Language Learners

Reyzadren said:
I tried learning Spanish in my free time previously, and somehow I was able to manage a simple conversation recently. Though, I think motivation plays a great factor whenever choosing to learn any foreign language, in my case, I decided it to be either Spanish or Arabic.

After going through the basic words and grammar from a textbook, at a certain point past a vocabulary limit in one's head, I felt that the best way to proceed next was to just start watching telenovelas :)
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Arabic is also cool! Comes with the cost of learning an entire new alphabet and understanding how to read it, but it's doable. I wish I could help you out, but my native language is Persian.

I'm not sure if telenovelas would fare well, seeing they use quite dramatic language.
 
Hullo, everyone. Right now I can speak Engish and Spanish very well. I tried learning German a year ago, took 3 months of lessons and they were cool, I learned "a lot" but I'm by no means fluent on the language yet. Even a simple conversation is hard for me :c

But on April I'll retake German lessons, and also take French probably (I have this special "offer" where I can take two languages at my college for free, and I'm not gonna let it go to waste). I'm excited for that!
 
Svartulv said:
Hullo, everyone. Right now I can speak Engish and Spanish very well. I tried learning German a year ago, took 3 months of lessons and they were cool, I learned "a lot" but I'm by no means fluent on the language yet. Even a simple conversation is hard for me :c

But on April I'll retake German lessons, and also take French probably (I have this special "offer" where I can take two languages at my college for free, and I'm not gonna let it go to waste). I'm excited for that!
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Do you pay per course you're taking? And sounds exciting!
 
BlazingCobaltX said:
Arabic is also cool! Comes with the cost of learning an entire new alphabet and understanding how to read it, but it's doable. I wish I could help you out, but my native language is Persian.

I'm not sure if telenovelas would fare well, seeing they use quite dramatic language.
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Oh, don't get me wrong, I think the Arabic script is easy, but the annoying and difficult part is that the vowels are not written, even when vowels technically exist in Arabic.

It's like textspeak. Easy if you already know how the word is pronounced beforehand, but almost borderline stupid to predict where the vowels are for a new learner :/
 
Throw me down for Spanish :)
 
Reyzadren said:
Oh, don't get me wrong, I think the Arabic script is easy, but the annoying and difficult part is that the vowels are not written, even when vowels technically exist in Arabic.

It's like textspeak. Easy if you already know how the word is pronounced beforehand, but almost borderline stupid to predict where the vowels are for a new learner :/
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No I get you! That's exactly how I experienced learning to read Persian, too; I clung onto the words I knew from speaking until I got the hang on how to predict the vowels. I get it right 90% of the time now, but it definitely helps that I'm a native speaker. :) A friend of mine learned Persian (and later Arabic) back in high school years ago and with a looot of practicing he got it down - before I did actually!

I don't know about Arabic, but Persian script and speech are actually quite different from each other. In speech a lot of vowels and words are lumped together and often sounds very different from reading written sentences aloud. That makes it very tricky to get down IMO.
 
Oh haha I noticed a small mistake in the OP: I'm not learning Italian but Japanese. :)
 
BlazingCobaltX said:
Do you pay per course you're taking? And sounds exciting!
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Well, I study in Venezuela, so here public education is pretty much free (as in beer). I am allowed to take one language course as an elective course each term, but it depends on availability of professors and schedule, so far last two terms I haven't been able to enroll in a course because those I'm interested in haven't opened, but next term all the "Language 101" will be offered. My college also offers additional language courses that are not for enrolled undergraduate students, but for the general public, they are paid, but since I'm part of the staff of a student group, I can take one language course for free. So, I'd be taking one as an undergraduate student and one as an outsider. So I have to choose!

The whole range of courses offered are: English (which I already know), German (I already took the first level as an undergrad student), Chinese, Japanese, French and Italian.
 
I'm not sure about my plan to continue following Spanish after this course ends (in a few weeks). I suddenly feel less optimistic about the idea, but that might just be because of my current insomnia and extreme lack of sleep.

The current course has been very fruitful, but at the same time it's very very intense and kind of gets in the way of my mandatory courses. The exams for this course are earlier than the regular courses and that disrupts my activities for my other courses. Due to the weekly assignments and insane tempo, along with other mandatory things, I have been very restless and just tired the past few weeks. I don't want to be dead tired like I'm now for the next few months, and that's what I fear most if I continue. As much as I like studying Spanish, and I'm really gaining something from this, I don't want to be a lifeless zombie until the end of the semester. I'm too young to be zombified like this lol.

Svartulv said:
Well, I study in Venezuela, so here public education is pretty much free (as in beer). I am allowed to take one language course as an elective course each term, but it depends on availability of professors and schedule, so far last two terms I haven't been able to enroll in a course because those I'm interested in haven't opened, but next term all the "Language 101" will be offered. My college also offers additional language courses that are not for enrolled undergraduate students, but for the general public, they are paid, but since I'm part of the staff of a student group, I can take one language course for free. So, I'd be taking one as an undergraduate student and one as an outsider. So I have to choose!

The whole range of courses offered are: English (which I already know), German (I already took the first level as an undergrad student), Chinese, Japanese, French and Italian.
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Nice deal! I hope the courses will be very effective. :)
 
So after I posted this I had a dream the same night telling me I should quit the course, after which my decision was effectively taken. :p I've been feeling more rested knowing I don't have to hand in 1000 assignments a week again and already have found more time to do fun stuff for myself. Tonight I will do my last video session and after that I will email my teachers that I'll quit the course.

How is everyone else doing?
 
lmao spanish nearly kicked my ass this semester so i'm no longer thinking about minoring in it.
 
my spanish final is coming up

i just wish there wasnt an oral aspect to it

I'm pretty good at writing, but Im not great at speaking. Its a mix of nervousness and not speaking well in general. I get screwed up with my english words when speaking sometimes... speaking in spanish just makes that worse. It wouldnt be nearly as bad if my nerves didnt break my concentration.
 
3 weeks away from completing my 2nd level of Japanese at my university. Right now I'm pretty good at understanding a child's level of grammatical structures (like I'm playing Moon in Japanese and I understand most of it, but granted I haven't been scrutinizing every line of dialogue). My reading can definitely improve; it annoys me how slow I read compared to how fast I am in English. I have a few hundred Kanji maybe memorized? It's hard to tell because on my Quizlet I have words instead of individual characters. But when I turned on the Kanji feature in Moon I had to pause every line 'cause there was another character I didn't know. So, I've got a long way to go still.

My confidence keeps screwing with my speaking. I try and study for at least an hour every day (aside from homework). If anyone wants to practice, send me a VM :)
 
I suppose I'll join in on this since I'm 'learning' German right now by playing games.
Maybe not super effective but it's interesting and imo not boring compared to other methods.
 
I am learning German on Duolingo. Once I reach a high enough level, I might enroll for a course in University or some private institution (my brother is taking private classes). I also intend to learn Gujarati (can already read it), Malayalam, Farsi and Japanese.
 
Trying to relearn Spanish since my city is like 22% Spanish-speaking
 
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