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Getbig Main Boards => General Topics => Topic started by: Irongrip400 on March 18, 2012, 02:55:12 PM
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I want to learn German and Italian. Is Rosetta stone a good choice? Are there online chat rooms for people to hone their craft? Thanks in advance.
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date a german bitch who is also fluent in italian
;D
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I want to learn German and Italian. Is Rosetta stone a good choice? Are there online chat rooms for people to hone their craft? Thanks in advance.
German is probably going to be easier because it has a lot of english cognates. English is a germanic language.
A good way is to watch soap operas in the language and write down phrases and exchanges after the soap opera and master them each day.
I wouldn't do the Rosetta stone; there are cheaper ways that are just as effective.
The istart language app series is good too if you have apple.
The best method is to not get used to one method. Immerse yourself in a variety of learning methods and hit it from all sides.
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(http://lisasabin-wilson.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dummies_man.gif)
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;) Join the Airborne, get deployed to various wars like I did PRESTO- now you know Serbo-Croatian!!! :D
NOW you can pick up Gypsy girls... :P
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An English guy I know learned both of those languages late in life. He lived and worked in Italy, and now in his sixties he is living in Germany and married to a German. I am not aware of anyone learning a language from Rosetta Stone.
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An English guy I know learned both of those languages late in life. He lived and worked in Italy, and now in his sixties he is living in Germany and married to a German. I am not aware of anyone learning a language from Rosetta Stone.
You learn a language when you are pressed and forced into situations that you have to use and learn the language, relationship, living in an foreign country.
You would be amazed how fast you can learn a language if it depends on getting good pussy in an foreign country ;D
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You learn a language when you are pressed and forced into situations that you have to use and learn the language, relationship, living in an foreign country.
You would be amazed how fast you can learn a language if it depends on getting good pussy in an foreign country ;D
Yeah, children immersed in a language can learn it in a matter of months. Thing is, I don't plan on moving anytime soon, just vacationing, so that would be hard. I like the soap opera idea someone mentioned, are there any of those shows on in America?
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i used pimslers courses to learn spanish... i spent a lot of time in spanish speaking countries as well which made all the different for my accent/pronounciation
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I want to learn German and Italian. Is Rosetta stone a good choice? Are there online chat rooms for people to hone their craft? Thanks in advance.
Start at your local community college...Were you good at science?...Many Italian and spanish words are very much like phrases used in science...Mozart opera is also good for both..."Der Schauspiel Direktor", "Aduction from the Seraglio" and "The Magic Flute" are good for German..."The Marriage of Figaro" is good for Italian.
Once you get your head around listening to something from the 18TH century, you will be shocked at how musical Mozart will sound to you...and the German/Italian phrases in the booklet that comes with the CDs you will recognize more and more
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Start at your local community college...Were you good at science?...Many Italian and spanish words are very much like phrases used in science...Mozart opera is also good for both..."Der Schauspiel Direktor", "Aduction from the Seraglio" and "The Magic Flute" are good for German..."The Marriage of Figaro" is good for Italian.
Once you get your head around listening to something from the 18TH century, you will be shocked at how musical Mozart will sound to you...and the German/Italian phrases in the booklet that comes with the CDs you will recognize more and more
Community college is one of the worst ways to learn another language.
Eastern Euros and other people do it through the soap opera method. And they learn very fast.
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I can offer advice since I've learned Norwegian and conversational German.
The ONLY way to learn and for it to stick is total and absolute immersion. Rosetta Stone is shit. IF you want to try it, just grab it from a torrent site and give it a whirl. I tried learning German with it and it blew. I got a German girlfriend who made me watch German programs with English subtitles and spoke German to me 90% of the time. It was a constant struggle/head ache/cluster fuck to learn and understand ... until one day it just started making sense.
Taking classes twice a week or self-studying a couple of times a week will allow you to memorize phrases and words, not teach you the language.
So what I wrote above is really the second best way and most realistic way for anyone to do it. THE best way is to move to that country and immerse.
I know a Lebanese refugee that learned English watching CNN the whole day. Within a year he was fluent. Within two he spoke and sounded like a native. That was from a cold start and a burning willingness to learn.
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Should I watch with subtitles if I decide to go the soap opera route to help?
