Linguistic Discussion

[Microcosm]

I've been considering learning a new language, but the effort it would require to do such a thing would be quite overwhelming. I might attempt it over the Summer. Where should I start? I really want to learn Japanese, but it is one of the harder languages to learn, especially when you have no experience with it.

Anyways, share your tips for me on how I should get started below. Do you know any other languages? How fluently do you speak them? Can you write them? Talk about these sorts of things below.

[Ridonks_CB]

I'll just give a brief tip right now until I can answer later - make sure you listen to actual people speaking the language in their daily conversations, not just someone slowly sounding it out to you. It's helpful to watch random clips of native speakers and slowly, as you indulge more into your learning, you'll be able to pick up some words here and there.

[Capto]

Languages are awesome.

Right now I've finished my school-related French studies and can expand my reaches to further my studies in Somali and Korean, as well as improve my Mandarin and Japanese.

The best way to think of it is not as expending effort for a static cause. You should integrate language learning into a part of your life and split everything up into little goals. One of the easiest ways to do this is simply immersion tactics. They may be frowned upon by some people but I feel that being immersed in a language through music and podcasts allows you to get a feel for the phonetic and phonemic qualities of a language and better allow you to pick up vocabulary and differentiate distinct words. For vocabulary and grammar studying I suggest picking up either a basic book or even just looking online. There are tons of resources, especially for Japanese. Immersion also helps with the development of proper grammatical sense in foreign languages, as repetition of correct grammatical form tends to ingrain itself in your mind, like other things, with repetition and time.

Here's also a link to a post I made recently regarding jumping headfirst into learning Japanese:

http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3119890&postcount=2

Hope you have fun learning and take it as an interesting, exciting experience.

[Ridonks_CB]

^^There we go :P very nice answer

[Gwen]

My first language is Swedish but I now speak English mainly as the majority of people do in Australia, I only speak Swedish to some family and old friends. It is tough to learn a new language but once you start being able to talk to other people you can jump start your progress. I suggest starting by learning common sayings that are used in all languages like Hej = Hello, God morgon = Good morning, etc. Use these in your daily life/routine greeting people with hello instead. Once you have memorized these key phrases you can start moving to more complicated stuff.

Grammar and pronunciation are some of the hardest bits of learning a new language, getting a friend who is able to speak the language fluently and is willing to talk with you in the language and assist you in your learning. There are many teachers or classes that can help you, if you have some expendable income. Otherwise you can search online for many different resources and self-research can take you very far. Keeping up with practices and continuing with learning even through the difficult or slow parts of it is the most difficult part but the most necessary. Good luck with your endeavours :D

[phuckphace]

Rainbow Dash

I think everyone goes through an "I want to learn Japanese" phase at some point or another, I did myself.

unless you've got a job offer from Sony, I wouldn't bother. the Japanese languages' alien complexity and the amount of effort involved in mastering it makes learning it a waste of time (and money) unless you've got a serious plan. I'm guessing that as 14 year old monolingual American, you're mainly just going to watch the Kawaii Adventures of Killer-Princess Hanako without dubs/subs. which is fine, but...

oh and there was that one time I attempted Japanese with the help of a few Japanese penpals, went a little something like this:

"Hi, how's it going?"
"exams"
"Hey what's up?"
"revising"
"How are you?"
"homework"
"What's up man?"
"exams"

[Contra]

First of all, I think it's noble that you are interested in learning another language!
Well, my mother tongue is Portuguese. I speak and write English fluently. Same goes for Spanish, but at a more intermediate level.
Basically, I learned English by enrolling in these classes when I was really young. Throw in a supremacy of english-spoken television here in Portugal and there you have my recipe!
With Spanish, I started by watching Japanese animated shows dubbed in Spanish. I just associated the sounds with the words in the subtitles and, since the two languages are very much alike, it was easy. Then I took it for three years in school to learn its technicalities.

So, I guess a big step is to start immersing yourself in the culture, watching shows and maybe doing your own research. Since Japanese is really different, you really do need to join a Japanese class. The most important thing: DON'T GIVE UP! Don't start thinking it will be too hard, or you'll never get started!

[Magenta]

Rainbow Dash

I think everyone goes through an "I want to learn Japanese" phase at some point or another, I did myself.

unless you've got a job offer from Sony, I wouldn't bother. the Japanese languages' alien complexity and the amount of effort involved in mastering it makes learning it a waste of time (and money) unless you've got a serious plan. I'm guessing that as 14 year old monolingual American, you're mainly just going to watch the Kawaii Adventures of Killer-Princess Hanako without dubs/subs. which is fine, but...

oh and there was that one time I attempted Japanese with the help of a few Japanese penpals, went a little something like this:

"Hi, how's it going?"
"exams"
"Hey what's up?"
"revising"
"How are you?"
"homework"
"What's up man?"
"exams"

That logic is like saying to me "you shouldn't have bothered learning French because all you do now is watch French films without subtitles and occasionally read street signs in bilingual cities".

It's an interesting language, why not learn it if you want to? It just takes a lot of dedication because it's incredibly complex but honestly, all languages are relatively easy once you get into the habit of thinking about how they work as well as just taking in the vocabulary. But what would I know? I teach myself languages for fun.

I'm taking Japanese in university and if I end up only watching anime without subtitles, great. I learned another language. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to learn one because you can rather than because you have some life plan for it. Nothing is a waste of time if it's something you want to do, especially not learning a language.

A word of advice though is that language is not just linguistics, it's culture. Every language has certain cultural influences that affect how you speak to other people. People like to skip over those parts but it's pretty impolite to do so. In French, kids always thought using "tu" was just "easier" when it's actually considered pretty rude unless you know the person well or they're of the same status as you (e.g. another student).