lushlala

Ooh too many to mention! I like word in Italian with the 'zz' sound, as in

ragazzi- boys

ragazze- girls

Piazza- public square

Pizza- pizza

canzonetta- small musical piece

I also like the diminutive derivatives like for piccolo- little/ piccolino- little one

@clair02....you make a very good point! When I was doing my Linguistics degree, I learnt that young kids have the capacity to learn various languages simultaneously without the struggles or hurdles that hinder grown ups. Which is why I always laugh when people maintain that it's too much pressure for children to be taught more than one language at a go. I wish my parents had exposed me to more languages at a much younger age. I hope to have 1 or 2 kids of my own in the future, and really hope I'll be able to afford them this opportunity  With the world now being a global village, I think it's one of the best gifts you could give a child as it broadens their horizon.

@GaeilgeGirl.....I can totally relate to how you're feeling because that's me all over! I don't know why, but I too feel a little intimidated to speak my target language with the native speakers, yet it's naturally the best learning tool IMHO. I believe it's important to know the culture, but  different people learn languages for  different reasons and may not see this as a plus. I love Italian and French because I'm interested not only in the languages, but the people,  history and culture. If I could afford it, I'd travel to France and Italy and spend maybe a year in each country, immersing myself so as to expedite my learning process. Immersion is in fact my favourite way of learning. I was lucky enough to spend 3 months in France and Italy at different stages of my life, and was amazed at how much quicker I learnt. Plus for someone like me who's shy to speak their target language, if you go where the people speak very little English, you're forced to speak your target language, shy or not LOL So if you can go to Ireland, I'd encourage you to do so. 

Hmm...that's pretty WEIRD! The guy on the video clip you've attached sounds creepy too, LOL Almost like he's trying to subliminally brainwash people hehe Clearly, whoever came up with that theory must have a one track mind. I'm not even sure where the rationale has come from. But hey, if he believes it, then he'll find a justification for it. It'd be interesting to see what other members here think. Maybe I'm just not able to get my head around it

7 hours ago, Countryhalli said:

In highschool, my freshman year I took spanish, simply because my parents said that is the biggest language coming into the USA. I was constantly confused and had no idea how to properly say anything, and couldn't remember hardly any words even just basic ones. Then my sophmore year I took german and that was so much easier, I enjoyed it, and found it quite similar to english in a way. So in my personal opinion if I had to say, I could give german a shot as learning a nee language. 

Wow, that's an eye opener @Countryhalli! I never would have thought German was easier than Spanish at all. I've always had it in my head that German was one of the most difficult languages out there, mainly because of the pronunciation. Even with that belief, I've always heard that German is quite similar to English because they come from the same family of languages, even though I can quite honestly say I can't fathom that one out. Having said that, I think I'd also struggle with pronouncing Spanish words. There's a certain sound the Spanish make that sounds very much like a lisp to me, and that to me sounds vey difficult to incorporate into speech if you don't have that speech impediment!

I'm probably in the minority here, but another frustrating problem I struggle with is the confidence to speak the language, especially with the native speakers. IDK, I just come over all shy and timid and feel too intimidated to speak in their presence. I mean, this is how silly it is, even back at university when it was just me, our lecturer and my peers, I remember dreading the speaking lessons. I was one of the top performers, but then I'd clam up when it got to my turn to stand up and speak or present something in French. It's a problem I certainly wish I didn't have because it will only hamper my progression in the future. I often nail the grammar and te written aspect, long before I can speak a single sentence. It's just so weird. Does anyone else struggle with this?!

I think it was last year or maybe the year before that I asked a similar question, which provoked very interesting responses. In my opinion, it's always good to try to learn the language as it's spoken. Obviously, this is not always easy because your mother tongue will influence how you speak any subsequent language you learn. I think it's especially difficult for those with heavy accents to adapt them to different languages, but the least you can do is try. Not only does that allow you to articulate your words better, it also makes it easier for others including the native speakers, to understand you better. The idea here isn't to change your own accent to the point of sounding fake, but rather to speak the language as it should to be understood LOL So for me it's a no-brainer, you simply have to give it your all.

@clair02.....you make a very valid point there, actually LOL You could be carrying on and on and all the while  not actually learning the correct thing. Now, that combined with the loopiness of the whole thing=not a very good combination!! I guess like you say, different things do work for different people, and if it's working for them then why not, right? Like Rooks57, I can relate to practicing out loud, that makes more sense to me. So I doubt I could full carry on a one-way conversation as practice hehe.

I agree with those who say there's benefits to both, so that combining the two would probably be the best route to go down. The thing I like about the classroom setup is the fact that you have structure and guidance from the teacher. Plus if there are others in your class who are as equally driven, it can really spur you on to push yourself harder and do better. You can gauge your progress against theirs and the class presents a great platform through which to learn from each other. I definitely couldn't rely solely on learning on my own. It probably works for some, but being the sort of person I am, I'd probably lose my motivation too.

