The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support Forumssinkingfeeling
(51,474 posts)ago. I would be better able to spend more time in Paris.
debm55
(25,453 posts)elleng
(131,159 posts)definitely better to BE there!
OnDoutside
(19,974 posts)I learnt French is school too, have spent two years of my working life in France as well as many rugby weekends there....oh and am on over 1100 days of Duolingo! However, learn vocab and the present tense will be enough to get you going. The French people I met will help you one they see you try.
Btw, look up the Jay Swanson YouTube channel for all things to do in Paris !
Joinfortmill
(14,467 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)elleng
(131,159 posts)I studied French, and that sounds pretty good, but something about Italian!
debm55
(25,453 posts)Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Such a beautiful language.
bucolic_frolic
(43,314 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,314 posts)I can read French fairly well. But wish I knew more French, Italian, German, Spanish. A little Polish and Russian wouldn't be bad either.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)Partly because it's my heritage, and partly because learning any language is good for an old brain but it's an easy enough language to learn that it isn't frustrating me.
debm55
(25,453 posts)spoke it at home. In fact, they were not permitted to go to public school until they learned English. Good luck with the Norwegian.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)to the Scandinavian languages or the other European languages except for Hungarian and Estonian, and is very complex grammatically. I'm too old to learn Finnish. But Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are so closely related that they are for the most part mutually intelligible, and their grammar is almost as uncomplicated as English.
debm55
(25,453 posts)luck to you.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)One of our members was from Finland and she taught us how to pronounce it - it's actually fairly simple when you learn the rules, but the grammar is something else. We also learned some songs in Icelandic, which was challenging because of some weird vowels and a couple of letters that no longer exist in other languages, ð and þ.
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)Norwegian is surprisingly easy for English speakers to learn. Honestly it's easier than Spanish, and I studied Spanish for years. I haven't tried Finnish but I read the same as what you said: Finnish is related to Hungarian and Estonian.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)And waaaay easier than Icelandic, which is what's left over from Old Norse. I can pick up some Icelandic words that are the same or almost the same as other Scandinavian words, but the grammar is so gnarly that it's really hard to sort out. And spoken, it sounds like a creole of Norwegian and Klingon.
Wicked Blue
(5,854 posts)My parents were born there. They spoke Estonian, English, German and Russian fluently.
They sent me to kindergarten knowing not a word of English, but I picked it up quickly. I was not allowed to speak English at home. They sent me to Estonian school every other Sunday.
Took 3 years of German in high school but forgot most of it.
Not sure I'd have the energy to start learning another language now.
debm55
(25,453 posts)School. was a MASH nurse during WW II and became a teacher. You could hear the Finnish accent in her voice.
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)Nesten to år nå. Jeg har familie dar men de ikke er norsk.
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)The reply title changes the spelling and characters but the body accepts the Norwegian! The reply was supposed to be;
Jeg lærer norsk også!
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)Familien min kom fra Norge for mange år siden og ingen kan språket lenger.
Jeg leser "Forside - Klar Tale" for å lære språken. Den er skrevet på et forenklet språk for elever. Familien min i Norge snakker norsk og engelsk og hjelper meg å snakke. Jeg er ikke norsk men jeg elsker landet og språket. Min venns familie kom fra Norge for mange år siden og hun lærer norsk også. Vi snakker og tekster på norsk.
https://www.klartale.no/
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)Jeg har lært mange ord om forbrytelser, som drapsvåpen og blodige fotspor.
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)Tar du kurs? På nett eller i klassrommer? Jeg studerer bare med appen.
Ok lol det er perfekt å lær ord om forbrytelser. Jeg har lest Jø Nesbø, men bare på engelsk. Jeg vil lese ham på norsk! Jeg har besøkt mange steder i bøkene hans, som Frognerparken og andre steder i Oslo. Slik kan man lærer bedre.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)DBoon
(22,399 posts)Supposedly the modern languages closest to proton-indo European, the ancestral language of most European languages and many southern Asian languages (Persian, Hindi and others)
Not a chance in hell I would actually learn either - couldn't master German grammar and the Baltic languages are much more complex.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2024, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)
decades. Good luck in whatever you want to learn or not.
