What languages have you attempted to learn?

General discussion about learning languages
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rdearman
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby rdearman » Mon Jan 30, 2023 11:57 am

Iversen wrote:My ordinary criterion for speaking a language is that I have done a monolingual trip

I am surprised that you have not studied Russian.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Iversen » Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:18 pm

But I did, and it's on the list (lodged between Ancient Greek and Ukrainian) - I have studied it on and off since the noughties, but because I hardly ever hear it it has become a mainly written language for me - and in the present political situation that's all I need (monolingual travels to Russia are not realistic right now). Instead I have started to learn Ukrainian, and I try to make my Polish more active.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Querneus » Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:32 pm

The languages in my profile (English, Latin, French, Mandarin) plus Standard Arabic, which I abandoned some years ago, and some Ancient Chinese. And I can read Old Spanish just fine.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:15 pm

I can't really add English, though I will say it is not the language my mother spoke to me when I was born nor for most of the time until I was at least around 8-10 years old. Father only spoke English to me though.

French, the first language I ever heard alongside English. I have a strange and up/down history with it as I've waffled about elsewhere. It is my best 'foreign language', though Dutch has rapidly caught up. It is the language I consume the most media with after English.

Normal study at school of German, Latin. I was competent enough at both, but better at German.

All the rest are the languages I've chosen to impose upon myself. Firstly Cantonese. I already said elsewhere why I started this, but it really was also because of a teenage fascination with Chinese things. And of course in the UK the dominant Chinese immigrant community is/was from Hong Kong speaking Cantonese. So I followed that, with self-study and even took some classes. Found it very hard. Can I speak it though? In an unimpressive, elementary way. I gave it up.

Russian. I started this around age 16/17 and applied myself as much as I could. I would certainly do it differently now, but it was hard to get reading and listening materials at the time. I did have interaction opportunities though, so I managed to get functional at a moderate level. I considered this my first 'self-taught' language from scratch. Speaking has suffered since. I can still read it, but it needs much work. I actually revived this in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it has lapsed again.

Welsh. I've never started a language 'just for the sake of it' without it already being somewhat present around me. This is definitely the case with Welsh, because at the time I was living in Bangor and then over the bridge on Anglesey. There is encouragement to at least attempt to learn Welsh and since I thought I might even stay there it seemed a good idea and a necessity. I tried really hard, but you have to really want it, not meet it as a 'requirement'. As such I didn't spend enough time on it and I consider this a great failure and an opportunity squandered.

Hawaiian, this was more of a fad, but I kept it up for a while, though few materials and little opportunity throttled the life out of it. I later picked it up again when Duolingo released their course.

I started Esperanto around this time. From the original, revised version, of the Teach Yourself book. Easy to learn, needed more reading material than I could get then, but I did locate a local(ish) Esperanto group who lent or gave me books - including a dictionary - and went to some events. A very fulfilling language due to its ease and how quickly you can get functional. The pain threshold is low. I still maintain it.

Norwegian. My first go at this before I left England. I used old materials and wasted a bit of time, but learnt enough for the basics to stick. Then dropped Norwegian until I picked it up again quite some years later. Around this time I had a crack at Danish too, but the pronunciation scared me. :lol:

Dutch, This was another necessity language. I was quite content to stay lower down in Belgium and speak French rather than commit to trying to learn another language, but my companion wanted to move back to the Netherlands and also landed a job in northern Belgium. So I bit the bullet, and actually found it a rewarding experience. It is my main day-to-day language 'in real life'.

German. Another necessity because we moved to Cologne for a while.On the back of school German, my grandparents and prior dabbling and also recent Dutch I fast-tracked into a class there, and made a great effort to interact and fully immerse to try and get functional asap. I had a very respectable level between maybe B2-C1 and although it has probably dropped now I still use it and try to maintain.

Indonesian/Malay. Initially an homage to my wife and her background and particularly to communicate better with her mother. I started on Malay and then just went for standard Indonesian. I'd put it as A2/B1 for listening and some speaking. I only wanted it in order to take part in those family conversations and party gatherings. Just being able to listen and understand and follow as best I can is enough, because no-one cares if I reply in Dutch or English, in fact some 2nd/3rd generation do this themselves. Though I've always tried to dig for better speaking and learning colloquial speech.

