linguaholic

Very informative & useful post, thank you Lasonax! I have to say that I tried all of those methods and still do, however I really mix up the methods at times :=) I would like to add that another method could consist in first learning all the "radicals" of the Kanji. There are different lists available online, but the standard now is the list with 214 radicals. It used to be over five hundred back in the days but has then been 'simplified' several times. So, you could first focus on learning all the radicals and then start learning Kanji. At this point, you would have to choose one of the methods Lasonax pointed out; however, if you already know all the radicals at this point, it might be easier for you to grasp the meaning of a certain Kanji. Another mixed method could consist in studying the Kanji and learn the radical of that very Kanji at the same time. This might make more sense because studying Radicals in their isolated form can be very boring at times.

After doing some research about this 'quote' I doubt that Confucius ever said (has written) something like this. It seems like nobody really knows whether this quote can be attributed to him or not. However, a possible translation of this this nice saying could be: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”) || 如果你找到了一份你热爱的工作，你一生中的任何一天都不是在工作中度过的. This translation does use modern vocabulary and is therefore definitely not from the era when Confucius lived. However, it is an OK-Translation as far as Modern Chinese goes :=)

Great Eppie, thank you! I am pretty positive about the Chinese version of the first two ones. However, the third one doesn't make sense to me. I am pretty sure that 他的座右銘是孔子的名言 can't be the equivalent of "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life". I will have a look for the translation of this one, right now.

Some of the languages you guys just mentioned already have their own forum on linguaholic.com. If you scroll down the whole way down to the "end of the forum", you will find a section called 'Other languages'. In there, you will find Latin, Gaelic, and some more As for Manx, Ancient Greek and so on, I will try to come up with something. However, it might be a good idea that you first post your questions / information about those languages in this section here. As soon as we got enough threads related to dead languages, we could move them respectively into a new subforum (dead languages or so). What do you think about that? http://linguaholic.com/other-languages/

你好 Sevvy. 欢迎你来到linguaholic.com。 认识我很高兴！ You mentioned that you are looking for a buddy to learn Spanish. Therefore, I would like to ask you to make a post in our "Language Exchange Forum" and with some luck, you will find a good buddy to study Spanish together. Have a nice weekend. See you in the threads!

Dear Izabelroze Thank you so much for joining linguaholic.com! It is a pleasure to have you here! I do speak German and French, so I will be happy to assist you in your French & German studies. To get you started, you might want to have a look at this list of links for studying French online : http://linguaholic.com/french-links-73/best-websites-to-study-french-online-free-resources/ I will soon upload a list for German as well, including the best websites for studying German. If you have any questions about the forum or maybe some other language-related issues, just write me a PM, please! See you in the forums kind regards Lingua

Very well said, Canadien! I completely feel the same about studying (new) languages. It really opens you up a completely new world, or as Frank Smith would put it: ❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞ Or another nice quote about language learning says: ❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞

Dear Trenchant You might want to have a look here to find out what other people are using: http://linguaholic.com/language-study-apps/ There are many threads about duolingo already on linguaholic.com. If you would like to find out what others think about it, please use the search function and type in 'Duolingo' and you should be able to find lots of threads about it. Have a nice day! Lingua

General Online resources http://www.velingua.com (Learning by Translating) http://www.studyspanish.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/ (The Spanish section of the very well known BBC language lessons) http://www.duolingo.com (Learn Spanish and many more languages) http://www.spanishdict.com/ http://www.qlipo.com (Learn Spanish through Music) http://www.aprenderespanol.org/ http://www.onlinefreespanish.com/ http://www.spanishunlimited.com/spanish-lessons/ http://www.practicaespanol.com http://www.online-spanish-course.com http://www.livemocha.com http://www.fluencia.com http://www.bowdoin.edu/~eyepes/newgr/ http://www.notesinspanish.com Dictionaries: (mostly English-Spanish, Spanish-English and more combinations) http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp (Dictionary & an incredible forum for many different languages, Spanish included) http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-spanish/ http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-spanish/ http://www.larousse.com/en/dictionaries/english-spanish http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-spanish http://www.oxforddictionaries.com http://www.hablaa.com (Spanish-English, English-Spanish and much more)

Awww, "Spirited Away", it is my favorite movie from Hayao Miyazaki. The Japanese title of "Spirited Away" is "Chihiro" :grin:

Well, as Lasonax pointed out, I also do believe that studying two languages at the same time is definitely possible and shouldn't cause too much confusion. However, when studying two languages (dialects) that are strongly related to each other, some confusion might occur. For instance, I am now studying Chinese and Cantonese at the same time and I have to admit that sometimes this does indeed cause some confusion. In writing, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese are almost identical. However, the pronunciation of characters is completely different. Moreover, in Mandarin Chinese you have 4 different tones and in Cantonese you have 6-9 different tones. 6 to 9 tones? Yes. Well, in teaching materials you will learn that Cantonese has 6 tones. However, in reality, Cantonese has up to nine tones, but just 6 'official' tones are documented in most of the textbooks. So, when reading Chinese characters, depending on whether you are studying Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese, you will always have to think about the right syllable and also about the right tone of the syllable. This can be really tricky sometimes. If you are studying Japanese and Chinese at the same time, there are also some aspects that might cause some confusion. For instance, the stroke order for THE SAME CHARACTERS in Japanese and Chinese is not always the same. Example: The character for king, namely 王, is written differently (different stroke order) in Chinese and Japanese. So, if you are learning both of these languages at the same time, it will be hard to differentiate "the stroke order rules" for both of these languages. However, we have quite a lot of students at university that are studying Sinology & Japanese Studies at the same time and they do pretty well. It is therefore maybe not easy, but definitely possible. An interesting fact about Japanese and Chinese is: They are NOT genealogically related to each other (at all). It is just that the Japanese decided in early times to use chinese characters for their writing...and Japanese was for a very long time written SOLELY in Chinese characters (however the sound/pronunciation of the characters was different). Later on, as many of you probably already know, the Japanese complemented their (well, the chinese writing script) with their own scripts, namely with Hiragana and Katakana.

