Couldn't find a thread for them, but if I just suck, by all means, please just merge this with whatever thread there is.
Languages and linguistics are, apart from programming, primary interests of mine. I do at least something related to it, every day. I try to learn many languages, and I also create languages. Both practices also help me learn about linguistic and phonological terms, and since I'm just generally interested, I also read a lot about languages.
So... What languages do I know, or study, and to what extent do I know them?
Scandinavian (with a Swedish dialect/idiolect as my native language) is obviously number one.
English would be my second-best language.
Icelandic definitely takes the third place; I've been studying it for about four years, and I got around just fine when I went to Iceland recently.
Portuguese and Spanish kind of well, but I'm a bit out of practice. I need to write something soon enough. I know Portuguese better by now, and I managed to have a little conversation going during a dinner and a walk with a Brazilian woman once (even though I learned European Portuguese). That experience gave me a lot of confidence, since I had spent the previous two weeks almost exclusively studying Portuguese, and didn't know too much before then.
Hungarian is my main language of studies right now, and I enjoy it a lot. It's very nice to work with, and I learn more every week.
Faroese wasn't too hard to pick up on, knowing Scandinavian and Icelandic, but my vocabulary and some essential stuff are still missing.
Modern Greek is supposed to be one of my main languages right now, but I can't say I'm even half as devoted to it, as I am to Hungarian. It's kind of hard to find good resources on inflecting words, and since verbs are so miserable in this language, that can sometimes stop me. I've been getting back into a bit more lately, though.
Scottish Gaelic is also supposed to be one of my main ones at the moment, but I almost haven't gotten started on it yet, and I'm barely beyond the phrase stage yet; the orthography is starting to make a little more sense, though.
French is probably my best Romance language that I haven't actually tried to study, but have simply picked up on to some extent, unlike Italian (although I gave Italian an evening once). I find it pretty easy to understand written French to a certain extent, at least.
German grammar and perhaps also vocabulary I know better than that of Dutch, even though Dutch is actually what got me started with languages in the first place; I've simply forgotten most of what I ever learned about Dutch, since that time is probably about seven years ago now, and I never got very far. Either language can be kind of easily understood when written, at least. I need to get me some practice with both of them...
Finnish I spent a few hours with lately, and solved some of the mysteries, and tried to form two sentences. I haven't gotten much feedback yet, but in either case, the grammar is indeed very similar to that of Hungarian, and I might continue studying it.
Japanese I don't know much about, but I can write and read all of the kana characters and a few kanji, at least (which is sadly enough to handle an iPhone or an iPad at least; almost everything is English written with katakana). I do know a few things about grammar and pronunciation, but I couldn't construct a very useful sentence. I have no interest in Japanese culture, and I don't like their formality system (I don't like the fact that there are lots of formal registers, because to me, nobody deserves a more formal address than anyone else), so I would probably have a hard time learning it, since I'm not interested in delving too deep into that stuff, and that stuff is as important to the language as it is to the speakers. Maybe in the future.
Mandarin, on the other hand, isn't too extreme in this context, and the writing system is obviously easier to handle too. I know a few basics, and a handful of characters.
Like a lot of other equally interested people, I know a handful of things about this and that language, like Italian and Russian, but not much.
I also started trying my hand at Dutch today. It's pretty easy! I should've tried my hand at this earlier! I tried speaking some Dutch to a Dutch friend of mine today, and I was able to pick up pretty quickly! Also tried a little Italian today, and as of lately I've also been looking into some West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut). Hungarian is still number one at the moment, though.
What about you guys?
Last edited by Skomakar'n on Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Inlinevoid wrote:Jokes aside, what interests you about learning all of these languages and how do you go about learning them?
I usually read up on the article on the language's grammar on Wikipedia at first, and I try to form basic sentences and look up stuff in dictionaries and eventually I keep reading more about the grammar, and I form more complex sentences, and I try to get in touch with the language by finding texts and music. Another crucial part in my process is also trying to find some native speaker who can confirm that I'm forming proper sentences.
