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 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| matchboxauto Pentaglot Newbie Austria Joined 4796 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, Portuguese, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Romanian | Message 1 of 5 30 September 2011 at 7:20pm | IP Logged |
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Hello fellow language lovers!
I'd like to introduce myself with a couple of words about me, languages and maybe a few thoughts on polyglottery: I'm 25 years old and come from Austria. I speak German (natively), English, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian. Just recently I started to teach myself Romanian, but unfortunately I'm nowhere near actually speaking it yet. I've always had a love for languages, including my own, so I'm glad I've found this forum and can't wait to get to know more of it. One thing that I haven't quite figured out yet is the concept that most people on here (and related youtube channels) seem to have in mind when they talk about polyglottery. To me, learning languages is very enjoyable, and I can even sort of see myself learning a language "just for fun" or "for the sake of knowing it". But it definitely gets even more enjoyable when there are actual people involved. Languages open doors, and I for myself hope to not only open doors, but also be able to walk through them and see what's beyond. For my personal future plans that means that I'm not aiming for a particularly big amount of languages, but rather for sensible choices as to which languages I want to learn (e.g. which doors I want to open so I can walk through later on). So ... hello again, everyone! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5000 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 5 30 September 2011 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forums!
Your language list is very impressive, how did you learn all that if I may ask? Many people come with sensible short lists of languages. But both "sensible" and "short" tend to be only temporary characteristics once you get here. The "wanderlust infection" spreads fast. P.S. Just kidding. There are still many sensible people around here. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| matchboxauto Pentaglot Newbie Austria Joined 4796 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, Portuguese, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Romanian | Message 3 of 5 30 September 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged |
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Hey there, and thanks for the warm welcome. I bet you're right about the getting "infected" on a message board like this, so who knows, maybe in a couple of weeks I'll be studying another 4 languages? ;) Just kidding ...
As to my current language list, I don't even think it's all that impressive, since I don't feel like I've ever put too much effort into learning any of my languages (maybe with the exception of Russian). They all kind of just ... happened, I guess? I learned English at school for 10 years, but I mostly blame my excessive internet usage for having reached the level I am at. I don't count that as "effort" though, since I've always used English as a means of communication on the internet rather than explicitly trying to improve it. Portuguese is probably the language that I hold dearest, because I learned it on a high school exchange to Brazil at age 16. I spent a year living with a Brazilian family and going to a Brazilian school, so I was constantly surrounded by Portuguese. I never took any formal classes, but I managed to reach a solid level just talking to people and watching Brazilian TV. I can also read alright, although that's probably my least developed skill in Portuguese. But all in all, I'm quite confident about my Portuguese, and I have successfully fooled some Portuguese people into thinking that I was Brazilian. When I came back from Brazil, I started taking Spanish at school. I didn't learn a whole lot in those lessons. I remember being bored most of the time, since I could already understand very much through Portuguese when I started, whereas my classmates were struggling to pick up anything at all. After school, I started taking Spanish at university (since Portuguese wasn't offered) and got around to learning it more systematically. Today, I'd say my Spanish is okay, but nothing more than that. I just like Portuguese better, and it comes more naturally to me than Spanish does (probably because I learned it at age 16 and in a "family" environment as opposed to a university?) ... Also, Portuguese and Spanish are a bit like the Beatles and the Stones: you can't have the same amount of love for both of them. In my last year of school, I started Russian out of curiosity. I got a tutor for a year, learned a few very very basic things and decided that I might like this language. Later, I went on to study it at university (along with Spanish). I was pretty enthusiastic at first, but then, after 2 years of Russian, it frustrated me so much that I wanted to drop out of university. Fortunately, I had a couple of awesome teachers who kept me from doing that and I continued, but was still frustrated. It was a love-hate relationship (and at times, it still is). In the end, I decided I had to go to Russia to see for myself whether it was more love or more hate. I did a university exchange in Siberia for half a year and had a great experience, so I guess it's love. My Russian is still far from perfect, but it has definitely improved a lot over the course of my time spent in Russia and I think I can safely say that I'm at a basic fluency level now. Edited by matchboxauto on 01 October 2011 at 12:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 5 30 September 2011 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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Nosssssa, que supimpa, que ótimo! I'm impressed that you've learned five languages by 25! I'm curious about how you easy you find learning Romanian since you have Romance and Slavic languages and Romanian is a Romance language with some Slavic vocabulary and features. How are you learning the language? What kind of materials are you using?
When I first came to the forum, I saw these links for Romanian and thought they might come in handy if I ever started to learn it Unitati didactice limba romana nivel A1 and from Moldova Proiectul "Limba - mijloc de integrare socială. Also Defense Language Institute Romanian Bem-vindo ao foro, welcome to the forum, @matchboxauto! I'm looking forward to seeing more posts from you here! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| matchboxauto Pentaglot Newbie Austria Joined 4796 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, Portuguese, English, Spanish, Russian Studies: Romanian | Message 5 of 5 01 October 2011 at 12:27am | IP Logged |
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Oi e obrigada, iguanamon!
Actually I got curious about Romanian for this exact reason: It's a Romance language with a fair amount of Slavic features. That kind of made me think that not studying it, considering my background, would be a waste of resources. ;) I really enjoy it so far but haven't learned a whole lot since it's only been two or three weeks. One problem that I've encountered is that I tend to rush through my book way too fast, not giving myself the time to transform passive comprehension into active knowledge or actually expand my grammar skills. Knowing related languages seems to be both a blessing and a curse. :/ I'm using a German based book (that comes with 2 CDs) by Hueber (a German publishing house). It's nice to get an idea of what to expect when you want to learn Romanian, but nothing more than that. There aren't nearly enough exercises for my liking and it's pretty shallow overall. I guess it's okay for a start and it does have a nice short grammar section, but I'll have to buy something else soon. Anyways, I will certainly be updating about my progress in the Learning Log section. And thank you for those links, I'll make sure to check them out later! Edited by matchboxauto on 01 October 2011 at 12:37am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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