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Learning a New Language

BlazingLink

Sergeant Serious
    • 135
    Posts
    16
    Years
    Hey all!

    As someone who is currently learning two languages, French (school) and Japanese (self taught), I was curious.

    What are your opinions on learning a new language? Is it worth the time and hassle? Does it improve your native language skills?
     
    Totodile42 said:
    At school I learnt German, and I'd like to learn Japanese, but it seems that I'd lose patience half way through and give up.
    Click to expand...

    Personally, I'm not finding Japanese to be too difficult. True, at the start it's a pain cause of the new alphabet(s), but once you can associate characters with sounds, it's just like any other language.
     
    I think there's no reason not to learn another language, sure it requires, effort, but it is still knowledge and I think any sort of knowledge is beneficial to people. The fact is people around the world speak different languages, so learning others is required for people to understand each other and communicate. I took Italian in High School, its a lovely language to speak and hear. Im interested in learning Japanese just because though Ive heard its a bit difficult. Languages seem to be one of my strengths as well.
     
    Worth it. Definitely. But you have to make enough of a commitment to it to get something out of it. There's a threshold up to which you don't really know enough to be any better than a Google translation so in a practical sense that isn't worth the effort, but if you put your mind to it (and make the time) it's not long before you know quite a bit.

    I don't think learning another language helps you with your own language exactly, not unless you have some knowledge of linguistics because unless your native language and the one you're learning are really similar you're going to have some trouble with sentence structure, pronunciation, etc.

    Wild Entei said:
    I think there's no point in learning a new language unless you really like that language or you will go to a country where it is main language.
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    I think this is partially true. If, for instance, you're made to learn French in school and you don't really care about it you probably won't use the French you learn. If you had an interest in France you'd more likely care more about learning the language. But there is also the possibility that you develop an interest in the culture as you're learning the language.
     
    Being that I already am speaking Chinese and English, 60% of all languages are at least distantly familiar to me. I also have been picking up phrases from all languages (like "jag är" from Swedish and "Bog" from Polish/Slavic languages) so languages are no problem for me.

    I don't see how people can find languages hard - just think about every phrase you hear. It'll be confusing at first, but you'll find that just listening can be very helpful. Sure, I may comprehend anime as slow as a snail, but instead of relying on dubs or subtitles, I can now understand for myself certain words and phrases.

    Besides, languages have no function in the real world other than to communicate ideas, and having multiple languages is why we have wars, inequality, and everything bad. So learning every language in the world is an integral part of learning to live in peace. If only every political leader in the world could speak every language, we wouldn't have misunderstandings. Sure, some people will still need wars, but if we just listen to each other, we can understand that we are not that different, though we may be of different nationalities. Some people will still need conflicts, but hey. That's what makes the world fun, isn't it? A world with peace and nothing but peace would be a boring one. And a world with nothing but war and destruction would be a boring one too.

    Language is a manifestation of evil. It is a product of the never-ending pride of humanity. It separates us, because we have used it as a way to block us from the ones we deem lower than us. Sure, Babel is an example of what could happen if we only had one language, but it is pride that caused them to do that, and have God create languages. And in our evil, we used it as a way to manifest our pride.

    That's why I think languages are an abomination, and should be destroyed. And what better way to destroy the enemy by learning their tactics?

    Whew, I'm not sure if I went too off-topic here, but lately I've been thinking about languages, and that's what I concluded to be the basis of language. None of it is too coherent, but that is honestly my opinion of language. It's a love-hate relationship, one that's a hard thing to explain, but I must profess to the world the truth of it. I may not do a perfect job and some parts may be untrue, but who is to say that I'm completely wrong?

    So enjoy yer languages :) I have no idea if my statement is understandable, so good luck.
     
    I love languages. I actually used to own a business centered on them. I speak Dutch (native language), Russian, and English. After I get a little more comfortable in Russian, I'm planning on refreshing my Spanish and picking up Chinese or Japanese.

    Learning languages improves your native language skills, helps stave off things like dementia, and helps you communicate with others. What's not to love?

    Not only that, languages give you more knowledge. I love knowledge and learning, anything to help me grow as a person. So, languages are great in my book. :)
     
    I think it's worth it. I took french in highschool and plan on taking it in college in the hopes of becoming trilingual (Spanish is my first language, and english is my second).
    I'm also interested in Italian,Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Korean.
    Also studies say knowing another language can help one's learning ability.
     
    This topic caught my attention right away.


    I speak two languages - Spanish (1st language, since my grandma, my mom and dad are from Mexico) - living in the USA I also speak English.


    After watching a few Pokemon episodes in the native Japanese - I fell in love with the language, and now I'm deciding to try and learn the language. Which I have found to be extremely difficult. I won't give up.

    I also don't mind learning a few simple phrases in many other languages either.
     
    I can obviously speak English, I learned a tiny bit of French and I'm currently self-teaching Japanese! I am hoping to learn a bit of Latin, Russian or Chinese in the future.
    I do believe learning a new language is good, but I suppose it's how the person who is learning the language views it. >w<
     
    I don't have much to add, but it's something for the OP. I've been told that it's more efficient to learn Japanese while living there. Even college classes don't expand upon certain aspects of the language. Of course you'll need some basic understanding of the language before even considering this. (Assuming you even want to.)
     
    Mothman said:
    I don't have much to add, but it's something for the OP. I've been told that it's more efficient to learn Japanese while living there. Even college classes don't expand upon certain aspects of the language. Of course you'll need some basic understanding of the language before even considering this. (Assuming you even want to.)
    Click to expand...
    Just gonna say this is totally true from my personal experience. You can teach yourself a lot, learn a lot from classes, but nothing compares to immersing yourself in a language like being in a place where it's dominant.
     
    My primary language is English and at least a basic level (maybe intermediate) of Spanish. Never became fluent in Spanish because by the time I finished my requirement, I lost interest. I can also read/write Spanish better than I can speak it.

    Me gusta escuchar a musica, nadar, y jugar videojuegos. Vivo en Monterey, California en los estados unidos. Tengo veintiun años y tengo una hermana. Mi hermana tiene dieciocho años. Estoy muy divertido y trabajado, pero irritable a veces. Mis groupos músicales favoritos son Sepultura, Machine Head, y Slayer. Son muy buenos.

    Honestly, it is useful to learn another language at least at a basic level, but it's a waste of time to be fluent unless you are truly interested in it or if it's going to serve some extremely practical use for you. As far as interest goes, I have thought about studying Mandarin Chinese recently. German as well. Also, Latin, if nothing else than because apparently speaking a language tons of people used to speak makes you look smart for some reason.
     
    Last edited:
    My native language is English, and I did learn French when I was in school. But, it's not enough to have a good conversation. I forgot most of it now.
    I did a small amount of Spanish in college, but, because I was ill over the new year, I was unable to continue it.

    There is a lot of languages that I want to learn also. Here's the list: French, Spanish, German, Greek, Croat, Czech, Russian, Armenian, Georgian, Chinese, and Japanese.

    I know, that is a lot.
     
    Really wanna learn French. Currently I only speak English along with a bit of Spanish, and I've heard that as long as you have a basic knowledge of those languages then French comes easily. So that's good I guess. Aside from that, I'd like to learn some Portuguese or German, though those are more distant then the French.
     
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