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Should I watch with subtitles if I decide to go the soap opera route to help?
Yes.
But diversify your learning techniques or you'll get burnt out.
Practice a couple paragraphs of conversation on the shows each day.
Languages have a certain rhythms, and once you get the rhythm down, it becomes exponentially easier.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8]http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8]http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8 (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8)
^excellent beginner series to supplement it.
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Yes.
But diversify your learning techniques or you'll get burnt out.
Practice a couple paragraphs of conversation on the shows each day.
Languages have a certain rhythms, and once you get the rhythm down, it becomes exponentially easier.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8]http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8]http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8 (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/istart-german!-absolute-beginner/id408239272?mt=8)
What can't an iPhone do?
^excellent beginner series to supplement it.
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http://duolingo.com/
This looked like a good idea to me when I saw it a few months back.. still in the BETA phase though
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I want to learn German and Italian. Is Rosetta stone a good choice? Are there online chat rooms for people to hone their craft? Thanks in advance.
Move to a country that speaks the language you want to learn. Trust me, this is the best way to do it. When I was a little kid, I lived in Germany for about a year. I quickly became fluent in German. I was also exposed to French because my aunt was French and I went to a French speaking school in the afternoons.
On a side note, I hardly speak either German or French these days. Likely this is because I was the exposure ended when I moved back to the States. I suppose if I were to spend some time in either France or Germany in a situation where I had to speak the language, I would quickly pick it up again.
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Short of relocating, watch as much as you can with subtitles and do it both ways - German/Italian audio with English subtitles and then English audio with the foreign language subtitles. I am the 4 year mark here in Germany and short of just being patient, it was the thing that helped the most.
You have to give your neurons time to make the new connections, but you can push the process by hard work and exposure.
Oh - it helps if you're young! I started at 38 and it's been a struggle.
I also speak a little Italian and I can tell you, from the amount I learned, it is finger painting compared to German. German is where English came from originally, but it's so much more grammatically and syntactically complex it can be a real pain. I've even had my German teacher tell me that it will be impossible for any non German to learn the language to complete fluency (very inspirational that was).
Italian is grammatically much easier, and it's a much nicer language to speak than German. I'd start with that, and keep the old adage in mind...
"Speak Spanish to God, Italian to women and German to dogs".
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Move to a rural part of the country where you want to learn a language where no one speaks English. You will learn very quickly
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I want to learn German and Italian. Is Rosetta stone a good choice? Are there online chat rooms for people to hone their craft? Thanks in advance.
Here's some listening understanding material for you:
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pimsleur is good, so is Michel Thomas..but the key is practice, practice and more practice..stay immersed.
get a girlfriend that speaks that language and ask her to speak to you in that language as much as possible
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Short of relocating, watch as much as you can with subtitles and do it both ways - German/Italian audio with English subtitles and then English audio with the foreign language subtitles. I am the 4 year mark here in Germany and short of just being patient, it was the thing that helped the most.
You have to give your neurons time to make the new connections, but you can push the process by hard work and exposure.
Oh - it helps if you're young! I started at 38 and it's been a struggle.
I also speak a little Italian and I can tell you, from the amount I learned, it is finger painting compared to German. German is where English came from originally, but it's so much more grammatically and syntactically complex it can be a real pain. I've even had my German teacher tell me that it will be impossible for any non German to learn the language to complete fluency (very inspirational that was).
Italian is grammatically much easier, and it's a much nicer language to speak than German. I'd start with that, and keep the old adage in mind...
"Speak Spanish to God, Italian to women and German to dogs".
Not true.
I know a few people who actually speak German like it's their first language. But I agree that is VERY rare and very hard.
Italian is a piece of cake to learn, beautiful language though.
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Get pimsleur, its pretty dam good, and use rosetta. This will get you into the language but you gotta finish it within 3 months of starting if your serious about it.
Pimsleur with get you confortable with german/italian speech, and rosetta will get you familiar with alot of content that is too boring to learn on your own.
Once you do this go straight into online immersion. Go on youtube in your target, find skype partners online who want to do language exchange, go on message boards(an easy way to learn, you'd be surprised how many get biggers are learning english on here), and avoid english while online.
If you can't do online immersion your wasting your time. going over for a year will teach you the language but whats the point your just gonna forget it as soon as you get home if you can't immerse yourself at online.
