Who Here Speaks a Foreign Language? (Gaucho/Tomas Excluded)

Post by **Freddy Rumsen** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:41 pm

I am at the very beginning stages of learning Hungarian (long story) for a possible (in the far future) move to Hungary and was curious if any other 5AF'ers successfully learned new languages in adulthood.

I can read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, and ecclesiastical Latin, but none of those (their former two are not really the same as their modern equivalents) are spoken languages.

Post by **shafnutz05** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:45 pm

Slappy speaks Italian (posted to steal his thunder)

Post by **dodint** » Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:55 pm

I can recommend some stuff. Might even have something to help you directly. I'll check tomorrow and shoot you a PM.

Post by **tifosi77** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:07 am

Freddy Rumsen wrote:I can read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, and ecclesiastical Latin, but none of those (their former two are not really the same as their modern equivalents) are spoken languages.

I read this and immediately thought of Marcus Brody, lost in Iskenderun.

Post by **Avyran** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:20 am

Freddy Rumsen wrote:I can read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, and ecclesiastical Latin, but none of those (their former two are not really the same as their modern equivalents) are spoken languages.

You frickin' seminarian.

I'm currently learning Korean. Honestly, the biggest help is immersion & forced rote learning. Using many different ways to immerse into the language: TV shows, reading, music, etc. Then taking what I heard & learning it via flash cards / Anki (flash-card program) and then also via using it somehow, whether writing to a friend or whatever.

Post by **tifosi77** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:25 am

I speak German on perhaps a 3rd-4th grade level. I know about maybe 200 words in Japanese, and can read hiragana and about a dozen or so kanji. (For some reason I can't figure out katakana) I know enough culinary-related words in Italian, Castellano and Catalan, that I could get what I wanted at a market and execute a fairly basic recipe.

Secret of mine is that I want to learn Brazilian Portuguese, mostly for the accent.

For Japanese I used Rosetta Stone concurrent with a class that was being offered by my employer at the time (And tok advantage of the fact the Mrs Tif lived in Japan for three years and speaks the language fluently). I recommend their total immersion method, which is similar to what they use at the Defense Language Institute to achieve conversational fluency in something like six months for the Western languages.

Post by **AuthorTony** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:30 am

I speak Pennsylvania Dutch.

(not really)

Post by **tifosi77** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:31 am

Avyran wrote:
Freddy Rumsen wrote:I can read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, and ecclesiastical Latin, but none of those (their former two are not really the same as their modern equivalents) are spoken languages.
You frickin' seminarian.

I'm currently learning Korean. Honestly, the biggest help is immersion & forced rote learning. Using many different ways to immerse into the language: TV shows, reading, music, etc. Then taking what I heard & learning it via flash cards / Anki (flash-card program) and then also via using it somehow, whether writing to a friend or whatever.

Just cleaned up our office a few weeks ago and found all my Japanese flash cards.

Are you finding the different written syllabaries challenging? Took me quite a while to catch on, and I still never got katakana. It was sink-or-swim territory in the class, because after class four we were exclusively Nihon-go.

Post by **Kaiser** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:59 am

I can speak spanish pretty badly, Rev is fluent in french and bengali, and knows a decent amount of russian.

Post by **Silentom** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:47 am

I speak jive.

Post by **slappybrown** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:49 am

shafnutz05 wrote:Slappy speaks Italian (posted to steal his thunder)

Testa di cazzo

Post by **columbia** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:50 am

A bit of German and 6-7 programming languages.

Post by **Silentom** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:08 am

I'd love to learn a foreign language. I just need to make time for it.

Post by **Kicksave** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:15 am

slappybrown wrote:
shafnutz05 wrote:Slappy speaks Italian (posted to steal his thunder)
Testa di cazzo

Should not have googled that at work.

Post by **iamjs** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:16 am

Took three years of French in high school, can still somewhat read most RDS articles and get the general idea on what it says without using Google translate.

Post by **DigitalGypsy66** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:16 am

I speak jive fluently.

But seriously, I've used Duolingo to polish up the little bit of German and Spanish I know. I'm not sure how well they work for Hungarian, but give it a try: https://hu.duolingo.com/

Your local library may subscribe to a product called Mango Languages which is also very good.

I'd like to know how many languages Tomas and Gaucho speak...

Post by **Dickie Dunn** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:48 am

I was just going to recommend Duolingo, which is what I am currently using to improve my Spanish vocabulary. I have also used Fluenz. Excellent (and expensive) program, but it is definitely more time intensive. A lot of focus on proper sentence structure and verb conjugation, which is important but it takes time away from just learning new words.

Post by **mikey** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:50 am

Freddy Rumsen wrote:Source of the post learning Hungarian

mészáros = butcher

That's about the only Hungarian I know and I'm Hungarian. It's like a weird secret language to me and I can't understand. A girl I used to know could speak it like a child and my grandparents sometimes throw out random words to call the food that they make, but they don't seem like very ethnic dishes...

"What is this?"
- It's kevzakeczckzyk
"What is that?"
- Mac & Cheese

Ok, so just call it that...that's not native to Hungary anyhow...

...I'm not fluent in any other language. I can conversate in Spanish if the other speaker speaks slowly and clearly. I can read French ok, but I would not trust myself to have any verbal exchange in it...

Edit: What sucks too is that I had a friend that was all about the CIA and DoD and all this stuff when we were in college. And he ended up with some kind of high level internship and got me a copy of this software to learn like two dozen languages, things that Rosetta Stone didn't even have (at the time, at least) like Finnish or Swedish or what have you...but I haven't been able to locate it in some time. I can't imagine where it could be...

Post by **shafnutz05** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:39 am

slappybrown wrote:
shafnutz05 wrote:Slappy speaks Italian (posted to steal his thunder)
Testa di cazzo

I CAN USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE TOO SLAPPY

Questo è un tentativo imbarazzante a un insulto. I vostri antenati in Sicilia stanno rotolando nella tomba.

DOUBLE BURN NOTICE.

Post by **tifosi77** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:10 am

Magyar Nagydíj

That's all I got.

Post by **Gaucho** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:13 am

Kis mocko.

Post by **slappybrown** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 11:59 am

shafnutz05 wrote:
slappybrown wrote:
shafnutz05 wrote:Slappy speaks Italian (posted to steal his thunder)
Testa di cazzo
I CAN USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE TOO SLAPPY

Questo è un tentativo imbarazzante a un insulto. I vostri antenati in Sicilia stanno rotolando nella tomba.

DOUBLE BURN NOTICE.

Still has the awkward grammar and peculiar phrasing/word choice but google translate has made strides.

Also I'm not Sicilian.

Post by **shafnutz05** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:39 pm

slappybrown wrote:Also I'm not Sicilian.

That's the insult bro.

Post by **AuthorTony** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:57 pm

Unless Trump is elected President we'll all be speaking Mexican. Amirite?

Post by **dodint** » Tue Apr 05, 2016 1:05 pm

Hockeynut! wrote:Unless Trump is elected President we'll all be speaking Mexican. Amirite?

Well, they are winning, and we never win.