Foreign Languages/Linguistics

[Agapooka]

Who here studies in that field and:

1. Which languages do you study?
2. Which aspect of linguistics interests you the most?

My mothertongues are French and English, although I can also speak German and Spanish and had taken a year of Latin in highschool, which prepared me for those two aforementioned languages. I've begun learning Mandarin, but I've lost motivation, due to the lack of a phonetical writing system. My favourite language amongst these is German. I've always had a soft spot for inflected languages.

By far, the most amusing aspect of linguistics is phonetics. I can be happy by myself, trying to pronounce an IPA chart. I've failed miserably when attempting to produce an alveolar trill, although I can make an alveolar tap. It's frustrating when I have to make an audible distinction between pero and perro.

I love morphology and my preferred approach is that of highly inflected languages. I can't stand an inefficient use of words; words should be information-dense, but not so much as to cause confusion. Perhaps I'll learn Finnish someday. Haha. Syntax also fascinates me. Latin in particular is very loose in those terms, and I prefer a stricter, yet flexible approach. It's what I like about a V2 language like German.

With all this in mind, I once tried to create my own oligosynthetic language. It's a language with a few hundred basic morphemes that combine to form every meaning required. I'd done all the grammar and all, but got lazy when it came to determining which morphemes I needed. :P

Anyways, what of you?

 

[Cabbo Pearimo]

None, and none.

 

[Linsejko]

Currently learning Esperanto. Mother tongue is English. Keep trying to teach myself Hebrew, but keep slacking off- not because of boredom, just lack of self discipline.

I love languages.

The most interesting thing about languages is the cultural-philosophical element of languages; I refer to the Sapir-Whorf theory, which I (frustratingly re-) created when I was 15. I like pondering in what ways my language limits and/or shapes my thinking, and noticing the implications that the phrasing and definitions in other languages give to its speakers.

Also, in an abstract way, sentence construction- though, I hate diagramming sentences in English.

Mind you, I love English! I love its completely jumbled up nature, its richness, its depth, its many angles of attack. I feel so empowered with the resources English gives me to widely express thoughts in many ways.

The IPA chart intimidates me. xD

Also, I've dabbled in French, Spanish, Latin, & Ancient Greek. I touched Chinese for a while, and a bit of Japanese, and have been very close to commitment to studying those as well.

.L

 

[CowSavior]

I like Japanese, and Iv'e studied a little Spanish (forced to...)

I want to be a computer programmer/ engineer, so it would be useful to learn Japanese, so I could probly work in Japan, because that's were a lot of that kind of stuff is made.

 

[alierae]

I have noticed that many of the INTP's in this forum enjoy computer engineering/programming and some are even pursuing a career in it.

I wonder what makes this desire some out??

(p.s.- sorry that was kind of random...)

 

[whojgalt]

I have noticed that many of the INTP's in this forum enjoy computer engineering/programming and some are even pursuing a career in it.

I wonder what makes this desire some out??

(p.s.- sorry that was kind of random...)

That's an interesting question, particularly since I'm one of them. But it probably deserves it's own thread, and I don't want to perpetuate a threadjack on my first day here.

 

[Linsejko]

Auuu, aren't you nice. Spread the word, Cabbo's gotten cocky since he's the second highest poster around. Thinks that means he can threadjack all he wants.

;P

I think, however, that the draws to linguistics and programming languages are related; high amounts of complexity, logic, and never completely yielding to analysis; an esoteric nature to its inner workings...

.L

 

[Vrecknidj]

Twenty+ years ago I studied French briefly. I have taken one summer of conversational Spanish. I studied one college semester of Latin.

Were I to find the time, I would learn to read Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

Dave

 

[QueenHera]

so far i speak about 4 languages fluently and another 4 not badly.

even though i'm part chinese i do find mandarin a bit confusing. i'm more comfortable with european based languages with roman text.

 

[Agapooka]

Which languages do you speak?

 

[Wisp]

Auuu, aren't you nice. Spread the word, Cabbo's gotten cocky since he's the second highest poster around. Thinks that means he can threadjack all he wants.

