Μαθαίνω ελληνικά. - I am learning Greek.
I am at the point of being able to read Greek, introduce myself, ask and respond to “how are you” and how to say “I am still learning Greek can we speak English”. haha
Здравствуйте все!
I’ve been actively trying to learn Russian for about two years now, and I’m still not very capable of having even simple conversations, due to the great difficulty of constructing sentences in my head. I guess I let the grammar get to me, with all the various prefixes and suffixes, so I choke. That, and the positioning of the words in a sentence. And also the concept of cases (all 7 of them). I know English and Norwegian from before, none of which has this slavic sentence logic/rules, so I find it incredibly difficult to remember/associate words/variations with their use.I use Duolingo, Babbel, and sometime Rocket Language, in addition to trying to expose myself to having to read/listen/reply to other native speakers, but man am I having a hard time. Any suggestions?
I would suggest going to the Library and seeing if they have a Russian language course, or finding one at a book store if you can afford it. I find having an actual structured course helps me in my learning, and it will usually include resources like audio.
I had the same problem when I started learning Russian and honestly the only thing that helped me improve was just speaking and writing in Russian more
the grammar is also really hard, but I found it best to just not overthink it and just get used to speaking and making mistakes but improving over time. It’s easier to focus on correcting grammar when you’re more comfortable just constructing sentences in that language in general and don’t have to think as hard for each word you want to say
I’ve been learning Portuguese for well over two years now. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on sentence building. The grammar of verb tense is sometimes still somewhat confusing and I think I’ve got a lot of words to learn still.
But if I read posts on Lemmy in Brazilian Portuguese, I kinda get the gist of it.
What made you decide to learn Portuguese?
Portugal is a lovely country and I’ve decided to go visiting it a lot in my life. I feel more comfortable abroad if I at least kind of speak the language. English and German are no issue for me, French goes in a pinch so I’m pretty comfortable in western Europe but I’d like to be more comfortable with the Mediterranean languages. In due time I might try learning Italian as well.
I’m learning swedish, and have been on and off for almost ten years now. I can read a book in swedish on my kindle thanks to the built in dictionary, but it is so rare that I can talk to someone in swedish that i almost never do it. Listening to Swedish people in real life gets confusing fast as well, as I am just not used to the different pronunciations and the speed i need to process stuff at
That is one of the harder things I have noticed about learning language in general. There is always a clear difference between how a language “should be spoken” and how it actually is in practice with native speakers.
I’m about a month into learning Mandarin Chinese. I expected the character set to be the challenge but really it has been the inflection and intonation that I’ve had the hardest time with so far.
What got you interested in Mandarin?
Honestly I love language and languages in general, so I rarely need an excuse to go study one haha.
That said, Mandarin Chinese was attractive to me for a few reasons.
Firstly, a LOT of people in this world speak it, so it has high utility potential and may even come in handy for me professionally.
Secondly, I think the culture and history of China is interesting and that my default lens for it is likely heavily biased. I’ve always found that reading source material and opposing positions or narratives has helped me understand the truth of a matter with more (albeit still imperfect) clarity.
A few years ago I considered learning Greek. Abandoned the plan because Greek has the triple whammy:
- quite a hard language, with tricky grammar and different alphabet (phonetics easy tho)
- only spoken in one small country - not very useful (tho good for general culture - 6% of English lexicon comes from Greek)
- the locals all speak English (coz tourism) so you’ll have trouble getting a chance to progress
So: good luck.
I found the alphabet and grammar easy to understand personally, which is why I am able to read before I can do basically anything else.
Greek is spoken in Greece and numerous other countries because of the Greek diasporas in the world.
Coming from a Greek family, while the locals may speak English they generally prefer to and appreciate speaking in Greek especially in Greece.
Thank you for the well wishes.
はい、私は日本語勉強します。(Yes, I’m studying Japanese.) I’ve been doing it for the past year but not consistently. I can say and understand basic phrases but I’m far from being able to hold a conversation.
