition into something else entirely, does our metaphysical concept of "Freedom" exist anymore? I would argue it does not.


----------



## millais (Nov 26, 2018)

I recently read an old paper on the historical spoken accent of American Southerners. Basically the authors made a detailed comparison between the modern, post-WWII American Southern accent with the accent of English-speaking Brazilian Confederados, whose geographic isolation has insulated their traditional Southern accent from much of the linguistic drift and evolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, supposedly making them an ideal control group representing a close approximation of the historical accent. Unfortunately most of the linguistics terminology went over my head, but from what I understood, the main findings were that the modern American Southern accent has diverged considerably from the 19th century antebellum accent in the increased frequency of rhoticism and contraction of -ing to -in' (I forget the academic term for that phenomenon). So the antebellum Southern accent was actually not so different from the modern American accents of the North and Midwest, and the main reasons for the significant divergence of the modern Southern accent from the American norm was the lack of internal migration from the north and west during the post-bellum decades, combined with big migration of Tidewater and Piedmont Virginians and the associated spread of their prestige dialect/accent features to all parts of the American South during the same post-bellum period. I was not very impressed with the methodology of the research since they had a very tiny sample of size of English-speaking Confederados who they used as the "baseline" control for their comparison. Only like 20 elderly subjects, same number of adults, and less than 10 children, so it's not especially convincing. But because of the decline of English language fluency in the Confederado population, its highly unlikely that anyone today will be able to replicate the study with a bigger sample size.


----------



## wylfım (Nov 26, 2018)

mindlessobserver said:


> I would counter by saying most linguists are terrified about what the psychological literature on the nature of language and its cognitive function says. This is the problem with having two separate disciplines approaching an issue from opposite ends. Linguists like Tolkein and Orwell (who are more known for their fictional work then their language work) understood the importance of language on cultural development.
> 
> Now we could certainly argue that Tolkeins Morghul Tongue and Orwells Newspeak are simply fictional tropes, but they did stem from the hypothesis that there was more to language then simply putting a label on everything. Especially when we consider metaphysical concepts like Freedom, Time, the Future, Heaven, Paradise, etc. They are not like Road, Chair, Apple, Orange, Banana. We can wave the latter in someones face and say "this is what it is!" and the brain will index the information accordingly. But a metaphysical concept like Freedom? Its dependent on subjective definition. And that can be changed. Or even forgotten. And if we forget the word "Freedom", or warp its definition into something else entirely, does our metaphysical concept of "Freedom" exist anymore? I would argue it does not.


That isn't contradictory to what I said though, and I agree. Language _influences_ thought, but it doesn't determine it. If you don't have a word for freedom, you're going to have certain biases in that direction, but that doesn't mean you can't think about freedom in a way that a language with it could. That's really what philosophy is, trying to put to words your brain's "natural" language. No one thinks in human language— hence why sometimes you can know something but not know how to express it.


----------



## mindlessobserver (Nov 26, 2018)

wylfım said:


> That isn't contradictory to what I said though, and I agree. Language _influences_ thought, but it doesn't determine it. If you don't have a word for freedom, you're going to have certain biases in that direction, but that doesn't mean you can't think about freedom in a way that a language with it could. That's really what philosophy is, trying to put to words your brain's "natural" language. No one thinks in human language— hence why sometimes you can know something but not know how to express it.



But this gets into the issue of "not everyone is a philosopher", and opens up the door to the concept of collective consciousness and zeitgeist. Socratese believed in "the forms" that were the universal truths independent of thought that everyone knows but does not notice. That is essentially your argument. "Freedom", is one of the Forms. It is an independent truth. We may not know how to quantify it, but it exists. The flip side of this issue is of course Plato's cave. While there is a universal truth, but we are blind too it. And most are too stupid to not stop watching the false shadows to notice the higher planes of reality. Or worse, are FORCED to watch the shadows (the chains) and not allowed to see that there is a reality beyond the cave.

I find Plato's cave to be far more accurate summation of metaphysical reality. Things like "Freedom" may be a separate form of reality we intrinsically know but cannot describe, but if our minds are conditioned to not notice or even know of it, be through language, culture, etc, the, concept may as well not exist. The case of the Feral Children is this on steroids. They may understand basic concepts like food, hunger, cold, heat, etc, things necessary for survival. But anything beyond that are lost. Our brains have a hard code that allows us to survive. When we are hungry we look for food. When we are thirsty we look for water. When we are horny we look for sex. None of these things require words. We naturally know how to do it, and can do it without thinking. But complex thoughts, thoughts that could, for example, consider the nature of balance between good and evil, freedom and tyranny, or chaos and order, require a much more fundamental structure.

A Philosopher may be able to individually hit on these concepts independent of an existing linguistic structure, but society as a whole? Doubtful. Most people are not so intelligent as to be able to comprehend methods of reality beyond what they understand.


----------



## Red Hood (Nov 26, 2018)

Taking Old English in college got me interested in how languages shift and fragment. If you've taken German first there's a lot of familiar territory in OE (Since the Angles, Saxons etc came from what is today Germany) ...that can often trip you up as pronunciation goes, since there was a shift in which English kept the old W sound that we still use and German started pronouncing the identical looking letter as V.


----------



## UselessRubberKeyboard (Nov 27, 2018)

I remember being baffled by learning Latin in school.  The idea of declensions for nouns seemed utterly insane to me - like, how many different versions of the word do you need for the word 'table'.  IT'S A TABLE.  Just say whose table it is or what's on it, for fuck's sake.  Amo amas amat FUCK OFF.

And then I met Slavic languages.  

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Latin teacher from the bottom of my heart, and to apologise profusely for being an absolute twat in her class for two years.  Mrs Cassidy, you are a star amongst women, and I'm not surprised you were so bloody bad-tempered, having to teach dickheads like myself about the basics of half of the world's languages that are so logical it should be damn obvious why they work they way they do (if only I'd shut up complaining for once and had actually thought about it).  You were right, and I was wrong.  You were kinda cute, too.

I still can't remember the word for 'table' in Latin, though.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Nov 27, 2018)

I love Latin. It is my favourite language. I can read it a bit, too, I also have some books written in it.

The declension system is more elegant than using only prepositions. Latin is not even that crazy with it, Hungarian has over 30 cases and Finnish has 15.

The Finnish genitive is marked by -n and the inessive (inside something) by -ssa, while the plural is marked by -t in the nominative and -i in all other cases.
tyttö -> girl
tyttön -> girl's
talo -> house
talossa -> in the house
kirja -> book
kirjaitta -> without books

What is also funny are noun genders. In Latin, a table (mensa) is female. Meanwhile, a stone (lapis) is male, while a star (astronomical, not celebrity) can be male (sidus), female (stella) or neuter (astrum) depending on the synonym selected for it.

And yes, those gendered nouns influence how people perceive those objects. Spaniards described bridges with stereotypically male attributes (towering, dangerous, strong) and Germans with female ones (elegant, gracile) because of the genders of their words for bridge (puente [sp], brücke [ger]. When Russian artists drew weekdays as people, the gender of those anthro versions correspondended to the genders of the names of those days in the Russian language.

Still, I wonder: How can an inanimate object like a table or something immaterial like Friday have a gender? Why should it? Though, I know those noun genders evolved in PIE somehow out of the habit of marking the subject in a sentence with an -s and the object with an -m.


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Nov 27, 2018)

UselessRubberKeyboard said:


> I remember being baffled by learning Latin in school.  The idea of declensions for nouns seemed utterly insane to me - like, how many different versions of the word do you need for the word 'table'.  IT'S A TABLE.  Just say whose table it is or what's on it, for fuck's sake.  Amo amas amat FUCK OFF.
> 
> And then I met Slavic languages.
> 
> ...


It's 'mensa'. 

I took Latin in school too, and German, and Ancient Greek, and I'm not a fan of declensions either. Especially in Greek and German, which have like eighteen different words for 'the'. What's so wrong with one, man?


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Nov 27, 2018)

Ancient Greek has "only" 17 and German "only" 6 different forms of "the". They change with declension between gender (male, female, neuter), number (singular, plural) and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusativ). German has 16 possible combinations, since it only distinguishes gender in the singular. Greek has 36 because it also has the dual number but that is seldomly used (only for natural pairs like twin siblings, a pair of shoes, two arms, two legs etc.). It also has the vocative case which only affects male words ending in -s in the singular.

Classical Latin (that one used around 1 AD) did not have any articles but in Middle Latin, sometimes the demonstrative pronoun "ille" was used as definite article. Originally it was used to point to somebody or something far away, akin to English "those". "Ille" is the masculine singular nominative, it showed over 14 different forms like illa, illo, illi, ilud etc. That is where the French articles "le" and "la" come from.


----------



## Vlad the Inhaler (Dec 5, 2018)

wylfım said:


> tl;dr I need a better hobby because I waste way too much of my life on learning useless things



Really? You don't say. Because I'll put my OCD encyclopedic knowledge of the last 100 years or so of Indochinese history as infinitely less useful. But anyway.

Here's my story. Spanish primary language, but so thoroughly obliterated by English. I also speak passable German. Took two years of Latin in high school, and two years of German at university which improved my grammar and spelling greatly. I've taught ESL classes at community colleges, and find language study fascinating. So this all comes out kinda scattershot.

First of all, I don't care what Italians say, it is ao similar to Spanish that I understand the majority of what I read or hear. Can't speak it at all, probably couldn't even ask directions. Portuguese less so, but still can decipher most of what I read, as long as it's things like signs, menus, etc. I've picked up a smattering of French just by translating French quotes in books and from culinary studies. I can identify writing in Romanian, but that's it.

German is pretty damned close to Yiddish so long as I'm hearing it, and have been able to converse in rudimentary, simple sentences with a Yiddish speaker. I can recognize Dutch, but not much more. I can't tell the difference between Danish, Norwegian and even less Swedish. Could probably decipher street signs and the like. Afrikaans is another world. Some words are just like pidgeon German, but hearing it spoken leaves my brain spinning.

I can identify Finnish when I see it, as well as Hungarian. Completely useless with any Slavic language. Polish I can recognize, but Czech, Bulgarian, Serbo Croat, Russian, I can literally identify about four letters in Cyrillic. Arabic, African, Oriental languages, useless. I tried learning a little Vietnamese, but had to give up as it is a language all about inflection, and I wouldn't get it without somebody to practice.

As far as difficulty to learn, I'd put it at English, Spanish, German then Latin, hardest to simplest. I've never, ever, figured out how to properly place accents in Spanish. Many people have told me it's very simple, but those were always the last words I actually understood once they started the rules. My mother has been a school teacher my whole life, and she gave it up as a lost cause after about two tries. And I'm deliberately leaving out the issue of proper Castillian versus common Spanish, and to hell with Basque, Valencian and other forms. I can't read Garcia Llorca or Cervantea without my Real Academia de Espanol (Royal Academy of Spanish) dictionary.

