Language @4-ch

Just English, sadly.

Let's see...

English - Mother tongue
Japanese - Second language: advanced (I'm not confident enough to say fluent, heh >_<)
Mandarin - Beginner/intermediate
Samoan - Beginner
Maori - can understand basic sentences & words
Cantonese - I know a few words and basic sentences
Korean - very basic sentences & a few words
French - again, basic sentences & words
Italian - same as French
Spanish - same as above

May seem like quite a few languages, but I'm pretty much a beginner or even lower than that in most of them :S

English - Native
French - Native
Spanish - fluent through schooling
Japanese - self-study, JLPT 4 level

I think I'm done for languages.

Danish/Dansk - (Mother tongue)Can't write Danish very well, but understand it perfect.

Norwegian/Norsk - (Fluent) I can write perfect Norwegian.

Swedish/Svenska - (Advanced) Swedish is a lot like Norwegian, They can understand eachother with almost no problems.

English (Advanced) I can write perfect English.

Serbian/Srpski (Little more than basic) Can write as much as I can say, because you write it exactly how you pronounce it.

French/Francais (Basic) Had it for about a year. Understand more than I can write.

I can cuss in:

Danish/Dansk - (Mother tongue)Can't write Danish very well, but understand it perfect.

Norwegian/Norsk - (Fluent) I can write perfect Norwegian.

Swedish/Svenska - (Advanced) Swedish is a lot like Norwegian, They can understand eachother with almost no problems.

English (Advanced) I can write perfect English.

Serbian/Srpski (Little more than basic) Can write as much as I can say, because you write it exactly how you pronounce it.

French/Francais (Basic) Had it for about a year. Understand more than I can write.

I can cuss in:

russian - native
english - fluent
spanish - fluent
french - begginer
japanese - for now self study, soon ill start attendin jap courses:)
to learn list >> korean and german:)
im 17

>How many languages do you speak?
>and what languages are they?

A few.
English - Fluent
Japanese - Fluent
Dansk - A bit
Suomi - A little bit :p

>why did you learn them?

I was raised in a Japanese/American family :/ One of my newly acquired friends is Danish and I REALLY want to learn Danish <3

>and where?

0 = not at all
10 = like a native

English - 10
Japanese - 8
German - 6

English, my most fluent language
Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin, so-so since that's my background.
Japanese, self taught and still learning.
French, Beginner level.
Italian, can hold a day-to-day conversation I guess.

Turkish: Native (Turkish parents),
Dutch: Fluent (Born and raised in Holland),
English: Fluent,
Japanese: Just started learning.

I have the Japanese 'look' covered. The issues, thankfully, are cultural and linguistic. What I effectively was asking about without any eloquence was what would I have to consider in terms of language idiosyncracies.

Living in Japan to acquire these is not ideal, but is the only answer I've turned up from multiple locations.

Thank you for your response.

You won't be able to pass for a Japanese person, unless you live in Japan, and are exposed to actual idiomatic Japanese every single day. Even then, it's unlikely you will sound like a native speaker to the Japanese.

>>2

Why in a classroom? Clearly you can do that by yourself, without cost, and in a fraction of the time.

>>5

>>Why in a classroom?

Several reasons. First, it worked for me. I've studied eight languages and can speak six of them well, and the ones I speak best are those I acquired through a combination of in-classroom cramming and real-world use.

Arguably most importantly, formal instruction provides a feedback loop that I'm not sure you can get without a trained teacher. Learning independently, from books, etc., can be useful, of course, but won't necessarily help you correct mistakes. Native speaker conversation partners often won't correct you if something you say sounds weird or wrong, either, so you can wind up reinforcing problems.

>>Clearly you can do that by yourself, without cost, and in a fraction of the time.

Not true, in my opinion, for the great majority of people. Most people simply aren't disciplined enough or well-organized enough in their independent studies to acquire everything they need in the right order and proportion without some external stimulus. Some can, and more power to them. But I don't think most people can do as much as well on their own as they could with a well-trained professional teaching them.

Immersion is not always the best teacher. It certainly helps, though.

