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anna3101

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Everything posted by anna3101

  1. Me gusta mucho la sala, la bachata y el merengue pero también la música pop. Escucho a Julieta Venegas, Malú, Los Titanes, Ray Sepulveda, Thalía, Frank Reyes y otros. Il Divo ha algunas canciones muy bonitas en español ("Solo otra vez", "Isabel", "La vida sin amor" etc). Quisiera descubrir las canciones españolas o latinas de "los viejos tempos" (años 50-60-70). Quizás me podeis recomendar algunas? Grazias!
  2. Thanks for the encouragement, Chris! I'll give it a go and see what comes out of it!
  3. This is a bit of a problem for many people, myself included. I grew up, studied and graduated in a country where British is considered to be the golden standard, however, with the amount of songs, films and books in American English, I find myself invariably mixing up the two. I try my best to stick to one thing at a time and use American orthography when I'm writing emails to Americans and British orthography for anything else, but it is difficult. I'd love to find an easy way to switch between the two. Especially in terms of pronunciation - I listen to a huge amount of both American and British songs, and the pronunciation from both sides of the Atlantic tends to merge in my head.
  4. Hello dylr88, Probably everyone has something which works for him/her best. Here are some things that are helpful for me, maybe you'll find them useful too. 1. When I'm learning a new language, I start with listening to simple audio files while simultaneously following the text in a book. It helps me to be able to identify words inside the sentences and get a general idea of how the language sounds. 2. Also, and especially if I'm planning a trip to the country in question, I find everyday listening to phrasebook stuff very useful. I buy some nice phrasebook that includes audio as well, usually it's a set of phrases and dialogues sorted by the category ("Saying hello", "Ordering dinner", "Numbers" etc). You hear a phrase in a foreign language, then a translation into your native language. I listen to it as I go about my day (I spend a lot of time commuting which is ideal for learning as you have nothing better to do anyway ). After some time not only are you able to understand simple words and phrases when someone says them, but also you can use them yourself. 3. I watch films in the target language, always those that I really like and know fairly well + have the subtitles of the target language on. If it's something I've seen many times before (we all have our favourites I guess), then I already know what it's all about which makes a whole lot easier to try and understand the same thing in a new language. 4. Having a language partner also helps a lot, also has the benefit of improving speaking skills at the same time. For as long as the language partner is patient and willing to repeat what he/she said a couple of times before you understand, it does wonders for your listening skills, especially if you are talking to a native. 5. Probably has been said many times but it's really true: listening to music is beneficial in all sorts of ways. To make things easier, I use a program that downloads songs' lyrics and embeds them inside my mp3s, so that when I'm listening to a song and find it hard to understand, I can always look at the lyrics on the go and then later on find the words I don't know in the dictionary. One of the best things about studying a language is that you get to acquaint yourself with a lot of amazing music, films and books that you'd never ever come across otherwise. Wish you lots of luck with getting better and better in your languages! Ania
  5. Changing to winter time - yes, pretty nice, as I get to sleep a bit longer while going to bed at basically the same time. But changing to summer time has always been a bit of a nightmare for me. It affects my language learning, my work, my mood and what else not. For the first couple of weeks, before you get used to new time setting, all I can think about is sleep
  6. Hello and welcome! It's great to see another person learning French. I wish you the best of luck and hope to talk to you on the French subforum. Ania
  7. Hello, I wonder if anyone here had some experience with learning everyday words by sticking post-its around the house? Putting the names of different house objects on the cards and then sticking them directly to the object in question? I've heard about it many times but I've never tried it. I'm a bit worried about the amount of time it'll take to write all those things down and then eventually to try and unglue them from the furniture But I am having a problem with household items in Italian and my partner cannot remember English names for the same, so we are getting desperate enough to be willing to "decorate" our apartment in that way. Has anyone done this? Did it work? Does it get annoying after some time? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give! Ania
  8. As someone who really, really likes games I think the idea of playing and learning is a great one. After all, that's how children learn their native language. When it comes to video games, of course, the experience will be limited. What works for me is to play a computer game in a target language rather than just sticking with English, Russian or Polish versions that I normally choose. Sims have always been a source of inspiration for me. They have plenty of everyday vocabulary and with a couple of tweaks you can change the language of the game quite easily (or at least that was the case in Sims 2 and Sims 3 - I've yet to try with Sims 4). You kill one hare with two shots: enjoy your favourite game and actually learn new vocabulary along the way, without making too much of an effort.
