The "I am learning ___ language and need help" thread

I speak fluent English. The study of my own language is something of a hobby of mine, so if anyone has any questions about a point of English they aren't clear on, feel free to ask me. If I don't know the answer off the top of my head (a possibility; remember that no one knows everything, even about his own native language), I have plenty of resource materials from which I can attempt to find out.

I speak a tiny bit of German, but I wouldn't recommend trying to ask me for help with it. There are plenty of actual Germans here who could be a lot more helpful there than I could.

I also speak some Japanese. I'm not fluent, but I do all right. I always got excellent grades in my classes when I was studying it actively, but keep in mind it's been a couple of years since I've really been able to use it. So I'm not as good as I used to be.
 
How good are you, Loaf Warden? Good enough to watch Bebop in Japanese? ;)

I'd love to be able to do that. The reason I don't use subtitles now is becuase its impossible for me to read emotion or tone in the Japanese language, so I miss out on half of the meaning...
 
Originally posted by cgannon64
How good are you, Loaf Warden? Good enough to watch Bebop in Japanese? ;)

I'd love to be able to do that. The reason I don't use subtitles now is becuase its impossible for me to read emotion or tone in the Japanese language, so I miss out on half of the meaning...
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Unfortunately, no. I can have decent conversations in Japanese, but watching a television show is another matter. For one thing, if you're talking to someone and they speak too fast, or they use a word you don't understand, you can ask them to slow down or paraphrase. The most I could do with Bebop is run my DVD back, but if I didn't catch it the first time, I probably won't catch it the second time either. For another thing, they don't really teach you conversational Japanese in a classroom. We learned some, and I picked up some more by talking to people, but I still wouldn't know enough to listen to someone else's conversation and know what it all meant.

Unfortunately, I'm quite out of practice. My university ran out of new Japanese classes for me to take, and I've been spending so much time working that I'm basically not going to school anymore. So I haven't advanced as much as I should have by now, and I'm starting to lose some of the things I knew. (Especially kanji. I doubt I could reproduce even half the kanji I used to know--and I knew less than half the kanji they use. Stupid, stupid kanji!)

So basically, if anyone is studying Japanese in school and has a question, I may be able to help. If anyone is at a conversational level and needs help, I'm not the one to ask.

[hijack]
P.S. Normally I would never advocate watching a dubbed anime. Most Western voice actors are terrible, largely because they don't take it as seriously as the Japanese actors do. Add that to the fact that it's impossible to get an accurate translation while still having the lines make sense in spoken English, and most dubbed anime are unbearable. But Cowboy Bebop is an exception. It's truly a first-class dubbing. True, the dub doesn't have Hayashibara Megumi . . . but then, the sub doesn't have Beau Billingslea or Melissa Charles. So it's a sacrifice either way.
[/hijack]
 
I speak fluent English obviously and am in the process of learning Spanish. I'm learning it in school right now and I know enough to be able to travel to a latin country but there's no way I could live there. But I do have a hard time learning Spanish words and sentence structure, even though its rules are more consistent and make more sense than English rules. Oh, and I can read a little bit of French, but not much.
 
I speak English and am almost fluent in Spanish after having been to Latin America twice and studying on my own outside of school. I can speak a little French, Italian, and German, but nothing even close to fluently. I know a few words in Russian as well, but those are like key phrases and stuff, no grammar or anything.

My girlfriend is actually learning Latin, as they are offering at my high school, and she is (sort of) enjoying that.
 
Self-taught? :eek: That's so self-control! What are you up to? We've done all 5 noun declensions and are in the process of learning the 2nd conjugation of verbs and past and future tense.

@ Loaf Warden: Like you said, CB has some really great voice actors on it. I had quite a shock when I heard Jet narrating some History Channel thing! :lol:

Although it can be interesting to watch the sub and see the slight difference in words and phrases...it can be awkward sometimes too. Like some phrases look funny in the sub or seem stupid - like one scene where Spike goes "You're making me angry..very angry..." Its just so stupid sounding I'm sure it sounds less dumb in Japanese. :p

Meanwhile I'm going to go watch my newly acquird Session 4. :yeah:
 
I am fluent in English....as its my native language. I am also pretty good at spanish...if i do say so myself :p. I can understand about 1/2 of the TV shows that i watch. I can speak a very small amout of German and an even smaller amout of French....and recently iv been trying to learn Norwegian. But i wouldnt be the one to ask about that :eek:
 
Originally posted by cgannon64
Although it can be interesting to watch the sub and see the slight difference in words and phrases...it can be awkward sometimes too. Like some phrases look funny in the sub or seem stupid - like one scene where Spike goes "You're making me angry..very angry..." Its just so stupid sounding I'm sure it sounds less dumb in Japanese. :p
Click to expand...

Exactly. Different languages express things in such different ways that it would be impossible to provide a completely faithful translation of one language that wouldn't sound stilted or unnatural or just plain stupid in another language. Especially when the languages are as different as English and Japanese. It's easier to be faithful in subtitles, because the point there is just to convey the meaning of what was said so the viewer can follow the plot. It's harder in a dub because if you simply convey meaning without taking into account what means of expression are and are not used in the new language, the dialogue will sound so absurd, the result will be unwatchable.
 
I had Latin at school for several years, but only did the exams in Greek.
 
@CG & LW,

The great thing about English, is that it has more words than most languages. most languages have one word for large&big, small&little, horrible&terrible&awful. There are many more examples.

Just a brilliant remark about the Dutch language: we use one word for 'to earn' & 'to deserve'.....
 
Originally posted by Marla_Singer

I didn't realized you were a french speaker ! How things are going on in the Vaud County ? :) Personally, french is also my mother tongue, I'm actually a parisian girl.
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Vaud county doing just fine (despite of the last elections here). I noticed you were french (all the threads about amrica vs. France), but didn't know you were a girl, nice to meet you

@Stapel
You know Lausanne! So you speak a bit french?
 
Originally posted by hawai_74

@Stapel
You know Lausanne! So you speak a bit french?
Click to expand...
Je suis ete en Lausanne trois fois. Tres tres belle!
Mais, je ne parle pas francais tres bien, parce que au jourd'hui tout les francais parlent anglais. On n'a pas besoin de comprendre francais!
 
There's is a lot of french speaking people that speak a very bad english (like me) or not at all. But you're right, in this forum all the french speak english, you know "the forum's laws...".

But some french words fit perfectly in an spoken or a written english, you can see it on some threads
 
I'm fluent in Swedish, Finnish and English. I understand French and could have a simple conversation with someone who speaks slow enough.

Furthermore I'm studuying, but not learning the Nordic languages. They some too close to my mothertongue. I think trying to learn Norwegian for instance would be equally difficult as learning som Swedish dialect without being at the place where it is spoken.

I'm trying to learn German and Latin on my own at the moment. Simply because I find it amusing:)
 
Originally posted by cgannon64
Anyone write or learning Latin? (I say write because no one speaks it. :p)

I'm not having trouble, just interested.
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I'm learning Latin. (currently taking Latin I at school)

I also know some French, in addition to my native English.
 
My native language is English, and I'm learning Russian. I definitely wouldn't say I'm fluent in it, but I don't need help or anything, I just felt like posting it. And just in case you were wondering, I *definitely* don't need help in English. :)
 
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