Lorem Ipsum - The Language Club!

[droomph]

Lorem ipsum

---

and more linguistics

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Erm, you know what a language is, right? I hope you do. Otherwise…well, anyways, we talk about them. Anything! Word roots, word origins, how people speak in everyday life in your country, whatever!

It doesn't have to be "…and then you take the past participle and separate it from the…" and sentence labeling - it's not the grammar club, after all. Also, it's not school. At all. (But keep in mind, it can be, if you want!) Anything goes, as long as language is involved!

Rules of the Gentlemanly Style

• First, remember the rules of the establishment that you do your business in. You are at their mercy.
• Remember to speak about whatever your fellow establishment members are speaking of.
• Okay we can drop this charade of fanciness now okay?
• If you want to start a new topic, wait until the current one has been dead for a reasonable amount of time (say, 45 minutes?), or carefully guide the topic there like the sneaky turtle that you are.
• Respect. Also cookies. I can't remember which.
• Be really welcoming to new members! If you don't want to greet them in word, at least like their first post in this thread. Of course, this is more of a suggestion than a requirement.

What's up with us!

Currently…

• Standard language accents | Danish…it sounds very weird.

In the past…

• Generic first topic | What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them? Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?

Language of the Week

• April 2013 | Scandinavian Languages (Danish, Bokmål, Norwegian, Swedish)
• August 2013 | Japanese, Korean
• September 2013 | Welsh

Our Friends
(listed in alphabetical order because this is a language club after all)

• droomph
• 恐竜の女王
• Catalyst.
• MKGirlism
• Andrew
• hiinotama
• Keyblade
• 루기아
• AirSabin Bubblun
• Magic Fox
• SinfulGuroRose
• コナンくん
• EGKangaroo
• Vin_Prismriver
• Somniac
• SS01
• Virtual Headache
• Axeliira
• Synerjee
• Cherrim
• Genesis
• Omicron
• Moogles
• Kirito-kun
• LaVida
• Elixir.
• BlahISuck
• Sheep
• Olli
• Seawheels
• R.F.

Cool stuff!

Resources
French

• Interglot.com (conjugation dictionary)

German

• BEOLINGUS TU Chemnitz (dictionary)
• dict.leo.org (dictionary)

Japanese

• Denshi Jisho (dictionary)
• NHK NEWS WEB EASY (reading practice)
• Tofugu
• /r/LearnJapanese
• Memrise Japanese

Korean

• How To Study Korean (study)

Mandarin

• Mindsnacks: Mandarin (app)

Credits to…

• Background image (source)

i'm staying here for the rest of my life

 

[Cherrim]

I will join! n_n

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
The only language I speak is English (because it is my first language). I know decent French and acceptable Japanese, but I've never needed to speak them so I'm not anywhere near conversational. I can consume media in those languages though so I don't consider myself a total beginner or anything. (And if I were dropped in a French-speaking area, I don't think it would take long for me to pick it up.)

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I don't study French at all but for Japanese, which I'm always learning, I like to lurk the /r/LearnJapanese subreddit. I've also heard good things about TextFugu and while I can't vouch for them, I'm really enjoying one of their spinoffs WaniKani which is for memorizing kanji using mnemonics. It's in closed beta right now but you can still submit your email to get in, I think. (It does require prior knowledge of hiragana and katakana though.) Also good for reading practise is News Web Easy which is a site run by the NHK with full furigana. It's pretty much the news but in simplified Japanese for kids, but it works pretty well for Japanese-learning students too. :P

 

[droomph]

I will join! n_n

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
The only language I speak is English (because it is my first language). I know decent French and acceptable Japanese, but I've never needed to speak them so I'm not anywhere near conversational. I can consume media in those languages though so I don't consider myself a total beginner or anything. (And if I were dropped in a French-speaking area, I don't think it would take long for me to pick it up.)

