Learning a new language

[Azeem]

8 minutes ago, nudge said:

Naaah I don't like learning dead languages... There's no point if I can't order a beer using it  

You can read ancient brewing recipes and make vintage ones though 

[Eco]

@nudge - I'll throw this your way, although any European probably can answer this. 

Out of curiosity, if you were a native speaker of English, and were learning a European language. Which one do you think would be most beneficial, and why? Spanish? Russian? French? Italian? German? Portuguese? Lithuanian? 

[nudge]

10 minutes ago, Eco said:

@nudge - I'll throw this your way, although any European probably can answer this. 

Out of curiosity, if you were a native speaker of English, and were learning a European language. Which one do you think would be most beneficial, and why? Spanish? Russian? French? Italian? German? Portuguese? Lithuanian? 

It surely depends on what one intends to use the language for?

But in general, German and French would be my first picks as they can be used in numerous countries in Europe. Germany more so for central and eastern Europe (maybe north too); French for romance speaking countries. Both are the most widely used as working languages in the EU anyway so generally career-wise both are the best choice (unless a certain job has other specific language requirements of course; but I'm generalising here anyway). After those two, Russian and Italian (to a degree). Italian can be used in a few other countries as well but nothing major; Russian is useful in eastern Europe/former Soviet countries but also much more useful outside of Europe. 

In my opinion:

solely for Europe: English, German, French + Russian
for Europe and the rest of the western world: the same as above plus Spanish/Portuguese
globally: the same as above + Chinese

[Eco]

4 minutes ago, nudge said:

It surely depends on what one intends to use the language for?

But in general, German and French would be my first picks as they can be used in numerous countries in Europe. Germany more so for central and eastern Europe (maybe north too); French for romance speaking countries. Both are the most widely used as working languages in the EU anyway so generally career-wise both are the best choice (unless a certain job has other specific language requirements of course; but I'm generalising here anyway). After those two, Russian and Italian (to a degree). Italian can be used in a few other countries as well but nothing major; Russian is useful in eastern Europe/former Soviet countries but also much more useful outside of Europe. 

In my opinion:

solely for Europe: English, German, French + Russian
for Europe and the rest of the western world: the same as above plus Spanish/Portuguese
globally: the same as above + Chinese

Interesting. I work in the Cyber Security sector, so Russian already comes in handy. 

I would imagine that I'd also be a highly sought employee if I could learn Hindi. So was curious what the thoughts were on German & French. I feel like Italian is much more localized to Italy and the immediate surrounding areas, whereas German and French are much more common throughout all of Europe. 

[nudge]

1 minute ago, Eco said:

Interesting. I work in the Cyber Security sector, so Russian already comes in handy. 

I would imagine that I'd also be a highly sought employee if I could learn Hindi. So was curious what the thoughts were on German & French. I feel like Italian is much more localized to Italy and the immediate surrounding areas, whereas German and French are much more common throughout all of Europe. 

Yeah German and French is pretty much it. 

Why Hindi though?.. Especially why Hindi in Europe? I understand that nearly half a billion people worldwide speak it but I don't think there's any (or much) demand for it in Europe at all. Arabic would be in a much higher demand I reckon.

[Eco]

Just now, nudge said:

Yeah German and French is pretty much it. 

Why Hindi though?.. Especially why Hindi in Europe? I understand that nearly half a billion people worldwide speak it but I don't think there's any (or much) demand for it in Europe at all. Arabic would be in a much higher demand I reckon.

Apologies - I meant for me here in Atlanta. Most of the non-Americans I talk to are either Russian, or from India. Next on that list would be Germans, as their seems to be more and more CISO/CIO/CTO's from Germany moving here to the USA. 

[nudge]

1 minute ago, Eco said:

Apologies - I meant for me here in Atlanta. Most of the non-Americans I talk to are either Russian, or from India. Next on that list would be Germans, as their seems to be more and more CISO/CIO/CTO's from Germany moving here to the USA. 

Ah cool; thought we're still talking about Europe... Sure, that's why I said it depends on the intended use of language + one's location. 

[Eco]

Just now, nudge said:

Ah cool; thought we're still talking about Europe... Sure, that's why I said it depends on the intended use of language + one's location. 

