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Greetings from a frustrated learner | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| WilhelmScream Newbie United States Joined 4013 days ago 4 posts - 7 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 7 27 November 2013 at 7:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey folks,
So I have been lurking about here for over a year and I thought it was time to reach out, say hello, and really take advantage of what a community like this could offer on my long road ahead. I was born in a mixed race home. My father was Spanish/Mexican Indian, and my mother was of Irish, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hawaiian descent. I was raised with an awareness of Spanish through relatives but it was never spoken in the house. I also was familiar with some Hawaiian words as well. I suppose this was fertile ground to grow a mind that was interested in a multitude of cultures and peoples. Like most americans I studied Spanish in school. It was awful. I was never strong in math and it seemed that 10 pages in to every Spanish course was the bit about numbers, counting, telling time.. This mental block always stopped my progression. Of the 3 times I took Spanish in high school I failed all. Despite this issue with formal learning I liked gathering little phrases here and there from books, films, or my foreign exchange friends. As I got older I was involved deeply in a Spanish speaking community. I never had the nerve to dig in and learn because I knew I had already failed. At this point I can understand generalities but the details evade me. As of now Spanish is not on my list of languages I want to study. About 12 years ago I attended art school in San Francisco and it was there that I became exposed to many asian cultures and started learning small phrases in japanese. I decided to start learning Japanese back in 2002. In the years since, I have wandered in an out of seasons of Japanese "study" but have lived with various Japanese roommates since 2004, in order to keep some kind of Japanese language in my life consistently. The result is any where between near native-or native phrases and even reactions (even if I was suddenly burned I would yell "ittai!"), to fumbling like a total beginner in the areas of grammar, vocabulary, and basic conversation. I recently returned from my 5th trip to Tokyo and my 2nd 9 week period of work. My co workers and I communicated through my limited broken Japanese, their seriously limited English, google translate, and lots of hand gestures. I am a sound designer so when I am giving direction I can just say something like ”シャキン〜〜！！！” or "スッコン！！” Of course for me, the greatest result of having learned my limited Japanese is that it has allowed me a glimpse into the lives of others that I would have never met or known otherwise. After returning home this month I was determined to start doing something pro-active about my language learning. Instead of spiraling in the loop of learning about language learning, I have decided to dig in. I am also contemplating beginning a vlog on youtube in order to document and track my journey through language learning. Will see how this works out. The advantage that I have I would say is my exposure over the past 12 years to the language as spoken by natives. Also being a sound designer and a musician my ears have been great in deciphering accents and even improving my own accent, which in my experience is extremely important. Being a sound designer I was inspired by the use of real languages in the creation of the Star Wars universe. I have taken to learning bits of Quechua because of this. Also by way of my favorite book "A Clockwork Orange" I was introduced to russian at 16. I was amazed after peeking at some russian lessons online that many of the Nadsat slang words are close to or actual russian. This made me feel like I had a teeny tiny lead into russian. So for the past two years I have been dabbling in russian. These days I listen to the Michel Thomas russian audio book. Its giving me something to chew on for the time being while I spend most of my time practicing and learning japanese. For now these are the two languages I am focusing on. After getting a handle on these I hope to venture into other languages, particularly french, German, mandarin. Perhaps I will dig into Spanish again but I would like to learn castellano instead of what I was raised with. So thats my intro. I am always on the lookout for new tips and tricks on studying and more than willing to share any of my tips and findings on my journey to becoming a mini-polyglot. Cheers all! ~ D 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4598 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 2 of 7 27 November 2013 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome to the forum, WilhelmScream. Great nickname! I'm sure you will find lots of
tips as you explore this forum. Can you explain this to me? :
I'm probably the only person alive who has never seen Star Wars, but I am interested in Quechua. What do they have to do with each other? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| WilhelmScream Newbie United States Joined 4013 days ago 4 posts - 7 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 7 27 November 2013 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your response!
When the sound designer Ben Burtt was asked to create languages for the aliens he tried everything from animal recordings, to synthesizers filtering old western dialog lines. He even had folks read latin which he then processed heavily through tape manipulation and filtering.. anything that would give him something new. The problem was these approaches lacked the believability that real language has. It was while researching rare languages he discovered Quechua. He then hired a linguist from UC Berkley to come up with a Quechua-like speech that then became the basis for the Huttese language featured heavily in the series. In fact during the famous encounter with Han Solo and Greedo, you can make out a few Quechua words quite clearly. It being based on a real but unknown language added immediate believability to the world. Here is the scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la7uuFsCIrg Here is a great clip of Quechua from Benny Lewis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EiBo-rZ0Nw He has used this approach with other alien races in the series leaning heavily on tibetan and african dialects. Don't feel bad.. I have met many folks who have never seen star wars ;) D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 7 28 November 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are into punk music I'm guessing.
Welcome! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| WilhelmScream Newbie United States Joined 4013 days ago 4 posts - 7 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 7 28 November 2013 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the welcome. Punk music? I like some . Not exclusively. Are you referring to my name? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4695 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 7 28 November 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes. I am referring to your name. Unless the band is not the reference you are talking
about. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| WilhelmScream Newbie United States Joined 4013 days ago 4 posts - 7 votes Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 7 28 November 2013 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had no idea there was a band with a similar name . haha.. makes sense.. I was referring to the actual sound effect
;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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