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I don't study French at all but for Japanese, which I'm always learning, I like to lurk the /r/LearnJapanese subreddit. I've also heard good things about TextFugu and while I can't vouch for them, I'm really enjoying one of their spinoffs WaniKani which is for memorizing kanji using mnemonics. It's in closed beta right now but you can still submit your email to get in, I think. (It does require prior knowledge of hiragana and katakana though.) Also good for reading practise is News Web Easy which is a site run by the NHK with full furigana. It's pretty much the news but in simplified Japanese for kids, but it works pretty well for Japanese-learning students too. :P

hi!!!!! um

I've put up everything you said that I can confirm, but I'm going to have to ask you about the Wanikani thing…can you please explain a bit more? :P I don't know how to "sign up", and can't access it :(

As for me, you can check out my teacher's blog for fun, she sometimes puts up worksheets in German you can try :P

sorry for the rushed reply :[ it's late lol. I'll read more carefully tomorrow when I have time :)

 

[Cherrim]

Ah, yeah, like I said it's still in closed beta so you have to put your name in and when they open up more spots, they grant you access but if anyone is learning Japanese I recommend it 100%. It teaches you the radicals and then has you build kanji and then vocabulary out of them from the ground up. Each time you learn something, you learn a story or visual to go with it to help you remember and then you get reviewed on it later. It starts out frequently (reviews every 4 hours) and as you get better and get things correct more often, they show up less and less because that's how memorization works best. In the meantime you're ranking up and learning more basics and more things based on what you already learnt. It is paid once you past the first couple levels though so it does require some dedication, but it's one of those things you'll know if it's worth it within the first few days. Might not be worth putting on the resource list, but if anyone is learning Japanese and wants to check out a good way to memorize kanji, WaniKani is worth checking out. n_n;

Which reminds me!

Another good site like that for all languages is Memrise. It uses a lot of the techniques I mentioned for WaniKani except there are a whole bunch of things to memorize. It works really well if you're looking to expand your vocabulary since there are tons of vocab sets, either random common words or weather terminology, etc. Once you've "planted seeds" in your memory and learnt the words, the site tracks your progress and at various intervals, you go back and "water" the seeds so they'll grow. It's important to learn things like grammar and pronunciation and stuff when you learn languages but a lot of people plateau after that because it's really hard to go out there and expand your vocabulary. Memrise is kind of a brute force way to do it but hey, it works. :P

 

[droomph]

Ah, yeah, like I said it's still in closed beta so you have to put your name in and when they open up more spots, they grant you access but if anyone is learning Japanese I recommend it 100%. It teaches you the radicals and then has you build kanji and then vocabulary out of them from the ground up. Each time you learn something, you learn a story or visual to go with it to help you remember and then you get reviewed on it later. It starts out frequently (reviews every 4 hours) and as you get better and get things correct more often, they show up less and less because that's how memorization works best. In the meantime you're ranking up and learning more basics and more things based on what you already learnt. It is paid once you past the first couple levels though so it does require some dedication, but it's one of those things you'll know if it's worth it within the first few days. Might not be worth putting on the resource list, but if anyone is learning Japanese and wants to check out a good way to memorize kanji, WaniKani is worth checking out. n_n;

Which reminds me!

Another good site like that for all languages is Memrise. It uses a lot of the techniques I mentioned for WaniKani except there are a whole bunch of things to memorize. It works really well if you're looking to expand your vocabulary since there are tons of vocab sets, either random common words or weather terminology, etc. Once you've "planted seeds" in your memory and learnt the words, the site tracks your progress and at various intervals, you go back and "water" the seeds so they'll grow. It's important to learn things like grammar and pronunciation and stuff when you learn languages but a lot of people plateau after that because it's really hard to go out there and expand your vocabulary. Memrise is kind of a brute force way to do it but hey, it works. :P

Lol I don't know about that, but it sounds pretty cool.

As for learning Kanji, I don't know how I do it personally…I'm Chinese, so the first few come to me naturally, and I can just pick up on them. Though…I do try and write the Kanji and words down on any surface I can legally write it on. Lately I've been practicing "post office" (郵便局) and "parking lot" (駐車場) for no real reason whatsoever :P it's actually kinda hypnotizing eventually once you stop having to reference the structure. I kinda get sucked into the more complicated ones (鋤, for example. It's super dense in 12 point font so I like it :P) because it's almost an art to fit them into a square!