Yeah - sorry I switched time zones on you there. 

With the USA, it's clearly Spanish is the top foreign language to learn, with Hindi, Korean, Chinese, following suit. 

[nudge]

On 16/05/2019 at 04:21, carefreeluke said:

 

I went through a good period of using Anki but the effort to make all the new flashcards was a bit too time-consuming for me. I also have tried in the past other ways of doing flashcards but I couldn't be bothered with the maintenance of it all. 

Instead for the last two years or so, I've had a little notebook (a nice one) where I put all my vocabulary in for Spanish. The vocabulary is always categorised so an example could be one page is parts of the body, another could be sports etc you could get the idea.

Complain ____________________________ Quejarse 

I do this going down the page and cover the Spanish with a card and try to remember the word. I do a page until I remember them all. The words I just look up myself and I choose particular vocab that I need to improve on. I also have another little notebook for grammar and do the same procedure as above.

Through repetition, you start to remember things. It's also important that the vocabulary and grammar are categorised and this allows your mind to remember things more easily. This procedure has honestly been one of the main reasons why my Spanish is what it is today, combined with putting into practice these things which is a bit easier for me as I live in Spain. You definitely don't have to be in a country to put a language into practice though.

If people are wondering where to start you should look at the European framework for languages which has different levels. You start at the beginning, A1, and learn all the grammar for that level and start building up your vocab, then move onto the next level. The framework helps you to see where you are and helps to show you what you should know.

That's pretty much how we were taught vocabulary of foreign languages at school too... Foreign word on one side of the page, translation on the other side; cover it and try to remember the word, rinse and repeat until they're stuck in your head. I think it works perfectly fine. Repetition is also one of the reasons why I love those old-style grammar exercise workbooks where you get to do repetitive exercises (filling in the blanks; choosing the right word; etc.) again and again and again. People usually hate it (especially kids at school) but you need the basics drilled into you; a good foundation makes future language learning so much easier. 

[Eco]

So, finally signed up for some Russian courses on iTalki. 

Using the basic levels, my Russian is probably hovering between an A2 and B1, but at one point was a solid B2. I've been battling if I wanted to get back on my Russian studies or pick up German, but decided that I'll learn Russian A LOT more so it just made more sense. 

Had my first lesson this AM, and I'm rather impressed with my teacher and looking forward to getting back in the grove of things. 

[Toinho]

Pretty sure I’ve forgotten most Japanese I knew. Should study again...

[Eco]

2 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Pretty sure I’ve forgotten most Japanese I knew. Should study again...

Do you plan on ever using it though? I wouldn't learn a language if I wasn't going to use it, and that's why I've been a bit put off with German. 

Outside of annoying @nudge and @Tommy on the phone, I'm not sure how often I'd use it unless I just moved there. 

[Toinho]

9 hours ago, Eco said:

Do you plan on ever using it though? I wouldn't learn a language if I wasn't going to use it, and that's why I've been a bit put off with German. 

Outside of annoying @nudge and @Tommy on the phone, I'm not sure how often I'd use it unless I just moved there. 

I still have Japanese friends and Japanese is spoken at my school. 

[nudge]

A local Asian language center is offering Mandarin distance learning courses for free during the quarantine. Perfect; exactly what I was looking for. Just enrolled 

[Eco]

On 23/03/2020 at 19:37, nudge said:

A local Asian language center is offering Mandarin distance learning courses for free during the quarantine. Perfect; exactly what I was looking for. Just enrolled 

I wish I could fine the motivation to learn Chinese (again), but after my shitty experience there, I have been rather put off by the whole thing. 

Read a piece a couple of days ago, and it was talking about how pointless it is to learn French because a large majority of French speakers also know English, same for German and Spanish. 

The author of the article said basically unless you are learning Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, or Hindi, you are wasting you time...I honestly can't believe I was able to read the entire article. 

[Mpache]

Here is one @nudge 

I will soon learn a bit of Quechua for a song I'm gonna make  

Got some guy in Cusco willing to teach me a bit.

[nudge]

2 minutes ago, Eco said:

I wish I could fine the motivation to learn Chinese (again), but after my shitty experience there, I have been rather put off by the whole thing. 