  9. Hello, I've spent some years already wondering about the "official" French that I keep seeing in my student's books all the time. By official I mean formal business writing - things like "Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées", "me tenant à votre disposition" etc. Do they really exist? I wonder because I've worked with French colleagues and some French customers for many years but haven't seen ever seen a single email containing at least some of those polished expressions. If anything, my experience has been completely different. I've seen people use several exclamations marks or write the whole letter in capitals or even use "tu" without even knowing me firsthand. Ok, some of them worked in the same company as me so that may be the reason but still, I've quickly learnt that if I ever start my letter with what my textbook wants to me, then people will just laugh at me Can you still find those official letters/emails anywhere? Do people actually use formules de politesse? A.
  10. One of the subjects I like most when discussing languages with friends is funny situations we've got ourselves into thanks to incorrect use of a foreign language (or not being able to speak a certain language). I'm sure I've had a lot but I mostly remember these several occasions: - When I was in France, I somehow forgot the word for "glass" and ordered "une glace, please" thinking I was ordering a glass of water. I was fairly surprised to get a portion of ice-cream - When I was in the Netherlands, I bought some cheese that I wanted to give to my family as an eatable souvenir. There was no fridge in my hotel room, so I asked the receptionist and she put it inside the fridge somewhere on the outskirts of the hotel kitchen. When I was leaving next morning and wanted to retrieve my cheese, there was a different lady in the reception who did not speak English. She knew the word "cheese" I guess but not the word "fridge". And I managed to completely, totally forget the Dutch word for it. I tried to call my Dutch friend but, alas, the phone was switched off, probably because it was dreadfully early in the morning. I tried repeating "fridge, cheese, my cheese, fridge" several times but to no avail. I then tried to produce something with my hands which (I hoped) looked like a person putting food inside the fridge. The lady still stared at me with no comprehension. So much for my acting skills. Finally I resorted to drawing. I was not very good at drawing back then which just may be the reason why this also produced no results - just more puzzled looks from the receptionist. I was slowly giving up ever seeing my lovely cheese again when the owner of the hotel walked in, and the guy spoke English! What a relief! The cheese was safe and sound in my luggage again, so, a happy ending to that one - I've also had some hilarious misunderstandings when I only arrived to Poland and was not fluent in Polish yet. Certain words which sound the same in Polish and in Russian have absolutely different meaning. One good example is that the Russian "to remember" has the Polish-sounding twin which means "to forget". A newly met acquaintance was a bit shocked when, after giving me her email, I said: "Thanks, I'll try to forget it" My Polish partner had a fair amount of laugh-out-loud occasions, when I said things like "I'll sit on the carpet" meaning "I'll sit on the sofa" or "I'll just add some plums to my coffee" meaning "I'll just add some cream". Have you made any funny mistakes or experienced a problem not remembering a word you needed? Please share!
