Mereloshn

I think having high intelligence is definitely an advantage when learning a language but in my experience it's being able to use the language that truly makes it stick so even if you have high intelligence you won't be able to keep a new language if you don't constantly practice and use it. Learning a language requires a lot of effort, determination and memory and it requires you to use the language regularly to master it. Those are all important to learn a language but intelligence alone can't achieve those things. Like you said, you also need the passion and drive to learn and use the language and that's more important.

I sometimes curse or insult people in my second language, and I can do it when talking about a third person while talking to someone who knows my second language. I did it just last night and again today while talking in Yiddish with my father, who knows a lot of Yiddish when we were talking about someone else. There are actually a lot of very colorful Yiddish insults that I've been picking up while learning the language and I like that I can do it while talking to someone in Yiddish. It means I can express myself more and more in my second language and it feels good saying it to someone who grew up with the language immediately understanding my words and agreeing with my assessments. It enhances my comfort zone being able to express both positive and negative opinions in the language I'm learning and that's the way it works when people fluently speak any language, they can speak vulgar or vile things so it brings a level of authenticity to my linguistic skills and I think it's a very good thing.

I personally enjoy being able to speak the languages I learn because of my appreciation for their respective cultures. I like the idea of being able to communicate in languages other than English and I like that I can think in other languages now.

My primary reason for learning Spanish is a practical reason. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language in the country I live in, the USA, and it might eventually become the number one spoken language, and I've spent a lot of time around Spanish speaking people so it will be very useful for me to learn it. I will also very likely have opportunities to travel to Spanish speaking countries here in the Americas. My primary reason for learning Yiddish is that it's part of my family culture and heritage and I feel like speaking Yiddish is a birth right of mine that deserves to be preserved. It's the language of Ashkenazi Jews (white european jews) and I am half Ashkenazi and the language fascinates me. It's pretty much a combination of Medieval German and ancient Hebrew and it's giving me a sense of both Germanic and Semitic languages simultaneously so my understanding of different languages is growing rapidly simply by learning my family language, which is good for my cognitive skills and for my appreciation of my family background.

Bienvenue Adrian et salut.

Yo estoy un hombre de USA y yo vivo solo con un perro pequeno. Mi perro es negro con un poco blanco y el es muy inteligente. Yo trabajo durante los dias pero no soy en escuela. Aunque yo estudio hablar y escriber en espanol porque quiero estar bilingue en ingles y espanol. Espanol es una bonita idioma y yo tengo amigos que pueden hablar espanol. Es util por mi y me gusta hablar en espanol.

This thread was helpful to me and gave me some good advice about what to pursue in my language studies. And it has made me choose to lean towards Spanish as my main focus. It's all well and good to study the languages connected to my family heritage, which was my reasons for studying French and Yiddish, and I do definitely want to pay Paris a visit someday, but lets face it. I live in America and Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language on the whole continent, second only to English. I studied Spanish for three and a half years in school, there are a lot of Spanish speaking people living in my city, I have a very long and extensive romantic history with Spanish speaking women, I have spent a lot of time around people who spoke Spanish as their first language, and I'm much more likely to visit a country or city with Spanish as the local language. I will have much more opportunity to use Spanish more than the other languages I'm studying. It has more utility for me and my life and it's not as difficult to learn as French and much less obscure and more accessible than Yiddish. There are a lot of resources available to help me become fluent in Spanish and I just think it's a very attractive language and I can comprehend it well when I listen to people speak it. I realize to be bilingual I have to pick one foreign language and stick to it and Spanish is the most logical option for me really. This thread helped me realize what my priorities are for becoming bilingual.

I want to learn Spanish because it's the second most common language in the USA where I live and is very useful to know here. I have known many Spanish speaking people in my life and would like to be able to have conversations in Spanish. Also, I would like to travel to Spanish speaking countries someday where I would have an opportunity to use it.

Yeah I'm coming across these while studying my current focus Yiddish. Mir means both "we" and "me" which is confusing at first until you learn it. And zey means both "they" and "them". Kenen means both "to know" and "to be able to" so you can say "Ikh ken mayn tate"(I know my father) or "Ikh ken redn yiddish"(I am able to speak yiddish) and the word means two very different things in different contexts.

