Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Dragon Tamer on October 17, 2014, 09:04:38 PM
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Is there anyone here who has learned a second language (growing up with it doesn't count). Right now I'm very enthusiastic about learning Japanese of my own accord (not taking any classes for it), but the language is so different from ours that I'm having some trouble. I know a few basic phrases/words but not enough to apply context clues to a conversation yet (if I get that far I should eventually learn the rest).
I guess what I'm looking for is someone to share my pain with me and possibly give me some advice on what worked for them.
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Is there anyone here who has learned a second language (growing up with it doesn't count).
Someone on this board... very unlikely... :noid
For the record, learning a second language in school is mandatory for about anyone over here. Higher education (50+% of the students) means you got to learn a 3rd language in school for some time as well.
I had English in school from grade 5-13, Latin from 7-11. Had a very basic course in Italian on University and tried my luck with lessons in French, but utterly failed at that and quickly ended it *g*
However, I didn't really learn English in school. I was a horrible student with marks comparable to your 'F'. In reality I learned from games... at that time fantasy role playing games and wargames, which you could only get imported and of course not translated.
I simply immersed myself in that stuff because I was so immensely interested in the content. The learning effect came automatically.
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Is there anyone here who has learned a second language (growing up with it doesn't count). Right now I'm very enthusiastic about learning Japanese of my own accord (not taking any classes for it), but the language is so different from ours that I'm having some trouble. I know a few basic phrases/words but not enough to apply context clues to a conversation yet (if I get that far I should eventually learn the rest).
I guess what I'm looking for is someone to share my pain with me and possibly give me some advice on what worked for them.
Had to take spanish in high school. Senior year took a course in Japanese. I speak a little, understand some. Anime helps (me) with learning.
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Took two years of Spanish in highschool, two years in college. I got good grades and worked up to the intermediate level, but I never really took off with it. Kept wanting to work out the conversation in English rather than converse in Spanish solely. Reading and writing came easier to me than speaking and listening. Last class was some four years ago, about the only thing I've retained is "ĦAy,que lata!"
I'd really like to learn German, though that isn't something readily applicable around here. I've always heard if you really want to grasp another language then you have to fully immerse yourself in it for a while. Spanish is about the only secondary language that would be of any use for me to know.
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I'd really like to learn German, though that isn't something readily applicabable around here.
Just imagine being able to read Heidegger in the original language! :old:
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Anata wa Skuzzy ga eigoigai no gengo de henshin suru tame ni watashi ni harawotaterudarou to omoimasu ka?
Watashi wa sore ga `rūru' ni ihan toejamaga chansu wa, kare wa tonikaku sore o sakujo shimasu to wa omowanai...
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Anata wa Skuzzy ga eigoigai no gengo de henshin suru tame ni watashi ni harawotaterudarou to omoimasu ka?
Watashi wa sore ga `rūru' ni ihan toejamaga chansu wa, kare wa tonikaku sore o sakujo shimasu to wa omowanai...
(http://www.wu-shin.com/images/rei.gif)
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(http://www.wu-shin.com/images/rei.gif)
Sore wa watashi ga Skuzzy Lusche kara yurushi o kouga hitsuyō ni naru baai ga arimasu hōhōdesu...
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I have studied three languages but not by much effort. In school it's mandatory to have 3 languages (native, second native and one foreign). I'm fluent in finnish and english. I'm able to speak greek and swedish with some difficulty and I understand most of spoken german and a little bit of italian.
The best way to learn a language is to have good motivation. So get a girlfriend from the country you wish to learn the language from lol.
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Just imagine being able to read Heidegger in the original language! :old:
Its still poo :rofl
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Ripley makes a good point, barring a GF, joining a local group in the language you're interested in will help you more than any book/computer learning you can do. In Calgary there are all kinds of "learn Mandarin, Spanish, etc" groups posted online you can join and participate with as much as you like, learning to speak and write from a teacher/group for free.
