Lorem Ipsum - The Language Club!

droomph said:
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?
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Arigatou!

I do have hearing aids, i mean it's hard but I do try to learn it, and I ask her to help to be more clear she said it's fine.

As for American Sign Language is similar to spoken languages, they are not international, the most similar sign language out there is French Sign since one French man was teaching a american deaf girl Sign Language, and it carried over here. but each country sign language is different. But Sign Language as a language is awesome, but it comes with a knowledge of deaf culture too! :) It's awesome, and the deaf people I have met in my life are amazing and i feel connected to people more who sign cause i can understand more, cause when people speak to me, I always have to say what, and I can't hear, and people get irritated at my hearing :/
 
コナンくん said:
Arigatou!

I do have hearing aids, i mean it's hard but I do try to learn it, and I ask her to help to be more clear she said it's fine.

As for American Sign Language is similar to spoken languages, they are not international, the most similar sign language out there is French Sign since one French man was teaching a american deaf girl Sign Language, and it carried over here. but each country sign language is different. But Sign Language as a language is awesome, but it comes with a knowledge of deaf culture too! :) It's awesome, and the deaf people I have met in my life are amazing and i feel connected to people more who sign cause i can understand more, cause when people speak to me, I always have to say what, and I can't hear, and people get irritated at my hearing :/
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So say, if you went to Guatemala and talked (signed? idk) to deaf people, would you understand the gist of what they're saying, or would you need an intepreter (pretending that you don't know Spanish, etc) to get meaning across?
 
droomph said:
So say, if you went to Guatemala and talked (signed? idk) to deaf people, would you understand the gist of what they're saying, or would you need an intepreter (pretending that you don't know Spanish, etc) to get meaning across?
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Nope. they're probably be like "what sign is that?" its like a spoken language, gotta learn it in each country to understand what they're saying.
 
What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?
English is my native tongue, but I speak a fair amount of French, a very small amount of Spanish, and a tiny amount of Japanese, Greek and Croatian, but for all of these languages, I can't engage in a conversation yet. Also, I've been told that I have a great accent for said languages :)

Also, what are some online tools that you use to help learn?
I usually watch language learning videos, especially one who was quite vulgar but didn't rush through the whole thing, he took it slow which helped a lot. Sometimes I play games in those languages to grasp what the words mean, and even Google Translate helps for singular words rather than a phrase.

Learning for me is quite difficult if I don't repeatedly go over the words, or if the video goes too fast to understand. I know Hiragana/Katakana, and the Greek and Croatian alphabets.
 
My Greek is just very limited, but I could try... (not done in Greek Alphabet) Ya Sas, Me lene Air, shero polee. (Hello, my name is Air, pleased to meet you.)
As for my Croatian, it's a little better. Dobre Večer moji prijatelji, zovem se Air, drago mi je. ja sam dobro, i Dobrodošli na Pokecommunity! (Good Evening my friends, my name is air, nice to meet you. I'm good, and Welcome to Pokecommunity!)

I might have gotten the Croatian a little wrong, but I'm still learning. :D
 
I'm also trying to learn Polish :p It's hard to learn when you have no connections to any polish people though :/

So where do you learn your croatian? Website or irl?

الس ايم لرنن ذعربية ابجد

it's really awkward because I don't know any arabic :p
 
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so um. hi! i'd like to join. c:

LANGUAGES?
my native language is Dutch. as EGKangaroo stated before however, English is everywhere in our country, so i'm fluent in English as well. i wouldn't call myself bilingual though; i can't speak English without an accent, unless i talk slower than natural.
apart from that, i've had German, French, Latin and Ancient Greek each for a minimum of 3 year in high school, but none of it really sticked since i graduated 2 years ago. i do plan on picking up German and perhaps French again later, though.

finally, what i consider my third language would be, like many others here, Japanese. i'm confident i can hold my own in (simple) conversation, and since February i've also been actively studying Kanji using Wanikani. i KNEW it was Lightning when i saw 'Cherrim' on WK...