Damn, I’ve been learning for half a year and was thrilled to try and read that, but I’m missingbthe Kanjis 勉強. I assume they are the Kanjis for learn (minus the shimasu at the end). And why did you use the Hana 語 Kanji to say JapanESE ? Is it pronounced go there for form Nihongo? Sorry, don’t have the Japanese alphabet loaded into my keyboard yet
From what I understand (Don’t take what I say as correct as it may be wrong) but when 語(はな) hana, which is derived from 話す(はなす) hanasu which is the verb to speak, is paired with a nationality, with some exceptions of course like English which is 英語(えいご) eigo, it describes a language. So, pair 語(はな) hana with 日本(にほん) nihon, Japan in Japanese, then you get 日本語(にほんご) nihongo, meaning Japanese. Another example is French which is フランス語 (Furansugo).
And 勉強 is the Kanji for べんきょ(benkyo) which means study.
Yeah, that was what I assumed. For now Duolingo still uses the ご hiragana for the go part in Nihongo. And the Kanji for べんきょ wasn’t introduced yet
I’m using Busuu along with Anki and independent stuff I find online. I used Duolingo for a big part of my study but when I switched to Busuu I quickly realized I didn’t know anything about sentence structure, grammer, or even kanji. So, in my opinion, Duolingo is great for learning words and the three writing systems but not so great about learning everything else.
Just to add a small note—“勉強” is written as “べん きょう”(ben kyou) in hiragana.
I knew it! I knew I was wrong but my stupid brain said otherwise, thanks
話 and 語 are different kanji though. One is talk and one is language. 語 does not seem to have 「はな」as a reading according to jisho.org
Ah nice. Thanks. Really need to get better reading Kanji
Ah, I didn’t even catch that. OK then I might be wrong about it being derived from 話す, ah oh well, we’re all learning
All good. I’m just glad to get the opportunity to get to talk about this with someone :D
Trust me, I feel the same
I’m studying Japanese for over a year now. I recently had another motivation spike after seeing my favorite singer, Ado, live for the first time and understanding just enough to understand that I don’t really understand. I have been doing mostly kanji and vocabulary practice with Wanikani over the past time, but since about 2 weeks, I’m going strong again with daily studying.
I think I’m currently reaching the tipping point where my sentences start to become meaningful, but still take some time to formalize. Having made it a habit to write a few short sentences in 日本語 is something I would definitely recommend, at any level probably. It helps train the learned stuff and adds an immersion factor that is very fun.
Definitely, I try as much as I can to use the Japanese keyboard and reading in Japanese. It’s a cool language and same, there are some songs that I like that I have no idea what they’re singing about
Japanese is a language I have on the burner to learn. I have had a full course on it for years but never got around to getting beyond basic greetings.
After I am done learning Greek, I am going to refresh and learn more French, and then Japanese is next because I love Anime and Manga and want to watch/read it as it should be.
That’s cool being to speak and understand multiple languages. I started learning it because I think it sounds neat when people speak it. Plus, I want to go there one day for a visit and I don’t want to be a typical 外人 (Foreigner) haha
日本語の勉強頑張ってください！
日本旅行にきて日本語ができなかったとしても責める人はいませんが、ある程度理解できていたほうがたのしめますもんね！
応援しています
On the other hand, I’m studying English myself. I’m still only at around a Japanese middle school level, but I hope to reach the point where I can interact with people in places like this.
That said, I’m still relying on AI to write this.
日本人ですか。英語は勉強しますか。場語はドイツ語。二年以上日本語を学勉強しています。難しいですけど、日本語は美しい。英語、頑張ってね。
I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes there! I try to write a few sentences per day lately, and for more complex sentences, I use a translation service (https://deeply.com/) and a dictionary to check. The key to language learning is to do at least a little every (or most) days. It’s kind of amazing that I can use English to learn other languages nowadays.
2,337 days in on learning German. My goal is to understand all of the band Rammstein’s library of work without needing a translator.
I just gave up Duolingo at 1770 days for French which hurt to do. I was mostly just maintaining a streak at this point and with the news of them using AI to replace their employees (even if they retracted it), I decided to quit.
