True, red blooded Murrican here.

I always found British English a little odd, and although your students complaints are quite valid, try to make note that if you do a little thinking, both the British and American counterparts make perfect sense.

I've adopted a few British English in to my everyday vocabulary for the aesthetics or function of the word.

I always remember that brit lads use a rubber to correct their mistakes, whereas an american boy uses an eraser because later in life I found out that people in the U.S call condoms rubbers lol
also, brits smoke fags and in the U.S no one would say that.
These kind of things have always made me think that british english sounds rather gay.

>>9559
Brits use a rubber to correct their mistakes,
Americans use a rubber to PREVENT mistakes.

>>9553

>Also, the notion of a monolingual 'British' English is silly, the version taught to foreigners should be called BBC English or Southeastern English, as there are numerous regional standards in Great Britain.

This is true, however having never spent any time in Britain I'm definitely no expert on the subject, so I just had to use "British English" as a general term. American English has plenty of different dialects as well.

>>9554
I agree, there's definitely no one superior dialect. It's just a bit of an adjustment for them, as well as for myself.

>>9554

>I've adopted a few British English in to my everyday vocabulary for the aesthetics or function of the word.

I like how often some British people say "engaged". For example, "the telephone is engaged" or "the clutch is engaged".

It's a useful word that is underutilized in American English.

Related: learn Thai first, if you become fluent in Thai, learning Lao should be a piece of cake.

i didn´t find learning kittens helped me at all with cats, it´s like a different animal.

there are some scientists that think that caterpillars and butterflies are 2 different species, that the butterfly is born inside of the caterpillar and she eventually kills him and eats his body and then emerges.. i think cats and kittens are like that.. i love htem both though

Learn Latin first, become fluent, then learn >romance language, which should be a breeze then.

Actually, whatever language you want to learn, just learn all the others first.

Learn Indoeuropean first, become fluent, then learning most languages will be a breeze

>>9543

The pinyin is the part that actually shows tone/pronunciation. Which is essentially to everyone learning the language, however that is all it should do.

Expressing just pronunciation and tones can lead to misunderstandings though, with the way the language is constructed (as shown in the picture.)
Thai and Lao have more tones than chinese, so it helps with general understanding with their writing system.

Also, any language can be an international language. It will have to be taught in school from a young age (like most countries and English). Chinese isn't harder than any other language, it's just a different view that is radically different from European languages. Teach it in schools and it could easily become the worlds next "international language".

I personally find Chinese very enjoyable, but I wouldn't want it as a true international language, it'd lose the wow factor when talking to people.

>>9545
Frankly I'm sick of the wow factor whenever I speak it. It gets really old when you have to explain all this shit about how/why you know their language. It is a pretty language though. I like what Korea did to their language but I'd rather it kept it's picto-graphic quality.

Lojban. Inb4 nobody speaks it; that's beside the point. Esperanto CAN be tough shit if you're not already speaking an Indo-European language. Lojban at least tries to be as neutral as possible.

Hard mode Xhosa, of course.

>>7629

comments like this make me wonder why do anons in this board keep saying that spanish is easy to learn.
anyway, bumping for latin.

>>9558

Spanish is pretty easy compared to languages like Japanese or Arabic.

>learn hiragana/katakana/romaji for quickest access to written materials (almost all will be written in these)

>Pick up a grammar book. I recommend

http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Comprehensive-Grammar-Grammars/dp/041509920X
Read it to cover conjugation rules. Memorize them.

Then just run sentences from basic to increasing complexity.

I see a car
I see a red car
I see a red car on the road

It will slowly reinforce grammar structures while also incorporating new grammar. Do this for as many "topics" you can, and you'll be on a good start.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0072408154

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• hiragana/katakana
  
• Tae Kim
  
• Remember the Kanji
  
• Gamecenter CX
  

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/blog/2010/11/20/learning-via-animemanga/
Some pointers about using anime and manga for input.

>>7945
I know a girl 2 years younger than me that speaks English (with Russian accent), Russian, Icelandic, Dutch, and French.

>She is possibly the sexiest woman alive.

Look at me, I'm OP, muh heritage blah blah blah

You're not Polish, OP. Get over it.

