Languages

[Kessembi]

Korean and Japanese, now that's hard to learn simultaneously

Hmph! lol I speak Korean and it's actaually easier for me to remember Japanese words with knowledge of the Korean language because their are so many similarities.

Example:
Japanese - 約束(やくそく) = yakusoku [promise]
Korean - 約束[약속] = yaksok [promise]

And many many many others. The only problem I've really struggled with is throwing in Korean particles into Japanese convo. Of course, all you need is a Japanese speaking friend to make funny faces and laugh at you and whatnot - hah, problem alleviated (^_^).

[chikara]

Korean and Japanese, now that's hard to learn simultaneously

Hmph! lol I speak Korean and it's actaually easier for me to remember Japanese words with knowledge of the Korean language ....

hah Well that means lol you are not learning both Korean and Japanese simultaneously then doesn't it lol hah

[Kessembi]

hah Well that means lol you are not learning both Korean and Japanese simultaneously then doesn't it lol hah

I figured since the topic was about learning languages simultaneously, I didn't have to mention that I was learning the two languages at the same time. Eek

[chikara]

I figured since the topic was about learning languages simultaneously, I didn't have to mention that I was learning the two languages at the same time. Eek

Sorry if I misuderstood you lol I didn't realise "I speak Korean" meant "I am currently learning to speak Korean". You'll have to excuse me lol haha as I speak English

[Agoosh]

Personally, I think it depends on how much effort a person actually puts in to learning a language. If you put your mind to it and discipline yourself with the studying, you will learn more than you think. I get lazy sometimes and don't want to practice, but the best way for me to learn things (especially vocab words) is to label everything around me. Which ever language I was learning, I would make endless amounts of tiny post-its (I write the word, translation, and my "own" pronounciation that will help me remember.) For a couple of days I would have my room covered, then my office etc. Whenever I sat in house or work, I glanced over the words and slowly but surely got them in my head.

And as weird as it may sound, listening to music in the language, getting the lyrics and translating word for word makes you realize how much you already know. I usually find a song that I like, I'll spend a couple of days "working" on it (and I really get into it... I make myself memorize the lyrics and everything so I can sing along ! haha) After that, when I listen to other stuff, I recognize numerous words and phrases.

I know not everyone learns the same way but... these are some of the way to get all the stuff in my head. It worked for 3 languages and it's starting to work for Japanese also .... but there's still along way to go.

GOOD LUCK WITH EVERYTHING!

[two_heads_talking]

Personally, I think it depends on how much effort a person actually puts in to learning a language. If you put your mind to it and discipline yourself with the studying, you will learn more than you think. I get lazy sometimes and don't want to practice, but the best way for me to learn things (especially vocab words) is to label everything around me. Which ever language I was learning, I would make endless amounts of tiny post-its (I write the word, translation, and my "own" pronounciation that will help me remember.) For a couple of days I would have my room covered, then my office etc. Whenever I sat in house or work, I glanced over the words and slowly but surely got them in my head.

And as weird as it may sound, listening to music in the language, getting the lyrics and translating word for word makes you realize how much you already know. I usually find a song that I like, I'll spend a couple of days "working" on it (and I really get into it... I make myself memorize the lyrics and everything so I can sing along ! haha) After that, when I listen to other stuff, I recognize numerous words and phrases.

I know not everyone learns the same way but... these are some of the way to get all the stuff in my head. It worked for 3 languages and it's starting to work for Japanese also .... but there's still along way to go.

GOOD LUCK WITH EVERYTHING!

oh no, the words are on fire..

[Kessembi]

Agoosh is my hero

[Zvono11]

First off im not sure if this in the correct section. Sorry if it isnt.

I am currently learning Japanese and i want to keep learning it. I recently went and visited my family and alot of them are from italy and speak italian and i would love to learn it so i could speak with them and one day visit their home towns etc.

I was wondering if it is possible to learn 2 languages at once, that arnt related in anyway ?

Of course it is possible. I learn German and Spanish which are completely different languages.....

