# The joys of learning a new language



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Hey everybody! Haven't posted in a while - tax season is still raging hard here (but only a few more weeks left!) and I haven't been involved in anything musical for the last few months.

In what little spare time I have, however, I've been rather involved in learning a new language - Japanese. I've always been fascinated by Japanese culture, media, and so on, so I finally decided to take the big plunge into learning the language. And it's amazing how ridiculously different it is, and how the language itself affects the lifestyle and culture of the Japanese people themselves.

I've heard that people always think in words and sentences. Obviously, then, people who know different languages will think in different ways... especially when the two languages are vastly different (English and Japanese, for example). For example, Japanese has a built-in honor/respect system that is essential to the language, which I believe generally makes people show more respect to each other. Also, most pronouns are not spoken but rather inferred from context, which has a way of forcing people to pay closer attention to the conversation at hand. The Japanese writing system is also fascinating and employs three different character sets. Basically, learning a new language can give you a completely different outlook on the world.

Have you ever had the chance to learn a new language, and how has it broadened your perspective? I'd like to hear about it. After Japanese, I think I'd like to learn either French (for the vast amount of literature) or German (for German opera). 

(Also, a sidenote: there's a lot of talk about what language learning software to use. Rosetta Stone is the most popular because it has the best marketing, but I've heard it really isn't a good value for the price. It teaches up only to a very basic level and does not teach enough about grammar. I really enjoy the software I've been using - I can talk about it if anyone's interested.)


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Good to see you, Ravellian!

Ah, yes, languages are indeed a great deal of fun to learn and to practice. I've been thinking about learning Italian as I am already more than halfway there. Also gotta finish a certain Baltic language I already started someday.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Currently studying German. Doing Rosetta Stone and some language tapes. Going to take a summer class starting next month. Really enjoy the pronounciation and general similarity to English. Only annoying thing is the nonsensical gender nouns and four case grammar.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I just want some private lessons with that buxom blond that does the Rosetta Stone ads!


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I was lucky to be raised bilingually in Dutch and English, learning languages has been relatively easy for me consequently. I learnt french from the age of 5 to 16, and feel that im quite proficient. I also learnt Mandarin for quite a few years which, as you say, opened up a different way of thinking about hought, but now ive forgotten most. Oh, also latin for a while, but apart from the insight its given me into european languages, ive never used it and no longer know it.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

I tried studying French for a few months, but I quickly lost interest. Maybe because I don't see much use for a language if you are not to communicate with people or read literature written in that language. And I did neither of those.
Still, I know the fundamentals and can understand some french text. 
Maybe I'll get back to it one day, it would be the second most practical language I'd know out of the 3 I already know (Lithuanian, Hebrew, English).


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Couchie said:


> Currently studying German. Doing Rosetta Stone and some language tapes. Going to take a summer class starting next month. Really enjoy the pronounciation and general similarity to English. Only annoying thing is the nonsensical gender nouns and four case grammar.


How is the course structured? I'm curious. Is it all taught in pictures?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I know five. Spanish, English, French,..., Music, Mathematics


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

I study Japanese at school. As a written language it is really beautiful. The 漢字 are a pain to learn though, so many of them start to look really similar the moment you take a break from practising them.


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## Iforgotmypassword (May 16, 2011)

I'm working on spanish currently. I plan on going on a mission to Mexico pretty soon to work on it some more.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I've studied a few languages: German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. I'd like to go into Italian and may do so starting in to the Fall. My best language is French and I find it quite easy. My longest studied was Japanese, as I studied for four years, but I do not retain very much from it except for pronunciation, how to write hirigana, katakana, and various kanji, and basic grammar and vocabulary. I think the lovely thing about learning other languages is that it opens you up to more people, more art, and it does help you understand the culture more as well. It also helps strengthen your native language in my opinion. Other practical implications for myself are that my fiancee's family are all immigrants, meaning that they speak various languages -- Italian, Portuguese, and French, with ability to speak/understand Spanish -- with some of them not being able to speak any English. It helps me communicate better with her family here, as well as her family still in Europe, as they place great emphasis on family. With the option for citizenship in EU and various countries it would also be helpful if I choose to take them. Plus, I would love not to have to rely on subtitles in foreign films. :lol: The more competent I become in French, the more I realise how lacking the subtitles in the movies are and how much content is left out. I also feel this way about translated articles, books, poetry, etc.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Ravellian said:


> How is the course structured? I'm curious. Is it all taught in pictures?