Swedish (my native language) with a finnish accent, if spoken by a pretty girl she has my instant affection. The weird thing is that ordinary finnish does nothing for me, it's just the finnish accent on swedish.

The way the woman spoke in Fargo really got me going. Even the not-so-pretty whores in that movie.

I would cum so hard if one of them said "yaaa" as I ploughed into that ass

>>9533
I don't think you understand how incredibly fucking Polish some people can be. I'm not talking that you had an aunt or uncle fifty or so years ago that was slightly Polish; my whole mother's side of the family is Polish with a couple hiccups here and there. They're everywhere here in Michigan.

>>9548

Klaro by Susan Tebbutt is one of the clearest German grammar books available, I'd thoroughly recommend it.

The funny thing is: Everyone here is learning Danish.

Norway is cool, yous has the black metals.

>>9477

>I would think the ending is imperative because the suffix indicates the word "the."

I don't know exactly what you mean, but I don't think imperative is the word the word you are looking for

>So should I pronounce words that end in -en, -a and -et or is that optional?

Always pronounce them. But the t in -et is silent. And in words like sentralstasjonen and resepsjonen you should still pronounce the -en, but the last e is unstressed and nearly not noticeable, so that the word sounds a bit as though it ends in some elongated n. (and think rhythmically -- this is its own syllable)

I hope that cleared it up for you!

>>9488
Yeah I listened to the lesson. The pronunciation sounds perfectly normal to me.
It might be difficult to tune in to, I think to a foreigner they will sound the same. But "resepsjon" and "resepsjonen" are pronounced differently. But (in my dialect anyway -- which is pretty close to those recordings you linked to) the difference is very subtle since the last e is silent in colloquial speech.

What I would do is to encourage you to pronounce "resepsjonen" as it's spelled. That's also quite normal.

Bookmarkulated


>>8575
Norwegian syntax is a tad bit different from Dutch, but quite similar to English syntax, so I don't think you'll have too much difficulty.

In terms of orthography, Norwegian and het Nederlandse gespreek are very similar. We're consistent, but there are of course dialects.
An example of how much pronunciation might vary: last time I was in Oslo this girl I was talking to had to interrupt me every fifth sentence or so, she even had the nerve to ask "so, where in Europe do you come from" although I had already told her I came from the northern region..
Dumb bitch

>>8517
protip: the 'd' in words ending with 'ldt' often turn voiceless (no, i dont mean silent) in many northern dialects

I was a bit confused at this, so I searched your quote and found the following online:

> The English word "peptic" comes from the Latin word pepticus which comes from the Greek word peptikus which comes from the Greek word peptein, meaning "to digest".

Without verifying anything, I find the explanation quite plausible. The conversion (that is, the process of changing the grammatical class of a word) was done within the same language. From the text, it sounds like the Greek language had only a verb "to digest" and when the need for a noun arose, they based it on that verb. (An example in English is "conceit," which was formed from "to conceive," in analogy to receive/receipt and deceive/deceit.)

Keep in mind that languages don't have to be familiar with another language's grammar to borrow words—they basically have no idea what they're doing and just take a word that seems useful and use it the way they want. The term "déjà vu" comes to mind, which would simply confuse everyone if you used it in French like in English, since it literally means "already seen" and has no further meaning to it.

Furthermore, keep in mind that "peptic" is a scientific word. The point here being that it's a word that was introduced artificially and intentionally to mean a very specific meaning. The stories of these words (from where they come from, how they've changed, etc.) are usually a little more controlled than common words such as "deer" (which has a very interesting story) or "to starve."

>>9526
So basically what you're saying is words are formed and borrowed at the discretion of whoever borrows it? Then how do we (way in the future here) know that the word peptein existed before peptikus when we weren't there when they created the language?

>>9432
is there a standard way to find Japanese words? Every time I see a Japanese symbol I'm baffled by how I might look it up.

>>9437
Yep, you can look them up in various ways. If you don't know the pronunciation, then you usually look Kanji up by stroke count (how many times does you brush touch the paper to draw this?) and/or by radical (what element is there in the kanji?)

