Languages Meme

[hils]

Fun meme about language learning stolen from tinny

1st foreign language learned

German. It wasn't official learning but we lived over there when I was a kid so my parents used to buy us picture books and stuff

1st language you self studied

God, this is going to sound really pretentious but it was Latin. I just really wanted to learn it so I bought myself a book when I was about 16. Can't remember any of it now.

Language you wished was your native language

I'm fine with English. It's a stupid language full of stolen shit and I don't envy anyone who had to learn it as a second language



Language you wish you studied more

In the current climate is it bad to say Russian? I took a few after school classes when I was a teen but I found it too difficult and soon gave up. Wish I'd stuck with it

Language you wish wasn't so hard

I'm getting there, slowly, with Chinese but I would probably benefit from a tutor who could explain all the whys of how the language works instead of just learning 'this is how you say X word or phrase'

Language you have officially quit

The only one I'm still actively studying is Chinese, so all the others (apart from English)

Language you wish you could speak every day

I'd love for my Chinese to be good enough that I could have every day conversations. I'm still years away from being at that level

Language that everyone speaks but you never want to try

I don't know there's nothing I NEVER want to try. I love learning languages.

Language everyone speaks and you want to try

Of the languages I've never learned I quite fancy trying Korean. Despite all the k-dramas and k-pop stuff I watch I can count on one hand the number of words I actually know, and I can't read it at all.

Language that makes you nervous

I don't think there are any? I mean the nature of my anxiety means I get nervous if I have to speak in another language to a foreign speaker so that makes me nervous. That's the reason I never took German beyond GCSE level. The spoken exams just made me too anxious.

Language that feels soothing

French. I love the sound of French.

Language that feels like a businessman in a suit

Italian. I don't know why.

Language that feels like grandma's home cooking

Swedish.

Language that feels like a mad scientist’s experiment

I mean...English?

Language you think is overrated

English, but that's because it's everywhere

Language you think is underrated

Welsh. One day I will make an earnest effort to learn it.

Language with the hardest pronunciation

Chinese. Tonal languages are perversely hard.

Language with the easiest pronunciation

German, or possibly Swedish

Language with the easiest grammar

I actually find Chinese pretty logical in terms of grammar, but that may change the deeper into it I get

Language with the hardest grammar

I struggled with German grammar a lot

Language with the best writing system

I'm not sure how you define 'best' really. English is the easiest for me to write because it's my native language

Language with the worst writing system

Chinese *cries*

Your language learning guilty pleasure?

I don't believe in guilty pleasures. You either like something or you don't. There's nothing to feel guilty about.

Comments

[rebeccama]

I love this meme. Ironically, I find non-Indo European languages easier than Indo-European languages except for Spanish since I have been around it all my life. English (my native language) and Spanish are the only languages in which I have a degree of fluency, but I know bits of several more and I have found that sometimes languages that seem like they would have no connection actually help in learning the other one.

[hils]

Oh that's really interesting! I've found with Indo-European languages they have enough shared traits that I pick them up quite easily. It was certainly the case learning French, German, Swedish and Italian.

[beautiful_dreamer_02]

Hello; found you by exploring (asking Dreamwidth for a random journal.) Pleased to meet you and to make your acquaintance.

I'd just like to remark that in this current climate I think it's eminently reasonable if not desirable to have some knowledge of the Russian language.
One of my uncles learned Latin in high school, because that was that school district's or system's policy: two years of Latin, no matter what or no matter what else; and a foreign language other than that; his was German.
Then, after WWII, he was stationed in Japan, so he made a point of learning to speak Japanese correctly and fluently, and because he was a forward-thinking fellow and because all of his family seemed to have a kind of crystal ball in their heads, he also learned Russian---thoroughly.
So those are four languages to his credit, and yes, I include Latin because a Greek-American student a year ahead of me in our elementary school opined (the teacher prompted her, to reinforce the teacher's opinion on this) that Latin, which this girl learned in addition to her parents' native Greek as well as French (and Heaven alone knows what other languages she picked up so easily and readily)---that Latin gives you a good language foundation for any of the romance languages although Latin itself doesn't have a modern "conversational" form.

I very much like your answer to the last question! :^)

[hils]

Thanks for taking the time to comment! New people are always welcome here. Thanks for sharing a bit of your family history.

[tinny]

While I'm already here... :D

I love how many language enthusiasts there are in my circle. (Not surprising, I guess, since anyone who willingly learns Chinese must have a weakness for languages.)

God, this is going to sound really pretentious but it was Latin.

Hee. I was never motivated enough to learn anything on my own, but this sounds like a sensible approach? Latin is very useful to better understand the grammar of all languages that have cases - not only the romance ones.

I took a few after school classes when I was a teen but I found it too difficult and soon gave up. Wish I'd stuck with it

Awww. yeah. I actually don't regret not pursuing it further - I'm happy I can read the script, but I have no vocab anymore at all. It got displaced by Polish, which is like a sweet mumbling cousin of Russian, and I found I like it much better, somehow. :D

Welsh. One day I will make an earnest effort to learn it.

Oooh yes! Welsh! I admit I also like Gaelic.

I'm getting there, slowly, with Chinese but I would probably benefit from a tutor who could explain all the whys of how the language works instead of just learning 'this is how you say X word or phrase'

I recommend guardian_learning. nnozomi is taking very good care of it, and you can pick up a lot of the basics from there. You can also ask questions, of course, and if you feel confident enough to write down example sentences, someone will tell you if they're correct.

[hils]

Language nerds unite! I am definitely going to join that Guardian comm. Thanks!

[sunshine304]

I definitely would like to understand Russian, now, too... It would've been nice before as well, because a) the parcel service drivers that pick up the parcels at our company tend to speak Russian (and act like they don't speak anything else...), and b) I'm a Postcrosser and I get a lot of Russian addresses (and also lots of cards from Russia), so it would be nice to write something in their native language.

I also would love to learn Chinese. I'm very intimidated by it and am also very bad a self-studying, so for now I wont start. But it would be great to understand more of the dramas or read the Chinese subtitles...

German grammar is mean. But compared to English, almost all grammar is mean. XD

Latin is indeed practical to know if you want to keep on learning Roman languages. Italian still has many words that are very similar to Latin, same with its grammar. It also helps in Spanish. Also, it prepares you for declinations etc. XD