As has been mentioned before, the primary stumbling block I've heard from students is just too many spelling variants, owing to the great numbet of languages English draw words from. Once, in order to help my students understand better the movements of people that have influenced English, I drew a pretty decent map of Europe and the Mediterranean on the chalkboard and proceeded to go from ancient Greece to the late middle ages. My students were flabbergasted that I drew such a detailed map of Europe freehand, and heard nothing else I said after that. Oh well. The different spellings completely negated any advantage our simple grammar format afforded. Without the stability of learning fixed declensions and conjugation, you essentially have to learn every word as if it had its own rule.

Think about it. The verbs drive and dive. I drive, I drove. I dive, I dove, or is it dived? He drove here and he dived in. And that's just one example. Trust me, that drives them bat shit crazy. Lack of uniform rules fucks with your stress levels in a big way.

So, until I die, I'm going to still love learning about languages. I'm going to have to suck it up and try at least one Oriental language in my life. And it sure as shit won't be Chinese. I'm still pretty pissed all the words I grew up learning like Peking duck and Mao Tse-tung and Yangtze just got tossed out the fucking window. Tough shit, you have to spell them the way we tell you to now, European barbarian.


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Dec 5, 2018)

I took Japanese and it's a lot easier than Chinese since there's no tones, and it's the most-easily-accessible East Asian language after Chinese for a Westerner to learn. 

Now, I have to ask everyone--do you prefer 'sneaked' or 'snuck'?


----------



## wylfım (Dec 5, 2018)

Crunchy Leaf said:


> I took Japanese and it's a lot easier than Chinese since there's no tones, and it's the most-easily-accessible East Asian language after Chinese for a Westerner to learn.
> 
> Now, I have to ask everyone--do you prefer 'sneaked' or 'snuck'?


'Snuck' hands down. 'Sneaked' sounds ungrammatical to me. I also prefer "kneel"-"knelt," but I accept "kneeled" as grammatical.
And I took Chinese (got decently fluent in it actually), so that makes us basically linguistic neighbors!


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Dec 5, 2018)

wylfım said:


> 'Snuck' hands down. 'Sneaked' sounds ungrammatical to me. I also prefer "kneel"-"knelt," but I accept "kneeled" as grammatical.
> And I took Chinese (got decently fluent in it actually), so that makes us basically linguistic neighbors!


I took two years of Chinese in high school. I have consequently forgotten 99% of it.
(Sneaked is the 'correct' form--snuck is wrong, if you want to be a purist.)


----------



## This+ (Dec 6, 2018)

I'm trying to learn German and French on my own after 1 semester of French and a year of German in university. It's not going very well but I try to read some news articles without using google translate as much as possible. German "clicks" more with me since it's closer to English though. 

Written Korean (Hangul) is extremely easy to read. It's made so that even "simple-minded people" can master it within a week, and one day for smart people. The problem that comes with such an easy writing system is that there are a lot of homophones, and lots of context is required. Newspapers today still have a little bit of Chinese characters (Hanja) to denote names, and it was even worse in official documents in the past. 

There's differences between North Korean and South Korean languages as well. The South Korean language has lots of loanwords from English and other Western languages (for example, "part-time job" in S.Korean is "알바" (pronounced "Arba," shortened for "Arbeit," which means "job" or "work" in German). North Korean doesn't have said influences and is more "traditional." Spelling is also different in some cases as well. "Work" (with the context of Communist "Worker's Party," what would be "labor" in English) in S.K. is "노동" (pronounced "Nodohng")  but in N.K. it's "로동" (pronounced "rodohng").


----------



## Vlad the Inhaler (Dec 6, 2018)

Crunchy Leaf said:


> I took two years of Chinese in high school. I have consequently forgotten 99% of it.
> (Sneaked is the 'correct' form--snuck is wrong, if you want to be a purist.)



Okay. So I'll toss you some from the worst offenders:

Verb to plea;   "Pleaded" or "Pled"

And from Latin, a term which means your trial has proceeded without your presence:

_In absentia      _Or_      In abstentia
_
Alright       Or         All right
Wiggle       Or       Wriggle room
Anymore   Or        Any more

Have fun, all.



_
_


----------



## wylfım (Dec 6, 2018)

Vlad the Inhaler said:


> Okay. So I'll toss you some from the worst offenders:
> 
> Verb to plea;   "Pleaded" or "Pled"
> 
> ...


for me:
pleaded
_in absentia_
alright
wiggle
anymore or any more (depending on context— I would say "i dont want to eat any more food", and "i don't want to eat food anymore")


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Dec 6, 2018)

Vlad the Inhaler said:


> Okay. So I'll toss you some from the worst offenders:
> 
> Verb to plea;   "Pleaded" or "Pled"
> 
> ...


I think of 'alright' and 'all right' as meaning different things. Alright means okay, and all right is all correct, or well.
So 
'Professor, what did you think of the answers to my exam?'
'They're alright'--you did okay
'They're all right'--you got a 100
And pronounced differently also.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 11, 2018)

This+ said:


> I'm trying to learn German and French on my own after 1 semester of French and a year of German in university. It's not going very well but I try to read some news articles without using google translate as much as possible. German "clicks" more with me since it's closer to English though.


I speak them both and basically, English is just dumbed down German with a lot of mispronounced French words in it.

That is why the world should use French as a global _lingua franca _again.


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Dec 11, 2018)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> I speak them both and basically, English is just dumbed down German with a lot of mispronounced French words in it.
> 
> That is why the world should use French as a global _lingua franca _again.


I'll accept this as long as it's Quebec French.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 13, 2018)

So, now I have a small question: If I use the singular they (for whatever reason), shall I use a singular or plural verb?


----------



## wylfım (Dec 14, 2018)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> So, now I have a small question: If I use the singular they (for whatever reason), shall I use a singular or plural verb?


My instinct is to say it should be singular for consistency reasons, but then I realize that since the word itself is inherently plural it sounds deeply wrong with anything other than a plural verb


----------



## Joan Nyan (Dec 14, 2018)

I have a theory that the more complex a writing system is, the smarter you get by learning it, and that the average IQ of different countries reflects this. It's not a perfect correlation because there's a million other factors, but I don't think it's a coincidence that every single country which uses Chinese Characters, or a derivative thereof, is above every single country that does not. South Korea is an edge case because Hanja is barely used and Hangul is so simple, but as far as I know Hanja is still taught to some degree.

It's 不 too 遅 to 始 作ing 英語 難er guys.


----------



## Corbin Dallas Multipass (Dec 14, 2018)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> So, now I have a small question: If I use the singular they (for whatever reason), shall I use a singular or plural verb?



It's a trick question, there is no singular they.


----------



## wylfım (Dec 14, 2018)

Jon-Kacho said:


> It's 不 too 遅 to 始 作ing 英語 難er guys.


但 do 聪明er 国家 lead to 更complex scripts, 还是 the complex scripts lead to 上er 智商 citizens?
Although on a more serious note I would fully support doing the Japanese system and integrating the Asian script, especially for big derived words for abstract concepts.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 14, 2018)

Jon-Kacho said:


> I have a theory that the more complex a writing system is, the smarter you get by learning it, and that the average IQ of different countries reflects this. It's not a perfect correlation because there's a million other factors, but I don't think it's a coincidence that every single country which uses Chinese Characters, or a derivative thereof, is above every single country that does not. South Korea is an edge case because Hanja is barely used and Hangul is so simple, but as far as I know Hanja is still taught to some degree.
> 
> It's 不 too 遅 to 始 作ing 英語 難er guys.


The hypothesis that people with more complex native tongues are more intelligent certainly is nonsense. Sure, language influences how we think, but not in that way.

It would imply that the British became dumb during the later Medieval and earlier Modern Ages, when English transformed itself from complex synthetic grammar with a lot of inflection to a simple isolating grammar far easier to learn. 
Dutch has lost  a lot of inflection in the last centuries, does this mean the Dutch people became dumb? 
Is a Frenchman more intelligent than an Italian because French spelling is so arbitrary and illogical, while Italians just pronounce all letters of their words?
German spelling rules were officially changed in the 90s, with simplification as a major reason for that, do you believe this caused an epidemia of mental disabilities in Germany?

African countries have the lowest IQ scores in the world, yet their Bantu languages are very complex (e.g. Swahili), while East Asian countries with high IQ scores, use very simple ones, contrary to popular misconceptions, Chinese grammar is minimalistic and very easy.



Corbin Dallas Multipass said:


> It's a trick question, there is no singular they.


The personal pronoun "they" has been used for centuries in the singular, just like the singular you.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 29, 2018)

So, as far as I know, the singular they takes a plural verb too, just like the singular you.

We say "you are/have/walk" and not "you art/hast/walkst" when we address a single person, even though we would say thou art/hast/walkst when using the real 2nd person singular pronoun.

We should bring back "thou". I guess I will make thou/thee/thy/thine/thyself my pronoun and demand people to address me with it... sorry not it, I meant thou.


----------



## Tampon Head (Dec 29, 2018)

Chinese is a ton of fun to learn. Writing sentences in traditional script feels so rewarding after studying the characters for so long. However,  it's miles harder than any of the romance languages I've studied. It's a shame that mainland China abandoned the traditional scripts around the 1960s.

If I'm being honest, I would have preferred to focus on Japanese rather than Chinese during my university years. I'm still planning on pursuing Japanese, but I'm grateful for my time learning Chinese.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Jan 21, 2019)

mindlessobserver said:


> The most interesting thing I find about Language is how its the operating system of the mind. When you "think", you think in the language you learned as a child. Even when you speak another language, your brain automatically translates the foreign tongue you are speaking into the base language you learned as a baby. Which often leads to hilarious misinterpretations incidentally. More fun, deaf people who learn sign language think in sign language.


I read something about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis lately, it claimes the languages we use influence how we think.

E.g. terms for colours can vary. A language may not have a word for "blue" and "yellow" as Anglophones imagine but three different independent ones for several shades of blue or something two terms, one representing a tone between English yellow and orange and the other a colour akin to a mixing of yellow and brown. E.g. this may influence an artist in which colours they chooses for a painting.

Many languages assign genders to nouns in an arbitrary way. Like I mentioned, those noun genders influence how people perceive entities, like imagining animals of unknown gender to speak with a male or female voice depending on the gender of their species' name and describing unanimate objects with attributes that reflect gender stereotypes. In German, autism is male, lolcows are female, girls are unanimate and a kiwi may be either male or female depening on if you mean the bird or the fruit.

And then, some have more specific and clear terminologies for some topics, often those reflect about the culture and environment of the speakers. Though the idea that Inuit have 200 words for snow has been discredited, Saami (spoken in Northern Scandinavia) still has 21 words for snow. Those are not synonymes, they are different forms of snow. E.g. Saami "kerni" is a thin ice crust upon snow, "rine" is snow on trees, "purga" snow circulating through the air and "vasme" a light new snow. Indonesian distinguishes between cooked and uncooked rice and were English distinguishes camels (two humps) and dromedaries (one hump), Somali has dozens of words for those animals, depending on gender, age, fertility, size etc.


