Languages thread!

[ReeseJamPiece]

Just now, The_SloVinator said:

It's one of the Slavic languages, so there are similarities to Russian & especially the southern Balkan. A tough language to learn if you are a foreign.

 

 

I'm gonna try learning some of the basics because I'm bored. Be back in a few hours.

[Misty]

I speak in english and lithuanian languages mostly. I have some basics in spanish, tried to learn german, russian and latin languages through my years, but forgot most of it. I hope, next year in university, I'll be able continue on spanish more, such fun language. 

[ReeseJamPiece]

1 minute ago, Misty said:

I speak in english and lithuanian languages mostly. I have some basics in spanish, tried to learn german, russian and latin languages through my years, but forgot most of it. I hope, next year in university, I'll be able continue on spanish more, such fun language. 

 

I've been thinking of learning Spanish but haven't had the time lately due to all the COVID stuff going on. It's an interesting language.

[Azuris]

3 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

 

Damn, I was really wanting to learn some. Karakalpak is probably one of the most unique languages I've heard, I'm from a European country and have never heard anything like it before. In Germanic and Celtic languages, everything tends to be very similar. But Karakalpak is very distinct, nothing is Latinised. I'd love to be able to speak it someday.

 

If you are on a Hunt for special Languages, give Coptic a Look.

It is the Succsesor of the ancient Agypt Language.
Also Basque as the only Language in Europe unraleted to any other.

(No Indoeuropean)

[AtticTelephone]

English is my, well, semi-native language, but I really wanted to learn Spanish multiple times because of many reasons, mostly personal, but I abandoned Duolingo and once in a blue moon I use this little known but very good app named Drops. My problem is that although I do know a lot of words, phrases and whatnot, I'm just plain lazy. The main thing that motivates me is something about how Mexico is literally my roots and stuff, but I haven't bothered to learn any Spanish recently.

 

I'm not really interested in other languages, except Italian, since Italian and Spanish both are Latin languages with many similarities, and because I think Italy is cool.

[printz]

13 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

 

Damn, I was really wanting to learn some. Karakalpak is probably one of the most unique languages I've heard, I'm from a European country and have never heard anything like it before. In Germanic and Celtic languages, everything tends to be very similar. But Karakalpak is very distinct, nothing is Latinised. I'd love to be able to speak it someday.

Based from @dmslr's post, I can identify Turkic patterns in there.

[dmslr]

1 hour ago, printz said:

Based from @dmslr's post, I can identify Turkic patterns in there.

Yep, it's a turkic language, as any other language of Central Asia.

[Gez]

On samedi 9 janvier 2021 at 4:22 PM, ReeseJamPiece said:

Some languages I'd probably like to learn in the future would be Japanese, Norwegian, Northern Sami and Icelandic.

 

On samedi 9 janvier 2021 at 9:24 PM, ReeseJamPiece said:

Sounds interesting, does it do Welsh? If so I'll look into it.

 

On dimanche 10 janvier 2021 at 8:41 PM, ReeseJamPiece said:

I'm thinking of learning another endangered language, I speak Manx and that only has 1,800 speakers globally. Ainu seems interesting, it's a Japanese Aboriginal language spoken by the Ainu people of Hokkaido. Only around 10 native speakers are known to exist. I might learn it while learning Japanese, I like doing two languages at a time.

 

On dimanche 10 janvier 2021 at 8:49 PM, ReeseJamPiece said:

Another language I would love to learn is Norn.

 

15 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

I've been wanting to learn Karakalpak for a while but haven't found any good resources for it

 

12 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

I'm gonna try learning some of the [Slovene] basics because I'm bored. Be back in a few hours.

 

12 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

I've been thinking of learning Spanish but haven't had the time lately due to all the COVID stuff going on. It's an interesting language.

 

Are you aiming to be the next Dumézil? It's a great goal, honestly.

Quote

Among his other gifts, he was master of countless languages: virtually all the Indo-European family, including some of its more obscure members (Armenian, Ossetic), as well as most of the Caucasian languages, one of which (Oubykh) he saved from extinction, and a few outliers like Quechua, which he seems to have acquired simply for fun.