5 hours ago, Cyrup said:

Thanks everyone for the responses! Haha yeah, I felt a little awkward asking what language to learn at first @lushlala, (it's such an open ended question). 

I am considering doing French for the rest of the week and then maybe trying out Spanish for a little while. In the end,  yes it does come down to what I would enjoy learning the most, otherwise I will struggle to learn. I'm a bit hesitant to try Spanish as I have been learning French a little already, but I don't think I can rule it out until I've tried it!

I think I will enquire with some colleagues also as to how useful Spanish with would be in game the games development industry. 

You're most welcome, Cyrup.....I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we were all more than happy to chip in  I do hope it goes some way to helping you with your decision. Something tells me whatever you do, you'll be just fine. I totally agree with carrying on with French for a while, seeing as you've already started with that. But in all honesty, you should be fine because I've heard French and Spanish have some similarities. I can't say to what degree that's true because I've never tried to learn Spanish. I have to say someone told me Italian and French were similar, but I still not that convinced. I wish you the very best of luck, whichever way you take it, I'm sure you'll soar

These are very interesting responses, thanks for that everyone! I think we all agree dedication, hard work, persistence and interest in the language definitely count more over the level of intelligence. I noticed in the past that some of my more intelligent friends weren't so interested in learning foreign languages, and were more about the Sciences and Maths. It was so weird at the time, because you could literally tell who would excel at languages, mainly based on what they were studying at the time. It could have been partly coincidental, but the students who did the arts seemed more keen to learn and master their foreign language skills than the Science and Maths students It was almost like they were bored in class. Very interesting indeed.

I have never thought to try learning Russian simply because I doubt I'll ever set foot in the country and also because I get the feeling it's one of the most difficult languages to learn. Of course, I could very well be wrong. But  growing up, a friend of mine had this Russian female friend, and listening to her speak it sounded like music to my ears LOL I don't know if it was partly because she was drop dead gorgeous hehe -and BTW, I don't bat for the other team! Plus I just love accents and to hear a Russian speaking English is something I enjoy. Anyway, once in a while we'd ask her to teach us some Russian words and I always struggled with the pronunciation. So I don't know, I don't think I'd ever try to learn Russian.

The thing I enjoy the most is being able to gauge the level and speed at which I progress through the different stages of the learning process. I love it when I add to my vocabulary, learning new phrases and words. Knowing that I could go to these countries and be able to comfortably hold my own in a conversation in my target language is very rewarding to me. I'm not going to lie, I also like being complimented on how far I've come. It's especially rewarding when it's coming from native speakers.

No, I don't carry a dictionary with me anymore. I used to back carry my French/English one when I was in university, but only when I was going for my lessons. If I were learning now, I doubt very much I would because of advances in modern technology. I've never looked into it, but I remember being in college in England where we had a lot of Chinese students who were there to learn English. They never carried these bog standard dictionaries, and always seemed in  possession of all these sleek, cute, digital devices of all types! -and this was about 7 years ago! So i'd be looking to get my hands on stuff like that.

@Lingua Franca.....Thanks so much for your response  It was just a quick visit to get a feel of how the site works. My audio is always on, so that wasn't a problem. I don't know if it could have been my Java, everything gets updated automatically. Or should I say everything is up to date, and if anything needs updating, the system sends notifications. I wouldn't be surprised if it was internet playing up, though. It's very temperamental and I find speed can be an issue, which obviously thows everything else off. But it's such a neat site, I'll persevere with it :)

I used to think that someone being highly intelligent meant they could learn and master foreign languages much easier than most. However, when I was studying French at university I realised that this wasn't necessarily true because some of the brighter student didn't necessarily top the class. This is probably further supported by the fact that passion, interest and determination (among others) are qualities that count more when it comes to learning a foreign language. So I'd like to know from all of you, what you've observed in your own personal experience; to what degree do you feel a person's level of intelligence determines how easily they can learn foreign languages? 

Well, you seem to have some concrete reasons for learning both languages, so that's a good start. If it were my choice to make, I'd go with Spanish, being one of the more broadly spoken languages. I'm not speaking from experience, and may well be wrong, but I would imagine Spanish would be the easier language to learn. I'm not at all familiar with Arabic, but I have many Muslim friends who speak it, and out of curiosity have asked them just how easy it is to learn, and the answer I keep getting is that it's HARD. Based on that, I don't think you'd have much luck learning Arabic without any formal instruction, especially if you have no basic knowledge of it. Overall, I'd opt for Spanish because it's one of the languages of the moment, through which you can secure very lucrative work.

