OddVisions

My most embarrassing language related situation happened to me a few months ago. I had walked up to my favorite sushi restaurant and ordered something in the bit of Japanese I know. This is a usual thing for me to do since most of the time, their nice and correct me if I say something wrong. However, this time it was a new guy and he just looked at me for about a minute, not sure what to say. After the long silence, finally he said "I don't speak Japanese". As you could probably imagine, I apologized immensely but it was still very embarrassing.

Yes, I've encountered this numerous times growing up. I believe around here, they start the first graders off with pictures that tell a story and make them put the pictures in the correct order. As the child ages, eventually they must put the paragraphs in order. Finally, around fourth grade is when they start to do sentence order for a paragraph around here. However, it was very confusing when I was a child because they said that a paragraph needed a minimum of 3 sentences at first. Then, they changed their mind and made it six. The structure of the paragraph itself is similar to the essay or story as a whole. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end: an introductory sentence, explanatory sentences, and a conclusion. This can get really confusing because an essay is meant to discuss the explanatory sentences from the introductory paragraph or 'paragraph 1'. All in all though, once a person manages to get all of this down, it's easier than it looks.

I weep for the fact so many of these slang terms are going to be real grammatically correct words. At the same time, I'm very happy about the other words being introduced. I suppose you can't grow a plant without both rain and sun though.

This has only ever happened to me once or twice. I would be learning a language or binging on a show that's spoken in that language and fall asleep at some point. I didn't realize that was the language being spoken in my dream until I woke up. Then again, when I see subtitles enough, I also dream with subtitles.

At only $6 (possibly a bit more now) it sounds like a pretty fair deal for a game that is meant to help you with words or vocabulary only. If mixed with something else that teaches sentence structure or other grammar related language learning processes, then it's a pretty good deal.

I do have a bit of a bucket list, of course this isn't every language I want to learn(I'd learn them all if I could) but they are languages I'd like to speak fluently first before the others: 1. Japanese 2. Tagalog 3. Spanish 4. Korean 5. Chinese (Cantonese) 6. Russian 7. German 8. French My hope is that learning all these languages someday will connect me to other languages and thus I will be able to see the world in a more unified way.

I chose to learn Japanese because it's one of the great many languages I just love to know. However, unlike many of these other languages, Japanese is one that's always around me. It's a language I am honestly easily able to immerse myself in. I think that's one of the many reasons I learned it but it is one of the main reasons.

Thus far, the only problem I've had difficulty with relating to learning Japanese is remembering all of the Kanji. I'm not surrounded by it and my memory isn't as good as it could be in regards to the less pictorial characters in the language. Thankfully, I'm still scraping by with what I know so I can still use those to work up and figure out what the others mean.

I can think of the word 'kimochi' which sort of translates or means to feel nice. I sometimes think that word when I'm patting my tummy or someone messes up my hair. Though, as for a word to translate to directly in English, I can't really think of anything.

Recently, I went on vacation up in North Carolina to be with family for Thanksgiving. While there, I found out one of my younger sisters was failing her Japanese class. I couldn't help much, but I decided to start incorperating some basic Japanese phrases in her daily life and drilling her on them several times daily. I was there two weeks but her Japanese teacher was happy at the amazing improvement my little sister had went through. However, according to my little sister, I couldn't be a tutor because I'm far too strict on teaching and like to randomly say the words too often. I don't think I was being too scary...but what are some ways I probably could've been a better semi-tutor without having to be too strict on my sister or is it that she just didn't like the extra work?

For a beginner, using subtitles to learn some basic words like 'nani' or 'daisuke' is fine. In fact, it's probably one of the easier methods to use in regards to helping a beginning learner for Japanese language. However, as time goes on this doesn't seem to truly be enough to help with the more complex words in the language. To be fair though, there are a few online teachers who do this and break down sentences from the subtitle/visual of the anime to help. Unfortunately, this is not often the case.

It's probably just because the Japanese are taught English from a very young age, even in their home country. Some of the other countries don't really enforce English teaching as much as the Japanese do, so I imagine it's much easier to learn for them since they are surrounded by both languages constantly.