…and this goes for any not direct-alphabet language :) Chinese and Korean also fall into the category with Kanji.

 

[Kirito-kun]

Username: Kirito-kun
Languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino (My Native Language)
I am not fluent in Chinese and Spanish, and I love Anime so I want to know Japanese like the rest of the Otakus. English is the International Language, so most people knows it, and Filipino because I am a Pinoy.

 

[droomph]

a, ejn noi frojinn

Username: Kirito-kun
Languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino (My Native Language)
I am not fluent in Chinese and Spanish, and I love Anime so I want to know Japanese like the rest of the Otakus. English is the International Language, so most people knows it, and Filipino because I am a Pinoy.

So, you seem like someone who's got their stuff down!

About the Chinese, which dialect? I'm wondering because there's about fifty different languages and they're all called "Chinese"…so…:)

And about the Chinese and Spanish, about how much do you speak? Can you at least get by, or otherwise where are you?

Otherwise I think Filipino sounds kinda calm. Or like a murmur. I can't tell half the time…there's just too many "n" sounds in there :P I'm interested in learning that too, though I haven't found the time.

 

[EGKangaroo]

Aha! Language clubs! Sweet. :3 I would love to join, since I have a strong interest in linguistics and stuff.

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
I speak both English and Dutch. I've grown up with both, so I guess I could say I am bilingual. I'm Dutch-born so I use Dutch most frequently at school and with my family. I sometimes speak English with some of my family, and I have a friend from Scotland whom I talk to in English a lot. English is also my main language when I write stuff on the internet, like right now, and when I speak to a few of my classmates. English has sorta replaced Dutch as my main language, and I'd be inclined to call it my first language, but can't because I learnt it when I was 6. Such a shame.

I also am learning French. It's compulsory for the form of education I have to learn at least 2 foreign languages, and English had to be one of them. The other one was a choice between German and French. Now, since speaking 3 West Germanic languages seemed horribly inefficient, I decided to broaden my vision and went with French instead (German article conjugation may have had something to do with it too). I suck at French (Thanks a lot, stupid millions of conjugation tables).

I want to learn some other languages sometime. A Nordic language like Norwegian (probably Bokmål) would be pretty cool, because it isn't just unintelligible guttural sounds like Danish, and it doesn't have 25 or so different conjugation tables for article usage like Swedish. But then it -is- tonal, and I still haven't figured out a systematic approach to that yet.

What are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I like using interglot.com. It helps me with memorising the quadrazillion conjugation tables I have to keep in mind if I want to write a simple sentence in French (Again, thanks a lot, you stupid conjugation tables). It acts as both a translator, as well as gives you all possible inflections for it.

And if it hasn't dawned to anyone yet. I dislike languages that overflow with conjugation tables.

 

[droomph]

i have been sleeeeping and it has not done good for my concentration

Aha! Language clubs! Sweet. :3 I would love to join, since I have a strong interest in linguistics and stuff.

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
I speak both English and Dutch. I've grown up with both, so I guess I could say I am bilingual. I'm Dutch-born so I use Dutch most frequently at school and with my family. I sometimes speak English with some of my family, and I have a friend from Scotland whom I talk to in English a lot. English is also my main language when I write stuff on the internet, like right now, and when I speak to a few of my classmates. English has sorta replaced Dutch as my main language, and I'd be inclined to call it my first language, but can't because I learnt it when I was 6. Such a shame.

I also am learning French. It's compulsory for the form of education I have to learn at least 2 foreign languages, and English had to be one of them. The other one was a choice between German and French. Now, since speaking 3 West Germanic languages seemed horribly inefficient, I decided to broaden my vision and went with French instead (German article conjugation may have had something to do with it too). I suck at French (Thanks a lot, stupid millions of conjugation tables).

