/lang/ - Language Learning

Comfy Language Learning Thread

Other urls found in this thread:

4chanint.wikia.com/wiki/The_Official_Sup
duolingo.com/
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9QDHej9UGAdcDhWVEllMzJBSEk#
fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/oldfsi/index.html
memrise.com/
lingvist.com/
clozemaster.com/languages
tatoeba.org/eng/
effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty
lexicity.com/
cosmogyros.tumblr.com/post/108962232110/huge-new-language-learning-collection
dliflc.edu/resources/products/
en.childrenslibrary.org
hellotalk.com/#en
italki.com/
mylanguageexchange.com/
interpals.net/
gospeaky.net/
speaky.com/
polyglotclub.com/
lang-8.com/
goethe-verlag.com/
languagetransfer.org/
babadum.com
context.reverso.net/translation/
vocaroo.com/i/s1XpbMOmw7kd
vocaroo.com/i/s0IBM9jNFmOa
vocaroo.com/i/s0d1ZUjg6Tua
youtube.com/watch?v=1rmo3fKeveo
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>What language are you learning?
>Share language learning experiences!
>Help people who want to learn a new language!
>Find people to train your language with!

>Language learning resources:
4chanint.wikia.com/wiki/The_Official_Sup Forums_How_to_Learn_A_Foreign_Language_Guide_Wiki

duolingo.com/
>Duolingo is a free language-learning platform that includes a language-learning website and app, as well as a digital language proficiency assessment exam. Duolingo offers all its language courses free of charge.

>Torrents with more resources than you'll ever need for 30+ languages.

drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9QDHej9UGAdcDhWVEllMzJBSEk#
>Google Drive folder with books for all kinds of languages.

fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/oldfsi/index.html
>Drill based courses with text and audio.The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the United States federal government's primary training institution for employees of the U.S. foreign affairs community.These courses are all in public domain and free to download.Site may go down sometimes but you can search for fsi on google and easily find a mirror.

memrise.com/
>Free resource to learn vocabulary, nice flash cards.

lingvist.com/
>It's kinda like Clozemaster in the sense that you get a sentence and have to fill in the missing word, also has nice statistics about your progress, grammar tips and more information about a word (noun gender, verb aspects for Russian, etc.)

ankisrs.net/
>A flash card program

clozemaster.com/languages
>Clozemaster is language learning gamification through mass exposure to vocabulary in context.Can be a great supplementary tool, not recommended for absolute beginners.

tatoeba.org/eng/
>Tatoeba is a collection of sentences and translations with over 300 hundred languages to chose from.

radio.garden/
>Listen to radio all around the world through an interactive globe

effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty
>Check out information about languages and their difficulties

lexicity.com/
>An invaluable resource for comparative language study as well as those interested in ancient languages

cosmogyros.tumblr.com/post/108962232110/huge-new-language-learning-collection
>A very extensive language learning collection for 90+ languages.

dliflc.edu/resources/products/
>Similar to FSI, drill-based courses with text and audio issued by the US government.These courses were made for millitary personel in mind unlike FSI.

en.childrenslibrary.org
>Lots of childrens books in various languages, categories 3-5yo, 6-9yo, 10-13yo.

hellotalk.com/#en
>The app is basically whatsapp, but only connects you with people who are native in the language you are trying to learn. It also has a facebook type section where you can share pics and stuff too.

italki.com/
mylanguageexchange.com/
interpals.net/
gospeaky.net/
speaky.com/
polyglotclub.com/
lang-8.com/
>Few more language exchange communities like Hellotalk:

goethe-verlag.com/
>A mostly free site which offers audio and drill like exercises for 40+ languages.

languagetransfer.org/
>A free resource with recordings to learn a language.

babadum.com
>Flash card game with a focus on vocabulary.

context.reverso.net/translation/
>A website like Tatoeba (also has a Firefox extension!)

So, /lang/, how's the learning going?

What tools are you using?

Anything new and interesting you've learned?

Do you guys tell others you're learning a language and do you get stupid questions like 'why' or other dumb reactions!

I have told people I'm learning it. For two reasons. The first is it holds me a bit accountable. The second is that a lot of those people speak the language I want to learn and so that helps me practice. I got to learn really quick the ones who wanted to speak to a novice and help train.

But yeah, the English only speaking people kind of say "why?" or give some "you should tell no one you are learning the language so you can spy on them!" and other dumb shit.

For some reason the only thing I got from my dad in this regard was discouragement and comments like "you know it's okay if you quit"
I only tell it to other people if the topic comes up

Mari learner here

I've successfully managed in finding a handful of Mari songs which I enjoy (though I'm a bit ashamed of admitting it, seeing as objectively they're not all that good). Now I have a very well-defined language-learning objective: translate those songs to English.