You could always try http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/

Basically, simulate a Japanese environment as much as you can. I can attest to the input hypothesis as well. I find it a lot easier to make Japanese sounds and words just focusing on listening to it a fucktonne- Than I did with repetitive speaking and practice.

Learning Japanese... no, it's not easy. Sure, one may learn it, but that doesn't mean that you'll become ready to speak it in Japan. It's much more than that. Live in Japan, speak it in Japan, get used to it more.

As in any language, it's not enough to learn it through a website or lessons, but it's daily use that boosts it.

Plus: It's not a bad thing to "Pass-by" as someone who knows the language, but be sure to keep up with "today's Japanese" :P

Wanting to pass as a native speaker takes years of a) classroom training -- to gain a firm grasp of the standard language; b) reading -- to increase your vocabulary, learn about styles, genres, and sociolinguistic registers; and c) immersion. You can't really do it from abroad, as you won't acquire the idioms and the colloquialisms that set natives apart from someone who's most familiar with the standard language (i.e. the dialect taught in foreign language instruction). And, like I said, that takes /years/. We're talking about a decade, at the least.

I agree with every one of the first three positive even integers.

I don't have the Japanese look (I'm half Croatian, and the other half is various European backgrounds), but I've been studying Japanese for 6 years, and I went to Japan about two years ago and stayed for a year. I studied at the highest level of Waseda University's Intensive Japanese Language Program while living in an environment surrounded by Japanese men my own age, interacting with people in and around the capital. I even had a Japanese girlfriend for a while. But despite all that -- and believe me, I've worked harder than most this past half decade -- I can't really speak like a native yet. Sometimes I get mistaken for a Japanese person on the phone, but on bad days, or when I get really nervous, sometimes people know I'm not. I can pass for a Japanese person pretty easily online in chat rooms, but on the phone, it's not as easy -- and it's pretty much a lost cause if it's face to face, since my non-Japanese appearance predisposes the other party to expect me not to speak perfectly. In situations like that, even when if I say something completely natural that's just strange because I wanted to crack a joke or something, people might think I said it strangely simply because they know I don't speak the language natively. Shit sucks.

That said, it takes a looooot of work, and being in Japan is key. I don't expect myself to become significantly more native-like in speech and writing (and actions, because those are important, too) without living in Japan for another few years, making a point to use Japanese as often as possible.

Typos:

even when if I say something -> even if I say something
http;// -> http://

I swear to God I'm a native speaker of English :P

wow I can't believe there's ppl that actually enjoy listening to Korean?? I don't know about you but to me Korean has the distinction of being both extremely rough and angry while at the same time being incredibly whiny. I don't even know how that's possible but it is.

Cantonese sounds awful to me as well.

Japanese sounds too femenine for my tastes. But overall I would say Japanese and Mandarin sound the most "elegant" however you want to put it.

And don't even get me started on those SE asian languages like tagalog, or Thai, Vietnamese etc.

Overall to be honest asian languages just aren't that nice sounding.

>>63
What? That doesn't seem to make any sense.

A fire broke out on a ship. The captain, wanting to make the passengers dive into the ocean with smoothness, said:
to the English, "A true gentleman would dive in a time like this"
to the German, "The rules say to jump overboard"
to the Italian, "The lady of fine proportions just went overboard"
to the American, "If you jump, you will be a hero"
to the Russian, "The bottle of vodka was swept away; it's still within reach"
to the French, "Please do not go overboard"
to the Japanese, "Everyone else has already made the jump"
to the South Korean, "The Japanese has already made the jump"
to the Chinese, "Those fish look pretty tasty"
to the North Korean, "Now is your chance to seek asylum"

Sailor: "Captain! The Korean still remains!"
Captain: "Leave him alone."

>>And don't even get me started on those SE asian languages like tagalog, or Thai, Vietnamese etc.

This kind of thing always surprises me. OK, you don't like the way any of them sound. That's fine. But I find it strange that it seems appropriate to you to group them together. Ignoring the fact that we're talking about three unrelated language families, they don't even have similar phonetic inventories... essentially, they sound nothing like one another! First and perhaps most obviously, Tagalog's got no tones. Thai and Vietnamese both have tones, but very little else in common. Viet's mostly monosyllabic, which makes the rhythm of speech completely distinct from that of Thai. The vowel systems are also completely distinct--Vietnamese has four vowels not found in Thai, and Thai has at least three, perhaps four, not found in Vietnamese.