I want to learn some other languages sometime. A Nordic language like Norwegian (probably Bokmål) would be pretty cool, because it isn't just unintelligible guttural sounds like Danish, and it doesn't have 25 or so different conjugation tables for article usage like Swedish. But then it -is- tonal, and I still haven't figured out a systematic approach to that yet.

What are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I like using interglot.com. It helps me with memorising the quadrazillion conjugation tables I have to keep in mind if I want to write a simple sentence in French (Again, thanks a lot, you stupid conjugation tables). It acts as both a translator, as well as gives you all possible inflections for it.

And if it hasn't dawned to anyone yet. I dislike languages that overflow with conjugation tables.

I think French (any language, actually) is easy once you need it. But oh well :\

And scandinavian is pretty easy for me because I'm Chinese so it's not that hard ;p

And why is Danish so bad? I mean listening from about the five clips I can find, it's not too chhhhhhhhhhhh-y like German or Arabic, although I kinda don't like the fact there's silent letters and the v is pronounced like a wh :( and everyone seems to dislike everyone over there. If you had to pick someone to hate, a more logical choice would be Finland. Just sayin'. You know, with the whole "you're not the same as me" thing…not racist. not racist at all.

And speaking of Arabic, I want to learn it :) people have said "it's so hard!", and so now I want to learn it even more :)

 

[EGKangaroo]

Danish is bad mostly because they have stød, and they omit just about half of all of their letters in speech. Not even the Danes understand Danish. It would certainly be easier for me to learn Bokmål over Danish. The v pronounced as wh is pretty much universal across the Nordic languages and that's hardly the thing that bothers me. And German at least is intelligible compared to Danish, a language that's literally like a German talking with a potato shoved down his throat. I had German classes for 4 years, and it's easier to understand them speaking, because the sound omissions aren't that far-flung and they don't have the grunty stød voices. This clip really exemplifies what Danish feels like speaking. (Also, I just dislike Danish. Not Denmark or its people.) The Danish number system is actually that bad too.


And Finnish is actually a very cool language, and most Finns I speak to happen to be cool people, so I dunno why I would hate Finland. Tolkien's experiences with the Finnish language were described once as "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me." I must say, I really do admire the grammatical structure of the Finnish languages, and those -inen, -ainen, and -oinen suffixes add to its aesthetics.

 

[Olli]

Heya! Sorry to bump in without signing up, but I just wanted to straighten some things out about the Danish language, since what I've seen so far has been kiiinda misleading ;p Droomph, if you feel like signing up should be a requirement for posting, just say so, and I'll edit it in :)

Danish is bad mostly because they have stød, and they omit just about half of all of their letters in speech. Not even the Danes understand Danish. It would certainly be easier for me to learn Bokmål over Danish. The v pronounced as wh is pretty much universal across the Nordic languages and that's hardly the thing that bothers me. And German at least is intelligible compared to Danish, a language that's literally like a German talking with a potato shoved down his throat. I had German classes for 4 years, and it's easier to understand them speaking, because the sound omissions aren't that far-flung and they don't have the grunty stød voices. This clip really exemplifies what Danish feels like speaking. (Also, I just dislike Danish. Not Denmark or its people.) The Danish number system is actually that bad too.

While I don't really like the language much myself, and while I agree that Danish isn't really the most enjoyable language to listen to, I still feel the need to point out how most of the facts in this post are either exaggerating or not true at all. Sure, we do have silent letters in our language, and they may be used rather frequently, but it's nowhere near half of them. The main two silent letters are d and h, whereas the silent h only applies to interrogatives, which is the same case as with English. The silent d is rather incovenient and unnecessary though, and does prove to be a bit of an obstacle when it comes to grammar ;) Then there are special cases, but the reason it appears as though a lot of the letters are omitted in speech, is because quite a few of the commonly used words do have silent letters in them.

As for the pronouncation of the letter v in Danish... while it may technically be the equivalent of the English wh, the pronouncation isn't quite the same. These are just nitpicks though.