It's a bit weird because I can recall plenty of other languages (way more relevant than Mari) for which I was never able to find ANY music I enjoyed (I was doing this to try to determine if I was interested in learning those languages), and yet for Mari I've succeeded a little bit.

There's no way in hell I'd ever be able to confess to such autism IRL, though if it were a normal language like Spanish or German then sure, if asked I wouldn't mind telling people.

i can progressively understand more and more of the Chinese postage info on all the components i buy on ebay.

close friends know.
we watched some Chinese movies the other week.
not even my initiative.

only about 3 whole sentences i understood without reading the text though.

Anyone here learnt Latin? Can it be done to fluency in two years?

I have decided to ask people to spell new words/expressions and write them on a note so I don't forget them, but so far I only have one kek
I don't come across new words very often
Can you recommend any? Under the hawthorn tree is one of my favourite movies, but it's the only Chinese movie I've seen

Today I bought the present for a """"language"""" partner in Geneva where I will spend a few days at her place later this summer.

I'm already hyped up and I hope I will get to speak a lot of French when I'm there.

Lube?

battle of red cliffs was not terrible.
only saw the last of the two movies though.

Thanks, but I have a foreskin.

No, seriously it's just a stereotypical souvenir, the equivalent of the legendary all-American red party cup.

a cup with a lid on it?

Kind of yeah, one of these big beer mugs with a tin lid that have these rustic and stereotypical printings .

Ah okay, nice. When my German qt came she brought a book from her region in Bavaria.

Well, I personally would never gift a book to someone if I didn't know that this person really, really wants to read this specific book.

It was just a picture book with a bit of text. But, yeah, a beer mug is better.

Malay or Indonesian? They are kinda similar and I can't decide.

Is there one you think you would be more likely to use? Or are they more just for fun? I think that might dictate which.

Just for fun. I don't think there's a high chance of visiting the countries in which those languages are spoken.

Malaysia is maybe worth a trip if you are in that part of the world. Singapore is pretty interesting. I've been there and Jahor which is right over the river.

Certainly be other places I'd rather go though.

Ancient Greek or Latin?

They're not similar. At all. Like Dutch and German.
If you want making profits out of youtube, Bahasa Indonesia is what you should pick because they have much larger demographics.
If you want to become a famous celebrity that they would worship with plenty of perks like be picked up to visit there for free, learn Bahasa Melayu.

Is it ok to read books that are translated into your target language for practice? Obviously native books are better but I use Harry Potter as a benchmark since the book series gets a bit more involved and mature as it goes on so I can gauge my progress fairly well. My only concern is that sentence constructions or speech patterns are unnatural for the target language, giving me awkward syntax when I go to write/speak. I'm learning German if that makes a huge difference (I know some people get butthurt about German to English translations, dunno about the reverse).

I never tell people I'm doing anything until I'm at a comfortable level of proficiency. That way I can show them something tangible if they ask how it's going.
>red solo cups are world-famous
Interesting.

They have rich history, of course they are worth visiting.
Are you interested in ancient texts?
Well, I don't plan on living there, I just find those languages interesting (they also use the latin alphabet, that's a plus) and I can't decide which one to study.

>Are you interested in ancient texts?
Yep, that's why I'd be learning them.

Would love to learn them both so I could , but don't know which to learn. Which would be harder for an English speaker? Hope to get decently fluent in one within two years.

Ancient Greek would be more difficult for an English speaker to learn, I think it has more complex syntax than Latin.
Latin also shares a lot of common words with English, so I bet that the vocabulary would be easier for you to learn.

ok

Any ideas on how can I express myself fluently while speaking if I don't have anyone to talk with??
I just read OP's picture and I'm almost C1 at reading, listening and writing(or at least I think so), but I struggle to make spontaneous anwers when talking.

Should I learn French if I want to talk about weeb shit with people in a different language?

Do you know French weebs?

I have the same situation. I've been reading out loud in order to get my mouth used to saying the words so that they're easier to form. Make up dialogues in your head and just blabber on by yourself. Best I can think of besides finding a language partner online or something.

>Do you know French weebs?
Sup Forums makes it sound like there's a lot of French weebs.
Reason I want to learn another language, so I can talk to foreign people online, but Im pretty boring, so it'd be cool if we could talk about weeb shit.

Common interest is good to have when finding people to practice with. I don't know French but it shouldn't be terribly difficult to learn, especially since it'll have a ton of resources.

give it a whirl, see if you like it.

