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Learning a new language

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I'd like to be able to learn Chinese, but I think I'd send myself around the bend trying to learn the syntax and the correct characters

Sentence structure in Mandarin is often surprisingly similar to English.

The trouble with Asian languages is that whilst they may have a large number of native speakers, they are very geographically limited. Thanks to imperialism, many European languages are spoken all over the world. French and Spanish are each widely spoken in 20-30 different countries on multiple continents, Portuguese in about a dozen. Russian is spoken all over the FSU.

Arabic is the only non-European language that comes close.

Mandarin is great but it's not even the primary language everywhere in mainland China. It sort of limits your options a bit.

Fair call but I have been surprised by the number of people I have met who can speak Mandarin. It would be interesting to see the stats because it seems like >50% of people in many of my uni classes are from China/Singapore/Taiwan (all Mandarin-speaking nations). Brisbane seems to be choc-full of working tourists from these countries as well.
 
I did Latin in high school, it's surprisingly useful.

me too. came in handy a little bit during my law degree.

other than that it's pretty good for a bit of oneupmanship.

textbook we learned it out of was hilarious as well.

on a side note am contemplating learning spanish or french from scratch. haven't learned a new skill in absolutely ages, and think it might be a way to meet some interesting people.
 
me too. came in handy a little bit during my law degree.

other than that it's pretty good for a bit of oneupmanship.

textbook we learned it out of was hilarious as well.

Cambridge Latin? One of the all time greats.

As a private school ponce, I also did a bit of Latin for some reason. All that bullshit about it being useful in terms of understanding language structures etc is sort of true, but I reckon you'd get the same skills from learning a language that is actually spoken outside of Vatican City.

I really regret not learning a second language. Have dabbled in a bit of Spanish since, but it's a hard slog when you're in your 20s. I'm insanely jealous of people who are properly bilingual - it's a great skill to have. I recently visited a mate who's working in Japan and speaks the language really well, and it just opens up so many opportunities.


I haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone checked out Duolingo? It's a free language learning site. Decently done, and probably gives you a good grounding in reading & writing basic stuff. At the moment, it's got Spanish, French & German.

It has big amibitions to translate vast chunks of the internet into various languages by giving sentences to users as translation exercises, and crowd-sourcing the best/most accurate versions. Will be interesting to see if anything happens with it.
 

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Caecilius est in horto.

Grumio est in Matella.

I made it through the first book, where Pompeii erupts, and all the family escapes except Caecilius, who is crushed by a falling pillar - his faithful dog stays by his side as the building collapses around them. What a little trooper.

From memory, the second one had the son going off to Britain, like he's on a ****ing gap year. I got about 2 chapters into the third, and then that was the end of year 10.
 
As a private school ponce, I also did a bit of Latin for some reason. All that bullshit about it being useful in terms of understanding language structures etc is sort of true, but I reckon you'd get the same skills from learning a language that is actually spoken outside of Vatican City.
Yeah, it's an interesting one. I learned German growing up as well and I definitely feel like I gained a better understanding of the nature of language in general from Latin classes - basically because it was taught completely differently. Because we were learning Latin in order to read it, rather than speak it, all the focus was on grammatical construction. Learning German was much more about vocabulary and spoken phrasing. I speak basic conversational German now, but my grammar is still highly dodgy (particularly when written).

I don't really regret learning Latin. I feel like my English is infinitely better for it - not only in terms of knowing declensions and so forth, but also in terms of improving the way I structure formal sentences. Other grammatical aspects - properly understanding the nature of conjunctions, for example - also made picking up the smattering of French I know much more intuitive.

I guess it's hard to say if I would have got more benefit from investing the time into a more widely-used language though.
 
I learn't a bit of German in Primary school and a bit of French in high school. To this day i still remember the German i learnt and have forgotten almost all the French i learned about. Even though i learnt French a lot more recently than i learnt German i found that German was the easier language to pick up and keep in my memory.
That's because German is a lot closer to English than French. I think English came from German originally. English, Dutch and German are quite similar ie the word it (english), ich (german), ik (dutch)
 
That's because German is a lot closer to English than French. I think English came from German originally. English, Dutch and German are quite similar ie the word it (english), ich (german), ik (dutch)

Yeah 'Germanic' languages.

Full respect to anyone who has/is learning a new language. I find it remarkable.

My girlfriend grew up in Europe and speaks 5 languages, four of those completely fluent. Though she says she's lost a lot of it in recent years.

It blows me away. She tried to teach me German but I just couldn't do it. I would probably know a enough to get by now, but to learn a language well enough to hold complete conversations, especially if learnt later in life, really impresses me. Kudos to you all.

I think I could, but I'm one of those people who needs to be fully interested. If one day I wake up and feel a need to learn a language, I'd probably do it easily. Or if something makes me money, I'll do it, but I can't force myself to do something.
 
I've been living in France for almost 5 months with a French woman. She is fluent in English. I've been trying to learn for about 6 months but at 37 it's pretty hard. It doesn't help that she is fluent in English as I always have her to fall back on.

I guess I'm doing ok. I understand a lot more than I can speak and I can read most things and comprehend.

It is a challenge but so many English words come from France.. The feminine/masculine thing is a mind**** but even they don't know why which is which... They just know.

One thing I don't do is practice every day. So after a few days I have to go back and relearn. Repetition is the key.
 
When it comes to learning a new language the most important thing is that you are passionate about the language you want to learn. Without that you're just going to quit.

Not everything comes down to $$$, yes it may be better for your career to learn Mandarin but if it's your dream to learn French then just go for it.
 

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I've been living in France for almost 5 months with a French woman. She is fluent in English. I've been trying to learn for about 6 months but at 37 it's pretty hard. It doesn't help that she is fluent in English as I always have her to fall back on.

I guess I'm doing ok. I understand a lot more than I can speak and I can read most things and comprehend.

It is a challenge but so many English words come from France.. The feminine/masculine thing is a mind**** but even they don't know why which is which... They just know.

One thing I don't do is practice every day. So after a few days I have to go back and relearn. Repetition is the key.

You have William the Conqueror to thank for that. A ridiculous amount of French words entered the English language after the conquest and have been retained. When I tried learning French (very badly) I was astonished at home many words are similar if not identical to English ones.
 

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Learning a new language


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