Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#1

Post by pankratiev » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 12:31 PM UTC

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Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#2

Post by tokenadult » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 12:43 PM UTC

Chinese (various Sinitic languages, but especially Modern Standard Chinese), German, Japanese, Russian, the original languages of the Bible, samplings of Latin and of various Romance languages, interesting conlangs, and others.

Here's a link to language-learning advice:

http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html

Here's one of my favorite links about one conlang:

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#3

Post by ThatOneKid » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 12:48 PM UTC

I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, and during my fourth year I also took a year of Arabic. It was very interesting going directly from one to the other, as well as seeing the similarities (and the many differences) between the two.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#4

Post by knowtheory » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 12:55 PM UTC

i speak somewhat Mandarin, i understand some Shanghai (Wei dialect) Chinese, took latin in school, and Japanese in university. I understand smidgeons of romance languages, particularly French.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#5

Post by IvarTJ » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:03 PM UTC

As a non-native speaker (Norwegian), I give a lot of attention to my written English skills. I learnt some German in school, but haven’t maintained what I learnt.

I learnt the Korean alphabet through Wikibooks when I wanted to try out input methods. The writing system seems to be easier to learn than other CJK languages, and I might learn more of the language as the Nation of Samsung seems pretty interesting.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#6

Post by wccrawford » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:13 PM UTC

Japanese and Esperanto.

I took Spanish in highschool, but haven't been using it, so it's pretty much lost. I can understand little bits.

I would love to learn a lot of other languages including German, French and Irish Gaelic.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#7

Post by bartonfink » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:16 PM UTC

I speak English fluently. At one point I spoke Latin fluently, but that has tapered off due to lack of practice (I still read very well). I speak conversational German, and just a smidge of Italian.

One of these days my wife is going to pester me to learn Japanese because she studies early Japanese culture and wants to share.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#8

Post by dpapathanasiou » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

bartonfink wrote: post #7

I speak English fluently. At one point I spoke Latin fluently, but that has tapered off due to lack of practice (I still read very well). I speak conversational German, and just a smidge of Italian. One of these days my wife is going to pester me to learn Japanese because she studies early Japanese culture and wants to share.

"One of these days my wife is going to pester me to learn Japanese"

You should do it, for the beauty and expressiveness of the writing system alone.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#9

Post by splat » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:26 PM UTC

Esperanto and French.

Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?

#10

Post by lsb » Fri, Jun 24, 2011, 1:28 PM UTC

I read Latin and Greek, want to know more French, and am intrigued by Sanskrit and Japanese.

I wanted to read more Latin and have more fun reading, and I decided that looking words up in a dictionary was an easy step to circumvent, so I made a website nodictionaries.com --- if you read Latin, check out http://nodictionaries.com/vergil/aeneid-1/1-7 if you want to read twice as fast.