Chris_A

I usually start off with a textbook that goes for total beginners, then I try to learn the basics of any given language as best as I can, then I move on to audio books, so that I can learn proper pronunciation and such. This all sounds quite easy, but in reality, it takes a long time. Maybe even a year. If I get a good grip on the language that I am trying to learn, I move on to more advanced stuff.

I mostly play my video games in English. The exception would be, when I play a game made by a German developer. Most of the time, the English translation is fine, but games made in Germany for German users usually sound and feel better when played in their native tongue.

I think Chinese would be absolutely hard to learn and master for me. It is definitely one of the languages I would really love to learn, along with Japanese, but I`m not sure that I will have any success in this endeavor. Chinese sounds totally alien to me, because I have only learned Latin and German-based languages so far. Even Japanese sounds more familiar then Chinese.

I can totally relate to what you said @anna3101. Maths was the most hated subject in school for me, and thankfully I only had it until the 10th grade, because I was on a humanities specialization during high school. Chemistry is another topic I will never ever totally understand. Physics is quite OK if you put your mind into learning it properly. But the fact remains that some people are naturally talented to master either humanities or sciences. And I`m definitely not a sciences person.

I don`t think it really changes my personality. But it is definitely fun expressing my personality in a different language, because it sounds different. You have to use different jokes, for example, or you have to try and express emotions and ideas differently from what you were used to when speaking your mother tongue. I got really used to the differences, since I basically speak 4 languages since I was a kid, so I don`t really "feel" any different anymore. What I tend to do, though, is mixing up languages. Like, using a lot of English words when I speak Romanian for example.

Ah, my mistake then. Never had any of those in school, but it sounds like very good exercise nevertheless. And fun, as well.

That is a really interesting article, for sure. And its totally true and not only on the Internet. If you want to sell your product, sell your skills or generally open a business and want to come of professional and trustworthy to your clients and another party, you definitely have to make sure that your orthography is top notch.

If I remember right, we had spelling lessons like that in school as well. While it was really hard at first, it really helped me spell things in English correctly, and memorize correct spelling. Our lessons involved multiple choice questions with only one correct answer out of 4 choices. 3 of which were spelled incorrectly.

Orthography is definitely important, in my opinion. If you cannot write correctly and make a ton of grammatical and spelling mistakes, it is a clear sign that you should practice more. And that is doubly true when you write something, like articles or blog posts on websites. Nobody will buy your articles or read your content if it is full of mistakes and errors.

I encountered that problem as well. Certain manuals and books definitely have typos and errors, but I think that comes naturally, as those books were not really written by a native speaker. And even if that would have been the case, even native speakers make mistakes, both spelling mistakes and grammar ones as well. And that is true for non natives also, which have an even harder time writing perfectly. So I tend to oversee such things when I encounter them.

I know what you mean. A language barrier is definitely a bad thing to have. While you can learn certain aspects of a given culture and adopt them, you will actually have to study hard to master a language and eliminate that barrier. I think that is the only solution to such a problem.

I agree with you, that if you really want to have a barely noticeable accent in any given language, that you have to work hard to achieve it. That is for sure. And yeah, using audio and listening to how native speakers pronounce words help a great deal. It was basically how I learned English in the first place, when I was a kid. By watching movies and shows in English with subtitles. That way I learned what words mean and also how to correctly pronounce them.

I would recommend you to focus on one language only. Get a good grip on it, and then move on to the other. Trying to learn 2 languages at the same time will just confuse you, in my opinion, and cause you to mix up words and sentences and their meanings. Not even mentioning the problems with mastering proper grammar. Don`t rush things. There is no need, as you can easily get a grasp of a certain language when focusing on it for a year or so.

That sounds like a good idea for sure. I could read some stuff in Romanian, and see if some Spanish or Italian speaking people would understand certain words and sentences, which would prove that Romanian is closely related to these Latin based languages.

I think there is nothing wrong in speaking a foreign language in your own accent. You will always have an accent when just starting out speaking another language. That is unavoidable. And it requires years of speaking said language until you get rid of the accent, if ever. The best way is to live in a country that speaks the foreign language, because by day to day contact, you can eventually stop having an accent. But if you learn another language abroad, you will assuredly have an accent for a long time. Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, if you put it that way, I agree. Many jokes are based on local culture, which a person from another culture would not understand. The best you can do, in such cases, is trying to explain the other person, why said joke is funny in the first place, which kills the joke by default.

I`m sorry, I didn`t read you earlier post. But in any case, the chart is really helpful for anyone looking to learn a new language and trying to find info about how hard it could possibly be. Hungarian being in the middle cartegory is acceptable, though I don`t quite agree with that assumption.

I would say Romanian is easy to learn for someone who knows any kind of Latin based language, like Italian or Spanish, but for Germanic people, Romanian would be really hard to learn. Also, I saw that they did not mention anything about learning Hungarian, which is closely related to Finnish, but I would say, Hungarian should have gone into the Hard category.

That`s a great link. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It is definitely a good way to get into learning a new language with a great tool to boot.

I kind of tend to combine words from the different languages that I know. It is really funny for my friends hearing these hybrid words that I invent all the time, and they take pleasure in correcting me or saying that said words don`t really exist in a given language. But I cannot help it. If a word sounds good in a language or another, I will try to use it.

That sounds like a really good idea. And lots of fun also. If you will set up something like this in the forums, I will definitely join.

You could try translating the joke that you want to say, the best you can. Thing about jokes is, usually the setting or the situation is what is fun about them. And those things can be easily translated into another language.

I don`t really care about an authors personal life and such. All that matters to me is, if I enjoy his or her work. This is the same with actors. People might hate an actor in real life, but for me, if he is a good actor and produces good movies, I don`t really care what the general public thinks about him. Personal life and the work one does should be two separate things altogether.

In Hungarian and Romanian it is exactly the same. For example for thank you, you would say "Multumesc" and the reply would be "Cu placere" in Romanian and "Köszönöm" "Szivesen" in Hungarian.

I have never learned to use shorthand myself. I was never required to, I think. Nowadays you can take your time in transcribing and translating things and as fellow posters have said, I don`t really think shorthand is needed much anymore.