In the English language, there are many verbs, adverbs, and helping verbs that are of use in the spoken language as well as it's written form. Today, I wanted to take a proper look at how to conjugate or mix up helping verbs with various forms. It makes it easier to say if something did not, was not, had not, would have, could have, etc. without having to spell the two words out. Below are some examples of the two words. Next to each two words will be their conjugation in relation to them. would have would've could not couldn't do not don't did not didn't I have I've let us let's First, let's take a look at would have and would've as well as could not and couldn't. When would have is conjugated into would've, the 'ha' in have disappears. This means when it is spoken, 'ha' would also be omitted. That's because the purpose of conjugation is to shorten the two words, thus some of the letters and sounds are eliminated. As for the 'not' portion of could not, the 'o' is simply replaced by an apostrophe. This is done for the same reason. Next, let's (heh, get it?) move on to didn't and don't. These are essentially similar, but are used in different contexts; most often didn't being related to a past tense happening. Thus far, I think that's everything. However, if you feel the need to add something or to ask something then please feel free to share. Language is a learning experience after all!

There is either no way to watch a thread or going about finding ways to watch a thread that doesn't involve bookmarking the page itself is difficult. It'd be nice if someone can go from computer to computer and check the threads involving the important language-related items they wanted to go over. I just want to suggest a way to watch threads or an easier way to watch them if such a thing has already been implemented.

While I don't really think most conspiracy theories are real, they are still defined as theories. If we were to toss all things defined as theory no matter how crazy into fiction sections, it would make little sense considering all of the non-fiction pseudo science or ideas about what may have happened in history or written dramatizations of events. Generally, the non-fiction section usually also comes with subsections and I would likely put this into the ideologies subcategory of my local library.

I'd say Poirot but I've only see the show for his related-novels so I cannot yet say that character though I'm sure it might change to him soon and I'd like to make a not of that before saying my favorite character from written work: Sherlock Holmes. I love mystery novels and as such most of my heroes from novels are detectives.

I was at a dentist office today while waiting for my siblings to have a checkup when a woman and her children came to sit next to me. They were lovely people and I could halfway understand them and I wanted to ask questions about the words I didn't know but I felt too embarrassed to ask because I didn't really know her well. I felt like it would've been rude to do so for some reason. Has this happened to anyone else?

I seem to constantly be attracted to people who know a minimum of two languages. I think it's part of my obsession with foreign language itself that attracts me to them. However, I don't think I've ever pursued a relationship with someone I couldn't understand linguistically. In the case it did happen though, yeah, I would attempt to learn that language if I really thought I loved the person.

Here's a classic English one I used to love to try and get right when I was a kid: Peter Piper picked a pack of peppers. How many peppers did he pick? Another English one that's been discussed a bit here is the wood-chuck tongue twister, but I like the answer to it a bit more: A woodchuck wouldn't chuck wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

I believe there is no limit to how many languages a person can take the time to learn fluently. However, how they learn differs from person to person. It's extremely difficult for me to learn languages that are similar separately. For instance, I will confuse my French with my Spanish because I keep thinking one is the other. Yet I never seem to confuse my German with my Italian (what extremely few words I know of either anyway) probably because I learned them around the same time. However, to each goes his or her own studies. Also, yes, for some reason Italian and German seem similar to me and I realize that must be odd to others.

Thus far, my actual pronunciation of Korean words and letters is the easiest part of my study for the language. My issue is actually remembering the characters when they aren't in front of me on a sheet of paper or typed onto my laptop in some form or another.

I can see why you'd think this since a lot of the time when a person watches an English sports game, the 'go' in the word 'goal' is stressed. However, goal is pronounced differently. The 'al' on the end makes an 'all' sound. So it's pronounced 'go' and then 'all'.

Oh! Thanks! It helps immensely! Kamusta kayo definitely sounds a lot better than telling my close friend kamusta tol. I'm just happy to have a way I can ask him how he is in his own language. You say I can use this with addressing a lot of people at once? Is this something you could use formally like at a meeting too or is it more like a family get together-related sort of word?

My friend taught me one. Though I can't say if it's correct or not. "Mabuti po" or I'm fine. It's something he says when I ask him 'kamusta kayo' or 'kamusta tol'.

I have a friend who's married to an American. One time, on Facebook, her husband commented this on her status: "Mahal kita, asawa ko." A lot of us instantly liked it. :-) It means, "I love you, my wife." So maybe you can use some Filipino words that can add a more personal touch to the words, "mahal kita."