;P

I think, however, that the draws to linguistics and programming languages are related; high amounts of complexity, logic, and never completely yielding to analysis; an esoteric nature to its inner workings...

.L

HEY! I STILL have the highest post count around! I can hijack ANYTHING just TRY and stop me! Wahahahaa!

 

[sloperdude]

A long time ago (back in the Apple II days and before(!) I learned several computer languages including Apple Assembly language. I got tired of coding though, because of all the debugging involved. Now I'm learning French in fits and stops, due to my inertia. I like to watch TV programs in nearly any language and try to figure out what they're talking about. It isn't hard to get the gist of most European languages, but to me Asian languages are inscrutable.

 

[Titania]

I speak Finnish as my mothertongue and I've studied English (obviously), German and Swedish at school. I haven't been so interested in Swedish, but in Finland we must study it because it's the second official language here... But it doesn't bother me, it's always nice and useful to learn new languages and Swedish is also pretty simple...
I've been curious to learn Hungarian, 'cause it sounds so beautyful and I'm interested to find connections with Finnish (they are both Fenno-Ugric languages, as you might know). I just haven't started yet... I would also like to study Greek (Haha, my second name, Titania, is Greek ), Russian, Italian and Norwegian ( somehow I understand better written Norwegian than Swedish!). I understand quite well written Estonian, 'cause it's so close to Finnish so I would like to learn it's grammar too...

I especially ejoy pronouncing German! It's so soft and there are so much beautyful phonemes that don't appear in Finnish language, like -chen (das Mädchen, das Märchen) for example.


" I like pondering in what ways my language limits and/or shapes my thinking, and noticing the implications that the phrasing and definitions in other languages give to its speakers. "

Linsejko, I've been pondering the same thing!

I also like etymology and I like to ponder how languages have evolved...

 

[Medb]

My first language was gaelic and i started to learn english when i was five. I picked up french when i lived there and am currently studying chinese (man) in which i have achieved a conversational level.

I've never taken an linguistics class so i dont know terminology or anything, but the way each language describes certain things. For example horizen in gaelic, translated means 'place where the world ends' to something of that extent anyway i am drawing a 100% blank right now (i am at work so i cant look ne up) but things along those lines

in chinese i love the way the radicals indicate certain things like in the character for 'discount' there is the water radical indicating fluctuation (sp?) or how besides the 5 given tones how there is no tonal inflection...i dont know i just love languages

ps how does one start a thread thing?

 

[Olba]

1. Which languages do you study?
2. Which aspect of linguistics interests you the most?

1. Currently none as I just finished my studies in upper secondary. What I studied there? Mothertongue (Finnish), English, Swedish and German. Or well, I only studied German for a year for a total of, I believe, two years in my life. I also have interest in Japanese, mainly due to watching too much anime some would say.

I have to say that Swedish is just that damn similar to German that it's ridiculous. Some of the words are same or similar and the overall order of sentences is the same. And I don't like Swedish, it's just not that useful. It's spoken in two countries, it's similar to two or three languages and that's it. It has no political value in comparison to other languages.

German is a nice language, I just didn't put enough effort into studying it, so I ended up in a situation where I was way too much behind the others. And I'm not motivated enough to self-study something like that just to catch up.

2. The history, if anything. For one, the development of the individual languages from their historical ones. Also, the development of letters and writing. And of course, the aspect of documenting the language and the history of how exactly the languages came to the status that they are in now. That status is a fully documented load of information with a set of rules.

I'm not that fond of phonetics. It's not that they're not fun or anything, but it's just that too many people ignore them, resulting in coherent speech that just sounds plain wrong due to the lack of correct pronounciation. Which pisses me off, specially in English.

And if you're that interested, I'm planning to study English in University. That is, if I can pass the test. However, I doubt I'll become an interpreter in the field, simply because the language is way too well understood. Maybe I'll become a teacher?

