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How many languages to learn others?

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
kaptengröt
Tetraglot
Groupie
Sweden
Joined 4338 days ago

92 posts - 163 votes 
Speaks: English*, Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 17 of 22
13 January 2013 at 9:13am | IP Logged 
Knowing Icelandic and Scandinavian was essential for me to learn Faroese - err, or should I say, I didn't need to "learn" Faroese anymore after I knew those two well enough because I then had instant understanding of written Faroese, and can grasp some spoken (but I haven't studied spoken yet). Icelandic to learn Swedish was essential to know rules for genders and how-to-turn-words-plural in Swedish that they do not teach you in textbooks for Swedish, likewise reading Faroese materials for Icelandic is also useful. They all help each other when they are related. Although those were not real necessities,

Scandinavian, Finnish, or Russian is absolutely essential to learn Sami (Finnish would probably be best as they are more related I have read), and Scandinavian is essential to learn Greenlandic. However these languages I know don't really help anything much outside of ones related to them as far as I know. Maybe in learning Finnish. And for some reason I just would not trust a Scandinavian textbook to teach me Japanese (I guess because I have a problem myself - Scandinavian languages feel like joke languages to me so I can't take them seriously, Icelandic feels more serious to me, but English is much more serious still.)

I think that even if you are not very good at your second language, if you use it to learn your third you will be learning a lot of the second too. But most of all you get a big confidence boost later on when you realized you just learned a third language, from a book that was in a language none of the people around you can read a word of... I think it's important to think back to when you didn't know any of the language and give yourself more confidence/pride sometimes.

Edited by kaptengröt on 13 January 2013 at 9:20am

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Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5334 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 18 of 22
13 January 2013 at 10:20am | IP Logged 
kaptengröt wrote:
for some reason I just would not trust a Scandinavian textbook to teach me Japanese (I guess because I have a problem myself - Scandinavian languages feel like joke languages to me so I can't take them seriously, Icelandic feels more serious to me, but English is much more serious still.)



I beg your pardon?
8 persons have voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6909 days ago

4250 posts - 5711 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 19 of 22
13 January 2013 at 12:36pm | IP Logged 
kaptengröt wrote:
And for some reason I just would not trust a Scandinavian textbook to teach me Japanese (I guess because I have a problem myself - Scandinavian languages feel like joke languages to me so I can't take them seriously, Icelandic feels more serious to me, but English is much more serious still.)


I can definitely see that a grammar-heavy language (such as Icelandic) can be better at explaining grammatical features of the target language (e.g. Japanese), if that's what you're talking about. If not, I as puzzled as Solfrid. (And even if, dumbed down textbooks are not unique to Swedish, although I've of course seen more of them than in English)
2 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4707 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 20 of 22
13 January 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged 
I use French because it's the easiest road to Breton, because Assimil offers more French-
based material and it is the foreign language (besides English) I have the most
experience with, as well as the most grammatical knowledge.

Good textbooks are good textbooks and bad textbooks are bad textbooks.
1 person has voted this message useful



milesaway
Triglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4331 days ago

134 posts - 181 votes 
Speaks: French, English*, Russian
Studies: Finnish, Sign Language

 
 Message 21 of 22
19 January 2013 at 5:00pm | IP Logged 
I'm living in Russia, so while it is possible for me to find Finnish resources in English, they are usually triple the cost of the Russian materials, so I'm using a few different resources that are only in Russian (and Finnish of course).

So I'm trying to learn L4 via L3, which can be exceedingly frustrating at times, although it brushes up on my Russian grammar terms, I've had a few moments where a new Finnish word was explained/translated into Russian, and I couldn't understand either of them. Oh well.

Otherwise most of the materials I use are English-based. If I could find French-based books in Russia, I would happily use them, but I guess I'll stick with the Russian-based ones and hope that my Russian improves as a result. :D
1 person has voted this message useful



daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4521 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 22 of 22
19 January 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
German, English and Norwegian (and to some extend [older] Danish) are the languages I use to learn others. Norwegian mainly for Old Norse/Old Norwegian, Danish for some stuff in Old Icelandic like understanding poetry or for parallel texts of sagas.



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