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Linguaholic

linguaholic

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Posts posted by linguaholic

  2. Greetings

    in New Forum Members

    Posted

    8 hours ago, Leon_Trotsky said:

    Hello everyone.

    I am a 30 year old American who is learning a few languages now as well as maintaining a few. English is my native language. I know Spanish to about C2 level, and Portuguese, Catalan and Italian to around C1. Dutch, French and Norwegian to about B2. The rest are intermediate and low levels. I am mainly autodidactic and much prefer learning alone than with a teacher/tutour or in a class.

    I plan to study medicine in Italy, so I am thinking about sitting either the C1 or C2 exam probably sometime next year.

    Wow. That's an impressive list of languages, Leon! Is it confusing for you to tell Catalan and Spanish apart? That's something that I am interested in because I might move to Spain (Barcelona) in the near future. 

  4. Hello from Tunisia

    in New Forum Members

    Posted

    9 hours ago, zarradsana2017 said:

    Hello everyone I'm a Tunisian who have been found of the English language from the age of 11. I really love the English language and would like to study abroad in English. I'm mostly interested in psychology. So I want to improve my knowledge of scientific vocabulary.

    Welcome!!! :smile:

  5. Which written language?

    in Japanese Language | Discussion

    Posted

    16 hours ago, Tony23 said:

    Can anyone please tell me if this writing is Japanese? Thanks

    5FA52988-A6E7-428E-9BC0-3D85D0D0C8FF.thumb.jpeg.a04ba4a9ef32ddd709006d9993bdb7f9.jpeg

     

    It is Chinese, "xuān huā cǎo". It is probably a reference to the flower Hemerocallis fulva

    However, it seems that the second and third character are in reversed order. If it is indeed the flower Hemerocallis fulva that we are talking about here, then it should be 宣草花 rather than 宣花草.

    As the "drawing" of the characters is not very accurate anyways, I guess this could very well just be a mistake. 

  6. Help with the word strength

    in Chinese Characters | 汉字

    Posted

    11 hours ago, Davvaa said:

    Hi, can someone please confirm if this means strength? It is for a tattoo and want to make sure that it actually means or says strength https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.pinterest.com/amp/pin/478437160390605623/. I know it says strength in english but someone has told me it means air and unsure if they are correct or not. Any help is appreciated

    Thanks

    This is the traditional character for Qì. The simplified version of the character is 气.

    It has a couple of meanings. One of the meanings is indeed air. Another common meaning of 气 is (vital) energy rather than strength. 

    You can see the different meanings of the character here:

    Keep in mind that an isolated chinese character almost always have many different meanings and in modern chinese is usually used togeter with at least one more character to form a noun. 

    The character 气.jpg

  9. Help Me....what do i do?

    in Language Learning

    Posted

    9 hours ago, s1wspartan said:

    Hello world...Ok this is another 'which language should i learn'....sorry. But it's a little different situation.

     

    I'm trying to hurry up and finish my transfer degree and go to a 4-yr institution to get my bachelor's. A couple schools I talked to one of the requirements is 2 semesters of a foreign language.

    That threw a curveball in my schedule plan. So this upcoming semester I need to take a foreign language so I can meet that requirement by next fall semester and transfer. So now its late into registration. The school offers Spanish, French, German and Japanese. I had planned to take Spanish first choice, then French. But hesitated because they only offer total online class. I don't want to do a 100% online class for my first language course. Seems crazy thats all they have, really just kind a crappy. Anyway, so I have to choose between German and Japanese now, because the Spanish and French classes are all full.

    I took German 20 years ago, so don't know it, but my only foreign language class exposure. Really my first choice I want to learn Latin, but that's not an option. I tried Mandarin on my own for a while. I have a goal to learn Mandarin eventually. The German instructor is supposed to be really good, I know the Japanese instructor and she is yawesome. But I'm afraid taking Japanese, would not help at all if I want to learn Mandarin. Especially if less than a year later I'm at a 4-yr school and taking Mandarin classes. 

    If I had to pick between living in Germany or Japan, I think I would pick Germany. Nothing against Japan, but mainly the cost of living is so insane there.

    So...I really need any advice should I take German or Japanese...or do I just take a hit and wait for Spanish next semester. The ripple effect will be either I end up in community college and extra semester and transfer a semester later, or end up having to transfer to a school that isn't requiring two semesters of language.

