Polyglots and Linguists in T-Nation

Off Topic
21

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I want to learn a new language. This is going ot one of those questions that has no concrete answers and just opinions but what language would be the most pratical to learn? [/quote]

Depends on where you’re at. I’m ashamed at myself for not being fluent in Spanish being from Texas. But take Raj for example, being Canadian he probably has no practical use for speaking Spanish, but he’d be lost without French. If you want to do it strictly for your enjoyment, find something that appeals to you.[/quote]

Thats a very good point, I’m doing it strictly for enjoyment, but I’d also like to put it to good use, I think I’ll have a chance to learn Chinese at uni cause there is a very large ammount of chinese students at my university[/quote]

Dude, if you learn Mandarin you’re punching your own ticket as far as employment options. Your whole world would change.

22

[quote]pgtips wrote:

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I want to learn a new language. This is going ot one of those questions that has no concrete answers and just opinions but what language would be the most pratical to learn? [/quote]

Depends on where you’re at. I’m ashamed at myself for not being fluent in Spanish being from Texas. But take Raj for example, being Canadian he probably has no practical use for speaking Spanish, but he’d be lost without French. If you want to do it strictly for your enjoyment, find something that appeals to you.[/quote]

Thats a very good point, I’m doing it strictly for enjoyment, but I’d also like to put it to good use, I think I’ll have a chance to learn Chinese at uni cause there is a very large ammount of chinese students at my university[/quote]

You will have to get back to us on that. I’d be very interested to hear about studying Chinese and what sort of differences you find between what is taught and what is spoken. I would expect that with Chinese you would find less variation and slang, as it’s a more regulated culture.

Unfortunately I never learned a dialect of Arabic. When Egyptians or Iraqis speak, I have a lot of trouble understanding.

23

First rule of learning Chinese is not calling the language Chinese. It’s the equivalent of calling English ‘American’

It’s Cantonese and Mandarin.

24

I am fluent enough in Japanese to have started and successfully run my own (language-centered) business here in Japan. I frequently engage in public speaking, sometimes in front of pretty large audiences (just did this today in front of well over 200 people). And, my crowning achievement, I have been complimented on my proficiency by Chushin’s lovely wife; and you if knew just who she was, you would realize that is about as good a compliment as a foreign speaker of Japanese can hope to get. (^_^)b

I was fluent in Spanish before I came to Japan ten years ago. I found out pretty quickly that if you don’t use it, you lose it. But, if you lose it, the loss is only temporary. I have evidence to believe I could again become fluent in probably about a month of intense practice.

You want advice on how to learn a language? Study. Study. Practice. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Study and practice some more. There is no magic secret super-duper speed learning trick. Some people have a knack, some don’t, but ALL of them achieve fluency in exactly the same way. Study followed by practice. Never one or the other. Always both.

Right now you are in the absolute best place in the world to learn Arabic. Use it every chance you get. NEVER speak English when you can speak Arabic. DO NOT worry about sounding dumb. You WILL sound dumb at times, but you have a big gun, which is a nice advantage I did not have. Anyway you cannot avoid going through the sounding-dumb stage. Get through it and then you can not-sound-dumb in two languages, while your colleagues will only be able to not-sound-dumb in one. Plus you and your Arabic speaking friends can use the language in front of non-Arabic speakers and chuckle and laugh and watch them squirm in annoyance and inadequacy when they don’t know what you are saying. Sometimes I think this alone is reason enough to learn a language, haha.

If you are not still over there or you leave before having achieved real fluency it is going to be a lot harder (but not impossible) to reach your goals. I would say that unless you have some pretty unusual will power, you will have to get a friend or join a group or class in order to retain an actual motivation to learn the language. This is because language does not occur in a vacuum. Its very existence assumes another person to share in communication. Otherwise, there would be no need for other languages, or any language at all.

25

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I want to learn a new language. This is going ot one of those questions that has no concrete answers and just opinions but what language would be the most pratical to learn? [/quote]

Arabic or Chinese.

26

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]pgtips wrote:
I want to learn a new language. This is going ot one of those questions that has no concrete answers and just opinions but what language would be the most pratical to learn? [/quote]

Arabic or Chinese.
[/quote]

But take heart, you already speak THE most practical language to learn on the face of the Earth, at a native level, no-less. Most native speakers of English no NO IDEA what an incredible privilege this is. It’s almost as valuable as being born white.

