How do you know you won't ever use them again? I bought dictionaries and textbooks for Greek and Russian near the end of my French studies, and shortly after I got my final exam in 1981 I also bought grammars and dictionaries for just about any Slavic language on the planet from a Slavic bookstore that was about to close, including a Russian history books with accents.
And then absolutely nothing happened for almost thirty years, but I have got those books now, and I have used them - even the Greek Langenscheidt with all the old accents and aspiration marks which now have been abolished. My fat old Romanian Academy dictionary is still the only one to indicate whether any given verb has infixes or not - and then I can live with the fact that the letter î in all non-initial positations has been replaced with â (except u in "sunt"). And of course I have also kept my books about Old French and Occitan, even though I didn't need them.
You never know what you might choose to study later ...
You know you're a language nerd when…
- Iversen
- Black Belt - 4th Dan
- Posts: 4768
- Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
- Location: Denmark
- Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more... - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
- x 14962
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- Brown Belt
- Posts: 1272
- Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:41 pm
- x 1031
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
Iversen wrote:How do you know you won't ever use them again? I bought dictionaries and textbooks for Greek and Russian near the end of my French studies, and shortly after I got my final exam in 1981 I also bought grammars and dictionaries for just about any Slavic language on the planet from a Slavic bookstore that was about to close, including a Russian history books with accents.
And then absolutely nothing happened for almost thirty years, but I have got those books now, and I have used them - even the Greek Langenscheidt with all the old accents and aspiration marks which now have been abolished. My fat old Romanian Academy dictionary is still the only one to indicate whether any given verb has infixes or not - and then I can live with the fact that the letter î in all non-initial positations has been replaced with â (except u in "sunt"). And of course I have also kept my books about Old French and Occitan, even though I didn't need them.
You never know what you might choose to study later ...
Iversen the Enabler
2 x
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- Green Belt
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:37 pm
- Location: San Francisco
- Languages: English (N)
Shona (N)
French (DELF B2)
German (Goethe-Zertifikat B2)
Spanish (DELE B2) - Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8686
- x 949
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
arthaey wrote:Skynet wrote:3. You hoard language learning resources that you're unlikely to ever use.
why you gotta at me like this
I see that someone is also guilty of impulse buying!
Iversen wrote:How do you know you won't ever use them again? ... You never know what you might choose to study later ...
I totally agree with you. I am certainly not a clairvoyant, which is why I had qualified my statement with "unlikely to ever use." I am currently digitising all the books that I bought, and I have no idea when I am going to start (if ever) on Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Pushto, Gujarati, Turkish, Russian and Swedish. I have already made plans (after certain members coerced me) for Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish. Czech will be learnt just to impress Cavesa.
Iversen wrote: Greek Langenscheidt
I assume that the book was in German? After I have become competent in French and German (which will be my main languages), I will be using to learn subsequent languages. In all honesty, I turn green with envy each time I read the languages on your profile. How did you manage to do that???
2 x
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- White Belt
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:48 pm
- Languages: English (N), Esperanto (A language I often think in).
Spanish, Portuguese, French (Some ability to read in)
Italian and Dutch (rather beginner-ish) - Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9014
- x 56
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
When you go to a used bookstore after work on Friday to look for a book or dictionary about a foreign language and feel happy about purchasing an old Teach Yourself Greek book.
6 x
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- Blue Belt
- Posts: 633
- Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 2:44 pm
- Languages: Spanish (N), English (B2-C1), Japanese (A2-B1), Korean (Lower Intermediate?)
- Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 02#p201902
- x 1302
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
When you completed the survey from Prof Argüelles and it took you way more than 30 minutes...
3 x
Beyond The Story 10 Year Record of BTS Korean version:
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- Black Belt - 4th Dan
- Posts: 4960
- Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
- Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
- x 17566
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
Skynet wrote:I have already made plans (after certain members coerced me) for Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish. Czech will be learnt just to impress Cavesa.
Aaaaaaand now I'll have to learn Shona! Otherwise, I'll be like that friend everyone gives nice birthday presents to, while they don't bother much to reciprocate.
2 x
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- Green Belt
- Posts: 310
- Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:37 pm
- Location: San Francisco
- Languages: English (N)
Shona (N)
French (DELF B2)
German (Goethe-Zertifikat B2)
Spanish (DELE B2) - Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=8686
- x 949
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
Cavesa wrote:Skynet wrote:I have already made plans (after certain members coerced me) for Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish. Czech will be learnt just to impress Cavesa.
Aaaaaaand now I'll have to learn Shona! Otherwise, I'll be like that friend everyone gives nice birthday presents to, while they don't bother much to reciprocate.
Except, I am the kind of terrible friend that will insist that you learn Shona using a resource that is guaranteed to send you into a comatose sleep.
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that Prof. A. A. managed to find an FSI Shona course, and used it for his FSI review!
4 x
- Iversen
- Black Belt - 4th Dan
- Posts: 4768
- Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
- Location: Denmark
- Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more... - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
- x 14962
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
When you completed the survey from Prof Argüelles and it took you way below 15 minutes because you basically already knew the answers
6 x
- Axon
- Blue Belt
- Posts: 775
- Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:29 am
- Location: California
- Languages: Native English, in order of comfort: Mandarin, German, Indonesian,
Spanish, French, Russian,
Cantonese, Vietnamese, Polish. - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5086
- x 3288
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
... when you type "wik" in the search bar and it autocompletes to "Wiktionary" instead of "Wikipedia."
8 x
- arthaey
- Brown Belt
- Posts: 1080
- Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:11 pm
- Location: Seattle, WA, USA
- Languages: :
EN (native);
ES (adv receptive, int productive);
FR (false beginner);
DE (lapsed beg);
ASL (lapsed beg);
HU (tourist) - Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3864&view=unread#unread
- x 1675
- Contact:
Re: You know you're a language nerd when…
Axon wrote:... when you type "wik" in the search bar and it autocompletes to "Wiktionary" instead of "Wikipedia."
Although to be fair, a not insignificant amount of my traffic to Wikipedia is going to an English page and then immediately clicking on another languages translation to see the word's usage in context.
5 x
Posts in: French • German • Hungarian • Spanish
NaNoWriMo: 10,000 words
Corrections welcome in any language; I prefer an informal register.
NaNoWriMo: 10,000 words
Corrections welcome in any language; I prefer an informal register.
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