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Smuggle drugs into switzerland
In swiss prison you'll quickly pick up german, italian and brush up on your french
Plus with the swiss humanitarian rights and laws, its virtually a resort
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Get pimsleur, its pretty dam good, and use rosetta. This will get you into the language but you gotta finish it within 3 months of starting if your serious about it.
Pimsleur with get you confortable with german/italian speech, and rosetta will get you familiar with alot of content that is too boring to learn on your own.
Once you do this go straight into online immersion. Go on youtube in your target, find skype partners online who want to do language exchange, go on message boards(an easy way to learn, you'd be surprised how many get biggers are learning english on here), and avoid english while online.
If you can't do online immersion your wasting your time. going over for a year will teach you the language but whats the point your just gonna forget it as soon as you get home if you can't immerse yourself at online.
How many languages do you speak, killer?
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Smuggle drugs into switzerland
In swiss prison you'll quickly pick up german, italian and brush up on your french
Plus with the swiss humanitarian rights and laws, its virtually a resort
Best advice so far. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Here's some listening understanding material for you:
Thanks bro, but I already have Triumph of the Will on DVD. ;D Thanks for the advice though. To the people on this board who dont speak english as a first language, are there boards like getbig that I could pick up the slang in Italian/German?
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Start at your local community college...Were you good at science?...Many Italian and spanish words are very much like phrases used in science...Mozart opera is also good for both..."Der Schauspiel Direktor", "Aduction from the Seraglio" and "The Magic Flute" are good for German..."The Marriage of Figaro" is good for Italian.
Once you get your head around listening to something from the 18TH century, you will be shocked at how musical Mozart will sound to you...and the German/Italian phrases in the booklet that comes with the CDs you will recognize more and more
I believe you know more about everything than anyone on this forum! :o
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How many languages do you speak, killer?
How long did it take for you to learn Japanese?
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How many languages do you speak, killer?
hey fuck nuts, how many languages did you learn as an american?
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How many languages do you speak, killer?
The peanut gallery chiming in with their 'expert opinions'. ;D
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Short of relocating, watch as much as you can with subtitles and do it both ways - German/Italian audio with English subtitles and then English audio with the foreign language subtitles. I am the 4 year mark here in Germany and short of just being patient, it was the thing that helped the most.
You have to give your neurons time to make the new connections, but you can push the process by hard work and exposure.
Oh - it helps if you're young! I started at 38 and it's been a struggle.
I also speak a little Italian and I can tell you, from the amount I learned, it is finger painting compared to German. German is where English came from originally, but it's so much more grammatically and syntactically complex it can be a real pain. I've even had my German teacher tell me that it will be impossible for any non German to learn the language to complete fluency (very inspirational that was).
Italian is grammatically much easier, and it's a much nicer language to speak than German. I'd start with that, and keep the old adage in mind...
"Speak Spanish to God, Italian to women and German to dogs".
Good post.
I'm not surprised about German--it's the language of philosophy for a reason.
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hey fuck nuts, how many languages did you learn as an american?
I am not American.
I am fluent trilingual (German, Japanese and English) and speak fair french and italian, can understand polish/spanish passively and read chinese quite a bit.
How about you? ::) ::)
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I am not American.
I am fluent trilingual (German, Japanese and English) and speak fair french and italian, can understand polish/spanish passively and read chinese quite a bit.
How about you? ::) ::)
Was Japanese hard to learn?
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Move to a country that speaks the language you want to learn. Trust me, this is the best way to do it. When I was a little kid, I lived in Germany for about a year. I quickly became fluent in German. I was also exposed to French because my aunt was French and I went to a French speaking school in the afternoons.
On a side note, I hardly speak either German or French these days. Likely this is because I was the exposure ended when I moved back to the States. I suppose if I were to spend some time in either France or Germany in a situation where I had to speak the language, I would quickly pick it up again.
Tell that to the mexicans living in the US either they refuse to speak or don't speak English one bit
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Was Japanese hard to learn?
Not for me, I enjoyed it.
But you have to put A LOT of time into it, I have been learning in university with courses every day, some additional 2-3h learning every day, plus Japanese girlfriend plus working with Japanese on a side job.
