Language Learners

[Florestan]

Blood in Finnis "veri", in Hungarian "ver".

Mother-in-law in Finnish "anoppi", in Hungarian "anyos"

Thanks.

Mind you, I don't speak Hungarian, but I have a Hungarian workmate who speaks perfect Finnish and who told me these things.- And with perfect I mean perfect: you could not tell she is not Finnish. Usually there's always something in the accent that reveals the speaker is not native no matter how perfect the speech grammatically or is. In her case no such thing, she is quite surprising.

In Hungarian the accent is mainly on the first syllable. (I don't speak it but there is an important Hungarian minority in Romania). The few Finnish movies I've seen left me with the impression that this is also the case in Finnish.

[matti]

In Hungarian the accent is mainly on the first syllable. (I don't speak it but there is an important Hungarian minority in Romania). The few Finnish movies I've seen left me with the impression that this is also the case in Finnish.

Exactly. Accent always on the first syllable, I can't think of any exceptions.

[Florestan]

Exactly. Accent always on the first syllable, I can't think of any exceptions.

Well, this is the reason why your Hungarian workmate speaks Finnish with no foreign accent whatsoever: her native accent is exactly as the Finnish accent. 

[matti]

Well, this is the reason why your Hungarian workmate speaks Finnish with no foreign accent whatsoever: her native accent is exactly as the Finnish accent. 

It helps of course, but believe me, I have heard MANY Hungarians speak perfect Finnish, with less than perfect accents. Although the accent of the first syllable is invariably spot on.

[Florestan]

It helps of course, but believe me, I have heard MANY Hungarians speak perfect Finnish, with less than perfect accents. Although the accent of the first syllable is invariably spot on.

I see.

In Romanian there is no strict rule for accent; it can fall on the first, the penultimate or the last syllable. There are even instances where the same word has different meanings with different accent: copii accented on the first syllable means copies, while accented on the last syllable means children. Add to this the fact that the accent is never graphically marked, save in cases where confusion could really arise (they are few, though), or that in poetry, if the rythm and rhyme asks for it, the accent in a word can fall differently than in prose --- and God help you learning the right Romanian pronunciation. 

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

English. Native language. I'm American, but because I've spent so much time abroad and in different parts of the US, a lot of foreigners take me for Canadian due to lack of a strong US accent.
Russian. My best foreign language; not surprising since I live in Moscow and use it all the time at both work and home.
German. My second best foreign language. I can read it fluently (just finished Kafka's Der Prozess), and speak it quite well, although due to being in Russia I apparently have a Slavic accent in German (a German guy told me this just last week).
Czech. Spoke it pretty well when living in Prague several years ago; can still read it fairly fluently. 
Polish. Can read it quite well, used to speak it better than I do now because I was in Poland several times and had the opportunity to practice.
Spanish. Almost a native language because I lived in Argentina for a few years as a child. However, despite my good passive knowledge, I have a hard time holding a conversation in Spanish. I think it would all come back if I spent a concentrated period of time in a Spanish-speaking country. Currently reading Borges' Ficciones while commuting on the Metro.
French. Decent reading knowledge (I'm plowing through Baudelaire at the moment), but poor/fair speaking knowledge due to lack of practice.

There are also languages I've studied but wouldn't claim to speak at all, such as:

Lithuanian, which I studied for obscure reasons I won't get into here; and
Japanese, which I studied for a year just because I wanted to understand the structure, but have since forgotten almost everything except a few sentences and grammar rules.

Also had my brushes with ancient languages: Latin and Old Church Slavonic.

Impressive. I speak german, english (spoke it 1/2 year 10 years ago, now speaking goes much less fluently). Learnt french for 2 or 3 years at high school, was very good but forgot almost everything. Because my father moved to greece and I was often there, I was even able to communicate at a very basic level with old greek citizens. Mostly with hands and feet though... The opposite of poli megallo knowledge. But at least I can read it as well as russian, but that's not difficult.

The interesting things were "words" you don't learn at school. Example: Americans say "wow", we say like "boar" and the greeks: "po po po" - sounded funny for me

I want to learn dutch one day.

