O/T Foreign Language

[IronFist]

Anyone ever learn 3 languages at the same time? Ok. I'm such a ****ing slacker... at various points in the past, I have gotten a good working knowledge of Japanese, Korean, and German (and English, haha). But since I'm such a slacker, I've forgotten almost everything.

So, today when I'm driving to the gym, I realize, "geez, I'm such a ****ing slacker, I should start learning languages again." Now, I have a daily use for each of those three languages, and I'm greedy, so I don't want to study only one at a time. So, does anyone have any pointers for learning 3 languages at the same time?

See, in the past it's always been one at a time, but I hope three at the same time doesn't mess with my brain... I don't want to bust out a sentence like "Ah, Guten Tag! Mein ireum-eun IronFist desu."

Hey, you people who speak multiple languages (and by multiple languages, I mean really different ones... if you speak German, Dutch, Spanish and Portugeuse, don't go "Oh, I speak 4 languages..." hehehe) do you keep them straight? How often do you use each? Did you learn them all when you were young?

I should be studying now, but I'm gonna surf for like 2984732943298234324 more hours cuz I'm a slacker.

Iron

[Asia]

Fist,


I speak/read several languages. Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, German, French (the last two I am relearning from not using it for so long.) I used to have a good command of Russian aand Italian but apart from the occasional girlfriends I used to date I haven't used it. The reason for so many is beacuse I travelled and lived in A LOT of places (military brat) and I feel you should learn the language and some of the culture in order to get the most out of it. My biggest advice is to work with a native speaker. If now such luck then surround yourself with the language as much as possible (without going insane.) Take some time out to listen to the language, wath a tv program in the language if you can. This will get you used to listening to it. As you gain more and more knowledge of the language you will be able to follow a normal conversation better. The ultimate goal is to be able to think (internal dialogue) in the language.

It takes practice to keep multiple languages straight. I remeber when I went back to the states for college I would switch languages and not thing about it. It look time for me to speak only english!:D But as a fun trick and it really wooed the girls a couple of friends of mine used to sit and talk in different languages that we had in common but with a twist. One would speak Italian the other would answer in Japanese, the next in German, etc. It got me a lot of dates!!;)

[IronFist]

Thanks for the reply.

Hey, about Korean... when you started did you have a hard time understanding it when it was spoken? I can read and comprehend it pretty easily, but all the vowels seem to blend together when I listen to a native speak... it seems like they're slurring a lot of it. I dunno. Just curious if you noticed it, too.

Unlike Japanese, which is probably the easiest language to hear and understand as far as phonics go.

Iron

[prana]

want to learn Tibetan, and sanskrit; but I am not honed by any means in any language/dialects I know :D

[IronFist]

Prana, I wrote a paper once on the linguistic implications of Sanskrit. Fun stuff. I didn't get to go exactly in the direction I wanted to, because I had to keep it within the confines of the assignment (it was a college freshman mandatory research paper, so only like 15 pages), but it still ruled and I got an A. Hehe :)

Iron

[Asia]

Fist,

Korean is still hard to listen to!!!!:D Actually it just took time to get used to it. I heard it everyday for 3yrs so I just grew on me. I had more problem with the inflections it was hard to get used to.

Japanese was pretty easy to learn. Once you learned the phonetic sounds the rest was easy.

Mandarin is simple as well once you master the tones. There is a thinline between papa and well stuff you don't want to call you dad!

[qeySuS]

My advice is, become 6 year old again, and only watch shows with those languages, you'll suck the language up like a sponge. That's basicly how i learned english and i've never had problems with it :)

Although i've never LEARNED a language, as in going to school and learn the grammer, i dont know a single grammer rule in english, icelandic or danish (all 3 i speak kinda fluidly, although i have a poor danish vocabulary i have a sense of the language and almost perfect accent). That really came down when i tried to learn german :P That's a manditory course in Iceland in college (from age 16-20) I'm now on my third year and i've never ever passed a german exam. I dont have a sense for the language and if i dont know grammer for my first language i'm not about to learn it for the third.

I dont think it's possible to leran all the languages at one time though, i actually sometimes fluctuate between languages without noticing, mainly danish and english because i use my voice in a similar way in both languages, so i'm guessing that's something that could happen. The other day i had to call a woman i knew was a foreigner because of my work (tech support) so i called expecting english, i called, she answered in danish, and as a reflex i started talking danish to her back, she was all surprised and i apologized and asked if i could speak english again :D (like i said i have a poor danish vocabulary and i couldnt manage to do tech support with danish technobabble words).

[Xebsball]

I know portuguese and english. My english is praticed right here at KFO :D My portuguese is native style.
I want to learn chinese (reading/writting, mandarin and cantonese) but i heard its very ****ing hard...

[kungfu cowboy]

Wow, you guys speak a lot of languages! I wish my brain was wired differently; learning a language is a big headache for me. I had three years of German, and it was nicht SpaB! Those grammar rules! Sheesh!

[IronFist]

kungfu cowboy, that's "Spaß" :P Type alt+0223 to get the ß

German rules are tough. Someone famous (i forgot who) said "I would rather decline 10 drinks than one German noun."

Hehehe.

Iron

[kungfu cowboy]

Spaalt+0223:(