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djordje87

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Everything posted by djordje87

  1. I think it is mixed opinion on this one. I am not a native speaker but I was teaching online with ITutor Group and I teach usually people from China or more precisely, Chinese people. They appreciate my effort because as they say, I know how it feels when you are learning from scratch and of course you never have that confidence in speaking as in your native language. I understand some of that argument but what they do not realize my approach is not about whether I am native or not. It is about my skills in teaching and my will to teach people in other words to have patience and not to be a smart ass.
  2. This is not a problem if you speak her language or his language. Languages are not that hard to learn and most probably you will be able to speak in English to start with. After that you will both have to learn if you agree to that and if that is something you would like to do, I don't see why not, your children to learn both languages along with English of course. It is a unique opportunity that you can provide your children an easy learning of additional languages. That is a big plus.
  3. It is easier to learn the things you repeat the most or you hear the most. usually people swear a lot and foreigners just hear and remember so it is more because of the repetition. I was actually asking some of my Maltese colleagues to repeat some other words and phrases and there were few good guys who taught me several useful phrases but I learned to swear as well. If yo come to Serbia you will learn that we have huge number of swear words and a bad habit to swear a lot. This guy is of Serbian descent and he is goofing around.
  4. So I was right at some point. Thank you for the info. I thought that we mentioned on my first year of English studies something like this but I really couldn't remember and I didn't want to cheat so was hoping for a confirmation by somebody. People tend to think those two are very similar but as you said ...
  5. I suppose it depends on many factors. One of them being the type of person you are. I have a friend who gets really pissed off if I say anything like that to her and on the other hand I have yet another friend who accept this jokes and even gives me the name. The person you are referring should have known that you are sensitive in that area and shouldn't have had call you any names at all in any language. The worst thing here is because it is not professional even if he or she was doing you a favour. I just hope that this person is not a teacher, because it would be a shame for the rest of us.
  6. It is very good that you want to learn these and I have no idea if they even fall under the same group of languages. Even though they look alike I am not sure. I say this because they could interfere with one another. My vote goes for Chinese, though. It is practical and simple logic with this one. It is the most used language in the world and Chinese are going to rule the world in some time soon so it could be a good thing to learn it.
  7. This happens when you are an adult starting form scratch. It is much easier if you are a child or a child adult like me. The first thing you need to know is that will to learn is the most important in this. If you don't have it your brain will react like this. It can be better if something depends on you learning the language but if you just doing it for the sake of it or just for some other and not important enough reason, you will not make too much of an improvement. My advice, set your mind to it.
  8. This is correct. Old Serbian is one of those in the latter group. I believe old Greek as well. Some people do not understand that and therefore make the mistake of putting Latin and similar languages in the dead group. It is simply not developing any more. It is interesting to know that English as we know it is a blend that contains a lot of Latin words actually as well as Nordic, Anglo-Saxon and French.
  9. First of all you need to be realistic and honest about it. I have several people that I know who claim that their English is perfect. Remember, we are talking about a person who's native tongue is Serbian like mine. I have a decent vocabulary and I am an English teacher ... Almost. I have some few more exams to take. He, on the other hand is not even close to be a teacher of anything but he claims that he is very fluent and I assure you he is not. His vocabulary is not vast and it is only good for the job he does. It is limited. He is not being honest and it is not letting him learn and develop his vocabulary. If you want to check yourself go outside of your speciality. Something that has nothing to do with something you like or your job.
  10. I used to do it for English when I was a kid. I believe that this is a good way to learn a language and learn something more about it, about people using it and country those people live. It is especially suitable for the kids because most of them and even grown ups love music. This or that kind but still music. I am into this kind of learning and even when I held private classes with some kids I played them some good songs, oldies where good English was present, I mean the Beatles and similar acts.