What foreign languages do you learn /have to learn?) in the US? Spanish, depending on the distance of the mexican border (or french::Canada)?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

What foreign languages do you learn /have to learn?) in the US? Spanish, depending on the distance of the mexican border (or french::Canada)?

Spanish is in the No. 1 position by a large margin. Geography and demography naturally explain this. French and German are probably still 2 and 3 respectively, though I'm too lazy to look this up. Certain elite or well-equipped high schools may offer other "exotic" options, like Japanese, Chinese, or Russian.

I think the strangest thing about US language education is the general absence of Portuguese in the system, despite the fact that it's the language of by far the biggest Latin American country.

[greg]

Certain elite or well-equipped high schools may offer other "exotic" options, like Japanese, Chinese, or Russian.

The high school I went during my last year was neither- just lucky. Our teacher knew Japanese and had spent time living in Japan. He even went on to offer a Japanese 3 class, which a couple people I knew took, but I had to graduate after one year, unfortunately.

[karlhenning]

Nothing unfortunate about being graduated ; )

[imperfection]

Cantonese: Mother tongue. Love speaking it, writing it and reading it, as it is an incredibly rich and complex dialect. Has many unique characters, semantics, lexicon, syntax AND phonetics that are not used in any other Chinese dialect. I sometimes wonder what it'd be like to study Cantonese as a foreigner, as many have noted its tremendous difficulty.

Mandarin: Second dialect (as opposed to language) of Chinese. Being raised in HK, this is a mandatory subject for Primary and Secondary school students. Much, much less difficult compared to Cantonese, as far as speaking is concerned. Less diversity in vocabulary too, which is not as fun to a native Cantonese speaker 

English: Second most fluent language (more so than Mandarin, actually). I traveled and moved between Canada and HK all my life...something like 5 or 6 times already (and I'm only 19). I guess I could also say that it ties with Cantonese as my most fluent language(s), as I have native fluency in both, as a result of my frequent relocating between HK and Canada. But I do feel I'm closer to Cantonese culture than English culture, and needless to say, that greatly affects how I use both languages.

Japanese: Third language learned, did 2.5 years of formal study with native teachers, and a lot of individual study in my free time. I can't claim to be "fluent" in speaking it, but reading newspaper articles and asking for directions while traveling there alone is no issue to me.

German: Er...I know all the alphabet (including the trouble some rolled "r", which according to my teacher, should sound like an old man gargling and preparing to spit  ), does that count? 


I do hope to learn more European languages (particularly German and Italian) in the future, as it will be tremendously useful in my future learning and development as a music major.

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

German: Er...I know all the alphabet (including the trouble some rolled "r", which according to my teacher, should sound like an old man gargling and preparing to spit  ), does that count? 

I'd say yes, what you describe is the "Hochdeutsch" "r" which is usually spoken. You may have spoken it in the morning when you transported the mucus stuff up your throat It comes more from the back of the mouth.
In southern areas, also Austria and Switzerland, and rather from older people, you may often hear a softer rolling "r" as you may have heard it in speeches of a most infamous guy from our past. It's created by gently pressing the tongue agains the mouths front/top, with air flow it's because of tongues flattering.
If germans (children) imitate german speaking asians, they usually replace "r" by "L", because Asian german sounds a bit like this. "Johannes Blahms", "Anton Bluckner".

Cantones and Mandarin: Are those complete different languages or do people understand each other to a certain degree?

[Brian]

If germans (children) imitate german speaking asians, they usually replace "r" by "L", because Asian german sounds a bit like this. "Johannes Blahms", "Anton Bluckner".

That's funny, because in English-speaking languages, the Asian stereotype is exactly the opposite.

[greg]

That's funny, because in English-speaking languages, the Asian stereotype is exactly the opposite.

I remember that! 

Though it seems like only the Chinese would do that, since they actually have an "R" sound similar to English in their language.

