What languages are you currently learning?
What languages do you speak already?
I’m trying to pick Russian back up again. I got a minor in the language in college, but several years of not using it at all has caused me to forget a lot. I still have my old textbooks and resources so trying to crack those open again soon.
I am currently learning German, as I moved to Germany last year. My native language is English. I’ve dabbled in Spanish, French, and Russian, but German is the first one I’ve had reason to really intensively learn.
Frohen Kuchentag wünsche ich dir.
Danke schon! Ich bin heute 0!
Having a reason to learn is crucial. Otherwise it’s hard to prioritize learning high enough.
I’m stuck while learning Mandarin. I need more reasons next to “a third of world’s population are speaking it”.
Having scheduled online sessions with a tandem helped.If Firefly is at all a predictor of the future, maybe we’ll all be learning it in the next century.
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I’ve never put real effort into trying to learn a second language, but I have an opportunity to travel to Italy next year so I need to start learning some basic Italian so I’m at least not a tourist who doesn’t know a lick of the local language.
I’m honestly looking for some advice on where to start
Ciao bella. Di dove sei?
- Looks good: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1071411798
- A series for travelers: https://ankiweb.net/shared/by-author/671328793
- There’s a lot more: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks?search=italian
I like the concept of “spoonfed” cards which keep adding most common words for learning more and more. I couldn’t find an Italian deck, though.
- Start with basic common phrases for greetings (ciao, arrivederci),
- thank you (Tante Grazie), please (per favors), excuse me (scusi), and „I want“.
- Watch a movie or tv show you already know (by heart) in Italian with Italian subtitles. Or watch an Italian show with English subtitles. This will give you a better feeling for the language, how it’s pronounced, some basic vocabulary. Maybe lookup words or phrases you like or hear repeatedly. Expose yourself to the language. A great current show is Mussolini son of the century.
- Also learn to read the language phonetically. So you can read and pronounce any written words. For most languages this is far easier than for English. _ Italians love when people try to speak Italian. So find some Italians to chat with on the internet.
- learn some fun phrases, jokes, idioms, and compliments: Un bon café italiano é negro come il diabolo, caldo come l’inferno, e dolce come l’amore.
Learning spanish right now
I speak russian natively, fluent in english, around B2 in georgian, and around A2 in french. I can also barely understand ukranian, belorussian, czech and croatian, mostly because they’re all slavic languages and I have friends who are fluent. Finally I can “read” the writing systems of armenian and arabic, but I don’t know the languages at all.
Goddayumn! Do you do anything other than study languages all day?
Yes, I have a full-time job and hobbies and stuff :D I don’t think it’s that impressive overall, I have friends who speak like 4 or 5 languages fluently.
Russian is my native tongue.
I’ve learned english at a young age mostly by hanging around the (early) Internet and learning to code, and I speak it at work.
I’ve moved from russia to georgia, so pretty much had to learn georgian. It comes quick when you’re surrounded by native speakers and are forced to use it all the time just to get by.
I’ve studied French in school, so parts of that are still around in my brain. I don’t know if I’m still A2, maybe not, but it’s enough to eavesdrop on my French colleagues when they think noone understands them, and get at least some of what they’re saying :)
Other languages are mostly from my friends who spoke it when I was around them. As I said, I can barely understand them, and miss a lot of what they say. It’s probably like A1 or less, not impressive.
I’ve learned to “read” armenian and arabic writing while on holidays to countries that speak those, perhaps ~30 days for each one total. It’s just fun for me to progressively start reading more and more letters on shop signs and street names as I walk around the city; what felt like ancient runes or random scribbles just a week ago becomes understandable, it’s magic! Arabic is a lot more difficult then Armenian in that respect, because shapes of the letters change a lot depending on the context.
I’m working on learning French again. Went in 2019, planning another trip for 2027. Its not critical that I become fluent. I just like being able to attempt to speak French as I always had good interactions by at least trying. I was using duolingo back then. Currently, I’m using EWA which I like way better.
I also follow every French community on Lemmy that I see and try my best to read the posts and comments.
Merveilleux!
I want to start learning German because it’s where I plan to go live once my life is in a good place.
I speak spanish natively and “fluent” english (my pronunciation is still not quite there yet but writing, hearing, and vocabulary I have no problem)
Nice! My wife is from Argentina, so she actually has the exact same languages as you. She’s been learning German for about 4 years now. A good channel for German is EasyGerman on Youtube.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’m gonna check it out!
Right now I’m focused mainly on Japanese. Have a decent understanding of Spanish, and I’m sure I’ll add more someday. Right now trying to feel proficient with these.
It’s funny how much of a contrast it is. Going from one that has most words based off the same roots as English, to another that shares so little etymology and uses totally different writing systems.
I’m struggling enough with German, and they’re in the same language family. I honestly cannot imagine trying to learn a language that shared literally no roots or similarities.
It can be really overwhelming!
Even tho they don’t share historic lineage, there are thankfully quite a few loan words. There’s a whole set of characters (katakana) for foreign words, and most of those words are just the English word in a Japanese accent. So there’s some reprieve.
But yeah, reading or watching native materials, there are so many very specific words in Spanish that I get to understand just for free. It kinda spoils a person.
German is another language I’m interested in (mainly because I perceive it to be pretty close to English), and even then I’ve heard the grammar can get tricky. And I know having gender the nouns will be confounding.
