Je ne parle pas Français!

[Fireydragon]

Technically 4.. English, French, German and Italian

though it's only the 'tourist' versions of each (despite how long I spent studying them), enough to get me understood but that's about it. Reading and writing only the very basics.
Attempted to learn Welsh too, but didn't get very far due to a bad teacher, still living surrounded by it I pick up enough to be polite.

[Aeridus]

I want to know how to read Japanese kanji et al, maybe if freerice had english definitions for japanese words?

[Xero]

I want to know how to read Japanese kanji et al, maybe if freerice had english definitions for japanese words?

kanji are soul crushes
I only managed about 40 from memory, maybe 120 total, and I used to study for atleast an hour 5+ days a week, and a 10 day trip to Japan

you'd want to start with a phrase book and learn those kanji first, as well colours and shapes

[Aeridus]

Fair enough, I figure if I can at least learn the basic words I can get the gist of untranslated manga and such.

[Xero]

Fair enough, I figure if I can at least learn the basic words I can get the gist of untranslated manga and such.

you're ganna want to learn Hirigana and Katakana first, as well as sentence structure, which is backwards to us english speakers

this that did, rather than this did that
makes sense to me though, now at least, it didn't at the time

[Leeloo]

2 - danish, my native language, and english.

Learning english was easy, but it didn't help me at all learning german two years later. Of course the way german is taught in schools around here might have something to do with it. It's like in "school german", every word starts with a der, die, das, die, den, die, das, die, des, der, des, der, dem, der, dem, den. Actually, from that point of view, I was pretty good at german, if I could figure out that a word was "masculine", I could figure out if it should be der, den, des or dem almost perfectly. But building a sentence requires so much more than that... Like ACTUAL WORDS. Stupid teachers.

Like I tend to joke about when trying to explain why I'm no good at german... I know that house is called "das" in german, and car is also called "das". But how do you know if a "das" is a house or a car?

Knowing one language may help when learning another one, if the languages are very close. English and german aren't close enough.

[WangyJohn]

German is fairly easy, as long as you know your basic Latin and you're used to suffixes, as the German teachers say on the first lesson.

To understand the simplicity of the language, let's take the following example:

First we take a book in German about the habits of the Hottentotts (auf Deutsch: Hottentotten). In the book we read about kangaroos (Beutelratten), that are put in cages (Kotter), that are covered with cloth (Lattengitter). These cloth-covered cages are called in german Lattengitterkotter and as they have a kangaroo in them, they become Lattengitterkotterbeutelratten.

One day, the hottentots caught a murderer. (Attentater), who was accused of the murder of a mother (Mutter), that is, a murder of a Hottentotmother (Hottentottermutter).

The mother had a dumb and drunkard son (Stottertrottel). Because of that, she was often jokingly called by the name of Hottentottenstottertrottelmutter and her murder thus became the Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentater.

The police catch the man, and lacking anything better at the moment, they stick him in one of the Kangaroocages we discussed earlier (Beutelrattenlattengitterkotter), but the man escapes!

A search party is sent after him, and finally one of the police comes and announces "I caught the murderer (Attentater)!"

"You did? Which murderer" the chief asks.

"Lattengitterkotterbeutelrattenattentater", the policeman awnsers.

"What? The murderer that was in the cloth-covered kangaroo cage?" the chief inquired.

"Yes, him," the policeman replied, "The Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentater" (the murderer that killed the hottentotmother that has a stupid, drunkard son)

"In that case," the chief said, "why didn't you just say straight away that you caught the Hottentotterstottertrottelmutterlattengitterkotterbeutelrattenattentater!"

[MistressMaggie]

We made a game of it when we were in Vienna, to be the one to find the longest word on a sign somewhere. I won with 32 letters, meaning "instructions on using the escalator"

[Xnapalmxmorningx]

So basically, I'm having a hell of a time learning French. It's literally killing me, I just can't do it. I live in France, and I don't speak the language. I can get by in day-to-day situations, but I can't carry on a conversation with a French person because i only know how to phrase formulaic sentences, and I know zero slang.

As dorky as it sounds turn on France's version of Sesame Street. That how one of my mom's friends learned English. Or I would turn on a talk show or possibly if the french have them a soap opera.

[Aeridus]

Muzzy is awesome for learning languages.

[Foolosophy]

We made a game of it when we were in Vienna, to be the one to find the longest word on a sign somewhere. I won with 32 letters, meaning "instructions on using the escalator"

I think that is part of the reason why everyone is using dozens of English loan words around here. They often are remarkably short compared to the german translations.

This makes translating websites and forms really annoying. I'm currently writing a webpage that assists you in creating dnd 3.5 characters and then creates a linkable online character sheet. The real pain is trying to find a layout for the sheet that will work with both the German and the English terms used...a d&d "ranged touch attack" is a "Berührungsangriff im Fernkampf"
and if you are flat-footed you are "auf dem falschen Fuß erwischt".


hooray for analytic languages!

[Leeloo]

German is fairly easy, as long as you know your basic Latin

Well, then, leave learning german to the native latin speakers