 

[Dissident]

I recently found out about Interlingua, a constructed language that is based on the common words (ar atleast roots) of the romance languages (spanish, french, italian, portuguese and english), so anybody who speaks one of those can understand between 80% and 90% of an interlingua text without any previous training or study. I find it very interesting because you could learn an international language without having to learn an entire vocabulary of thousands of words. On top of that it has all the advantages of constructed languages: Regular grammar, fonetical, with no exceptions, etc.

I see its true from the spanish point of view and looks like it works for french and italian too but im not so sure about english, so what do you think? can you understand it? You can find some videos in youtube to listen and texts all over the internet (there is even a wikipedia in interlingua)

Could this work as a universal auxiliary language?

 

[Kuu]

I speak spanish (mother tongue) and have studied english for as long as I have memory...

But I have failed to learn a new language since then. Most people around here learn french as a third language, and I took a couple of courses (mostly pronunciation, which I got quite well ) but the disconnection between what is written and what is pronounced drove me crazy.

About two years ago I took a fancy for german (I wanted to read the german philosophers sans shitty translations-of-translations). I finished the course as head of the class, but I lost interest and have not continued to study it...

Now I've just finished an introductory course to Japanese. I hope I manage to learn it before I grow tired of it. Its specially attractive because its syntax and verb conjugation is quite simple; also the fact that its just so different, including writing, makes it easy not to get confused. I also love the way that their concepts are so different....

 

[Ogion]

I am from Germany, so i speak that, if i may say so, really good. And i agree with some of the above posts about the German language, i like i too (which you may see at my use of commata, even in English. Normally you in English don't use the comma very much, but in German there are a few rules to that, and it is quite helpful: With commata, plural intended, you can structure a phrase much better than without, and this was your phrase can become much longer.)

Obviously i speak (write, read) English quite good. Thats part because it's such a simple language, but a big part do play Lord of the rings (which i read in my first year of English at school) and american TV-series. Well, and what would you do in the internet without speaking English?

I can find my way around in spoken Spanish, though the reading part is much easier, which i can say of most romance languages. French i can read and understand reasonably well and Italian is comprehendable with knowing Spanish.

I know some basics in Irish-Gaelic and Welsh, since i studied that at university (Celtic Studies) for four semesters (as in academic year). But i have to confess, that Irish really was too much of an annoyance, so i quit that.


As for a "universal auxiliary language" i really would advise Esperanto, since it is really, really KISS (Keep it simple stupid). I mean, the grammar is learnable in one afternoon (at least for us INTP i imagine) and it hasn't got much vocabulary, because the system is very flexible. You just have some core of a word, the root, which is taken from romance or germanic languages with some slavic influences) and then you have a fixed set of prefixes and suffixes, which change or influence the meaning of a word. So out of a root you get all sorts of word classes, like an adjective by adding an -a at the end of the root, or the present by adding an -as. IT is really an ingenius system, which is very adaptable to new meanings of words.

In general i think, that a language should primarily be usable and useful. Then comes the aesthetic part.

Ogion

 

[Dissident]

I checked Esperanto too, but to be honest i dont like the way it sounds, Interlingua is a little better, close to italian. I like german in this sense, it sounds very powerful, almost violent ( i blame Rammstein for that impresion )
I think Interlingua would be better for an auxiliary language since it seems even easyer to learn, if Esperanto hasnt got much vocabulary, interlingua`s idea is to have almost none. Either way it would be nice, its a shame that these projects dont seem to be taking off any time soon.

 

[Ogion]

Yeah, i didn't look into Interlingua much. But you are right, Esperanto doesn't sound very well indeed. It' stoo much of a mix and too pragmatic there (although i have to say that Italian sounds awful of course, since i am nearer to Spanish :-P). And it really is sad that none of these projects have more widespread.

Ouch, is Rammstein how German is perceived from outside? That really isn't the best advertising But yes, i think German has many ways it can sound. Thats too one thing i like with it. It can be powerful and near to violent (one can see that in Rammstein but also in History, unfortunately. in the German Kaiserreich from the 1870ies to the end of WWI and of course much more unfirtunately with the Nazis.) But German can be very soft also, or very sharp in an academic sense, or very clear with logic... i think it is really a shame, that most German Academics are on their way of giving up the German language as a language for science and academics. Often they are using only English. It isn't that English would be bad, but Germna has its advantages too and als a language for academics quite it's history (especially in the 19th century).