Many Europeans grow up multilingual, which makes learning new languages easier IMO. I grew up bilingual, I spoke French before English, and went to a 50/50 French/English school until High school, where I switched to an all English school due to the program I wanted to be in being there. I didn't have to take the usually mandatory regular high school french there, so I took Spanish instead. Learning it was a snap due to already speaking 2 languages.
However, years later, when I hadn't used French or Spanish, I'd found learning languages was a very perishable skill, and when living in Hong Kong for the better part of a year, I was as useless as every other Gwai Lo in picking up Cantonese and Mandarin.
Everybody is different, but I've experienced the ease of learning from a multilingual perspective, as well as sort of "starting over" like a single language person after years, over a decade, of lack of practice. Learning a new one when I'd only spoken and written English, particularly an Asian language, was harder than I thought it would be. Joining a group of fellow people like myself while in HK really helped me learn to speak well more quickly. Writing is another matter.
Dragon, it's a fun thing to do, despite the work. My advice would be pick a reasonably decent program/course, and find some fellow Kanji speakers in your area. Joining a group that uses Kanji like Kendo, or various other Japanese arts may help too, especially if there is Japanese instructors and students - tell them you wish to learn the language as well as the skills being taught, you'll likely make some good new friends which will help you on your way.
I too have always been interested in learning Japanese, as I collect swords and have a number of antique Japanese blades, and also trained in Kendo and other Japanese sword arts for years, without ever learning any of the language beyond what was used in class. Ruah here from Kommondo Nowotny speaks Japanese I believe, in addition to other things, and would be a GREAT person to PM and ask for advice about learning Kanji.
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Is there anyone here who has learned a second language (growing up with it doesn't count).
Yes Spanish and Portuguese. One of the hardest things I have ever done. Went to a language school and plus had to study a lot on my own. I'd say it took me 10 years to become really fluent. Now I do presentations, meetings and negotiations in those languages as well as used to get all kinds of women in Latin America.
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English is my native language, but I speak fairly fluent Spanish. I took 5 years in High School and minoring in College ATM. Granted, I still have a lot to learn, but I know my ways around the latino babes.
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Apart from Finnish, I am able to communicate in English, Swedish, German and somewhat in French, all of which I've learned at school. When I was born, my home was tri-lingual as my mother talked Finnish and my dad German to me while they spoke Swedish to each other, the last being a foreign language to both of them! Having to is the best motivation, at least that's what my dad always says. He first came to Finland as an exchange student, and because he had come earlier than the rest of the group they made him their translator "because he had had the time to learn the language". How much earlier was that? Two weeks...
Speaking is a good way to learn, although reading is important too. I once was told about a foreign (Rumanian?) worker in Bavaria, Germany, who could fluently speak the local dialect. Then one day in the mess he asked his friends what would be on the menu the upcoming week. The co-workers stared at him puzzled, because there was a big sign on the wall showing the menu. So they asked if the guy couldn't read and the answer was: Yes, I can read, but I can't read German. You may laugh, but if you know more than one language, you should also know that even single letters are pronounced differently in another language. Not to mention English, where a single vowel can have four or more sounds depending on the word.
One thing I've found fun in learning languages is to find similarities in them, or logical chains. For example English is one third Latin from the Roman Empire and later William the Conqueror and his French court, one third old Norwegian from the Vikings and one third anything else including the original languages spoken in the British Isles. Most languages have lent words from others for one reason or another, and despite the long distance even Japanese has many English idioms which of course have adapted to fit the Japanese mouth. Finding such words can be quite a lot of fun.
My most hilarious moment of deeper understanding was around the word "history": It's basically the same word in all Western languages including Finnish, but what does it actually mean? Try to follow my ideas... In German the study subject of history is called "Geschichte" which translates into "stories", but they also use the word "Historie" and there's even an expression of "historische Geschichte" - historical stories. A side note: History -> hi-story, meaning "a story" at least in French and Swedish... And ""Geschichte" comes from "geschehen", to happen, which I possibly erratically conjuncted to the word "scene". So "history" is stories of bygone happenings that have taken place on certain scenes. Observations like this help at least me understand and remember expressions.
