Learning foreign languages

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I wonder if anyone here having difficulty learning foreign languages?



I am absolutely no genius on this.



When I learned Spanish I had extreme hard time on numbers and pronouns (in Spanish subjects are defined as "male" or "female")



When I learned French I had extreme hard time on tense



Now I am listening quite a lot of musical and classical songs but a lot of them are sung in Italian.



I want to learn a bit of Italian but think of the nightmere I had with Spanish and French I don't know if I can handle it



I feel so jealous when I see other people having no problem learning them



A friend of mind can speak SEVEN! French, English, Czech, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish I wished I could be him
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 43
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Italian is not difficult to learn if you are french. For a native english speaker it should be harder.
  • Reply 2 of 43
    podmatepodmate Posts: 183member
    I "studied" German for 3.5 years in High School. I can speak a little 18 years later.

    What always messed me up were:

    1. the tenses: der/die/das/die type stuff

    2. figuring out if the word was masculine, femine or neither

    3. readingthehugerunonwordsthattheGermanlanguageseems tobesofondof

    and how the hell do you say "readingthehugerunonwordsthattheGermanlanguageseem stobesofondof"



    Other than the above, German is a very easy language for English speakers to pick up.
  • Reply 3 of 43
    durandaldurandal Posts: 277member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by podmate



    3. readingthehugerunonwordsthattheGermanlanguageseems tobesofondof

    and how the hell do you say "readingthehugerunonwordsthattheGermanlanguageseem stobesofondof"





    "Die riesenlangen Wörter lesen, die die deutsche Sprache so zu mögen scheint"



    Quote:



    Other than the above, German is a very easy language for English speakers to pick up.




    Really? I am a german, so I'm not that experienced with having to learn it, but I always thought that it'd be pretty difficult to learn German as a second (or third or whatever) language. It's got so many little "disturbances" like a words gender (der/die/das, similar to french where it's le/la/les AFAIK). Or a huuuuge amount of irregular verbs. Or, when actually *speaking* German, the 'umlauts' (ä, ö, ü) and so on...



    greetings,

    durandal



    EDIT: My 100th post, whoohoo
  • Reply 4 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Get a girlfriend, leonis. Who speaks the languages you want to learn, and not any of your languages. (It does not work always .. my Italian friend wanted to learn Portuguese, but her Portuguese boyfriend never talks in Portuguese to her, he speaks / spoke more or less in his Italiando when they were together).



    What's interesting, I do understand some French. So if someone talks about computers, technical problems, photography, architecture etc I can understand surprisingly lot of it, even spoken. Written is easier but the French hate me as I have to answer in English (or Spanish or Italian or whatever other languages the person talking in Frenchs understands). I have never studied French.



    And similar is valid to some other languages. If they are Roman/Latin based, or if I just know any language close enough to them. So - I'd say the languages of which I can understand a written text or spoken random discussion can easily double the amount of languages I would say I speak. I can even understand the sense of this, and I pretty 200 % sure have never studied .. Danish?
  • Reply 5 of 43
    podmatepodmate Posts: 183member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by durandal

    "Die riesenlangen Wörter lesen, die die deutsche Sprache so zu mögen scheint"









    I wondered how long until someone posted a translation, but shouldn't it be:

    DieriesenlangenWörterlesendiediedeutscheSpracheso zumögenscheint





    I remember finding a massive word in our textbook. It was 47 characters long!!



    I'm stepping out of my area of expertise here, but I've been told that Old English was at least partly (and maybe as much as 40%) based on Old German.

    I know that while trying to learn German I found numerous similarities between spoken English and German. I wish that I had continued to study German, I really love the language.
  • Reply 6 of 43
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    Giaguara, I thought you were Italiano
  • Reply 7 of 43
    naderfannaderfan Posts: 156member
    I've studied French for what seems like forever now. I can usually understand it (provided people speak slow enough for me!) and I have little problems reading it. THe trick is being able to speak it myself. I don't think I'll evre get pronounciation just right. The weird thing is, I seem to do a lot better if I'm not thinking about it. If I'm just idly listening to someone speak French, I can usually understand no problem. But if I start concentrating on it, I get lost. Same thing when I speak. If I just let myself go without worrying about tenses or whatever, I'm ok, but if I start thinking about what I'll say next, I stumble. I've also noticed I can read things in Spanish or Latin or Italian or other Romance languages and can pick out parts of it, but definitely not all. I wish I could learn more languages too. It sucks that schools don't start offering it until 8th grade. (At least, my school district didn't, back when I was a student. )
  • Reply 8 of 43
    podmatepodmate Posts: 183member
    I remember when I spent 2 weeks in Holland and Germany I was able to get around with my kindergarten level German, but everyone kept telling me that my accent was truely bad.

    I finally met a German who had spent many years in the southern part of the U.S. and he told me that it was my Southern drawl that was messing up my German.

    Can you imagine German spoken with a redneck accent? Ohhhh, it was bad. No wonder those crazy Dutch were laughing at me.
  • Reply 9 of 43
    If you think German is bad, try Bavarian.