Took me about 4-5 years to be quite fluent, another 2-3 years to be able to read fluently. I started with 22 years old. Still have a slight accent that is probably going to stay, but I have had people on the telephone confuse me for a Japanese, so I guess I am doing good.
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Tell that to the mexicans living in the US either they refuse to speak or don't speak English one bit
Or Turks, Arabs, Africans, Russians and lots of others in Europe.... :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
I also know a lot of Gaijin living in Japan for 10+ years and they can't speak a bit.
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Tell that to the mexicans living in the US either they refuse to speak or don't speak English one bit
The Mexicans that were born here speak english fine. And many of them are bilingual, unlike the average monolingual American.
The poor uneducated Mexicans that the Republicans import for cheap labor barely speak spanish--much less english. So between having kids to take care of and working their asses off for minimum wage they don't have the luxury of intensive english courses.
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Not for me, I enjoyed it.
But you have to put A LOT of time into it, I have been learning in university with courses every day, some additional 2-3h learning every day, plus Japanese girlfriend plus working with Japanese on a side job.
Took me about 4-5 years to be quite fluent, another 2-3 years to be able to read fluently. I started with 22 years old. Still have a slight accent that is probably going to stay, but I have had people on the telephone confuse me for a Japanese, so I guess I am doing good.
Cool the characters and alphabets look hard. How would you compare japanese to something like German, or Spanish? Like difficultity level? I know they are drastically different and all.
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The Mexicans that were born here speak english fine. And many of them are bilingual, unlike the average monolingual American.
The poor uneducated Mexicans that the Republicans import for cheap labor barely speak spanish--much less english. So between having kids to take care of and working their asses off for minimum wage they don't have the luxury of intensive english courses.
Guess down here in tx we have a serious problem with the increase of mexicans and central Americans... Same in southern CA...
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Or Turks, Arabs, Africans, Russians and lots of others in Europe.... :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
I also know a lot of Gaijin living in Japan for 10+ years and they can't speak a bit.
Don't talk about ironneck that way... ;D
Haha fair enough and very true, if I was in another country I would for sure learn that language and their culture. It's always good to know more than one language after all
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Don't talk about ironneck that way... ;D
Haha fair enough and very true, if I was in another country I would for sure learn that language and their culture. It's always good to know more than one language after all
Someone that learns English, Spanish, and Chinese will be understood practically everywhere in the world.
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Smuggle drugs into switzerland
In swiss prison you'll quickly pick up german, italian and brush up on your french
Plus with the swiss humanitarian rights and laws, its virtually a resort
you need to be fast though, as they keep on relaxing the drug laws in Switzerland. You might end up with a punchy fine instead of prison.
One of the best ways to learning languages is learning them like kids who expand the numbers of words they know with age.
http://www.kikaplus.net/clients/kika/kikaplus/
has programs in German for 3 year, 6 year and 10 year olds,
http://www.junior.rai.it/dl/junior/junior.htm
is the equivalent in Italian.
- but be warned they teach things like science, respect for different cultures and the virtues of helping the weaker and less fortunate - not exactly the Republican agenda...
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Listen to the songs in that language as well for pronounciation purposes and read the lyrics along with the song (karaoke style) as in songs some words are emphasized more then others so you pick up on the pronounciation and spelling of those words faster. Find out what the song is about and learn piece by piece meanings and pronounciations in an easier more pleasant way.
Start with the slower songs (ballads) where the music is not drowning out the voice so you can actually hear the pronounciation and words 1 at a time.
Didn't it happen to you that you could sing a song when you were small because of the melody you could remember easier what word was next even though you had no idea what you were singing?
I know when I was in school and studying I sometimes wished some material was on a song so I could remember it faster.
I can listen to Italian rock and sing a long some sentences but have no clue what I'm saying. Eros Ramazzotti and Laura Pausini are my favorites.
Would love to be able to speak Italian someday. Beautiful language.
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Cool the characters and alphabets look hard. How would you compare japanese to something like German, or Spanish? Like difficultity level? I know they are drastically different and all.
For a speaker of a western language, Japanese is probably the hardest language to learn.
Completely different grammar, writing system, almost no similarity in vocabulary. Pronunciation is different as well.
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Even though this topic is not bodybuilding related at all, it is a positive topic so I will share some input.
