Language Learning - Voltra Online

Starlight

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I've been seriously trying to learn Korean for about two years now, although I took a break from learning for several months earlier this year. Since I got back into learning, I've mostly just been reading various things and plugging some new vocab into Anki, and I recently started reading through the first Harry Potter book using Learning with Texts. I also listen to a lot of Korean music, and I can tell that reading is helping with my listening comprehension as well.

There are other languages that I might be interested to learn in the future, but I'm not sure what order I'd like to learn them in or if I'd actually like to learn all of them. The languages in question are Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Hindi. I really want to learn Spanish, and I actually tried to start learning Spanish earlier this year, but I kind of just decided to focus on Korean for now. I did take two years of Spanish in school, but that didn't go very well after our teacher went on maternity leave and we were left with a substitute teacher that didn't even know Spanish.

I do have a language learning log here(and an old one here) but I haven't been updating it very consistently.

What languages have you learned or are you currently learning? How long have you been learning them? Feel free to talk about anything else related to language learning as well~

Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

Ooooh, you have a lot of languages on your list that you want to learn. My major was in languages, so I’m always happy to see someone else eager to learn as much as they can. ^^

I studied French from middle school until my second year of Uni, German for a year back in high school, Japanese for almost 10 years (I worked in Japan and now I’m doing translation work and tutoring Uni students taking Japanese), and now I’m lazily learning Korean on my own (though I’m nowhere near your level or able to talk/listen on my own yet).
I want to learn sign language too, but oooooof. I feel so burned out these days.

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Starlight

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@Cookie: This is what Learning with Texts is. It's a program where you can put texts in and go through marking words based on if you know them, if you're learning them/how well you know them, and such. Words you know will be underlined with green, and words you're learning will be highlighted in red, orange, yellow, or green depending on how well you know them. You can also ignore a word if it's just like a name or something that isn't really a word you need to learn. Also, you can add online dictionaries of your choosing to the program to look up and add definitions for words, so if you see the word again later on and don't remember it then you can always check the definition you added.

Starlight

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@Tsundererra: I'd like to learn sign language as well, but with the other language I want to learn I'm not sure if I'll get around to it any time soon sadly.

@Cookie: Yeah, it's a lot of info. It took me awhile to get around to using it because of that, but I like using it now that I got it all set up~

@Totalanimefan: That's pretty good! I don't know if my Korean would ever be good enough to use for work either. I mainly focus on input rather than output, so my speaking skills are sorely lacking.

Starlight

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@Totalanimefan: That makes sense, I would probably be the same way now that I think about it. Also, I'd worry that I was wasting their time or something if I was taking too long to say what I needed to.

Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

@Starlight: From what I learned being a linguist major, the languages that should be easiest to learn with little time to dedicate would be the Romance languages (Spanish, French, etc.) and German, and the hardest would be Mandarin and then Japanese. It’s also harder to learn a language the older you get, but not impossible if you study enough. I’ve heard sign language is pretty easy too, but I’m weird with movement xD

@Totalanimefan: I’m sure your level would be fine for working some jobs in Japan. Japanese peeps are pretty understanding that their language is hard for foreigners, so they don’t expect us to be perfect. Like I used to talk to my supervisor and school principals casually because they understood that all that super polite/honorifics talk is harder for me. (Was a double edged sword because some teachers would overhear and refer to me as san or chan instead of sensei in front of the students. =__=)

And as someone who used to teach a second language to people, I used to tell my students it’s ok to make mistakes since it’s the best way to learn. I was mostly good with input and pretty much zero output until I was forced to try because no one knew English around me. I made A LOT of mistakes, but it helped me improve my skills. Though if you’re only learning a language to be able to read and not communicate, then that’s ok too (me with Korean xD)

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Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

@Totalanimefan: I feel like retail jobs require more polite speech (omg, I have a rant story about one store that REFUSED to speak more casually to me to resolve an issue I had... f*cking docomo). But I have come across non-fluent foreigners working in restaurants, convenience stores, cram schools, and hotels. :)

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Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

@Totalanimefan: I think a lot of those office jobs have a min requirement of N2 or higher proficiency, so if you have that in the bag, you’re golden even if you don’t feel confident. ^^

Ehhhh, I think the clerk I was dealing with was xenophobic. Like when I first came with my Japanese supervisor, he was ok with helping me, but when I came alone, he was like NOPE. When I came with my senpai who speaks fluently and is American, he was like NOPE, I CAN ONLY SPEAK TO THE ACTUAL CUSTOMER, AND IF SHE CAN’T SPEAK, TOO BAD. >__>
Martin is right, and Apple was the one who helped resolve my problem in the end. :’) But oof, at phone stores like Docomo or SoftBank, it is not desu/masu. The SoftBank peeps were willing to bring it down to that level when they saw our eyes glaze over, but Docomo is like FORGET YOU, GAIJINSAAAAN. GET GOOD. xD

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Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

@Totalanimefan: You should take it if you want to, but I don’t think it’s necessary unless you want to work there. My super fluent senpai is prolly N1, but he never tested. My other coworker was N1, and she was even amazed by this senpai. :)

Wish Apple would solve my other problems, like why my screenshots always look blurry and why my iPhone can’t connect to my switch. :T GET TO WORK, MARTIN.

