Introduce yourself here

General discussion about learning languages
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PolishSquire
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:27 pm
Languages: English (N), Polish (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby PolishSquire » Thu Jun 09, 2022 1:40 am

Greetings everyone!

Stumbled upon this forum by sheer happenstance and kudos to everyone here! I am thrilled to have found a community so open to helping one another achieve their goals. I have a lot of catching up to do with everything that has already been provided, and I intend to pay it forward in the, hopefully, near future as my knowledge expands.

I'm PolishSquire and I am a native English (US) speaker who has been studying Polish for about 4 months now. I primarily self study using resources such as Rosetta Stone, Polish speaking podcasts, the occasional Polish cartoon (that serves both myself and my infant daughter), and a variety of websites and books. I have also been using an online language tutor 3x weekly for an hour each session.

The hardest obstacle so far hasn't been the spelling, the grammar, or even the lack of individuals to practice speaking with; it's myself. I would not call myself a perfectionist, but I find it extremely difficult to take any of the information at face value. I bog myself down constantly asking questions that lead to deeper concepts that I know I shouldn't be worrying about in the moment. Those frequent occurrences bum me out because I can't envision a path forward from where I am to where I would like to be. Which is ridiculous because when I look back at my earliest notes I can see the progress from then until now. To boot, I don't think I would have moved past my initial set of vocabulary without my tutor pushing forward because I don't feel comfortable moving forward until I've felt that I've mastered the previous set. I frequently come face to face with words or concepts that I know that I studied and even had down but can't recall it in the moment. How do you all do it?!

I look forward to the highs and the lows regardless, because somehow this is fun in a way I hadn't before discovered. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Do zobaczenia!
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User avatar
Rey
White Belt
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:17 am
Location: Valencian Community, Spain, Europe
Languages: Spanish (N), English (C1), Catalan/Valencian (C1), French (beginner), German (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Rey » Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:46 am

Hello, everybody!

I have been lurking on this forum for years. Finally, I have decided to write some words.

I am a native speaker of Spanish who had to learn Catalan/Valencian from scratch and almost by myself in order to find a job in the Eastern Mediterranean Coast of Spain. At the end, I earnt an official C1 certification in Catalan/Valencian which helped me most to obtain my objective.

At the same time, it was supposed that I was learning English within the official learning scheme in Spain. The result is - IMHO - very mediocre.
But I want to improve.

In the course of many years, I have learnt a little of French (almost an A1) and German (I obtained an A1 certification some years ago), but I dropped out and now I have forgotten almost everything about them.

See you!
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Talfabeta
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2022 3:41 am
Languages: Arabic (N), English (English 1 EOC), Spanish (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Talfabeta » Mon Jun 13, 2022 7:46 pm

Hello! :D

My username is Talfabeta, T for my initial and alfabeta for alphabet in Spanish, the language I registered to practice. I'm 15 and I love languages in general!

Also, I'd use Google Translate when talking in a language I'm still new to. :P
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cesarct2020
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2022 8:36 pm
Languages: Spanish, English, French, Russian, German
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby cesarct2020 » Fri Jun 17, 2022 8:49 pm

I am Julio born in Colombia Spanish Speaker and living in Canada learning French and English. Also stepping into Russian and German.
love programming and triathlon.
thanks
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keineAhnung
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2022 9:10 pm
Languages: French (N), English (C2), Spanish (~B2), Chinese (~A1), German (~A1)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby keineAhnung » Sun Jul 10, 2022 10:08 pm

Hallo! 大家好! Been so long since I've posted on a message board, it's quite a nostalgic experience for me! :lol:

My native language is French. I reached a C2 level in English on my own by reading a lot of books and stories, and by watching a lot of shows. Then I thought, why not "upgrade" my high school Spanish now that my English has reached maturity? Which is what I did and am still doing, once more with lots of reading and watching. Then I decided, as an experiment, and out of curiosity, to learn a few more languages. I'm aiming in those new languages for a solid and happy B1, in a far-away future. No pressure, no stress.

So I started to follow the Assimil method for German, Chinese and Russian all at once, but once I reached lesson 24, I had to put on hold German and Russian cuz I didn't have enough time anymore to study all three together and the lessons were getting arguably tougher and longer (who'd have thought? :D ). So I finished Assimil Chinese last month, and I'm gonna build on that (minimalistic, but still, kinda functional) knowledge base and try to slowly improve my (still very limited) vocabulary and grammar. Incidentally I also love watching Spanish Youtube channels dedicated to the topic of learning Chinese. Culturally it's fascinating to learn about the life experience of, say, Argentinians of Chinese ancestry for example. And I love learning Spanish and Chinese at once!