As for Hungarian, I happen to have the luck to have access to three native speakers who also speak my native language (Swedish) within my reach (one of them I went to school with for three years, the other one is his cousin, and the third one is the mother of a guy I've known pretty much all of my life).
Heh, that's really nice, Skoma. I know High German as my mother tongue and I have been studying...
*Low German about 10 years ago to please granny and grandad, lol
*English at school for 7 years
*Spanish at school for 1 year
*Portuguese myself for 1 year and it's really the one I like best
*and French at school but I have forgotten almost everything.
That's about it. I don't count the Italian I've learned a buch of years agom I couldn't make up any sentence even if I wanted to. Although with Spanish and Portuguese I might be able to communicate with native Italians.
Languages I learn at school I usually improve by watching vids on the internet, especially if there's a certain dialect that I want to learn. I've been watching Argentinean videos on youtube to get acquaint myself with the voseo, for example. I did that for English as well. Portuguese, though, is quite different, because without experience you will not manage to understand even the simplest sentences. So I regularly meet up with Portuguese natives at a local bar. Best experience to get immediate feedback on what you're doing wrong etc. OH, and the descriptions of the pronunciation of ã, õ, -am, -em and -im which I found on the internet suck loads of dick. It's sort of only learnable in real life in my opinion. Or at school, but they don't offer it here.
Someday, everything will go to /dev/null. - Bug's prophecy 13:37
Oh. It would be nice to actually meet up with people too, and try to speak IRL. I might actually dare to try to speak to my friend's Hungarian mother in Hungarian soon, and I should meet up with my old classmate and his cousin again soon.
As for tonight, I had a short urge for Latin, and then spent a few hours trying to make some sentences in Greenlandic.
Spērō ut maximē bonam scholam inveniās. Nunc linguam latīnam discere volō. Tē ōdī. Hic es? Ego sum hic. I hope you'll find a mighty fine school. I want to learn Latin now. I hate you. Are you here? I am here.
Aamma kalaallisut oqalussinnaaperusuppunga. Sungiusartariaqarpara. Atuagaqarpunga pitsaasoq. Atorniarpara. I want to be able to speak more Greenlandic. I have to practise it. I have an excellent book. I shall use it.
Here's my list:
-Greek (native)
-English since i was 6
-Japanese for 4-5 years (i have neglected it for a long, LONG time unfortunately, due to time constraints)
-German for 2 years at school, i'd love to learn more at some point.
-Russian, i can read and write, and that's about it. No idea what i'm reading :P
By the way, i was never really interested in Spanish, so i haven't really made a serious effort to learn.
I've considered trying to learn languages in the past, but living in the United States makes it very difficult as I know next to nobody that speaks any foreign language fluently, or any foreign language other than Spanish even non-fluently. I'm not good at learning languages from books, I'd much rather learn it in practice if the necessity / opportunity ever presents itself.
Falco Girgis wrote:It is imperative that I can broadcast my narcissistic commit strings to the Twitter! Tweet Tweet, bitches!
dandymcgee wrote:I'm not good at learning languages from books, I'd much rather learn it in practice if the necessity / opportunity ever presents itself.
Agreed learning from books is difficult and then the whole necessity part :/
One thing I've found to help is watching tv in foreign languages, of course not as good be compared to IRL practice. But watching lots of anime makes you recognize words now and then, look them up and learn little by little.
Kendall recently got into learning german with the Pimsleur audio books, tried it too and it's a great way to get started.
C++: (NATIVE) This is the only language I can speak fluently, I consider it far more elegant than spoken languages as well.
English: This one I also speak mostly fluently though I find myself failing as I was taught it here in America, by teachers who are either too old to make sense or are (obviously illegal too) immigrants.
Hebrew: I spent some time learning the grammar as well as reading the foreign characters, but really can't remember most anything I read except for pronunciation and maybe 10 words.
German: I've dabbled here and there and can pick out words and their meanings, in general I find it a language easy to learn when you know English. I don't know why but it seems easy enough to me. I listen to lots of German bands and it has also helped as I've wanted to know meanings of some phrases and what have you.
Chinese: I really want to learn Chinese fluently for philosophical (Tao Te Ching) and religious reasons, as well as it's just awesome.
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