Dear Hoodoowytch That's a very interesting suggestion. I will definitely think about it. The problem is just always the same: At the beginning new forums are very empty it takes quite a long time until people are willing to contribute and share their experience/knowledge. Moreover, linguaholic.com had over 100 forums in total until very recently...then I decided to merge some of the forums, because some of them very pretty empty. So the strategy of this forum (at least for now) is to keep the number of forums as low as possible (we currently still got 78 sub forums in here!). However, I would also love to have a section for dead languages...So if you have a good "concept" in mind, please let me know more about it. Also, if you would like to moderate this kind of forum, please let me know. We also do not have a sub forum for ASL or let's say SL in general. That would be another thing to think about, right? best wishes from Switzerland Lingua

This topic has been moved to Hindi Language // General Discussion Thread. [iurl]http://linguaholic.com/index.php?topic=2507.0[/iurl]

I like those two as well, Trenchant! They do make sense and they kind of express things that might not be easily expressed with other words.

Dear Canadien I am glad to see that you decided to register on www.linguaholic.com. We have some French Native Speakers here in the forum and some advanced French Speakers as well. I live in a bilingual city in Switzerland and we speak French/German here. So if you have any questions about French, you might also just write me a private message. Still, the best thing to do is just to open a thread in the French sub forum, so it is easily accessible for everyone! I hope you will have fun here! See you in the threads!

This topic has been moved to General Discussion about Language Learning. [iurl]http://linguaholic.com/index.php?topic=19.0[/iurl]

Hilarious puns, Leeroy! hehe. awww, my favorite one must be the one with the Naan bread...It's maybe also because I really really love Naan Bread :=)

Dear Hoodowytch! Thank you so much for joining linguaholic.com! It sounds like you are a really interesting person! I am glad to hear that you are also very passionate about studying languages! If you could share some knowledge about Sign Language in this forum, that would be absolutely amazing. Please spread the word and help us to make this forum an even better place! If there is anything I can do for you or if you have any questions about the forum (or certain sections), please do not hesitate to write me a private message! kind regards lingua

Have you seen my message Linguetronix? Please check your Inbox :=) :grin:

You are absolutely right, Linguetronix. Anyway, most of the languages that are in discussion here already have its own forum (sub forum). I will lock this thread now and later on I might gonna delete it. Thank you for caring about linguaholic.com! regards lingua

It is funny to see how in this kind of thread everyone seems to have a completely different opinion. The most difficult aspect for me would be Speaking, however I do not have the same feeling for all language. In Chinese, for instance, I have more problems in Listening than Speaking. This is, I believe largely due to the fact that Chinese is tonal (4 different tones and 1 neutral one).

Hey kate23 I used to have the same problem in the past. However, at one point of my studies at university, I decided that it is absolutely crucial to understand all the grammar-related vocabulary, so whenever I came across a grammar term that I was not (anymore) familiar with, I looked it up in a dictionary. There are lots of great dictionaires out there, even on the Net :=) However, if you are serious about understanding and mastering grammar, you might want to buy a "physical dictionary". Something like that might come in handy: http://www.amazon.de/A-Dictionary-Grammatical-Terms-Linguistics-ebook/dp/product-description/B000PMG3MC

Wow, this one is awesome. Thank you for providing those interesting quotes, CeliVega!

Hey Miya You can find a nice list with books about the Korean language here: http://www.perapera.org/our-8-best-books-for-learning-korean/ PS: I will also ask my Korean friend about it (She is a teacher in Korea). I am sure she will be able to come up with something useful.

Well, I don't think there is a really stupid/bad reason to learn a language, however I am not very fond of people who study a language just because they think they can earn more money that way. For instance, where I come from (Switzerland), a lot of parents now believe that China will be the next superpower, so they want their children to study Chinese from a very young age. Of course this does not only hold true for "money-hungry" parents, but also for some young people in my country, who just want to learn Chinese because they think it will pay off later on (and the sad thing about that is that most of them have no interest in Chinese culture or China as a country at all). However, In most cases, those people will not be succesful in learning that new language X anyway, as learning a new language is a pretty difficult and long-enduring task, which can only be fulfilled, if you have passion for that language or at least have (a lot of) motivation to learn this language. If you have personal aims/goals while studying a new language, you are likely to be able to keep up the long-time motivation, which of course is a crucial aspect while learning a new language. So, good reasons to learn a new language, are (in my humble opinion): if you are interested in the culture & history of country X, where Y is spoken, if your girlfriends native-language is Y and you would like to be able to speak to her and her family in language Y, if you are just terribly passionate about studying languages (and specifically language Y), if your boss really wants you to speak language Y because it is really necessary for your daily-business, and and and.