Ogion

 

[Dissident]

Esperanto doesn't sound very well indeed [...]although i have to say that Italian sounds awful of course [...] And it really is sad that none of these projects have more widespread.

We may have found the reason why they have not be succesful

I said i "blame" Rammstein for it, but i actually like it that way.
For example Seeman by Apocalyptica and Nina Hagen (quite a character you got there) www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQidXcZW-ac Great song.

I think no country should abandon their mother language for any purpose, thats one thing i hate about globalization, cultures slowly losing their identities.

 

[Ogion]

Well, not entirely my music But "quite a character" is quite a description

I think no country should abandon their mother language for any purpose, thats one thing i hate about globalization, cultures slowly losing their identities.

Yes, think so too. It's not the globalisation itself, just that pople tend to think, that this (becoming everywhere the same) would be a necessity about globalisation^.

Ogion

 

[didyouknow]

I love languages...In fact, my plan is to get a degree of "arts in applied languages and linguistics" at griffith.

I have studied:

German which is a really fun language to speak. I have a really good friend who speaks it and it's fun sending her emails in German, though I always confuse the gender on objects.

Mandarin Chinese which I loved. I was fascinated with the writing system for so long and some funny meanings behind words. One insult was "fan tong" which means "rice bucket". Very amusing.

Japanese which I'm studying now, though it's a struggle. My teacher is really irritating. I don't really like the language all that much, sounds cool, but the writing and sentence order are confusing.

Spanish for a week. Strangely I remember heaps. I only know the greeting and general stuff.

French is limited to hello, cheese and ice cream...

Oh yeah, and my friend is teaching me polish.


Wow, I know more than I thought I did.

XD

 

[figaro_black]

I speak only two languages. Swedish (which is my mother tongue) and English which is the first foreign language we learn in Swedish schools. I did study French for six years but was bored out of my mind since we never left the hotel where we checked in the very first French lesson and so I never truly learnt the language. And of some reason I got it into my head to study Latin for a year, but since I had the same teacher in Latin that I had in French...

Anyhow, I too love the problem of language and how we convey our experience of the world through it. I'm especially fascinated by the fact that what I say will not necessarily be perceived in the way I mean it to be perceived.

Though, recently I've started to be interested in how words accumulate meaning. What, for instance, is the difference between the endings -ic and -ical? In some cases, there's a difference in meaning between them but in other cases both forms mean the same thing. There seem to be no fixed rules, at least not yet.

 

[Spaekle]

I took Latin for two years; I wanted to take it for more, but my schedule didn't really allow it with all the other classes I wanted to take. I'm starting to forget most of it, and it's kind of depressing.

Lately I've been trying to teach myself Japanese, or at least get a good enough grasp on it before I go to Japan this summer. It's coming along a bit slowly. I don't suppose I have to be an expert at it, which is good considering how little time I have; I'd just feel really inconsiderate going to another country without even bothering to try to speak their language.

There are other languages I'd like to learn, too; in fact, I'd like to learn as many as I can. I'm just saving it for when I'm like 35 and still single and I have nothing to do on my days off. :V

 

[Ogion]

I love languages...In fact, my plan is to get a degree of "arts in applied languages and linguistics" at griffith.

I have studied:

German which is a really fun language to speak. I have a really good friend who speaks it and it's fun sending her emails in German, though I always confuse the gender on objects.[...]

Oh hey. Wie gut kannst du Deutsch denn? Yea, i always get confused that there are *no* genders on objects in English...(German's my mothertongue) I often have the gender of the german word in mind when using an english one...

Ogion

 

[Kuu]

^^ Its actually harder for them native english speakers to learn languages where objects have genders. They just never get them right...

