Languages Thread

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Not sure if this is a topic but....

Anyone speak Japanese? Maybe we can turn this into a Japanese language thread.

Anyways, I have taken 3 years of Japanese and plan on expanding it out of the classroom.

 

[Crimson King]

I'm learning German as we speak. REALLY awesome language especially when you see the parallels. How is Japanese learning. Like are their any similarities or anything? I want to learn eventually.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Japanese is easy to speak initially and hard to write later on. It's just learning to memorize over and over.

One confusing thing about Japanese though is that thier is two ways of addressing a subject. By switching the two subjects. Or in alot of cases, the subject is totally left out.

Right now, we are learning how to say "I want you to do this?" or "they are having me do this". Our class usually does a section a day so if you don't fully understand the particular point, it's hard to catch up. It's a pretty high paced class.

 

[Xsyven]

I took Japanese I and Japanese II last year. I really don't remember anything except for simple phrases, Hiragana, and Japanese commercials we watched on youtube.

Probably the funnest class I've taken in college. Good teacher, and just two other students that weren't wearing Naruto headbands made it awesome.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

I took two years at a community college. The teacher was awesome. Luckly we still continue to talk, send emails, and visit eachother. She was one of the type of teachers who maintains a relationship with the student even after they leave. But yeah, alot of my class were anime geeks who took Japanese so they can understand anime and manga.

I am now in a university course. The teacher is a Yale graduate, lived in Japan for 5 years and has 8 years of academic Japanese under his belt. So he expects alot out of us. I am still reeling from the keigo section. Keigo, basically, is honorofic speech. How you would address your boss, professor, elders, or customers. Like the verb for eat is taberu. The keigo verb to eat is meshiagaru. It's alway slike that.

 

[Jammer]

Deutsch, Crimson King? Sehr gut. Ich habe eins Jahr Deutsch lernen. Aber, ist Anderesprachen hier okay? Ich hoeffe ja. Auch, ich bin ein nicht so gut Deutschsprecher. Sag nicht dass ich bin doof, bitte.

German, Crimson King? Very good. I took one year of German. But is it okay to speak other languages here? I hope so. Also, I'm not too good at German. Please don't call me dumb.

Heh, that was really fun. I haven't spoken or written German in about three years. For all you real Germans, sorry for mutilating your language.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

I don't see why other languages can be used. I will change the title then.

 

[Crimson King]

It makes the topics less friendly to non-speakers, so it's best to avoid non-English when possible.

My whole plans for studying German, Japanese, and eventually Italian is in case I decide to teach, because English in foreign countries is good money.

 

[Sporkman]

To be honest all you need to know in German is "Ich habe Durchsfall!"

I've pretty much forgotten my 3 years of GCSE German and devolved into pidgin german, where I just stick "geschalfen" onto the end of all my words, in all honesty, it's pretty accurate. That said I'm now having to use this german laptop at Uni, so far I've worked out that 'abbrechen' is 'cancel', 'umbenennen' is 'rename' and 'eigenschaften' is 'properties'.

As for Japanese the extent of my knowledge is "Sakana wa Shiroi desu". I'd type desu again, but I'm being serious. Now for the translation, "The fish is white". I used to be able to say stuff like "The room is full", some word I learnt was Kara, that might have been room or full. Unfortunately my free learning device betrayed and started to demand valuable green. So I gave up.

 

[Blazey]

Personally, I think German is a sexy language. The first part of this is irrefutable proof of why.

Ma a restare in tema, Io sto studiando Italiano a scuola. Ho mio esame orale prossima settimana. Io sono molto nervoso. Che' piu male; mia insegnanta non sara a scuola per questa settimana.

That was done mostly off the top of my head, and hopefully it correctly translates to: But to stay on topic, I am studying Italian at school. I have my oral exam next week. I am very nervous. What is worse; my teacher will not be at school for this week.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

I would like to take both Chinese and Korean since my university does have them but I am not sure if I will.

All I remember of my Koreanm self study is (and I am sorry if this is a horrible spelling) "Ang Nyong Haseyo" which translates to "How are you doing" basically.

 

[Jammer]

I'm learning American Sign Language, too. Too bad you can't exactly communicate in ASL on an Internet forum.

Ich lerne auch Amerikanische(sign?)spreche. Man kann nicht sprechen Amerikanische(sign?)spreche zum Forum.

