trenchant

Actually, learning two languages at once isn't more complicated than reading two books at the same time. People who have not tried it before will say that you're probably going to confuse everything, but it's really not a problem that most people will run into in practise.

Unless you're trying to learn Swiss german and "normal" german at the same time, or something like that, I don't think you'd risk confusing things. Chinease and Japanese at the same time might be confusing due to the chinease characters and everything... But everything is doable, and I haven't tried learning two very closely related languages myself, so I shouldn't say anything about that really...

That's interesting. I hadn't considered that, thanks.

I suppose it might just be more of a personal problem for myself, then, as opposed to a universal difficulty for everyone.

I got a hundred percent, but, being a native English speaker, I'd be rather disappointed in myself if I didn't.  :wacky:

This seems like it'd be a pretty good test for those that are learning the language, though, as I suspect many of these words look similar enough to be able to easily confuse someone who isn't familiar with English.

Your grammar isn't perfect, but I wouldn't call it "poor."

I'm curious about what you wrote, exactly, that would cause someone to tell you that your grammar is poor.

From what I've seen, it looks just fine - at least so far.

I'm personally a fan of calling someone a "drazel."

It's a somewhat archaic word meaning "vagabond," or "wench."  :wacky:

It really depends on if you ever plan on doing anything with those languages.

For example, if you were to move to a different country, or even if you just wanted to visit a different country - for vacation or something, for example - then learning a new language proves to be invaluable.

And that's just one of the many examples of why a new language could be extremely useful.

Do any of you use online tools or smartphone apps to help you learn a new language?

I've heard of Duolingo before, and I tried it out for a little while. Tt doesn't seem like it teaches grammar very well, though, so I dropped it after a few weeks of usage.

Have you guys been successful with any websites or apps?

It doesn't bother me too much.

Most of the time, when I see people using internet slang or terminology in spoken speech, it's used very sarcastically.

Though even if it's not, I see these words every day, so it ends up amusing me more than annoying me.

I've never seen someone try saying or spelling the word as "registeration" before, actually.

-- Thankfully, that is, haha.

I've certainly seen a plethora of other terrible misspellings and the like, though.

One of my pet peeves is when someone says "irregardless" instead of "regardless." It's a completely redundant prefix, and yet it's used so often that now it's a real word! It makes me pretty frustrated.

Hey, that's a pretty interesting idea.

I've never heard this tip before, but it definitely seems like it'd be a great way to learn words that a student is personally invested and interested in.

It would be pretty tedious looking up conjugations and word translations for every new word you wanted to use, though, so I wouldn't recommend trying this until the student has a pretty decent grasp on the language already.

I see that everyone basically answered it depends. I don't blame them. There's a lot of factors to consider when learning languages.  :wacky: But if you want a rough estimate, Personally, the fastest I ever learned a language was two months. I didn't have a choice though as I stayed in the country and I was exposed to the language daily.

Wow, two months is really impressive.

If you don't mind me asking, what language was it? Did you already have prior exposure to the language, or was this a completely 'fresh' two months where you started from nothing and then learned it all? How fluent would you say you were by the end of those two months?

... Sorry for all the questions, heh. But I'm genuinely curious.

I'm inclined to believe that being fully immersed in that country makes a difference in every aspect of learning that language.

Having been in Taiwan for about a month, I really feel that helped improve not only my Chinese speaking abilities, but also my writing and reading, simply because I saw the language everywhere I went, and those skills were forced to be in use every day.

I can only handle one at a time - though, admittedly, I've never actually tried learning two at a time.

It's just that I'd rather fully devote my time to learning one well, than spread out my energy and resources with multiple languages. I'd probably end up confusing the two languages at some point as well, haha.

It's impressive that you're attempting two, though, so best of luck to you!

This happens to me all the time, and only gets worse the more languages I learn, haha.

There's been a word I've been trying to think of for a long time now - I know it starts with a W, and means "deserving of being hanged." It's definitely an archaic word that hardly anyone uses anymore, though, so it's not easy to look up. I just can't remember the word, exactly! It's quite frustrating.

I prefer learning in school, because of the fact that you'll be surrounded by other students.

It helps me feel more comfortable, surrounded by other people that are also in the process of learning and working out the kinks of learning a new language.

Personally speaking, I'm a rather slow learner, so it would take me at minimum two years to really become comfortable with a language - maybe even three.

That's assuming I attempt learning the language in my current setting, though. If I were to try moving elsewhere and fully submersing myself in that language, I'd likely learn much faster.

... What in the world is "tweep"? I've never even heard of that one before.

The others are great words that I'm glad have been added, especially "crowdfunding" and "gamification," as they easily describe more recent trends and pushes.

I've never been a fan of slang terms being added to the dictionary, but I suppose it's inevitable.

Yes.

Thankfully, the languages that I'm interested in - French and Chinese - are both very widely used, and thus have a lot of material that I can learn from.

Well, it's a little harder for me to find French media that I'm interested in than Chinese media, but it's not impossible.

You know you're a language nerd...

When you start dreaming in a different language.  :nerd:

The Monstrumologist series by Rick Yancey is my all-time favorite series, and I found it incredibly inspiring in terms of viewing society, and even humanity itself. It's a series that largely deals with existential problems, and Yancey's writing skills are so beautiful that every line is almost poetry.

This is another great site that hosts wonderful choose-your-own adventure stories.

I'm a huge fan of them, and I think the shift to digital CYOA stories has been the best development that could've possibly happened; it's like CYOA novels were made for a digital platform. Holding one's spot in a physical book and flipping to different pages all the time certainly was annoying, in my opinion.

I think it would be extremely convenient, but also extremely dangerous; different languages can aid in privacy and security, and without those, we would have to resort to other codes and modes of discreet communication.

But all that aside, I think it would be pretty fun to finally be able to communicate with folks all the way around the world.

I like a number of Chinese and Japanese songs, even though I can't actually understand a lot of what they say - I definitely always look up the translations, though!

After listening for a while, you start to pick up what certain words mean, at least.

My first word was "Dad," much to the dismay of my mother, who had been trying to get me to say "Ma" this whole time!

I don't think there's ever a "bad" reason to learn a language, but there certainly are some reasons that are more trivial and silly than others... like learning a language just to "sound cool," or the like.

But in my experience, people that start out with such motivations don't usually get very far into learning the language before giving up; learning a language takes a lot of dedication that isn't worth it unless a person is genuinely interested.

I started learning a second language since pretty much kindergarten, as my family was bilingual to begin with.

But I'd say I started learning a third language in elementary school, when I took Spanish lessons as an after-school activity.