 

[Kidege]

i think it is really a shame, that most German Academics are on their way of giving up the German language as a language for science and academics. Often they are using only English. It isn't that English would be bad, but Germna has its advantages too and als a language for academics quite it's history (especially in the 19th century).

I'd have never believed Germans giving up on German.
I was trying to study German myself, but I ran out of motivation. How can I get motivation if even native speakers give up?

^^ Its actually harder for them native english speakers to learn languages where objects have genders. They just never get them right...

You can also have tons of fun (or embarrassment) when dealing with gender changes. For instance, a ship is masculine in Spanish, I'm still not over the fact that it's feminine in English.


About me:

I'm fluent in Spanish, English and French. I've studied a little bit of Nahuatl, Maya and Latin, but I only remember a few words and a bit of the syntax. And since once you know a couple of romance languages you get the rest (at least halfways), I can understand Portuguese, Italian and Catalan.

I love grammar, but not enough to actually study it on its own. It has to be linked to the social meanings or it becomes senseless. My favorite part, once I have the basic grammar down, is observing the language registers.

 

[Ogion]

Oh you wouldn't believe the number of angliscisms in todays German. We even come up with false angliscisms. i mean, the german word for mobile is : Handy. Because, you know, it fits into the hand...
Some people use tons of agnlicisms.

Off course there are people who really like the german language and actively resists this.

Ships are male in Spanish?? I mean, grammatically they are neuter in German (as are many objects), but 'emotionally' they are female. Guess that's because sailors get quite lonely out there...

Ogion

 

[didyouknow]

Yeah, poor sailors :P

 

[Fleur]

I started German course this year (right now I can speak only about a kitchen and food...).

^^ Its actually harder for them native english speakers to learn languages where objects have genders. They just never get them right...

The gender of same object may differ depending which language you're using, so not only native English speakers have problems with them. It may be hard to remember that, for example, cat is feminine not masculine.

 

[FusionKnight]

I especially ejoy pronouncing German! It's so soft and there are so much beautiful phonemes that don't appear in Finnish language, like -chen (das Mädchen, das Märchen) for example.

This is hilarious to me! I have never heard this sentiment before! I've studied German for many years and all the non-German speakers I've ever talked to seem to find German to be a comically animated and "harsh" language that makes even "I love you" sound like a threat.

Anyway, I've studied German (6 years in school) and an introduction to Mandarin. I think I'm probably proficient in German, but since I rarely have the occasion to speak it, I'm pretty sure my grammar is rusty, and my vocab has really shriveled up.

(Ogion, wurdest du mögen mit mir auf Deutsch sprechen? Du sprechts Englisch sehr gut, und Ich beschämt sein... )

Mandarin was fascinating, and I'd love to learn more. It's a non-alphabetic language that is essentially two different languages for speaking and writing. It opened my mind to a whole new paradigm.

I think I love languages in the same way that I love music. It's a complex mathematical system that can be used to express thought and emotion. Amazing!

 

[Kidege]

Yeah, poor sailors :P

bunch of fetishists

How many of us have studied or speak German anyway? Keep it up and I might regain the motivation.

Over here we also have the "harsh language" stereotype.

 

[Ogion]

Ah man, i only can say that the people saying German were a harsh language just do not know enoough German.
Really. Those people probably are thinking of some stereotypical Nazis in movies or something...
I mean, of course it can sound harsh, i think most languages can sound harsh, it depends on the speaker and his intentions...

@Fusion: Natürlich spreche ich Deutsch sehr gut, es ist meine Muttersprache Deine zwei Sätze waren schon recht gut, aber man sieht deutlich, dass du von einer Sprache kommst, die die Verben vorne anstellt. (Translated for your convenience : Your two sentences above were relatively well formed, though one (a German) can easily see that you come from a language which puts the verbs at the beginning of the sentence. To put your sentences in correct German: Ogion, würdest du gerne mit mir auf Deutsch sprechen? Du sprichst Deutsch sehr gut, was mich beschämt. )
To answer: Ja, ich würde gerne ein wenig Deutsch mit euch sprechen. (Yes, i'd like to talk a little German with you (plural) )

Ogion

 

[didyouknow]

Okay...my german isn't that great. But I know the basics! And I'm good at improvising!