I know 4 languages, that includes my native tongue.
The best way to learn a language is one of two.
- Move to another country and get a girlfriend/boyfriend who speaks the native language. This is the fastest and most enjoyable way to learn a language. Plus you really have to learn the language or else you will starve!
- Take language in school. Unfortunately the best time to learn is when your young. The younger the better. As you get older is becomes much harder. This is why I would recommend the above.
hope this helps :)
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@DKII: Domo Arigato Gozai Mash'ta :D
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I also speak a little Italian and I can tell you, from the amount I learned, it is finger painting compared to German. German is where English came from originally, but it's so much more grammatically and syntactically complex it can be a real pain. I've even had my German teacher tell me that it will be impossible for any non German to learn the language to complete fluency (very inspirational that was).
My son moved to Germany with his first assignment in the army about 24 years ago. He met and later married a German woman. Within a year of being there, he was fluent in German (so much for what your German teacher said). However, the fact that he was eighteen when he moved there probably helped, as did the fact that he excels in math. I don't know what the connection is, but I've always heard folks who have good math skills and folks who are musical learn foreign languages more easily.
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I am not American.
I am fluent trilingual (German, Japanese and English) and speak fair french and italian, can understand polish/spanish passively and read chinese quite a bit.
How about you? ::) ::)
My daughter-in-law is German. She is fluent in English, Russian and some French and. I think Europeans tend to know and speak more languages than most Americans do.
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My son moved to Germany with his first assignment in the army about 24 years ago. He met and later married a German woman. Within a year of being there, he was fluent in German (so much for what your German teacher said). However, the fact that he was eighteen when he moved there probably helped, as did the fact that he excels in math. I don't know what the connection is, but I've always heard folks who have good math skills and folks who are musical learn foreign languages more easily.
I've met a lot of Germans since being here who seem to be quite proud of the fact that German grammar is very complex and hard for English speakers to learn. My teacher was often like this - which wasn't exactly encouraging. She wasn't so loud though when the Hungarians in the class started to compare their grammar with what we were learning!
Age helps. The later brain plasticity research is suggesting that our brain's language centre actually closes around the age of 18-21 and that other areas of the brain will begin to connect neurons to do the same job in its place - but they won't be neuron bundles in the language centre. Which means in theory that learning a language in adulthood to native level fluency (if you've had no exposure to it before) is probably going to be very very difficult, no matter what that language is, and that for the average person who tries it, you're at best going to be working with a facsimile of the real thing - a fully developed, neuronally connected dedicated language region in the brain.
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I was married to a mexican girl that couldnt speak english if anything i forgot the spanish I did know.
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I was married to a mexican girl that couldnt speak english if anything i forgot the spanish I did know.
So after she got her green card she left you? :D
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I was married to a mexican girl that couldnt speak english if anything i forgot the spanish I did know.
Educated Mexicans speak good spanish, but the type that jump the border speak spanish as well as the average hillbilly speaks english.
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I've met a lot of Germans since being here who seem to be quite proud of the fact that German grammar is very complex and hard for English speakers to learn. My teacher was often like this - which wasn't exactly encouraging. She wasn't so loud though when the Hungarians in the class started to compare their grammar with what we were learning!
Age helps. The later brain plasticity research is suggesting that our brain's language centre actually closes around the age of 18-21 and that other areas of the brain will begin to connect neurons to do the same job in its place - but they won't be neuron bundles in the language centre. Which means in theory that learning a language in adulthood to native level fluency (if you've had no exposure to it before) is probably going to be very very difficult, no matter what that language is, and that for the average person who tries it, you're at best going to be working with a facsimile of the real thing - a fully developed, neuronally connected dedicated language region in the brain.
I agree on the second part, although I have met quite a big number of people who started to speak a second language in their adulthood and managed to get to native level.
On a side note, what is native level? It's also hard to say because the difference is so vast, compare a normal guy working in a garage with a university grad or PH.D.
Both are native level.
The people mentioned above got to native level of a 1st language university grad.
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I'm thinking of moving to Japan this year. What's some good lines to pick up chicks?
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Not for me, I enjoyed it.
But you have to put A LOT of time into it, I have been learning in university with courses every day, some additional 2-3h learning every day, plus Japanese girlfriend plus working with Japanese on a side job.
