A language learners’ forum

You overestimate me I didn't know.
The first rule of the English language: don't talk about the rules of the English language.
The second rule of the English language: don't talk about the rules of the English language.
The third rule of the English language: there are no rules.

I have not much to say, just that I tried to dabble in Czech for a couple of days and decided it's not my thing (at the moment).
It's a mouthful Even very simple concepts like 'how are you' sound to me like 'schptrschlowiczischtrithjklanij sptrftnziki schlijtfrjigstij'.

In comparison Bulgarian sounds like Italian. So I started dabbling discretely in Icelandic on Clozemaster and it sounds very sweet and very recognizable germanic. Apparently adding German to Dutch and English does wonders. I guess that if I can get to a decent reading skills in Icelandic Swedish would be a walk in the park.

And I'm trying to keep improving my German - one day I will be able to write something in it that actually makes sense, and not just fake German full of Dutch words.

Hi!
Welcome in the most boring log of the history of the most boring logs, subtitle: "how not to learn any language".
Remember what I said about dabbling in Icelandic in the last post? Lasted a day.
And about improving German? It didn't improve.

Luckily for me I have every kind of perfect excuses, like having moved to a new house and having become father for the second time.
And because maintaining rusty languages or improving some which I didn't become fluent yet sucks, I decided to add yet a new language to my language learning history: Modern Greek.

I have every kind of silly motivations to learn it:
- I'm a fan of Asassin's Creed: Odyssey
- Like Kassandra, Greek women are very beautiful
- Very easy pronunciation!
- Very easy alphabet, by knowing the latin and the cyrillic I could read the greek one without even studying it
- Differently from Bulgarian, it has a Duolingo course and the levels in Clozemaster, which fits perfectly my lazy learning style. It has even a Pimsleur course and of course Assimil.
- Greece is a fantastic holiday vacation. That's why this year I'll go to vacation in wait for it: Germany. Ich spreche nicht zo gut Deutchs aber ik kan altijd in nep Deutsch sprechen, want het Deutsch ist doch een dialect von het Nederlands, Oder?

Tristano wrote:Luckily for me I have every kind of perfect excuses, like having moved to a new house and having become father for the second time.

That's a pretty awesome excuse, congratulations!

I'd like to vote this as funniest log entry, a new competition I just decided to create.

Tristano, although we have different native languages, our language interests are remarkably similar. Do I have any wise words for you? Yes! Learn Greek! It is lovely and interesting and has a very favourable Tourist Index* -- and enough loanwords from Italian that even I find it helpful. There is only one reason, on the other hand, to learn Icelandic: because it is hard. Even the pronunciation is harder than Czech (imho), and that's just the warm-up before you get to the grammar. The number of people in the world who will think you're cool for learning Icelandic is also very very small. Not that I'm bitter.

Congratulations on your new arrival! (I've just realised I don't know how to say 'congratulations' in Italian, this is a bit embarrassing.)

* number of hours needed to become better at X than the average native speaker of X is at speaking English

Thanks guys!

Neurotip wrote:Tristano, although we have different native languages, our language interests are remarkably similar. Do I have any wise words for you? Yes! Learn Greek! It is lovely and interesting and has a very favourable Tourist Index* -- and enough loanwords from Italian that even I find it helpful. There is only one reason, on the other hand, to learn Icelandic: because it is hard. Even the pronunciation is harder than Czech (imho), and that's just the warm-up before you get to the grammar. The number of people in the world who will think you're cool for learning Icelandic is also very very small. Not that I'm bitter.

Congratulations on your new arrival! (I've just realised I don't know how to say 'congratulations' in Italian, this is a bit embarrassing.)

* number of hours needed to become better at X than the average native speaker of X is at speaking English

well my reason to learn Icelandic is that I bought 3 books written in it
same for Slovenian. I might have a problem.

Anyway, ation because azione in Italian (ations = azioni)

Consideration = considerazione
Emancipation = emancipazione
Nation = nazione
Nations = nazioni
Congratulations = congratulazioni

And very similar with minor changes:
Revelation = rivelazione
Action = azione
Abstraction = astrazione

That's why an Italian can have a bigger vocabulary in English than the most Dutch and still suck.

Neurotip wrote:Tristano, although we have different native languages, our language interests are remarkably similar. Do I have any wise words for you? Yes! Learn Greek! It is lovely and interesting and has a very favourable Tourist Index* -- and enough loanwords from Italian that even I find it helpful. There is only one reason, on the other hand, to learn Icelandic: because it is hard. Even the pronunciation is harder than Czech (imho), and that's just the warm-up before you get to the grammar. The number of people in the world who will think you're cool for learning Icelandic is also very very small. Not that I'm bitter.

Congratulations on your new arrival! (I've just realised I don't know how to say 'congratulations' in Italian, this is a bit embarrassing.)

* number of hours needed to become better at X than the average native speaker of X is at speaking English

Well, I would add two more reasons to learn Icelandic:

• Written Icelendic is close enough to Old Norse that you can read the sagas.
• Icelanders have absolutely no idea of how to react to crazy foreigners who have learned even a little bit of their language. The shocked expressions are priceless.

Tristano wrote:Congratulations = congratulazioni

OK that's super embarrassing. I was thinking of 'félicitations' in French and assumed it must be less obvious

Tristano wrote:well my reason to learn Icelandic is that I bought 3 books written in it

Fair enough! I have one on my shelf which I'd really love to get round to reading.

Deinonysus wrote:Written Icelendic is close enough to Old Norse that you can read the sagas.

Deinonysus, you have a good point. I was thinking about this the other day and the comparisons of modern Italian vs Dante, or modern English vs Shakespeare, came to mind. Maybe fractionally more different than that, but not as much as ModE vs Chaucer I think.

Neurotip wrote:

Tristano wrote:Congratulations = congratulazioni

OK that's super embarrassing. I was thinking of 'félicitations' in French and assumed it must be less obvious

No need to be embarassed. "Felicitazioni" though a bit stilted is also an acceptable alternative in contexts like weddings or indeed new arrivals

Neurotip wrote:

Tristano wrote:well my reason to learn Icelandic is that I bought 3 books written in it

Fair enough! I have one on my shelf which I'd really love to get round to reading.

I would love I had only one. Every time I go in a foreign country I always buy a book written in its language (unless I have already). When it is Germany: fantastic! When it is Slovenia: well... But someone remind me to never ever go to Greenland.