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What is on your radar? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JoeMcC Pentaglot Newbie United States joe185.wordpress.com Joined 5562 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English*, Irish, Spanish, Mandarin, French Studies: Scottish Gaelic, German, Catalan, Breton | Message 65 of 67 13 November 2013 at 10:35pm | IP Logged |
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Quechua: The largest indigenous language of the New World but under great stress. This is actually not on my radar screen anymore because the craft has now landed. My roommate speaks and teaches Quechua (see the New York Quechua Initiative--the website can be found by Google) and when a language turns up at your doorstep (or you turn up at its doorstep!), what can you do but learn it? Just started.
Manx Gaelic: I have a new-found appreciation of what they are doing with the language. The Manx-medium primary school on the island seems to be a first-class operation, for example. (There's a YouTube video about it.) Not as easy to learn for someone who knows Irish as it might seem. Every language has to be learned in its own right. Occitan: As you can see from Manx, one approach I have is expanding from languages I know to closely related ones. From Spanish, I have already explored Portuguese and am learning Catalan regularly (I love it). My interest was also piqued by an extended-family link to the Val d'Aran in Spain. It has been very hard to find Occitan materials, other than Assimil and Wikipedia, and for the Aranese dialect I've found only one YouTube video (at the Wikitongues channel). As for other languages, I don't know. I notice that Catalan, Basque, Kazakh and Esperanto are doing well on Wikipedia. I always wanted to learn Mongolian and Uzbek. I've participated in editing the style and English portions of textbooks or dictionnaries for learning Yoruba, Shona, Turkish and Mongolian. Each was a lost opportunity because, after going through each book several times, lots of vocabulary and grammar were starting to stick. Javanese may be the least learned language for its size. I keep eying Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. Edited by JoeMcC on 13 November 2013 at 10:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4590 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 66 of 67 14 November 2013 at 6:30pm | IP Logged |
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The easy answer would of course be "nearly every possible language", because there is something fascinating about them all. I think if I was given the chance to study any language, I would be interested even if I had not thought of putting it on my radar before.
But... let's see which ones come to mind automatically: Italian: Probably the first that comes to mind nowadays, as it's the mother tongue of a friend who's currently learning Norwegian and would probably love to be a language exchange partner if I can actually... you know, get properly started with learning? Estonian: I bought a book for this before my first trip to Tallinn many years ago. Sometimes I read in it for fun, but I've never actually made any serious attempt at learning it. Turkish: Was perhaps more relevant to my interests a little while ago, when I was hoping to get into Turkish football a bit more. Still interesting due to the fact that I have some beautiful music in it and because I find it a fun language to listen to. Oh, and can you already tell that I'd like to make a serious attempt with a non-indoeuropean language at some point? Japanese: A country and culture that has always somewhat interested me, and therefore also a language that is fascinating. Basque: Just earlier today I was looking at Basque learning materials online and considering buying something as an early Christmas present for myself. I guess that must count as having the language on the radar to some extent, at least? Ukrainian: Like Turkish, this is less relevant to my interests now than before. However, I bought a book for it years ago, so of course the language still counts as interesting. Hebrew: The alphabet is just so endlessly cool. Also, some of my favorite music is in this language and I love how it sounds. So far, the only thing I can do is sing along to some of my favorite songs, though... one day I'd like to learn more than that. Irish: I travelled to Ireland for the first time earlier this year, and of course I exploded in joy when I found a bunch of language-learning materials in a bookstore. So far I've only looked at them for fun, though. Edited by Zimena on 14 November 2013 at 6:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4566 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 67 of 67 15 November 2013 at 2:50am | IP Logged |
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The greatest thorn in my side is undoubtedly Ancient Greek. See, it says here on my HTLAL profile that I do 'speak it', but I never ever 'speak' Ancient Greek. Yes, I've read the Iliad, the Odyssey and countless philosophical works (I should change my username to plato_roar), written texts and had them corrected, done many textbooks and grammar exercises, but I still wouldn't be confident in speaking it if, say, some ancient Greek time-travelled and wanted to have lunch with me.
Languages I swear I'm going to improve: 1) Russian. This is going very well so far. I'm being motivated mostly out of spite because one of my ex-boyfriends told me I'd never get it up to native standard and then attempted to say something insulting in Russian. Well, Я чуть не умер со смеху, услышав это. Я решил рискнуть и принял его вызов. Anyway, I have the New Penguin, FSI, Ruslan, a few Dima Bilan albums (don't judge, he's hot) and now I am taking advantage of a Lingualift free trial! 2) Latin. This is...not going so well. I have Cambridge Latin, Wheelock, and some other one which I haven't even started with. I have a Latin reader as well, and lots of poetry, mostly satirical in nature. It interests me, but for some reason I just can't move forward. Maybe it's the kind of material I'm using, maybe it's the lack of audio material, or maybe Latin is just dry. I can write paragraphs which are mostly correct, read anything, but it's just not being enjoyable. 3) Arabic. I can't find any good material for this. Can someone recommend something free which isn't FSI or some online course which relies too heavily on stock phrases and translation? I am really interested in the culture for this but the writing system is just killing me! 4) Hungarian. After watching Szomoru Vasarnap (accents omitted), I have become hooked to the beauty of the language. Seriously, if this scene doesn't make you want to learn Hungarian, I don't know what will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOqiolytFw4 Something is so delicate and yet firm and unyielding about the language that makes it sound so classical and yet so trendy. I especially love the words that end with 'ot', because they melt like candy on the tongue. Hungarian is cloying in a good way. Simply beautiful. 5) Afrikaans. Not really something I'm interested in, just that I got the Teach Yourself in a pub which I was totally not supposed to be in and I shut the owner up by buying his second-hand books. Well, I'm not complaining... Still looking for penpals by the way, if anyone is interested in the above languages or any of the others I speak, PM me. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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