>My only concern is that sentence constructions or speech patterns are unnatural for the target language, giving me awkward syntax when I go to write/speak.
most books are going to be translated by native speakers, who're probably going to avoid translating stuff too literally (i.e. awkwardly) and instead opt for more natural sounding phrasing / syntax / whatever when possible, so i'd say it's probably okay to read stuff translated into that language. Harry Potter will probably have pretty good translations given that it's a pretty well known book, so you should be safe, although definitely try diving into native material in between reading it or something.

bump

>tfw learning an middle eastern language and they only have derka derka jihad music to listen to

Which language?

T*rkish

I bet you can find more than jihad music in Turkish. Like western style pop or rock or even something else.

Are you fucking retarded mate?We have tons of popshit and different genres.If you want some just ask no need to pretend.

>fluency
Who are you supposed to talk to, the Pope? "Fluency" in a dead language is bereft of any meaning since it lacks authentic speaking and listening, two crucial aspects of speaking any language.

>Like Dutch and German
Dutch and German are pretty similar though

Even in Roman times written latin was the formal language and already different from vulgar latin.
If one would wanted to learn spoken latin, he should pick any romance language.

Why are you learning mari?

If I tell people, it's something like "I'm learning farsi cause I'm going to Iran next year". Responses vary from enthusiastic (dad loves middle-east), to a joking "I knew it, you're going to a hezbollah training camp". Brother and sister are probably the most "negative" reactions with "why bother, don't they speak english" (no, many don't)

Hey guys, Slavist here. I'm in the search for a new and interesting language to learn and I'm not sure what language to pick. I've got some ideas thought, here they are
Bulgarian
Italian
Romanian
Something exotic, could be a meme/dead language, Sindarin, Asian, African, preferably clean/beautiful orthography.
Maybe a Finno-Ugric language.
A language you'd learn if you had the time to waste on a language that you know is not "worth" learning

>clean/beautiful ortography
Ayyrabic or Persian
Mongolian language with its classic script instead of that cyrillic nonsense

> if you had the time to waste on a language that you know is not "worth" learning
Amharic, Xhosa (clickety clack), Basque, any sign language (bonus points for not being the sign language of your country), Nahuatl, Georgian, nahavo and other native american languages, a Ryukyuan language, Ainu, Puroik Language/Sulung.

Thanks, I'll check them out. Checked out Mongolian, sounds really weird

Tengo una pregunta español, por favor.

"No, I can't today" I thought would be "No, no puedo hoy" but it seems to be "No, hoy no puedo"

Is there a grammar rule on why that is? It seems backwards.

In Russian you tend to put adverbs of time first. Feel free to correct me

Ah okay, yeah, maybe it's specific to time. I'll wait for a Spanish speaker but that's a good lead, thank you.

Jesus christ its so hard to learn Spanish especially when it seems like everyone who speaks it seems to race through the sentences. I can barely understand unless it's slowed down. So frustrating.

I'm having the same struggle as you, however I am picking up more things recently. Just stick with it. I think all languages sound fast when you first start, so Spanish is going to be very fast, but the more you listen the more you start to grab it. I think it's one of those things that is more about hours than it is about active study. Listen to a lot, get used to the sounds, etc.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately where I am, there are very little spanish speakers so I have to make do with what I find online I guess.

how long to become fluent in french?

Yeah, it'll have to be online. There are lots of listening resources though. You can listen to Spanish radio, you can listen to Spanish on Periscope, YouTube. There are international chat apps, movies, tv. So many people speak Spanish you should be able to find something fairly easy.

Someone recommended Periscope a few threads ago and while the content is absolute shit, it is so elementary (dumb broads answering very simple questions) that it is perfect for a beginner. "How are you" and all that type of stuff is asked very frequently. "Where are you from" "How old are you" very basic stuff gets reinforced which was super helpful for a beginner like me.

do you guys have a list of languages you intend on learning? not talking about languages you wish to learn, but ones you actually have a plan on learning down the line.

for me:
>finnish
>estonian
>icelandic
>faroese

Ok, periscope actually might not be such a bad idea. Probably better than listening to spanish nursery songs. Thanks again.

>French
>Russian
>Some balkan language
And maybe Chinese too if I could get good at these in few decades.

From what I gathered for Spanish, which is similar in difficulty to English > French, it is about 600 hours to B1/B2 on average.

I don't really plan to learn languages, I just start one day without much thought. It's worked for me so far. At the moment I'm juggling French Spanish and Japanese, so I'd like to get them all to a reasonably fluent level before starting anything new.

On my wish list currently are:
>Russian
>Italian
>Dutch (muh heritage)
>Portuguese

It's going to take me like three years to learn Spanish so I can't really think of anything else. I'd like to learn some French after.

Spanish is a lot easier to speak and listen to than French I think.

I'd say French is easier to understand because than Spanish, they speak slower and sound more distinctive

I guess it's due to exposure though, in the UK we hear French more often than Spanish and vice versa in the USA

It took me ages to get the rolled r in Spanish, also there's lots of subtleties in the spoken language, like the swallowed s sounds and all the slurred words.