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Tsundererra

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TSUN ★ TSUN ★ TSUN (≖︿≖✿)

@Totalanimefan: Martin is from the UK. He is magical and knows everything. 😤
It’s like the things I screenshot or save directly on my phone looks noticeably low res. I first noticed it when I was saving one of my avi looks to submit to a contest, and the image always looked slightly low res blurry... but it didn’t when I tried to save it on my laptop or iPad.

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The truth behind Reaping Ritual 2019

Art by the rightful Mayor, Kiwi

tabby

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i'm another korean learner. half of my family is korean (by marriage).

i almost married a korean man as well, which sped my language learning up a lot since his parents only speak korean, but that dissolved and now i'm at a weird stage with it. i honestly got kind of put off by it and haven't studied in a while and can feel it fading.

hello again

cutie

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I've always wanted to learn Japanese. By chance some random person recommended that I take the classes offered by my university. I ended up studying for 2 years, which was all pretty intense given that there was constantly new material to take in 5 days per week. I still find conversing with native speakers pretty challenging, but it was enough knowledge to read/write basic everyday things and understand shows like Terrace House. For anyone interesting in learning languages, I think textbooks are definitely the way to go (unless you can live in the actual country, immersion is better), and you try to supplement that with hobbies in line with your goals so you do a little everyday. :) We used the Nakama textbooks in class, and I'm considering getting Tobira for further learning (super rusty!). xD Textbooks are great because it'll cover characters, syntax, and vocab in a structured/incremental way, and you'll have something to compare your mistakes with.

Starlight

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Bringing this thread back because I've recently started learning Russian! I just started a week ago, and so far I think pronunciation is the hardest thing for me to get used to. I've started making some Anki cards, and I'm using this site along with a PDF of The New Penguin Russian Course that I found. So far I've learned the alphabet and a handful of words, and now I'm learning pronunciation rules.

As for Korean, I've been reviewing Anki cards, watching some children's shows and random YouTube videos, and doing some reading.

Evilcupcakecat

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Hi, I'm actually using Duolingo to learn Swedish and I find it easy and actually kind of fun because most of the words are pretty similar to the english ones, and they're both sort of germanic languages.

Ouja Akuma

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I want to make it a goal for my in life to be fluent in Spanish. I know words and can understand some basics, but I cant speak full sentences or truly understand a conversation without help. I'm taking classes for my spring semester of college to start going, got an app downloaded to help me more, and my coworkers said they'll help me as well. I hate having a language barrier.

Comic | Cosplay

Evilcupcakecat

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Considering where I live learning Swedish is kind of a useless language choice for me to learn because you don't really ever come across swedes in the united states, but like I still have fun with it.
I'm proud of it but at the same time if an actual swede came across me speaking my absolutely disgusting Swedish they would be horrified or at least embarrassed.
Doesn't help that I sort of have an accent.

Starlight

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@Evilcupcakecat: Korean and Russian are probably somewhat useless to me as well with where I live, but I enjoy learning them, and I can always watch videos, read, and listen to songs~

Evilcupcakecat

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@Starlight: To be honest, the only useful languages in my area are Spanish or Hmong. but I'm already in the middle of learning Swedish and I do not want to learn two languages at once. Plus there's really no way to learn Hmong, you can learn Spanish on duolingo, but no matter where I look on the internet you cannot learn hmong. Plus it's a tonal language and I feel like I would have a very hard time with that.

Male/20/gay/sad. :(
I usually only check this site like once or twice a day so it might take me a bit to respond.

Wildfire

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I'm currently trying to learn Italian. It has been an interesting process so far - I've learned a lot, but there is so much more that I really need to learn!

I love that there are so many people posting here who are learning other languages, btw! <3

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Starlight

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@Evilcupcakecat: I feel like Spanish would probably be the most useful here as well, and I might try to learn it at some point, but there are other languages that appeal to me more at the moment. Tonal languages are interesting; I think it would be fun to learn Mandarin one day

★~~Questing~~★

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Tsundererra

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cutie

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Evilcupcakecat

Ouja Akuma

Evilcupcakecat

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