Now, the rest of your points seem to all have been based on what that video showed, however there's just one major thing that you probably didn't realise, considering you aren't a native speaker of the language. It was all just a parody. Probably made because the language, to some extent, is like that, however it was just super exaggerated. Of course we understand the language ourselves, and if anyone were to forget one of all the words you can greet people with... :p No sane dane (lol) would speak like that, no matter where in the country they come from, so it definitely doesn't exemplify how it feels to speak Danish. If your opinion on the language was spawned from that video, I'd recommend searching a bit more, since that definitely isn't Danish. You may already have known that it was a parody, but still, not really the best example :/

But yeah, sorry if it feels like I'm jabbing at you, but I just feel like you were exaggerating just a bit ;)

 

[EGKangaroo]

It was intentional exaggeration obviously. I think you should know with me that I like to employ hyperboles and heavy doses of satire in my points. If I don't explicitly tell, and especially if I bring up a video that's an obvious parody, then it's safe to assume I was being ironic in demonstrating my point. German still hears a lot better than Danish, and definitely don't get the point that German is supposed to be creakier than Danish. I've obviously listened to real Danish, and it still bothers me to hear it. I also know the exact pronunciation of the v in Nordic languages, because I can read IPA transcriptions just fine. It's similar, indeed, but more akin to the Dutch w.

I am sorry if my irony doesn't translate well on the internet, but I have no idea how I could have made it more obvious than that.

 

[droomph]

Heya! Sorry to bump in without signing up, but I just wanted to straighten some things out about the Danish language, since what I've seen so far has been kiiinda misleading ;p Droomph, if you feel like signing up should be a requirement for posting, just say so, and I'll edit it in :)

je's okey :) I didn't include a sign-up sheet for a reason :P

I think I kinda put it on par with Mandarin Chinese. It's not the most beautiful language ever, but it's certainly interesting. Since besides the obvious exceptions of English and French, I've never seen a language with so many sighlentte letters.

But ð and v are just plain weird. not acceptiball. just like r.

And I read a couple things on Danish as a crash course to keep me informed, and I must say, do you really not recognize "egg" over "æg". That seems kinda weird, but then again I live in murrica where you can be half paralyzed, drunk, and have a foreign accent and still be understood.

 

[Virtual Headache]

A long time ago I used to have the same club here on PC so I think I should join.

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
German is my mother tongue. I had English, French and Latin in school. Out of those three I can only safely converse in English (even though I prefer writing and I'm not really used to talking in English). My French got rusty since I have finished school ages ago and haven't had any lessons since.
I also attended Japanese classes for a longer time, but stopped a while ago. Since this wasn't a school course I didn't put as much effort into it as I should have, but I think I still kept up with the stuff we learned pretty well. There was no time for learning kanji though, so I barely know any of those. If I compare my Japanese and my French it would probably be easier for me to hold a conversation in Japanese than in French.

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I don't really use any online tools since I currently don't learn any languages. Going to English forums has helped me improve a lot (especially my vocabulary). I wanted to try the same with French but it seems rather hard.
For Japanese, I once singed up at a kind of newsletter which would mail me a kanji and a grammar lesson every day. I'm going to try to find the link.

 

[droomph]

A long time ago I used to have the same club here on PC so I think I should join.

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
German is my mother tongue. I had English, French and Latin in school. Out of those three I can only safely converse in English (even though I prefer writing and I'm not really used to talking in English). My French got rusty since I have finished school ages ago and haven't had any lessons since.
I also attended Japanese classes for a longer time, but stopped a while ago. Since this wasn't a school course I didn't put as much effort into it as I should have, but I think I still kept up with the stuff we learned pretty well. There was no time for learning kanji though, so I barely know any of those. If I compare my Japanese and my French it would probably be easier for me to hold a conversation in Japanese than in French.

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I don't really use any online tools since I currently don't learn any languages. Going to English forums has helped me improve a lot (especially my vocabulary). I wanted to try the same with French but it seems rather hard.
For Japanese, I once singed up at a kind of newsletter which would mail me a kanji and a grammar lesson every day. I'm going to try to find the link.