 

[Trupiak]

Polish is my native language.
I'm fluent in English.
German on A2 or B1 level. Here's some of my methods and views. 
I'm currently reading a book in this language called "Einer kam durch" or something like that (Using DeepL for translation sometimes.). There was a movie made about it, "The One That Got Away". To practise, I joined some German speaking discords and now try to talk to German people online when I can ( I'm not abusing anyone for free lessons. ) My grammar is terrible and I put together sentences mostly based on what feels right in the context. Knowing English helps a lot. Add to that the fact that Poland has many 'loan words', it's obvious that there's hardly any easier language I could learn, except maybe for Czech and stuff like that. Also, I've been to Germany like 5 times and have had it in school for years ( Though never paid much attention, since it always felt like it was starting from ABCD, numbers and before I knew it - deep diving into akkusativs, dativs, past perfekt prequemium perfektums wtf etc. Got so discouraged + they were boring as hell. My notebooks from the time are just doodles on top of drawings with random vocab I didn't know thrown into the mix. =D I'd love to join a German minecraft beta server, but that's very niche. ( By the way, from my time on some server I've found out that it is eastern Europeans that are mostly interested in the old versions, and hardly anyone else. ) In college I have German once a week, mostly reading comprehension and putting together sentences. I appreciate it and pay attention, even though it's at 8pm after a full day of classes.
Overall it's a nice language, often made boring by school, though. From my time in Germany, I quickly learned that only less than half of the people you meet speak English, sooo.... anyhow.
I'd like to learn Finnish. The country and the language itself is interesting to me. For now I know how to count, days of the week and basic words... I'd like to use something like Duolingo to learn it, but not Duolingo - it's boring, restraining, repetitive and overall sucky. Perhaps I should start from getting some used self-learning books? Maybe a tutor, but don't know if I want to throw money at this language just yet. Same goes for German.

[ReeseJamPiece]

2 hours ago, Gez said:

Are you aiming to be the next Dumézil? It's a great goal, honestly.

 

Unironically yes, my dream is to know more than 30 languages. I can already speak four so why not take it further?

 

1 hour ago, Trupiak said:

Polish is my native language.
I'm fluent in English.
German on A2 or B1 level. Here's some of my methods and views. 
I'm currently reading a book in this language called "Einer kam durch" or something like that (Using DeepL for translation sometimes.). There was a movie made about it, "The One That Got Away". To practise, I joined some German speaking discords and now try to talk to German people online when I can ( I'm not abusing anyone for free lessons. ) My grammar is terrible and I put together sentences mostly based on what feels right in the context. Knowing English helps a lot. Add to that the fact that Poland has many 'loan words', it's obvious that there's hardly any easier language I could learn, except maybe for Czech and stuff like that. Also, I've been to Germany like 5 times and have had it in school for years ( Though never paid much attention, since it always felt like it was starting from ABCD, numbers and before I knew it - deep diving into akkusativs, dativs, past perfekt prequemium perfektums wtf etc. Got so discouraged + they were boring as hell. My notebooks from the time are just doodles on top of drawings with random vocab I didn't know thrown into the mix. =D I'd love to join a German minecraft beta server, but that's very niche. ( By the way, from my time on some server I've found out that it is eastern Europeans that are mostly interested in the old versions, and hardly anyone else. ) In college I have German once a week, mostly reading comprehension and putting together sentences. I appreciate it and pay attention, even though it's at 8pm after a full day of classes.
Overall it's a nice language, often made boring by school, though. From my time in Germany, I quickly learned that only less than half of the people you meet speak English, sooo.... anyhow.
I'd like to learn Finnish. The country and the language itself is interesting to me. For now I know how to count, days of the week and basic words... I'd like to use something like Duolingo to learn it, but not Duolingo - it's boring, restraining, repetitive and overall sucky. Perhaps I should start from getting some used self-learning books? Maybe a tutor, but don't know if I want to throw money at this language just yet. Same goes for German.

 

You have a good selection of languages under your belt. I'd recommend reading some self-learning books for Finnish as Duolingo is more of a starting tool for learning languages. I tried learning Polish once but I kept getting frustrated at the pronunciation.

[fufu]

Spanish is my native language, and english is my second one (though i actually think that i'm much better with english than with spanish when it comes to writing).

 

I'm currently learning portuguese and i plan of learning italian and french, after that i may move on to more complex or obscure languages or just stop at french.

[Azuris]

1 hour ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

 

Unironically yes, my dream is to know more than 30 languages. I can already speak four so why not take it further?

 

 

A little Tip from mine Site if you want to learn them perfectly :)

Don't learn Languages that are to closely related.

It is said that a Portuguese never will be able to speak perfectly spanish and vice versa because they are to similiar.

As 90% of the Vocabulary is the same, you forgett about which Version is the correct one.

Thats why many just switch to Portuñol or Itañol.

Also because they know that there are other Versions of the Word in the other Language, only that they're not so commonly used, so it is tempting to get "lazy".

[ReeseJamPiece]

1 hour ago, Azuris said:

A little Tip from mine Site if you want to learn them perfectly :)

Don't learn Languages that are to closely related.

It is said that a Portuguese never will be able to speak perfectly spanish and vice versa because they are to similiar.

As 90% of the Vocabulary is the same, you forgett about which Version is the correct one.

Thats why many just switch to Portuñol or Itañol.

Also because they know that there are other Versions of the Word in the other Language, only that they're not so commonly used, so it is tempting to get "lazy".

