Let's have a good old fashioned language thread. All those interested in (certain) languages and linguistics are welcome to discuss. Tell us of your current interests, if you have any useful sites for those looking into starting on the language learning journey, if you're blocked and don't know where to start from/continue, or you want to try new methods/approaches of learning to reinvigorate your study/ies
I'm currently trying to learn the basics of Istanbul and Azeri Turkish (more Azeri, but I rely on Turkish materials as well). Trying to find an entry point into Turkic languages. I find them interesting in general. Ideally, I'd like to know at least one language of each Eurasian group (known, large groups) - this is a far fetched dream. Otherwise, at least three languages up to B1, comfortable discussion level
The material I use is Memrise (which has a lot of vocabulary drills on Turkish, far less on Azeri though), Duolingo (purely Turkish exercises and short grammar points), an Azeri language blog by an expatriate (azerbaijanilanguageDOTwordpressDOTcom), the brief UniLang (which is a fucking nice site) course, the very basics of what you can find in all Turkic languages and lastly, "Azerdict" as base dictionary. There's also Antimoon forum, but it's messy and linguaholic, if anyone's interested. The University of Texas also has a section of a few languages like old French, English, Albanian, Classical Armenian, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic and so on If you're struck with the "ancient languages" fever, "lexicity" is for you. It's a linguistic gold mine, my favourite site on the internet
>What are you currently learning Mandarin >Do you have any material/advice for others Chinese skill obviously, I found allsetlearning to be really helpful.
>Discuss languages here I wonder if it's as hard for Asians to learn a Western language than it is for us. It seems so hard and slow compared to any European language
Joseph Lopez
Bol'shoje spasibo.... ochen' razocharovan. prosto mne ne suzhdeno
Elijah Price
How good is Duolingo for learning basic German/Dutch?
Cameron Rivera
ek munuð meyla - Old norse Jeg elsker små piger - Modern danish Minä rakastan pikkutyttöjä - Finnish Ich liebe junge Mädchen - German Amo a las niñas pequeñas - Spanish mahal ko ang mga batang babae - Tagalog J'aime les petites filles - French 幼女を愛してる - Japanese 어린 소녀들 사랑 해요 - Korean i liebe jungi meitli - Swiss 我爱小女生 - Chinese (Standard) Parvas puellas amo - Latin Ik hou van kleine meisjes - Dutch Mám rád malé holčičky - Czech ฉันรักเด็กผู้หญิงเล็ก - Thai ma armastan väikseid tüdrukuid - Estonian Eu amo as meninas - Portugese Αγαπάω μιkρά kορίτσια - Greek Contributions and corrections accepted!
Easton Miller
They probably just take as much time as we do to learn a language with a different alphabet...
Michael Perez
>Amo a las niñas pequeñas - Spanish >J'aime les petites filles - French
Following those two examples, this: >Eu amo as meninas - Portuguese
Should be this: >Eu amo as menininhas or >Eu amo as meninas pequenas >Eu amo as pequenas meninas
Christian Perry
Fucking nonce
Ayden Foster
Thank you, I'm trying to keep them relatively uniform
Wouldn't it be harder for them than it is for us? Taking Mandarin for example. Tones are hard, so I've heard. I know a few Mandarin phrases, with solid tones, so I can't speak with absolute certainty, but their syntax and grammar don't seem as demanding. Now imagine being a Chinese person trying to learn German or Italian. That "compactness" of Asian languages is missing, replaced by elaborate European forms. Arabic, Farsi and Turkic languages (that I know) rely on compounds. They created this rigidity in their vocabulary with it. For example in Farsi, if they could find a way to break the compounds, the language would be literally infinite. This way, they bind themselves and limit their vocabulary extensively. In Turkic language, it's all about building blocks, suffixation, which again harms you if you're European. All sentences sound Neanderthal to you, directly translated. You might get the same feeling with directly translated Mandarin sentences
Easton Bell
I'm learning the Arabic alphabet at the moment. No intention of learning any language that uses it but I like the way it looks desu
Noah Myers
would like to learn german plz
:-DD
Henry Adams
For Russian learners. Mega folder has a lot of materials in it.
