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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 20, 2021 4:36:09 GMT -5
Hi all,
Liiisa's threads on German have shown that plenty of people here are learning one or more languages - whether at a class or using an app.
I thought perhaps we might like a thread to discuss our experiences, motivate each other, perhaps ask questions if there are native speakers or more advanced learners around. No matter what level you are or how seriously you take it - if you want to read novels in the language or just order a coffee, all are welcome!
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 20, 2021 4:40:46 GMT -5
I had my first formal Farsi class on Monday. Apparently having a partner from the Persian region is the main reason people decide to learn Farsi!
There were only 6 of us, which was good. It's a beginners' course but everyone had previously tried to learn on their own or in a class, so the first week was revision for everyone, but necessary to start from a similar base, I think.
We learnt 8 letters and started forming basic words with them. It's a bit limiting with 8, so hopefully we can move through the alphabet quite quickly!
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 20, 2021 5:01:49 GMT -5
Thank you lillie! I didn't mind my puzzlement at Duolingo German becoming a general language thread, but this is cool. Good luck with Farsi! I used to know some food words because there was an Iranian restaurant near my office (it's where pero and I went on our first date, actually) but I've forgotten them, it closed a long time ago.
General comment: I took French all through school but then switched to Spanish as my main foreign language as an adult, and it's interesting how quickly the French is coming back now that I'm practicing it again. Vocabulary words and conjugations just appear in my head that I haven't thought of in 35 years.
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Post by tucano on Oct 20, 2021 5:08:45 GMT -5
Thanks for the new thread lillie.
I took French and German for GCSE and then French through to degree level. It's 20 years since I had to write anything in French though so no doubt I'd have to check grammar/spelling.
Spanish I've picked up some through various trips and did study at evening classes. But I don't think it sticks in the way it did when I studied other languages consistently at school/lived in the country.
I can understand some written (Brazilian) Portuguese and some spoken once I get used to it, but can't speak it.
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Post by tucano on Oct 20, 2021 5:10:19 GMT -5
Oh and also Dutch. I know quite a lot of vocab but have mostly learnt by osmosis through my husband.
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Post by snowwhite on Oct 20, 2021 5:55:42 GMT -5
I had my first formal Farsi class on Monday. Apparently having a partner from the Persian region is the main reason people decide to learn Farsi! There were only 6 of us, which was good. It's a beginners' course but everyone had previously tried to learn on their own or in a class, so the first week was revision for everyone, but necessary to start from a similar base, I think. We learnt 8 letters and started forming basic words with them. It's a bit limiting with 8, so hopefully we can move through the alphabet quite quickly! I don't know how many letters there are, but that strikes me as a very slow/gentle approach...
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 20, 2021 8:13:45 GMT -5
I had my first formal Farsi class on Monday. Apparently having a partner from the Persian region is the main reason people decide to learn Farsi! There were only 6 of us, which was good. It's a beginners' course but everyone had previously tried to learn on their own or in a class, so the first week was revision for everyone, but necessary to start from a similar base, I think. We learnt 8 letters and started forming basic words with them. It's a bit limiting with 8, so hopefully we can move through the alphabet quite quickly! I don't know how many letters there are, but that strikes me as a very slow/gentle approach... 32, it's a modified form of the Arabic alphabet if I understand correctly and is, like Arabic, written right to left. If you're a total beginner, you have to first learn that the letter looks different according to if it is at the beginning, middle or end of a word, and which letters are allowed to join to each other. Yeah, our teacher pointed out that in his university course they did all the letters in the first two lessons and after that they started reading Persian poetry. I'd be OK with that, to be honest, but I think people who primarily want to communicate with in-laws don't necessarily want that. I don't want to just learn rote phrases or use transcription only though. We're a small group so we'll see how it develops. I've paid up to Christmas so far.
