Languages

[shiny jiggly]

Obviously I can speak English but other than that, I'm learning Japanese and that's pretty much it. It's still tough for me to understand a fluent speaker going at normal speed (which is really fast) but I'll eventually get to that point someday.

 

[Not Meowth]

I've now begun very slowly and sporadically teaching myself Italian. I can't speak very much at this point, but I know how to say "the men are in bed", so it's not going too badly :J

I feel like learning Russian since I know the alphabet, or something random like Arabic, but I can't really be bothered.

 

[Hiesetsu]

I'm taking French is high school, you know how that is. And I have the Rosetta Stone for Japanese, but I can only say things like "Otokono mizuo non darimasu' or something. I can't spell it 'cause it shows it to me in katakana. If I spelled that right. I think it means 'boy drinks water'. Not positive, but that doesn't keep me from repeating it again and again.

 

[Not Meowth]

I'm taking French is high school, you know how that is. And I have the Rosetta Stone for Japanese, but I can only say things like "Otokono mizuo non darimasu' or something. I can't spell it 'cause it shows it to me in katakana. If I spelled that right. I think it means 'boy drinks water'. Not positive, but that doesn't keep me from repeating it again and again.

Apparently I can say "Legend of Zelda" (Zeruda no densetsu) and "I am a man" (watashi wa otoko desu) in Japanese. I suppose in that case I can say "watashi wa densetsu" (maybe there's meant to be a desu in there too I've no idea what that bit is) which could be handy if I run into Japanese Will Smith fans.

I'd like to learn Japanese but I tried teaching myself a bit on the same site I use for Italian and I got lost really quickly, and I took one look at a chart of all the kana and my head exploded.

 

[Rai-CH]

I posted a while ago but I've got plans on learning new languages so I'm posting again.

I haven't continued in learning either Japanese or German, though I have remembered a few more phrases from when I learnt it over 2 years ago. However because I learnt those languages at the same time, I'll often mix them up and start speaking in a weird, mangled German-Japanese language XD

I can speak English, obviously. I still have terrible grammar, but I think I'm improving.

Seeing as I am planning on travelling around Europe after I complete Year 12, I want to learn the languages of the countries I plan on visiting (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. I want to see England too but I can speak english.) I have a few phrasebooks that contains the majority of these languages so I can say extremely basic stuff such as hello and goodbye. Sadly, I couldn't find a phrasebook on Icelandic so I'm planning on just winging it and hoping I'll meet people who speak fluent English XD

 

[Tarvos]

Conveniently skipping the Benelux, I see? :)

 

[Clover]

And I have the Rosetta Stone for Japanese, but I can only say things like "Otokono mizuo non darimasu' or something. I can't spell it 'cause it shows it to me in katakana. If I spelled that right. I think it means 'boy drinks water'.

男の水を... I don't even know where the last part's going, but 飲みます is how you would say '(a) man's water is drunk'. I think. 'Boy' would be 男の子, and the more logical way to say it would be 男の子は水を飲みます. (Otoko no ko wa mizu wo nomimasu, [the] boy drinks [the] water. And if you were a girl/woman saying that, you'd likely say 'omizu'.)

So yeah. Rosetta Stone is kind of... bad. It's showing you in katakana, not a mix of kana and kanji? o.O why?

Apparently I can say "Legend of Zelda" (Zeruda no densetsu) and "I am a man" (watashi wa otoko desu) in Japanese. I suppose in that case I can say "watashi wa densetsu" (maybe there's meant to be a desu in there too I've no idea what that bit is) which could be handy if I run into Japanese Will Smith fans.

I'd like to learn Japanese but I tried teaching myself a bit on the same site I use for Italian and I got lost really quickly, and I took one look at a chart of all the kana and my head exploded.

"Watashi wa otoko desu" sounds kind of odd. It's like saying, "ah, ye-ah, and I'm, like, a man, man." ... in that kind of accent. If you're not saying it to your superiors, anyway, it'd sound better to say "Boku wa otoko da". Maybe "otoko no hito", idk.

I outlined some JP-learning resources in my conversation with L'il Dwagie here, maybe it could help! :D

 

[Dannichu]

Best bit about speaking really basic French? I live with three French students (that is, students studying French, not students from France) and I can break into my terrible French and they'll all start shouting at me.