I’ve switched to Babbel now which has been really good so far
As a native french speaker, I can say with confidence that the duolingo french course sucks and that you’re better off using something else.
I’d also recommend speaking to native speakers and watching shows in french, that’s great for learning.
Yeah… I wasn’t actually learning a whole lot. I live right across the river from Quebec though so I’m hoping to move over there to immerse myself in French a lot more.
I’ve always been bitter because my whole Dad’s side of the family is Francophone but never bothered to speak the language with me :(
Und, wie läuft es?
Ich spreche sehr bisschen und nicht sehr gut.
Rammstein singt nicht über die Bibliothek.
Sehr schön, weiter so! (Deren Texte sind oft nur auf den ersten Blick oberflächlich, tatsächlich aber mehrdeutig)
If you want that, then I’d suggest usinh Bussu and Memrise
That’s a pretty long streak 😯
I’m on day 460 learning Italian.
Tried learning Spanish in school but I never really had a reason to stick with it or keep going. Recently started relearning some vocab and grammar and phrases because there are places I’d like to visit that would be much easier with even just some basic phrases and books I’d like to read in the author’s original words and phrases.
Same here. I learned un poco en escuela, but didn’t pick up that much. I recently started trying Language Think. It’s kind of fast paced, but it goes over a lot of language concepts to help you translate outside of the classroom. It follows a teacher and student learning and the one I’m doing is 90 lessons. I got to take notes and everything.
I recently started trying Language Think.
Did you mean Language Transfer?
I’ve mostly been using frequency lists to restore the vocab I used to have and a dual translation of Don Quixote to expand further & learn more phrases. Once I have some good foundation I wanted to check out more Spanish speaking social media, news, movies/TV, etc to get more immersion
I listen to some conversation podcasts and Spanish songs with the lyrics so I can read along and look up words/phrases that I need to. I think immersion is better for picking up algunos palabras para conversacion.
Those are some good ideas I’ll have to check out too, gracias!
Ullyfay uentflay.
こんにちは！日本語を勉強しています！
I’m 90 days into learning Japanese. Most of that has been learning kana and I’m now working on kanji and grammar. It’s very different from English but I really like the way information is conveyed. I’m struggling with grammar stuff right now pretty bad, particularly conjugation, but it’ll click eventually. Also the lack of spaces is definitely something to get used to.
What tools are you using to study?
I started with Duolingo and while it has all the regular duo problems, I think it actually does a good job with the kana stuff. You can turn off the Romaji too, forcing yourself to read. It doesn’t teach grammar, though, so I bought Genki Vol 1, working my way through that, and wotaku.wiki has a lot of good resources.
I really like the Cure Dolly stuff for grammar (though she can be difficult to understand, use the youtube transcripts or if you prefer reading a book someone helpfully wrote it all up). Her approach is totally different from the Genki methods, but I find it easier to understand.
I am also using Anki with the Kaishi 1.5k Kanji deck for kanji and vocabulary. This is honestly pretty painful, I’ve been doing it for like 10 days now and I feel like I’m doing badly every time, but I am improving. I could probably stand to study the radical stuff to understand more how the kanji is constructed but I haven’t found a good resource for that just yet.
日本人です
漢字、助詞、敬語あたりが辛いとよく聞きますが日本語はそこまで厳密に喋らなくてもある程度通じちゃったりもします
漢字を理解するのに部首からいくのはいいですね、部首と旁についてある一定の意味を覚えたら読めなくても意味を理解するのが簡単になります
小学生レベルで1026個ある漢字をとりあえず覚えれば日常で困らないレベルになると思います
頑張ってください
ありがとう。
私は質問があります。なぜあなたがフルストップを使わないですか。ドイツ語にはたくさんフルストップがありますから。
I usually do use proper punctuation like the Japanese full stop “。”,
but recently there’s been a trend—especially among younger people—where it’s sometimes avoided.
Some even call it “maru-hara” (short for “full stop harassment”), suggesting that ending a sentence with “。” can come off as cold or aggressive.
