Is anyone else obsessed with learning languages?

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Bestiola
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16 Jun 2024, 4:07 pm

yep! And the pre-PIE stuff is even more fascinating, though it's down to hypothetical theories.



MaxE
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19 Jun 2024, 3:18 pm

At one point, languages became my special interest after reading a book on the subject by someone named Mario Pei. Sadly, I chose to study this in college, which cost me a few years of my young life, when I look back at it. I did get quite good at speaking French and German, however, but those skills and 5 bucks will just get you a cup of coffee nowadays.


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hmk66
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12 Jul 2024, 7:36 am

I am Dutch, I was even non-verbal autistic, until I was 5 years old. Then I started talking and at the same time I learned a few other things like reading, writing and also reading music sheets. At 6 I learned to play organ, but I was a little boy, so playing organ was difficult, until I was a bit taller.

At 8 I tried to learn German. At 11 I tried to learn Russian and International Phonetic Alphabet. At 14 I learned Esperanto for a short while, but at 18 I decided to learn Esperanto completely.

At this moment I speak Dutch, Esperanto, English (so, English is not native tongue, although I write this in English of course) en German pretty well. I can understand Afrikaans. I am good at reading French. To a certain degree I understand Russian and Japanese. I have looked at Ukrainian, Belarusian as well. I also learned a bit of Interlingua and Ido, two other artificial langues (besides Esperanto).

My goal is that Russia be the 5th language of knowledge after the 4 I mentioned above. I will likely move to Russia when I retire.



AnonymousAnonymous
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25 Jul 2024, 6:19 pm

I wouldn't say obsessed, but fascinated IMO is a better adjective.

Currently, I'm using Duolingo to improve my Spanish and Portuguese.


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bee33
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25 Jul 2024, 7:50 pm

^Have you found Duolingo useful? I tried it and found it kind of annoying, but maybe I should give it another chance.



eurovisionfan1990
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30 Aug 2024, 2:01 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
eurovisionfan1990 wrote:
I used to speak Tagalog, but I don't talk now but I can still understand.

I also learned Spanish, all the languages from ex-Yugoslavia, Russian, German, French, Italian, Romanian, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Ukrainian, Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Czech, Slovakian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, Farsi and many more.

8O
You can actually converse with natives in each and all of those languages?

Only on language books, but on rudimentary/elementary level only.



CockneyRebel
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30 Aug 2024, 8:59 pm

I'd like to learn German.


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Tim_Tex
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30 Aug 2024, 9:47 pm

Currently, Arabic and Persian are my specialties.

The Nordic European languages (sans Faroese--not enough resources) are another.


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squeeker
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01 Sep 2024, 5:07 pm

I've recently got very interested and excited about learning languages!
But I've not always been this way!

I created my Duolingo account in January 2021 because I wanted to learn German! I have family connections to Germany and the German language so it felt like an interesting place to start!! !
I found Duolingo made learning German very fun and rewarding! I struggled at times but it was so exciting when became aware of the words and phrases that I was remembering!! !

In the past year I also started learning Ukrainian!! ! This has also been very fun, a lot more challenging because they use a different alphabet. But now I am able to recognize the characters and their sounds so much better.

There are also other languages I want to learn but I usually bounce back and forth between German and Ukrainian. In addition to Duolingo, I have some German and Ukrainian friends on Instagram who I can practice with and have reason and motivation to learn new words.



AnonymousAnonymous
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01 Sep 2024, 5:16 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
I'd like to learn German.


Duolingo could be a great place to start. No payment needed for access.


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eurovisionfan1990
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16 Sep 2024, 9:13 am

Who likes writing and learning Southeast Asian languages?

I learned how to write Khmer, Lao, Thai and Burmese and their alphabets look like noodles!



SuperRileyFanboy
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Yesterday, 1:47 pm

I've taught myself to a B2 level in Swedish, so functionally fluent. There's a Swedish forum I use that helps me pick up on more native-like diction and vernacular. Currently, I'm learning sign language at school, and looking to get a certification for it. A friend teaches me Spanish since we plan to live in Grenada together.

I suspect this interest was fostered because both of my parents are multilingual, so I was exposed to a lot of foreign media as a child... and my father swearing in Yiddish.



MaxE
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Today, 5:16 am

They don't speak Spanish in Grenada.


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ToughDiamond
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Today, 2:55 pm

I thought I was obsessed with learning languages, at least I've always had a positive view of doing so ever since I passed French and Latin at school, but in practice I've become crap at learning them, and my French has atrophied rather badly. A few years ago I managed to tune into some French radio stations and I thought I might be able to brush up my French by listening to those until I could understand the language well, but they gabbled away much too fast and I got nowhere. Then about a year ago I tried to use Anki to learn French words and phrases, but they just wouldn't stick so I've given up. There's something about the arbitrary nature of the information that stops it from sinking in.

Mind you, I might have accidentally got a learning pack that's way more advanced than anything I ever did at school. I don't want to be ultra-fluent in esoteric tenses, etc., I just want to be able to speak and listen to basic, run-of-the-mill French with reasonable success. I don't even know why I want to be good at French. It'd be of very little practical use to me.