China is rising and rising and is currently the economic superpower of the world and those countries that are preparing their citizens to learn Chinese language stand to reap through international trade with China. The rest of the world especially Europe are already rushing to study Chinese language in order to have a bite of the Chinese economic cake and Kenya should not be left behind.
Society & Culture Learning another language
- Thread starter ioppolo
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- Apr 16, 2008
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As a proud Kenyan, I am glad that you have not forgotten myself and my compatriots. If you could send your bank details to me here via PM so that our transactions can begin, I would be very grateful to you.
I went to 12 years of greek school due to growing up in the 80s greek parents made u go to greek school. I thought it would have came in handy in 2010 but when I went there all my cousins were speaking to me in English even the girls behind the bar talk English .
- Mar 2, 2007
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I've always wanted to learn another language - especially a European one - and have had a few cracks using computer programs but never stuck with it long enough to really get anywhere. Probably got the furthest along with Spanish (was trying to learn it around the time I joined bigfooty, hence my username), but I've forgotten a fair bit of it now.
I went back to uni last year and as part of my degree I had to pick one 'breadth' unit from outside my school, so I'm studying an Indonesian unit this semester (no European languages on offer unfortunately). Also unfortunate that I don't have any space for electives in my degree, so I can't go on to do any of the more advanced Indonesian language units after this one.
I'm really enjoying it - especially once you get to the stage where you realise you can understand complex sounding sentences that would have been gibberish to you previously - but at the same time it was probably a bit of a tactical error in terms of the workload involved. With my normal units you can get through the week's content then put it away until exam revision time, but because of the 'snowball' nature of learning a language you have to completely memorise every week's content as you go and then constantly revise it every day so you can build upon it in the following weeks. So it's taking up a disproportionate amount of my time considering it's a non-core unit.
Proper classes are definitely the way to go over self-taught computer programs though. I've advanced more in one month of classes than I ever did trying to learn on my own. I'll have to come up with a way of keeping it fresh in my mind after this semester to ensure it wasn't a waste of time and effort.
I went back to uni last year and as part of my degree I had to pick one 'breadth' unit from outside my school, so I'm studying an Indonesian unit this semester (no European languages on offer unfortunately). Also unfortunate that I don't have any space for electives in my degree, so I can't go on to do any of the more advanced Indonesian language units after this one.
I'm really enjoying it - especially once you get to the stage where you realise you can understand complex sounding sentences that would have been gibberish to you previously - but at the same time it was probably a bit of a tactical error in terms of the workload involved. With my normal units you can get through the week's content then put it away until exam revision time, but because of the 'snowball' nature of learning a language you have to completely memorise every week's content as you go and then constantly revise it every day so you can build upon it in the following weeks. So it's taking up a disproportionate amount of my time considering it's a non-core unit.
Proper classes are definitely the way to go over self-taught computer programs though. I've advanced more in one month of classes than I ever did trying to learn on my own. I'll have to come up with a way of keeping it fresh in my mind after this semester to ensure it wasn't a waste of time and effort.
I'm a fluent Greek speaker currently studying a Bachelor of Languages majoring in Modern Greek. A lot of people in my classes who are learning a language foreign to them have joined social clubs, Japanese, Italian etc, they've all told me it's helped them a lot. I'd also recommend watching foreign films with English subtitles, down the track you can remove them if you feel you're familiar enough with language used. A lot of Greeks I know learned whatever English they know this way.
Agree, i never really learned Norwegian, i lived in Norway or a year and i picked up the differences (with swedish) by speaking to the people. That really helps. The only language i ever ended up studying/learning is Swedish, i had to, for my passport. I am living in Bulgaria at present and this so ******* hard, i gave up after a year. They say its close to Russian, however Bulgarians understand Russians but Russians dont understand Bulgarians. Funny that
- Sep 12, 2013
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How's that going for you? I was at Bansko a few weeks ago and want to go to the Rila mountains in summer, but I wasn't amazingly inspired by Sofia or Bansko itself.
DrVanNostrand
Premiership Player
I've been living in South Korea for almost a year, and would rate myself as having attained a level slightly above 'survival Korean'. Moving back to Brisbane soon, but desperately want to keep learning as I can see myself coming back here in the not-too-distant future. Although I don't know how well I'll go in keeping up my study or being able to meet any local Koreans for a brief chat. I've got a friend here whom I meet twice I week for language exchange, so hopefully there's enough Koreans in Brisbane looking for someone to help with their English with whom I can arrange a similar deal.
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stmookeyj
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Don't ask how but I managed to pass Grade 10 Japanese. Assessment was in reading, speaking and writing and it was fair to say I was more adept at speaking and reading than writing. Did a little Italian and German in previous years, can count to 10 in German but only 7 in Italian. One of the classes I did in Year 8 Italian involved singing a song which involved a line where someone had to count to 7 and for some reason it's still stuck in my mind.
I think I remember my Italian as it's simlar to french: uno, duo, trois, quattro, cinqa, six, sette, octo, novo, dieci ??
