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
    4•1 year ago

    Interesting, perhaps I’ll learn Chinese. They have the largest population, they’re a growing economy so it never hurts to understand it in the future for jobs, and most importantly I’ll be able to sing some Maoist bangers from 60s China

    • @redtea
      3•1 year ago

      It’s a great language to learn.

      Look into LR. For reference, for Spanish, I LR’d two books twice. The first was 31 hours. The second was 47 hours. That’s 156 hours in total. Afterwards, I could listen to and understand Harry Potter. I listened to the first four before getting bored. Some books, accents, shows, etc, are still difficult for me now. You have to find the right materials. There are fewer cognates between English and Chinese, so it will be a little more difficult. But if you learn a bit of grammar then ‘assault’ the language (lots of exposure all in a burst), it might not take as long as you think to build listening comprehension.

      Here’s the “inventor’s” website: https://web.archive.org/web/20221004162508/http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_mountain/! L-R the most important passages.htm

      An extract (with some omissions):

      ‘LISTENING-Reading’ in a teeny-weeny nutshell

      Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, or, to put it bluntly, LISTEN (L2) and read (L1). (And use your second favourite organ – your head.)

      (L1 = your mother tongue, L2 = the language you’re learning)

      LOVE + ‘LISTENING-Reading’ (incubation period and then natural listening) + PRONUNCIATION + Assault = reading + speaking + writing.

      Use LONG novels right from the outset. If the languages are different the first three to five hours should be translated word for word. If they are related (or you already know quite a bit about L2), it is not necessary.

      I mean, basically, there are only two skills to master: listening comprehension and pronunciation. Usually completely ignored, I must add. The rest (reading, speaking, writing) follows almost naturally with just tiny little bits of additional efforts. Yes, and that’s true even – or particularly so – for languages with ‘whimsical’ script (Chinese, Japanese L-R).

      Learning a language HAPPENS on its own. All you need is personally relevant massive exposure. And… you must pay lovingly tender attention to what’s happening before your ears and eyes. And in your soul – love, joy, and soul shattering awe should be your guides.

      Language is a system of interdependent elements: sounds (phonemes, tones, pitch accent, stress, rhythm, intonation), words (combinations of sounds that carry meaning), phrases and sentences (combinations of words), and texts (spoken and written, combinations of all the above). Only TEXTS carry personally relevant real life meanings and EMOTIONS.

      If you want to learn a language quickly you’ll need

      1. a recording performed by good actors or narrators in the language you want to learn
      1. the original text (of the recording)
      1. a translation into your own language or a language you understand
      1. the text(s) should be long: novels are best

      You may wonder: why long texts? Because of the IDIOLECT of the author; it manifests itself fully in the first ten–twenty pages: it is very important in learning quickly without cramming.

      The key factor in learning a language is EXPOSURE, that is how much NEW text you will be able to perceive in a unit of time. There is a physical limit here, you can’t understand any faster than the text reaches your brain. That is why you ought to SIMULTANEOUSLY read the translation and listen to the original recording: that provides the fastest exposure.

      You must ENJOY (AWE) the text you’re going to listen to.

      Parallel texts are extremely useful. The more difficult the text, the more useful they become. The columns shouldn’t be too wide, not more than eight cm, you can jump from one column to the other if necessary without stopping the recording too often. E-texts are more useful, you can use a pop-up dictionary, you can change the font, make it bigger or smaller – it is particularly useful for Japanese and Chinese.

      The most difficult language in the world. Esperanto, definitely. As some wise guy said the only difficult language is the one you don’t want to learn.

      I suppose all languages are about the same, none is more or less difficult than any other.

      Gathering appropriate materials is the only difficulty. And THAT can be extremely difficult.

      I found Mandarin to be very easy indeed. A few days ago I was studying some numbers in various languages. I still remember four of them in Chinese: 一, 二, 三, 十. To my surprise, they were the same in Japanese – so I killed 二 birds鳥 with 一 stone石.

      Hope this is motivating!