An Obligatory "Which Should I Learn?" Thread

[tarvos]

:ugeek:

I dilly dally with my languages all the time. Most of the time, I end up doing something completely different from what I expected myself to be doing, and then for some reason, I end up falling in love with something else, or it's just... a routine I like, or it just happens to be convenient, or somehow I get shoved into going to China and realize I don't speak a word of Mandarin. (That's literally why I started Mandarin).

I don't believe in shoulds and musts. I started Russian because I thought Russia was mysterious and didn't have an inkling what Russian was like. Fell in love and now it's one of my primary languages. And I just did this because I wanted to spend my Wednesday nights somewhere besides my bedroom pining over a breakup or figuring out my sexuality. And then I figured out you could take a train 'round the continent, so that is what I did.

I never expected to use German again after I left school, and then I ended up in Germany so often that it became practical that I'd studied it. Because you never know when you meet somebody's parents and have to deal with them in Ze German.

And once I learned Breton because I decided to fuck off to France alone for a week and they spoke Breton there and, well, I just sat reading a Breton grammar under the trees in Brest. Because I could.

Your posts often seem a little absurd to me (but who am I to talk?). And all this that you have said about yourself is relevant because? How does it help the OP? Would you care to apply your dilly dallying methods to the original poster’s situation to come up with a method for her of how to possibly advance well in one or two languages while having a tendency to be lazy (her admission)? I know from my experience if I dilly dally I wind up wasting a lot of time and not advancing much in anything.

I cannot fathom how your dilly dallying approach can get you anywhere unless its really committed dilly dallying and you’re super intelligent (which is certainly plausible given your accomplishments). In any case trying to apply your methods to eido’s situation does not seem logical to me or well thought out. You can certainly afford to dilly dally if you’re already a well accomplished polyglot who travels a lot and knows what it takes to learn a language or several (that is not eido).

Furthermore, you seem to flippantly respond to your situation and where life takes you. I’m pretty sure Eido is attempting to do this, it’s just not as clear and requires plenty of reflection. Who knows maybe next week eido will wake up under a tree in Greece.

Because life is unpredictable. Sometimes you need to go with the flow, man. (Insert pot joke here). My point is that we overthink things too much and that there's no point in doing that. I tend to just roll with the punches. And I haven't travelled much lately. My language choices weren't made so that I could travel to a country; I travelled to a country and then realized "oh shit, I need Chinese now."

[zenmonkey]

I've decided on German for now. I don't like it, but perhaps I'm making everything hard by my own self as everyone says. In fact, I know I am.

I'll be doing research on how to make all these words and genders and cases stick. I'm a long way from home, from my dear Spanish.

In the background will be Icelandic and Faroese.

I am not judging you, I just wanted clarification. It is difficult to give you advice when you yourself don't know what you want.

The requirement as far as I can tell is: "Any language that can be properly learned and then documented with a proficiency test, showing that the learner is at a lower-intermediate level or higher by the time they are ready to graduate with their Master of Arts."

I sincerely apologize for creating drama. I didn't think anyone was judging me. The more I read want I wrote and the more I thought about it, the more disgusted I felt. It'd be better to be a monk at this point fine tuning her skills until she can actually do something of use.

No apology needed. Sometimes decision processes are emotional.

If you really don't like the idea of German - and want to have the option on something else, do the homework of calculating the costs (time, material, teachers), the logistics of the exam, get assurance that you can do that with Icelandic from the school admin, work out the minutiae of doing that and THEN loaded with all that info you can challenge your current decision as factually as possible.

German isn't my first love either but I have to say I find it to be a useful language (not only because i live here) but as a base to learning a bunch of other languages. With a very different structure and case system it is a good challenge. It was a good step for me for approaching Icelandic in the future.

[David1917]

I've decided on German for now. I don't like it, but perhaps I'm making everything hard by my own self as everyone says. In fact, I know I am.

I'll be doing research on how to make all these words and genders and cases stick. I'm a long way from home, from my dear Spanish.

Beyond the few patterns introduced in the Assimil (Without Toil) exercises, I like the old Teach Yourself German (1st edition), it's got a lot of translation exercises from English into German, so you get good practice using the cases. Then when you're ready to consolidate it all the Dreyer-Schmitt German Grammar book is extremely dense and thorough. Enjoy the journey, German teaches you a lot about English and will probably make the prize of Icelandic that much easier to get to.

[eido]

If you really don't like the idea of German - and want to have the option on something else, do the homework of calculating the costs (time, material, teachers), the logistics of the exam, get assurance that you can do that with Icelandic from the school admin, work out the minutiae of doing that and THEN loaded with all that info you can challenge your current decision as factually as possible.