----------



## Coleslaw (Jan 28, 2019)

Jon-Kacho said:


> I have a theory that the more complex a writing system is, the smarter you get by learning it, and that the average IQ of different countries reflects this. It's not a perfect correlation because there's a million other factors, but I don't think it's a coincidence that every single country which uses Chinese Characters, or a derivative thereof, is above every single country that does not. South Korea is an edge case because Hanja is barely used and Hangul is so simple, but as far as I know Hanja is still taught to some degree.
> 
> It's 不 too 遅 to 始 作ing 英語 難er guys.


Well, was it the Zulus and the Xhosas with like 15 genders that conquered the Afrikaners with no genders or cases, or the other way around?


----------



## Datiko (Jan 28, 2019)

Crunchy Leaf said:


> I took Japanese and it's a lot easier than Chinese since there's no tones, and it's the most-easily-accessible East Asian language after Chinese for a Westerner to learn.
> 
> Now, I have to ask everyone--do you prefer 'sneaked' or 'snuck'?



Japanese is much more difficult to learn than Mandarin.  It has the illusion of being easier because there are no tones and it has syllabaries to make early lessons easier.  The language becomes absolutely nuts to master because of its complex grammar and contextual nature.  Mandarin's main issue is writing.  The tones are important but you seldom run into a situation when speaking where a native speaker will not guess what you mean by context.  Even native speakers "mess up" the tones based on which region they are from.  The writing is unavoidable. You need to learn hundred of characters to read even the most basic of children's books.  You also need to learn many characters twice.  The difficulty drops off dramatically after early lessons because the grammar is basically non-existent.  Many people ditch reading altogether once they get past the basics since speaking is more useful.  

The difference is seldom observed because foreign learners don't often progress beyond the very basic levels of any Asian language.


----------



## queerape (Jan 28, 2019)

Datiko said:


> Japanese is much more difficult to learn than Mandarin.  It has the illusion of being easier because there are no tones and it has syllabaries to make early lessons easier.  The language becomes absolutely nuts to master because of its complex grammar and contextual nature.  Mandarin's main issue is writing.  The tones are important but you seldom run into a situation when speaking where a native speaker will not guess what you mean by context.  Even native speakers "mess up" the tones based on which region they are from.  The writing is unavoidable. You need to learn hundred of characters to read even the most basic of children's books.  You also need to learn many characters twice.  The difficulty drops off dramatically after early lessons because the grammar is basically non-existent.  Many people ditch reading altogether once they get past the basics since speaking is more useful.
> 
> The difference is seldom observed because foreign learners don't often progress beyond the very basic levels of any Asian language.


I speak five languages total, with Hindi being one of them, and one of my two first languages (yes, children can acquire two first languages) . I find it far easier to translate Japanese to Hindi than English, because Japanese grammar is far more similar to Hindi. Hindi is quite contextual as well, and is structured similarly to Japanese.


----------



## wylfım (Jan 29, 2019)

Datiko said:


> You need to learn hundred of characters to read even the most basic of children's books. You also need to learn many characters twice. The difficulty drops off dramatically after early lessons because the grammar is basically non-existent.


Chinese is heavily context dependent too. Not quite as much as Japanese, but trying to understand a native speaker for me is difficult because they drop subjects and objects because the verbs can "carry" them in their connotations. If you add this to a really long already complex sentence where verbs chain into each other, it's nigh on impossible to parse without intensive immersion and study.
And tones are way more important than you give them credit. Yes, different places have different tones, hence there's no one set "standard," but that doesn't mean it isn't important for understanding. It's like how british vowels are hard to understand for americans. Yes, they can get by, but it's still a barrier towards intelligibility. Add on something else like off-beat rhythm/stress (which is extremely underemphasized in Chinese classes), or poor pronunciation of vowels/consonants in foreign speakers, and the differences add up. And the different tones in different areas generally still (somewhat) map on to the standard set, they're just allomorphs, plus or minus a category or two. Tones carry more information than vowels, so they definitely should be strongly emphasized.
As for the two characters thing, it's actually not that bad. You can pick up traditional on the fly if you know simplified (and I'm assuming vice-versa). The characters are usually pretty similar. But even when they aren't context clues can help, because words are usually disyllabic, so if you can read one character, plus know the context, you can easily guess the second one. It would be like if someone cut off half of a word in English. Not that many things to guess for what dige— means, for instance, lol.


----------



## Datiko (Jan 29, 2019)

queerape said:


> I speak five languages total, with Hindi being one of them, and one of my two first languages (yes, children can acquire two first languages) . I find it far easier to translate Japanese to Hindi than English, because Japanese grammar is far more similar to Hindi. Hindi is quite contextual as well, and is structured similarly to Japanese.



That's interesting.  I don't know anything about subcontinent languages.r. 



wylfım said:


> Chinese is heavily context dependent too. Not quite as much as Japanese, but trying to understand a native speaker for me is difficult because they drop subjects and objects because the verbs can "carry" them in their connotations. If you add this to a really long already complex sentence where verbs chain into each other, it's nigh on impossible to parse without intensive immersion and study.
> And tones are way more important than you give them credit. Yes, different places have different tones, hence there's no one set "standard," but that doesn't mean it isn't important for understanding. It's like how british vowels are hard to understand for americans. Yes, they can get by, but it's still a barrier towards intelligibility. Add on something else like off-beat rhythm/stress (which is extremely underemphasized in Chinese classes), or poor pronunciation of vowels/consonants in foreign speakers, and the differences add up. And the different tones in different areas generally still (somewhat) map on to the standard set, they're just allomorphs, plus or minus a category or two. Tones carry more information than vowels, so they definitely should be strongly emphasized.
> As for the two characters thing, it's actually not that bad. You can pick up traditional on the fly if you know simplified (and I'm assuming vice-versa). The characters are usually pretty similar. But even when they aren't context clues can help, because words are usually disyllabic, so if you can read one character, plus know the context, you can easily guess the second one. It would be like if someone cut off half of a word in English. Not that many things to guess for what dige— means, for instance, lol.



All of the East Asian languages are contextual to a degree.  Mandarin left most of it behind and its grammar is simple enough to not make it really difficult.    I just don't think Japanese is easier than mandarin. There's a lot more to learn about social contexts, grammar, and other aspects that aren't present in Mandarin while forcing students to learn roughly the same number of characters.  Japanese eases students in because of hiragana/katakana.  Korean has a similar misconception of being "easier" because you can settle in really quickly because Hangul takes like 20 minutes to learn.  The closest you get with Mandarin is learning in Taiwan because the curriculum there uses bopomofo.  It gets you used to reading non-english which is a crutch HYP leaves hanging around. 

Tones really aren't the biggest deal.  Early on you learn a word as "Meaning, Hanzi, Tone" but once you get past the early levels you just kind of learn how the word sounds.  Like a teacher can write the character on the board, say it, and you would be able to write the correct HYP.  The accent difference is difficult because many people you speak to in China don't speak mandarin as a first language.  They drag over dialect terms/pronunciations that make things confusing.  I'd say its closer to an American speaking to a singlish speaker.  At first its weird and sounds like a foreign language but you quickly get an ear for the differences and don't have any issues.  Understanding any speaker of a language that isn't your first requires a lot of study. Not disputing that tho.


----------



## Crunchy Leaf (Jan 29, 2019)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> I read something about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis lately, it claimes the languages we use influence how we think.
> 
> E.g. terms for colours can vary. A language may not have a word for "blue" and "yellow" as Anglophones imagine but three different independent ones for several shades of blue or something two terms, one representing a tone between English yellow and orange and the other a colour akin to a mixing of yellow and brown. E.g. this may influence an artist in which colours they chooses for a painting.
> 
> ...


But how much does your average Somali actually use those words?
English has lots of word for cattle. There's the young: a calf. There's a female that has not yet born a calf: a heifer. A female that has born a calf: a cow. An uncastrated male: a bull. A young castrated male: a steer. An older castrated male: an ox. There's even a word for an orphaned calf: a dogey. Does your average non-farmer English speaker know or use these words? No, they use 'cow'. Maybe bull or calf, but 'male cow' and 'baby cow' are used too and I bet more frequently. 

Every language has lots of specific words, but they're not always importantly specific. I think a better English example is color--we have different words for red and light red (pink), and we very strongly perceive differences between those two colors. Maybe if pink were just 'light red' we wouldn't.


----------



## Doc Cassidy (Feb 1, 2019)

Why do the English pronounce the "h" in herb?

Every English speaker knows that the letter h in the word "herb" is silent but for some reason the English always pronounce it. Every time I hear Brits say herb they fuck it up and pronounce the h for some stupid reason. Why do they make such an obvious grammatical mistake?


----------



## wylfım (Feb 1, 2019)

h is a weak sound. It's very common for people to drop it. My guess is that English dropping it word-initial is just a change we're currently undergoing that hasn't fully spread to every dialect yet. But the original word had the h, so if you want to get pedantic technically the h is the "proper"™ pronunciation.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Apr 4, 2019)

What languages do you speak besides English?

I can barely speak French as of right now.


----------



## Clones of Alex Jones (Apr 4, 2019)

Yes, some shitloard and high faggot.


----------



## MG 620 (Apr 4, 2019)

I speak Amberlynn.


----------



## Draza (Apr 4, 2019)

Fluent in Autism


----------



## millais (Apr 4, 2019)

Monoglot vs Polyglot The Thread


----------



## Lunete (Apr 4, 2019)

I speak the only language that matters...

American.


----------



## Rand /pol/ (Apr 4, 2019)

I've been meaning to learn mandarin


----------



## Hatoful Dandy (Apr 4, 2019)

I speak at least two others and bits of several more because Duolingo.


----------



## Cedric_Eff (Apr 4, 2019)

Japanese. Tried learning Tagalog awhile ago, but no avail.


----------



## Alberto Balsalm (Apr 4, 2019)

前置きとして、犬を犯すという考えが気に入ります。


----------



## The Flawless Gazelles (Apr 4, 2019)

sometimes i do speak my native language


----------



## Pepito The Cat (Apr 4, 2019)

Sometimes I make noises that vaguely resemble the Guaraní language. Copious amounts of alcohol are usually involved.









						Nativo Paraguayo hablando Guaraní
					

Acá la gente es buena y le encanta una buenas charla principalmente se for de mujeres o Sexo.




					youtu.be


----------



## Reynard (Apr 4, 2019)

Lunete said:


> I speak the only language that matters...
> 
> American.


Fuck you, nigga!  I speak both English _and_ American fluently!


----------



## YourMommasBackstory (Apr 4, 2019)

Reynard said:


> Fuck you, nigga! I speak both English _and_ American fluently!


what about Australian and New Zeland languages?


