Is anyone else trying to learn a new language?

[Johann]

I'm pretty impressed! "水平" is easily a 2nd/3rd year college Mandarin course term. I always found it fascinating how simple characters combine to give meaning to more complex things, sometimes in a funny way:

同学：请问 "turkey" 在中文叫社么？
老师："fire chicken"

BTW, I believe that "还是..." would be preferred over "还有..." but if there's one thing I'm bad at it's explaining language.

哪里哪里。你太过奖了。我同意。汉字有很多历史意义。"好好学习 天天向上.“..你知道毛将军说过这个吗? 还有， 你知道 ”你吃了吗“ comes from a time in south china where people did not have much food to eat.
很有意思。

 

[Johann]

I'm teaching myself German with Duolingo (the app) now, but it's my fifth language, not the second.

Nice. English, German, what are the other three?

For example, I downloaded the app TuneIn (in which you can find radio stations all over the world) so I can listen to a German station everyday while I prepare and have breakfast, so my brain learns even if I'm not paying attention.

I never heard of this. Thanks for the resource.

I also watch Peppa Wutz (Peppa Pig in German)

Good ol Peppa Pig. I prefer Crayon Shin-Chan. You can find it in german. The content is more geared towards adults and funny.

 

[Sabrina]

German

My mother tongue is Spanish, my third language is Italian, the fourth is French.

 

[Sabrina]

哪里哪里。你太过奖了。我同意。汉字有很多历史意义。"好好学习天天相声“..你知道毛将军说过这个吗? 还有， 你知道 ”你吃了吗“ comes from a time in south china where people did not have much food to eat.
很有意思。

What are your languages? It's awesome that you know Chinese.

 

[Johann]

My mother tongue is Spanish, my third language is Italian, the fourth is French.

Amazing!

What are your languages? It's awesome that you know Chinese.

My mother tongue is English and I only know very basic mandarin. Maybe 2000 words or so thus far but I decided to learn mandarin in part because of its inherent difficulty as a native English speaker. It hasn't disappointed. The hardest part for me has been listening comprehension. Each province in China has its own dialect of Chinese and most Chinese people have to go to school to learn mandarin as it is china's lingua franca. So, each provinces native words/dialect/pronunciation etc., sometimes gets carried over into their mandarin causing a beginner like myself some comprehension problems.

Quiero aprender más español en el futuro, pero por ahora, sólo puedo hablarlo un poco. Estoy aprendiendo por mi cuenta en mi tiempo libre.

I can also speak a little french, russian, and hindi.

 

[Sabrina]

Amazing!



My mother tongue is English and I only know very basic mandarin. Maybe 2000 words or so thus far but I decided to learn mandarin in part because of its inherent difficulty as a native English speaker. It hasn't disappointed. The hardest part for me has been listening comprehension. Each province in China has its own dialect of Chinese and most Chinese people have to go to school to learn mandarin as it is china's lingua franca. So, each provinces native words/dialect/pronunciation etc., sometimes gets carried over into their mandarin causing a beginner like myself some comprehension problems.

Quiero aprender más español en el futuro, pero por ahora, sólo puedo hablarlo un poco. Estoy aprendiendo por mi cuenta en mi tiempo libre.

I can also speak a little french, russian, and hindi.

Muy bien!

 

[Johann]

Muy bien!

Gracias. What is/was your motivation for learning french, italian, and german and why these languages in particular. Basically, tell me more about your language learning journey. Also, I noticed the url link under your post. I assume you are a writer? Does your love for languages tie in to your love for writing and do you express yourself through writing in these other languages or is there a dominant one you choose to express yourself in?

 

[Sabrina]

Gracias. What is/was your motivation for learning french, italian, and german and why these languages in particular. Basically, tell me more about your language learning journey. Also, I noticed the url link under your post. I assume you are a writer? Does your love for languages tie in to your love for writing and do you express yourself through writing in these other languages or is there a dominant one you choose to express yourself in?

My grandma lived for a while in Italy, had friends over there and could speak it. When she died, I started learning it because I thought she might have liked it.
French because while I was at the university I had to choose between French and English, and I already knew English.
German because there was a period in my life when I had some free time, and decided to start a new language. Why German? I don't remember .
Yes to all the assumptions that you made about writing and my love for words and languages.

 

[Sabrina]

Gracias. What is/was your motivation for learning french, italian, and german and why these languages in particular. Basically, tell me more about your language learning journey. Also, I noticed the url link under your post. I assume you are a writer? Does your love for languages tie in to your love for writing and do you express yourself through writing in these other languages or is there a dominant one you choose to express yourself in?

I express myself in Spanish and English mostly.

 

[Johann]

My grandma lived for a while in Italy, had friends over there and could speak it. When she died, I started learning it because I thought she might have liked it.
French because while I was at the university I had to choose between French and English, and I already knew English.
German because there was a period in my life when I had some free time, and decided to start a new language. Why German? I don't remember .
Yes to all the assumptions that you made about writing and my love for words and languages.

My condolences. The little I know of the amazing person I have the pleasure of talking with now, propels me to say, without a doubt, she would be proud.

I express myself in Spanish and English mostly.

Interesting. I asked thinking about the influence of culture/socialization has on how you expresses your self in each language; language being inherently tied to culture norms. Metacognitively, have you noticed a change in the words you choose, personality, subject matter, etc., between languages when writing.

 

[Sabrina]

My condolences. The little I know of the amazing person I have the pleasure of talking with now, propels me to say, without a doubt, she would be proud.


Interesting. I asked thinking about the influence of culture/socialization has on how you expresses your self in each language; language being inherently tied to culture norms. Metacognitively, have you noticed a change in the words you choose, personality, subject matter, etc., between languages when writing.

Always, and also while speaking. There's differences in the way I write, talk, and even think, depending on the language, and even depending on the country or the nationality, in spite of being the same language (like in the case of Spanish).

 

[Nick12]

nope only english for me but i know some duch language my best best mom ever is from holland so know a little bit of duch from her

 

[Greatshield17]

One thing I'm struggling with with learning Spanish is of course, grammar, I'm picking up words fairly well but I have trouble stringing them together with grammar.