German isn't my first love either but I have to say I find it to be a useful language (not only because i live here) but as a base to learning a bunch of other languages. With a very different structure and case system it is a good challenge. It was a good step for me for approaching Icelandic in the future.

So far the director hasn't responded, perhaps because they have a break at this time of year. So I'll see. But I'll see if I can make myself love German. I don't hate how it sounds or looks, but the actual nitty-gritty of it is daunting.

What you mentioned here is the reason I thought I should tackle it. I thought it would be cool to read an Icelandic grammar someone recommended that hasn't been translated from German, and all the elements of Icelandic has, German has quite a few of, so I'd be more prepared than going in cold without any help. Who knows, maybe they'll have a brand-new Icelandic learning interface by the time I've got through with German. (Though hopefully not, because I want to create that!)

Thank you for trying to help me, @zenmonkey. I think I was just afraid of having to learn a language on my own, particularly one that's er, what is it? Cat 3? Even if we didn't define it by these seemingly arbitrary categories, I'd still think it was difficult on its own, notwithstanding the fact I haven't learned a language on my own before.

Beyond the few patterns introduced in the Assimil (Without Toil) exercises, I like the old Teach Yourself German (1st edition), it's got a lot of translation exercises from English into German, so you get good practice using the cases. Then when you're ready to consolidate it all the Dreyer-Schmitt German Grammar book is extremely dense and thorough. Enjoy the journey, German teaches you a lot about English and will probably make the prize of Icelandic that much easier to get to.

I'll try to track those down. Assimil has advanced courses for German, right? Would you recommend those? I've never used Assimil before. Thank you for the assistance.

EDIT: Is "Without Toil" the same as "With Ease"?

[iguanamon]

Eido, Deutsche Welle (the German State Broadcaster) has plenty of free resources available to learn German from both an English and Spanish base. Deutsch Warum Nicht (Why not German) is a popular Deutsche Welle course with audio, pdf's of dialogs, exercises, etc. There are also multimedia courses with video available
DW Learn German (English base courses)

Aprender Alemán (Spanish Base courses)

Deutsche Welle Course Finder and Course Descriptions and Placement Tests

[PeterMollenburg]

Because life is unpredictable. Sometimes you need to go with the flow, man. (Insert pot joke here). My point is that we overthink things too much and that there's no point in doing that. I tend to just roll with the punches. And I haven't travelled much lately. My language choices weren't made so that I could travel to a country; I travelled to a country and then realized "oh shit, I need Chinese now."

Thank you for the explanation, tarvos. I just don’t know how eido can apply this, as she is wanting to (needs to?) make a decision now. Your approach seems to fit you perfectly but for better or worse others approach life differently and make decisions based on very different outlooks. Me for example, if I turned up in France, wanted to work there, and decided to learn it after somehow ending up there with my family, we’d go broke and end up losing our home. Some planning, I think is necessary for some people. Nevertheless, thank you again for your explanation, perhaps eido can indeed apply your methods to some extent, I dunno.

[David1917]

I'll try to track those down. Assimil has advanced courses for German, right? Would you recommend those? I've never used Assimil before. Thank you for the assistance.

EDIT: Is "Without Toil" the same as "With Ease"?

No, Without Toil is the first edition, just by A Cherel. I'm not sure how many revisions exist, I have one called "German With Ease" from 2001 by Hilde Schneider and A Stettler; and the newest simply titled "German" from 2013. There's got to be a '70s/'80s version called something like New German With Ease, but I don't know for sure. Assimil is personally a joy to work with because you see daily progress. 15 minute sessions with a large grammar book for example might take you days to turn just one page. Assimil you add one new dialogue per day no matter what because they're only around 2 minutes long, and it gives you a very reasonable timeline to expect to be finished the first go-round: ~100 days (assuming you never miss a day).

Assimil does have 2 advanced courses for German, the older one called "La pratique de l'allemand" and the modern one "Perfectionnement Allemand." I'm not sure if the former exists in English (under the title Using German, since the French one is called Using French) and the 2nd one definitely doesn't. You could use them as graded readers but there are other options from an English base so probably don't need to needlessly frustrate yourself with them.

The old TYS book I mentioned by S.W. Wells also has a followup called Teach Yourself More German and a corollary German Reader by L. Stringer (under the TYS brand.)

[tarvos]

Because life is unpredictable. Sometimes you need to go with the flow, man. (Insert pot joke here). My point is that we overthink things too much and that there's no point in doing that. I tend to just roll with the punches. And I haven't travelled much lately. My language choices weren't made so that I could travel to a country; I travelled to a country and then realized "oh shit, I need Chinese now."

