Learning a language... - The Bear and Badger

dynamiteReady

Coming back from Japan, I've realised how difficult it can be to bridge the language barrier.

Hell... Even my use of English leaves a lot to be desired...

While I was over there, I got as far as basic counting, and enjoyed that experience, but I'm now beginning question my ignorance, and am keen to learn a second language.

I'm not entirely sure it will be Japanese... Given my current life circumstance, it will very likely be Italian... though I'd never really cared for the language...

I suppose one of the big reasons for my desire to pick up a second language come from accounts from others, about what the challenge of learning another language does to your understanding of your current one.

Post if:
- You are currently learning another language
- Have acquired another language late in life
- Are thinking about learning another languge
- Was raised in a multilingual household

I'm especially interested in the experiences of those who have acquired a new language late in life (i.e. Brooks, Gnozo, Noxy, CiT, possibly MK64 too), but hearing from those who have grown up in bilingual households would be enlightening.

Sorry if there's a similar thread out there already.

Lord_Griff

Mon francais est bueno.

poprock

Lord_Griff wrote:

Mon francais est Beano.

Wait, what?

hylian_elf

I will post later. But I've done both.

Don't remember much about later learnt languages though. Anata no uchi wa doko desu ka?

JMW

'Late in life', heh. Although Noxy, fair enough.

cockbeard

Hmm, I never enjoyed languages at school, especially things like gendered objects, it just made no sense to me

I never enjoyed learning by rote, I was the archetypical 'why, miss?', so learning anything by rote just grated with me. Not even multiplication tables, and I loved maths. However in adult life I've found myself picking up bits of language without much problem. I lived in Finland for a year and left there speaking fluently at about the level of an 8-10 year old (about the same as my English then), this was at the age of around 22 so whilst not particularly late in life it certainly wasn't as a child

That's the key in my opinion though, to be a child. Be happy to look stupid, drop some inhibitions, if you concentrate on trying to sound perfect every time you won't practise and you won't grow. Exposure, exposure, exposure is the main keyword. I would go the library after work in the afternoon and read children's books, and the kids there would sometimes laugh at my pronunciation, but hey it made me better at the language

I also treated the language like it was maths or programming because those are things I'm good at. Finnish has very strict rules of pronunciation and grammar. so for this reason I could learn the rules and then apply them, with very few exceptions that had to be learnt on their own it meant that picking up vocabulary meant I could apply it in all the different tenses and grammatical states almost straight away

Brooks

My advice having learned quite a bit of Japanese is that I should've learned summat more flexibly useful like Chinese or Spanish, not the tongue of a dying polity.

But in any case, creating immersion time as an active adult occupied with things is so preposterously difficult you might as well wait for some kind of biological firmware update at this point if you don't happen to be in a new country (very) long-term for whatever reason.

dynamiteReady

That's what I've been thinking, and it's why I don't really want to learn either Japanese or Italian.

French, while not as widespread as Spanish, has quite a wide geographic footprint, and I've had that in mind for a long time now. But now I find myself in the middle of Italian social settings every so often, I really should make an effort to learn that first.

I hear it's pretty easy for English speakers to pick up.

But then so is French.

...

An aside... To say Japan is a dying polity might be a push...

It's certainly not everything that popular western literature/media has held it up to be, but on social etiquette and a somewhat unique commitment to communal service, the country champions a set of practices that should undoubtedly be introduced over here.

Somehow...

Brooks

How much longer is your Italian thing going to last, realistically. If it's less than several years, fuck it.

dynamiteReady

Brooks wrote:

How much longer is your Italian thing going to last, realistically. If it's less than several years, fuck it.

Haha!

Well...

In context, commitment is definitely the driving force here...
And now that you've put it that way, I think I will make the effort.

What's more, it is a latin language, and I hear it leads neatly into Spanish.

Yossarian

dynamiteReady wrote:

I hear it's pretty easy for English speakers to pick up.

But then so is French.

I know that isn't true for French, I'd be surprised if it was for Italian. Latin-based languages have very different grammar to English, and while English may have a lot of French words, many of those words have changed their meaning.

