Language learning

[cookiemonster]

For the past month, I've been learning German using Duolingo. I did a few years' German evening courses in my twenties and have a good aptitude for languages (having done a French and Italian degree) but I'm surprised and pleased with how much I'm loving learning German, impressed with Duolingo and dying to get to Germany to practise on some unsuspecting Frau

Who else speaks a language here? Anything cool? And does anyone understand adjectival endings in German??

I speak Finnish and French. Currently learning Chinese.

 

[cookiemonster]

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are closely related, with Norwegians being in the fortunate position of understanding the other two better than the Danes or Swedes understanding the others.
Finnish is a different kettle of fish completely.

I think I’m a bit weird here as I think Finnish is fantastic.

 

[Tenkaykev]

About four years ago I went to visit our daughter who was working as a teacher in Berlin. I learned some of the basic phrases before I arrived and as I was planning to stay for a month I enrolled on a two week basic German course at a language school in Berlin. I arrived for the first morning, did the admin paperwork then wandered over the road to find my classroom. When I walked in the other students thought I was the teacher because I was so much older than them.
Had a great couple of weeks with youngsters from all over the world, I think they adopted me as their surrogate grandad 😁🍺

 

[snorri]

I studied French in school but eventually gave up because of difficulty with the grammar. It was a few years later that I realised my problem was a poor understanding of English grammar. That put me off any further attempts at foreign languages, which was a pity as many of the people I spoke to on foreign cycling tours spoke perfectly understandable English albeit with grammatical errors. A good number had learned from watching English language tv progs with subtitles in their native language, but the original soundtrack left intact.

 

[nickyboy]

I speak Finnish and French. Currently learning Chinese.

Used to speak reasonable Mandarin Chinese when I was in China a lot. Pretty rusty now.

 

[Cathryn]

I can, just too lazy these days though
I Was looking at questionnaires in Greek and Czech earlier I can’t deal with Arabic, the text right to left thing makes my head spin

We spent three weeks in Japan a few years back! It was so disconcerting to not even be able to guess what words meant! I used to speak a little Russian and be able to decode Cyrillic but Arabic is something else!

 

[DaveReading]

I started about a year ago on Duolingo doing French. I have a grasp of the language through O-level and several visits there (where I would only speak French).

IME learning a language via Duolingo is like having your teeth pulled one by one.

 

[Drago]

I studied French in school but eventually gave up because of difficulty with the grammar.

I actually enjoyed French at school, but our lessons ceased when our silly antics caused the French teacher to have a nervous breakdown.

Mrs Barnes, if you should somehow be reading this, I am truly sorry.

 

[Cathryn]

IME learning a language via Duolingo is like having your teeth pulled one by one.

I know what you mean, it’s never worked for me before and it’s clearly not perfect but I’m making progress and enjoying it this time. And it’s free!
What online programmes would you recommend?

 

[Donger]

I was always quite good at French but barely got by in German. The difference was our teacher. My French teacher had a French wife, and would entertain us with little snippets of info about the difference between the French and the English, asking his wife for little insights that might amuse. He went over to Lyon every end of term and every half-term and came back loaded with newspapers, magazines and Asterix comics. Every now and again the whole lesson would just be us picking up whatever we wanted to read and asking him when we got stuck. He'd stop us from reading and tell us something new every now and again as things cropped up in what we were reading. It was quite a brilliant approach. I gravitated to l'Equipe sports magazine and mostly read about football because that was what interested me. It was still all in French. I also recall reading "Asterix chez les Bretons", which took the mick out of us Brits something rotten, which amused me. I can still recall a few phrases from that book (such as "la cervoise tiede" and "sauve qui peut") 42 years later. Every time I go to France, I now bring back newspapers and cycling magazines to keep my French language up.

 

[theclaud]

Os t'isio unrhyw help efo Cymraeg.

Dysgwr dw i hefyd. Fersiwn y de

 

[cookiemonster]

I know what you mean, it’s never worked for me before and it’s clearly not perfect but I’m making progress and enjoying it this time. And it’s free!
What online programmes would you recommend?

There’s a You Tube channel called ‘Learn French with Alexa.’ I use this to compliment what I know and add to it. She has live lessons too as well as 7 years of videos. Have a nosey.

 

[gavroche]

I'd LOVE to live abroad, I'd love it. Husband is reluctant but he's promised me a year in Annecy when the Dude goes to uni.

Question about Scandi languages - can they understand each other/speak each other's languages easily enough? I've always wondered about Swedes living in Norway or vice versa. How similar are the languages?

Annecy and the area is a beautiful part of France. You will love it especially the rides. You can ride all around the lake and also the mountains if you fancy more of a challenge.

 

[slowmotion]

When I was very young, the school's French master was a man in his early twenties who had just written and published a thin paperback book of French vocabulary. Presumably to increase sales, it was made a standard textbook in my tiny school. The book had the weirdest selection of words. To this day I know the translation for "henhouse".

 

[Chislenko]

Dysgwr dw i hefyd. Fersiwn y de

Gog fy hunan @theclaud .

I was wondering about Duolingo though for the people that use that method, what do they teach, north / south / a mixture?

A guy I used to work with is doing an online course as he has a house in Conwy and wants to move their one day.

I saw him recently and he very excitedly came out with his newly learnt phrase from his on line course but it was South Walian which won't do him a lot of good in Conwy. I gave him the North Walian version but it did leave me wondering if he was spending a load of money for not the correct teaching.

Would be very much like learning Brazilian Portuguese but living in Portugal where you would need European Portuguese.