  11. We all have perfect memory or the mechanism to use perfect memory and to remember everything. We do not know how to use it but we have it. Actually we even use it. We remember everything we see in our life. The problem is to remember something. the memory is there but we cannot find it. I have read a book called Perfect Memory by Tony Buzan. He wrote about Mind Mapping techniques and I can tell you it is amazing. I am able to remember a 16 digit number in 3 minutes no sweat. It is not hard and everybody can do it you just need the system.
  12. I use things that I like to get to know the language. Not only the words and phrases but from the point of culture and character of people speaking it. I usually watch movies or listen to music. Sometimes traditional music, instrumental only. It helps me to find the emotion of the people and their language. You know. When learning for example Hungarian it is good to know who was who. Attila the Hun was murdered by Ildico. A Hungarian beautiful girl killed him in sleep I believe. Not sure, actually but some research could help about this. A lot of nice history books really blend reader with culture of one people and their language.
  13. This is kind of my dream actually. I have lived on Malta for 2 years and I have learned some of their language but since it is bilingual country with English being the other language, it was hard to learn something. The good thing about this was I was working there and it helped a lot that they spoke English. I would like to have a leisure year or two in France or Portugal, Spain, Italy. I really do not care. I like Greek language as well and Greece is wonderful. Maybe that would be the best because I already speak a bit of Greek.
  14. I like words with hissing sounds like fuss, bus, surplus and many more. I haven't been thinking about this topic very much so I just started browsing some words that are nice to pronounce and I came up with these. I like some Hungarian words as well like csok (kiss), bicska ( a pocket knife), szerelem ( love) and some other but they pronounce everything so funny and it comes out very cool.
  15. While I was on my studies (English studies) I was told by my teachers to stand in front of a mirror and practice by watching myself how I pronounce everything. They also told me to say whatever I see or feel. The point was to start thinking in English not only translating it in my head. It was never a full conversion but it was successful. The problem for a foreigner who is learning a new language is in details and form. Things like TH or W is very hard when you don't have it in your language. We have regular d sound that is not a voiced of voiceless dental fricative but it is alveolar. Also formation of sentences is different. Syntax that is. The position of adverbials is not the same and even the rules for subject, predicate and object are different.
  16. Hello. I would like to see if anyone would like to learn some Serbian phrases through poems, songs or even movie clips. Of course any question will be answered and the methods are just my suggestions. Serbian language is an old language that is not so easy to learn. It is one of the toughest actually after Hungarian, Polish and Finish I think. Surely in top ten if you omit tribal languages from Africa. It has the only perfect alphabet that is not called alphabet but AZBUKA. The name was coined from the old Serbian letters AZ and BUKI. After Vuk Karadzić's reforms in writing we've got this perfect letter containing 30 letters and 30 sounds. So, no diphthongs or several ways to write one sound like in English. The rule he made was, 'Write like you speak and read as you have written it.' If you learn these 30 letters you will be able to read every Serbian book ever written in modern Serbian language. This is a short introduction and if someone would like to ask me something feel free to do it. I will leave a song sang by my favourite artist so you get the idea of how Serbian sounds. It has a vague translation.
  17. I believe it is fundamental for bright future to learn everything we can and especially new languages. They open new doors and it is much easier to function in any environment. People are dependent on those who understand language they don't but they should. It is useful in so many levels and I always encourage myself to learn. I haven't been able to learn too many too well but I will and I am going to do it one way or another. Acquiring information about everything around me is what I do so if I want to do that speaking other languages then these I already speak is a must.
  18. A bit of a polymath myself. Not too much though but i am good at both, languages and mathematics. I guess both sides of my brain are equally developed/undeveloped :). Anyway, it is a stereotype and the thing about mathematics is that if you do not practice you will forget some things like formulas and stuff and it is much easier to practice language, especially now days with internet. Even if you forget something about maths and you have that kind of brain that understands it in an easy way you will have no problems to start again. I never made a difference between these and I had straight As with no sweat at all. On the other hand, my sister is bad with both. So there is no rule of thumb here.