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Post by sophie on Oct 20, 2021 8:50:43 GMT -5
Good luck with the Farsi course. My mother was fairly fluent in Farsi as she and my brother lived in Iran for a while after they were freed from the gulags and my dad joined the British army. When I was in in Iran in the early 70s (while the shah was still there) I learned enough to get by but of course it is lost in the murky corners of my memory.
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Post by vinnyd on Oct 20, 2021 10:43:50 GMT -5
Eight letters a lesson is plenty for the Arabic alphabet and its cousins.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Oct 20, 2021 18:10:07 GMT -5
I was refreshing my German at the end of 2019 and start of 2020 in anticipation of a trip to Germany at the end of 2020. But then it just got too depressing to continue. So I stopped. Now it looks like we should get there end of 2022, so I'll probably start that up again,
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Post by sprite on Oct 21, 2021 3:16:10 GMT -5
By my bed, I have a book of Poirot stories in Spanish (6 yrs), and a Maigret novel in French (2 yrs). Progress has picked up recently, because I put an offline French-English dictionary on my phone to check words, and have told myself I should only read a chapter, or 5 pages, each night. I'm sure I'm missing some subtle messages because my conjugation is very weak. I'm aware that there are some fancy verbs, but I just say one with some sort of 'ay' sound on the end, and hope for the best. (So far, so good.)
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Post by sprite on Oct 21, 2021 3:16:39 GMT -5
I wonder if there's a version of Farsi scrabble you could play as you acquire new letters?
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 21, 2021 5:48:11 GMT -5
Sprite, I would say you're doing the right thing. Perfection is the enemy of good where reading for fun in a foreign language is concerned, I think. If you wait til you understand everything, or alternatively look up every single unknown adjective, etc, you'll never do it (in my opinion).
My reading speed in German is still about half what it is in English, which annoys me, but it is what it is.
Scrabble seems kind of beyond me right now, but it is a good idea. I love word games.
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Post by sprite on Oct 21, 2021 5:58:50 GMT -5
Language teachers make terrible language students, in my experience.
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Post by scicaro on Oct 21, 2021 7:15:36 GMT -5
I have Gaelic (my mum's dad was the last in our family to have any) and German (the kids are learning at school and I was hoping to brush up my almost forgotten school German) on Duolingo but I've been very bad recently and probably need to start again.
My Danish is fairly fluent these days although I rarely write anything but my colleague encourages me to write in Danish and corrects it for me
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Post by psw on Oct 21, 2021 9:16:43 GMT -5
I read more slowly in foreign languages partly because I'm an ear-learner and I find myself mentally sub-vocalizing, especially in Russian where I can't grasp a whole phrase at a glance and am also busy morph-hunting in long words.
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Post by vinnyd on Oct 21, 2021 14:31:55 GMT -5
I think at least part of the reason that women are better at foreign languages than men is the relative willingness to make mistakes in public (related to male unwillingness to ask for directions).
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Post by Q-pee on Oct 21, 2021 16:28:18 GMT -5
Oh and also Dutch. I know quite a lot of vocab but have mostly learnt by osmosis through my husband. Heel goed! My Dutch is reasonable, although rusty after 18 months of working at home and 100% in English I suspect. I can do something useful in French and Italian, and mutter half-remembered phrases in a bunch of other languages. Spanish would be handy... zero motivation to study right now though.
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Post by Liiisa on Oct 21, 2021 17:49:26 GMT -5
I studied some Dutch for when I went there back in the 2000's, but all I remember now is "sorry ik spreek geen nederlands" and a couple food words.
Same with Hindi! I got to the point of being able to watch Indian action movies without subtitles, but I'd have to review a LOT to get to that point now.
Let's all quit our jobs and spend our time reviewing our lost languages.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 21, 2021 19:54:04 GMT -5
I read more slowly in foreign languages partly because I'm an ear-learner and I find myself mentally sub-vocalizing, especially in Russian where I can't grasp a whole phrase at a glance and am also busy morph-hunting in long words. I do that with Pijin, because it is written phonetically. But while I can understand some written and spoken French, which I learnt in high school, these days, when I try to speak it, it keeps turning into Pijin.