Xolodno
(6,401 posts)Thinking about Mandarin or Arabic. Why? Both occupy use in significant parts of the world.
debm55
(25,453 posts)I was in Egypt this last fall and learned a few phrases and words in Arabic. Turns out, just like when I went to France, most knew English. Even when I responded in either Russian or Spanish to tell them I wasn't interested in buying their cheap ware they were peddling, some would actually respond and try to haggle in that language. Floored me when they responded in Russian.
Found out from a friend later a lot of Russians vacation in Egypt.
grumpyduck
(6,267 posts)I took two years of it in high school and put it to use when i visited England later and could read some of the inscriptions on the old monuments.
Of course I've forgotten most of it.
But there are so many more old Roman plaques out there that I would love to just be able to read them without googling them.
debm55
(25,453 posts)remember it for the life of me.
limbicnuminousity
(1,405 posts)Fun.
Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)I know hello (boozhoo) and thank you (miigwech), but that's all I got.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Ocelot II
(115,869 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)LoisB
(7,234 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)gopiscrap
(23,765 posts)Urdu and English along with church latin and a bunch of Spanish, so I would love to fully learn Spanish
debm55
(25,453 posts)BlueSky3
(515 posts)in French. Our family was stationed there when I was age 7-10 and it really had an effect on me. I would have learned more, but I was enrolled in an American school. Ive studied it since, but do so much better speaking it when Im there. The best help Im getting now is from a language exchange. I speak to someone who lives in France and is French. She wants to improve her English and I want to improve my French. And its free.
Its really the best option for me because Im a lousy student. I know that at my age Ill never be fluent, but find that even small bits of study here and there are good for the gray cells.
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)I think it's called Pronunciator. It's a really nice resource for self-study, even though it's web-based only and doesn't offer an app. I just sign in to the site with my library card!
Also there are many podcasts and YouTube videos for language learners. I was struggling with a particular new word in Norwegian that contained both the "æ" and "a" sounds (similar but distinct). I found a good YouTube to help learn and distinguish between the sounds.
debm55
(25,453 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)enid602
(8,658 posts)I speak Spanish, and used to be conversant in Brazilian Portuguese. Havent spoken it in years, but plan to study it at some point. I lived in Argentina a total of 5 years in my life, and am pretty good with castellano rioplatense.
debm55
(25,453 posts)electric_blue68
(14,953 posts)I was in the advanced classes in grade school. We had a French teacher. Unfortunately I didn't like her much so she kind of turned me off of French for a long time.
Then in 9th grade ('67) we were offered French, Spanish, or...
Russian!
I suppose it was a way of possibly getting Russian speakers for The U.N., American Embassy, ?future trade, some science stuff, or C.I.A. (😮 ) ! There were only 4 JHSs in NYC that offered it!
I decided to take it so I could talk to my dad. Oh, English was probably his first language; but he (2nd Gen) spoke Ukrainian to his parents, and a few family friends. I thought it would cool to converse a bit since I understood they could often understand each other (Ukrainians, and Russians).
I didn't know completely yet how much friction there could be between them.
I took a year, and I got an 85! You had to learn a whole new alphabet, and thethree what ever you call - masculine, feminime, and ?nuetral designations. I was going to the specialized Art & Music HS, and they didn't offer it. Only my local HS did.
So I struggled through Spanish for ?2 more years. 😑
What I'd like to learn, and I actually have to finish the on line class I have - is some Arabic Calligraphy. It's so beautiful!
debm55
(25,453 posts)electric_blue68
(14,953 posts)languages when you're a kid.
Some people have a natural talent for them at any age!
Behind the Aegis
(53,994 posts)However, I have been relearning Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and new ones, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, German, Yiddish, Swedish, and Romanian. I would like to learn Swahili (I know several animals' names), Greek, Hindi, Mandarin, Russian, and Hungarian.
