Introduce yourself here

General discussion about learning languages
Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3469
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Cainntear » Wed May 17, 2023 10:24 pm

lavengro wrote:There is something Fawlty with this thread currently....

¿Que?
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Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3511
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Le Baron » Wed May 17, 2023 11:19 pm

Ignore him, he's from Barcelona.
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inu
White Belt
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed May 31, 2023 1:40 pm
Location: Germany
Languages: German (N), English (reading & listening: advanced; speaking & writing: lower intermediate), Japanese (beginner), French (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby inu » Thu Jun 01, 2023 1:29 pm

Hello!
I’m from Germany and my native tongue is *surprise* German. I once studied linguistics, dabbled a tiny little bit in German Sign Language meanwhile, got a qualification in Latin in school but made no further use of it since. I’ve never been actively studying English after finishing school, just kept reading and listening, never cared much about talking or writing. Sorry, if it shows.
My language learning adventure began in 2017. I thought it would be really nice to be able to read my favorite manga in all their original Japanese splendor.
Some miles down the road I’m still on my grail’s search for the “right” learning methods (for me and my situation) but I do know for sure now that the internet is full of sh…eer nonsense concerning language learning, that language learning is not without turmoil or for the fainthearted but a life long journey for endurance athletes and that I’m in love with far too many languages for my own good and probably for the time I’ve got left before I eventually turn into worm food.
I love busying myself way too much with learning-/language learning-theory and the experiences of other learners. In this regard I don’t like the vibes reddit, youtube and the sorts give me and I read occasionally in the HTLAL forum. Finally, I found this forum, thought it a nice and chill community of seasoned veterans, nontoxic newbies and some folk in between, where I might fit in somehow. Oh, and no one here wants to click-bait me into buying a fruit gum that makes me loose belly fat or some cleansing plasters for my soles or to have me meet up with singles from my region. That’s awesome. A world of bliss! Thanks for that. :D
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theladyboo
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:10 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (beginner kind of), French (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby theladyboo » Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:51 pm

Hello,
I'm a native US English speaking newbie here. My grandmother was fluent in French so I'd love to learn just to feel a bit closer since she lived so far away. I always wanted to learn French but they said "you live in California, you should learn Spanish" so I took high school Spanish for 2 years and all I remember is a few words, verb conjugation rules, and grammatical gender. I suppose that should help with learning French as well. I'd like to eventually try Italian and Gaelic, too. I have no clue how to start or which tools are the most helpful. I was going to try and find a French penpal on the penpal sites but it just felt like a huge dating site so I left and found this forum.
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rdearman
Site Admin
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Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 01, 2023 6:44 pm

theladyboo wrote:Hello,
I'm a native US English speaking newbie here. My grandmother was fluent in French so I'd love to learn just to feel a bit closer since she lived so far away. I always wanted to learn French but they said "you live in California, you should learn Spanish" so I took high school Spanish for 2 years and all I remember is a few words, verb conjugation rules, and grammatical gender. I suppose that should help with learning French as well. I'd like to eventually try Italian and Gaelic, too. I have no clue how to start or which tools are the most helpful. I was going to try and find a French penpal on the penpal sites but it just felt like a huge dating site so I left and found this forum.


I think we can help you. You might first want to look at our resources area, The Master List of Resources, which includes French, Italian and Gaelic.

Many of the resources listed are free and available for download. I particularly liked the FSI drills for French, although many people don't. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the Practical Questions area or the General discussion. Please feel free to open a log on and record your efforts. Many people will read and give advice and recommendations.

Welcome aboard.

EDIT: Oh, one of the better sites for finding conversation partners is: https://conversationexchange.com/
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vanishedgaze
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2023 7:49 pm
Languages: English (N)
Intermediate: Persian, French
Dabbling: Portuguese, Toki Pona
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby vanishedgaze » Wed Jun 07, 2023 10:20 pm

Hello! I found this place because I was wondering what happened to that one website called HTLAL.

As a teenager, I started learning Persian on account of my background as a half-English half-Iranian who grew up monolingual in the UK. I'm a lot paler and less gregarious than Iranians are supposed to be, so I always found it difficult to feel connected to this heritage. I started from almost zero—well, unless I had some unconscious statistical knowledge of the language from hearing it around, but if so I never felt like I knew anything. (My family used a few corrupted loanwords around the house, but to me, that's our version of English, not Persian!) I built a pretty good foundation in the writing system and pronunciation (thank you, shadowing) but struggled to understand anything and ended up quitting.

A decade later, I came back to studying—as I always felt I would when the time was right—and managed to break through that plateau. I'm now hundreds of pages into my first physical book in Persian—Flyte (Book 2 of Septimus Heap) by Angie Sage. I think the key was building up reading fluency. Still, I despair at seeing large blocks of text online and my listening comprehension falls far short of keeping up with native speech. It's been tricky to find enough listening material that's at the right level and that I actually enjoy.

My interests are mercurial and there's always the siren call of adding another language to the line-up, if only to try it out and see if it's one that I might grow to love. When I took up French, I was heartened to find it was so easy to bring back and then surpass--at least in terms of comprehension—what I had apparently retained from high school, just with some regular listening and reading. Lately, I've also enjoyed spending time with Portuguese, enough to feel the desire to stick with it. From time to time I also feel the itch to test whether Mandarin or Japanese might be for me...
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saeed6671
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2023 5:04 pm
Languages: Persian
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby saeed6671 » Sun Jun 25, 2023 5:08 pm

Hi all :)

My name is Kozay from Istanbul and I am here to learn English ;)
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Slowpoke
White Belt
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Jun 12, 2023 5:20 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1), Korean (A2), German (beginner)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Slowpoke » Mon Jun 26, 2023 9:10 am

Hello! I'm a Canadian currently living in France - we had French from kindergarten to the end of grade twelve, and afterwards, I ended up moving to France where I currently work as an English teacher. I passed the DALF C1 and am hoping for my job to pay for the DALF C2 because I'd love to say I have it and never think about it again, but they're quite expensive!

I'm here because I really want to learn German as I live right on the border of Germany, but don't want to repeat the same mistakes I made in French (making so many pronunciation errors). I love seeing the advice people give, and have been just focusing on comprehensible input and Anki flashcards until I can naturally construct sentences instead of calquing them from English.
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Василь
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:34 am
Languages: Русский(N),English(elementary)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Василь » Tue Jun 27, 2023 10:45 am

Всем привет, меня зовут Василий. На данный момент я пытаюсь изучать английский язык и поэтому я здесь. Буду рад любой помощи и советам.
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Learning Is Hard
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2023 11:43 am
Languages: English (N)
Polish (B1)
Italian (A2)
Spanish (A1)
Romanian (A1)
French (A1)
Slovak (A1)
Bulgarian (A1)
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Re: Introduce yourself here

Postby Learning Is Hard » Fri Jun 30, 2023 12:04 pm

Hello,
I am "Learning is Hard".
I am a retired EFL teacher and I have spent the last seventeen years teaching English in various countries in Europe. Since my time has been spent using English in work and living with other English teachers, it has been difficult to pick up other languages.

People are impressed by the number of languages I speak, but the truth is that I speak them at a very low level.
I always say that I know enough to just get through each day.

I have decided to get my Italian up to B1 this year. Since I am retired, I allow myself about two and a half hours each day. My main interest is reading, but I also like watching Netflix in Italian.

Good luck to all!
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