Thank you for the explanation, tarvos. I just don’t know how eido can apply this, as she is wanting to (needs to?) make a decision now. Your approach seems to fit you perfectly but for better or worse others approach life differently and make decisions based on very different outlooks. Me for example, if I turned up in France, wanted to work there, and decided to learn it after somehow ending up there with my family, we’d go broke and end up losing our home. Some planning, I think is necessary for some people. Nevertheless, thank you again for your explanation, perhaps eido can indeed apply your methods to some extent, I dunno.

Of course. I was in my early 20s when that happened. Wouldn't make those decisions now. That is to say, I can't because of my medical background. I need some stability in my life. But when you do have the opportunity, I think people should just go and figure out things as they go. Worked for me.

[zenmonkey]

If you really don't like the idea of German - and want to have the option on something else, do the homework of calculating the costs (time, material, teachers), the logistics of the exam, get assurance that you can do that with Icelandic from the school admin, work out the minutiae of doing that and THEN loaded with all that info you can challenge your current decision as factually as possible.

German isn't my first love either but I have to say I find it to be a useful language (not only because i live here) but as a base to learning a bunch of other languages. With a very different structure and case system it is a good challenge. It was a good step for me for approaching Icelandic in the future.

So far the director hasn't responded, perhaps because they have a break at this time of year. So I'll see. But I'll see if I can make myself love German. I don't hate how it sounds or looks, but the actual nitty-gritty of it is daunting.

What you mentioned here is the reason I thought I should tackle it. I thought it would be cool to read an Icelandic grammar someone recommended that hasn't been translated from German, and all the elements of Icelandic has, German has quite a few of, so I'd be more prepared than going in cold without any help. Who knows, maybe they'll have a brand-new Icelandic learning interface by the time I've got through with German. (Though hopefully not, because I want to create that!)

Thank you for trying to help me, @zenmonkey. I think I was just afraid of having to learn a language on my own, particularly one that's er, what is it? Cat 3? Even if we didn't define it by these seemingly arbitrary categories, I'd still think it was difficult on its own, notwithstanding the fact I haven't learned a language on my own before.

Beyond the few patterns introduced in the Assimil (Without Toil) exercises, I like the old Teach Yourself German (1st edition), it's got a lot of translation exercises from English into German, so you get good practice using the cases. Then when you're ready to consolidate it all the Dreyer-Schmitt German Grammar book is extremely dense and thorough. Enjoy the journey, German teaches you a lot about English and will probably make the prize of Icelandic that much easier to get to.

I'll try to track those down. Assimil has advanced courses for German, right? Would you recommend those? I've never used Assimil before. Thank you for the assistance.

EDIT: Is "Without Toil" the same as "With Ease"?

You are welcome. I'm looking forward to reading your log as you take on these languages. I've a personal interest in German learning now, since I'm still actively working on it. And Icelandic material is one I want to get back to, it's a lovely language and I'll eventually work on it.

For Assimil - the 2001 and 2013 editions are good, as is Perfectionnement (but in French), the DW Learn German site that iguanamon mentioned is also excellent.

[PeterMollenburg]

Because life is unpredictable. Sometimes you need to go with the flow, man. (Insert pot joke here). My point is that we overthink things too much and that there's no point in doing that. I tend to just roll with the punches. And I haven't travelled much lately. My language choices weren't made so that I could travel to a country; I travelled to a country and then realized "oh shit, I need Chinese now."

Thank you for the explanation, tarvos. I just don’t know how eido can apply this, as she is wanting to (needs to?) make a decision now. Your approach seems to fit you perfectly but for better or worse others approach life differently and make decisions based on very different outlooks. Me for example, if I turned up in France, wanted to work there, and decided to learn it after somehow ending up there with my family, we’d go broke and end up losing our home. Some planning, I think is necessary for some people. Nevertheless, thank you again for your explanation, perhaps eido can indeed apply your methods to some extent, I dunno.

Of course. I was in my early 20s when that happened. Wouldn't make those decisions now. That is to say, I can't because of my medical background. I need some stability in my life. But when you do have the opportunity, I think people should just go and figure out things as they go. Worked for me.

Well actually I do indeed agree. You're right, and I was more this way when younger too, so advising someone younger without the need for stability or without other family members to consider, it now makes sense. I wasn't sure exactly what you were getting at initially, but now that you've explained yourself some more, I entirely agree with you. We do definitely have a tendency to overthink things and sometimes we ought to let go more often. Our heads rule (and confuse us) far too much, where our hearts and/or our sentiments or intuition or whateve you like to call that or circumstances should perhaps allow us to go where we're supposed to in life. Be flexible/open and bend like a tree in the wind as opposed to resisting and causing more harm than good. If we use our heads as required like a specific tool when it's time to fix something, as opposed to letting it run around looking for something to constantly fix and worrying about which tool to use, then we may live a smoother existence as opposed to running around worrying constantly about which tool we should be using to fix something but we don't know what.