Hehe...I'm going to learn it at university anyways, along with mando

 

[FusionKnight]

Du sprechts Englisch sehr gut...

 

[Ogion]

oops, uhm, yea. (That's when you are too fast wiht reading, guessing too much ahaed )

Ogion

 

[Fukyo]

Well I love languages and I learn them pretty easily.
My native language is Serbian.I speak fluent English,I understand spoken,written and can speak Spanish,but can't write it.(had no formal education,picked it up from tv,that's why I understand it better when it's spoken)Also a bit of German and will soon start to actively learn Japanese,as I have great interest in the language and culture and would like to move there in the future.

 

[Titania]

This is hilarious to me! I have never heard this sentiment before! I've studied German for many years and all the non-German speakers I've ever talked to seem to find German to be a comically animated and "harsh" language that makes even "I love you" sound like a threat.

Heh Well, I've grown up with language that really makes 'I love you' sound like a threat (Minä rakastan sinua!) and 'good night' like someone hrowing up: hyvää yötä.

Oh and the German noun genders are just driving me nuts. Really, sausage is feminine and girl neuter...

 

[Ex-User (221)]

English is my first language, and I can have a(quite dull) conversation in Irish. I studied French for three years in school, but dropped if(it's compilsory to do a third language for at least three years here). I've never studied any Scandinavian languages but I've found them easy enough to pick up- I can get a good idea of what it means when it's written- as there are a lot of similarities with Irish. And I like the sound of a lot of Eastern-European languages(that includes Russian), but i've never done anything about learning any of them.

That has to be one of the longest paragraphs I've ever written.

 

[Linsejko]

Mi parolas la lingvon Esperanto sufiĉe bone. Mi tre ŝatas ĝin, kaj pensas ĝin estas tre facila--kaj, en mia opinio, bela ankaŭ. Mi uzas ĝi ofte sur IRC, en la #esperanto ĉambro. Mi scias de Interlingua, kaj alia planlingvo, ekzmplo "Ido" (kiu estas ido de esperanto), Volapük, Occidental, kaj Simpla Angla... sed mi elektis Esperanto antaŭ legis pri ĉiun ilin. La Vikipedio artiklo pri Esperanto estis precipe konvinkado.

nuldemandoj por min, antaŭ tion.

Translated:

I speak the language Esperanto sufficiently well. I like it very much, and think it is very easy--and, in my opinion, very beautiful also. I use it often on IRC, in the #esperanto room. I know of Interlingua, and other constructed languages, for example Ido (which is an offshoot of Esperanto), Volapuk, Occidental, and Simple English... but I chose Esperanto after reading about all of them. The wikipedia article was particularly convincing.

Zero questions, after reading that.

-----

Seriously, though. I do actually *use* this language; I have a friend in Brazil that I talk with for hours who doesn't speak english. I have chatted in that esperanto room with people from Russia, France, Brazil, and America in just the past week--and I haven't had internet most of this week. I just open my IRC client and leave it open, see if people bring up anything interesting occasionally.

Last night the politics of an organization that wants to make Esperanto an official inter-language of the EU was being discussed. Some think Esperanto should just stay out of politics, others want very much to see it used. I didn't join the conversation, I was busy talking to other friends--I was only able to occasionally glance.

What's more, though, is how I can actually speak a second language fluently. That's just really cool in its own right, but also really useful; knowing any second language is a huge help towards learning another language. In that respect especially, Esperanto excells! On the wikipedia article (which I just linked to) it discusses the propaedeutic value in depth--that is, it's value in helping one acquire other languages. This was the real breaking point for me learning the language.

Other great benefits, though, are joining an international community--especially as, within that community, there is the Pasporta Servo, which was a huge attraction to me (though I have yet to use it, a fact which may change soon! . Being able to discuss world events fluently with people from every language, though, is very enticing.

That's my two cents on the conlang front.

L.

(Note: All wikipedia links in this article were added via Ubiquity commands, Ubiquity being potentially the greatest Firefox addon ever.)