Hey! So I assume you live in around Germany. Hmmmmmmm

Do you feel like learning any languages on your own? And if sooooooooooo which ones are you interested in?

…I'm sry I'm tired right now :(

 

[Virtual Headache]

I live in Austria.
On my own? Well, learning on your own is kinda hard, because you might not do it on a regular basis. After all, no one forces you to^^; This was also the problem with my Japanese classes. Even though I always attended them, there was nothing mandatory about them. So I often didn't memorize the stuff we learned the lesson before. I still didn't do that bad though. Another point about learning on your own is that there is no one to correct your mistakes. You could look for help online but when it comes to things like pronunciation, it's getting kinda hard. Learning in school was a good way to learn and homework also helped a lot.
As for the languages which would interest it me: Spanish, because it can be useful. But I'd also ,like to refresh/improve my French and Japanese. The problem with Japanese for me is though, that I don't really have mayn ways I could put it to use.

 

[droomph]

I live in Austria.
On my own? Well, learning on your own is kinda hard, because you might not do it on a regular basis. After all, no one forces you to^^; This was also the problem with my Japanese classes. Even though I always attended them, there was nothing mandatory about them. So I often didn't memorize the stuff we learned the lesson before. I still didn't do that bad though. Another point about learning on your own is that there is no one to correct your mistakes. You could look for help online but when it comes to things like pronunciation, it's getting kinda hard. Learning in school was a good way to learn and homework also helped a lot.
As for the languages which would interest it me: Spanish, because it can be useful. But I'd also ,like to refresh/improve my French and Japanese. The problem with Japanese for me is though, that I don't really have mayn ways I could put it to use.

I don't know…

I've always found languages easy, so I can't really get it, but I do understand that you aren't really under any pressure to learn :P I took Chinese school for about 6 years, and since the teachers were all so crappy, I didn't learn one thing from it honestly :\ It's about the teacher and how dedicated they make you feel honestly. If they make you their friend or make you respect them, you'll feel obligated to learn that stuff, just like you're in school or something.

So yeah try finding a friend or good friendly teacher, I honestly don't know how you'll do it, but you should try :)

 

[droomph]

okay then guys

what's a favorite made-up language of yours?

ANDDD if you have a life and don't have one, what do you think about made-up languages (called conlangs if you're gonna search it up)?

I personally like loglan/lojban because they're so logical and hard to learn, and those are two things that attract me to languages xp

 

[ソラ]

I will join :3

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
Well my first language is English afterall, I'm not very good at it, English was probably my worse subject in school. my 2nd is American Sign Language, I want to use this as my primary language, I am hard of hearing, I've been recently learning it in the community college here where I live, I am 6th level or learning 6th level, Elementary 1 - 3, and Intermediate 1 - 3 right now. probably my favorite language. I learned a bit of Japanese, elementary 1 - 3, there isn't any higher classes at the college here so I don't remember a lot of it. But I use Sign Language a lot when I can use it. :)

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
Hmmm, I don't have one that is in mind...I gotta think tho :x

 

[droomph]

I will join :3

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
Well my first language is English afterall, I'm not very good at it, English was probably my worse subject in school. my 2nd is American Sign Language, I want to use this as my primary language, I am hard of hearing, I've been recently learning it in the community college here where I live, I am 6th level or learning 6th level, Elementary 1 - 3, and Intermediate 1 - 3 right now. probably my favorite language. I learned a bit of Japanese, elementary 1 - 3, there isn't any higher classes at the college here so I don't remember a lot of it. But I use Sign Language a lot when I can use it. :)

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
Hmmm, I don't have one that is in mind...I gotta think tho :x

walcom :)

So how's learning languages for you without the whole hearing part? Must be really hard to use outside of the Internet :P

And speaking of sign language, do you find it easy to communicate in sign language in other countries? As in, is it similar, or is it as different as the spoken language is?