Read a piece a couple of days ago, and it was talking about how pointless it is to learn French because a large majority of French speakers also know English, same for German and Spanish. 

The author of the article said basically unless you are learning Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, or Hindi, you are wasting you time...I honestly can't believe I was able to read the entire article. 

I have plenty of motivation, but I wish I could find more time...  I want to be able to fully immerse myself into it, but even if an official course helps by bringing some structure and routine into learning, I still find it quite a struggle to commit to it as much as I would like to... I'm pretty much knackered after the day's work so additional mental activity after that is sometimes very, very unappealing, to be honest. Especially with other additional courses and activities. Still, making some slow progress...

That article sounds so short-sighted and closed-minded...

 

[nudge]

7 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

Here is one @nudge 

I will soon learn a bit of Quechua for a song I'm gonna make  

Got some guy in Cusco willing to teach me a bit.

The Huttese language is Star Wars is derived from Quechua  So that is double cool!

[Eco]

Just now, nudge said:

I have plenty of motivation, but I wish I could find more time...  I want to be able to fully immerse myself into it, but even if an official course helps by bringing some structure and routine into learning, I still find it quite a struggle to commit to it as much as I would like to... I'm pretty much knackered after the day's work so additional mental activity after that is sometimes very, very unappealing, to be honest. Especially with other additional courses and activities. Still, making some slow progress...

That article sounds so short-sighted and closed-minded...

 

Well good luck. As you're well aware, immersion is the best thing possible. For French, I am meeting up with teachers almost daily to spend 1-2 hours on French alone, and then I work on the different software I have for it, and it's more difficult that Chinese was, just because I knew nothing about Mandarin when I arrived in Xi'an, but moving to the small town that I did, and having no English outlet, it was either learn or go insane, so I picked it up so quickly my family and friends were rather amazed. 

There used to be this website, YellowBridge, which I used to learn to write and some of the smaller grammatical errors I continuously made. I'm sure it's still around but I wouldn't be shocked if there were better resources out there now. 

[Mpache]

1 minute ago, nudge said:

The Huttese language is Star Wars is derived from Quechua  So that is double cool!

It’s backwards Quechua isn’t it?

[nudge]

3 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

It’s backwards Quechua isn’t it?

I don't know the specifics, but could well be!

[Mpache]

1 minute ago, nudge said:

I don't know the specifics, but could well be!

The language when Greedo was talking to Han was backwards Quechua, as far as I’m aware!

[nudge]

11 minutes ago, Eco said:

Well good luck. As you're well aware, immersion is the best thing possible. For French, I am meeting up with teachers almost daily to spend 1-2 hours on French alone, and then I work on the different software I have for it, and it's more difficult that Chinese was, just because I knew nothing about Mandarin when I arrived in Xi'an, but moving to the small town that I did, and having no English outlet, it was either learn or go insane, so I picked it up so quickly my family and friends were rather amazed. 

There used to be this website, YellowBridge, which I used to learn to write and some of the smaller grammatical errors I continuously made. I'm sure it's still around but I wouldn't be shocked if there were better resources out there now. 

Yeah, it works best when you're thrown into it and have to learn fast, a bit like learning to swim in order not to drown haha... But I have no intention of living in China, so that's not going to happen. In-class teaching should start soon though, so that should be a boost for me.

[Eco]

2 minutes ago, nudge said:

Yeah, it works best when you're thrown into it and have to learn fast, a bit like learning to swim in order not to drown haha... But I have no intention of living in China, so that's not going to happen. In-class teaching should start soon though, so that should be a boost for me.

Yeah - I wouldn't recommend living in China to anyone. 

But Mandarin is quickly a lovely and unique language. 

[Azeem]

how you write football in Perso Arabic script

F = ف T = ت   joined they are فت

B = ب  A = ا   joined = با

FtBa = فت با

L = ل

Ftbal = فت بال you can join the two together as فتبال and its still correct

There are symbols to represent what kind of sound the letter is giving like

A slash above the letter means it's ' Aaaa '

فَ = Faaa

A slash below the lettee means its ' Eeee '

فِ = Feee

A little comma like above the letter means ' Ooo ' 

فُ = Fooo

So football = فُتبال