Brooks

So Dyno's what, porking an Italian (fair enough, been there)? Get him/her/them to whisper vocab lessons during.

Brooks

Though I mean strictly, you've already demonstrated sufficient worth to get the hookup, mastering the lingo might just be a bit needy for comfort. Don't mug yourself.

Kow

If you have no experience of learning a language (like most English, no offence intended), it'll be tough at the beginning. Get a good foundation in grammar and structure and then get as much exposure to the language as you can - tv, radio, books etc. Finding someone to talk to is usually the hardest but if you look around there are always foreigners willing to swap conversation

dynamiteReady

Yossarian wrote:

dynamiteReady wrote:

I hear it's pretty easy for English speakers to pick up. But then so is French.

I know that isn't true for French, I'd be surprised if it was for Italian. Latin-based languages have very different grammar to English, and while English may have a lot of French words, many of those words have changed their meaning.

How did you learn French?

Yossarian

Badly.

dynamiteReady

No, seriously... Like, in a classroom, through family?

Did you live over there?

Lord_Griff

Yoss is a ~~servant~~.

Edit: savant.

Yossarian

Kow wrote:

If you have no experience of learning a language (like most English, no offence intended), it'll be tough at the beginning. Get a good foundation in grammar and structure.

Kow's advice is all good, but this especially is worth noting. Most language students hate learning grammar, partially because they don't understand it in their own language, and they figure that if they don't know the grammar of their native language, they don't need to learn it in a second language.

The thing that this fails to take into account is that you learn your first language by being exposed to it for years and reading and hearing hundreds of thousands of examples of correct usage. Without complete immersion for an extended period, this is unlikely to work for a second language.

In fact, I would recommend spending a bit of time learning English grammar in order to get an understanding of at least the grammatical terms that you'll come across and rules for sentence structure and so forth. It won't take very long as it's all stuff you already know, you just don't know the names for it.

In my experience, having a knowledge of English grammar has made learning French grammar much easier as it gives me a basis to work from.

JonB

I've learned French to a reasonable level by taking a course and then studying it myself (I had a GCSE but had forgotten most of it). The result at this stage is my reading and writing are fine but I doubt I could hold or follow a conversation.

I've learned Turkish to a reasonable level by just living amongst Turks and hearing them speak, with very little formal studying of grammar. The result at this stage is that I can follow a conversation and participate in it to an extent, but can't read or write much of it.

Yossarian

FTR, my French is shit, but I'm working on it.

cockbeard

If it's Italian you're after, then there's a veritable horde of them in Brixton, the Albert often feels like little Sardinia

Tempy

I tried "beginners" French at Uni, and the class was full of people who'd been studying for 3-5 years. I did my best to keep up but my lack of grammar knowledge really ruined me. I barely remember learning grammar at school, and when I came back to it during the compulsory year of English Language I found it very challenging.

regmcfly

I've been learning conversational Japanese for over a year now and am getting quite good at it.

I'm very good in Spanish and had to be translator when we took 40+ kids to Venezuela 3 years ago

JonB

cockbeard wrote:

If it's Italian you're after, then there's a veritable horde of them in Brixton, the Albert often feels like little Sardinia

It's that busy?

Brooks

Horisu saitei

g.man

regmcfly wrote:

I've been learning conversational Japanese for over a year now and am getting quite good at it. I'm very good in Spanish and had to be translator when we took 40+ kids to Venezuela 3 years ago

Jesus! Who knew H was involved in people trafficking???

regmcfly

They never came back and I got some sweet Venezuelan chocolate

Tempy

Brooks is the assumption around Japan these days still that the "lost decade" is now in danger of becoming "the lost 30 years"?

JonB

g.man wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

I've been learning conversational Japanese for over a year now and am getting quite good at it. I'm very good in Spanish and had to be translator when we took 40+ kids to Venezuela 3 years ago

Jesus! Who knew H was involved in people trafficking???

How do you think we pay for this place?

Brooks

Tempy wrote:

Brooks is the assumption around Japan these days still that the "lost decade" is now in danger of becoming "the lost 30 years"?

Compared to how everyone else is handling their late capitalist crises I might want to call it the mercifully stagnant and unturbulent 30 years.

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