 

I see what you mean, I get mixed up with Scots Gaelic and Manx due to them being so similar. I'll keep your advice in mind when learning, thank you.

[Taw Tu'lki]

My native language is tatar. But I know it less than Russian and English. Learn it.

[SOSU]

I am fluent in my native albanian, fluent in german since i could talk (grew up with german tv) and became fluent in english at around 10.
I can also understand a good ammount of dutch, afrikaans and frisian :)

Edited January 15, 2021 by SOSU

[ReeseJamPiece]

6 hours ago, Taw Tu'lki said:

My native language is tatar. But I know it less than Russian and English. Learn it.

 

I might give Tatar a go someday, I like how distinct it is. By the way, what's it like in Tatarstan? 

 

6 hours ago, SOSU said:

I am fluent in my native albanian, fluent in german since i could talk (grew up with german tv) and became fluent in english at around 10.
I can also understand a good ammount of dutch, afrikaans and frisian :)

 

Nice! You know a lot of Germanic languages. I've been thinking of learning Frisian as my next language but I'm unsure of it. I've never heard Albanian before, it seems interesting.

[SOSU]

54 minutes ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

I've never heard Albanian before,

Indo-european language isolate in southeastern europe, we sound unimportant but the shit that went down here and the shit albanians did shaped history :O

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanderbeg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_of_Egypt

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayreddin_Barbarossa

(Barbarossa might be albanian, not known)

[holaareola]

I'm not a dedicated learner, what I've picked up has been incredibly satisfying. And interesting; the transition from being a total monoglot reveals a lot about the quirks of one's own language.

 

I can gist conversations around me and hold one over the basics myself in Greek. My girlfriend's from Corfu, it's incredibly helpful having someone to question and check with in real-time. Also, I can read French fairly well (informal French at least, I haven't checked out literary French which is trickier from what I understand), but I'm absolutely shit at understanding spoken and it takes me ages to construct a sentence, which will almost always be wrong even if it gets the point across.

 

The interesting stuff about Greek for me:

- Cool alphabet

- Pronounced exactly as read, even the τόνος, the stress, is in the spelling. Which is handy, because different stress, different word. I trip up on this a lot because stress doesn't encode anything in English. E.g. I confuse ποτέ (never) and πότε (when) all the bloody time when speaking.

- In general, very consistent grammar

- Tiny, consistent vowel set compared to English

- Sometimes it sounds great, sometimes it sounds terrible because verb cases also modify the nouns. With the genitive case and masculine/neutral, you can end up with chains of -ou -ou monkey noises. Good for rhyming though.

- Two things I love (that are in French although not used remotely as often) are the diminutive and augmentative. In Greek you can modify a noun ending with -aki (and a few others depending on noun gender and ending) to make it smaller, cuter and more endearing. E.g. Φεγγαράκι for "little moon". Or similarly -ara to make a fem. noun HUGE. It's used constantly in conversation and is delightful. English only has traces of this (adding -let or -ette for example, nicked from French).

- Very long words. I first came up against this when doing translations for an app. Not a language for the small screen!

 

The interesting stuff about French:

- Stupid, insane number system. It starts in the teens, with (...13,14,15,16), treize, quatorze, quinze, seize and then.... dix-sept. Ten-seven. What, was there a new word shortage? Anyway, liveable. Overlook that wart and up to sixty-nine, you're all good. But Seventy? Soixante-dix. Sixty-ten (great BOC song). 71? Soixante-onze. Uh... Ok, we're back to the arithmetic of the teens. And so to 80. Could be... soixante-vingt? NO. 80 is quatre-vingts, four twentys. So 81 could be Quatre-vingts...  -et-un? NO, the s is dropped from vingts and the et too. And so it goes to the crowning ridiculousness of quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, four-twenty-ten-nine or 99 to you and me. Apparently the Canadians, Belgians and Swiss broke the word bank and simply invented new words for 70,80,90 to remediate this madness.

- Vowel set is smaller than English, but can be tricky

- Lovely sound. Except for the throaty bits, I do find it so beautiful.

- The way noun gender modifies the possessive really irritates me. "Son mur" for "his/her/its wall". The masculine possessive "son" is used  BECAUSE the wall is masculine. This tells us less than is ideal because it could communicate something about the owner but instead reiterates something we already know about the noun. Can anyone give me a reason for this?

- Huge gulfs between spelling and pronunciation. Huge yawning gulfs. As an English speaker, dropping the sounds four of 5 characters as in like frappaient (just sounds like frappeh) made my head spin.

 

 

I'd like to learn Finnish just because I love the sound of it so much, reaches me like the Italian of Northern Europe. And Kalsarikännit. Any language/culture with a word for that, hah! But I'll probably just focus on reaching fluency in Greek and French. Don't have the natural memory or time for picking up more than that.

Edited January 21, 2021 by holaareola