Hedonologist

I have indeed on a few occasions. Sometime I will only want an overview of the language or want to study it briefly out of curiosity. Some other languages though like french I had had serious intention of learning, but never persisted. With regards to Russian specifically the script shouldn't put you off as it's one of the easiest foreign scripts to learn. You could do it in a day if you wanted.

Some languages simply don't translate well to others. There's more than just words to consider, there's sentence structure as well. I generally only use Google translate to get a gist of what a paragraph or sentence is about.

It's pretty good for individual words too, as it carries multiple possible translations and meanings, but I agree that it is worthless for serious translations. Still good for getting the jist of a piece of text though. I often use it for foreign news articles that are more in depth than their English equivalent.

Hi there Natbynik. Is your son studying Latin in school, or are you teaching it to him from home? Either way it sounds like he will certainly progress faster if you are learning it alongside him. Spanish would be a tad easier after studying Latin too.

Well when reading a parallel text it can be quite frequent. I know sentence translations are there on the next page, but sometimes you need a dictionary to determine which word is which. Otherwise fairly frequently as well as my vocabulary is still limited in many of the languages I have studied.

I've read a lot that studying Latin will help you in learning other romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese) although I don't actually know of anyone who has done so, for those who have, what time frame reduction should one be looking at, half the time, quarter the time? I assume Italian will be even faster than the rest as the most related.

The first I can remember watching, and knowing it was French (as opposed to seeing dubbed stuff when I was little) was a comedy called Les Visiteurs, with Jean Reno as a time travelling medieval knight.

I really should track it down again and see how it holds up.

I've seen part of Les visiteurs before. It was part of a  bundle of movies dubbed for learning foreign languages actually. I wasn't really studying french much at the time though but I did find it funny in itself. I would definitely recommend to others are it's certainly not a chore to watch.

regardless of weather there will be clashing with learning multiple language, the problem is that you will achieve fluency slower as you will not devote all your time and attention to the main language. I suppose if you want to attain conversational fluency do them together, but the fastest way to gain fluency is with sole focus on one language.

What about spoken dutch? I find that I still have a bit of trouble when listening to dutch speakers, but newspapers are a breeze these days. Even after studying some words I find that spoken too fast they will pass by me, but written text not as much.

I never studied or tried to learn Dutch but when I fly with KLM the host talks in Dutch which sounds different than German and more to English BUT I can pick out a lot of words from him when he is talking and know the context of what he is talking about.

That's surprising as I find written dutch easy for an English speaker to sort of 'pick up' but spoken dutch is quite different I find. Having not studied a word of dutch I found that I could almost read entire signs in Belgium. Although even now after having studied dutch I find spoken dutch difficult to follow fluently.

If I will be spending some time in both Sweden and Denmark, which will be best to learn. I'm assuming it would be better to focus on one rather than split the time between the two. Also seeing as most people will be able to communicate in English I think a bias towards reading is more important (for signs, newspapers etc)

as far as I'm aware colour is a British/Australian thing. Having said that if I know I am speaking in a palce frequented mostly by Americans I will spell it 'color' simply for their benefit. Most of the time I will use British English though. Sometimes without thinking I will spell it colour and the spell checker will flag it up, so I change ti without consideration.

I usually study at home when it's quiet. If there is good weather I enjoy studying in a big public park under a tree for example, it's really relaxing and the nature sound help me to think.

I suppose the only worry there is sudden change of weather. You certainly wouldn't want to get caught out in the rain, especially is you had books out with you. Having said that I've studied in the garden before, it certainly can be relaxing.

I'm currently studying Nihongo...

I was just about to ask what language that was but alas, it's Japanese I should have recognized from Nihon. I have a few friends who have studied Japanese for that reason. I learned hiragana but never got much further at all. Only 1 of the people I knew who studies Japanese, and indeed the only one who succeeded didn't do it for anime.

Well I've always wanted to become fluent at one, and German had many advantages. It is probably the most useful foreign language for an English speaker in Europe to learn. It's similar to English in many ways, I enjoy German media so when I do use it for practice, it's not a chore. Many reason really.

Is there a German equivalent of this English idiom 'par for the course' which basically means, 'to be expected'. It's one I though would exist although I haven't stumbled across it yet.

Hi, I'm looking mainly for a German speaking language exchange, but I would also be interested in a dutch one, My native language is British English.

Skype would be ideal, but I'm flexible about communication methods.

Not at all, even the language where my vocabulary is extremely limited. I mean of course i sometimes have to pause to think about a word, or try to pause to think of an alternative phrasing but never tense up in an anxious sense.

What of the Manchester accent? I always thought it sounded a lot different. . .

. . .of course it doesn't come close to being as distinct as Welsh, but well. . .

The Manchester accent seems pretty much like the other northern accents of Sheffield Leeds etc.

The welsh accent is distinct, but not as much as Scottish, although maybe it's my southern bias there. I would say the accent of Manchester is closer to Geordie (150 miles away) than it is to Scouse (40 miles away).

No it would be walks, as it is referring to him. "He walks" therefore it would be "The man who walks the path of freedom".

Also, when discussing this with someone else they suggested it would be 'whom' but I believe it would remain 'who' as 'the man' is in the Accusative here.

I've briefly read parts of the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit, not that I understand Sanskrit, but just to use with a parallel transliteration so that I can get a grasp on Devanagari. I find using this method is very helpful for learning foreign scripts.

I prefer to also study in my house while lying on my bed. I assimilate more when I study like this.

Don't you find that the others in the library distract you. Not necessarily by noise, but just by moving around and being there. I find that the vastness of the library also amplifies a lot of the background noise. This coupled with the fact that library chairs are not the most comfortable makes it a bad environment for me.

Within England, what do you think the most distinct accent is?

I would have to say Scouse(Liverpool) is the most distinct, almost as distinct as Scottish, and even more so than welsh in my opinion. Not only that, but it's also very distinct from the surrounding accents of Lancashire.

Geordie is also pretty distinct, but not as much so as Scouse.

The less people I'm learning with, the quicker I learn. I can only learn in groups of 2-3 max. Classroom settings were terrible. I made very little progression. I learn best by simply working through a text book on the stuff I know I need to learn.

Personally I prefer in my house, using on the sofa or at a desk. For some reason I cannot stand learning in the library, or any other public place. I'm not sure why but I generally need solitude. I can learn with 1 or two other people but certainly not with many more in the room. I suppose I've also been an auto math and that's just the way it is.

I know someone personally who is fluent in 8 and pretty good in 13. He can read but not speak a couple of others too.

These people are pretty rare though. He started learning very young and continued late into life.