I guess that’s why I ended up not using it myself, especially in casual contexts like social media.
あああーなるほど。冷たいあるいは最終的なものと思われるかもしれないです。けど、ドイツ語に慣れた私にとっては、文の終わりがわがところはどこしらないです。習うしました、ありがとう。
This kind of sentence is difficult, so I used some translator help :/
がんばいます！
I appreciate the feedback, this Anki deck should hopefully get my vocabulary to that point. I am actually pretty good at getting the meaning usually and the readings are the tough part, so I’m doing okay I guess. It just feels like a lot, but that’s true of any language I suppose. I’ve learned a lot in the last few months. Thanks for the encouragement!
カッコいい! 皆と同じように僕も日本語を選びました。Lemmyで人気のある言語らしいですね。
でも昔、僕の場合は最初に漢字で勉強し始めたので、予想に反して、読むことや理解することが難しくなってしまいました。昨年から、オンライン新聞とウィキの記事を読み始めたので、単語や文法がだんだん分かりやすくなってきました。一歩ずつ進んでいくんですね！
ところで、日本語を読んで練習するためにおすすめのウェブサイトがありますか？
I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes. Writing is still a challenge!
自分は日本語学習については知らないですが（日本人だから当たり前だけど・・・）、
子供向けの絵本サイトとかは意外といいかもしれませんhttps://ehon.alphapolis.co.jp/
あとはサイト集みたいなのもあるっぽいですね
https://nihongo-e-na.com/jpn/site/tag/読む/
ルビが振ってある日本語のサイトを探すのもいいかもしれないですね、
慣れたらなろうとかで本を読むのも良いかも？？Switchのどうぶつの森を日本語に設定して勉強している人も見たことがあります
ちなみに書かれている日本語は完璧でしたよ！
Watashi no nihongo wa warui desu yo.
Watashi mo, but getting better every day.
I’m learning Python. Not bad, but I prefer C.
Python also prefers C
I have no experience in C, but I do like Python.
Rust is calling to me
I’m learning Japanese. On and off for years, but mainly the last couple. I’m still only at the advanced beginner stage, trying to work on my Kanji, reading, and listening.
Also learning Spanish, but I feel like I’m in a better spot with it. I took classes in school and have a decent foundatun, just need way more practice. It’s on the backburner since I’d rather build on my Japanese.
For fans of this thread/topic, check out !languagelearning@sopuli.xyz . They have a weekly thread for progress and a few active folks. Lemmy also has more specific language learning communities that could stand to be more active.
I always find it amusing when I meet people who speak all three languages I do: English, Spanish, and Japanese. Well, admittedly, I also know a bit of French, but it’s so similar to Spanish that it feels like cheating to understand so much with so little investment. So yeah, when are you learning French next? 😆
LOL, I did take a semester of French in high school.
I guess it makes sense as an overlap - North America and Europe both have primarily English, Spanish, and French speakers in close vicinity. And Japanese cultural exports are just really popular.
I’m probably going to start learning spanish again, and I feel the same way you do about french, given I’m a native french speaker.
Coincidentally, I speak English, French and Japanese, and am learning Spanish (and I learned German and Sesotho in the distant past). I cheated, however all except Spanish were learned at least partially by immersion in places where they speak it.
I’ve been doing a few Duolingo lessons a day in Japanese for a couple years now. At the rate I’m going it’ll be a decade before I’m even slightly able to understand the language, but I don’t mind - it’s already been well over a decade since I first tried to learn it, so as long as this pace is sustainable, I’ll still be a lot further along than if I’d tried too hard, gotten burned out, and quit for a decade again.
If you looked at my Duolingo, you’d think I was pretty fluent in Japanese. But if you look at me talking to a Japanese person, you’d think I knew very little Japanese.
我的汉语越来越好，写，说，简单的没问题，但是比较复杂还要多的练习。其实说最近练习地不周到。
I have pretty much been studying a language every day for the past 4 years, 3 years with Japanese and now 1 year with German.
Und wie weit bist du mit deinem Deutsch?