For your example:
The stroke count is nine I think.
The radical is the thing at the top that looks a bit like a flat roof and chimney.

>>9440
Is the apostrophe part on the left part of the radical, and if not, are radicals always connected?

>>9447

Yes it is. No they aren't.

>>9437
If you know or can guess the stroke order, you can use this handwritten kanji search:
http://kanji.sljfaq.org/

or you can go the eeeeeasy way and look it up piece by piece here:
http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/

No ja jebię w pizdu to już nawet nie jest śmieszne

>sylwek 11/12
>pijemy u Wojtasa
>to uczucie gdy rano narzygane do pralki

>weź sobie cherbatnika
>ale ja nie mam cherbatnikuf

>moja twarz gdy lodowy skurwysyn z cukru

>>8695
Za siedmioma górami, za siedmioma lasami, leżało sobie pewne królestwo. W samym sercu stolicy piętrzyły się ściany olbrzymiego labiryntu - wedle tradycji, śmiałek, któremu udałoby się dotrzeć do wyjścia, miał prawo wżenić się w królewską rodzinę. Jako że król miał już swoje lata, stwierdził, że należy postarać się o zięcia, więc ogłosił otwarcie labiryntu dla wszystkich chętnych. Niestety, chętni w tym sezonie kiepsko obrodzili - większość z nich umierała z głodu, zgubiwszy się w gąszczu ścian, albo ze zdumieniem wychodziła tam, skąd przyszła. W końcu w świat poszła fama, że labirynt jest przeklęty, a król w okrutny sposób bawi się kosztem śmiałków, którzy odważyli się marzyć o królewinej ręce. Wkrótce potencjalni zięciowie przestali się pojawiać, a król stracił wszelką nadzieję na wnuki...

Aż do pamiętnego dnia, gdy herold ogłosił przybycie bohaterskiego rycerza, gotowego podjąć się ryzyka. Nie byłoby w tym nic dziwnego, gdyby nie to, że mężny wojownik okazał się być... wielkim ch*jem. Dosłownie. Desperacja jednak wzięła górę i władca wysłał nasze dzielne prącie na spotkanie z labiryntem. Jednak w miarę mijających dni nadzieja króla coraz bardziej gasła...

Wtem, siódmego dnia, na tle wyjścia zarysowała się charakterystyczna sylwetka - tak! To był przyszły zięć króla, jaki by nie był ch*jowy. Głowa królewskiej rodziny, chcąc, nie chcąc, dotrzymała obietnicy, wyprawiła wystawny ślub i huczne wesele, i wszyscy żyli długo i szczęśliwie. Jaki z tej bajki morał?

Kto pyta, nie błądzi

Co się dzieje pajace nic nie mówicie

>>9499
thanks for the advice. i can't wait to start learning (also it helps that my best friend is from moscow!)
>>9501
i'll check into this, but i'm just worried about learning pronounciation. i guess that will have to wait for a class, however.

>>9499
also speaking of what you said, i know they are interchangable, but the issue of using russian in ukraine is somewhat of an issue as i know, because of soviet times and what have you. does anyone who has visited/lived in the country know if i can get by in ukraine just knowing russian? would it be off-putting? i plan on either going to kyiv, odessa, or kharkiv most likely (this won't be for a year or so.)

>>9514
I don't know the situation in Ukraine but I think my country, Switzerland, is in a similar situation — in a nutshell, the German we speak is very different from High German ("Germany German") and we don't like to speak "their" German*. Germans who live here and who do not understand Swiss German, forcing Swiss people to speak High German, will seriously piss off most.
However, when interacting with any other foreigner who has learned German, hardly any Swiss will get upset that he has to speak High German then. It doesn't make sense in a way but I trust the situation to be similar in Ukraine.
Besides, as long as you're friendly towards the people and thankful for their help, everything should be fine. Attitude makes a big difference and maybe even more so in such fragile situations.

• Not that we can do so properly, anyway. xD

>>9515
My apologies—the bullet at the end of my post is supposed to be a plain asterisk, denoting a footnote to '"their" German*' in the main part of my text. I'm not familiar with Chan formatting codes.

