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Learning languages


Ravenheart

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  • 3 months later...

Re: Learning languages I think thats really cool, learning languages is really important exercise for the brain (I believe) and Finnish isn't an easy one. Aside from English I speak Spanish fairly fluently but have little excuse to use it, studied Norwegian for a year, but I've switched to Swedish and I practice daily. I have a native speaker teaching me and I'm doing pretty well I'd say. I read better than I can hear. Do find that you struggle with either the visual or aural part of it?

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Je peux parle un peu de francais maintenant mais je suis a l'etage 'intermediaire'. I'm actually somewhat enjoying French right now and the program I'm in should make me a fairly fluent speaker. Oral comprehension is almost always more difficult than reading, the words are distinctly laid out.

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I have to admit that I have underestimated the difficulty of learning Finnish a bit, which means that I'm still a beginner. It has several cases and a lot of grammatic rules, which don't always seem logical. But since it's a home course, I can study at my own pace. And it's something I'm doing as a hobby, so I don't have any pressure. I have a few Finnish penpals, but I can't ask them yet to write to me in Finnish, because I'm not that advanced yet. So far, I find reading (simple) texts the easiest. I always struggle with the listening and pronunciation part. I've tried to listen to some Finnish interviews on Youtube, but I will still need a lot of practice before I'll be able to understand them. If you're looking for an excuse to use Spanish, Ghouly, I have a few books of Victoria Frances, because I love her artwork. But two of them are written in Spanish, so I don't understand a single word of the stories. So if you like a few texts to translate, just let me know. :)

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I have to admit that I have underestimated the difficulty of learning Finnish a bit, which means that I'm still a beginner. It has several cases and a lot of grammatic rules, which don't always seem logical. But since it's a home course, I can study at my own pace. And it's something I'm doing as a hobby, so I don't have any pressure.
If I understand correctly there's no definitive article in Finnish. I remember trying to learn a few phrases on and off but I never got particularly far.
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If I understand correctly there's no definitive article in Finnish. I remember trying to learn a few phrases on and off but I never got particularly far.
No, the Finnish language doesn't have a word for 'a(n)' and 'the'. That's one of the few advantages. If it helps, I haven't made much progress either so far. It's not always easy to find enough time to study with work and other things that need to be done. But I'm hanging in there. My course focuses on grammar first, so I've only learned a few words and expressions yet. Enough to complete the exercises. After the grammar, it's more about reading and listening. When you were learning Finnish, which course did you use?
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  • 9 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Remember how I decided to try learning French? Yeah that didn't go so well. Wondering if either A) the Iceman or Midi wouldn't mind terribly giving me some basic lessons/pointers or B) could recommend a website or video which may be useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcvavO5y8LU&list=PLwV06bsstK5tnAeVbvyP6lh7O3Qopvw_C

This is old, but really top notch. You need to find the best sound quality you can get, so of the Youtube videos are not good enough. one great thing about this series, beyond the use of the real language, is that you can see the mouths of the people speaking, that is key. The above video might sell you on French In Action. 

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Checking back in here. Still learning Swedish, still speaking it on an almost regular basis. Immersion truly changes everything, and when I was in Sweden earlier this year, at a family dinner party where we were all lit, eventually my brain just clicked over and I didn't have to translate. It just made sense as people were speaking. I specifically asked them not to speak English simply on my account.

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Checking back in here. Still learning Swedish, still speaking it on an almost regular basis. Immersion truly changes everything, and when I was in Sweden earlier this year, at a family dinner party where we were all lit, eventually my brain just clicked over and I didn't have to translate. It just made sense as people were speaking. I specifically asked them not to speak English simply on my account.

The same thing happens to me with Spanish when I drink. It helps get your cognitive mind out of the way and let's you more easily access that information. Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
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  • 1 month later...

I have been au pair in Stockholm and started to learn the language. Now I'm back to Italy after only 2 months and so sad because I was learning this language :(

I'm agree with the one who said the living in the country is the best way because you have no choise, you have to learn something. They can speak english to you but they will always talk in their native language to each other. They are not bad, they just forgot that you don't understand. And I think it's also the best way because you can hear the pronunciation and the grammar. You learn a lot of words as well.

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