Sranan Tongo. Same story as above. As with quite a few Surinam families there is often a language mix. Sranan is the language my wife's parents use to speak to each other as a common language, even though her language background is Indonesian-based (Javanese) and he is from the Hindi community. Sranan is easier than Indonesian for me because it is a mainly English creole with obviously much Dutch. I've studied it casually, but learned a lot of this through sitting listening and then trying to talk. All of my wife's sisters and their Surinam friends speak it - though in different ways.

Latterly, Swahili in which I got to about early A2 before shelving it do to my free time being spread too thinly. Spanish is what I have been learning most of all for the last couple of years and where 90% of the focus has been.

There are other smaller dabblings along the way, but they're not worth recording.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby garyb » Mon Jan 30, 2023 4:10 pm

I've mostly stuck with the ones on my profile, but I've had a few short but intense attempts at others...

French: my "first love", I learnt some basics at high school then picked it up again after university and studied it a bit obsessively for a good few years. Got to around a high B2 / low C1 level but between no longer having much use for it and various negative experiences I lost interest. I still occasionally watch a film or read a book in French but I rarely speak it.

Italian: my "true love" for a while, which I picked up because I had Italian friends and I visited Italy and loved it, and eventually it overtook my French. These days it's just in "maintenance and maybe very slow improvement" mode. I speak it quite well but very far from perfectly, and it's my only language that I still speak regularly so I try to give it the attention it deserves.

Spanish: it got on my list for similar reasons to Italian, as well as for its utility for travelling, although I delayed it a few years as I wanted to get to a decent level in Italian instead of trying to learn two closely-related languages at once. Unfortunately I don't know many Spanish speakers anymore so my motivation has waned a bit but I'm at a solid intermediate level and trying to slowly but surely keep progressing.

German: I had been wanting to learn it for years, and finally started a few years ago, but it's been on-and-off and I don't really have a lot of time for languages these days so I'm still firmly in the A levels. But I've got back into a consistent routine and right now it's the language I'm working on most actively.

And the others...

Russian: I had been curious about it, and about ten years ago I was working with a lot of Russian-speaking Ukranians which gave me the push to learn a bit. I kept it up for a few months and definitely built a foundation, but it was hard going and I struggled to find a course that resonated with me. I'd like to pick it up again in the future, but it's very low on the priority list.

Greek: I'm half-Greek but wasn't taught the language as a child beyond a few basic words and expressions, but for that reason it's had a firm place on my someday list and I did make a serious effort a few years ago before a trip to Greece which I then kept up for a little while afterwards. Then life happened, as they say, and back it went to the someday list.

Portuguese: A less serious one but I did try to pick up some basics before visiting Portugal. It feels like low-hanging fruit with my other Romance languages: I could probably learn the basics in a couple of months of not-too-hard work if I wanted. I'm thinking of returning to Portugal this year so I might give it another stab soon.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jan 30, 2023 9:33 pm

Apart from the languages in my profile, I've attempted to learn the following:

French - Learned for five years at school. Left school with the top grade in my exam and a complete inability to string a sentence together :lol: I did spend a year or so trying to learn French properly as an adult but I found it really hard. Eventually I came to the realisation that I don't actually want to speak French and that that's okay.

Czech - This was the first Slavic language I tried learning, back when I was a student. I think I got to about chapter 6 of TY Czech before I decided it was too hard and gave up. I've made a couple more attempts before trips to the Czech Republic in 2009 and 2015 but I've never got very far.

Macedonian - Started learning ahead of a trip to North Macedonia in 2014. Loved the language but got a bit disillusioned with some of the politics in the country and didn't carry on learning after my trip.

Slovak - I started learning Slovak when I realised it was slightly easier to pronounce than Czech. I've been to Slovakia about six times, I think, and I make an attempt at learning Slovak each time but so far the only phrase I've truly mastered is "I don't speak Slovak".

Bulgarian - Attempted to learn Bulgarian before a trip to Bulgaria in 2019 but work got in the way and my lack of progress was embarrassing. This one is definitely still on my hit list though and I have a pile of Bulgarian books somewhere, waiting for me to be able to read them.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Sae » Mon Jan 30, 2023 9:43 pm

For me?