Yes. It's complete immersion, you won't see any translations or explanations in your natural language whatsoever. You are left to deduce the grammar on your own. I'm actually not clear on whether I'm supposed to be consciously figuring out the grammar rules, or not thinking about it at all and learning it "brute force" like your natural tongue. Either way, since German is a fairly exasperating language grammatically I do plan to pair it with a good textbook on grammar when I get a grasp of the basics. It's strengths are in teaching pronunciation, nouns, and learning to comprehend spoken language. Less strong on grammar and spelling.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

To clarify on the structure, you are shown pictures, usually four. Then, what happens depends on the lesson:

*Speaking*: The pictures are highlighted one at a time, and a woman or man speaks a phrase in the language associated with the picture, and you repeat it back, with voice recognition for accurate pronunciation.

*Pronunciation: *Like speaking but emphasis on pronunciation of single words over phrases.

*Listening: *A phrase is spoken and you select the corresponding picture.

*Reading: *Like listening but you get to see the phrase. Also they tend to emphasize the subtle differences in pronunciation of similar-looking clusters of words, i.e.: *Ma*nn vs *Mi*lch.

*Vocabulary: *These are reading/listening lessons geared towards learning new nouns, verbs, etc.

*Spelling: *Pictures are highlighted one at a time with spoken phrase and you type the phrase in.
*
Grammar: *By far the most difficult, the pictures are highlighted with phrases that have words that are missing and you must select the correct word in the correct case or verb/noun ending or whatever given the context of the picture.

Also, it's not all parroting, often you get asked questions and must select or speak the correct answer.


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2012)

I also speak German. I learned it when I served a mission for my church in Germany and Switzerland. I started out with two months of training at a training center, then basically learned it by immersion in the countries, and being paired up with a trainer. I also took 4 years of German in high school. I still have a textbook for helping with grammar, and several books in German to keep up my skills. I even have a book that helps teach the Swiss German dialect.


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## eorrific (May 14, 2011)

Philology is infinitely interesting! I would study that if I had the choice.
So many German speakers! Someone please teach me. I was planning to take German course, but unfortunately it was not to be due to schedule clash and financial limitations.


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2012)

I found German to be fairly easy to pick up - the tricky part, coming from English, is learning the various verb conjugations and the different genders of the nouns. If you have some experience with older English - say, King James Bible English - then some of it is not that different - after all, English is a Germanic language that has been intermixed with various aspects of Romance languages. Word order is tricky - I believe Mark Twain once joked that he was reading a German novel one time, but it had absolutely no action, as the last several pages had been torn out (a jest based on how many rules can cause the verb in German to be moved to the end of the sentence).

My high school classes prepared me a little, but the immersion is what did it for me. I learned it well enough that I could also fairly well understand various dialects (Allemannisch from the Southern Black Forest region, Schwaebisch from just north of Lake Constance, and Zurituutsch from Canton Zurich in Switzerland).


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I'm also a language buff , and am very interested in linguistics in a theoretical way . There's a terrific website for people who want to learn languages with plenty of information on websites about language learning etc, plus a very interesting forum. It's called unilang.org , and I recommend you sign up for the forum .It's very easy .
It has sub forums to discuss a wide variety of languages , ranging from the most familiar, Spanish, French,German, Italian, etc to exotic ones like Basque, Turkish, Pashto, Farsi, Kazakh, Icelandic, Lappish etc .


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Couchie said:


> Currently studying German. Doing Rosetta Stone and some language tapes. Going to take a summer class starting next month. Really enjoy the pronounciation and general similarity to English. Only annoying thing is the nonsensical gender nouns and four case grammar.


I can see the Master looking down on you from Walhalla with a smile of satisfaction.  Actually on us both, since I am studying German as well. I loved it before I ever got to know Herr Wagner and his music dramas. So it was particularly satisfying to find out that the greatest music master on Earth spoke and wrote in a language I understand and love.


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## Guest (Mar 28, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I can see the Master looking down on you from Walhalla with a smile of satisfaction.  Actually on us both, since I am studying German as well. I loved it before I ever got to know Herr Wagner and his music dramas. So *it was particularly satisfying to find out that the greatest music master on Earth spoke and wrote in a language I understand and love*.


Yes, Beethoven did, indeed, speak and write in German.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

DrMike said:


> Yes, Beethoven did, indeed, speak and write in German.


Yes, but he could have as well spoken any language, since he didn't write texts to his vocal works himself. The fact that the Master who wrote his own librettos (and huge ones at that!) spoke German is much more significant.

And Mozart, although a native speaker of German as well, seems to have written more vocal works to Italian texts, rather than to those in his own noble and beautiful language. What a shame!


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Dutch, English, German, French I picked up in my youth; later on Czech was added, a Slavonic language with an interesting love-hate relation towards German (when you hear a Czech pronunciating something that sounds like German language, it means he is swearing in Czech slang). Lately I'm progressing into Russian. The internet is a _Fundgrube_ for great Russian movies with English subtitles. Russian language is in my ears the most poetic of all languages.


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