Obviously this is a pretty international forum, and a comrade asked before which languages we speak, but which languages are you working on? Which ones do you aspire to learn someday even if you aren’t learning it now? I’m a Yank so I know English and took about 5 years of Spanish in HS, I was in the advanced classes, but it was years ago so I can understand Spanish, but I can’t speak it really. I’m learning Russian now because I’ve sorta been learning it informally my whole life, my grandma being born in early 30s rural Belarus meant she always wanted to pass that on to me, she spoke an Eastern dialect of Polish but knew Belarussian and spoke fluent Russian. I just knew basic basic Russian as a kid like Принесите Пожалуйста and Спасибо mixed with other phrases that were very local to her. In the past 2-3 years I decided to officially learn Russian bc the rest of my family is very American (I don’t blame them, that’s where we live and consume the vast vast majority of our entertainment/content from) the Irish side of my family doesn’t give a shit about the history of Ireland nor do any of them speak any word of Gaelic Irish, so at least by learning Russian I can communicate to a few cousins from the old country and my grandma. Realistically speaking Spanish would be most useful to me, being in the US, but if I finish learning Russian I wanna learn Arabic. I want to learn Chinese but goddamn thats one of the toughest ones to learn. I feel like Arabic would be cool to learn. What are yall thinking?

    • ButtigiegMineralMapOP
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      41 year ago

      Be completely honest, is it plausible for me to learn Russian and Mandarin or is that naïve of me to assume I could pick up 2 very different languages (from the perspective of a Yank that only speaks English and very little Spanish)? If so I am genuinely interested in learning Simplified Mandarin Chinese

      • @redtea
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        71 year ago

        It’s more than plausible but you need to put the time in. If you search Lemmygrad for FSI you should see some of my other comments on how long it takes to learn languages.

        With the right program you can get conversational quite quickly, but mastering the language will take a long time. The joy is that once you’re conversational, you can engage with native content and it’s no longer a chore from that point. The trick is to make it as fun as possible—whatever you need to do to get enough exposure.

        If @Munrock@lemmygrad.ml is right about HelloChinese it could be a good start. I’d mix it with Listening-Reading, with which method you can ‘natural listen’ to native audiobooks within a month of 12-hour days (250 hours total, extreme but effective, although it does require you to read a grammar and make notes before starting). Once you can understand the spoken language it becomes a lot easier. You can then listen to a familiar book and follow a parallel text to absorb the meaning of the characters in a (relative) flash.

        Chinese is often said to be hard for native English speakers. But most of the difficulty is the writing system. I’ve heard from people who focused on listening and speaking that it’s just as quick as any other language (maybe not quite so easy as Spanish, French, or Dutch). Then the characters do take time, but not as much time as if you try to learn the characters at the same time. How to achieve this? Search Lemmygrad for ‘Listening-Reading’.

        One hurdle with Chinese is access to native content from within the West. I don’t have any tips for this, I’m afraid.

        One hurdle with any foreign language is grammar. If you’re like me, you won’t understand English grammar enough. So the first task is to read or skim a book on English grammar. Then when you come across terms like preterite, conditional, imperfect, infinitive, conjugation, etc, in relation to the target language, it’ll actually make sense. Once you work this out with one foreign language it gets easier and easier with the second and third, etc.

        One warning. If you search the internet for advice you’ll come across the idea that you only need to do one thing. Usually, it’s ‘just get input’. While you do need comprensible input, nothing is comprehensible until you’ve mastered at least a bit of grammar and quite a bit of vocab. Don’t do what I did and waste a year watching foreign TV without subtitles hoping you’ll magically acquire the language.

        Use every aid you can think of to help make the language comprehensible – but make sure you are taking the time to understand the target language rather than relying on the aid! (This is the basis of the listening-reading method.)

        • @Munrock
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          51 year ago

          One hurdle with Chinese is access to native content from within the West. I don’t have any tips for this, I’m afraid.

          For Putonghua, try Bilibili. China’s answer to youtube. Might have to use a vpn depending on your location.

          There’s also echinesesong.com which is just tons of Chinese songs with lyrics pinyin, 汉字 and sometimes English translations. Use an ad blocker for that one.

          • ButtigiegMineralMapOP
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            41 year ago

            I also like to check out CGTN which has some info and news in Chinese

          • @redtea
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            31 year ago

            Great resource, thanks!

        • @Kultronx
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          5
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          1 year ago

          There are a lot of youtube channels out there with Mandarin content from native speakers, tv shows from China, etc, as well as western students who can explain concepts really well for anglos like this one

          • @redtea
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            31 year ago

            Nice one, thanks! Damn, now I want to try Chinese again.

            • ButtigiegMineralMapOP
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              31 year ago

              Lol same, FUCK IT I’M LEARNING CHINESE (in conjunction w Russian obv, it would be a waste to forget the 2 years of Russian I’ve picked up)

              • @redtea
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                21 year ago

                Deffo. I think Grover Furr did the same thing.