Wow, @Cyrup you have quite a decision on your hands! The poll is also very neck and neck, so that presents you with quite the dilemma. Julian sums it up how I would have addressed it, he really took the words out of my mouth. For me personally, Italian is the most beautiful language of the lot. But of course, that's subjective and the next person may think differently. In terms of userbility and the language that's likely to advance you in the work place, then definitely Spanish would be my number choice, followed by French. I'm sure you'll receive many varying answers based on each person's own biases. Of course the final decision lies entirely with you and I sure hope the responses here will help you in making your choice.

On 26 August 2016 at 5:12 PM, 17emilyhalko said:

If you want to learn a language, then don't learn English! Most of my language teachers have told me that English is one of the hardest languages to learn, because the rules don't make sense in English. The pronunciation is, for the most part, memorization, because many of our words aren't phonetic. Also, our rules in English are silly sometimes and don't always apply. Older English made more sense in some regards, like with the personal and impersonal you, which was "thou" and "thee." Today, we still use a personal and impersonal he/him and I/me, so it makes no sense that the personal and impersonal you is the same. For example,

"He went to the store." is very different from "I saw him go to the store" because the person doing the action in each sentence changes!

In modern English, "You went to the store" and "I saw you go to the store" are also two very different sentences because the person doing the action changes, though the "you" doesn't change, whereas it used to in old Enligsh, based on who the subject of the sentence was.

I grew up speaking English and because English is the official language of Botswana, it's very widely spoken here. But I absolutely agree with what you're saying. While English may be relatively easy for native speakers and those who speak it fluently, I don't believe it would be very easy to learn from scratch as an adult for the very reasons that you cited, such as the rules not always applying and the pronunciation of words not always making phonetic sense. Even having spoken English all my life, I found I was always picking about new things when I went to live in England, always unlearning some bad habits I learnt from some of my past English teachers. I've even had this conversation with my English husband, and he agrees that English language rules don't always make sense. I mean, even native speakers don't always observe set rules and regulations, and the fact that there are so many different regional dialects doesn't help. I wouldn't like to be learning English now, as an adult LOL

Wow, thanks a lot for that, Lingua Franca.....this looks like a neat little site! I just had a quick look and they cover 80 languages, including French and Italian, which are the two I'd be interested in. I also like that they cover so many different areas. I'm definitely bookmarking this one. I tried to sample the Italian fruit and veg game, but for some reason, it didn't work  But I'll keep trying, for sure.

You know, this could be a very good learning tool! Yet I've never given it any thought at all. Maybe it's because I'm not really big into games, IDK. However, there's stuff like Scrabble that I really like, and I wonder if I could maybe find Italian and French version. If they do exist, I'd be over the moon and wouldn't hesitate to buy them both! I have always said that I prefer a little light heartedness involved in my learning process and I feel strongly that word association games would be a fantastic way to grow your vocabulary. I think it'd be a little....shall we say ambitious? Yes, that's the word, IMHO it would be ambitious to expect playing games to build your oral or written skills. I'd be looking at them purely from the standpoint of learning new words and boosting my vocabulary bank, so to speak. Thanks for this thread, @gracer.....I'll be watching it closely in case there are some ideas I can pick up  

This is not something I've ever considered, but some members here have previously mentioned they listen to music and sing along as part of their learning and it seems to work for them. Looking at the argument that the author of the article puts across, it does make sense. I'm a huge fan of having fun while you learn because it keeps you going. I think the only challenge I'd be faced with would be the quality of the music itself. I'd want to seriously enjoy the music. I love my French and Italian, but have never really indulged in any music from those countries. So if any of you know of any good Italian or French chill/r&b/pop music that you can recommend, I'm all ears LOL I'm very curious about this method and would be interested in putting it to the test

@gracer....I find I like the traditional classroom setup as my main way of learning, and then using other bits and bobs on the side to enhance my learning process. I like learning with others and having the guidance of a teacher. The interaction with other learners is also important to me because it spurs me on. I like to gauge my progress against my classmates, but don't necessarily let it pile the pressure on. It's just nice to have some sort of reference point, a gauge and a support network through which to speed up my learning process. For me, having a teacher is also good because they can easily identify where I'm flagging and guide me along the right path. No matter what method I employ to learn a foreign language, I will always want to be part of a class for those reasons.

Well, I wouldn't say they should because it sounds rather prescriptive LOL Different people have different strengths and weakness, and we all prefer to learn through different methods that work for us. I have personally never tried to learn a language through the medium of song, but I've heard some people say it's worked for them. -and I say if it works for you, whatever method you employ, go for it and good luck. We don't all have to use the same universal methods in order to succeed. What suits me may not necessarily be the most popular method.

I like Enersto have always heard that English is closely linked to German, but because I'm not very familiar with the latter, I couldn't really say how accurate that is. On the face of it, I wouldn't have thought so, but it would definitely be interesting to hear from German speakers who speak English fluently. There's also the school of thought that English is related to French, and that I can believe because the English language has over the years borrowed from French. It has so many words that are French in origin.