Μαθαίνω ελληνικά. - I am learning Greek.
I am at the point of being able to read Greek, introduce myself, ask and respond to “how are you” and how to say “I am still learning Greek can we speak English”. haha
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I’m learning Python. Not bad, but I prefer C.
I have no experience in C, but I do like Python.
Rust is calling to me
I’ve been learning Japanese for a long time now. The funny thing is that I started at the wrong end by learning kanji first and then moving onto grammar and vocabulary in that order. Avoid what I did unless you want to be proficient at reading it without understanding it!
Although not all is lost, because I’m getting used to reading news and Wikipedia articles without much aid or effort anymore, and spoken Japanese is slowly getting easier. Understanding it is still proving to be a bitch from time to time but that’s on me!
Btw, does anyone know of great websites to read Japanese? I browse Gigazine.net quite a bit and many news outlets, but I’d like to mix it up and move away from politics and news in general. I’m still a bit shy about online forums, but maybe I should do that next.
I know you said transition away from news sites but Easynhk.com is always a staple
Twitter is honestly great since there’s so much variety, not to mention there’s a lot of artists who’ll post full chapters of manga. You just have to curate who you follow to avoid musk stuff.
I’d also say just watch some YouTube videos. It’s a good way to practice listening and most YouTubers will personally subtitle their videos as well so you can follow along while reading. A particular favorite way for me is to watch videos of Japanese people travelling/living in America/English speaking places. It’s fun seeing their experiences with everyday stuff for us; a channel I watch a lot is called Kira Kira USA. They post videos frequently, use a lot of day to day Japanese, and get to see viewpoints from the various family members.
Good luck!
Thank you for that! Kira Kira USA sounds a lot like what I’m looking for. I really liked Miku’s Real Japanese Pocast so this is right up my alley. Hehe
Kanji first sounds pretty good to me. You didn’t feel like it worked well?
I went through Genki I with Kanji mostly sidelined, and I felt like I wished I’d known Kanji better first. Having to look up how to write every character is a drag, and I don’t think using kana is a much better alternative.
You say you could read but not understand… I feel like that’s a step up from the reverse! (That being, “I’d totally understand thus if I could read it”) And I find that learning Kanji now is making it way faster to remember vocab.
I guess the lesson is just that it’s all important, skipping or putting off any of it doesn’t work so well.
こんにちは！日本語を勉強しています！
I’m 90 days into learning Japanese. Most of that has been learning kana and I’m now working on kanji and grammar. It’s very different from English but I really like the way information is conveyed. I’m struggling with grammar stuff right now pretty bad, particularly conjugation, but it’ll click eventually. Also the lack of spaces is definitely something to get used to.
Watashi no nihongo wa warui desu yo.
Watashi mo, but getting better every day.
What tools are you using to study?
I started with Duolingo and while it has all the regular duo problems, I think it actually does a good job with the kana stuff. You can turn off the Romaji too, forcing yourself to read. It doesn’t teach grammar, though, so I bought Genki Vol 1, working my way through that, and wotaku.wiki has a lot of good resources.
I really like the Cure Dolly stuff for grammar (though she can be difficult to understand, use the youtube transcripts or if you prefer reading a book someone helpfully wrote it all up). Her approach is totally different from the Genki methods, but I find it easier to understand.
I am also using Anki with the Kaishi 1.5k Kanji deck for kanji and vocabulary. This is honestly pretty painful, I’ve been doing it for like 10 days now and I feel like I’m doing badly every time, but I am improving. I could probably stand to study the radical stuff to understand more how the kanji is constructed but I haven’t found a good resource for that just yet.
Am I learning a new language? No.
How far along am I? About halfway.You’re killing it, keep it up! 💪
I started learning Russian 2 and a half years ago now maybe, mostly in uni classes. Haven’t done anything in a while though. I generally think slavic languages are cool and would like to learn another actually.
Я начинала учить русский может быть 2 с половиной года назад, в основном в универе, но ничего не делала за учение в последнее время. В общем я думаю, что славянские языки круто и действительно хочу бы учить другую.
I started learning Swedish yesterday. My native language is Dutch. I started by reading a pronunciation guide, but (and this is so childish) I had to put the book away for laughing so hard after reading the Swedish word for meatballs: köttbullar.
Profanity
In Dutch, the word “kut” means “cunt”. It isn’t as profane as the English word and is also often used for the well-known genitals. The guide explained that Swedish “ö” is pronounced like Dutch short “u”. After this I opened my Swedish story book and the first picture had the word köttbullar in it. I then heard myself very carefully enunciate what in Dutch sounds like “cunt balls”. Couldn’t stop laughing.