ONLINE TOOLS?
well, since i've only been using the internet to actively study Japanese so far, i have only two sites to really recommend:

•WaniKani
WaniKani, like explained before, is a website that teaches you Kanji using radicals. it uses an SRS-system to allow for optimized memory retention and minimal amount of invested study time. it's (still) in closed beta, but when i asked for a place i was admitted within 24 hours. it's not Free, though.

•Textfugu
never personally used this, but it's deemed very useful by many people i know.

•Visualizing Japanese Grammar
honestly i stumbled upon this site by accident. it's a very useful place for getting more insight in some key items in Japanese grammar, explained in simple, straightforward videos. even the most abstract of concepts are explained understandably. to me, at least c:​
 
hi!

how come everyone i know on here lives in a different country :p makes me feel …;;

so what were all the selection of languages in your high school system?
hiinotama said:
•WaniKani
WaniKani, like explained before, is a website that teaches you Kanji using radicals. it uses an SRS-system to allow for optimized memory retention and minimal amount of invested study time. it's (still) in closed beta, but when i asked for a place i was admitted within 24 hours. it's not Free, though.
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YOU KNOW WHAT'S ANNOYING?

THEY SHOULD JUST TELL US UP FRONT THAT IT'S NOT FREE

BECAUSE I FOUND THAT OUT TOO LATE

AND I HAVE NO MONEY

AT LEAST NONE THAT I CAN WASTE
 
isn't it way more fun to meet lots of people from different countries? i think so, anyway. c: as of next year i'll be doing an International Bachelor in my home country, and there'll be lots of international students; i'm super excited! but also a little intimidated. {XD}

in my high school - at my level of education, at least - you'd get Dutch, English, German, French, Latin and Ancient Greek throughout the first three years (equivalent of Middle School in the States i suppose), and in the latter three years (High School equivalent) you would still have English and Dutch mandatory, and had to choose at least one or two of the other languages (depending on whether your other subjects were science or history/economy-oriented).
... it's a bit confusing.

but yeah, WaniKani nor Textfugu are free, but both at least give you a trial period so you can get used to the mechanics. i don't have a lot of money to spare, which is why i don't use Textfugu, but WK seemed useful to me, 'cause i don't think i could stick to studying kanji without it...
there's also another program that uses the SRS system though; Anki. it's technically a flashcard system, but if you put in your own kanji flashcards it works similar to WaniKani, i suppose. and it's free. XD;
 
so speaking of japanese

do you find it annoying when people go "genki desu kaaaa~~~" online instead of just using kana and saying "げんきですか〜。" I don't know why, but it annoys me endlessly :p
 
well, truth be told, i used to be one of them! back when i was 11-12, that is. 'GENKI DESU KAAA~? UWAAH, KAWAII NEKO DESU NE! BAKABAKABAKA' ...
i never posted that stuff anywhere though, but i did talk to my (few) anime-loving friends that way. one of those friends even managed to save some of our conversations from back then, and when we read them back now they caused nothing but CRINGE. {XD}
'MY GOD. WE WERE LIKE THAT?...'

there's a term for em, too; wannabe-japanese, or wapanese, which eventually evolved into weeaboo. other characteristics include excessive love for everything japanese. i think it's a phase though. at some point you 'graduate' from it.. or at least most people do? i guess some people never learn! {XD}
they don't annoy me right away when i notice them, but i tend to just ignore them. simple and effective!
do you see them a lot though? i only see them on youtube (vocaloid songs/AMVs etc...)
 
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Lol anywhere I step into the realm of Japanese entertainment (including Pokémon :p) I see weeaboos everywhere.