(Sorry for the watered-down translation. That's what happens when you write the English first, using words you don't know in German.)

 

[Mediocre]

I'm learning German as we speak. REALLY awesome language especially when you see the parallels.

Wow, I didn't even know that you were learning German.

I took four years in high school, but I ashamed to admit that I remember virtually nothing, even though high school was not that long ago.

I'm taking it again now that I'm in college, starting again from year one. Honestly, I don't have much of an advantage. I just totally suck at languages, really.

 

[Sensai]

Learning Spanish. Well, kinda. Took 4 years in highschool and I'm in a 300 level class in college (even though they wanted to put me in a 400 level).

Always been interested in Japanese, though.

 

[Rook]

Auch, ich spreche deustch so la-la. Meinen High Schhule hat sehr gut Deustchprogamme fur die Studentin.
Es ist meine viersten jahr in Deustch. Ich finde es prima! Ich habe Familie aus Deustchland und ich mochte gern sie besucht. Ich leibe Super-Smash-Bros-Melee, weil es meinen leiblingsvideospeile sind.

I also speak German okay. My High School has a very good German program for its students. This is my fourth year in german. I find German awesome. I have family in Germany and i would like to visit them. I love SSBM, because it is my favorite video game.

 

[snoblo]

I've always wanted to learn Korean, since I have so many Korean friends. I only know a few phrases though, but I'm still learning =D

 

[PeeP]

I am taking latin right now and it is AWESOME its so easy, because english comes from latin.

hmmmmm............ what could aqua mean? IDK maybe water. Yeahh

 

[Mediocre]

I am taking latin right now and it is AWESOME its so easy, because english comes from latin.

No it doesn't. English has a lot of words from latin, but that's just because we borrowed from other romance languages. English itself is not a romance language.

English comes from Germanic languages, and the modern day language most closely related to it is German.

 

[Xsyven]

I am taking latin right now and it is AWESOME its so easy, because english comes from latin.

hmmmmm............ what could aqua mean? IDK maybe water. Yeahh

Any reason as to why you're learning an unused language?

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

Any reason as to why you're learning an unused language?

Latin has a huge place in the academic realm. My friend is majoring in Latin and Antrhopology because his centre of intrest is Rome and the Catholic Church. While there may not be a demographical culture who still speaks Latin, it can be applied in many ways. Such as researching old documents, archaeology, etc.

 

[Crimson King]

Doctors and Lawyers learn Latin. But for anyone else, it's really useless.

 

[Jammer]

Ich finde es prima!

Ah, that one sentence really takes me back to my German class.

Ich finde es prima! Heh.

(It means: I think it's great/awesome!)

 

[Red Exodus]

I learned a little bit of Spanish and French but I suck at both. I'm not too interested in learning either language but I must say Spanish is a very good language to learn since so many people speak it.

 

[Rook]

Yeah my German 4 teacher is crazy and my German 2-3 teacher was a alchoholic who wore wooden clogs everyday......
But it is my favorite subject.

There is this Ge3rman Academy thing were i live and you cant speak english for three weeks or you will be kicked out. Cant write in english either.

 

[Jammer]

About Latin: I took a bit of it, and although it sucks as a language (I think) it was pretty cool because it showed you how English works. It's hard to describe how, but it actually helped my understanding and writing of scholastic English.

And, like Crimson King said, it's super helpful to know some Latin if you go into medicine or law. It makes learning vocabulary (like names of diseases) much easier.

 

[Falco&Victory]

AHHHHHHHH

I hate my Japanese class

not the language, just the class
'Naruto' this, 'Naruto' that. NARUTO HAS DIED FOR ME!!!!
And today we had a short 15 minute party and our teacher had us learn the Soulja Boy dance =D

 

[pdk]

i say start with a second language that's actually practical to know for where you live and save the "learning it for fun" languages for 3rd and upward

so i followed these lovely little words and took up spanish just this semester

since it's spanish 1 so far it's obviously mostly just vocabularly/simple phrases but any advice that'd be useful now or later on would be appreciated; verb conjugation for example is already an issue just this far into it, any particular rules of thumb to know there that'd make it a bit less of a headache?

 

[Jammer]

I just remembered--have you guys heard of Esperanto?

It's an artificial language (made from scratch--well, using a lot of borrowed words, but not evolved like most languages) first conceived in 1887 that was meant to be used as the international language (like what English is now). It was made to be very easy to learn and comfortable for speakers of all languages to use.