 

[Carnap]

I am English mother tongue and speak fluent French. I live there (unfortunately). I've been there five years. I have quite a grasp on the language and I no longer get "caught" as a foreigner.

I have a low level of Portuguese from two years of class. The teacher said my accent was good but I had no vocab. (lazy)

I am PASSIONATE about Iran and LOVE the Persian language. I was gonna take classes but my friends and family convinced me not to. Never again. I ended up taking Arabic (don't like it !).

So I am going to teach myself Persian and try to study in Tehran next summer.

I also have a love for Bosnian (Slavish languages). I love how caustic and full of attitude it is ! And I love Bosnians.

As for linguistics, I took a few classes, morphemes, etc. a phonetics class, etc., not my favorite, but interesting nonetheless.

I'm a certified English teacher, too, but can't work in france (laicite)

anyway I forgot I wanted to complain. I study philosophy and have to waste my time on latin when I am just DYING to use my precious time to learn Persian.

That's why I want to go to a very expensive school that let's you create your own curriculum. in the states !

 

[Zero]

I'm studying Japanese and I'm getting pretty annoyed with the schooling. I switched schools, which didn't help. I also want to learn French, but seeing as I'm a sort of visual/interactive learner (not audio at all), I think a computer program will be good enough.

Anyway, I have Japanese books and games I want to be able to play/read. I've learned only a trickle of Kanji, which is among my biggest challenges. I need more vocabulary and I need to remember sentence structures. The university I'm going to now taught different things in first year Japanese. It's quite frustrating. I'm pretty sure I've learned some forms they haven't. I hate the material for this class, it's so disjointed and apparently I'm missing pieces of the circulum (I should have a interactive CD and an Audio one...)

Anyway, I'm not fluent in Japanese. It's... a rather complex language, but I want to learn it. Japanese is phonetic, which is nice, but they have so many forms and just... annoying things. I forgot what tte was used for with omotteimasu. It's like future tence of I think, as in "I'm thinking of (doing) ..." I keep forgetting what te form is used for and it's normally used to connect verbs, but I don't think omotte has anything to do with that.

I'm screwed this semester.

I started to study Esperanto, because some of my friends spoke it. Then I got screwed because I wasn't studying Japanese, like I should've been. Because I got like a C in the class.

あたまがいたい。

Also, I kind of speak this English.

 

[walfin]

Mi parolas la lingvon Esperanto sufiĉe bone. Mi tre ŝatas ĝin, kaj pensas ĝin estas tre facila--kaj, en mia opinio, bela ankaŭ. Mi uzas ĝi ofte sur IRC, en la #esperanto ĉambro. Mi scias de Interlingua, kaj alia planlingvo, ekzmplo "Ido" (kiu estas ido de esperanto), Volapük, Occidental, kaj Simpla Angla... sed mi elektis Esperanto antaŭ legis pri ĉiun ilin. La Vikipedio artiklo pri Esperanto estis precipe konvinkado.

Jes!!!! Esperantisto en INTPf! Fine, mi havas instruiston!!!!

Mi atendis tio cxi por jaroj!

 

[Ruzulo]

Jes!!!! Esperantisto en INTPf! Fine, mi havas instruiston!!!!

Mi atendis tio cxi por jaroj!

Mi ankaŭ. Se vi volas alian INTP-ulon por interparolado, mi estas
preta.

--Andrew

 

[Xel]

The language that I love is my mothertongue English. I have been forced to learn/ attempted to learn other languages with little luck (Spanish, Latin, Japanese). Maybe one day I'll get the hang of Spanish and heck even Latin, Japanese, or German or Chinese. If I ever become bilingual it will probably be Spanish though.

I'm not really interested in Linguistics per se, more in the philosophy of language. How words carry meaning in relation to other words, the way they carry subtle associations and concepts. I'm also how linguistic structure influences logic. I have an interest in how language is learned and acquired in children but never really pursued that. The history of the English language fascinates me, from Beowulf to Shakespeare to today.