  11. Hello, I wonder if there are people here who use forvo.com on a regular basis. I have discovered the site about a month ago when I struggled with some words in Italian. I wasn't sure how to pronounce them correctly and had nobody to ask as I'm studying on my own. So finally I googled something like "how to pronounce the word X in Italian" and the site was among top search results. My experience so far has been very good - I find all of the words I need pronounced, and if I don't, I put the word in the waiting list and some native speaker helps you out. However, I wonder just how reliable this is. What's your opinion of forvo? Do you use it for your language learning? Are there any similar sites like that? Ania
  12. Hello Laura, Personally, I don't like swearing in any language, and I try to do it as rarely as is humanly possible but there is some truth about the "sounds milder" effect. For some reason, even if you do understand the words perfectly, swear words in foreign languages do seem to be somehow "milder" and "less offensive-sounding" to me. I fully understand it is not so but my mind does play that "come on, it's not so bad" trick on me. So occasionally I catch myself saying some nasty word in English because my brain thinks it's really not that ugly-sounding. I wonder if anyone else has the same correlation between swear word and foreign language? Ania
  13. For me, studying multiple languages at the same time comes out of necessity. If I concentrate on just one language, then what will happen to others? It's no secret that if you don't practice, you skills become worse. Sometimes I've had pleasant exceptions, like not learning a language for a year, then getting back to it and having immediate big progress, suddenly understanding songs that I couldn't before and so on. But more often, you have to start from the scratch, because even if the knowledge does exist somewhere in the depth of your subconscious mind, it's no longer accessible. So, if you really like several languages, and you want to have at least some modest amount of knowledge of each, what else can you do but try to juggle them at the same time? I've tried doing 1 month - 1 language, next month - next language. I also tried dividing them between weeks. The only thing that works for me is trying to squeeze them all into one week. Not always possible, of course, but generally it looks like the best compromise to me.
  14. Polish is most definitely worth the effort. It's a beautiful language and I think many people are getting interested in it because they had Polish ancestors or have Polish friends. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Polish. I may be biased as I live in Poland and really love it here. But I've met some foreigners in Warsaw and most of them did enjoy learning Polish, even though yes, it is indeed hard. But with the help of the friendly Polish people you'll be doing better and better.
  15. Hi there, I also quite like Wordreference: www.wordreference.com You can choose multiple languages there, Polish among them. It's quite good, I'm using it a lot when I'm stuck with a Polish word inside my mind but forget the English equivalent. Ania
  16. Hello Aioga, I am not studying Mongolian but I find the country strangely fascinating. How's it going with your Mongolian? Do you find it easy? What was the reason behind it - are you doing it for fun or with some particular goal in mind? Would love to hear more Thanks! Ania
  17. The biggest obstacles are always inside ourselves I'm not an exception - I'm lazy by nature and it always takes effort for me to start doing anything, including things I enjoy, like languages. When you are back home, after a long day of work, it's so easier to do something mindless - as opposed to actually making some mental effort to learn new things. Sometimes I just let it go and play some stupid game on my phone. When there's a bit energy left, then I remind myself about some clever French man who said that "happiness is never easy" and do something more ambitious, like learning or reading a book on some complicated subject.
  18. I just wanted to add that you shouldn't be discouraged if Russian speakers don't understand or if the sales people in the shop seem rude. Unfortunately, that does happen sometimes. I'd say those are leftovers from the communist times when the normal way to address the customer was not "Hello, how can I help you?" but "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" I don't live in Russia anymore but some of my friends who went for a visit and tried to speak Russian to the shop assistants were not treated very nicely The good news is that it happens less and less. But if you are among the unlucky who were treated with "Well, what do you want? Can't you speak more clearly?", please do not be discouraged! There are a lot of friendly Russian people out there who would be happy to help you out.