    Good:

    German - Have a tiny bit of exposure from a long time ago, there is a German town nearby where I live (Frankenmuth, MI) like a little bavaria lots of German speakers there, Germany or Austria or Switzerland would be countries I would like to live

    Japanese - The instructor is great, know I would get a good grade in the class, might be more pragmatic for the international business world than German, might help if I want to go on to Mandarin soon (???)

    Bad

    German - Will it really be much use outside of the couple of German speaking countries ?, is it a poor choice for my first second language?

    Japanese - Will it just be a waste of time and have to brain dump it when I start learning Mandarin? Does it make much sense to learn if I don't have big plans to spend time in Japan someday? Is Japan even affordable if I wanted to live there? Or is it a pipe dream like saying you want to move to San Fran area, it's only $4k a month for a 1-bd

    Hey there. And warm welcome to linguaholic!

     

    Not easy to give you some recommendations here but I will try. After reading your post, this is what came to my mind:

     

    German: 

    As your native language is English, studying German will definitely not be that difficult. You will already know lots of words because English and German obviously share lots of Cognates. German grammar is somewhat difficult and definitely more difficult than English Grammar. But still, nothing too crazy, there. 

     

    Japanese:

    Japanese is definitely a very interesting language to learn. And in your case, as your goal is to move to Chinese later on, I can tell you the following:

    As far as speaking goes, studying Japanese will NOT be of any help to learn/understand Chinese later on. Well, there are Chinese pronunciations of Japanese words but to be honest, those are not even that close and unless you are very advanced in Japanese, you probably won't even hear the similarity. Moreover, Japanese is not a tonal language and Japanese and Chinese are after all NOT related etymologically. 

    However, as far as Kanji go, those will definitely help you to master Chinese later on...as guess what, Kanji are almost all derived from Chinese. However, there is one problem: The Kanjis used in Japanese are still in the traditional form (= traditional Chinese characters). So that means that you would learn the complex versions of the Chinese characters, which are now only used in Hong Kong and in Taiwan. On the mainland, people use simplified Chinese characters, these days. That is not a big problem but definitely something you should be aware of. 

    In terms of Grammar, studying Japanese won't be of any help either. 

     

    To wrap things up, I would just like to say: I think it is always best to study the language that you have some passion for. If you don't have any passion or at least strong motivation to learn a language, chances are that you will never get anywhere. This especially holds true for a language as"exotic" as Japanese or Chinese. Learning these languages will take you YEARS and it is just simply not something you can do half-heartedly. 

    If you just feel "forced" that you have to do one of those two at the moment (German or Japanese), studying German will definitely be the easier choice for you. If you go with Japanese, you will be able to pick up some Kanjis that can be very useful for your later studies in Chinese, though.

    Those are my thoughts about your question. I could go on for another half an hour, I think. But it's probably better to stop here for now. If you do have some specific questions about either German or Chinese (German is my native language and I studied Chinese for many years), feel free to ask.

    Best,

    L

  11. A Czech native looking for a studdy buddy (Also Deutsch für Mediziner)

    in Language Exchange Corner

    Posted

    On 11/16/2019 at 11:09 PM, tokyonochikatetsu said:
    Hello everyone.
     
    I am looking for studdy-buddies and friends at the same time (with similar views to mine (...) ).
     
    I am a native Czech (thus I can offer my teaching services if you want to learn Czech / have been already studying it :o) and am looking for lovely people to learn a language with.
     
    My current German level is B1 and am planning on taking a Fachsprache exam in medicine.
     
    I have just started learning Italian (from scratch, really).
     
    Apart from that, I would be also very much interested in Croatian, Japanese, Spanish, French and (have never studied those). Or any other language, really :) (also Scandinavian ones)
     
    Or any other language (you would also like to find a study buddy for ) ? :o)
     
    Let me know !

    Welcome on board here at linguaholic.com!

  13. Question about Dative

    in German Grammar

    Posted

    7 hours ago, yaleyaleyale said:

    Can someone help me understand the use of the dative below?

    Dies ist der Anfang des Evangeliums von Jesus Christus, dem Sohn Gottes,

    In other languages would have expected this to be a nominative or a genitive. But why the dative here?

    Because "von Jesus Christus" is in the dative case, "Sohn Gottes" needs to be in the dative case as well because there needs to be agreement with the antecedent (reference word). 