27

[quote]Chushin wrote:
Fluent in Japanese, which I started studying in my early 20’s.

Took a very basic course in college, then spent about 6 years with a great set of texts and tapes, practicing as much as I could each week. Made friends with Japanese folks in the US and exchanged languages with them once a week.

Later went to grad school, which involved more language study, as well as a year in an amazing intensive study program in Japan for grad students; about 12 hours of study per day.

A few years later I returned to Japan, and have been here for the past 18 years or so now. My job requires me to function in Japanese, including doing research and translations for publication.[/quote]

Chushin’s Japanese is at about as high a level as one could hope to achieve, not having been born here.

Notice the theme throughout the summary of his linguistic journey and how it squares up with my advice?

28

Studied French in high School and more in college…got pretty good…mostly because part of the final exams in college was holding a conversation with the teacher in fluently for time. That was really hard but very practical. Lost my way after college…now I can only pick up bits and pieces. Hopefully I can rekindle the fluency. Would love to learn Mandarin. My Sifu (martial arts) would speak certain parts of the class to us in Mandarin…so that was cool.

29

[quote]Cortes wrote:
I am fluent enough in Japanese to have started and successfully run my own (language-centered) business here in Japan. I frequently engage in public speaking, sometimes in front of pretty large audiences (just did this today in front of well over 200 people). And, my crowning achievement, I have been complimented on my proficiency by Chushin’s lovely wife; and you if knew just who she was, you would realize that is about as good a compliment as a foreign speaker of Japanese can hope to get. (^_^)b

I was fluent in Spanish before I came to Japan ten years ago. I found out pretty quickly that if you don’t use it, you lose it. But, if you lose it, the loss is only temporary. I have evidence to believe I could again become fluent in probably about a month of intense practice.

You want advice on how to learn a language? Study. Study. Practice. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Study and practice some more. There is no magic secret super-duper speed learning trick. Some people have a knack, some don’t, but ALL of them achieve fluency in exactly the same way. Study followed by practice. Never one or the other. Always both.

Right now you are in the absolute best place in the world to learn Arabic. Use it every chance you get. NEVER speak English when you can speak Arabic. DO NOT worry about sounding dumb. You WILL sound dumb at times, but you have a big gun, which is a nice advantage I did not have. Anyway you cannot avoid going through the sounding-dumb stage. Get through it and then you can not-sound-dumb in two languages, while your colleagues will only be able to not-sound-dumb in one. Plus you and your Arabic speaking friends can use the language in front of non-Arabic speakers and chuckle and laugh and watch them squirm in annoyance and inadequacy when they don’t know what you are saying. Sometimes I think this alone is reason enough to learn a language, haha.

If you are not still over there or you leave before having achieved real fluency it is going to be a lot harder (but not impossible) to reach your goals. I would say that unless you have some pretty unusual will power, you will have to get a friend or join a group or class in order to retain an actual motivation to learn the language. This is because language does not occur in a vacuum. Its very existence assumes another person to share in communication. Otherwise, there would be no need for other languages, or any language at all.
[/quote]

Fortunately I know MSA well enough that learning a dialect wouldn’t be very difficult. Like you said - practice, practice, practice.

I’m not in Afghanistan anymore. Fun fact, though - Arabic is actually not spoken in Afghanistan. There are several languages recognized in the country, the most prominent being Pashto and Dari. I have a few months of study in Pashto. I can’t speak it beyond the most rudimentary phrases, unfortunately, but it’s an interesting language. It’s a mix of Farsi, some Arabic, and a few other languages.

I’ve always wondered what constitues real fluency in a language. Is there a grade-level equivalent or is it measured in some other way?

30

[quote]Ambugaton wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
I am fluent enough in Japanese to have started and successfully run my own (language-centered) business here in Japan. I frequently engage in public speaking, sometimes in front of pretty large audiences (just did this today in front of well over 200 people). And, my crowning achievement, I have been complimented on my proficiency by Chushin’s lovely wife; and you if knew just who she was, you would realize that is about as good a compliment as a foreign speaker of Japanese can hope to get. (^_^)b

I was fluent in Spanish before I came to Japan ten years ago. I found out pretty quickly that if you don’t use it, you lose it. But, if you lose it, the loss is only temporary. I have evidence to believe I could again become fluent in probably about a month of intense practice.