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Apart from Finnish, I am able to communicate in English, Swedish, German and somewhat in French, all of which I've learned at school. When I was born, my home was tri-lingual as my mother talked Finnish and my dad German to me while they spoke Swedish to each other, the last being a foreign language to both of them! Having to is the best motivation, at least that's what my dad always says. He first came to Finland as an exchange student, and because he had come earlier than the rest of the group they made him their translator "because he had had the time to learn the language". How much earlier was that? Two weeks...
Speaking is a good way to learn, although reading is important too. I once was told about a foreign (Rumanian?) worker in Bavaria, Germany, who could fluently speak the local dialect. Then one day in the mess he asked his friends what would be on the menu the upcoming week. The co-workers stared at him puzzled, because there was a big sign on the wall showing the menu. So they asked if the guy couldn't read and the answer was: Yes, I can read, but I can't read German. You may laugh, but if you know more than one language, you should also know that even single letters are pronounced differently in another language. Not to mention English, where a single vowel can have four or more sounds depending on the word.
One thing I've found fun in learning languages is to find similarities in them, or logical chains. For example English is one third Latin from the Roman Empire and later William the Conqueror and his French court, one third old Norwegian from the Vikings and one third anything else including the original languages spoken in the British Isles. Most languages have lent words from others for one reason or another, and despite the long distance even Japanese has many English idioms which of course have adapted to fit the Japanese mouth. Finding such words can be quite a lot of fun.
My most hilarious moment of deeper understanding was around the word "history": It's basically the same word in all Western languages including Finnish, but what does it actually mean? Try to follow my ideas... In German the study subject of history is called "Geschichte" which translates into "stories", but they also use the word "Historie" and there's even an expression of "historische Geschichte" - historical stories. A side note: History -> hi-story, meaning "a story" at least in French and Swedish... And ""Geschichte" comes from "geschehen", to happen, which I possibly erratically conjuncted to the word "scene". So "history" is stories of bygone happenings that have taken place on certain scenes. Observations like this help at least me understand and remember expressions.
I find the most fun when words of two languages mean completely different things.
For example a finnish phrase 'putsata munia' which means cleaning some eggs when pronounced in front of a greek person sounds to them like 'a rude expression of male genitalia on a rude expression of female genitalia' :)
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Bizman cannot speak English :)
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Anata wa Skuzzy ga eigoigai no gengo de henshin suru tame ni watashi ni harawotaterudarou to omoimasu ka?
Watashi wa sore ga `rūru' ni ihan toejamaga chansu wa, kare wa tonikaku sore o sakujo shimasu to wa omowanai...
Sore wa watashi ga Skuzzy Lusche kara yurushi o kouga hitsuyō ni naru baai ga arimasu hōhōdesu...
The crap is going to get my thread locked... :noid
Google Translate doesn't count...
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Bizman cannot speak English :)
No, but I can make myself understood. Can you do that in Finnish?
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:rofl
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In my opinion, at least for me, immersion is the only way to really learn a language. Necessity was my best teacher. I had to take german in highschool, I got A's but about all I know in german today is counting. Classes help, but if you can't practice what you learn with people who don't understand english.. well good luck.
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I speak English and American. Although my American has a bit of a Philly/ coal cracker region twang to it. :D
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Learning languages is very fun but you're not going to learn Japanese on your own. You might learn some phrases and words but the language is just too far removed from English to learn without intensive classwork and immersion.
For a language like German or Swedish which is practically English with an accent this is much more doable, but once you start moving out of the Germanic or Romance (and especially Indo-European) trees language learning gets exponentially more difficult.
Coming to school I thought I'd take Russian for fun since German came so easily to me in high school, I could already read Cyrillic etc. and honestly that first semester of Russian was as much work as/almost as hard as that first semester of organic chemistry. And, after two years of that level of coursework in one of the most intensive slavic departments in the country, and not having taken German since my junior year of high school, ich spreche doch jetzt besser auf Deutsch als ich spreche auf Russisch (und ich spreche sehr schlecht auf Deutsch). Унзнать не-романские или -германские языки - очень трудно.
