Learning a language?

anplaya

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

You call it meaningless being able to greet people in their language but I have had girls come up to me and tell me how it made them feel more at ease and welcomed within my school community because they were able to speak those few words to me when we met in the morning.

you spoke those few words to them?such as hello?what nationality were they and what language did they speak then? italian,french,spanish? ciao?bonjour?hola?
see most people know those words thats not impressive.
what language did they try and speak to you in after you used your impressive range of vocabulary?
let me guess?english ?oh my how did i guess that?

if ya want to learn a language,learn it.from scratch.not a few greetings.thats what i define learning a language.i could be picking up a few words from a different language every now and again,but i dont define that as learning a language.thats knowing a few words. big difference.

9wetfckx43j5rg

anplaya wrote: »

you spoke those few words to them?such as hello?what nationality were they and what language did they speak then? italian,french,spanish? ciao?bonjour?hola?
see most people know those words thats not impressive.
what language did they try and speak to you in after you used your impressive range of vocabulary?
let me guess?english ?oh my how did i guess that?

if ya want to learn a language,learn it.from scratch.not a few greetings.thats what i define learning a language.i could be picking up a few words from a different language every now and again,but i dont define that as learning a language.thats knowing a few words. big difference.

Actually no the languages were Polish and Lithuanian Do most people know those words? And you "guessed" that because they would hardly come to Ireland to learn any other than English! What someone thinks "oh I want to learn Welsh. I think I'll go to Ireland!

I define picking up words every now and again as learning because is exactly what learning is. You are stuck is some "proper" idea of learning that was put upon you in the school system. Learning is finding out a piece of knowledge that you didn't know before. It is an activity and can be however long or short you want it to be.

And if you want to be technical about it and say there is only one method of "learning" how do you define having "learnt" a language. When you are fluent in it? When you can hold a conversation in it? I am both fluent and can hold a conversation in English, but does that mean I know every single word there is to know in the English language? No it does not. No one will ever truely know every single word there is in a language so surely your technical mind would then come to the conclusion that no one can ever say that they have "learnt" a language.

For me Learning is a ongoing process that will never cease once you start. I will learn to the day I die, because one can only ever stop learning when they know everything there is to know.

anplaya

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

Actually no the languages were Polish and Lithuanian Do most people know those words? And you "guessed" that because they would hardly come to Ireland to learn any other than English! What someone thinks "oh I want to learn Welsh. I think I'll go to Ireland!

I define picking up words every now and again as learning because is exactly what learning is. You are stuck is some "proper" idea of learning that was put upon you in the school system. Learning is finding out a piece of knowledge that you didn't know before. It is an activity and can be however long or short you want it to be.

And if you want to be technical about it and say there is only one method of "learning" how do you define having "learnt" a language. When you are fluent in it? When you can hold a conversation in it? I am both fluent and can hold a conversation in English, but does that mean I know every single word there is to know in the English language? No it does not. No one will ever truely know every single word there is in a language so surely your technical mind would then come to the conclusion that no one can ever say that they have "learnt" a language.

For me Learning is a ongoing process that will never cease once you start. I will learn to the day I die, because one can only ever stop learning when they know everything there is to know.

eh,i went through the same schools system as you did,i aint that much older than you if youre 18.

so if theyre polish and lithuanian?hello in polish is czesc and lithuanian is labas,tens of thousands of them living here,worked a few polish and lithuanian people.can say hello in estonian,latvian and russian too.big deal.

well considering most people who come here from different countries come here cause they see it as an english speaking country not an irish speaking one,your argument is flawed there.

all very good for you,but ya could put that learning to something better,like actually learning a language instead of how to greet everybody in their own language.

why dont ya go to a sign language class and learn sign rather than just know the alphabet and a song?then youll be able to have a conversation with a deaf person in isl which is a really wonderful thing.

9wetfckx43j5rg

No it's not flawed, you just repeated the exact same thing I said. You guessed they spoke English back to me easily because duh we speak english here and they would not come here to learn any other language!

If you want to prove you know just as much as me why don't you tell me three different ways to say "I'm ok" in lithunaian or "I love you" in polish?

I want to be able to greet everyone in their own language, not learn the whole language. Personally if I can say hello and how are you to ten people and make them feel that bit more welcome I would find that to be a much better thing than if I can hold one full convo with one.

And I already plan to learn more sign language when I'm out of college and actually have the time.

You went tru the same school system but I decided to take something different out of it, not just the ideals that were enforced upon you within it.

I respect different opinions instead of picking fights with someone who doesn't do things the same way I do, and so thinking that surely such methods can't be correct because they're not what I do.

anplaya

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

No it's not flawed, you just repeated the exact same thing I said. You guessed they spoke English back to me easily because duh we speak english here and they would not come here to learn any other language!

If you want to prove you know just as much as me why don't you tell me three different ways to say "I'm ok" in lithunaian or "I love you" in polish?

I want to be able to greet everyone in their own language, not learn the whole language. Personally if I can say hello and how are you to ten people and make them feel that bit more welcome I would find that to be a much better thing than if I can hold one full convo with one.

And I already plan to learn more sign language when I'm out of college and actually have the time.

You went tru the same school system but I decided to take something different out of it, not just the ideals that were enforced upon you within it.

I respect different opinions instead of picking fights with someone who doesn't do things the same way I do, and so thinking that surely such methods can't be correct because they're not what I do.

obviously theyd speak english or at least some if they were coming to a mainly english speaking country.its common sense.duh,as ye children say.

never said i knew as much as you, why would i know how to say im ok in lithuanian or i love you in polish?thats like me saying right ya tell me how to say this and so in this language.tbh i could have just looked it up on the internet but i didnt . i cant speak those words.i dont know the languages.all i know is a few words that ive heard or being told in those languages or others.i havent made an attempt to learn the language.

if ya learn how to speak a language fluently ya can have a conversation with more than 1 person rather than stopping after saying hello,how are you to those ten people.get yerself a book on sign language or any other language rather than just picking up one or two words in different languages,youll feel like youve achieved a lot more .look at it for ten mins every day,its amazing what ya can pick up in just 10 minutes.as ya said ya never stop learning,surely ya have 10 mins in your busy timetable to learn something new?

what do ya mean the ideals that were forced on me?your words not mine.taking something different out of it?such as what?respecting other cultures?learning about other cultures?as i said im not much older than you.going to college?check ,already did that.like youre doing now.travelled?check, already did that.working,doing that.i suppose like any normal person in this country has done.

as ya said different strokes for different blokes.continue doing what youre doing,sorry for the nitpicking,just sayin what i think learning a language means.:)obviously we have different ideas on that sure.:P

Aard

FruitLover wrote: »

Over a billion people speak various forms of Chinese (supposedly the most difficult family of currently spoken languages), including infants and retards, so you can do it too.

I'd love to know who proliferates this kind of information. Chinese is not, by any stretch of the word, either one of or "the" most difficult family of currently spoken languages. From the perspective of a European, the languages of Native America are far and away the most difficult languages - Chinese pales in comparison. In fact, due to Chinese being an analytic language, it is relatively easy for most people to learn. The tones may be difficult - but hey, even Norwegian and Swedish have tones! Chinese writing, on the other hand, is certainly one of the most difficult.