- German
- French
- Japanese
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Norwegian
- Icelandic
- Old Norse (Old Icelandic)
- Vietnamese
- Mongolian
- Tuvan

Though the vast majority of them are really feeble attempts. My only "serious" ones are German, Vietnamese, Mongolian and Tuvan. I was serious with Japanese at the time. but did not pursue it far.

French & German were from school, I ended up taking German on for my GCSE's and left French behind.
I used to do Karate, which led to an interest in Japan and therefore the language.
I loved how Spanish sound, so I decided to give it a go once....and I've been to Spain.
I had a period of being deeply interested in Vikings and storytelling and based a few storytelling pieces on the topic and in want to make use of Old Norse, I used a little Icelandic to help (for like pronunciation/sound) as it's supposed to be the closest. And it expanded an interest to trying other Scandinavian languages.

Vietnamese, Mongolian and Tuvan are of course my current target languages.

And I guess on my wishlist (of things I may yet try):

- Welsh
- Yakut
- Finnish
- Kazakh
- Turkish
- Indonesian
- Polish

I was born in Wales, Yakut I guess would be cool as another Siberian Turkic language but isn't so influenced by Mongolian, Finland is a place I'd consider living, Kazakh goes nice with Mongolian given the Kazakh population around there because of the Kazakh Mongolian presence, my town has a strong Turkish population, I have Indonesian relatives & is another place I'd love to visit and the language seems interesting and out of the Slavic languages, I'd probably want to learn Polish, especially as there's plenty of Polish people local to me including some friends and is the one I'd most likely use.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Irena » Mon Jan 30, 2023 9:59 pm

Apart from the ones in my profile, I've only tried two: Hebrew and German (in that order).

I took two years of college-level Modern Hebrew, but I didn't pursue it further. At the end of those two years, I guess I was A2/B1 (not sure), but by now, I've forgotten most of what I knew back then. I do remember it was a gorgeous language, though! The prettiest I ever studied. But I don't have any real need for it, and so I'm unlikely to go back to it. Although... I've been toying with the idea of learning Biblical Hebrew. 8-)

German was my first Italki experience. Eh, it didn't go that great... My teacher was a very nice guy, but he hated grammar, and so he'd mostly ignore it, and then at my insistence, we'd do a long (too long) grammar session, which then wouldn't sink in, and all in all, I kept making the same mistakes over and over and over again, which got pretty frustrating, and eventually I quit. I discovered graded readers, though! (That was the teacher's idea.) That was a revelation to me. I progressed through A1-A2-B1 readers, but then at B2 readers, I hit a wall because the sentences got complicated and I didn't have the grammar. :(
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Sonjaconjota » Tue Jan 31, 2023 7:48 am

Reading your answers, I think I'm actually quite disciplined and restrained. :D
If we talk about dabbling in the strict sense, I'd have to say Modern Greek, Swedish (which is still a goal for the near future) and Japanese.
Japanese is the only language that I really wanted to study seriously and that has completely defeated me. I started a group course and gave up quickly twice.
(I also tried learning French with a book and cassettes when I was about ten and gave up, but came back to it later. Oh, and I did about two sessions of a group course for Dutch at university and abandoned it because the teacher was no good. Came back to the language later as well.)
At school I had three years of Latin as an elective. That was great. I took it because I wanted to, but there were two other pupils who had dropped English, and it was mandatory to take at least one language. So the school couldn't cancel the course when all others gave it up and there were only the three of us left. Our first teacher was waiting for his retirement, we had him during his last two years, so he had a superrelaxed approach. We chatted a lot and watched many videos about the Romans. I had a good time and ended up with the Latinum.
I also took Irish Gaelic as an elective at university. I took two terms and loved it, although the classes were a bit dry.
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Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Sae » Tue Jan 31, 2023 11:55 am

Sonjaconjota wrote:Reading your answers, I think I'm actually quite disciplined and restrained. :D


Heh, then I'm jealous. Though I've forced myself to be strict so my current target languages don't suffer and that I actually see them through to a good level, but I know my mind looks at other languages and goes "ooh, that could be interesting to learn" and "ah I like that sound of that, I want to try it". And 3 is already more than I ought to manage. I was legit looking to see if there were any Kalmyk resources yesterday and then I reigned myself in.

I am glad languages don't file for a divorce when they catch you flirting with other languages.
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