As far as specific experiences with Japanese, I have two friends who studied Japanese all through high school, both went to Japan, have taken at least two years of Japanese here, one of whom is majoring in Japanese and has been there multiple times and is actually currently spending the year there. They do pretty well in the Japanese program here/exceed what's expected of them.
My Japanese major friend basically told me when she took a semester of Italian (which isn't even Germanic like English) for S's and G's her freshman year she pretty much developed more conversationality in that language over the course of a semester than she did in 4 years of Japanese and multiple visits to Japan, one of which I think was for a couple of months.
It's just super super super hard. Not to be discouraging, but if you just try to jump in and learn Japanese on your own you're not going to get very far and that's going to be even more discouraging. Especially if you haven't previously developed multilingualism, learning new languages becomes that much harder. Especially if you're older, too.
Our local public library has discussion classes in Russian, Japanese, German, and several other languages I think, I'd look into finding something similar around you if you can, if you're interested in learning a new language.
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My son has a natural talent for learning languages. Not sure if it is a good ear or what but he had no trouble with Japanese or French.
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Sore wa watashi ga Skuzzy Lusche kara yurushi o kouga hitsuyō ni naru baai ga arimasu hōhōdesu...
Weeaboo :devil
( I'm jealous :furious :furious :furious )
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The best way is taking classes (or that uber-expensive Rosetta Stone) to get the basics down and then GO to that country or countries that speak that language through immersion.
Communicating in the target language without having people in the other country know any of your mother language forces you to learn...and FAST.
That way you can confidently order an omelet du frommage at a restaurant without, as Steve Martin says, without getting a shoe with cheese on it.
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Someone on this board... very unlikely...
Rolex still around? But yeah, try some Anime forums. College kids love that stuff and learn Japanese on their own to understand it, I'm sure they have help resources if you do some searches.
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Rolex still around? But yeah, try some Anime forums.
That was a joke on my part ;)
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That way you can confidently order an omelet du frommage at a restaurant without, as Steve Martin says, without getting a shoe with cheese on it.
omelette au fromage :old:
(Couldn't resist - used the same wrong phrase myself for a long time, but not from Steve Martin but from Dexter's Lab)
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omelette au fromage :old:
(Couldn't resist - used the same wrong phrase myself for a long time, but not from Steve Martin but from Dexter's Lab)
:aok
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Being bi-lingual in Europe is the norm. Tri-lingual is not uncomon. Quadri-lingual you start to stand out. :airplane:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybcvlxivscw
:aok
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And the sequel...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhccAx-2KJ8
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But yeah, try some Anime forums.
Anime is the primary reason that I want to learn the language. The more I learn about the culture, the more I want to learn said language. Maybe I'll even be able to read the gauges in the Japanese planes... :noid
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If you're a straight guy, learning Japanese from a female is dangerous. Certain phrases are specific to females. A grateful woman would say "Domo arigato gozaimashita." - Thank you very much. A man in the same situation would grunt out a "Domo" or, if speaking to a male superior, a clipped "Arigato". If you learn from a girl, you will speak like one and your male Japanese friends will laugh at you, call you Pajama Boy, and make you pour them beers all night. Or so I've heard. :cheers:
I rode a motorcycle for the four years when I was stationed at Yakota. I learned Japanese nouns and verbs based on what I needed to interpret a map, get directions, find food, or a place to camp. The other thing I did was to coach English as a second language to Japanese kids at an English Academy. I marginally improved my grammar by having them translate English phrases from their texts. Give and take.
Japanese is difficult only because it is not really as complex as English or latin-rooted languages. For most verbs there is only one tense. And if you want to ask a question just add a 'ka' on the end of the verb.
I have met very few Americans that are fluent in Japanese unless it was spoken in their childhood homes.
Good luck with it.
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Anime is the primary reason that I want to learn the language.
:bolt: