Μαθαίνω ελληνικά. - I am learning Greek.
I am at the point of being able to read Greek, introduce myself, ask and respond to “how are you” and how to say “I am still learning Greek can we speak English”. haha
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Currently taking Japanese classes for fun. I’m about two years in and can have very basic conversations.
Took three years of German 20+ years ago and have German friends (and read German lemmy) so can practice sometimes.
I’m terrible at all of them and not that great at English either. I tend to “vomit language” moreso than speak well.
I’m learning French, when I remember to. I did not put too much effort into it until now, because I understand a lot from articles, conversations, youtube videos. It is similar to Spanish, which I learnt up to native level I guess, also mostly speaking without a foreign accent. But back to French, I find it very hard to write it, so many accents and ‘s and letters that are not read. I have what they call a “musical ear”, so I do distinguish a lot of sound variations and tones, but the writing in French is brutal.
Another language I will forever learn and not be able to get to it as with my Spanish or English is German. I mess up the articles all the time, I am sure, but I just keep going. I am perfectly comfortable reading German literature or having a conversation, but it bothers me that after so much time being exposed to it, I still make poor choices of articles.
I started at some point learning Portuguese, but I found it frustrating that it was so similar to Spanish, all the words would come in Spanish in my mind.
If I could, I would love to also know Greek, Danish, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic and many others probably.
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I’m learning Irish. My schedule is crazy busy, but I do a lot of driving for work so I listen to Irish speaking lessons. I also do this only while I’m on the road because my Irish boyfriend has no idea I’m doing this so I can speak Irish on our wedding day.
I can say things like where I’ve been yesterday, where I am today, where I’ll be tomorrow, what are you doing, what were you doing, it was great craic, I don’t know, I’d like a pint of Guinness, please.
I’ll probably get made fun of for speaking the Ulster dialect (his family is all Dublin), but my favourite instructor that I’ve found is from Belfast and at least I’ll be able to speak it. ☘️
I’m learning Python. Not bad, but I prefer C.
I have no experience in C, but I do like Python.
Rust is calling to me
I’ve been learning Portuguese for well over two years now. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on sentence building. The grammar of verb tense is sometimes still somewhat confusing and I think I’ve got a lot of words to learn still.
But if I read posts on Lemmy in Brazilian Portuguese, I kinda get the gist of it.
What made you decide to learn Portuguese?
Portugal is a lovely country and I’ve decided to go visiting it a lot in my life. I feel more comfortable abroad if I at least kind of speak the language. English and German are no issue for me, French goes in a pinch so I’m pretty comfortable in western Europe but I’d like to be more comfortable with the Mediterranean languages. In due time I might try learning Italian as well.
こんにちは！日本語を勉強しています！
I’m 90 days into learning Japanese. Most of that has been learning kana and I’m now working on kanji and grammar. It’s very different from English but I really like the way information is conveyed. I’m struggling with grammar stuff right now pretty bad, particularly conjugation, but it’ll click eventually. Also the lack of spaces is definitely something to get used to.
Watashi no nihongo wa warui desu yo.
Watashi mo, but getting better every day.
What tools are you using to study?
I started with Duolingo and while it has all the regular duo problems, I think it actually does a good job with the kana stuff. You can turn off the Romaji too, forcing yourself to read. It doesn’t teach grammar, though, so I bought Genki Vol 1, working my way through that, and wotaku.wiki has a lot of good resources.
I really like the Cure Dolly stuff for grammar (though she can be difficult to understand, use the youtube transcripts or if you prefer reading a book someone helpfully wrote it all up). Her approach is totally different from the Genki methods, but I find it easier to understand.
I am also using Anki with the Kaishi 1.5k Kanji deck for kanji and vocabulary. This is honestly pretty painful, I’ve been doing it for like 10 days now and I feel like I’m doing badly every time, but I am improving. I could probably stand to study the radical stuff to understand more how the kanji is constructed but I haven’t found a good resource for that just yet.
I’ve been learning Dutch, since the Netherlands seems like a nice place to go if I ever have to flee the US. Thinking about joining some Dutch communities here so I can get more “natural” language exposure.
I’ve been learning Japanese for a long time now. The funny thing is that I started at the wrong end by learning kanji first and then moving onto grammar and vocabulary in that order. Avoid what I did unless you want to be proficient at reading it without understanding it!
Although not all is lost, because I’m getting used to reading news and Wikipedia articles without much aid or effort anymore, and spoken Japanese is slowly getting easier. Understanding it is still proving to be a bitch from time to time but that’s on me!
Btw, does anyone know of great websites to read Japanese? I browse Gigazine.net quite a bit and many news outlets, but I’d like to mix it up and move away from politics and news in general. I’m still a bit shy about online forums, but maybe I should do that next.
Kanji first sounds pretty good to me. You didn’t feel like it worked well?
I went through Genki I with Kanji mostly sidelined, and I felt like I wished I’d known Kanji better first. Having to look up how to write every character is a drag, and I don’t think using kana is a much better alternative.
You say you could read but not understand… I feel like that’s a step up from the reverse! (That being, “I’d totally understand thus if I could read it”) And I find that learning Kanji now is making it way faster to remember vocab.
I guess the lesson is just that it’s all important, skipping or putting off any of it doesn’t work so well.
I know you said transition away from news sites but Easynhk.com is always a staple
Twitter is honestly great since there’s so much variety, not to mention there’s a lot of artists who’ll post full chapters of manga. You just have to curate who you follow to avoid musk stuff.
I’d also say just watch some YouTube videos. It’s a good way to practice listening and most YouTubers will personally subtitle their videos as well so you can follow along while reading. A particular favorite way for me is to watch videos of Japanese people travelling/living in America/English speaking places. It’s fun seeing their experiences with everyday stuff for us; a channel I watch a lot is called Kira Kira USA. They post videos frequently, use a lot of day to day Japanese, and get to see viewpoints from the various family members.
Good luck!
Thank you for that! Kira Kira USA sounds a lot like what I’m looking for. I really liked Miku’s Real Japanese Pocast so this is right up my alley. Hehe
Tried learning Spanish in school but I never really had a reason to stick with it or keep going. Recently started relearning some vocab and grammar and phrases because there are places I’d like to visit that would be much easier with even just some basic phrases and books I’d like to read in the author’s original words and phrases.
はい、私は日本語勉強します。(Yes, I’m studying Japanese.) I’ve been doing it for the past year but not consistently. I can say and understand basic phrases but I’m far from being able to hold a conversation.
Japanese is a language I have on the burner to learn. I have had a full course on it for years but never got around to getting beyond basic greetings.
After I am done learning Greek, I am going to refresh and learn more French, and then Japanese is next because I love Anime and Manga and want to watch/read it as it should be.
That’s cool being to speak and understand multiple languages. I started learning it because I think it sounds neat when people speak it. Plus, I want to go there one day for a visit and I don’t want to be a typical 外人 (Foreigner) haha
I’m learning swedish, and have been on and off for almost ten years now. I can read a book in swedish on my kindle thanks to the built in dictionary, but it is so rare that I can talk to someone in swedish that i almost never do it. Listening to Swedish people in real life gets confusing fast as well, as I am just not used to the different pronunciations and the speed i need to process stuff at
That is one of the harder things I have noticed about learning language in general. There is always a clear difference between how a language “should be spoken” and how it actually is in practice with native speakers.
I’m about a month into learning Mandarin Chinese. I expected the character set to be the challenge but really it has been the inflection and intonation that I’ve had the hardest time with so far.
What got you interested in Mandarin?
Honestly I love language and languages in general, so I rarely need an excuse to go study one haha.
That said, Mandarin Chinese was attractive to me for a few reasons.
Firstly, a LOT of people in this world speak it, so it has high utility potential and may even come in handy for me professionally.
Secondly, I think the culture and history of China is interesting and that my default lens for it is likely heavily biased. I’ve always found that reading source material and opposing positions or narratives has helped me understand the truth of a matter with more (albeit still imperfect) clarity.
A few years ago I considered learning Greek. Abandoned the plan because Greek has the triple whammy:
- quite a hard language, with tricky grammar and different alphabet (phonetics easy tho)
- only spoken in one small country - not very useful (tho good for general culture - 6% of English lexicon comes from Greek)
- the locals all speak English (coz tourism) so you’ll have trouble getting a chance to progress
So: good luck.
I found the alphabet and grammar easy to understand personally, which is why I am able to read before I can do basically anything else.
Greek is spoken in Greece and numerous other countries because of the Greek diasporas in the world.
Coming from a Greek family, while the locals may speak English they generally prefer to and appreciate speaking in Greek especially in Greece.
Thank you for the well wishes.
I’m learning Japanese. On and off for years, but mainly the last couple. I’m still only at the advanced beginner stage, trying to work on my Kanji, reading, and listening.
Also learning Spanish, but I feel like I’m in a better spot with it. I took classes in school and have a decent foundation, just need way more practice. It’s on the backburner since I’d rather build on my Japanese.
For fans of this thread/topic, check out !languagelearning@sopuli.xyz . They have a weekly thread for progress and a few active folks. Lemmy also has more specific language learning communities that could stand to be more active.
I always find it amusing when I meet people who speak all three languages I do: English, Spanish, and Japanese. Well, admittedly, I also know a bit of French, but it’s so similar to Spanish that it feels like cheating to understand so much with so little investment. So yeah, when are you learning French next? 😆
Coincidentally, I speak English, French and Japanese, and am learning Spanish (and I learned German and Sesotho in the distant past). I cheated, however all except Spanish were learned at least partially by immersion in places where they speak it.
LOL, I did take a semester of French in high school.
I guess it makes sense as an overlap - North America and Europe both have primarily English, Spanish, and French speakers in close vicinity. And Japanese cultural exports are just really popular.
Thanks for the suggestion!