Took me about 4-5 years to be quite fluent, another 2-3 years to be able to read fluently. I started with 22 years old. Still have a slight accent that is probably going to stay, but I have had people on the telephone confuse me for a Japanese, so I guess I am doing good.
Is Japanese a tonal language? I'm american and was a russian voice interceptor in the army (studied Russian for a year at the Defense Language Institute) and then took 5 semesters of college German (and married a Bavarian girl) so I thought I was a pretty much of a stud at learning languages....until I tried to learn Thai while on vacation there. Um, holy fuck, my mouth can't even make the sounds of their language much less hear the different intonations that help them to distinguish word meanings. Thai is a tonal language (5 tones; high, medium, low, rising and falling) so there can be 5 different meanings for a word that sounds the same (to me). Thai grammar is ridiculously simple but the listening comprehension and the writing (holy squiggles, batman) is stupid hard.
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For a speaker of a western language, Japanese is probably the hardest language to learn.
Completely different grammar, writing system, almost no similarity in vocabulary. Pronunciation is different as well.
That's true, but the nice thing is that it's syllabic and outside of Kanji (yikes!) it's not too hard to learn Katagana and Hirigana. Pronunciation is straight forward and for whatever reason, I've found it extremely easy to emulate the Japanese accent. I grew up with Japanese exchange students and was a brutally faggy anime dude growing up so that could be why, but even as a kid our students said I did a great job of mocking them lol
I have a Japanese exchange student now and his name is Nori. Cool as fuck kid. I was trying really hard to learn Vietnamese because that's what my wife's first language is, but the tonal shit is just WAY too much for me. I don't know if there's a language out there that's anymore tonal and fucking difficult to learn than Vietnamese. I've heard people say it's not too hard to learn, but maybe I'm just retarded.
I have a few apps and books for both languages but I've pretty much dropped studying Vietnamese for now because all of the content is so formal and it's all geared towards a dialect that apparently no one around here speaks. Even when I try making small talk all the Vietnamese people look at me like WTF? But when I talk to Nori and his Japanese exchange students they're like WOAHHH!!! Planning on studying a lot more so when me and the wifey get the chance to visit Japan I won't look like too much of a chump. 8)
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Here's some listening understanding material for you:
nice work
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I am not American.
I am fluent trilingual (German, Japanese and English) and speak fair french and italian, can understand polish/spanish passively and read chinese quite a bit.
How about you? ::) ::)
Which is my point. you've never had to learn a language that is atleast on paper completely useless to you. English is ultra valuable, and you live in japan.
Comparing that to an american, who has no reason to learn a language ever is completely different.
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Which is my point. you've never had to learn a language that is atleast on paper completely useless to you. English is ultra valuable, and you live in japan.
Comparing that to an american, who has no reason to learn a language ever is completely different.
English is ultra-valuable -- and so is spanish and chinese.
If you live in a major city or do business it is useful. Being able to speak more than one language is what separates the cultured from the uncultured.
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I'm thinking of moving to Japan this year. What's some good lines to pick up chicks?
Don't learn Japanese from a girl unless you plan on getting laughed at by all the males.
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Educated Mexicans speak good spanish, but the type that jump the border speak spanish as well as the average hillbilly speaks english.
Spanish is more complex than english. Most of my friends can't write one single sentence without making a typo. I'm serious, they are that bad and a few of them are University students :-\.
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Don't learn Japanese from a girl unless you plan on getting laughed at by all the males.
Ha. A good friend of mine went to train at a hardass kickboxing gym in Japan in the late 80's and spent a month wondering why no-one would talk to him.
They all thought he was gay.
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Is Japanese a tonal language? I'm american and was a russian voice interceptor in the army (studied Russian for a year at the Defense Language Institute) and then took 5 semesters of college German (and married a Bavarian girl) so I thought I was a pretty much of a stud at learning languages....until I tried to learn Thai while on vacation there. Um, holy fuck, my mouth can't even make the sounds of their language much less hear the different intonations that help them to distinguish word meanings. Thai is a tonal language (5 tones; high, medium, low, rising and falling) so there can be 5 different meanings for a word that sounds the same (to me). Thai grammar is ridiculously simple but the listening comprehension and the writing (holy squiggles, batman) is stupid hard.