----------



## Cedric_Eff (Apr 4, 2019)

タガログ語はけっこうむずかしいんだよなぁ。


----------



## Teri-Teri (Apr 4, 2019)

我知道怎麼說中文, 日本語, 한글, Deutsch, Tagalog, and English.


----------



## Teri-Teri (Apr 4, 2019)

Cedric_Eff said:


> タガログ語はけっこうむずかしいんだよなぁ。


Hindi naman mahirap... tingnan mo ang dali lang...


----------



## RG 448 (Apr 4, 2019)

English and the language of love.


----------



## Reynard (Apr 4, 2019)

YourMommasBackstory said:


> what about Australian and New Zeland languages?


No.  Sorry.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Apr 4, 2019)

Cedric_Eff said:


> タガログ語はけっこうむずかしいんだよなぁ。


I have family members that do speak Tagalog (Part Filipino tbh), and yes it is really hard, and it's a really weird language.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Apr 4, 2019)

ICameToplaY said:


> 我知道怎麼說中文, 日本語, 한글, Deutsch, Tagalog, and English.


why tagalog?

Like, I have reason to learn it but I don't because it's such a useless language


----------



## MG 620 (Apr 4, 2019)

I speak New Zealandian: _I would like to preserve any posts and technical data including IP addresses, email addresses etc. _


----------



## Teri-Teri (Apr 4, 2019)

FatFuckFrank said:


> why tagalog?
> 
> Like, I have reason to learn it but I don't because it's such a useless language



I want to trash talk someone in Tagalog. I mean, it's a colorful language!


----------



## Teri-Teri (Apr 4, 2019)

ICameToplaY said:


> I want to trash talk someone in Tagalog. I mean, it's a colorful language!



Like for example: @Reynard ang bobo mo!


----------



## The Cunting Death (Apr 4, 2019)

ICameToplaY said:


> I want to trash talk someone in Tagalog. I mean, it's a colorful language!


that's the greatest reason to learn a language


----------



## Kiwi Jeff (Apr 9, 2019)

English and positive ratings


----------



## Dolphin Lundgren (Apr 9, 2019)

Does Pig Latin count? 
If-hay o-say en-thay es-yay.


----------



## Bassomatic (Apr 9, 2019)

Rough kraut nigger.
Rough afrikaner because german dutch and nigger talk.
Rough (((them speak))) Hebrew. 

Im cultured sue me.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Apr 9, 2019)

Oscar Wildean said:


> Does Pig Latin count?
> If-hay o-say en-thay es-yay.


yes


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 15, 2019)

Besides English, I also read a lot in French and German. I even speak Esperanto and my favourite tongue is Ancient Greek.

Do ye sometimes read or watch something in another language?


----------



## rocknrollmartian (Aug 15, 2019)

I technically can read in French but very rarely do due to laziness.


----------



## Koresh (Aug 15, 2019)

Inb4 all the weebs show up and ask if their imported doujinshis count.

German and Russian movies are fucking whack though, and Russian streamers are batshit insane. Even if you don't understand commie, it's worth seeing the highlight reels of them being psychotic dumbasses.


----------



## Red Hood (Aug 15, 2019)

Speak English or die.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Aug 15, 2019)

I read in French every once in a while


----------



## YourMommasBackstory (Aug 15, 2019)

Well i read in Ukrainian sometimes. Doesn't count as foreign tbh since it very simular to my native language.


----------



## NOT Sword Fighter Super (Aug 15, 2019)

Reading a National Geographic article out loud may as well be in another language with all those goofy foreign names.


----------



## wylfım (Aug 15, 2019)

Struggling through kids books in Chinese is a lot of fun. Technically can also read Romanian but I don't find much gypsy stuff to read in so I'm pretty awful at it. But yeah knowing more languages is a lot of fun.


----------



## Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake (Aug 15, 2019)

I read poetry and sing in Gaelic on occasion.


----------



## Mightykiwi (Aug 15, 2019)

The Shadow said:


> Speak English or die.








To answer the op, I've picked up Japanese as a hobby.  It's a pain in the ass, but it's fun in its own way.


----------



## Crichax (Aug 15, 2019)

I play games in Korean on occasion. I've picked up a few words from the Korean version of _Zelda: BOTW_.


----------



## a feel (Aug 15, 2019)

All the time.


----------



## Underestimated Nutria (Aug 15, 2019)

parallel texts is the easiest way to learn a foreign language, at least one with some similarity to one's own.

i am basically trying to exclusively read in my weak languages so I can say I'm doing something with my free time other than just whiling away time with sci fi or whatever.

i can give a brief description of the method to anyone interested but it's pretty simple; unfortunately I have no speaking ability in languages learned this way.


----------



## LobotomizedFerret (Aug 15, 2019)

Doing it right now.


----------



## Hatoful Dandy (Aug 15, 2019)

Whenever I'm on a flight, I tend to watch movies dubbed into German, and can read in the language too.


----------



## Queen Elizabeth II (Aug 15, 2019)

I prefer to read in my native language if I have a choice; my English is very good (I think) and I've picked up and regularly use a local dialect and code of speech when I speak and write to the point I'm rarely identified as a cultural enricher but it requires too much thought when trying to zone out a little bit such as when reading for pleasure. There is a French-language forum I visit regularly for news but again, it's not something I would choose to read an extended text in if there were other options but I like to keep up with affairs there too.

I've never been able to do things like mental maths in English for much the same reason. I end up doing it in one and then translating it.


----------



## Azafran90 (Aug 15, 2019)

I read in English all the time and my Spanish turns worse by day.
If someone knows about a good book for practicing Japanese I would thank you dearly.


----------



## XYZpdq (Aug 15, 2019)

I can read dumb Megaman comics in Japanese.


----------



## Travoltron (Aug 15, 2019)

As a manga fan of almost 30 years, I used to have to try and read everything in Japanese because none of the good stuff came over here. Or sometimes it DID come out over here and VIZ canceled it prematurely like Fist of the North Star and Guyver. I still import the new Rurouni Kenshin and Kinnikuman books as I doubt they'll ever come over here. There are probably scanlations out there, but I don't know where to get them.


----------



## Ambidextype (Aug 15, 2019)

Travoltron said:


> As a manga fan of almost 30 years, I used to have to try and read everything in Japanese because none of the good stuff came over here. Or sometimes it DID come out over here and VIZ canceled it prematurely like Fist of the North Star and Guyver. I still import the new Rurouni Kenshin and Kinnikuman books as I doubt they'll ever come over here. There are probably scanlations out there, but I don't know where to get them.


Understand that feeling bro. Some of the manga I read are historical Japanese manga not too westerner friendly like Hyouge Mono. Even if there are scanlation, the manga I mentioned is steeped with the usage of classical Japanese language, the translation is understandably slow. 

On topic I prefer reading Japanese books than English books. In occasions I read some light novels that are not available in the west yet.


----------



## JosephStalin (Aug 15, 2019)

Read some in Korean from time to time.  Somewhat rusty, though.  Can read a bit in some other languages.  Able to pick out some words in Russian.  Can recognize a bunch of languages.


----------



## Old Wizard (Aug 15, 2019)

I read books and poems that were originally written in German as they were originally written.  German poetry translates (to English) in a way that's so atrocious that it's not even worth trying, in my opinion.  I'm reading _Das Stunden-Buch_ by Rilke, whose name is apparently short for René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke. I read books originally written in English in [non-Russian Slavic language] or English.  Helps me learn.  I'm currently reading Harry Potter because it's easy reading and I know enough of the plot from the movies to make sense of parts of the book that have vocab I don't know.

I also have a ton of Russian reading to do, but I struggle to think of any good Russian books.  I haven't read it, but perhaps Anna Karenina?  Metro 2033 was amazing.

Films in foreign language are difficult.  Looking at subtitles makes looking at the actual film difficult.  I don't know how deaf people do it.


----------



## Mightykiwi (Aug 16, 2019)

Azafran90 said:


> I read in English all the time and my Spanish turns worse by day.
> If someone knows about a good book for practicing Japanese I would thank you dearly.



If you mean textbooks, it's hard to go wrong with Genki 1 + 2.  There's also Human Japanese if you prefer software, and the same people have a site called Satori Reader that can help you get some structured reading practice in.  If you meant actual native reading material, Yotsuba&! is a great one to start with.  It's easy, but will still teach you a lot of everyday vocabulary and sentence structures, plus it's entertaining enough to make reading large sections easy.


----------



## Nekoyama (Aug 16, 2019)

I have the first harry potter in Japanese that i try to read some times but my Japanese is childs level so i struggle to get past the first page. I also try to talk to random people online in Japanese but im not great with conversations so i just ask basic shit like "did you have good food?"


----------



## Varg Did Nothing Wrong (Aug 16, 2019)

I read in Russian every so often but that's just because I'm bilingual.


----------



## Niggernerd (Aug 16, 2019)

Koresh said:


> all the weebs show up and ask if their imported doujinshis count.


...b-but do they?

I can somewhat read German, Polski, and a wee bit of French


----------



## war has changed (Aug 16, 2019)

I'm fluent in English and Hindi, can read a regional language, and am trying to learn Japanese and French.

I just like languages, okay?!...


----------



## Stoneheart (Aug 16, 2019)

i read News and shit in english.  I dont read books in english, there is just one native english writer who was worth his salt and i know his books in and out...


----------



## Senor Gatin (Aug 16, 2019)

I try to read/write/listen in english as much as I can since my native language is spanish. Other than that, I've tried learning german and french. Eventually I would drop them after figuring how much I should invest into learning a third language from scratch.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 16, 2019)

war has changed said:


> I just like languages, okay?!...


Which tongues? My favourite ones are French and Ancient Greek. 



Stoneheart said:


> i read News and shit in english.  I dont read books in english, there is just one native english writer who was worth his salt and i know his books in and out...


Extrapolating from your grammar and spelling, ye do not look like a person who reads much at all.


----------



## Sinner's Sandwich (Aug 16, 2019)

English, japanese and a bit russian


----------



## Stoneheart (Aug 16, 2019)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> Extrapolating from your grammar and spelling, ye do not look like a person who reads much at all.


Thats racist!
Also is there any good english writer besides Hemingway?


----------



## Vince McMahon (Aug 16, 2019)

Reading in Russian, Ukrainian and German.


----------



## Safir (Aug 16, 2019)

I started relearning Spanish but haven't graduated to fiction yet. The last I read fiction in Spanish was over 20 years ago.



Koresh said:


> Inb4 all the weebs show up and ask if their imported doujinshis count.


I imported classic French comics BDs. Bad idea, comics are the absolutely worst to read in a foreign language. Weebs who try to parse (I assume) bad native Japanese in doujinshis are absolute champions.


----------



## war has changed (Aug 16, 2019)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> Which tongues? My favourite ones are French and Ancient Greek.




