What languages do you want to learn?

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I want to learn Japanese, but I am also actually learning it. It is know that it has 3 writing systems, kanji, hiragana and katakana. When I look at my knowledge of these writing systems, the number of kanji characters that I know is higher than the number of hiragana, which is higher than the number of katakana.

If I once know the kanji, I can read it faster than hiragana or at fast as Latin script (for example the English alphabet). This maybe caused by my graphic memory. One character ofthen correspond to one thing. Sometimes have to learn three characters in a row for example:
- 自転車 - jitensha = bycicle.
車 as a lonely char without other kanji is kuruma and means: car.
The most difficult kanji took a few days to remember is: 電話 (denwa), and means: telephone. 電 is related to electricity and 話 is related to speech. 電車 (densha) means: trein.

I am learning Japanese, which happens to be my special interest right now. I'd say I am at an intermediate level. It's hard for me to judge my own level, or progress, but I can play video games in Japanese and chat to people online in Japanese. I understand a decent percentage of dialogue in anime without subtitles. It would be interesting to connect with others on here who are learning the language as well, and others who possibly share it as a special interest.

I find languages in general to be very interesting. I don't have the time or motivation to take on any other languages right now, but I find German, Korean, and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) particularly interesting. I studied German for a while as a requirement for my schooling, but I never had the discipline to get anywhere with it back then.

I briefly considered learning Japanese as a teenager, but it's entirely too complicated fire my taste. Too many word endings and honorifics, plus three writing systems, and the pitch accent rules.


Mandarin is so much less complicated and not hard at all.

Yigeren >> I see. Yeah, I'll admit some aspects are complicated, but for whatever reason I find Japanese fascinating. Likely because I somehow ended up forming an obsession with it over the past year, though I'd been exposed a bit to the language before that via games and anime. I've heard Mandarin grammar is quite simple, but the tones in Chinese sound difficult. Have you studied/learnt Mandarin?

hmk66 >> How long have you been learning Japanese?

Mandarin is simple, but different enough from English to be somewhat difficult in certain ways. The particles that are used to express emotion are not very intuitive. And having no verb tense is pretty different. And also having to always use a measure word.

But I really like it. I hope to become fluent within another year or so.

I've been studying it for several months now. The tones are not difficult at all for me. But I have a "musical ear". I have no trouble recognizing tones or mimicking them.

The writing system is pretty fun, but I've only learned a few characters so far.

Cool. Yeah, I can understand the 'different enough from English to be somewhat difficult'. To me it's the same with Japanese. It's tough at first to get used to it, especially if, like me, you had never seriously studied a language before. But I think it gets better. It has for me with Japanese, anyway.

I know somewhere around 1500 kanji so far. I could have learnt all the general use kanji by now, if I were more efficient, but unlike some fortunate people I just can't seem to make use of mnemonics to cram them in methodically. I've been mostly learning by a mixture of rote, using them myself, and just reading. I tend to memorise the character and its meanings in English much easier than remembering the readings. I can't write anywhere as many characters on paper as I can read, obviously. Writing on paper isn't my priority. I'd like to learn proper writing eventually, but right now I'm more concerned with achieving fluency.

I don't know why, but I seem to be unable to utilise the learning methods I've seen others suggest. I wish I could make use of them, but I feel stunted somehow when it comes to forcibly studying, and more like a child just learning by reading and doing. I suppose for a little over a year, I've not done too poorly, but I often obsess over whether I'm learning fast enough.

What are your main reasons for learning Mandarin? If you don't mind me asking, of course.

Well, I love languages. As a kid, I had a list of five languages I wanted to learn. Chinese was one of them. Now, there are several distinct Chinese languages, even though they sometimes call them dialects.

So Mandarin is the most widely used, and easiest to learn. I started really wanting to fulfill my dream of learning five languages, and I was really drawn to Mandarin and Chinese culture. So I just started learning.

But I think it's important to like the culture as well as the language because the language and culture are intertwined.

That makes sense. That's one of my reasons for learning Japanese, myself; I like the culture. Not just otaku stuff, either. Also I just like the way the language sounds. It has a rhythm to it that's very different from English. And for some reason I think of Japanese grammar as building blocks; very tidy, regular and structured with few exceptions. I also like that punctuation is less ambiguous than English. Don't have to worry about spaces, and commas aren't as fussy.

Mandarin sounds cool. I think the tones add an interesting sound. I think my ear is fairly good for pitch/tone as I have played the keyboard before and put together some songs, but I don't know if it's as good as yours.

In fact, I probably need to practise the pitch accents in Japanese.

I wish you the best with Mandarin!

I was actually just reading about the Japanese language and pitch accent the other day. I read that foreigners are often not taught about pitch accent at all, or very little. Apparently this is one major way that makes a foreigner sound "foreign" to the native Japanese speaker's ear.

I would strongly encourage you to try to master as much of the spoken language as you can if you want to be able to communicate effectively. A person who knows a language quite well but has a very strong accent will have difficulty being understood despite his or her knowledge.

I watch videos on YouTube of native Mandarin speakers teaching Mandarin. Some of them know English very well but are just so difficult to understand initially because of the accent.

Currently learning Spanish (my 3rd language).
Also interested in learning German in the future.

I already know English, Latin, and ASL.

I used to know Hebrew when I was a kid.

I can sometimes understand Gibberish, and can also speak fluent Profanity...

german (my heritage and for science) and spanish (for work).

There are many kinds of gibberish.

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Yeah, well, I don't know that dialect, unfortunately. The gibberish I know is actual gibberish. Only person that understands it is me.