So… My New years thing is to learn new languages. I’ve started off with Turkish, it seemed the obvious one for me. I go to a Turkish speaking household every week for my tea so I’m learning from them as well as using the ‘Duolingo’ app and YouTube. I’ve picked the basics up really quickly. I can introduce myself, ask people how they’re, ask them what they’re doing. I probably know about 40 words already. I’ve now hit a brick wall. There’s so many variations of just one word it’s really difficult to get my head around. For example, depending on if I’m saying I’m having a drink, we are having a drink or everybody is drinking there’s three different ways to say the word drink. Confusing. I looked up the easiest to most difficult last night for English speakers. Spanish and Dutch languages are 1 and 2 on the list (Easiest). The Turkish is right down the bottom, apparently it’s harder to learn that Afrikaans, Chinese and Japanese I think I’m going to bin it off and just accept that I can do the bare minimum with that language and move on to Italian or Spanish. Anybody else have this hobby and have any tips for me as a way of learning?
Started to pick up Italian phrases coz of my gal…that’s the kind of learning pace I’m doing it at been chatting about getting books out to learn it…but so far neither cba tbh I find it fun doing it my way…nice n easy she’s been picking up Punjabi phrases too. We both speak our own languages when talking to other people if required so the words are often in the air flying about and I pick up this n that
Maybe try an AI app instead. Can just tell it to teach you Turkish Can barely speak English so never bothered about an hour one myself
I probably wouldn't start with Turkish or Greek, I know the latter is a difficult language to learn. Where you said there are so many variations of a one word, you need a verb conjugation tool. So type into google the language you are thinking of learning and then add 'verb conjugation' - you then enter the verb and it will give you all it's variations. If you want to start a new language, and one that is available with lots of help, I'd probably start something like Spanish, all the Latin ones, anything outside of that forget about, because it will not be part of the same language tree. Languages like Dutch I assume will carry similarities to some English words, which will help from a memory point of view.
Saf I use this link if I'm trying to do verb conjugation, I've set this one to Spanish for you, with the verb 'comer' to eat and it gives you all it's variations... https://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-spanish-verb-comer.html Hope it works anyway, just enter your verb then press conjugate.
Thanks for that. Yeah, the Turkish language is incredibly difficult and I’m going to bench it. I know the basics and that will do me. Apart from having many different sayings for one word depending on the setting you are in, the words are also twisted around within the sentence. Completely different to our language. Dutch is fairly easy. Both theirs and ours are Germanic languages so a lot of words are very similar. Goedemorgen, Good morning. Apple, Appel. Banana, Banaan. Phone, Telefon. Mother, Moeder. Father, Vada. When I was visiting regularly over there I could hold a conversation at one point. Forgotten most of it now it’s been so long. I think I’ll go either Spanish or Italian. Spanish seems to be fairly universal like English and is spoken in many countries and continents, so might give that a go next.
Mai Teri Bond Marni ah. Remember being told that but can’t remember if that’s Punjab or Hindi lol. Is your birds first language, Italian?
English is a Germanic language so other Germanic ones like Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian etc would be easiest to learn if you wanted a quicker route to taking on a new language, especially as they have a lot of the same or similar sounding words. About 6 or 7 years ago for around 6 months I tried teaching myself Spanish, surprisingly done really well and could hold small conversations, even spoke to a Mexican girl in a bar in London and she didn’t think I was terrible lol. Then stopped and after about a year or two of going back to it I forgot practically everything other than the basics. Wouldn’t mind picking it back up, always had a distant interest of living in Spain for a few years so would help knowing the lingo.
Cool. Aye couldn’t remember which one it was. Just remember some guy telling me to text it to that Indian bird I was dating. So I did and she weren’t impressed lol.
Dutch is a piece of piss, mate. So many of the words are similar to ours. I’ve started Spanish today. I’ll give myself 20-30 minutes every day doing it. I can already see this will be a lot easier than learning Turkish.
My Spanish is still decent but a bit rusty. Studied for a couple of terms over there and did it as part of my course but was pretty crap after bumbling through GCSE/A Level until I lived there and then within a couple of months I was fluent. So if you really are serious about it I’d get a basic vocabulary of 500 words or so under your belt and then live there for a bit if you can. But yeah, Turkish sounds tough. Spanish must be the easiest language to get to a decent standard but the bits you don’t really need unless you’re working there are difficult. Large lamb doner please boss.
My mrs' uncle and his bit have lived in Spain for 30 yrs and still don't speak a word of it other than amigo to the barman. He is a big ****house **** though
Get by in French - we've gone there on hols quite a lot in the last 15 years ... and had a fair bit of Greek back in the 80s when Island hopping with mates ...
I know that’s common (bloody immigrants not integrating) but it’s mad people don’t pick up phrases and words by accident. Like how are you walking round supermarkets for thirty years and not learning the word for apple or looking at a restaurant menu and not learning the vocab for the fish and chips you’re ordering rather than that foreign muck?
He's your typical ignorant arse, chose an area to live with like minded arses. Think they're doing the country a favour by living there.
Speak Norwegian pretty much everyday. Learning languages on paper is easy until you encounter dialects, slang and how people actually speak day to day. It's always harder than it looks. Immersion is the best teaching method for languages, just being around it a lot and having a go covers about 60% of it. Then you have to learn the nitty gritty details. Communicating in a professional manner in a second language is quite difficult, over emails for example. Norwegian has no "official" speaking form, it's entirely dialect based and has two official written forms which are completely different. Best bonus from learning Norwegian is being able to understand Danes and Swedes. 3 for the price of 1 languages wise.