Japanese has that too, but not to the level of Chinese or Thai.
You can get around it in most cases, you will just sound a bit retarded, lol.
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Ha. A good friend of mine went to train at a hardass kickboxing gym in Japan in the late 80's and spent a month wondering why no-one would talk to him.
They all thought he was gay.
Yes, never learn Japanese from a girl, or an Anime....
I see those retards again and again, talking like a girl or like a fucking anime character... Imagine someone learning English from Micky Mouse, that's what you will sound like.... lol
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DKII
A question for you. Do you ever feel like a different person when you're speaking a different language? I wonder more and more about this being here in D'Land. If we hit people with stereotypes, I'd say on the whole, Germans are very correct (genauso), very orderly and organised and very punctual. Often in a hurry and impatient. Probably not the warmest, nicest people I've met in my travels. And the ones that I teach get very disturbed if I change a routine.
And then I think how the language is structured. You can't start a sentence unless you know how you what you're going to say at the end (or all your conjugations go to shit), - and I wonder if this causes people to 'think' in categories and be organised. You ask for the time, literally by asking "How late is it?" - and most Germans I know are constantly rushing somewhere because it's social death to be late, there is no word for 'kindness' and "happy" has the same stemword as "lucky" (like it's more an unusual condition to feel happy - really, I often get treated suspiciously here if I smile too much).
Japanese - you speak it better than me, but it's very layered and contextual - you understand things a lot in relation to other things - and life rarely happens in straight lines in Japan in terms of personal interaction. i can't say I think at a high level in Japanese so I can't add more - but just off the top of my head.
What do you think? I'd be interested to know - do you feel like a different person when you're speaking another language?
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DKII
A question for you. Do you ever feel like a different person when you're speaking a different language? I wonder more and more about this being here in D'Land. If we hit people with stereotypes, I'd say on the whole, Germans are very correct (genauso), very orderly and organised and very punctual. Often in a hurry and impatient. Probably not the warmest, nicest people I've met in my travels. And the ones that I teach get very disturbed if I change a routine.
And then I think how the language is structured. You can't start a sentence unless you know how you what you're going to say at the end (or all your conjugations go to shit), - and I wonder if this causes people to 'think' in categories and be organised. You ask for the time, literally by asking "How late is it?" - and most Germans I know are constantly rushing somewhere because it's social death to be late, there is no word for 'kindness' and "happy" has the same stemword as "lucky" (like it's more an unusual condition to feel happy - really, I often get treated suspiciously here if I smile too much).
Japanese - you speak it better than me, but it's very layered and contextual - you understand things a lot in relation to other things - and life rarely happens in straight lines in Japan in terms of personal interaction. i can't say I think at a high level in Japanese so I can't add more - but just off the top of my head.
What do you think? I'd be interested to know - do you feel like a different person when you're speaking another language?
Interesting points there. I have found this to be accurate as well.
To say that I feel like a total different person would be too much, but I definitely think and act quite differently. I learned my Japanese in university and have, besides from family, only used it in a professional environment, so I am always rather polite. I can speak the whole bandwith from informal Japanese to Keigo fluently, but even if I speak informal, I am rather polite. I rarely swear (besides the occasional 畜生 that is...) in Japanese as well.
Japanese is VERY structured though, and Japanese follow the rules and respect boundaries more than Germans I would say, in culture and language you can see that.
I can't say about my German, but I would say I am very straight forward in German. Polite in the right situations but always straight to the face.
You kind of adapt to the environment around you, if you learn Japanese on a university campus and going drinking with your buddies, you won't be very polite and rather rude. I have seen quite a few intelligent people fail in their job search because their fluent Japanese was just not suitable for a business environment. The whole concept of Keigo is easier understandable for a German than for English speakers I think.
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Sadly the older you get, the fukin' harder learning a new language seems to get :'(
I'm glad my english is on level of native speaker but would need to learn 'certain other language' to get in big-money jobs....... And it's hard.
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Thanks DKII
One day I may get back to higher studies and look further at this. It interests me a lot.
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Thanks DKII
One day I may get back to higher studies and look further at this. It interests me a lot.
No problem!
My wife is an M.A. in language acquisition, it's an interesting topic!