[furrykef]

It's actually probably easier to learn two unrelated languages at the same time than two related ones. You're more likely to get two related ones confused, and I think you're more vulnerable to it when you don't know either one well. Though I remember one time I was quizzing myself on Japanese and I couldn't think of "credit card" -- How hard could it be? It's "kurejitto kaado"! -- for a few seconds because the phrase "tarjeta de crédito" was blocking it in my mind, even though I knew immediately that it couldn't possibly be Japanese. So far this sort of thing rarely happens, though, but I don't know all that much Japanese yet.

Oh yeah, that's another thing. Learning multiple languages sucks up an insane amount of time. But at least you can always fall back on the other one for a while if you get bored with one. (I've stopped getting bored with Spanish, for the most part, so eventually that problem goes away by itself, if my experience is representative.)

I am learning Spanish and Italian at the same time, but it's not so crazy for me because I've got a few years of Spanish under my belt before starting Italian. (I'm also concentrating on Spanish much more at the moment; I'm still in the "testing the waters" stage with Italian.)

EDIT: Just looked at my previous post in the thread. Interesting that I was still "just finishing Heisig" (I finished it a couple months ago) and flirting with Italian instead of studying it. I did end up starting Italian before really finishing any of my Spanish books, but that's largely because I realized my level of Spanish really is pretty good. Still so very far from native-like, and I wouldn't be a good candidate for an English->Spanish translation project, but good nonetheless. (A Spanish->English project, on the other hand, would be quite reasonable as long as it wasn't loaded with cultural references I wouldn't get.)

- Kef

[john2]

Greek sounds like a nice language…… [cross]eight[/corss] 4 words for love .

[PresidentObama]

It's possible. I'm currently self-studying French and just started a few days ago on Japanese to kill even more time. French is like English but with a nasal accent and words with gender. LOL. Ehh... regarding Japanese. I can't comment on that yet since I'm a total noob. But so far, basic sentence construction (SOV) is very, very similar to my native language, Filipino (can interchange SOV and SVO for almost all sentences), so I don't end up screwing what to say first and what to say last. The pronunciation of words isn't a problem too since the hard syllables in Filipino are exactly the same in Japanese. It's a 'say it as you read it' kind of thing. So it's easier for me.

Heck, I know a lot of Europeans here in my campus who know German, Italian, French, etc. My favorite male tennis player, Roger Federer (biggest tennis superstar along with Rafael Nadal), fluently speaks English, German, Swiss German, and French. So yeah, I think learning a language similar to yours or native to your region is a plus.

[Mür]

I also think it's possible.
Here in Catalonia we learn Catalan and Spanish at the same time since we start school (some only spoke catalan before, some only spanish, and some both, depending on the procedence of their parents), but then, at shool you also start English, and in secondary school you can aslo start French (whick I did) and later we could start German (which I also did) and then, as I was doing letters/humanities i also studied Latin (only written, but sometimes we spoke in class). Now I'm studying Japanesa as well as Catalan, and English, and next year I'll start Finnish and I'll also do Korean or Chinese. So, I think it is very possible to learn two languages at the time, and if they are different better, because you don't mix, and if they are similar, better because of the similarity.

All you have to do is enjoy them, although there are moments in which one wants to do nothing...

[8bitkoopa]

I was wondering if it is possible to learn 2 languages at once, that arnt related in anyway ?

most definitely. i'm studying japanese and german. i almost took french too, but my mom wouldn't let me XD she said it was too much at one time. but i say nonsense! it stimulates the brain :3

[snovymgodom]

It is certainly possible to learn two languages at once, and I have heard of many who take up learning even more languages at the same time. That said, I find it easier when you have a solid foundation in at least one of the languages you are studying. I'm an advanced student of Russian, and I feel that I could start learning Ukrainian or Polish without confusing it too much with Russian (although my knowledge of Russian would certainly help me out). However, if I had never studied a Slavic language, I know that I would probably mix things up if I started to learn, say, Bulgarian and Serbian at the same time.

I think it does help if the languages are farther apart and have different grammatical patterns. I'm a beginning student of Japanese, and since Japanese is so different from Russian, I don't think that I'll be mixing them up.