  19. My problem is not inspiration. I just love to learn, especially languages. My problem is money. Oxford online courses are not enough to learn a language. You need to go and visit some places. To talk to people. To live there. I was on Malta and I learned some Maltese but they use English too much and they find it for communication. A lot of foreigners who already know English and it is rational for them to do it this way. However, for me it was not very good because I really wanted to learn Maltese. In the end I learned some of it and I have plans to learn more by going back there and of course some other languages.
  20. As a reasonable being and from that point of view it is a good idea. However, if you try to think as a writer or a poet we would loose, in future of course, creativity and versatility. Of course that that one language would be used as universal and the rest wouldn't just disappear but with time they would be forgotten and just a part of a folklore like some old languages already. I t would be nice that all countries adopt that one universal language and become at least bilingual. English or Spanish are obvious choices for this and for example in India a lot of people speak English and even the street name s are in English because they have some 35 or so languages, not including dialects, so they converse in English because it is very hardly to know all of them.
  21. I see learning languages as something I really love and something that is useful. These are opposites. If following your hart would help you learn better and easier that is a good way to go. However, if a certain language is not useful as some other might be you should probably include this factor in your decision. I realised that the best languages to learn now are English, of course, Arabic, Spanish an Chinese. The last one especially and I believe than it should be a second language to English in primary schools for obvious reasons. It is not just because China has the biggest population, India is there too, it is because China is developing quickly and given the fact they have strong national pride I do not think they would put English or any other language in front of their own. Just saying, it could come in handy in years to come.
  22. I am not a Spanish language expert but i understand a bit of it. Regardless of that you realise there are synonyms and of course some words can be used in several ways. In English, Serbian, Spanish ... Any language known. I really do not know the answer on this question and I believe that someone will provide one for you and that it could be related to my post here. This especially stands for Spanish, Italian and probably French because they have a history of seducing and courting so they have more than two words to explain the thing they love Like American/English with words like fight, quarrel, dispute, feud, brawl, spat, hassle...
  23. if it was an official translation it was probably accurate but if it was something that you downloaded from the internet it was probably very much wrong. I see a lot of English movies and TV shows online and I do not need subtitles but I like to check and what I usually see goes from funny to scary. These English to Serbian subtitles are basically 70 percent wrong. it is incredible. I am afraid to watch a French movie or a German one I still do though but I really try to find some official translations if possible not just some anonymous.
  24. For best and most accurate translation you need to pay a professional translator. I hear a lot of people translating for friends because they know English. I am talking about English because this is what I study and what I do. Actually, the thing is they just know English to the point of conversing, writing posts, understanding well, etc. However, when it comes to an accurate translation they do it in a mediocre way because they really do not know what they do. We can see this in internet based movie subtitles. Some of those subtitles are just amateur work where 'river bed ' becomes literally a bed. Or if there is an unknown idiom involved it becomes something insanely stupid and out of context. This is even okay when it comes to these types of translation. Once you take an official piece of paper to translate everything should be right and most of them do not apply simple sequence of tenses so it really looks wrong. For example in Serbian language 'Da li si joj rekao da je VOLIM? means Did you tell her that I loved here? However, VOLIM is a verb in present tense in Serbian language and VOLEO is in past. We use present for this in Serbian language but because of the sequence of tenses in English we have to write LOVED HER. You will never find that in amateur translations. Did you tell her that I love her is what you will find. So, for sake of this details it is the best to find somebody who is a professional in this and pay the man :).
  25. That is inevitable but it is also impossible for everyone to learn so many languages in order to read or watch something in original form. I always think of Shakespeare's sonnets. You cannot translate some things in Serbian from English because these two languages and cultures differ too much. Some idioms doesn't exist in Serbian or some analogies or metaphors are very difficult to explain or even impossible so those who translate need to adjust the poems to their own language, in order to feel theirs but still be the original. It is very hard. I read Pamuk's My Name is Red in Serbian and I think it was translated from English to Serbian and not from Turkish to Serbian. Somehow I felt it because I study English and I have learned some usual minor constructions in translation from English to Serbian.
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