Ever wanted to learn a foreign language?

I wouldn't mind learning a few other foreign languages because they're going to useful for me in one way or another in the future.
 
I had always wanted to learn a foreign language and it was French that I always wanted to learn being that I had family who were French.

I learned a language in school but it was not something I could choose myself and that ended up being German which is of no use to me. I would love to be day find the time to learn French.
 
Henrywrites said:
I will suggest you learn Arabic. Most Arab countries have world of opportunities that you can tap up with.
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Arabic language is very painful for my eyes. I've tried reading it off inscriptions on the wall, it's hard to read. I can't study it no matter what I do.
 
Trying to learn some Japanese, its tough. So many characters to know
 
I know SOME spanish but dont know enough to really speak it.
 
froggyboy604 said:
I want to learn Japanese, so I can understand Japanese in anime I watch.
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Twenty years ago, this was the reason I started learning Japanese in College. Just so I could understand my favorite anime in its native tongue.... and then getting all the little cultural jokes that don't translate (especially the word "I" used in Gender-Benders, it's hilarious, but is lost when translating into English.

Grungie said:
The grammar isn’t difficult, but learning to read it is the most tedious part. They use 3 alphabets, and one of them (kanji) has 80,000 characters. Though most Japanese people don’t have all of them memorized, so you just need to know the more common ones.
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I think that 80,000 seems a bit high. I think Mandarin Chinese only has 20,000. As far as I know, Japanese Kanji is only comprised of about 1,920 official pictograms. And technically, it's four alphabets. Don't forget about Romanji-- the usage of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese syllables, to benefit Western learners of the language.

Hiragana and Katakana are fairly similar, the primary difference in recognition is that hiragana is more curvy and flowing, while katakana is much more angular and sharp, and knowing that Hiragana is only used for native Japanese words while Katakana is reserved strictly for foreign/borrowed words. It's like as if in English, if we wrote native words using print letters and foreign words using script.

Kanji is really just Chinese symbols borrowed from China with it's own meanings attached, and some of the meanings are similar between the Chinese version and Japanese version. Also, Kanji has two readings which further complicate things. And let's not even get into homophones (words that sound identical but are very different, and are written totally differently (like one variant may use hiragana, while another uses the On-reading of Kanji, and another variant would use the Kun-reading of Kanji (totally different symbols but sound the same)).

KoolSoul said:
Trying to learn some Japanese, its tough. So many characters to know
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But keep in mind that the typical Japanese person learns a little bit at a time throughout their entire education career, and often, hiragana characters are placed over any Kanji characters that would typically not be below a specified reading level. So, if you want to, you could learn to read Japanese by studying children's books. Of course, knowing how these symbols are supposed to sound will greatly assist in your learning adventures.

And there's also a difference between being fluent as in communicative language learning (speaking only) versus knowing how to read and furthermore, write the symbols of a language. Know that for centuries prior to like the 1500, most people were illiterate, but they certainly had spoken command of a language.

But the best way to learn any language is by immersing yourself into it. I like to play a game with myself. I'll substitute English words with Japanese words randomly throughout the day. Some days, I'll count only using Japanese words. Make flashcards and put them around your apartment/house for common things. Once upon a time, I got one of those old label makers and labeled my cabinets using Romanji. Some days, while I'm getting dressed, I'll name the articles of my outfit in Japanese. These games not only help me to increase my vocabulary, but also reinforce my memorization of the words.
 
I never realized there were that many. Could imagine reading a book or some paper that has one of those obscure Kanji on it? I'd feel like I was in ancient Egypt or something!
 
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