I love Mandarin, especialy when it is pronounced by scholar officials in historical drama.

korean is definitely the best language. daehanmikguk saranghae!! i have been learning it for a while but its still soo hard xD japanese is second. i do find chinese a refreshing break from korean and japanese though

i think korean sounds cool but the women somehow always sound a bit whiny to me.. the pop music is super popular (maybe thanks to the prettyboys though)

japanese sounds pretty badass if you ask me, although some of it is just funnily pronounced english :P probably one of the coolest languages out there

mandarin makes people sound wise and confucius-y and cantonese is really choppy but is probably one of the more modern/trendy languages (like jap) because of the ever-changing slang and stuff. ive heard that if you leave hong kong for a year then the way you talk will be kind of old fashioned. i think chinese might be the hardest to learn though..

i love japanese!im learning it right now, its pretty cool. somehow i love how korean sounds, sometimes it reminds of french LOL and kpop is just so awesome all the hot singersxD the music is pretty gooood.. chinese idk i prefer japanese and korean:)

i am sitting to this korean couple who one of them is my roomate. I think They are talking normally though, but it sounds to me like they are in big fight, I can't concentrate of my studying much, Korean language is too harsh, annoying, and lack of manner which is nothing to be praise of at all.

Whether or not a language sounds pretty or ugly is determined largely by the way in which a person speaks. With that caveat in mind, I think that Japanese sounds nice, that Korean sounds slightly less nice, and that Chinese (either mandarin or cantonese, not like I could tell the difference) sounds really ugly. It's hard to listen to Chinese without thinking, "How the FUCK do these people make these sounds?!" If I learned the language, I'd probably think differently, but Chinese is one of the most alien-sounding languages I've ever heard.

German can also sound nice to me.

>>7
>>9
FUCK YOU NIGGERS

>>34
And iirc this word originates in germanic languages.

But all this fuss doesn't explain why people choose to write it and censor themselves, instead of simply not using it. I really don't get that. It's the intent that counts after all, isn't it?

>>1
the simple way to say it is just because it a more discreet words or what the adults always like to think it as "dirty"

If you see Kay,
Tell him he may.
See you in tea,
Tell him from me. ^^

If you see Kay,
Tell him he may.
See you in tea,
Tell him from me.

>>34 not because it's Forbidden Under Catholic Kingdom?

>>29 lol, just got fed

>>31>>32

Eikä me tarvittu mitää sen jälkee <--- 'tis ain't rite
Emmekä me tarvinneet mitään sen jälkeen <-- this is right

And we did not need anything afterwards.

Ravittu [been fed]
Ravinto [food, in general]

Although both words have 'ra' in them, it in self doesn't mean anything, except for the Egyptian god Ra, but nevermind that. Finnish words or names usually consist on single entities just like English does: truck, firetruck. In Finnish truck would be rekka, but a firetruck would be paloauto. Paloauto consists of two words, palo [meaning as an uncontrolled fire - metsäpalo, forrest fire] and auto [car]. Logically firetruck would be palorekka, but that's not a 'real' Finnish word.

FUCKING SHIT

>>1
Because it's actually considered to be an offensive word. Many non-natives use it because they think it's a "regular" swear word, something mild, something that shows just how strongly you feel about something. But to a native, "fuck" is (much) more rude. It's not a mild swear word at all. Just like "shut up" packs much more of an offensive punch to a native than to a non-native, who often think that it's a mildly rude way of saying "be quiet".

>>1
you might as well ask "why does anybody censor anything"?

look up the word "euphemism"

www.langmaker.com <-- LOTS of interesting resources for the conlanger! I'm really happy to see this. I'm a conlanger myself.

My current project is trying to make a self-segratating language with built in noise resistance, but it's really causing the root invintory to drop considerably. Though, at work today, I was bored and thinking about it, and I think I've come up with a good solution.

