211–215 of 215 posts
The article states that the hardest thing to learn in a language are structural distinctions which one's native language does not make. Does anyone here have experience of such features that English has, coming from a different language?
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> This is made even more complicated by SJWs who confuse these two unrelated concepts (genus, sex) with their concept of gender. People described by their opponents as SJWs are more likely than, well, pretty much everyone else on the planet to distinguish biological sex, gender identity, socially ascribed gender, and grammatical gender. The people who use “SJW” as a dismissive epithet, on the other hand, are most lik…
And people who see all non-praising use of "SJW" as "a dismissive epithet", on the gripping hand, are 100% likely to miss the odd case where it's just used as a handily descriptive piece of shorthand.
People described by their opponents as SJWs don't describe themselves as SJWs except ironically occasionally. People who want a neutral or positive tone use other terms like social justice advocates.
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> Hungarian, where word order is largely irrelevant Not exactly irrelevant, but very flexible. There are some rules to word order in Hungarian, but you typically rearrange the sentence to emphasize the important part by putting whatever is important in front. For example, if you ask a question, the question word that you expect an answer to always goes in front, "What should I wear?" and the answer should start with…
What a lot of different consonants! (T, d, k, s = 5.) Finnish does it with three: "Kokoo koko kokko kokoon. Koko kokkoko kokoon? Koko kokko kokoon." https://www.puhutaan-suomea.net/kokoo-koko-kokko-kokoon/
When I started learning Chinese the grammar really made think hard about what I needed to say first. Then put it in the right grammar order, then translate the words, which is like a inverted 3D lookup table, sounds/tone/meaning. Memorizing the lookup table which people say is the hard part is actually the easy bit. It’s the restructuring of my thoughts to fit in the grammar. I find English I get you can get away wit…
I think this is one of those things that teachers tend to make a big deal out of that doesn't matter too much in real life communication. It's not unusual in Chinese for someone to structure a meandering sentence like "let's go for a run ba, next Monday hao bu hao, around noon we can meet ne, just us two a, there is a nice track, it's my house nearby de yige, what do you think?" The sentence order is more important w…
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ahh! Very cool, thank you. These features at this point seem like something that can be locked into the look up table. Though, the exceptions rule book is getting pretty big. :P I guess that's where it gets complicated. The features approach kind of compliments my programming part of my brain. Which is also juggling between various features of programming languages and packages within those languages. It definitely t…
Sounds like you’ve got the commitment to learn it. Are you self-studying, in class, studying in your home country or in a Chinese-speaking country? I spend 3 hours per day in class, 5 days a week. We learn about 10 new words and about 2-3 new grammatical structures per day. Outside of class it takes me about 5 hours per day to complete homework assignments and memorize vocab (including writing traditional characters)…
This sounds like a quite a lot of pressure, but that time invested will pay off in the long run, you will quickly master the words and sentences. Learning is a decade long process for me. I've set specific goals for my learning. Initially, I want to tell what I(or we) did during the day, what I saw and if it was good or not. That's my 1 year plan.
My 2-5 year plan is being able to have casual conversations and talk about fun/enjoyable things. Then after 5 years I'd like to be able to express what is important to me in raising a child and why certain actions/inaction is important is instilling certain values I hold dear. After 10 years, I'd like to find the art in the language and understand deeper meanings.
I think my goals are achievable, and the timeframe is as well. Chinese is not something I will earn my living with so its fun. I do take classes but only once a week, for about 30 weeks a year.
Thanks for your advise. I think practice is the most important part. I speak with my family once a week and my SO daily. I'm lucky to have conversational native speaking partner that also speaks English (both our second language).