French: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix
French: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix
After starting to lose my hearing a bit a few years ago, I got a bit paranoid about what could happen so I've made it a life hobby of sorts to learn AUSLAN. Definitely a great skill to learn for work (I used to work in a cafe where I had regulars who were all deaf) as we have a few customers who can't communicate and need an interpreter. I'm not the most fluent but I can fingerspell which helps if I get stuck but I'm improving all the time. I'm hoping to do a TAFE course soon as well to get my Cert III in it
Hola, me llamo Brad y soy muy guapo.
rdhopkins2
Carpe Diem
Backpack from Jakarta to the Gili Islands in a week, spend 4 nights there, go to Komodo Island on a small boat and then spend 3 nights in Bali before you fly home (whitewater rafting, Ubud, Kintanami volcano cycle) then fly home after a beer in Kuta)
My personal opinion is get to the destination if you can and you pick it up quicker. If not, real time lessons and try and find locals who speak the language to practice when you're home.
- Mar 2, 2007
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I spent a month on Gili Air a couple of years ago, crashing for free under the stars at a beach bar with a bunch of locals who took a liking to me after I partied with them on one of my first nights there.
Love that place and still got all those boys on facebook, which is one of the reasons I chose to do Indo. Hopefully I'll be able to surprise them a bit once I finally get the chance to go back.
Mandarin/Chinese/German/French/Spanish
These are useful languages everywhere.
Really want to learn spanish before a South American trip next year.
These are useful languages everywhere.
Really want to learn spanish before a South American trip next year.
Give me a shout when you are here, sofia is just like another capital city, the real bulgaria is just amazing. Bansko is too touristy, i dont like it either.
I studied German for a few years at school, barely learnt anything but could recognise some words.
Years later I really got into the Bundesliga and it became frustrating for me needing to find translations for every interview.
I got into a bit of study just so I knew enough that I could get the general idea of what they were saying, without understanding every word.
Hypothetically if I found a German person who couldn't speak English (they pretty much all speak English anyway) then I could get my message across and they could get theirs to me if they spoke clearly and possibly slowly enough. I plan on getting better, but much more slowly than anticipated as I no longer plan on temporarily living there.
Along the way I quickly realised that German is not at all as harsh as it is portrayed. Most Germans I spoke to had such nice voices, often less throaty than French, almost sounds like backwards English. A lot of the blokes sound really alpha, a lot of the girls sound very cute. There are obviously exceptions depending on where they live and other factors, but it still takes me by surprise.
Edit: Duolingo was nearly the death of me. I completed the tree but I broke a keyboard and felt like I had learnt nothing. It may be better now though.
I learnt most of what I know by using memrise and reading interviews with footballers. If there was ever a part of the grammar I didn't understand, I'd just google it and look at so many examples until it burnt into my brain.
Years later I really got into the Bundesliga and it became frustrating for me needing to find translations for every interview.
I got into a bit of study just so I knew enough that I could get the general idea of what they were saying, without understanding every word.
Hypothetically if I found a German person who couldn't speak English (they pretty much all speak English anyway) then I could get my message across and they could get theirs to me if they spoke clearly and possibly slowly enough. I plan on getting better, but much more slowly than anticipated as I no longer plan on temporarily living there.
Along the way I quickly realised that German is not at all as harsh as it is portrayed. Most Germans I spoke to had such nice voices, often less throaty than French, almost sounds like backwards English. A lot of the blokes sound really alpha, a lot of the girls sound very cute. There are obviously exceptions depending on where they live and other factors, but it still takes me by surprise.
Edit: Duolingo was nearly the death of me. I completed the tree but I broke a keyboard and felt like I had learnt nothing. It may be better now though.
I learnt most of what I know by using memrise and reading interviews with footballers. If there was ever a part of the grammar I didn't understand, I'd just google it and look at so many examples until it burnt into my brain.
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Interessante Beobachtung.
deltablues
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- Jul 16, 2013
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And the roots are in Latin - unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem. Italian is a modern dialect of Latin.
If you know Latin it makes it easier to learn the grammar of many Euro languages.
- Jul 14, 2005
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I've just downloaded DuoLingo to learn Hungarian. My old man's family is from there and I figure once I know enough of the language I'll be able to roughly converse with him.
I also may also currently be beaming my Tinder to Budapest to find some lucky ladies to have a conversation with. I hear HelloTalk is also pretty good for that type of thing.
Any other tips for learning a language? Apart from learning and practicing continually and finding a few different avenues to have intercourse.
I also may also currently be beaming my Tinder to Budapest to find some lucky ladies to have a conversation with. I hear HelloTalk is also pretty good for that type of thing.
Any other tips for learning a language? Apart from learning and practicing continually and finding a few different avenues to have intercourse.
Gigantic
Brownlow Medallist
Listening to radio, watching the news, watching movies with subtitles, watching movies in the language w/ english subtitles (not dubbed)
Obviously none are substitutes for actually communicating with the language but they're handy supplementary stuff to do
- Sep 12, 2013
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Write. It gets neglefted, but writing (and speaking those sentences) goes a long way to helping you how to build with the language
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Gigantic
Brownlow Medallist
What other language can you speak?
Thanks for the tips
Dutch.
Bit difficult because not many people speak it outside of the Netherlands. And when I was in the Netherlands, it was hard to get much practice speaking it because many of the Dutch spoke English very well so I'd just end up reverting to English when speaking to them haha
I might try learn German next as it's somewhat similar to Dutch. Or might just go with French.
deltablues
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I've been fortunate to have been posted to many countries in my career, and always made an effort to learn the local language to at least street-level. And I picked it up fairly quickly, including Arabic and Japanese.
How did I do it? I learned it like a kid does - words, then words and phrases, then more of the same, increasing my vocab and phrases every day; replaying them tens of times on my laptop for pronunciation; watching local TV; talking to locals and finally understanding them (not always perfectly). Grammar came dead last.