Well, it is super easy to learn. I got as far with Esperanto in two weeks as I did taking one year of German. And apparently learning Esperanto makes learning subsequent foreign languages easier. So if you're into languages, you might want to check it out.

 

[sdhonda]

I took some japanese in my last 2 years of high school. Ive forgotten most of it. I can pretty much only read hiragana and katakana, and a few words and some grammer. Although I could probably pick it up again pretty fast.

I also know a bit of german from various places.

 

[sdhonda]

AHHHHHHHH

I hate my Japanese class

not the language, just the class
'Naruto' this, 'Naruto' that. NARUTO HAS DIED FOR ME!!!!
And today we had a short 15 minute party and our teacher had us learn the Soulja Boy dance =D

Ah, yes, most of my japanese class was filled with those types.

Myself included.

 

[Fantasia]

*w00t! 1337 poasts*

Since my uni doesn't offer japanese, I'm doing self study in it.

-Four years of spanish in HS (including the two AP classes)
-One year of Italian in HS (too slow... language was so easy)
-One year of Latin (kinda cool, but I eventually lost interest)
-Self-study portuguese (I can understand a lot, but not enough)
-A little bit of research on the differences between French and other Romance languages (so I can kinda construct sentences but trying to understand spoken french is so difficult)
-Taking Russian right now in uni... fun, but hard to pronounce.

My favorite so far has been japanese. There's something with the fact that it's not nearly as irregular as any other language I've had to deal with, and I love the sound of it. Japanese in my opinion is one of the most beautiful languages. I love languages where syllables are open (only exceptions in japanese are ? and the little ?).

I want to eventually be fluent in:
English (already am),
Spanish (am),
Italian (almost am),
Portuguese (I'd say... intermediate),
French (not close),
Russian (maybe),
Japanese (getting there),
Chinese (*blank stare*),
and Korean (*blank stare*)

by... ohh I don't knoww... 2014?

I think I could do it.

 

[Daisy-Fan]

Well i just talk french and english..

 

[.Yoshi]

I'm fluent in English, Japanese, and Spanish~~
I took a year of Mandarin, and like 6 years of Latin in High School and a year of Greek.
I can understand some Italian and read Portugese too...

Languages are fun. I still want to learn more!!

 

[Teethpaste101]

I have moved around a bit and i have so far lerant at one stage or another Japenese, Chinese, French but as the crimson King said German is by far one of the most interesting languages to learn.

Dankshon

 

[Slhoka]

I'm French, and I'm almost fluent in English, thanks to smash and tournaments with foreigners.
And I've also been learning German for something like 10 years, and I'm currently studying in Germany, so I guess that I'll be completely fluent in a few monthes.
I've also self studied Japanese, but due to a lack of motivation, I didn't learn much. But I'll be taking Japanese classes soon ^^
I can understand basic written Spanish even though I never learned it, because it's quite close to French language.

Jammer : I've heard of Esperanto, but I didn't study it. But I'll do one day, it seems interesting even though it's quite pointless.

Also, what you may wanna do is creating a thread for languages you wanna speak. Some sort of German thread, French thread or Japanese thread so you could discuss in these languages.

 

[Falco&Victory]

neko-chan ga suki desu =D

 

[Icy_Eagle]

Hahaha, þið getið ekki lesið þetta er það nokkuð aularnir ykkar . Bara að grínast auðvitað. Þetta er móðurmálið mitt sem á það til að vera allt of flókið.

Can you guess what that is?

Anyways, I started learning German this semester and it's ok although I'm not really good. The thing I've found most interesting so far is that the German word for left is links.
What do you think about my English, does it look alright? I'm never really sure of how accurate it is.

 

[Slhoka]

Hahaha, þið getið ekki lesið þetta er það nokkuð aularnir ykkar . Bara að grínast auðvitað. Þetta er móðurmálið mitt sem á það til að vera allt of flókið.

You're islandic ?

 

[Icy_Eagle]

You're islandic ?

hahaha, yeah i guess, technically
Did you use a translator or did you recognize it?

 

[cF=)]

The funky "o" and "p" make islandic easy to recognize imo. It's like when you see "é", you're pretty sure they are french speaker.

As for me, I'm a fluent english and french speaker, and I also understand written spanish or someone who will speak it really slow.