linguaholic

Interesting thoughts on this! Google Translate is based on statistical machine translation, so in fact if you are going to translate a single word, Google Translate will give you the most likely translation for that word. But what does that mean? It simply means that it will actually give you the translation that is most likely (statistically!). The translations are based on parallel corpora, so if Google has 20 parallel documents in let's say English/German, it will analyse how a specific word has been translated in the other language. So if the word Schloss has been translated into Castle 5 times but only 4 times into 'key', then the most likely translation for Schloss will be 'Castle'. Of course Google works with millions of documents but the concept remains the same. What I just said is very very simplified, but I just wanted to give you guys some information how the translations are computed. The computation of translations for single words its pretty simple and pretty straightforward, but once more words get into play (translation of phrases and sentences), the computation will be much more difficult and much more complex.

Warm welcome presentwo1 Hope you will learn a lot here! Good luck and see you in the threads regards L

LITNAX is back! That's great. Hope you enjoy the new forum software!!! Best wishes Lingua

Same for me. Hiragana is just so much easier to learn than Katakana. The Katakana 'characters' all look so similar to me.

Most of them are new for me. Thank you so much for taking the time to share those with us!

Very interesting introduction, indeed. So glad to see another linguaholic around here!

good point Multilingo. I can remember that we had this kind of discussion a few month ago on linguaholic.com..it was kind of a war between Filipino/Tagalog :=)

I do agree. 'Ich gehe auf den Fussballplatz' is definitely more specific and it is very likely that you are actually going to play football. However, if you are saying 'Ich gehe zu dem Fussballplatz', it could still be that you are actually playing but it is definitely less likely. Moreover, in colloquial speech, you would say zum instead of zu dem --> zum is a merger of zu and dem. regards

As for professional translators, translating to your native language is the standard. It is not usual that you are actually translating in a foreign language, even if you have a great command of it. However, there is one exception to that rule: English. The demand for translations into English are huge, therefore a lot of translators also translate from their mother tongue INTO English? I do have a BA Degree in Translation and therefore I am a little bit familiar with the work of translators. I am not much of a translator anymore, though :=)

Yes, indeed. I do have a great Grammar Book, though. But most probably it is only available in German.

Dear Multilingo The first sentence you provided is absolutely correct ('Ich bin auf dem Fussballplatz). However, the second sentence (Ich gehe in dem Fussballplatz) is wrong. It should be 'Ich gehe auf den Fussballplatz' Why not dem? Well, the control question is: Auf wen oder was gehe ich (Accusative), ich gehe auf den Fussballplatz. Hope that helps.

Great input. And I did as you wished for, right ? :=) I used to have it like this on the old website as well, but since I changed to new forum software I needed to do some adjustments. Hope you like it the way it looks now. regards Lingua

The biggest challenge in Japanese? Definitely the grammar. The grammar in Japanase is very very complicated, especially in comparison with the Chinese Grammar, which is very easy. Moreover I have been confused with the different readings of Characters. This kunyomi, onyomi thing you know. I never really figured out how this is supposed to work. The Japanese society is very hierarchical and this is also reflected by the Japanese language; so this makes the grammar even more difficult and it also shows in vocabulary and different language use according to specific situations ---> honorific language.

My friend has not yet responded. But maybe you could use something like this: Another friend wrote that in fact :=) Doesn't sound 100 percent correct, though. It may still be a good starting point. Nous laisserons l'Angleterre derrière nous afin de passer des longues vacances en Espagne.

You are welcome JARS

Hi JARS I just asked one of our members to help you with that question. His native language is French and I am pretty sure he can give you a hand with that. regards lingua

We have a lot of Chinese learners here on linguaholic.com, me included

Great introduction Wanda! You say that you wrote this a while back. For what purpose/business/company did you write that for?

Not exactly Multilingo. In the sentence 'Du bist ein Deutscher Jellyfish', Deutscher is NOT an adjective. It is a Noun. Therefore you have to write it with a capital D. However, deutscher can be an adjective and if it is, then of course it would be written without a capital D. Let me give you an example. 'Ein deutscher Film.' --> Here 'deutscher' is actually an attributive adjective to Film, so you have to write it without a capital D. I hope this helps. If it doesn't I can give you some more examples. regards Lingua

Thanks for sharing this Wiki Wanda. It is a very good source. I use it as well from time to time!

Hi there Your approach sounds reasonable. However, I do have some suggestions. My HSK level is 5 and I do (did) study Chinese at university. I get that you are a visual learner. Still, I think it would be a good idea to actually do some writing as well. Why? Well, it's simple. Writing will help you to remember the characters better. So I would advise you to also write down every character that you are learning on flashcards. Of course you will have to write them down in the right stroke order. If you do not know the stroke order of a certain character, the easiest way to get it right is to look it up in PLECO. You haven't heard of PLECO yet? If that is right, you should definitely get it as soon as possible. It is a very handy and very popular app for learning Chinese. It is basically a dictionary, however there are many different modules that make it a complete package for learning Chinese. The basic package is free and the modules, such as Flashcard module, OCR module, additional dictionaries cost a few bucks each but are all very well worth the money. One more thing about your approach: It sounds like your approach is linked to Mnemonics. You might be interested in the Heisig Method then. It is pretty similar to your approach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji_and_Remembering_the_Hanzi I worked with that book for some time and it was nice in the beginning. I liked it in the beginning but after some time I felt like it is better/easier for me to study differently. I can tell you more about the reasons if you want....just let me know. As far as Grammar goes, studying Chinese is pretty simple. I've got an amazing Grammar book. It is called 'Chinese Grammatik für Deutsche'. Maybe this book is available in English as well. If it is available, I would advise you to get it. The link is here: https://www.weltbild.ch/artikel/buch/chinesische-grammatik-fuer-deutsche_14932512-1 I have a lot more to say about studying Chinese, so if there is anything particular that you are interested in, just let me know. Regards Lingua

Hi Wuji Thanks a lot for joining linguaholic.com! You don't usually join forums but you still registered on my forum, so that's very nice I study Chinese as well. If you should have any question about Chinese, please do not hesitate to contact me. Is your name related to Martial Arts then? I guess the first character has to be 武 then! regards Lingua

Dear Laura I do not yet have children but what I always hear is that it is best when one of the parents just speaks in one language and the other one just his language. So maybe the father speaks only English and the mother only speaks Italian with the child. Like this the child will not get too much confused.

What a great topic FlagOnce! You are right. French people really value their language so much. However, I think that is nice! But sometimes they do exaggerate it a little bit, that is true. They even have an equivalent for computer = 'ordinateur' and they dont say Walkman, they say 'balladeur'. Can't think of other countries that have their own words for those too (at least not in Europe).

Hi freebd Please share some more information about your English level. How long have you been studying English? What is your goal? How did you study English? With textbooks? Speaking to people? Immersion? Like this we get a better idea how we can help you to improve your English level! Best wishes L