[imperfection]

I'd say yes, what you describe is the "Hochdeutsch" "r" which is usually spoken. You may have spoken it in the morning when you transported the mucus stuff up your throat It comes more from the back of the mouth.
In southern areas, also Austria and Switzerland, and rather from older people, you may often hear a softer rolling "r" as you may have heard it in speeches of a most infamous guy from our past. It's created by gently pressing the tongue agains the mouths front/top, with air flow it's because of tongues flattering.
If germans (children) imitate german speaking asians, they usually replace "r" by "L", because Asian german sounds a bit like this. "Johannes Blahms", "Anton Bluckner".

Cantones and Mandarin: Are those complete different languages or do people understand each other to a certain degree?

That's interesting to know, thanks for that. I know I still need a lot practice to be able to do the R properly. Do they roll the R the same way in Spanish and Italian too?

As for Cantonese and Mandarin, they are technically the same language (Chinese), but Chinese is not actually a language in itself, as it contains many dialects and even Mandarin, which is the standard accent for government and formal institutions in Mainland China, is a dialect, not a language. As far as mutual intelligibility is concerned, a Cantonese person who has never heard Mandarin in his/her life will not understand it when it is spoken to them, and vice versa. There are 4 tones in Mandarin and 6 in Cantonese (though some linguists say around 10), and some of them sound similar, so those who are exposed to Mandarin as a Cantonese native speaker could theoretically guess some of the dialogue. Of course, that doesn't make the two dialects mutually intelligible.

As far as writing is concerned, however, it gets much, much more complex. Usually, all Chinese people write using the Standard Writing System, especially in formal documents or newspapers. In Cantonese, however, one can write in both the Standard Writing System AND the spoken way (writing words that are considered slang and otherwise do not exist in the language when not spoken). Therefore, there really are two ways of writing anything that is spoken in Cantonese, and if it is done the latter way, a Mandarin speaker would have absolutely no clue what those characters mean (as they don't exist in Mandarin).

So no, to answer your question, they are neither separate languages nor mutually intelligible dialects. 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Be cool - speak Deutsch!

The contamination of German with English words appears to have reached the point of no return:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-w0-lZldWA

[mahler10th]

Be cool - speak Deutsch!

I would like to but I am lazy.  Any suggestions for quickfire German?

[rhomboid]

Be cool - speak Deutsch!

I would like to know the use of der and die

Thanks

[DavidW]

I would like to know the use of der and die

Thanks

I know nothing about German but isn't that singular vs plural?

[rhomboid]

I don't know. 

[Coco]

I thought it would be fun to start a general-purpose thread for anyone studying a foreign language.

First of all, what is your native language?

What (or which) are you studying?

How long have you been studying?

Why did you choose this language in particular?

Have you reached any important attainments or milestones (learning to read a non-latin alphabet, conversational fluency, etc)? Feel free to brag.

Any insights or tips on learning, or advice for someone learning your language of choice?


WRT myself: My native language is English. I am studying Japanese.

As of now I've been studying seriously for about 4 months. I chose Japanese because I love their tradition of philosophy and aesthetics, and plan on living and working in the country as a linguist or instructor. So far I am proficient in kana (the Japanese syllabic form of writing), can construct a few simple sentences and can recognize and write about 70 kanji (Chinese characters).

I've found that hearing native speakers speaking Japanese at normal pace, and constant spoken repetition of words and phrases has helped me in understanding conversation. With the written forms, creating mnemonic devices, no matter how stupid or silly they might seem (and in fact, the more ridiculous they are, the better I remember them) has been essential, especially with the complex kanji — for instance, the symbol for "words" and the symbol for "sell" together equals the symbol for "reading", so you can think of reading as "selling words"... or something.

Right now I'm supplementing my college course with a Japanese-English dictionary, a book on essential Japanese grammar, and these:



which is great for hearing native speakers, and also gives good explanations for the constructing of sentences. The lessons are initially spoken at a pace slightly-lower than that of a native, but later are presented as they would be for most Japanese.

and



which teaches Chinese characters in a more logical and memorable way than the way they are normally learned: through sheer brute force of repetition. Highly recommended.