But then again there's probably wannabe Americans in Japan too (specifically the Yankii lol) so I really think it's a teenager thing around the world to want to be something different for when they have all the deep voices, big boobs, and chest hair they want :p

Now tbh my friends and I do this all the time but it's always out of the "street talk" book which always inexplicably tells you how to have sex in that language and then do drugs :p
 
yeah, you're probably right. there's people who idolize America here too - like my younger brother... teens usually want to identify themselves with a certain group of people, and i guess Japanese entertainment is one of those {XD}

you use 'street talk' with your friends all the time? XD; i agree that there always seems to be some sort of reference to anything 'badass'; sex, drugs, alcohol... crime? i'm not really a part of that world. never really have been...

also, i forgot to mention another online language studying tool:
•Lang-8
Lang-8 is a website on which you can write blogs in the language you want to study, and then native speakers of that language will correct it for you. this way you can learn correct writing in your language of choice, and come into contact with native speakers of that language easily c:
of course, other than writing blogs, you can also correct others' blogs that they have written in your native language.​

personally so far i've only corrected others' blogs... i should really get to writing at some point {XD} ah well.
now i should be getting to my WaniKani Reviews!
 
hiinotama said:
you use 'street talk' with your friends all the time? XD; i agree that there always seems to be some sort of reference to anything 'badass'; sex, drugs, alcohol... crime? i'm not really a part of that world. never really have been...
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oh whoops I should mention also that we do it jokingly :p we don't get that culture either lol
 
oh i see. that. makes more sense :P

say, i've been meaning to ask; what's that language you have in your signature?

droomph's signature said:
Tha yr thaerieag vi. Erei tha yr menitheder sze-eu thaelieag scui.
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woah, i put it into Google Translate just to try it out, but it seems to have no idea what it is either! {XD}
 
it's something I made up :p if you want to know i'll break it down for you

tha - just "placeholder" pronoun. Similar to how we say "it was cool!" instead of "toy story 2 was cool!"

yr - indicates that the verb (at the very end) is transitive.

thaer-i-ea-g - tree-(plural)-[(adverb ending)-(adverb)]

vi - to be, or to exist, or to live, or to reside in. Pretty much just you're "around" something a lot of the time, or it exist.

Erei - with (preposition)

meni-thede-r - (to)hunt-tha(possessive)-(direct object form of definite article, "eu") "the hunted"

sze-eu - (to)do-(noun) i.e. "doing", "being hunted [as the direct object implies]"
(the e-e is separated because it's not clear whether eu is part of the word or "the" otherwise.)

thae[r]-l-[ieag] - tree-(diminuitive)-[plural-adverb] i.e. "tree branch"

scui - (to)go
("en" is the proper marker, but it's not needed as the subject is implied.)

Basically,

"It lives tree-ly. With the hunting of its prey happens, it jumps branchedly."
 
Wait, droomph, you mean you made that up yourself? Do you have a name for it? It looks very interesting.

---

Languages: English- Native language
Spanish- Took 2 years in high school. I probably have the vocabulary of a fourth grader, but I can understand most of the language.
Japanese- I've only been self-teaching myself for about a month now, so I can only form very basic sentences.

Online Tools: -WaniKani - Extremely helpful with kanji memorization and vocab. (And yes, droomph, only the first 2 levels are free :P )
-TextFugu - I used the free chapters of it, but I really don't want to pay the $20 monthly or $120 lifetime fees. It was helpful while it lasted, though.
-Memrise - Useful in that you can choose your own mnemonics to build vocab.
-Lang-8 - I can tell it's very useful, but I'm not confident in my skills enough to post an entry of any sort. I help a lot of people with their English, though.
 
I'm sorry to say that I'll only be able to add you once I feel safe exiting my room, but welcome regardless! :)

And no, I don't have a name for it. All I have right now is L1, which is the codename for it…Though I'm still working on it so you guys can probably help me with ideas for the name :p

It's more a hobby than a real thing I'm working on, so don't expect much development lol
 
I CAN'T HOLD IT IN ANYMORE

IS ANYBODY INTERESTED IN OKINAWAN

BECAUSE I AM

BUT THE INTERNET DOESN'T

SO I'M SCREWED

BECAUSE I KNOW NEITHER *FLUENT* JAPANESE NOR OKINAWAN

AND I CAN'T AFFORD A TICKET TO JAPAN
 
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