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Post by psw on Oct 21, 2021 20:29:37 GMT -5
ozziegiraffe - I get it! I think there must be two bits of the brain, one for your native language and another for other languages, which mix and mingle. One foreign language at a time tends to be dominant for me, and ocasionally something comes out hash. Weird stuff. Once in an airport I was trying to interpret between one French speaker and one Russian and I got the worst headache of my life because there was no direct brain-link available and everything got filtered through English! I managed to deliver the goods, but I couldn't think straight in any language for a while afterwards.
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Post by sophie on Oct 21, 2021 20:45:22 GMT -5
psw, I’ve been there complete with the horrendous headache! I got stuck translating French and Polish into English during a tour of the salt mines near Krakow with friends. Tongue tied and head ache.. only one language at a time please!!
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Oct 21, 2021 21:41:30 GMT -5
Many years ago, on a train in Europe, I had to interpret for a German guard who spoke English but not French and an African passenger who spoke French but not German, but that was before I learnt Pijin. My school didn’t teach German, just French and Latin. But on the same trip, my American friend and I, who both learnt Latin at school, had no difficulty understanding the Italian friar who showed us around Assisi.
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Post by Phar Lap on Oct 21, 2021 22:45:47 GMT -5
We learnt French in College, but languages wasn’t pushed, it was compulsory for Forms I - IV but not Forms V - VI. My schoolgirl French was enough to help me be polite in Paris, but not enough to hold a conversation!
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Post by psw on Oct 22, 2021 1:34:22 GMT -5
A more successful encounter with a Russian was on a flight from Katmandu to Delhi in 1964.
Mr.W and I were on a PanAm round-the-world ticket and this Russian family was going home after a foreign aid assignment in Nepal. I approached the Russian man in the K. airport and said I'd be glad to help if he needed me. He was very standoffish, as our two countries were not on the best terms at the time. Hours later he sheepishly came looking for me in the Delhi airport to help him through customs and immigration. Turns out he did speak some English, but what little he had was British, not Indian. So I managed the Indian accent for him, and he was very grateful.
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Post by sprite on Oct 22, 2021 12:29:21 GMT -5
ozziegiraffe - I get it! I think there must be two bits of the brain, one for your native language and another for other languages, which mix and mingle. One foreign language at a time tends to be dominant for me, and ocasionally something comes out hash. Weird stuff. I have taken to saying 'I speak Spanish like a French cow' because French often falls out. (I have a horrible suspicion that this phrase is a subtle dig at Basque people, but don't have anyone in my Spanish circle I feel comfortable asking.) I once read about a stroke patient who was multilingual, and his languages came back one by one as he recovered. I can't remember where I found this.
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Post by vinnyd on Oct 22, 2021 13:42:26 GMT -5
Sprite, I think that the idea that "Elle parle français comme une vache espagnole " is from "comme un Basque espagnole" is a mistake by literal-minded people who don't understand a joke. "But cows can't talk at all!" Yes, that's the whole idea.
Like "Welsh rabbit" being transformed into "Welsh rarebit" because there isn’t any rabbit in it.
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Post by vinnyd on Oct 22, 2021 13:46:30 GMT -5
Before I retired, I thought I would recover Greek, Old English, and Old Norse (and Latin to the extent recovery is necessary) but instead I spend my days correcting people who are Wrong on the Internet.
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Post by Phar Lap on Oct 22, 2021 15:48:40 GMT -5
Before I retired, I thought I would recover Greek, Old English, and Old Norse (and Latin to the extent recovery is necessary) but instead I spend my days correcting people who are Wrong on the Internet. The only thing worse than finding somebody wrong on the internet, is finding somebody who was wrong on the internet 5 years ago that nobody corrected!
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Post by psw on Oct 22, 2021 17:04:54 GMT -5
vinnyd - how do we know you're not a dog?
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