Yes actually. I have had dreams in French at least twice that I can remember and as of last night/this morning, I have had one dream in Yiddish. And it was a very realistic dream too because I'm only an intermediate speaker and struggled with the fluent speakers in the dream and had to alternate between Yiddish and English to communicate everything I needed to say in the dream.

It took me three months just to become a beginner level speaker of French which I had never studied before until a few months ago. Spanish is coming back to me very quickly even though I've only been studying it for a few days but I'm picking it up and can speak it casually already. I studied Spanish for four years in school so that's probably why. I'm also studying Yiddish and I've become an intermediate speaker of it in just a few days, it's the fastest language I've ever learned even though I have never studied Germanic languages before.

I'm using Duolingo to relearn Spanish and I like it. The website is set up so that when you learn the language it's like playing an interactive game, which makes learning your language of choice very addictive. And because each lesson is a small step, it's coming back to me very fast the more I do it.

The hardest part for me is not having anyone who speaks the languages I'm studying to practice with. It's hard to become fluent if I don't have much opportunity to use it.

J'apprends a parler francais pour trois mois maintenant et Je veux a apprendre ca car je suis demi francais et je veux a comprendre la langue de ma famille. C'est pourquoi.

Shalom aleykhm. Ikh vil lernen zikh a sakh yiddish un Ikh zol schriben yiddish mit a mentsch az kent redn un leyenen yiddish. Far di mentschen az kenen farstayn vos Ikh zog, kenstu helfn?

Well for instance when I was learning French I learned how to speak the language by listening to it and could imitate the sounds and learn to talk but when it came to writing I found it was much more challenging to write in French because of how French words are spelled don't match how they sound to my English speaking American mind. I would practice my French by speaking it but if I tried to write it I would have to look up how to spell the words because I couldn't remember how they were spelled. With Spanish I'm finding writing is much less of a problem but I'm still more of a speech learner than a writing learner. It's just how my mind works when I'm learning a language. The speaking and reading comes easy but the writing is more difficult. I practice my talking by saying things I would normally say in English in the language I'm learning to incorporate it into my talking and thinking and that's how my language skills improve. I didn't realize it was so different for other people.

Absolutely I do it to help me learn languages. I have no one to speak to in French so when I was learning it I would speak it out loud at home and speak to my dog in French. I live alone and there is no one here to hear me talking to myself so what difference does it make? I have to practice my oral linguist skills somehow and it's not silly when you need to become accustomed to speaking in other languages. I find commenting on what I'm doing or thinking in other languages and saying things I would normally say in English is the best way for me to retain new language information. It works for me.

Hi linguaholic and thanks for the welcome. Just curious, are we allowed to speak different languages here if we translate the text into English or is that only for the language lounges? I can actually fully introduce myself in Yiddish now and writing is very good practice the more I learn.

I'm finding it's the opposite for me. It's much easier to speak the languages I learn than it is to write them because I remember how they sound better than I remember how to spell the words which often don't match how they sound to an English speaker like me.

I've recently decided to dedicate all of my language learning to study Yiddish which almost became a dead language after WW2. Only a small number of Hasidic European Jews still speak it today but I find it to a fascinating language and it was the first language of my paternal side of the family, so it's my mother tongue (mayn mame loshn in Yiddish) and I feel like learning to speak it fluently is a birth right for me even though it's become a very rare and obscure language. I think it's important to preserve dying languages.

Good Morning: A gut morgen Good Afternoon: A gut nokhmitog Good evening: A gutn ovent Good day: A gutn tog It is nice to meet you: Es iz shayn trefn du

In English: Lies and slander In mayn mame loshn Yiddish: Lign un rekhiles!

Hello all. I just joined this site and I'm currently studying various languages. I speak English as my first language because I'm American and I've been using the internet to learn other languages that are either connected to my family heritage or something I studied in school years ago and want to relearn for myself. I'm not sure how much information I'm supposed to give for my introduction post but I would be happy to answer questions people have for me about the languages I know. I'm approximately 50% fluent in French and I'm at the intermediate beginner level as a speaker of Spanish and Yiddish. My fascination with learning these languages brought me here to this forum. I look forward to the discussions and advice from other linguistic students.