> self-segratating language with built in noise resistance

what

Does "noise resistance" mean you're avoiding homonyms?

Ior languazo est eur mixtre a english et latein e't'andera*. Te allre est inre ior kaup, nont existent inre papre. Te tonoanectun, ior languazo heit... ^^

(*et te andera, prononsiat 'etandera')

>> 16

I guess you could say that, but to an extreme. For example, take the word "bado" which would block "mado" as well as "pado" because p, b, and m all share enough characteristics that all three of those words, in a noisy room would essentially sound the same.

>> 17

Er . . . sorry, I meant to say >> 17, but accidentally typoed.

>> 16

Self-segratating basically means that the language, by virtue of the rules of it's sound arrangements (phonotactical constraints), seperates itself neatly into it's individual morphemes. This is something that natural language does not do. Parsing a language correctly is the single biggest hurtle that machine translation (a la google, bablefish, etc . . .) must overcome.

I and some of my friends intentionally talk in grammatically incomprehensible manner and using uncommon shortforms so that other people won't be able to understand whatever we're discussing while in public. It is kind of fun though.

I'm working on one now that's got a grammar like Japanese and sounds like Chinese.

I wanna make one that sounds Arabic as well.

>>23 so, it is na'vi. you say.

>>61

no. it's, like, so unbelievably easy. like, omg!

>>61
It's not very hard if you don't count the thousands of characters, odd grammar, the pronunciation, or the tones. Other than that, it's a piece of cake.

stfu faggots, use engrish!

could anyone possibly do me a favour and transcribe the chinese in this:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1386/c1058clg3.jpg

i know its a small and blurry image, i dont know how easy it would be to read for someone who's familiar with the language... but, yeah, all i need is the three characters in text form, so i can do stuff with them.

thanks!

这里真的没有什么中国人。。。
T_T

What a dead thread.

china ren 中国人 哇哈哈

中國萬萬歲！

除了語言，什麼是我們談論的這個時候？

@ the person who said 中國萬萬歲！

中國加油!! :D

>>31
So... what do you recommend?

Chinese or Japanese?

If you like both, then you should learn both.

Japanese is attractive coz of anime etc and also more Chinese people can speak English than Japanese but anyhoo.

I'm >>31 and please notice that >>33 is not me.
I only suggest you decide which to learn by yourself. It is essential for you to make your own decision and try to enjoy the process of learning. Long-term thinking, maybe 50 years later your cell phone can do the translations for you and the barrier created by different languages will become history forever. That's what I always say.

>>34
ok thank you

I recommend you listen to spoken Japanese and Chinese on Youtube or wherever and get a "feel" for which one sounds easier to distinguish between/more comfortable/more fun to speak.

Katakana and Hiragana are absolutely no sweat. Don't let that scare you out of learning Japanese. I've only been studying Japanese for about a month and already I know all of the Hiragana, Katakana, and about 600 kanji characters.

Chinese has 9 tones from what I've heard, but I haven't studied it, so I can't really say how hard it is.

My vote would go for Japanese. ;3 It's been pretty easy so far.

I say go for Japanese, at least for now. I started out with Chinese but I found it easier to pronounce japanese and the writing is much easier to master...I couldn't even remember the characters for 'nihao' -_-

>>36
The amount of tones depends on the variety. Mandarin has four, plus the neutral, Cantonese has more, though I'm not certain how many.

http://www.enemieslist.net/japanese/

The above is must read for anyone considering Japanese, but should be taken in its humorous context.

I bet in Chinese 1 you wouldn't have to put up with a class full of turbo-nerds wearing cosplay outfits to class, spouting meaningless phrases they learned from anime and interrupting the teacher constantly with "helpful" input they learned from reading the back of Pocky boxes.

That being said, I had to choose between Chinese and Japanese myself, and chose Japanese. Why? The culture seemed more accessible to me. China is no less interesting, but having no desire to work as some business liason I took Japanese for the potential fun value. I'm in too deep now to change my mind, so I just don't think about it anymore.

be a man and take both

JAPANESE!i find it way more beautiful:P i jusst love it lol