Oh, and have been relearning American Sign Language.
debm55
(25,453 posts)GreenWave
(6,766 posts)de personas que estudian una lengua extranjera genera nuevas neuronas!!!
So keep studying other languages to generate new neurons in your brains!
debm55
(25,453 posts)Phoenix61
(17,019 posts)Japanese - I want to travel there
debm55
(25,453 posts)Niagara
(7,675 posts)I can speak a little French and Italian.
I can swear in both Spanish and Hindu.
I know very little German. Definitely not enough to get by.
I know enough ASL to get by but I don't use it much anymore so I forget words.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Niagara
(7,675 posts)Elessar Zappa
(14,077 posts)Id also like to learn Japanese.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Harker
(14,040 posts)I have a tutorial and a big old Oxford dictionary of Icelandic to help me get going.
I'd like to be able to read medieval Icelandic sagas in the original.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Harker
(14,040 posts)When I get my time machine humming, I'll see if I can have a beer with Snorri Sturluson.
Dear_Prudence
(384 posts)You probably know this, but in case others are interested, here is some info. Jackson Crawford, a former university professor, gives free instruction online on YouTube. I use his site to learn about the mythology and ancient culture, but he has lots of language instruction too. I read his translation of The Poetic Edda. He reads some poems aloud in Old Norse in his online videos, so you can at least enjoy the sound of the language. Enjoy!
Harker
(14,040 posts)I'm sitting here with E.V. Gordon's "An introduction to Old Norse" (Oxford Press), being a paper firster, but I will surely benefit from your helpful reply.
I'll certainly look into Mr. Crawford's videos.
You've both broadened and invigorated my outlook on this endeavor!
LearnedHand
(3,394 posts)This is the online language learning system my library offers.
https://www.pronunciator.com/
Harker
(14,040 posts)malthaussen
(17,217 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)Dear_Prudence
(384 posts)Beautiful song lyrics, pure vowels that enhance the sound of songs, and insight into Indian culture, from great epics to Bollywood movies. I studied for years, but I never could speak as well as any four year old native speaker in the entire nation of India.Once I successfully ordered chai from a Hindi-speaking waiter. Once I sang along in Hindi at an Indian concert when I had written out the lyrics of my favorite songs (much to the kind amusement of native speakers around me who did not need any a cheat sheet to sing along). Still, I never regretted those years of study.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,803 posts)That way I will be able to mix in when Trump's imaginary invasion force takes over the country.
debm55
(25,453 posts)yellowdogintexas
(22,274 posts)I find myself wanting to re learn some of it. There is a lot of Spanish culture here and I would just like to be able to understand it
And figure out what my sister in law and niece are saying.
On the other hand, over in Fantasyland, I would love to learn Farsi. My daughter married into a Kurdish/Iranian family and the whole family speaks .Farsi, Kurdish, some Arabic and English. My co-grandmother speaks to her granddaughters in Farsi, and my son in law is teaching my granddaughter. My daughter is really good with the names of the food!
Meanwhile, my daughter & son-in-law are learning Spanish because southern Arizona has a large Spanish culture
debm55
(25,453 posts)yellowdogintexas
(22,274 posts)What's wild is when my son in law's sisters and their mother get into squabbles. They get going in one of those languages and I kind of want to creep slowly out of the room. It's fierce sounding.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Runningdawg
(4,522 posts)I grew up hearing it spoken on one side of the family and being forbidden from speaking it on the other. You would think it would be easier to find a class in OK, but it's not.
debm55
(25,453 posts)finding a place where you can learn.
Runningdawg
(4,522 posts)Unfortunately, several weeks into it, I was the only student left and the library decided it wasn't worth the effort. They have never scheduled another class.
I tried learning from a set of tapes, there was no feedback, I had no idea if I was learning anything or not.
I tried online. Maybe the teacher was a bot. First phrase was supposed to be 'hello" one of the few words I do know, IDK what the bot said, it wasn't a hello anyone around here would understand. The one class available from the tribe is in a location an hour and half away, the roads are horrible, cut through the middle of nowhere and my car is crap. Not only that class starts at 8pm, but I also wouldn't get home until nearly midnight.
