Buckeye

Right now I'm beginning to learn Biblical Hebrew. It's to help someone who is studying it at a seminary. Learning the script has been really interesting so far. It's not as hard as some of the scripts I've come across or even learned, previously. After I have a strong grasp in Biblical Hebrew, I may move on to Modern.

I've found when listening to almost-fluent speakers of English that what gives them away is the misuse of prepositions and stressing the wrong part of a word. They'll say "on" something, when it should've been "in", or they'll say con-VER-sa-tion or sub-STI-tute. Other than these mistakes, I would have mistook them for native born Americans.

I think Klingon sounds really cool but there aren't many speakers. A big part of learning a language, to me, is being able to communicate with others. While I would find it beneficial to learn to read an ancient language to gain access to certain original texts, despite not being able to speak with other people, learning Klingon wouldn't have the same benefit. Whenever I come across a speaker, I admire their dedication to learn the language.

I began learning Spanish in the 8th grade. I took it several semesters in high school and up to the intermediate level in college. I do not consider it my first second language, as I was meeting educational requirements, mostly, rather than actually trying to learn the language. The first language I studied for understanding and fluency was Esperanto, a language I still speak today. After Esperanto I moved on to Kiswahili.

I take note of words that aren't much in use anymore and add them to my vocabulary. It throws people off sometimes, they'll understand the meaning but will ask where I learned it. Of course, I never use antiquated words with second language speakers, as it would be inconsiderate.

I actually had to research this just the other night. From what I've read, both are acceptable spellings. I've found this to be the case before, sometimes it's based on the country and other times, the word began being spelled one way before another spelling became preferred, resulting in two forms being acceptable.

For standard vocabulary, I'd say reading is the best way to pick up many words. And with an audiobook, you will not only have the spelling and the meaning by context (in some cases) but also the correct pronunciation. For casual speech, slang, and idioms, urban or regionally set books are best, as well as, movies, music, television shows, and social media sites. I'm not really pro-flash cards, unless they're sentences. Learning random vocabulary out of context isn't ideal.

When getting started with learning Irish Gaelic, I gathered several resources which included courses teaching Standard Irish Gaelic, as well as, the Munster, Connacht and Ulster dialects. Of the different forms, I've found Standard Irish Gaelic, created as a compromise between the dialects, to have the easiest to understand orthography and to be the most approachable, overall. When considering the traditional dialects, I've found each have aspects and characteristics that make it harder or easier to learn. Which dialect do you speak or study?