  19. Hello to all linguaholics out there! My name is Ania, I'm 32 and I live in Poland. I was born in Ukraine and spent most of my life in Russia, so I know some Ukrainian (mostly passively though) and my native language is Russian. I speak fluent English, Polish and French. I'm studying... also English and French as well as Spanish, Italian, Dutch and German. I live in Warsaw with my partner (he's Polish and is currently trying to master English and German) and my cat Barbara My non-language hobbies are: - reading (pretty much everything but especially psychology, self-help, nonfiction, romances, thrillers and poetry) - listening to music (in all languages I can more or less understand, mostly pop, oldies, musicals and anything Disney) - playing computer, phone and board games - cooking and baking - growing plants on the windowsill - writing stories - drawing - doing logical puzzles, sudoku, crosswords and so on - knitting, embroidering and creating things with my own hands - playing with my cat, feeding ducks and generally cooing over animals - sorting, renaming, improving and generally taking care of my huge collection of ebooks and music files I'd love to meet likely-minded people who enjoy learning languages. If someone is also a fan of pink colour, morning coffee and vegetarian food, that's even better
  20. I love the French cinema and think it's one of the best in the world. Most of the funniest comedies and most heart-breaking drams I've seen come from France. My all time favourite French film is not really well-known and I find that a pity because it's absolutely amazing. A bit horrifying but amazing still It's called "A la folie pas du tout" and Audrey Tautou plays main part there. This is no Amélie, mind you, if it does look all rosy and cutesy and the beginning. It's more of a thriller actually and the most scary thing is that things like this do happen in real life. I love François Ozon's films, someone already mentioned his "8 femmes" and "Swimming Pool". I can add "Cinq fois deux" to this, though it did get me totally depressed Then there are some amazing comedies that made my whole family laugh - "Tais-toi" with Jean Reno and Gérard Depardieu and "Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait à bon dieu?" with Christian Clavier. Actually, Christian Clavier is great actor. There are many funny comedies with him, as "L'enquête corse" or "Visiteurs". He also did great in "Napoléon" and "Les Misérables". Also, there are many old French films that have become classic. I need to stop talking right now or else I'll never finish writing this post I'm so excited there are other people out there who like French cinema!
  21. Hello, I'm not a native English speaker but I do remember the time when I was in your shoes and just starting to learn French I actually envy you a bit - you are about to discover so many exciting things for the first time! There are a lot of nice student's books, I'm sure you'll be able to pick out something that'll be best for you. If I could give you a small piece of adivce, it would be to make sure you get the pronunciation right at the very beginning. When I started with French, I was a bit confused with all the (numerous) rules about reading words and I managed to learn a couple of sounds the wrong way. When I decided to get a tutor later on, she had to spend a whole year correcting those things I had mislearned Bonne chance! Ania
  22. KattenKatzen, I have exactly the same problem... Actually, it's getting only worse - whenever I try to learn Dutch, German words keep popping up but when I'm actually studying German, I only have Dutch words in my head The words never come to me when I actually need them. The similarities between the two languages make it much easier to understand written text, but it when it comes to speaking, I get the impression that I'm not progressing but only deteriorating at a steady speed My biggest problem, just like for most beginners, is word order, both in German and in Dutch. Word order is just killing me. And those special little words, like "nou", that native speakers know exactly where to put and how to use but I never do and feel like I'll never ever manage it.
  23. Bonjour! Je m'appelle Ania, j'habite en Pologne et j'adore le français Malheureusement, je n'ai pas beaucoup d'occasions de parler français et j'ai l'impression que je l'oublie J'espère pouvoir pratiquer un petit peu ici sur ce forum.
  24. It's definitely much easier for Ukrainians to master Polish than it is, say, for someone from Spain. I'm myself of Ukrainian origin and even though I've spent most of my life in Russia, my passive knowledge of Ukrainian is fairly good. When I moved to Poland, I found a lot of similarities between Polish and Ukrainian, and it helped me tremendously. I've also noticed that Polish people pick up other Slavic languages quite quickly. It's true that there are false friends and some things are quite different but all in all, knowing another Slavic language does help. A lot
  25. Hello Trellum, There are still people who are studying Dutch (or at least trying to ). Like me! But you are right, it's quite difficult to find people who are doing the same thing. I think it's really sad because it's a very beautiful language. But so hard to find a learning partner I live in Warsaw and I really wanted to find someone I could study with but no luck so far. For most people Dutch sounds far too exotic Like, "Why would you even want to learn it? It's such a small country". Duh! So what if it's a small country? It's a really interesting one, that's what counts. Is it the same where you live? Do your friends think Dutch is a weird language choice? Ania
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