Today I will make a second attempt. I hope I can keep it contained to a short chuckle.
Thank you for sharing this absolutely hilarious story. Gave me a hearty laugh in the morning. haha
Good luck getting passed it! I know I wouldn’t be strong enough. haha
Currently taking Japanese classes for fun. I’m about two years in and can have very basic conversations.
Took three years of German 20+ years ago and have German friends (and read German lemmy) so can practice sometimes.
I’m terrible at all of them and not that great at English either. I tend to “vomit language” moreso than speak well.
J’apprends le français, C’'est ma troisième langue. Il va ça va, et je suis A2 après ~8 mois, mais j’ai un amie qui m’aide aussi
I’m learning French, when I remember to. I did not put too much effort into it until now, because I understand a lot from articles, conversations, youtube videos. It is similar to Spanish, which I learnt up to native level I guess, also mostly speaking without a foreign accent. But back to French, I find it very hard to write it, so many accents and ‘s and letters that are not read. I have what they call a “musical ear”, so I do distinguish a lot of sound variations and tones, but the writing in French is brutal.
Another language I will forever learn and not be able to get to it as with my Spanish or English is German. I mess up the articles all the time, I am sure, but I just keep going. I am perfectly comfortable reading German literature or having a conversation, but it bothers me that after so much time being exposed to it, I still make poor choices of articles.
I started at some point learning Portuguese, but I found it frustrating that it was so similar to Spanish, all the words would come in Spanish in my mind.
If I could, I would love to also know Greek, Danish, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic and many others probably.
I’m not but I’d love to learn some other romance languages, Italian and French would be my choices right now.
I’m learning Esperanto because everything I do has to be esoteric. I understand the fundamentals of the language and my pronunciation is perfect i’d say. I’ve been learning for a few months and I can read and write basic sentences. I also want to learn Spanish (mostly to flirt) but it’s hard to find the time. I’d also like to learn Indonesian, German and Afrikaans.
Edit: I’d also love to learn Polish but it’s so fucking hard.
Edit 2: Oh and Finnish. I really like languages and I get excited about them.
Learning Spanish 2 before learning Spanish
Interesting
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All of Volapük’s speakers could fit on one bus.
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Curious, why is that?
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Probably not, luckily Esperanto is. I’d be curious about Interlingua however. I think it does still have a community behind it.
I prefer Italian light
everything I do has to be esoteric
👑
Да, я изучаю русский язык, но не знаю какой у меня уровень, может быть где-то B1-B2. К сожалению мне не с кем говорить в последнее время 😪
I am also trying to improve my English recently, mostly because I am pretty bad at speaking, and pronouncing stuff correctly.
I want to learn another language as well, maybe I will return to Czech (I was learning it for 1 month some time ago, and don’t remember much, although I understand fairly amount because I am Polish).
I’m learning Japanese. On and off for years, but mainly the last couple. I’m still only at the advanced beginner stage, trying to work on my Kanji, reading, and listening.
Also learning Spanish, but I feel like I’m in a better spot with it. I took classes in school and have a decent foundation, just need way more practice. It’s on the backburner since I’d rather build on my Japanese.
For fans of this thread/topic, check out !languagelearning@sopuli.xyz . They have a weekly thread for progress and a few active folks. Lemmy also has more specific language learning communities that could stand to be more active.
I always find it amusing when I meet people who speak all three languages I do: English, Spanish, and Japanese. Well, admittedly, I also know a bit of French, but it’s so similar to Spanish that it feels like cheating to understand so much with so little investment. So yeah, when are you learning French next? 😆
Coincidentally, I speak English, French and Japanese, and am learning Spanish (and I learned German and Sesotho in the distant past). I cheated, however all except Spanish were learned at least partially by immersion in places where they speak it.
LOL, I did take a semester of French in high school.
I guess it makes sense as an overlap - North America and Europe both have primarily English, Spanish, and French speakers in close vicinity. And Japanese cultural exports are just really popular.
French; Next is to start B1 level
Μιλάω ελληνικά, το πιο δισκολο είναι η συγγραφή.
*δύσκολο Συγγραφή would be used to describe authoring a book. You could use γραφή or γράψιμο or a verb construction να γράφεις “to write”.
Σωστά, είναι καιρός που δεν χραφω ελληνικά 😅 :)
I’m learning English. I think I can manage. I’m reading more and faster than most native speakers.
Meine Muttersprache ist Deutsch.