Family Cherokee, kidnapped and sent to boarding schools. 1/2 the family rebelled and clung even tighter to tradition. The other half jumped on the jesus bus. That's a very common family situation in OK.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Runningdawg
(4,522 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)LakeArenal
(28,847 posts)(In the Costa Rican dialect)
debm55
(25,453 posts)in it.
LakeArenal
(28,847 posts)But if you try you are usually understood.
Ticos are very patient with one if one is patient with them.
Google Translate is used by everyone. Ticos and expats.
Pronunciation is almost as important as knowing vocabulary.
debm55
(25,453 posts)LakeArenal
(28,847 posts)But my present tense and vocabulary are pretty good so I have no fear if I have to speak Spanish.
Mr Lake is better forming sentences and looks to me me for the words and he does the syntax.
All I can say is having a partner who is simpatico with you is the most helpful part.
We have a saying: Between my Spanglish and Tico Spenglish we are doing very well.
debm55
(25,453 posts)maptap22
(70 posts)Because I am going there in 7 months.
debm55
(25,453 posts)OnDoutside
(19,974 posts)I, amongst so many Irish people, hate having Irish forced on us. French, I love, and have over 1100 days of it on Duolingo.
debm55
(25,453 posts)OnDoutside
(19,974 posts)RainCaster
(10,923 posts)Someday in the future, Mousy Dung's idea of government will fail completely. If the people are smart, they will move to some form of democracy instead of the autocratic system that the USSR moved to. I love the culture and people, but the country is so backward because of the party rule.
It would be nice to go back there with an understanding of the language. I could then spend more time discussing about the culture in their native tongue.
debm55
(25,453 posts)RainCaster
(10,923 posts)If not for the heavy cloud of an authoritarian government, it would have been fantastic. In the US we think 200 years is old and 200 miles is near. In Europe, 200 years is young and 200 miles is far. In China 200 miles is infantile and 200 miles is a commute.
lastlib
(23,309 posts)never had time or opportunity for either one.
And I shared a cubicle at work with a lady who was born in Russia! She was born in Moscow, and after getting married lived near Chernobyl. She and husband fled after the nuclear disaster there, wound up here in the Midwest.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Cartoonist
(7,323 posts)I would like to be able to speak Spanish because so many of my fellow citizens do. I started to in high school, but gave up.
I would like to speak French because of the culture. So many books and so much music I miss out on. Films too.
debm55
(25,453 posts)DFW
(54,445 posts)Tagalog because I encounter Filipinos everywhere I go. They have taught me some of their language, enough to surprise the hell out of them, but not enough to hold a real conversation. The same goes for Albanian and Farsi.
I know some Turkish, as I had some Turkish friends in college, and there are Turks everywhere here in Germany. But I'd love to be conversational.
I have Polish colleagues, and would like to be able to converse with them in their own language.
I run into Arabs everywhere in Europe, especially in France and Belgium.
Mandarin just because one encounters people from China everywhere, and while not all of them speak Mandarin as a native language by any means, Mandarin remains their lingua franca.
My sister-in-law is from Japan, and I would like to be able to converse with her in her own language.
As for languages in which I CAN hold a conversation with either little or no difficulty--those would be English (mother tongue), Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch (Nederlands), Swedish, German, Schwyzerdütsch and Russian. I'm no genius, but rather lazy, instead. I'm in a different country virtually every day for work. I don't have the energy or the time to ask everybody along the way, "Do you speak English?" It's just a LOT easier if I know the language of the people I interact with. Knowing the languages I do covers me about 95% of the time. Close enough. Besides, having learned German early on made it possible for me to meet and marry an incredibly beautiful, smart, kind and well-adjusted woman that would never even have talked to me if I hadn't spoken her language, which is German. She had taken some English in school, of course, but didn't speak it well, as she never figured she would ever have any use for it later on in life. She eventually turned out to be wrong about that, but she didn't know it at the time.