Kayden Myers
Pretty good for the necessary/basic vocabulary. Every day descriptions as well. It will equip you with the "survival" verbs (to be, to eat/sleep/drink, to live, to love/like, to have, to think, to speak and such), accompanied by a core vocabulary of family, dates, colours, professions, time/date
For grammar points, definitely not
An American also asked this a week or so ago... You must use the above to form your own sentences. This core vocabulary and survival verbs are great to push yourself and continue your studies. There's no greater reward than successfully putting your knowledge to use and building your own sentences is a must with the above. To put it simply and bluntly, if you keep getting a Duolingo sentence: "I love chocolate chip cookies", after you finish your session, think about what else do you love, and already have in your learned vocabulary. Mix sentences and verbs. It's a daily, mini encouragement you can give yourself. A proof that it's working and you're doing something right. Afterwards, expand it towards this scheme: Noun (+ adjective) + verb (+ location (+) time/date)
David Sanders
That's why I'm wondering, it's hard to imagine. Nothing seems really complicated compared to French it's the same level of complexity, apart from German I guess. Now that I think about it most Chinese people I speak to make tons of mistakes in both English and French, sometimes really obvious ones. It's probably easier for them to get to a decent level, but if you try to speak like a native it becomes really hard considering all the rules maybe
Jeremiah Butler
I completely get what you're saying. But you might change your mind with Farsi. It's a beautiful language (not as coarse, "Semitic" as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ge'ez...) that employs the Perso-Arabic alphabet
I remember when I started learning the alphabet. Clustered together, the letters look like intimidating gibberish, but learning them one by one, it's really intuitive
Nathan Butler
As far as I know, Mandarin doesn't have genders, elaborate tenses as European languages do (take their past tense for example, Slavic languages kill you with tenses, Mandarin (I think) adds a particle in front and you have your past tense). Particles in general make lots of their grammar. European languages have a lot of "meaningful" words. "Full" words that can stand for themselves, while Mandarin seems to have bases and expansions as a norm, an inverse pyramid vocabulary (considering they can also have words being verbs and nouns, or adjectives)
Luke Cook
pls respond #2 It's a good thread
Jose Price
>Slavic languages kill you with tenses What's special about it?
Gavin Ortiz
If that has a pedo sense, and refers to non-specific girls, it should be something like this in Spanish: Me encantan las niñas pequeñas or Me gustan las niñas pequeñas.
"Amo a las niñas pequeñas" -might be- correct, but it sounds weird.
Contribution, in Catalan:
M'encanten les nenes petites. or M'agraden les nenes petites.
Thomas Smith
I'm learning french and I really wan't to learn russian
Isaiah Baker
you should learn br portuguese, its the most comfy language of all time
Caleb Price
I'm thinking about learning Chinese. How do you choose which language to learn? What do you think will be a popular language 50 years from now?
Carson Taylor
Any Swedish speakers here? How easy it it? Is it possible to master it? I'm currently learning right now I'm currently learning German
Michael Thompson
Nice thread.
Choose whichever language interests you the most. That way you'll have the most motivation to learn it.
Learning other languages' alphabets can come in use. I studied Arabic for a short while, and I plan on starting to study Uyghur soon, which means I just have to review the Arabic alphabet plus learn the letters unique to Uyghur, making it quicker than starting completely from scratch.
Anybody know of some good resources for learning Belorussian?
Charles Nguyen
I had a look at a university prospectus and thought "Mandarin & Business would be pretty cool"
The thought of doing a language hadn't even crossed my mind before then
Landon King
Been learning Norwegian on Duolingo but only done like 3 of the modules so far. Any advice?
Camden Jones
Thank you! I'll add Catalan and make a note about the Spanish one on the other document
Jose Baker
Learning a language requires an immense amount of time and effort.
People will always tell you to learn the language that interests you the most but do you really want to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of hours learning a useless language?
Go with Mandarin. It's interesting as fuck and being able to read more and more Mandarin everyday will motivate you to keep going.
Aaron Sanders
...
Kevin Phillips
I fucking hate esperanto
Parker Martin
I know English, Dutch, and German very well, but all any one ever speaks to me is English. I hate this life.
Why even learn Esperanto when you can just learn Spanish?
Zachary Reed
Everyone speaks English at the university, because the program I follow is taught in English. I pretty much only use Dutch when I speak to the people ringing me up or answering the door. Or when I'm talking shit about the fucking international students.
Thomas Howard
learning French using Duolingo
Cameron Sanders
Duolingo is a nice first step. But it lacks in details and shit.
Isaiah Cruz
>J'aime les petites filles J'aime les filles petites*
Nouns before adjectives in all Romance languages
Josiah Price
are there similar 'language flowcharts' for other languages?
