Anyone else have language learning special interests?

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C2V
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25 Oct 2016, 5:27 am

Really want to get into the polyglot thing ! !!
I used to speak some Gaeilge as a child but lost the way of it. Would love to start that again.
Otherwise I'm interested in speaking Japanese well enough not to massacre the names of my food, would be greatly benefited by being actually fluent in sign for autism reasons (but unfortunately the number of separate languages and dialects in sign make this very place-specific) also interested in Spanish for hiking the Camino one day and am interested in Hindi for travel/future expat reasons. Swahili and Arabic would be very useful given the field of work I hope to move into, but I once knew a guy who originally spoke the Dari dialect and also spoke six other languages fluently from Russian to Mandarin, and he said he tried to pick up Arabic a few times but it's too hard. :|
At the moment I can only speak a few words from stacks of languages, but fluent in none (english doesn't count!) And I still remember how to count to ten in a handful of languages, 20 in Indonesian.
Really interested in becoming a fluent polyglot, but they all tell you to become really fluent you have to have immersion and others to speak the language with operationally. Which means either travel/emigration, or the very least a language class. Which is difficult to afford and get to.
How effective really is all this "teach yourself" stuff, in isolation?


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Biscuitman
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25 Oct 2016, 8:33 am

liveandrew wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
liveandrew wrote:
Not me but my son is completely fluent in French and also knows, but is not fluent in, German, Russian, Polish, Slovenian, Norwegian and also has learnt a bit of Latin, Kashubian, Slovincian and old Prussian. He loves language structure, syntax and the roots of languages. I just asked him to list them and he's still rabbiting on about it :)


Never even heard of "Kashubian" (much less can speak it). Lol!


Me neither! I don't know where he gets it from as it's definitely not me - my schoolboy French (with a Cornish accent) is appalling :) I would like to learn Norwegian though, as my Grandfather was from Norway and I'm very close to my Norwegian cousins.


I have been tempted to learn some Cornish in the past as that is where my family are from(Pendeen), and some still are, but I struggle enough with French as it is.



liveandrew
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25 Oct 2016, 10:08 am

Biscuitman wrote:
liveandrew wrote:
my schoolboy French (with a Cornish accent) is appalling :)


I have been tempted to learn some Cornish in the past as that is where my family are from(Pendeen), and some still are, but I struggle enough with French as it is.


I don't know any Cornish at all even though I'm Cornish born and bred. My son's best friend is fluent and learnt it as a first language alongside English. She and her Dad would talk and have arguments in it!


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Knofskia
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25 Oct 2016, 11:55 am

AnaHitori wrote:
I am fascinated by grammar, pronunciation, etc. And foreign cultures.


So am I!

AnaHitori wrote:
My friends and I learned the ASL alphabet and use it to communicate during class. ^.^


My sister and I took six semesters of ASL classes at the University of Michigan. We only had each other to practice with after that, so we forgot a little. So, we are using http://www.lifeprint.com/ to remember and learn more.

AnaHitori wrote:
In general, I seem to be interested in different ways of communicating things. Morse code, braille, and different systems of measurement.


I have already learned literary Braille. I am currently learning mathematical Braille (called Nemeth code). https://tech.aph.org/nemeth/ Then, after that, I want to learn computer Braille code.


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Knofskia
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25 Oct 2016, 12:16 pm

Mattoid wrote:
I also purchased a book on Old English, the only dead language that really matters to me.


I also took a class on Old English and another class on Middle English back at the University of Michigan. The homework was so fun! And it taught me a lot about Modern English.


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