I think I fried my brain neurons long ago.
debm55
(25,453 posts)DFW
(54,445 posts)Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2024, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)
("You're welcome" in Tagalog)
Here's a story you'll like:
About 25 years ago, I was having coffee with an American friend in a café in Brussels, when three college-age women from Sweden started practicing singing madrigals in perfect three part harmony. They were REALLY good, professional level. Between songs, they were conversing with each other in Swedish, which I happen to speak very well. When they stopped, I remarked to my friend, "I wonder what we have to do to get them to do an encore."
One of them turned to me and said, in English, "we don't do encores." I said, "oh, you only do encores if we ask in Swedish?" She said, "yes, that's right." I replied, "sjung oss någnting vackert, alltså," which means, "then sing us something pretty." That stopped all three of them in mid-sentence, since their jaws had dropped simultaneously to the floor. They interrogated me for the next twenty minutes how in the world it was that an American spoke fluent Swedish. We never got our encore, but the looks on their faces when they heard me answer them in Swedish was worth it.
debm55
(25,453 posts)lpbk2713
(42,766 posts)I tried it many years ago but couldn't fit it into my schedule.
debm55
(25,453 posts)drray23
(7,637 posts)I am French American so I speak English and French fluently. I understand Spanish and Italian but not fluent. I want to work on Portuguese because we ( wife and I ) are thinking about buying a vacation home in Portugal where we maybe would later retire.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Aristus
(66,467 posts)difficulty.
My medical Spanish just isn't going to cut it.
But the language I really want to learn is Finnish. It's an absolutely fascinating language. The way it is spelled, the way it sounds when spoken. Entrancing. I watched a few YouTube videos on the rudiments of Finnish vocabulary and grammar. But that's just dipping my toe. I want to take a full blown language course.
And then, of course, visit Finland.
debm55
(25,453 posts)lots of double verbs in a word. She was not allowed into school until she learned English which she did. She was quit smart as she went to Nursing School and served in WW II as a MASH nurse and later as a teacher. When my husband was young, Toenie and the family visited Finland. All through her life with her family, she talked Finnish. but with us, she talked American English. Good Luck to you for wanting to learn it.
Hekate
(90,837 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)speak Spanish at home. Good luck to you for learning Spanish.
Mr. Scorpio
(73,631 posts)I want to be THE Omniglot.
debm55
(25,453 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)Mr.Bill
(24,330 posts)It's the second most common language here, except in areas where it is the most common.
I grew up in a hispanic neighborhood and I took spanish in high school. Just couldn't seem to learn it very well. I can understand a little of it some times, and speak it even less.
debm55
(25,453 posts)ProfessorGAC
(65,213 posts)Chinese or Japanese I guess. Not that I'll actually do it, but thought it would be cool.
I can speak enough Italian to get by, and having been there over 40 times, it came in handy.
But, knowing something as radically different as an Asian language is appealing.
debm55
(25,453 posts)debm55
(25,453 posts)Lunabell
(6,112 posts)I want to be able to effectively communicate with others who do not speak English. We have a lot of Spanish speaking people where I live and I also want to help make them feel welcomed.
Bienvenidos!
debm55
(25,453 posts)Traildogbob
(8,827 posts)To understand better the many hundreds of scientific names crammed in my head for trees, plants, animals and protists and monerans and fungi.
debm55
(25,453 posts)on the left hand side of the open book and Latin on the right.I wish you luck in learning it , if you decide to.
leighbythesea2
(1,200 posts)Found an immersion program in Guatemala for Spanish. Not that expensive.
debm55
(25,453 posts)Different Drummer
(7,650 posts)Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Hebrew, and Greek all come to mind. I imagine that, since the English language is so different in terms of characters used, learning any or all of these would be an intellectual challenge.
debm55
(25,453 posts)The Russian language use the Crylic alphabet. Arabic and Japanese are languages I would like to learn to speak and write--even if it is basic words.