You want advice on how to learn a language? Study. Study. Practice. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Practice. Study. Practice. Study and practice some more. There is no magic secret super-duper speed learning trick. Some people have a knack, some don’t, but ALL of them achieve fluency in exactly the same way. Study followed by practice. Never one or the other. Always both.

Right now you are in the absolute best place in the world to learn Arabic. Use it every chance you get. NEVER speak English when you can speak Arabic. DO NOT worry about sounding dumb. You WILL sound dumb at times, but you have a big gun, which is a nice advantage I did not have. Anyway you cannot avoid going through the sounding-dumb stage. Get through it and then you can not-sound-dumb in two languages, while your colleagues will only be able to not-sound-dumb in one. Plus you and your Arabic speaking friends can use the language in front of non-Arabic speakers and chuckle and laugh and watch them squirm in annoyance and inadequacy when they don’t know what you are saying. Sometimes I think this alone is reason enough to learn a language, haha.

If you are not still over there or you leave before having achieved real fluency it is going to be a lot harder (but not impossible) to reach your goals. I would say that unless you have some pretty unusual will power, you will have to get a friend or join a group or class in order to retain an actual motivation to learn the language. This is because language does not occur in a vacuum. Its very existence assumes another person to share in communication. Otherwise, there would be no need for other languages, or any language at all.
[/quote]

Fortunately I know MSA well enough that learning a dialect wouldn’t be very difficult. Like you said - practice, practice, practice.

I’m not in Afghanistan anymore. Fun fact, though - Arabic is actually not spoken in Afghanistan. There are several languages recognized in the country, the most prominent being Pashto and Dari. I have a few months of study in Pashto. I can’t speak it beyond the most rudimentary phrases, unfortunately, but it’s an interesting language. It’s a mix of Farsi, some Arabic, and a few other languages.

I’ve always wondered what constitues real fluency in a language. Is there a grade-level equivalent or is it measured in some other way?[/quote]

There are standardized test that can be taken, but really fluency is (somewhat) relative.

Example, I deal with tens of people every day, one on one, mostly parents of kids who attend my school and, of course, the kids themselves. I am pretty much 100% proficient in these kinds of conversations.

Then, I put in a movie by one of my favorite directors, either Akira Kurosawa or Beat Takeshi. All of a sudden, if I don’t have subtitles, I’m completely lost: Either in growling samurai war cries and ornately formal, archaic diction; or a slurring onslaught of yakuza slang, respectively.

Short answer, you decide when you are at the level you need to be at (until someone much better than you comes along and shame at your own inadequacy forces those parameters wide again, haha).

31

Russian is my first language, and I have since learned American English and Bhojpuri fluently. English I learned because I moved to America and Bhojpuri I learned because my fiance and I both decided to learn each other’s native languages. English was the hardest for me, but took the least time since I was completely immersed, so I had no choice but to pick the stuff up quickly. I also had a lot of help from the Slavic Languages majors at CMU who helped me learn English and I helped them with Russian.

32

I speak ´murican.

Thats all anybody needs.

33

[quote]orion wrote:
I speak ´murican.

Thats all anybody needs.[/quote]

srsly - I got a D in English in HS, and it’s my language forchristsake.

I cain’t even understand it when its spoke with one of them southern accents.

met a woman from Britain, and could hardly understand what the hell she was saying.

34

Some Japanese. More German.

Studied German in High School. Now, I read the occasional article auf deutsch. My pronunciation is horrendous, though. If you combine repeated frequent exposure with some academic learning, languages aren’t that severely hard to pick up.

Currently, I’m studying Japanese in my free time. English is part Germanic and they share almost the same alphabet, so German has a significantly faster acquisition rate for me. Kanji is a bitch. Only have around 700 known kanji.

35

[quote]blake2616 wrote:
Some Japanese. More German.

Studied German in High School. Now, I read the occasional article auf deutsch. My pronunciation is horrendous, though. If you combine repeated frequent exposure with some academic learning, languages aren’t that severely hard to pick up.

Currently, I’m studying Japanese in my free time. English is part Germanic and they share almost the same alphabet, so German has a significantly faster acquisition rate for me. Kanji is a bitch. Only have around 700 known kanji. [/quote]

LOOOOOVE kanji. My favorite part of the language. Each picture contains the elements of a puzzle that, when solved, unlock a story that “locks” the puzzle now into your brain.