  16. web site for learning japanese from beginning

    in Language Learning

    Posted

    3 hours ago, allenp said:

    Hi, i cant remember the site where i started learning japanese which was very good. You would start by learning letters from their alphabets and then words and phrases, all step by step. The site had a blue background and an owl as a symbođ if i remember correctly. You would sign in and it remembered your progress and gave you points for doing excersises. Can anyone else remember such a site? I dont want to start learning japanese by learning phrases and words id like it to start by letters, symbols  thanks in advance

    Duolingo probably.

  19. Hallo von einem deutschen Lerner!

    in New Forum Members

    Posted

    15 hours ago, Handicap135P said:

    I enjoy languages I foung German hard at first but suddenly the penny dropped with the grammar and word order. I go to a German circle, the majority r English, the native speakers r so patient with us even though they can spot the mistakes straight away. First day with language Forum. Learning Latin alone but not easy, any Latin speakers apart from Boris out there! 

    Wilkommen auf Linguaholic.com! Hoffe, dass es Dir hier gefällt. Wenn du Fragen hast, dann kannst du mich jederzeit fragen :rolleyes:

  20. Summer vacation activities

    in English Vocabulary

    Posted

    6 hours ago, AleLoredo said:

    Hi Everybody, my name is Alejandra, in my summer vacations i went to Europe. There, I visited three countrys, Spain, Polish and Italy. All of these countrys were amazing. I have to say that I went to Spain because I did a Investigation Summer in University of Salamanca, for complete my master´s tesis. In Italy I ate the most delicious pizza, and I saw the Coliseum; in Polish i went to Nazi Concentration Camps and to John Paul II childhood house. 

    Sounds like a very interesting vacation AleLoredo! I am in Spain right now. This country is really beautiful. I am in Barcelona. Really enjoying myself here.

  21. I'm pretty much tone deaf how can I learn mandarin?

    in Chinese Language | Discussion

    Posted

    5 hours ago, threedaysinsept said:

    Hey there! I'm a Native Chinese speaker and I have been teaching Chinese for 6 years so I think I can help you with this! For starters, don't be intimidated by our tones, don't think of them as singing tones, but instead, think of them as the tones we use during our normal conversation. 

    1st tone is a high and consistent pitch - similar to the sound you make when you are scared and scream out - "ahhhh"

    2nd tone is goes from low to high pitch - similar to the sound you make when you don't understand something - "ah?"

    3rd tone goes from high pitch to low pitch then back to high pitch again - similar to the sound you make when you have understood something - "ahh"

    4th tone is similar to the sound you make when you are angry - "ah!"

    Honestly, I haven't come across a student who is tone deaf so I don't know if this works for you. You can check out this video I made to hear the different tones -  https://youtu.be/EKMwF-zkAhs . Please let me know if you can hear the difference in the tones and if you are able to pronounce them. I would love to find out if this method works for everyone. Thanks! :)

    谢谢你。你是中国哪里来的？

  23. Could you please tell me if this sentence is correct?

    in French Language | Discussion

    Posted

    On 9/11/2019 at 9:16 PM, JDEE said:

    Hi, I entered this sentence into google translate, could someone who speaks french please tell me if it's a correct translation?

     

    You are simply magnificent & I crave you my darling.

    Tu es Simplement magnifique 

    et je te demande ma Cherie.

     

    Thank you for time and help.

    The first part of the translation is ok ("tu es simplement magnifique") but the second part is wrong because demande does not correspond to "crave". But is this sentence even correct in English? Can you really say "I crave you my darling"?

  24. Comer con los ojos?

    in Spanish Idioms

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Ann said:

    Can someone please tell me how to use " comer con los ojos" in a sentence! At the very first time, I didn't understand but basically you can eat someone with your eyes not literary!:lol:

    For example: 

    in English: she's eating flamenco eggs while he drinks a sip of red wine and starts ogling her ...

    in Spanish:

    Thanks in advance! :)

    What does ogling mean? :o

  25. Hello from Mexico!

    in New Forum Members

    Posted

    12 hours ago, ALRO777 said:

    Hi, linguaholic!

    I mean a specific article in this forum. Sorry, I have to improve my English. By the way... Do you know where I can find some English test too?

    Regards!

    For some English tests, you might have a look here https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/test-your-english/

    As for the topics, you can simply search for some desired keywords in the forum and you will find plenty of useful posts about all kinds of things :tongue:

    As far as studying English, I think the best thing you can do is always immersion. Try to get into an English environment or create an English environment around you :=)

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