English - since it's the only one I'm passably good at besides my native tongue - and Japanese, since it's been a rollercoaster to learn it.
Would really like to learn Russian as well though.


----------



## Teri-Teri (Aug 16, 2019)

Reading Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Traditional Chinese.

Though, I'm not a fan of Bopomofo, I prefer Pinyin over that archaic system.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 17, 2019)

Sometimes, when I read online messages from someone whose nationality I know, I read his content with a thick accent in my mind. 

Is that racist?


----------



## soy_king (Aug 19, 2019)

I  always find it interesting to know what languages other people speak, their level of proficiency, and if a language isn't their first language, why did they choose to learn that language? For anyone who picked up a language outside of school or family settings, how long did it take you to learn it and what tools did you use to learn?

Let's start off with me: I speak English and Russian fluently, and I'm a native speaker in both languages.


----------



## Stranger Neighbors (Aug 19, 2019)

Bird


----------



## Vampirella (Aug 19, 2019)

I speak English, bad English and really bad Spanish.


----------



## PL 001 (Aug 19, 2019)

English and moderately fluent Spanish.


----------



## verissimus (Aug 19, 2019)

This









						Batman Dance
					

Batman doing what Batman does best. A YTMND production.




					www.youtube.com


----------



## YayLasagna (Aug 19, 2019)

Sperg


----------



## Babyspackle (Aug 19, 2019)

verissimus said:


> This
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A true classic.

Use to speak a decent amount of Spanish, forgot most of it now though.


----------



## Your mom96 (Feb 17, 2020)

Ich bin Deutsch lernen.


----------



## Dwight Frye (Feb 17, 2020)

American! God's language!


----------



## Clown College (Feb 17, 2020)

English
Tagalog
A little Spanish, if I cared enough I could pick it up pretty quickly.  But I don't.


----------



## Absolute Brainlet (Feb 17, 2020)

Ты картина, я портрет, ты скотина, а я нет. Я - морда твоя.


----------



## BingBong (Feb 17, 2020)

English, Spanish, a little Polish.


----------



## Robert James (Feb 17, 2020)

English and enough spanish to know the spanish they teach you in college gets you mugged in mexico


----------



## heyilikeyourmom (Feb 17, 2020)

I’m fluent in both english and cunnilingus.


----------



## Nick Gars (Feb 17, 2020)

English and only English, like a true American.


----------



## Chan Fan (Feb 17, 2020)

English is my first language, learned enough Spanish in school to listen in on conversations in Spanish and have a general idea of what they are discussing.  I've learned a little Swedish and a little German on Duolingo but didn't have anyone to practice speaking with so I don't remember most of it.  I learned enough Bosnian to have full-on conversations and still remember some of it.  Trying to learn Russian currently.  My goal is to be fluent in three other languages in my lifetime.


----------



## Orion Balls (Feb 17, 2020)

Kitchen Spanish. (Curse words, "I need __, now.")


----------



## Papa Adolfo's Take'n'Bake (Feb 17, 2020)

Gaeilge and English. Conversational Spanish mostly because the Hispanics I know are pretty chill to hang out with and learn from.


----------



## Thumb Butler (Feb 17, 2020)

I only speak the tongue of Welwyn Garden City, the real world Garden of Eden.


----------



## Iuz (Feb 17, 2020)

By the grace of the Immortal God Emperor! Murrican English . Took German in High School and picked up a bit of Polish while in eastern Europe as a kid but never used so did not retain. Have tried to learn some Spanish, Swedish, Welsh, Esperanto, Anglo Saxon and Dutch since, but since I don't have a use for it where I am and if you don't use you lose it never stuck.


----------



## Surf and TERF (Feb 17, 2020)

I'm at an intermediate level with spanish and I'm honestly considering taking it at a city college because duolingo isn't getting me fluent.


----------



## Reverend (Feb 17, 2020)

Greed.  It's the universal language that gets you everywhere and anything.


----------



## The Cunting Death (Feb 17, 2020)

Speak? Just English

Read? French and English


----------



## Silas (Feb 17, 2020)

English, poorly


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Feb 17, 2020)

I only really speak English, but I know some Spanish and very little German. That said, I'm more interested in learning to read languages than speak them. I love languages.

Duolingo is a good free resource if you want to learn some languages.


----------



## Your mom96 (Feb 17, 2020)

Silas said:


> English, poorly


Let's hear that english


----------



## Niggernerd (Feb 17, 2020)

Speak english. I can speak spanish but i fucking hate the way it sounds.
Can read english,spanish and a little of Japanese and German.


----------



## Your mom96 (Feb 17, 2020)

Grand Number of Pounds said:


> I only really speak English, but I know some Spanish and very little German. That said, I'm more interested in learning to read languages than speak them. I love languages.
> 
> Duolingo is a good free resource if you want to learn some languages.


Wie geht dein Unterricht?


----------



## Grand Number of Pounds (Feb 17, 2020)

I don't go to class, I study at home using books and audio programs. Progress is slow.

I use the Pimsleur and Michel Thomas audio programs, and I have a few books. I suggest the Karl Sandberg book German for Reading (he also wrote books for Spanish and French - I have them, too).


----------



## Your mom96 (Feb 17, 2020)

Grand Number of Pounds said:


> I don't go to class, I study at home using books and audio programs. Progress is slow.
> 
> I use the Pimsleur and Michel Thomas audio programs, and I have a few books. I suggest the Karl Sandberg book German for Reading (he also wrote books for Spanish and French - I have them, too).


Keep up the good work dude. You'll get there.


----------



## Idiotron (Feb 17, 2020)

I speak all the important languages:

_Wee now kong bantha poodoo, Solo.

Dif-tor heh smusma.

Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo_.


----------



## Pissmaster (Feb 17, 2020)

Weeb Japanese

as in, I can read most stuff written in Katakana but not much in Hiragana.  And I know like... 20 Kanji, tops.


----------



## AssRock (Feb 18, 2020)

I'm currently learning the Swedish and just getting the enunciations right without sounding like a drunk mental patient, hahaha.

Fortunately, a lot of Swedes are pretty damn kind and wanting to help me out, a lot.

There's still a lot to learn, but I'm getting to the point where I can at least read Swedish and understand it on a basic level.  It'll take some time, but I'm determined, haha.


----------



## TungstenCarbide (Feb 18, 2020)

I'm fluent in Italian, I speak English, a bit of Spanish, I can translate Latin. I managed to pick up a bit of Japanese autistically watching subbed anime for years.

I'd really like to learn German, since apparently is the most spoken language in Europe.


----------



## TheRedRanger (Feb 18, 2020)

English is my native language, and I'm fairly proficient in Japanese. I've also studied French, German, Arabic and Russian, but not really enough to be much good in them.
I'd really like to try Xhosa and Navajo though.


----------



## PrussiansMarchingOn1819 (Feb 18, 2020)

'I only speak two languages English and bad English."

I did take German at the junior college I was attending for one semester, but I felt like I really didn't grasp the language because she was trying to keep the students from dropping out. The majority of the student were taking Spanish, French, and Italian.

I might of learn Arabic and Farsi if the divorce didn't happen.

I always wanted to give Russian a try, but speaking the language is totally different from learning how to read it and write.


----------



## Otterly (Feb 18, 2020)

I can just about get by in French, German and Swedish, although I’m not great at any of them. Some others like danish, Norwegian, Dutch etc I can’t speak at all but you can usually get the gist of what a written piece is about with some guesswork. 
I’d love to learn more Russian - I know a tiny bit but nowhere near enough to even get around a city in. 
and Latin. I went to a shitty state comp  and have always been a tad jealous of never having had a grounding in Latin.
Mate of mine is learning Finnish because his wife is from there and that looks like a mixture of fun and complete madness.


----------



## The 3rd Hooligan (Feb 18, 2020)

Eangleash isnt my mom tounge. Im so nice in it.


----------



## pierce your heart (Feb 18, 2020)

I'm fluent in Greek and English and I know some basic, low level French.
As for what I want to learn: French, Japanese maybe German and Russian. I should probably stop saying I want to learn these languages and actually start brushing up on my French and learning Hiragana and Katakana.


----------



## nippleonbonerfart (Feb 18, 2020)

Better Off Dead - Language Lessons
					






					youtu.be


----------



## Your mom96 (Feb 22, 2020)

Ich den Strang gern.


----------



## Teadrinkr (Feb 26, 2020)

Know: English
Good at: German
Shit at: Chinese, Japanese. 

I'm taking lessons in Chinese and German. Japanese is just me learning the kana and kanji pronunciation. No real grammar outside of simple sentences (my name is, i am a student, how are you, etc.)


----------



## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jul 26, 2020)

"це було як електричне, і я як мул, можу з'їсти 20,000 міліграм синтетичного героїну і жити було так, як коли ти вкладаєш цю річ у так чи тобі. ви отримаєте eлектричний струм, ви можете відчути електрику у своєму тілі і начтупного дня" -Josh, in Ukraine 2019
also, I'm learning Ukrainian


----------



## Kill All Kiwis (Jul 26, 2020)

I speak English almost all the time. I understand a lot of Spanish and speak a little but that’s because I live in a Spanish household in a Spanish neighborhood, but I never really learned it. I wanna speak French, but I don’t know where to begin. I think I have to do some combination of learning grammar and doing some comprehensive input but gathering all of these resources is kinda tedious. I’m not really motivated to learn French because I don’t live in an environment where I can use what I learn in real life (use or lose it).

I have other things to learn so it’s tough to focus on language learning.


----------



## Ligoskj (Jul 26, 2020)

So far, I use only two languages for engagement and messaging with people: Russian and English. The first is my native language and the second I had been learning literally since my very early childhood. Eventually, it became my second more or less fluent language by 1993 (when I was already living in Spokane). I have some plans to start learning German and Serbo-Croatian, even though I'm not sure if I will really need them in the future. I also understand most of the Polish and Ukrainian words, and Belorussian is the only foreign language I 100% understand (apart of English, ofc, but that doesn't count), but sadly not the one I speak.


----------



## Lumin (Jul 26, 2020)

Jeg er Amerikansk og snakker/skriver/leser Norsk og lærer Finsk.

Puhun vain vähän suomea.

I can understand some Swedish and Danish from knowing Norwegian, much more so in the written form than spoken as the differences are usually bigger when spoken.

Edit: Err, without meaning to powerlevel, also Middle English and am learning Old English, but it's very difficult with there being so little resources. Yes, I know I'm weird.



Spoiler: Dansk



@Benzo Samurai




Your browser is not able to display this video.























I just spent the last 40 minutes uploading this with my 56k connection, after more errors than I cared to count, one of which was at 98 percent.


----------



## Coffee Druid (Jul 26, 2020)

I've been trying to learn some Irish lately. I'm still a beginner. People say English is hard to pronounce? Ha. 