If you have never picked up James W. Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji, you should run, not walk, to do so NOW.

One thing I noticed about people who don’t like kanji (and this is NOT a slam, just an observation), they tend to speak in terms of how many kanji they have mastered; as if it were some kind of chore.

Me, I honestly have no clue how many I know. All I know is that it’s not enough.

36

I can speak pretty well in four languages. Tried out japanese but ultimately only got a glance out of it.

If someone wants to pick up a new language, I believe he should to commit himself fearlessly, passionately, and has to make it his own as fast as he can.
Formal schooling will most certainly take you a few steps but I’ve met students with diploma in a language who wouldn’t be able to form one fluent sentence in their field of expertise.

Most Chinese languages seem easy if one can cope with the tonality, which probably has to be observed and practised locally. Writing the characters, of course, is another matter. So Vietnamese might be a real option. It also sounds nice.
Russian and Arabic seem hard as fuck, but offer wonderful options.
English is easypeasy and only gets easier because of the enormous amounts of easily available & digestable media.

37

One thing I’ve always found interesting is how professional ball players from foriegn countries never learning English even though they play several years in the US/Canada.

For instance Ichiro Suzuki has played in the Major Leagues since 2001 and he has yet to learn English.

38

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]blake2616 wrote:
Some Japanese. More German.

Studied German in High School. Now, I read the occasional article auf deutsch. My pronunciation is horrendous, though. If you combine repeated frequent exposure with some academic learning, languages aren’t that severely hard to pick up.

Currently, I’m studying Japanese in my free time. English is part Germanic and they share almost the same alphabet, so German has a significantly faster acquisition rate for me. Kanji is a bitch. Only have around 700 known kanji. [/quote]

LOOOOOVE kanji. My favorite part of the language. Each picture contains the elements of a puzzle that, when solved, unlock a story that “locks” the puzzle now into your brain.

If you have never picked up James W. Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji, you should run, not walk, to do so NOW.

One thing I noticed about people who don’t like kanji (and this is NOT a slam, just an observation), they tend to speak in terms of how many kanji they have mastered; as if it were some kind of chore.

Me, I honestly have no clue how many I know. All I know is that it’s not enough.
[/quote]

Hahaha, the only reason I know how many kanji is because I am using Heisig’s book. It is a really great book, though. And, reading kanji is so much faster than reading western languages. I really like the idea of kanji and it is quite a beautiful part of the language. I’m just basing my opinion on comparative difficulty. German words are easy to pick up for me. Not to mention sentence structure and general grammar. Subject-Verb-Object, for the win. Who told the Japanese that they could be all Subject-Object-Verb? Don’t even get me started on how foreign particles are to germanic languages. Even though it is more challenging, I still enjoy the Japanese language.

Remembering the Kanji is a fantastic learning tool. It is very rare that I forget a kanji after making a mnemonic story.

39

I’ve learned bits and pieces of several languages; I’ve actually focused a lot more on accurate pronunciation than anything. To the point where I’ve had native speakers think I speak it fluently, and then overwhelm me with a barrage of words I can’t decipher.

But fluently, I only speak English. I spoke French “fluently” when I lived in France as a kid for 2 years, and studied it in school, but I’d say my French is pretty poor. I guess it’s all relative though. For other languages, I can pick out some words and phrases, but nothing useful (German, Arabic, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and Turkish).

I’ve always found the writing systems and the “sound” of the language more interesting than actual conversational or literary knowledge. Grammar is interesting. But I’m just not around enough native speakers of any language to really have developed any sort of fluency.

But I have to say, Turkish is one of the more fascinating languages to learn, both because of its grammatical regularity and its highly unique structures. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly useful; it is a very neat language though.

40

[quote]blake2616 wrote:
…reading kanji is so much faster than reading western languages. I really like the idea of kanji and it is quite a beautiful part of the language.[/quote]

Totally agree with you here, particularly about the speed of reading. I was playing Wii or DS based RPGs here for a while and just quit because it was so frustrating slogging through thousands of individual hiragana without any spaces to separate one word from the next. Even five years ago, when I was not nearly so far along in my apprenticeship, I remember complaining that I wished they would just use the damned kanji so that I could actually read to play, haha (they use the hiragana because little kids are the intended audience and the adults who play will have a foundation and context that make reading simple).