Foreign Languages

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » November 20th, 2012, 5:23 am

I'm happy to announce that I've come back to revising my Italian using SuperMemo. It's a cool system involving spaced repetitions and lots of flash cards (together with pronunciation help, and a feature enabling you to record your version of a phrase or sentence). I used it systematically for months and I learned a lot by doing so. What I especially liked was that the system made me repeat stuff systematically (this has always been my greatest problem

). If I missed a day or two or ignored the repetitions the backlog rose, and nothing is as motivating as the thought of having to go through a huge backlog

Of course after so many months of neglect it has risen dramatically (some 600 examples or so...), but I'm reducing it fast.

mlcui · Post by **mlcui** » November 27th, 2012, 4:55 am

My first language is Tagalog, and my second language is English.
I lived in Japan for two and a half years, so I can speak basic Nihongo (Japanese), too.
I'd love to learn more Nihongo. I'm so fascinated by Kanji.
I try to retain my quickly deteriorating proficiency by watching English-subtitled
Japanese TV series and movies online.

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » May 15th, 2013, 1:07 am

I've been suffering from a lack of motivation combined with self-delusion. The said self-delusion is "Wow! That looks like a super useful learning material. I'm sure that once I've bought I'll learn so much!" The problem is of course that it's not the materials that do the learning, it's the learner. If you lack motivation, no materials, no matter how clever, will help you

Having said that, I think I have found something interesting and useful recently AND I've been using it for the last 2 or 3 weeks, which is more than can be said about some other things I bought

There's this company here that publishes all sorts of language flashcards, not only paper ones, but also audio. I bought one such CD with over 1000 "flascards" presenting Italian vocabulary with example of usage, and I listen to the MP3 files on my mobile phone. It's surprisingly inexpensive for the amount of material it contains. I also bought one with Italian verbs where each "flashcard" represents either a conjugated verb (in different tenses and moods) or collocations.

hallejk · Post by **hallejk** » May 16th, 2013, 11:17 am

I'm pretty much fluente in French, but not quite. I also apparently was fluente in German until age 6(we were missionaries there when I was young) according to my mom. And then I can understand some Spanish, Italian and Latin. Mostly because of the french being so similar.
Au revoir!

WoollyBee · Post by **WoollyBee** » May 20th, 2013, 10:55 am

I speak English fluently. I also speak French and can understand and speak a little Greek and Latin. I'm learning Italian right now (along with brushing up on my French skills) and I understand a little Spanish.

ShiNeko · Post by **ShiNeko** » June 15th, 2013, 11:53 pm

My native languages are Ukrainian and Russian, but because I was born in Odessa and have lived here all 20 years of my life, mostly I speak Russian (sadly, I wish I'd spoken Ukrainian better). I've learned English since I was 5 years old but because of lack of practice in speaking I don't speak it very good. Well and actually I always forget how to write words in English

In this respect, German is easier for me. I've been studying German for almost 2 years. But I hope to speak fluently in all languages I know.

Breeze · Post by **Breeze** » July 4th, 2013, 4:41 am

I am learning Spanish. But I don't know enough to do more than a short sentence or two in a play. It's hard to teach yourself another language, especially when there is no one to speak it to.

MissTARDIS · Post by **MissTARDIS** » July 17th, 2013, 1:00 pm

My native language is English, but I have a taste for the challenging and exotic, I think. I took three years High School Spanish at the behest of my Father, and quickly thereafter started forgetting it through lack of use, despite the very real value of knowing Spanish in Texas.

In High School I self-taught Japanese and then took 2 years of official courses at the college level. My speaking is and much better than my reading, and my Kanji is in a sorry state. I also took a college course in Classical Arabic for fun and really enjoyed myself, but I can't remember much about the reading/writing system so I can only parrot back what I hear

. Very recently I've started in on French, though I'm told that my pronunciation is in serious need of work (those darn 'R's)!

More strangely, I've been studying Vulcan and Sindarin for some time, and while I won't understand everything I say, I can make the words sound the right way!

To Summarize: for purposes of reading here, I can do English, Spanish, Japanese (with some restrictions), Vulcan and Sindarin (although I seriously doubt with copyright I'll be able to actually use these last two!).

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » July 20th, 2013, 9:00 am

Has anyone had an experience of trying to learn two similar languages at the same time? If so, how did you keep them apart to avoid mixup? I've been learning Italian, but I also spent a few years learning Spanish, which at times provoked problems with what I called my "itañol"

Now I would like to come back to my Spanish without ditching Italian but I'm afraid the problems will re-appear.

Piotrek81 · Post by **Piotrek81** » March 1st, 2016, 6:03 am

Forum archeologist attacks

I've decided to try and come back to learning German, after about 10 years. So far, my experience with the language was limited to in-class learning at school (2 years in the elementary, 4 years in high school and 2 years at uni), which wasn't particularly effective, because I wasn't really interested. I'm still scared of grammar, but at least I have some materials and a bit of motivation to give it a go. Wish me luck

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » March 1st, 2016, 12:56 pm

"Scared of Grammar"?

A German friend of mine once told me that there is a particular regional dialect of German ... I forget which one, perhaps a native speaker could tell us ... that essentially blurs all the Der/Die/Das inflexions of the definite article into a single form D'.

So if you don't mind sounding like the German equivalent of Jed Clampett, problem solved!

SOTE

Carolin · Post by **Carolin** » March 2nd, 2016, 12:50 am

those are several regions. it makes speaking easier, but being understood becomes impossible -- i really cant understand most people speaking in regional dialects

J_N · Post by **J_N** » March 4th, 2016, 7:44 am

Piotrek81 wrote:I'm still scared of grammar

don't be too scared... while correct grammar is difficult in German - being understood doesn't need correct grammar at all (who needs future or past tenses, if there are words like "yesterday" and "tomorrow"?

)... and quite a bit of grammar you will probably never ever use...

Carolin: I'm with you... with some dialects I always wonder if they might not be talking a foreign language...

jessieyun0404 · Post by **jessieyun0404** » March 10th, 2016, 11:33 pm

My first language is Korean, and I have read several Korean books

AmalArRumaih · Post by **AmalArRumaih** » March 11th, 2016, 12:58 am

Hi every one,

So, my first language is Arabic, and my second language is English.

I tried to learn french for a few years, but I failed.

I can speak a bit of french, not much at all, and I really want to someday be fluent at it.

I have only started recording here a few months ago (in English). I want to record Arabic books, but I didnt find a book here that I would enjoy.

Thats all.