I took four years of German in school but I've forgotten a lot of grammar and tense stuff. Spanish would be useful to learn I guess.


----------



## Benzo Samurai (Jul 26, 2020)

Lumin said:


> Jeg er Amerikansk og snakker/skriver/leser Norsk og lærer Finsk.
> 
> Puhun vain vähän suomea.
> 
> ...


Jøss, rimelig artig at folk gidder å lære språket vårt, kamerat, also learning finnish seems very based.


----------



## TerminalTryHard (Oct 26, 2020)

What's people's opinion on duolingo or the other free language apps? I was thinking about starting either russian or polish, but I'm not sure if those apps are worth the effort.


----------



## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Oct 27, 2020)

TerminalTryHard said:


> What's people's opinion on duolingo or the other free language apps? I was thinking about starting either russian or polish, but I'm not sure if those apps are worth the effort.


they say that it can only get you to 60% fluency, I'd say do it to begin with, but branch out later on because that website is not the be all and end all


----------



## Picklechu (Oct 28, 2020)

I took three years of Spanish in high school, and two semesters of Japanese in college. I remember virtually nothing from either.

A lot of history PhD programs require a foreign language, but mine doesn't since my area is American political history. One of the programs I looked at apparently would have _still_ required me to take a foreign language, so I'm not sure what they would have wanted me to do then.

If I had infinite time, I'd like to re-learn some Japanese and at least become conversationally fluent, and maybe Chinese, Korean, Farsi, or some other language that would help me charge the federal government thousands and thousands of dollars for my services.


----------



## Battlecruiser3000ad (Oct 28, 2020)

I had 5 years of German throughout the schools I went to. Fucking hated that language, and it wasn't useful, so nothing much remains of that.
The 7 years of English were much better, and since the language is useful I also had an incentive to want to learn it. One downside is that the 3 teachers I had for that were like UK English -> American English -> UK English again, so that's one of the things I keep fucking up. Not to mention a lot of the on-my-own learning was from other ESL retards on the Internet, so passing as a non-retarded native is unpossible.
Also have varying knowledge of some languages that are similar to my own.

If I could become less of a lazy retard, I'd finally go and learn Russian.


----------



## Dick Justice (Oct 29, 2020)

TerminalTryHard said:


> What's people's opinion on duolingo or the other free language apps? I was thinking about starting either russian or polish, but I'm not sure if those apps are worth the effort.


In my experience it's a lot like Rosetta Stone. Are you learning a romance and/or germanic language and one where you already fully understrand the grammatical quanta? If Y, it's pretty good. If N, it's anywhere from decent learning aid to worth less than your time depending on how far from English the language is. I find it best for repetition practice and building study habits. If you don't already have a good anchor ensuring you do it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. duolingo can be an alright one.

If you're using it as your primary resource for any slavlang you're going to have a bad time.


----------



## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Oct 29, 2020)

Battlecruiser3000ad said:


> I had 5 years of German throughout the schools I went to. Fucking hated that language, and it wasn't useful, so nothing much remains of that.


German is so easy, you just need to learn the _four_ cases, and one of them is basically obsolete in common language today. And then you need to learn word order (not in that order) and all the little intricacies of the language, like in English we say "it's five o'clock" but in german they say "es ist funf uhr." and then you need to learn the vocabulary, which shouldn't be difficult if you're not lazy and forgetful like me


Battlecruiser3000ad said:


> If I could become less of a lazy retard, I'd finally go and learn Russian.


Russian is a ball ache, they have seven cases, no articles, and confusing word order. Or at least that's what I've heard from those who tried.


----------



## Justtocheck (Oct 29, 2020)

Eeewwwww, learning German. Who in their right mind would want to speak with Germans?


----------



## Clockwork_PurBle (Oct 29, 2020)

I only know English but I'd like to learn another language. Spanish is what is pushed but I am also told the Spanish you get taught in school is much different than the Spanish that is commonly spoken in the US. 

Japanese sounds REALLY complicated, as does German.


----------



## Battlecruiser3000ad (Oct 29, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> German is so easy, you just need to learn the _four_ cases, and one of them is basically obsolete in common language today. And then you need to learn word order (not in that order) and all the little intricacies of the language, like in English we say "it's five o'clock" but in german they say "es ist funf uhr." and then you need to learn the vocabulary, which shouldn't be difficult if you're not lazy and forgetful like me
> 
> Russian is a ball ache, they have seven cases, no articles, and confusing word order. Or at least that's what I've heard from those who tried.


Yea but I already speak a language from the same family, so Russian word order and cases all make sense to me. The obstacle is purely the laziness.


----------



## Picklechu (Oct 31, 2020)

Clockwork_PurBle said:


> I only know English but I'd like to learn another language. Spanish is what is pushed but I am also told the Spanish you get taught in school is much different than the Spanish that is commonly spoken in the US.
> 
> Japanese sounds REALLY complicated, as does German.


Japanese is easy in terms of sentence structure and pronunciation. The difficult parts, from what I recall, were kanji, as well as a few bizarre quirks. For example, while I didn't really get into them, since it was apparently a thing in the third and fourth semester classes, there are different, extremely confusing sets of words/numbers used for counting objects, and they can apparently shift the kana for whatever they're counting. Like, "san" is the number three, but "mitsu" (the only one I know) is a counter word for three small, round-ish objects. An example is "Mitsubishi," which is mitsu + (shifted) hishi, which means "water chestnut," which is what they call what's referred to as a diamond shape in English.


----------



## Mesh Gear Fox (Oct 31, 2020)

Picklechu said:


> Japanese is easy in terms of sentence structure and pronunciation. The difficult parts, from what I recall, were kanji, as well as a few bizarre quirks. For example, while I didn't really get into them, since it was apparently a thing in the third and fourth semester classes, there are different, extremely confusing sets of words/numbers used for counting objects, and they can apparently shift the kana for whatever they're counting


Yup, there's a million different counters out there.  Particles can be a bitch, too (especially wa and ga).  For me the hardest was always kanji.  There's a ton and each character can have dozen of readings depending on how it's used.


----------



## paint huffing shaman (Oct 31, 2020)

any one here know latin ,greek proto indo european and sankirt?if so how did you learn?


----------



## Dick Justice (Nov 1, 2020)

Picklechu said:


> Japanese is easy in terms of sentence structure and pronunciation. The difficult parts, from what I recall, were kanji, as well as a few bizarre quirks. For example, while I didn't really get into them, since it was apparently a thing in the third and fourth semester classes, there are different, extremely confusing sets of words/numbers used for counting objects, and they can apparently shift the kana for whatever they're counting. Like, "san" is the number three, but "mitsu" (the only one I know) is a counter word for three small, round-ish objects. An example is "Mitsubishi," which is mitsu + (shifted) hishi, which means "water chestnut," which is what they call what's referred to as a diamond shape in English.





Mesh Gear Fox said:


> Yup, there's a million different counters out there.  Particles can be a bitch, too (especially wa and ga).  For me the hardest was always kanji.  There's a ton and each character can have dozen of readings depending on how it's used.


I'm really tired of seeing this. I'm far from an expert, but I know enough to call this out. First, if you're formally studying and it took more than a week for the class to get to the kana, quit right now. Second, do not bother with formal study unless you're willing to augment it with lots of self-study.

I encourage you to read Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard and look for the parallels. Moonspeak is an easy to learn, difficult to master language. Specifically, its syntactic structure, ease of pronunciation, flexible grammar, and emphasis on context makes it very easy to hit the ground running. The one caveat, and crux of its difficulty is that in basically every the way of thinking is fundamentally difference from all the big western languages. So while it's easy to learn and understand from 0, if you're learning from another language that does not think like the nips do, you're going to be constantly fighting yourself to fit your square peg thinking into that round hole. Imagine relearning maths in base 7 but everything is expressed as colored dots on a grid, no numbers exist; maths haven't changed, nor has its difficulty level, but it sure feels a lot harder.

The biggest myth is that the challenge is nothing but learning thousands of runes, but that's not really true. Learning the kanji isn't difficult per se, it just requires a lot of time and memorization, a trait shared with basically every aspect of the language. This is the difference between time as investment capital a la learning to read physics equations, versus actually understanding the physics those equations describe. To put it another way, with time enough basically everyone can learn the kanji and learn nip, no matter what /djt/ says, but there is a very large subset of the population that will _never_ be able to understand quantum mechanics. Once again this isn't to say that the language isn't difficult, but rather that just about every SEO-optimized listicle and armchair expert that got their knowledge from them has been conflating "difficulty" with "takes a lot of time". Strictly speaking, if I had to choose I'd probably find it easier to learn the runes than relearn all the nuances of English spelling and pronunciation. 

The real difficulty goes back to the fundamental difference in thinking, which is largely inarticulable because it's far greater than the sum of its many small parts. I can offer one personal example. It's commonly described that the grammatical structure is Subject→Object→Verb, and while that's not really true―all a grammatically correct sentence needs is a verb―it will serve for our purposes. If I want to say "I go to the library", 「［私は］図書館に行く」, the direction of cause and effect is very obvious for reasons that I'm sure a proper linguist could explain. My best guess is because the inverse proposition "The library comes to me" is absurd. Mountain to Mohammad and all that. This becomes significantly muddied when that certainty is no longer exists. If I'm at the library and I want to say "I criticize Tarou's book" 「［私は］太郎の本を非難する」, the meaning may still be evident in this sanitized example, but not so once language encounters the complexity of actual use, and especially when we introduce inverters like the passive form 〜れる which can reverse the entire direction of the sentence. In a sentence, as long as you're stuck in the western mode of thinking this grammatical structure turns every sentence into a word jumble which must be solved before the meaning can be parsed. More complex sentences increase difficulty exponentially.

This is compounded by the other two key elements of the language's difficulty, politesse and nuance. I can't speak objectively, but relative to English and suchlike languages Moonspeak is far more nuanced, and has much, much more complexity in its politesse. In many ways 丁寧語 and 敬語 are like bonus nested languages. There's enough difference between writing and speech that you might be able to claim the same distinction, if you felt so inclined. The other thing is that while English is a largely neutral language by virtue of its status as global lingua franca, Moonspeak has only ever been the majority language in one country, and is therefore extremely tightly coupled to its own culture. Between that and the sheer age of the language every word has a wealth of meaning that when combined can subtly yet profoundly change the meaning of the whole sentence. I hope one day to merely grok the difference between 「僕」 and 「俺」, nevermind something as complex as 「非難」 and 「批難」. A final sidenote is that the language seems to have far greater difficulty letting go of its history. A game to play if you hate your liver: start studying city and place names and take a shot every time you encounter either an archaic rune that's no longer actually used in the language, or "merely" has an obscure reading no longer in use. If you really want to die, you can use people names instead. Counters are also annoying, but you can simply use つ for most things and people will at least understand you.