But since I originally wanted to learn several more languages, and not just one, I recently resumed Assimil German, this time doing a little crazy experiment consisting in trying to study ten lessons a day. I'm almost through with it already, obviously at this rate you get through it much more quickly. Obviously though I'm not trying to remember every word or every grammatical point. My reasoning is, I can probably/possibly absorb, passively and rapidly, enough of the content of the method to be able to afterwards read semi-simple content with the help of a dictionary (taking into account that German is close to both English and French both in terms of vocabulary and grammar). Also I'm not sure it's that useful to try to memorize perfectly each Assimil lesson with all their vocabulary. I have the philosophy that to learn a language, nothing beats passion, because passion leads to immersing yourself into a lot of content, and this leads to a lot of natural repetition of the basic vocabulary and grammar, so why should I try to bash my head with a boring lesson trying to remember something I'll only truly assimilate for good once I've encountered it in the wild enough times? That's my opinion and personal experience anyway. I'm using Assimil as a diving board, so to speak, not as a textbook. I can't handle textbooks. It frees me from a lot of stress as well, because there's no failure possible, because I'm not trying to remember anything, neither grammar nor vocabulary, I'm just letting things happen naturally, just like when I started learning English.

I plan on continuing my little experiment with the German "Assimil Perfectionnement" volume before "diving into the German ocean without armbands" though. I also plan on trying to restart Assimil Russian in that accelerated manner (possibly at a lower speed though, factoring in the foreign script and the greater linguistic distance) if it works out well enough for German (which so far it does).
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Not 4
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2022 5:42 pm
Languages: English N
Spanish A2-B1
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Not 4 » Wed Jul 13, 2022 8:59 pm

Hi all

I recently found your forum whilst scouring the net for better ways to improve/speed up learning.
I’m a native English speaker from Ireland and unlike most who I see on here I’m kind of late to the game of language learning.
I’m the wrong side of 40 and have just finished A1 level spanish with Cervantes and I’m bumbling along trying to watch and listening to as much basic content as possible.

Once I find my feet here and figure the forum out I’m sure I’ll be picking your brains
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ros
White Belt
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat Jul 23, 2022 6:06 pm
Languages: English (N), Latin, Russian, Greek (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18561
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby ros » Sat Jul 23, 2022 9:54 pm

Hi everyone, I'm getting back into serious language learning after several years away from it. My current interest is in languages relevant to Christian history: Greek (currently beginning to study out of Shelmerdine's Introduction to Greek), Hebrew (learned the alphabet, got through a few modern Hebrew Duolingo lessons, not currently studying), Latin (already studied for several years, fairly proficient), Syriac (no knowledge currently), and potentially others. Separately from that, I studied Russian for a year and finished an introductory textbook, although I haven't practiced in several years.

Otherwise, I enjoy learning different writing systems, whether they're just different alphabets or completely different systems. Some I'd like to attempt are Arabic, Sanskrit, Japanese, Chinese, Georgian, and one of the cuneiform languages.
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toqun
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:27 am
Languages: English (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby toqun » Fri Jul 29, 2022 2:31 am

hi ! my name is Lonnie and i'm from Poland, i'm going to USA and looking for some nice school there ;)
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anitarrc
Orange Belt
Posts: 174
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2022 10:10 am
Location: Luxembourg
Languages: Moved around... English + German + Spanish + Dutch + French + Portuguese
used daily
Catalá Russian Serbian: struggling but improving. Bahasa..needs refreshment
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby anitarrc » Tue Aug 02, 2022 11:39 am

Hello to you all,
let me say I am well impressed with those who manage to learn extremely difficult languages like Chinese, Korean or Japanese. I am far too daft to achieve this because I tried and gave up after about 100 characters.
Then there are languages which come with there own way of thinking etc.

At 61 I can safely say that I can easily adapt to a new culture or language, because I have lived in 6 countries for longer than 2 years, all with a different language. After a long life as an engineer starting with mechanic, due to Covid I found myself all of a sudden in a new employment as a translator and proofreader.

Now here is the challenge. A colleague who was from east Germany and the proofreader for Russian decided to retire the moment home office ended. So here I am, having to learn proper Russian at 61!
Yes I did understand Russian for Land Rover Repairs and parts catalogues. But absolutely nothing else.

Then, for some silly reason of my own, I learned "some" Bahasa years ago .. going there once again before I retire to Central America is my dream so there is another aim.
12 x

User avatar
Searchlike
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:11 pm
Languages: Spanish (Native)
German (Intermediate)
English (Fluent)
Japanese (Beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Searchlike » Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:48 pm

Search here!

I'm a native Spanish speaker from Mexico who is currently relearning German, after years of not using it, and a self-taught Japanese learner. Nice to meet you!
6 x


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