My French grammar's terrible beyond words (as is my accent), but my vocab's pretty good. I can string together words and essentially speak French-caveman, which still gets across my point while making me look a little like a moron. Not helped my my constant discription of everything as "tres bein".

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

I've now begun very slowly and sporadically teaching myself Italian. I can't speak very much at this point, but I know how to say "the men are in bed", so it's not going too badly :J

I feel like learning Russian since I know the alphabet, or something random like Arabic, but I can't really be bothered.

I've just started to learn Italian as well, because I'm going on a trip to Italy with school in October. So far, all I can say is 'il quaderno è sul tavolo' and 'sono inglese: sono nato in Inghilterra. Non viaggo molto.', but I hope that if I commit myself, I'll have it done in a few months.

 

[speedblader03]

I am fluent in english and gibberish. I am also trying to design my own language, with grammar based off of english.

 

[1. Luftballon]

never desgin grammar based on english. it will fail horribly.

because english doesn't have a grammar.

it's just an abomination of rules and exceptions.

 

[Patar]

I'm learning Spanish in school. But I'm Chinese yet I fail at it completely. I didn't even bother going to Chinese school. I wanna learn Japanese like most fan boys but my mom said that Chinese and Japanese is like totally different. Chinese is pretty simple when it comes to writing. Like volocano. To write volocano, you just put fire and mountain together, making fire mountain. So that's pretty easy. But talking in Chinese is pretty hard. Lots of weird pronunciations and crap. So I don't bother.

 

[Clover]

Fluent in English, beginner-intermediate in Japanese after two+ years of self-study, one+ years of high-school Spanish, slowly trudging my way through Portuguese all the while cursing how similar and simultaneously dissimilar it is to Spanish.

And cursing gendered nouns. No one who speaks a crazy language that includes gendered nouns can say a thing about how hard Japanese is. Japanese is 朝飯前, Portuguese é muita areia para a minha camioneta.

 

[Chaon]

Fluent in English, I know a little French, I'm learning Latin, and I'm fluent in Pig Latin, Gibberish and Al Bhed.

 

[Shiny Grimer]

And cursing gendered nouns. No one who speaks a crazy language that includes gendered nouns can say a thing about how hard Japanese is. Japanese is 朝飯前, Portuguese é muita areia para a minha camioneta.

Gendered nouns are stupid, but nothing compared to Japanese's backwards word order. Japanese may be "logical", but when the logic is totally different from what I'm used to it's not useful at all. Gender is a nuisance; word order is a nightmare. I'm not even getting into crap like declination.

 

[1. Luftballon]

there is no such thing as backward word order. in any case, it's not like it matters that much. well, YMMV?

 

[speedblader03]

never desgin grammar based on english. it will fail horribly.

because english doesn't have a grammar.

it's just an abomination of rules and exceptions.

I meant as in word order and such. Any rules and exceptions that I don't like will be gone.

 

[Clover]

I meant as in word order and such. Any rules and exceptions that I don't like will be gone.

... SVO word order is. um. probably the predominant word order in all languages.

Yeah I can foresee your conlang working swimmingly. And drowning. Have a link, 'cause you could likely do with some research.

(Not that I'm trying to dissuade you; a bunch of linguistically-oriented people toy with creating a conlang the way musically-orienteds write songs and spatially-oriented create sculptures, but. If you really want to do it, you should do it right, I think.)

 

[Shiny Grimer]

there is no such thing as backward word order. in any case, it's not like it matters that much. well, YMMV?

I totally knew somebody was going to post this and yet I still neglected to say "compared to English". Oh well.

In any case here's an example about a machine that makes sounds to cover up the sound of your peeing:

トイレに入っている時の音を消すために水の 流れる音が出る機械です。
Roughly:
toilet-in entered-are when (poss.part.) sound (obj.part.) erase in-order-to water
(poss.part.) pour sound (subj.part.) come out machine it is.

... SVO word order is. um. probably the predominant word order in all languages.

???

 

[1. Luftballon]

SVO = subj-verb-obj. I think.

"Is it not?"