>>9514
whilst I have yet to visit Ukraine I believe that around a third of the country uses actual Russian as their first language anyway, especially in eastern areas - and I believe it is also popular with the young. I have even seen some ukranian tv that was actually just in Russian.
also, I was reading something recently(I cant remember what), something Russian from the 19th century, which referred to the 'ukranian dialect' as if they didn't consider ukranian a different language anyway

>>8872
boards.420chan.org/f/res/18862.php

It's kinda buggy but maybe it'll help you learn Katakana.

I'm still just a beginner, but I'll share what I know from my experience. Learn katakana first, and then start working on some vocab and kanji, later moving on to simple Japanese-English sentences, and ultimately Japanese-Japanese sentences.

First of all, download Anki and learn how to use it. Anki is God :D You're going to use it to enter all your material (vocab, kanji, sentences, entire anime show/j-drama/movie subtitles, whatever). Personally, I think it's way, way more efficient than the textbook + workbook approach. My progress, learning rate and memorization all went up dramatically when I made the Textbook -> Anki switch.

For vocab, you can start entering some words you often hear in japanese media, or just things you're interested in, really. You can also get this Anki shared deck https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2353399735 to use in addition to your personal list. If you do, it also has example sentences using the vocab which can be very useful. I suggest learning just the vocab at first, or it may seem overwhelming.

While you're studying your vocab, also work on kanji. RTK is the most common route, and if you're using Anki you can get a shared deck here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2582505257. I use a modified version I got from somewhere that only has 1900 of them, and I added additional meanings to the cards to help me out.

I started sentences when I had about 500 vocab and 500 kanji memorized, and that's when I also started watching Japanese dramas and movies without subtitles, or with subtitles in Japanese. No matter what method you use to study sentences, I suggest watching or listening to japanese material that's not recorded for a textbook. It will help you develop a feeling for how real japanese sounds - anime and textbooks recordings don't count. If you're using Anki, also check out subs2srs (http://subs2srs.sourceforge.net/). If you have a episode of a show, and subtitles in both english and japanese, it will automatically create Anki cards from the entire episode with the sentence, its translation, an audio clip and a screenshot. It's very, very powerful and simple to use. For the shows and subtitles themselves, you can check out http://www.d-addicts.com/ - the subtitles are in the "subtitle index" in the left menu.

Beyond that, I can only recommend what I read elsewhere. When you go trough about 1000 sentences (and hopefully finish RTK by that time) move on to Japanese-Japanese sentences, totally removing english from your studies.

That's kind of a short summary for such a big topic as learning a language, but I'm sure you'll find your way if you're determined to learn it :) Some more random resources:
http://tangorin.com/ - My favorite online dictionary. Very powerful and looks nice as well.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ and http://japaneselevelup.com/ , two websites by guys at or near fluency offering their tips and experiences. I got or modified some of my study methods thanks to them, and they're also good for motivation - especially AJATT :D

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Uh.

>>8866

Bit ambitious to be shooting for Kindergarten level already. But if it's available, you might consider watching Dora the Explorer in Japanese. You'll pick up loads of vocab from it, that's for sure.

As an 一年生　going into exams soon, the advice on learning Kanji is dead on. The advice we get from all of our senpai that return from their year abroad is to study our kanji. Don't worry too much about mastering any of it, just start throwing it in. It's not disgraceful to have to look up characters if you don't know them, whether hiragana, katakana or kanji, but the important part is that you do. Once you're comfortable with looking at ANY character and being able to look it up through radicals or stroke count like Ninkendo is essentially advocating, then you've broken through a wall most people don't have the patience to overcome.

>Erin's challenge

We get shown this in university when it matches a point we're being made in the textbook. https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ It's good stuff for beginners and to get some listening practice.

If you can afford it and are serious, consider taking some actual lessons. The one year I've spent studying at university has taught me 20 times what I've had the willpower to look up myself.

There's also the advice we get from our Japanese exchange students, on how they learned English, doing things like watching an American/British TV show or Movie with Japanese subtitles once, then removing the subtitles and trying to remember the context of the words and stuff.

But yeah, be ambitious. If you're diligent enough to study on your own I highly recommend it, but if you need the extra push, an actual programme of study is a good way to learn it.