>rolled r
Yeah that's going to take me a while.

vocaroo.com/i/s1XpbMOmw7kd

hola señor :^)
vocaroo.com/i/s0IBM9jNFmOa

...

vocaroo.com/i/s0d1ZUjg6Tua

...

helo guize

i am learning hard

пpeкpacный

Cпacибo

пoжaлyйcтa. этa книгa хopoшaя?

Дa oчeнь хopoшo

bump

It is all about emphasis. Both of those sentences are correct but "no, hoy no puedo" focuses on the time (hoy) whereas "no puedo hoy" focuses more on the action (poder). Think of it like someone saying "No, I can't do it TODAY" vs "No, I CAN'T do it today." I'd say in Spanish we usually emphasize those kinds of adverbs in the beginning of the sentence more often. Maybe there's a grammatical reason, but I'm not sure. Try looking up Spanish adverb placement if you're still confused.

Thank you, that was very helpful.

Thinking about putting a language list into one of those list randomisers and choosing a a language that way.

>sounds really weird
You know you like that "auditory aesthetic"
youtube.com/watch?v=1rmo3fKeveo

Пpeкpacный what? I don't even get what you're referring to.
>Дa, oчeнь хopoшaя
Why Russian? Do you study with a tuitor or on your own?

How early is too early to being practising a language with natives? I'm learning Russian, I know the very basics of grammar and vocabulary, but I can hardly understand anything, so is it even worth bothering someone with my Russian skills as they are?

What languages are you learning?

I just started learning Spanish a month ago and already practice with native speakers. It's cringe worthy and painful because I'm so bad, but, fuck it.

>studying japanese for 2.75 years
>have solid grasp on basic-to-intermediate japanese
>can play child's games (such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) and understand a good 70% of the dialogue
>stuff like cultural references and the nuance of every specific word evade me (I think this is what differentiates "native speakers" from "this is my second language", I don't think I'll ever learn these)
>the problem is my functional vocabulary is non-existent
>glued to a dictionary the entire time so progress is incredibly slow in the games
>can't even begin to read more mature games or literature due to only really knowing ~300 kanji (familiar with ~1500 though)
>forget about actually conversing with anyone
>I can't even understand the spoken language
is this the curse of a meme language

it's hard

my main frustration is the "glued to a dictionary" phenomenon
I can understand the grammar but I still can't read shit at all. But I've been studying more kanji and it's getting much better recently

My cousin studied Japanese in college, was fluent, then after school went into translation and then a British company found her and hired her for a bunch of money doing something unrelated. Now she's really bad at it because she didn't practice. Japanese is a tough one. You have to basically be immersed in it to be any good, then it is still hard, and if you stop you lose it really fast.

Learning German really slowly because I'm a lazy fuck. Probably at B1 although I'm lacking quite a bit with my vocabulary. Best methods to learning it? Memrise etc. I find extremely slow.

You could try learning mine.

I've wanted to learn an Uralic language for a long time. The grammar and syntax just please me in a very fundemantal way.

For some reason though, the main ones (Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian) turn me off somewhat for various small reasons. For example, the Estonian õ, or the way that it seems like practically every single verb in Finnish and Estonian is irregular, or the excessive consonant elongation, and so on. Mind you, I still want to learn at least one of those languages in the future (especially Finnish or Estonian), but Mari just has fewer annoying features. I'm not very advanced yet, but the grammar so far seems quite a bit easier. Another factor is simply my autism which pushed me for no particular reason to learn a tiny irrelevant language.

As to why I chose Mari rather than some other Uralic language, it's simply because Mari is the most accessible of them all, and it actually has learning ressources. As a small added bonus, it has quite a few loanwords from nearby Turkic languages, and I've long been interested in Turkic languages and culture as well.

ENOUGH!!!!!!!!

MAKE A CHART FOR THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE LEARNING RIGHT THIS MOMENT YOU ANONS, I'M SICK AND TIRED OF ALL THESE BOARDS MAKING SHIT HAPPEN(pic related) WHILE WE HERE DO NOTHING FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Doesn't have to be perfect, but just enough to get the ball rolling for a beginner, that's all we need.

>inb4 but I haven't reached fluency level yet that would be hypocrisy!
Well you are kinda right there.But still, I'm not talking about fluency level here, b1-b2 should be enough to set someone on their path.At least for the more popular languages like German, Spanish, Chinese.. we should have a chart is all I'm saying desu.

I'll link some music for you if you want.

Make an announcement in the OP next thread

After 3 years of studying, how do you only know 300 kanji? You must have fucked up something while studying. If you're an EOP that's fine, though. Good luck next time you learn a language, at least you'll have some experience then.