    Going to Venice tomorrow. Outside of "pizza" and "spaghetti," I don't know a lick of Italian. I plan on grunting and pointing a lot.



    My wife speaks 3.5 languages (she's forgetting Spanish quickly). She really helped me with my German when I was first learning it, by getting me to speak only German for a good solid week.



    Everyone learns differently, though, but maybe immersion or something intensive could be helpful for you.
  • Reply 10 of 43
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    I've been learning music for a while, I'm not fluent yet, but I can hold a conversation flawlessly, well, in most dialects.
  • Reply 11 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Leonis

    Giaguara, I thought you were Italiano



    I am not a man.
  • Reply 12 of 43
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    Why learn a foriegn language . . . the world will learn English!















    .











  • Reply 13 of 43
    northgatenorthgate Posts: 4,461member
    Is it even "legal" to learn French in this country anymore? Well, you wouldn't want to admit that you learned how to speak French if you ever want a career in politics in this country.
  • Reply 14 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by segovius

    Near where I come from there is a village called in my native language:



    llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio gogogoch



    which has 59 letters. Always a problem when you have to ask for a taxi to it after a night out on the tiles heh. It is also the longest domain name in the world at:



    http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgoger...ogogogoch.com/



    I guess not too many people visit it




    Hey, I thought you were Texan, not Welsh. Cofion annwyl ..
  • Reply 15 of 43
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Giaguara

    Hey, I thought you were Texan, not Welsh. Cofion annwyl ..



    Why Texan ?



    Some poeple think that you are a man Guiaguara. They certainly did not see your tatoo
  • Reply 16 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Powerdoc

    Why Texan ?



    Some poeple think that you are a man Guiaguara. They certainly did not see your tatoo




    I thought he was a Texan, as his location, at least according g to AI, is Texas.



    Powerdoc, I think Leonis is just having problems remembering that words can be male or female. At lest the words are only male or female, I get lost when in some languages there are male, female and gender neutral words.
  • Reply 17 of 43
    In Dutch, 'hottentottenlegertentententoonstellingsruimten' is a useful word that means 'an exhibition ground for the tents of Hottentot soldiers'.



    And if you have trouble with masculine, feminine and neutral noun classes, the so-called Hottentots had more than thirty - so consider yourself lucky.
  • Reply 18 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by segovius

    Hehe - you know Welsh too Giaguara...



    I'm in Paris but I just meant to inderline it wasn't the one in Texas - guess it didn't work




    Oh well ... not just Paris, France, or Paris, Texas .. Welcome to Paris!



    No, I don't speak cymru. But I can recognize some written words. And I do have a postcard that says LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIO GOGOGOCH in front of my computer .. just in case someone wants to guess my passwords.. Seriously, writing down that one word takes like a half an hour for anyone dylsexic like me. \
  • Reply 19 of 43
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah

    In Dutch, 'hottentottenlegertentententoonstellingsruimten' is a useful word that means 'an exhibition ground for the tents of Hottentot soldiers'.



    And if you have trouble with masculine, feminine and neutral noun classes, the so-called Hottentots had more than thirty - so consider yourself lucky.




    Awww... minchia!





    Hm, places to visit ... maybe these should be posted in the what do do after divorce thread instead?



    (85) TAUMATA_WHAKA_TANGI_HANGA_KOAUAU_O_TAMATEA_TURIPUK AKA_PIKI_MAUNGA_HORO_NUKU_POKAI_WHENUA_KITANA_TAHU

    A hill in New Zealand. This Maori name was in general use, but is now generally abbreviated to Taumata. The name means: the summit of the hill, where Tamatea, who is known as the land eater, slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, played on his nose flute to his loved one.



    (66) GORSA_FAWDDACH_AIDRAIGODAN_HEDDO_GLEDDOLON_PENRHYN _AREUR_DRAETH_CEREDIGION

    A town in Wales. The name means: the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay.



    (58) LLAN_FAIR_PWLL_GWYN_GYLL_GOGERY_CHWYRN_DROBWLL_LLA NTY_SILIO_GOGO_GOCH

    A town in North Wales. The name roughly translates as: St. Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave. It is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.



    (41) CHAR_GOGAGOG_MAN_CHAR_GOGAGOG_CHAR_BUNA_GUNGAMOG

    Another name for Lake Webster in Massachusetts. Probably the longest name in the United States.
  • Reply 20 of 43
    gspottergspotter Posts: 342member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by podmate

    I "studied" German for 3.5 years in High School. I can speak a little 18 years later.

    What always messed me up were: ...





    You were just born a few centuries too late... In our english lessons at school, we once read Shakespears "Romeo and Juliet". IIRC, there was this famous sentence "Dost thou love me,...".



    So in the past, the english grammar was more complex and more similar to german (distinction betwenn formal (you=Du) and informal (though=Sie) form of address, conjugation (dost, do, ...)).
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