And that brings us full-circle. A lot of this difficulty is simply optional. You can easily learn the most basic vocabulary and spew word salad, ignore politesse entirely, and throw in some good old-fashioned shouting and arm waving while you're at it for the complete ugly American experience and you'll still be sufficiently intelligible. You'll be the linguistic equivalent of the bull in a china shop, but you'll at least know where the library is.

One final thing is the absence of direct translations for so many words. There are tons of English concepts that exist only in Moon as loanwords, and the inverse would be true as well if we'd bothered to import as many loanwords. One example is green and blue. As best I can tell, until the end of sakoku the word for blue 「青」 encompassed both blue and green, and that meaning still lingers at least in part IE traffic lights turn 青、 not green. Another is familial relations. There is no word for "brother" or "sister", only words that relate the sibling as older or younger, or a general word for siblings. Once again, there are inversely familial relations for which the equivalent words don't exist in English.

Experts can and will correct me, I'm sure, but *tl;dr Moonspeak isn't hard because of kanji or different alphabets or counters or any of that unskilled blogger listicle shit. Moonspeak is hard because it forces your アホ外人 square peg brain into a round language hole and that's hard to describe. *


----------



## Dick Justice (Nov 2, 2020)

Double post, fite me fgts.
Are there any good guides on learning French a la /djt/ or itazuraneko?


----------



## Hongourable Madisha (Nov 2, 2020)

I speak French (learnt it at school and as a side module at university, though it's rusty and needs practice) and a little Japanese (also rusty, learnt at uni since there was a big Japanese community there) I'm trying to learn Dutch and Mandarin Chinese. Dutch is pretty easy, it's very close to English, Duolingo is alright for it, and there's sites like Taalthuis that can help, and a decent amount of Dutch language media out there to read or watch.
I finished Chinese Duolingo and I can sort of make myself understood and read a little bit now, but it's nowhere near conversational level, Duolingo is more like a phrase book for that. 
I've been enjoying another language app, ChineseSkill, which encourages you to write in Chinese rather than pick characters like Duolingo, and features a collection of absolute heads who look like they were arrested at an illegal rave and made to teach foreigners Chinese as their community service. There's characters like Dawei who looks like he could not give a single fuck and is probably the other guys' dealer, Miss No Ears who teaches you shapes by saying what shape of ears she wishes she had, and some nameless mushmouthed wook who looks like a '00s nu-metal frontman and mumbles everything he says so you have to really train your ears to understand him. This accompanied by cartoons that they draw around the photos of the actors to make insane scenarios. The whole thing is ridiculous and I love it.


----------



## Chan Buddhism (Nov 6, 2020)

I understand enough German to read the Drachenlord thread. Managed to learn a lot of special vocabulary from cooking apps and fantasy games so there's that. Kinda want to run through Skyrim in german one of these days.

Since the wu flu hit I've picked up some Japanese. Right now I'm good with hira and kana and drilling myself on basic kanji. Still nowhere near the level of basic conversation though. 

If I got good at moon runes I'd want to learn either Polish or Icelandic/Old Norse


----------



## Uncle June (Nov 10, 2020)

*WARNING: POWERLEVEL AHEAD*

I would qualify as quadlingot I'd imagine. I speak German natively, but am fluent in English (noshit), Italian, and Spanish. Im conversational in French and Russian as well, but still not great.

 It took a lifetime of learning and I definitely busted my ass, but nothing is more big dicked than walking into a pub in half of Europe and shooting the shit with patrons. 

As far as learning goes, and I'm going to sound like a shill, but I find Rosetta Stone (you know, that shit your mom used to try and learn Canadian) to be one of the, if not the best resource out there for intermediate learners. If you're fresh out the gate, Duolingo is pretty nice for being free, though it focuses far too much on vocabulary and less on understanding and speaking a cohesive statement.


----------



## Glad I couldn't help (Nov 10, 2020)

I know a bit of French, Spanish, German, Classical Latin and Tagalog, but not to any level where I would feel comfortable in saying I know those languages. French is the closest, although it's mostly just reading that I'm okay at.


Battlecruiser3000ad said:


> One downside is that the 3 teachers I had for that were like UK English -> American English -> UK English again, so that's one of the things I keep fucking up.


Just say you know Canadian English then. It's somewhat true and you'll probably get pity from people.


Clockwork_PurBle said:


> Japanese sounds REALLY complicated, as does German.


I would agree with @Austrian Conscript 1915, German is easier than its reputation in the English-speaking world would tell you. Maybe a bit harder than the other Germanic and Romance languages, but nothing beyond that. It certainly isn't at the level of any of the Slavlangs, let alone the Indo-Aryan, Semitic or CJK languages.


Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> German is so easy, you just need to learn the _four_ cases, and one of them is basically obsolete in common language today. And then you need to learn word order (not in that order) and all the little intricacies of the language, like in English we say "it's five o'clock" but in german they say "es ist funf uhr." and then you need to learn the vocabulary, which shouldn't be difficult if you're not lazy and forgetful like me


Don't forget how case isn't marked on the noun itself, and the Normative and Accusative are only different in the masculine singular. I also found that the German verbal inflectional system somewhat easier to use than the Romance systems, somewhat less complex and closer to English.


----------



## Smolrolls (Dec 5, 2020)

So for any of you that knows over one language, what's your advice on learning the languages you pick up? And how can you pick up your language quickly if you had to re-learn it or if you're interested reading, writing and speaking another language?


----------



## Justtocheck (Dec 5, 2020)

Wrong forum buddy.


----------



## Fascist Frederick (Dec 5, 2020)

Move to a country that speaks the language as its primary language and take a class there.


----------



## Vampirella (Dec 5, 2020)

Move to the place that speaks that language. Don't think Japan wants weebs coming there though.


----------



## Juan But Not Forgotten (Dec 5, 2020)

Internationale Clique
					

Do you speak multiple languages and know about people who'd only appeal to speakers of your language? Read this, and make your contribution to the Internationale Clique today !!




					kiwifarms.net


----------



## Teadrinkr (Dec 5, 2020)

Effort and patience, native proficiency generally comes from living in the place that speaks the language too.


----------



## Account (Dec 5, 2020)

watch animated cartoons of the language in question


----------



## Dutch Courage (Dec 5, 2020)

Alcohol and women.  Helps if you are good looking.


----------



## Not Really Here (Dec 5, 2020)

Immersion is considered the best way.


----------



## Webby's Boyfriend (Dec 5, 2020)

I speak German (native), Malay (native), English (kind of native), French (highschool) and a bit of Esperanto, Japanese, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. Languages used to be one of my obsessions, before I real got into cartoons.


----------



## Observerer (Dec 5, 2020)

Go to Japan and start talking with an anime accent while wearing your favorite anime t-shirt. There is notheng the Japanese love more. Bonus points if you follow the bushido code.


----------



## Massa's Little Buckie (Dec 5, 2020)

Read faster.


----------



## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Dec 5, 2020)

CharlesFosterOffdensen said:


> If you're fresh out the gate, Duolingo is pretty nice for being free, though it focuses far too much on vocabulary and less on understanding and speaking a cohesive statement.


that's wrong, sort of. All the stuff you need to learn grammar with is literally not available for phone users. On PC it's also a little frustrating because they're called "tips" when in reality they are not tips, it's essential reading for you to master the language. The duolingo German course is, as I have heard, one of the most comprehensive ways to learn German. I've also heard that there are some real bad courses like Irish and Guarani


----------



## Uncle June (Dec 5, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> that's wrong, sort of. All the stuff you need to learn grammar with is literally not available for phone users. On PC it's also a little frustrating because they're called "tips" when in reality they are not tips, it's essential reading for you to master the language. The duolingo German course is, as I have heard, one of the most comprehensive ways to learn German. I've also heard that there are some real bad courses like Irish and Guarani


I use it on PC, simple because you can type in the phrases where as the phone forces you to use a word bank (last I checked anyway). 
Agreed on the Irish. It was fairly surprising how poorly it was organized on Duolingo compared to many of the other courses.


----------



## Observerer (Dec 5, 2020)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> I speak German (native), Malay (native), English (kind of native), French (highschool) and a bit of Esperanto, Japanese, Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. Languages used to be one of my obsessions, before I real got into cartoons.


This is about learning languages, not showing off how many languages you know a few sentences of.


----------



## C.U.N.T. (Dec 11, 2020)

Nothing beats living in the country whose language you want to learn. Been said, I know.
I've seen people fresh out of University with a degree in a language go to that country thinking they're hotshit and very quickly be humbled. Not many people actually speak like they do in textbooks.
Having to find somewhere to live, get electricity connected, etc will stress the fuck out of you but you will improve quickly.

Watch DVDs with subtitles, watch them again without. Replay a scene 10 times, trying to repeat phrases once you understand what's being said.

Moonspeak specific, I'd focus on speaking more than reading at first (assuming you can read hiragana, katakana and some basic kanji already).
I'm repeating dick justice's points but:
Don't worry about counters too much, you can get away with hitotsu/futatsu etc and there's not that many esoteric ones that pop up in daily conversation, probably 人 people, 枚 flat things like paper, 本 slim, long things like bottles,台 vehicles (not planes, trains or ships though lol).

The main thing in any language, including your native one, is to have your thoughts understood. It doesn't have to be perfect, polite or polished. If you can have someone understand what you want to say you've succeeded in communicating.



Dick Justice said:


> I hope one day to merely grok the difference between 「僕」 and 「俺」, nevermind something as complex as 「非難」 and 「批難
> *. *


僕 is a little weak and borderline effeminate. It's for boys to use when they're speaking politely up until around University age (although when speaking with each other they'll be using 俺 from around age 6+)
俺 is a little rough or informal, best used only with friends and family.
 僕 isn't a faux pas for an adult man to use, sometimes they will on purpose to project a more passive/meek air to a "superior" but mature adult men will use 私, either わたし or わたくし in semi-formal or formal speaking situations and maybe 小生 (しょうせい) in formalish writing. It's much more dignified than either 僕 or 俺. They will more than likely use 俺 at home or in casual conversation unless they're 70+.
Not an absolute rule but best I can type out on mobile. Better to err on the side of politeness if you're not sure where you stand.
As an aside, I've heard tough old ladies in the countryside refer to themselves as 俺 and even 我 (われ) but that's not very common.

As for 非難 and 批難, that's gonna get pretty autistic and I'm sick of typing already but it's like purely blaming/criticising a person vs constructively critiquing someone with positive intentions.
criticism vs critique perhaps


----------



## Friendly Primarina (Sep 23, 2021)

Kind of OT, but it's something I've always wondered. In English we have many animal-specific words for the males, females and young of different species. Here's a few to show what I mean, in the format animal/male/female/young:

Dog/dog/bitch/puppy
Cat/tom/queen/kitten
Duck/drake/duck/duckling
Goose/gander/goose/gosling
Swan/cob/pen/cygnet

My question is: is this unique to English? Is there an equivalent in your native tongue?


