Skill or talent to learn Asian Languages? What is your gift?

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Sarcastic_Name:

I think it's amazing that you can pronounce foreign words, yet you failed both French and Spanish. There have been people who have done very poorly in high school, but extremely well in their careers. I guess it depends on someone's certain level of expertise.

I have some talent; it's just that mine aren't exactly languages. I'm trying to find time to take German in my "German for Dummies" book, but I haven't been able to fully learn German (I do know a little). Some of my talents include athletic ability (running; I think this is so because some people with Asperger's aren't as sensitive to pain, but that's probably not the case). I also have a small eye for the arts (I like drawing and music, especially the trombone). I could spell a little descently but I'm not sure if that counts. I'm not sure that I have any skills that are considered as savant; I have some skill, but they do need to be developed and worked on a little more. I'm definietely not good at Asian languages (of course I haven't tried yet because I'm already learning one, and I have to start taking a language they offer at school to get languages credit, which has to be Spanish).

Thanks!

You're welcome.

Striking people as being British without even trying.

I always do well with languages. Latin is my second language, I guess; I tutor Latin students and translated the pope's funeral services and the installation of the new pope for one of the American networks. My Anglo-Saxon and Middle English are pretty good; French, German, and Classical Greek are adequate. Yeah, I can learn languages in a snap, but I can't walk through the house without banging into something.

You can speak Latin!? You must teach me!! !

GA

Happy to do so. There are free online Latin courses which I can help you with. I'll get back to you later with details. No charge for my services to WrongPlanet members. I can read and write Latin, and can speak Church Latin very well.

Latin? That would be very useful for college. I wonder what would happen if people started speaking Latin as a fluent language again? I don't know, it would be interesting.

Well, there's no way to spell "shizzle" in Classical Latin.

There is a Living Latin movement out there to do just that: start speaking it as a living language. Of course, that's happened before, and we got Italian, Spanish, French, Rumanian, etc.

Japanese language seems easy in the it has a "read it as it is" one letter, one sound approach. I think it is. The hard part of Japanese for me is the fact that what you say depends on who you are, and who you are talking too. Such as youth, elders, formality, informality. Another hard part is how to use the postposition markers to determine topic, subject, object, etc.

Then of course there is the kana (hiragana, katakana) and kanji. Kana doesn't seem to hard, just a lot to remember.

Anybody use Google Maps? They offer maps on satellite views of Japan now. Only thing is the readings are in Japanese. Anyone try to read what is says? Anyone try to locate a place by typing it in the bar?

I've been helping a friend of mine study Japanese in her spare time a little, but it seems like they have one way of writing that has the alphabet-type look to it. It (I forgot the name) is comprised of sylables that each have a sound associated with them. My Japanese name, Namiko, would be divided as such: Na-mi-ko. There is no "L" in Japanese, unlike English. One of the other forms of Japanese looks more like Chinese, where one or two main symbols make up a complete word, sometimes what would end up being a long word if spelled out with the alphabet system.

I read in Romaji also. actually typing in romaji and then pressing enter will then bring out the kanji and kana texts.

The only other thing I know of is mora (plural: morae) in which the syllables (the kana sounds) are broken up and go by pitch rather than stress.

like ko-n-ni-chi-wa, or sa-yo-u-na-ra, or to-u-kyo-u. But knowing where the highest and lowest tones are can be a challenge.