Society & Culture Learning a Language

[Handsuper47]

I pretty much had no choice and German was a forced subject on me up until year 11, I didn't really enjoy it then but I feel like going back to it soon.

It's only when I left school is when I started appreciating languages other than English.

 

[gaskin]

I want to learn German as I would like to teach English there when I finish my teaching degree. I think it would help if someone were to learn it with me but nobody I know wants to. My great auntie was German but she died a couple of years ago so I am a bit disappointed I didn't learn any from her while she was alive. Part of my ancestry is Hungarian so I wouldn't mind learning that as well at some stage.

 

[Kummerspeck]

I want to learn German as I would like to teach English there when I finish my teaching degree. I think it would help if someone were to learn it with me but nobody I know wants to. My great auntie was German but she died a couple of years ago so I am a bit disappointed I didn't learn any from her while she was alive. Part of my ancestry is Hungarian so I wouldn't mind learning that as well at some stage.

Just got and start a short course and pick up speaking partners from there.

 

[Plugger35]

I learnt Japanese in primary school and up to year 10 in high school, can't remember much of what I learnt though and we didn't take our Japanese classes very seriously.

It's a bloody hard language to learn as it's all back to front, just speaking it's hard enough but learning to read and write it is a nightmare with all their strange alphabetic characters.

Hard to learn languages in a classroom though, you really need to live in that country to learn it properly as you are immersed in that language and are basically forced to learn it.

A mate of mine lived in Japan for a few years and could speak Japanese fluently by the time he returned.

 

[stmookeyj]

You know I did pass Grade 10 Japanese....don't ask how.

 

[Dagless]

Oh for on the green, Oh for on the green...

Sorry, year 5 Japanese lessons are streaming back...

 

[wce4premiership]

Je parle un peu de francais. Je ne comprend pas (how to finish complex sentences)

 

[WeetBixKid]

Parsal baroyeh se ma raftam Iran. Khosh gozasht. Alan kam Farsi sohbat mikonam. zane Irani khayli zibaast! Qui inja farsi sohbat mikone?

 

[gaskin]

Parsal baroyeh se ma raftam Iran. Khosh gozasht. Alan kam Farsi sohbat mikonam. zane Irani khayli zibaast! Qui inja farsi sohbat mikone?

Que?

 

[WeetBixKid]

Que?

Last year I went to Iran for 3 months. It was great. Now I speak a little Farsi. Iranian women are very beautiful! Who here speaks Farsi?

Like others have said, a second language is something you need to practice regularly or the knowledge just dissapears. And you should have realistic expectations ... learning another language is a long, long process.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Que?

 

[Vic Vinegar]

Learning as a kid really helps - once it gets stuck in there, it stays for the most part.

Definitely practice every day - use it, or lose it.

 

[mcuzzy]

Can recommend Spanish as a fairly easy language to learn, has aF lot of native speakers (most of which would barely know any English) and is sort of similar to Portuguese.

That's only if you want to learn a language for the sake of it though.

Find a language that you have some sort of motivation to learn. Motivation can come from places you want to live, certain people you want or need to communicate with or even maybe you just want to learn a language so you can watch their cartoons without subtitles, like hardcore anime fans.

 

[morri]

As other have mentioned Immersion is the best. Although it is good to just learn some starters (basic grammar ,words) before you immerse yourself.

I have learned English as a second language, and some french at school. My french is active comprehension is rather feeble though, but I can read a paper lol.

 

[Ed_Gein]

Duolingo is pretty good. They've just launched Danish the other day in beta. Really interesting and some of the words are closely related to German. Nightmare trying to understand some of the listening exercises though.

 

[morri]

Dont be too sure about danish and german. some words are with a little imaginnation but oh so easy you can get "false friends" (I noticed that when I went on holiday there as a teenager foolishly assuming that I wouldnt need to learn any danish*ahem*

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

Learned Japanese at school from Prep through to Year 8, picked up a lot and remember a little bit now but it'd be bloody hard to keep up.

Moved schools at the start of Year 9 and did French for a year, was reasonably good at it but just had no appreciation for the culture or language itself so didn't bother continuing with it.

A mate of my Dad's travelled in Vietnam for ages, and when he came back to Melbourne, he ended up teaching at a school where a lot of the students were children of Vietnamese immigrants, and his fluency allowed him to communicate with the parents in their own language, which would've been fantastic.

Someone I knew back in Year 8 with Latvian parents recently moved to Riga (on his own), and every now and again some Latvian pops up in my Facebook feed. He posts fairly frequently, it's made for fascinating reading/viewing.

I'd love to live in Germany at some point, so that's a language I'd like to pick up. Learn the basics and just keep it up, and then see what immersion can do, just as others have said.

 

[gaskin]

I'd love to live in Germany at some point, so that's a language I'd like to pick up. Learn the basics and just keep it up, and then see what immersion can do, just as others have said.

I'm with you there. I'm planning on moving there to teach English as a second language once I finish my teaching degree.

 

[kfc1]

Plenty of this site seem to struggle with English as a first language

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

I'm with you there. I'm planning on moving there to teach English as a second language once I finish my teaching degree.

Find it to be a fascinating country, and there's plenty of travel around Europe to be done during time off.

Do you plan to be there long term, or is it just something you want to experience?

Sounds like a plan, anyway. My course is Journalism/Business, so I'll see where that takes me. I'd also love to live in England and write for a County newspaper on the cricket for a year or two.

 

[gaskin]

Find it to be a fascinating country, and there's plenty of travel around Europe to be done during time off.

Do you plan to be there long term, or is it just something you want to experience?

Sounds like a plan, anyway. My course is Journalism/Business, so I'll see where that takes me. I'd also love to live in England and write for a County newspaper on the cricket for a year or two.

At this stage I'm looking at somewhere around 5-10 years. It is a great central base for traveling Europe which is something I really want to do as well. Plus it is also one of my ancestral homes so it would be awesome to be able to live there for a time.

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

At this stage I'm looking at somewhere around 5-10 years. It is a great central base for traveling Europe which is something I really want to do as well. Plus it is also one of my ancestral homes so it would be awesome to be able to live there for a time.

I love that.

I want to travel all through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium (Passchendaele/Ypres in particular, fascinated by WWI's Western Front and doing a bit of reading on it, would love to experience that), France, Italy and Austria, and rather than taking a whirlwind tour it'd be great to settle down, appreciate the German culture and work from there.

Do you have any relatives over there, or has it been a little bit too long? I have relatives in Scotland, but the prospect of spending an extended amount of time with them frightens me a little bit.

 

[The_Reaper]

I'm really embarassed that I can' speak Hokkien or Mandarin

 

[gaskin]

Do you have any relatives over there, or has it been a little bit too long? I have relatives in Scotland, but the prospect of spending an extended amount of time with them frightens me a little bit.

It's been too long. One of my great grandmothers was German IIRC.

 

[peternorth]

I learnt Japanese in primary school and up to year 10 in high school, can't remember much of what I learnt though and we didn't take our Japanese classes very seriously.

It's a bloody hard language to learn as it's all back to front, just speaking it's hard enough but learning to read and write it is a nightmare with all their strange alphabetic characters.

Hard to learn languages in a classroom though, you really need to live in that country to learn it properly as you are immersed in that language and are basically forced to learn it.

if you want to become fluent in japanese Plugger35 you should go to hawaii