----------



## Gamer Supreme (Sep 23, 2021)

Friendly Primarina said:


> My question is: is this unique to English? Is there an equivalent in your native tongue?


Russian also has this, although I won't be able to provide as many examples, here are some:

Собака/пёс/собака(сука)/щенок
Кошка/кот/кошка/котёнок
Курица/петух/курица/-(?)
Утка/селезень/утка/утёнок

E: Interesting to note that most of the time the word for a female animal is the same as the animal in general.


----------



## Some Badger (Apr 15, 2022)

Currently trying to learn Russian through Duolingo after about 5 years of saying I'm gonna start learning, mostly so I can level the playing field between me and a Russian friend who is essentially fluent in English. Would also be nice to visit St. Petersburg someday too.

Russiabros, is there another resource I can use to learn Russian besides Duolingo? This is my first time using the platform and I'm assuming there will come a point where it'll outlive its usefulness. My only real means of practicing conversational Russian would be with my aforementioned friend (which is kinda hard when you don't have a bilingual keyboard) or taking a day trip to Brighton Beach and practicing with ordering food/shopping, so I got options, but they're somewhat limited.


----------



## Resunoit (May 20, 2022)

I know a few hundred words of German and baby levels of Spanish. That’s about it.


----------



## Desu Mountain (May 21, 2022)

C.U.N.T. said:


> 僕 is a little weak and borderline effeminate. It's for boys to use when they're speaking politely up until around University age (although when speaking with each other they'll be using 俺 from around age 6+)
> 俺 is a little rough or informal, best used only with friends and family.
> 僕 isn't a faux pas for an adult man to use, sometimes they will on purpose to project a more passive/meek air to a "superior" but mature adult men will use 私, either わたし or わたくし in semi-formal or formal speaking situations and maybe 小生 (しょうせい) in formalish writing. It's much more dignified than either 僕 or 俺. They will more than likely use 俺 at home or in casual conversation unless they're 70+.
> Not an absolute rule but best I can type out on mobile. Better to err on the side of politeness if you're not sure where you stand.
> As an aside, I've heard tough old ladies in the countryside refer to themselves as 俺 and even 我 (われ) but that's not very common.


Any knowledge you have about what pronouns are appropriate for what age will be outdated in a few years or when you move to a different region, because the truth of the matter is Japanese pronouns are a  generational fashion accessory. People use the pronoun they grew up using, thus it becomes the pronoun for adults, kids feel adult pronouns are unfashionable, so they use another pronoun, that pronoun becomes associated with kids' language, but then the kids grow up and keep using the same pronoun. Rinse, lather, repeat.


----------



## Dufe (May 21, 2022)

Abre la contesta!


----------



## C.U.N.T. (May 21, 2022)

Desu Mountain said:


> Any knowledge you have about what pronouns are appropriate for what age will be outdated in a few years or when you move to a different region, because the truth of the matter is Japanese pronouns are a  generational fashion accessory. People use the pronoun they grew up using, thus it becomes the pronoun for adults, kids feel adult pronouns are unfashionable, so they use another pronoun, that pronoun becomes associated with kids' language, but then the kids grow up and keep using the same pronoun. Rinse, lather, repeat.


Are you saying that pronouns such as boku/ore/watashi etc go through generational/cyclical trends? That one generation might use ore/uchi as kids, use that their whole lives and the next will rebel against that and start using watashi or watakushi or something instead?
It doesn't work like that, people use different pronouns depending on what is appropriate to the time/occasion/audience/their position throughout their lives, from the time they're aware of it.
Not sure if I understand what you're saying correctly.


----------



## Desu Mountain (May 21, 2022)

C.U.N.T. said:


> Are you saying that pronouns such as boku/ore/watashi etc go through generational/cyclical trends? That one generation might use ore/uchi as kids, use that their whole lives and the next will rebel against that and start using watashi or watakushi or something instead?
> It doesn't work like that, people use different pronouns depending on what is appropriate to the time/occasion/audience/their position throughout their lives, from the time they're aware of it.
> Not sure if I understand what you're saying correctly.


Yes, people switch pronouns depending on how formal the situation is. Nobody who wants to keep their job uses the same pronoun when speaking to their boss and when speaking to their drinking buddy at the pub, but for every day situations it pretty much does work like that. These days in standard Kanto-ben Watashi is consered effeminate. Just spend some time on Japanese learning forums and see how long it takes for someone to make a thead titled something like "My Japanese girlfriend told me to switch to Boku because Watashi sounds too girly" or something like that.

Ore is apparently now considered normal enough among adult men that I've seen students who've studied in Japan claiming some of their university lecturers have been referring to themselves as ore during their lectures, something that just a little over five years ago would've been considered rude and inappropriate. Words like uchi are more regional, common in parts of the Kansai region for instance but rarely used in places like Tokyo. I've also seen people say in the past few years that "atashi" is only used by 35+ year old cat ladies. 10 years ago it was considered the teenage girl pronoun.

Watch some old Japanese movies from the 60s and 70s and see how common "washi" was back then. Compare that to the 90s onwards. It's so horrifically outdated it's become the go to yakuwari-go for Old Man speech.

Pronouns become so much less confusing when you realize they're basically the same as clothes. Whether they make you look like a normie, an old fuck, a little kid, or a flaming faggot depends on where in the country you are and what decade it is.


----------



## C.U.N.T. (May 21, 2022)

Desu Mountain said:


> Yes, people switch pronouns depending on how formal the situation is. Nobody who wants to keep their job uses the same pronoun when speaking to their boss and when speaking to their drinking buddy at the pub, but for every day situations it pretty much does work like that. These days in standard Kanto-ben Watashi is consered effeminate. Just spend some time on Japanese learning forums and see how long it takes for someone to make a thead titled something like "My Japanese girlfriend told me to switch to Boku because Watashi sounds too girly" or something like that.
> 
> Ore is apparently now considered normal enough among adult men that I've seen students who've studied in Japan claiming some of their university lecturers have been referring to themselves as ore during their lectures, something that just a little over five years ago would've been considered rude and inappropriate. Words like uchi are more regional, common in parts of the Kansai region for instance but rarely used in places like Tokyo. I've also seen people say in the past few years that "atashi" is only used by 35+ year old cat ladies. 10 years ago it was considered the teenage girl pronoun.
> 
> ...


Sure, go back further and you've got people using sessha and onushi so I agree there is some generational change/hayari with pronouns.

Watashi has always been too girly for young men to use informally, boku also imo. Maybe I'm just used to country ways.
Atashi always pissed me off for some reason, glad I don't hear that much anymore. 

Your analogy comparing pronouns to clothes is a good one.


----------



## Dick Justice (Jun 28, 2022)

never before have I wanted to drop this inscrutable faggot fucking language than reading the thread's necroposts.


----------



## MerriedxReldnahc (Jun 28, 2022)

Samson Pumpkin Jr. said:


> I've also heard that there are some real bad courses like Irish and Guarani





Uncle June said:


> Agreed on the Irish. It was fairly surprising how poorly it was organized on Duolingo compared to many of the other courses.


I've heard some complaints about the Irish course in that there's only one speaker (as of 2020, I don't know if it's been updated since then)  and that there's been virtually no updates and improvements to the course in the last few years. Someone even described the course as Duolingo's "unwanted bastard child", lol. 

I'm not learning Irish but Scottish, and in that course there's a speaker who is a bit infamous for being very hard to understand and may have been recorded with a potato. She's simultaneously the best and worst person to learn from because while one one hand she's incomprehensible but also she is definitely somebody's old-ass Scottish grandma who knows the language. The other speakers are mostly pretty clear though, and you can hear regional differences in pronunciations. 

I definitely don't like that the "tips" section isn't available on the app, there's so many weird grammatical things that you can't just pick up in context.  I recall that the Scottish course was done in a very short amount of time, IDK if the Irish course was the same. I still like using Duolingo though, I supplement it with other learning sources and Gaelic radio broadcasts just to get used to the sound of the language.


----------



## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 28, 2022)

Some Badger said:


> Currently trying to learn Russian through Duolingo after about 5 years of saying I'm gonna start learning, mostly so I can level the playing field between me and a Russian friend who is essentially fluent in English. Would also be nice to visit St. Petersburg someday too.
> 
> Russiabros, is there another resource I can use to learn Russian besides Duolingo? This is my first time using the platform and I'm assuming there will come a point where it'll outlive its usefulness. My only real means of practicing conversational Russian would be with my aforementioned friend (which is kinda hard when you don't have a bilingual keyboard) or taking a day trip to Brighton Beach and practicing with ordering food/shopping, so I got options, but they're somewhat limited.


Pirate the pimsleur Russian course. Oh, don't want to pirate? Committing crimes is based. Nick Fuentes said so. 

Oh, you find 30 minute pimsleur lessons excruciatingly boring? just buy lingq for 200 fucking dollars lmao https://youtu.be/3vAKzpbtNGk
Steve Kaufmann will help you with snake oil


----------



## Nick Obre (Jun 28, 2022)

Friendly Primarina said:


> Kind of OT, but it's something I've always wondered. In English we have many animal-specific words for the males, females and young of different species. Here's a few to show what I mean, in the format animal/male/female/young:
> 
> Dog/dog/bitch/puppy
> Cat/tom/queen/kitten
> ...


Not in Spanish, at least not for most animals. Of course we use the masculine/feminine form of the word, and the corresponding diminutives for the young: Perro/Perra/Perrito/Perrita. Cachorro is used as a generic for most youngs, so a Cachorro can be for a puppy or a kitty or some others, but you gotta specify the animal: Cachorro de perro. Cría means the same, but it's a little more formal.
Some animals do have different words for male, female, and young. Toro (bull), Vaca (cow), Ternero/Ternera (calf).
And then there's animals that only have masculine or feminine form, and you have to add "Macho" (male) or "Hembra" (female) to specify. La Jirafa macho (the male giraffe), el Salmón hembra (the female salmon). You don't say El Jirafo or La Salmona. You can't even change the article to say El Jirafa, you gotta say La Jirafa macho.
And then there's animal names that work both ways, but I guess these are mostly words imported from other languages and that don't _sound_ masculine or feminine. Tapir can be male or female, you just use the appropriate article: El Tapir, la Tapir. No need to go "La Tapira".


----------



## Carlos Weston Chantor (Aug 2, 2022)

Can someone recommend a good online course/resources to learn Latin? I've decided to learn Latin


----------



## Soseki (Aug 15, 2022)

Carlos Weston Chantor said:


> Can someone recommend a good online course/resources to learn Latin? I've decided to learn Latin


I considered picking up Latin also and looked into Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. The book is completely in Latin but it starts off very simple and you read every chapter several times. There is supplementary material to go alongside such as extra stories for practice or grammar explanations in English when you feel lost. I own the physical books since I prefer working from a physical textbook but I found PDFs of everything as well if you prefer digital.


----------

