Anyone like to learn languages?

[A Girl in Wonderland]

I love learning languages, is the best way to know differents cultures and people. I speak castillian spanish (native), english (intermediate level) and some italian and portuguese (very basic, but it's something  )

I would like to learn japanese or a nordic language 

[Mohini]

Namaste SlateRDays...

I am profoundly deaf since infancy.  I grew up in my Deaf Years (from infancy to seven and a half years old) without being able to speak my primary language.  I had gone through kindergarten and first grade (first six weeks - the rest was spent in a school for children with developmental disabilities) without knowing what was going on.  I was just waiting for recess, lunch, and best of all, going home.  I was finally diagnosed after the first grade (I am 50, so mistakes like this did happen) during the summer, and my family moved to San Antonio, TX for me to go to the school for the deaf there.

That said, it makes learning a new language for me very, very difficult.  I'm not fluent in any language, not even American Sign Language, other than my primary language.  There is a LOT of baggage associated with learning a language because of how late I started learning.  Imagine that I didn't get mainstreamed into public school until I was almost nine years old.  I really had to struggle to catch up in the first years, but then, my reading ability took a huge jump during high school, when I was reading a lot of science fiction.

I have had exposure to español, Esperanto, and Galeh Yuvo previously.  Now, I am actively studying Hindi and Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit).  I spent years learning and memorizing the writing system of these two languages (Devanāgarī), and learning the pronunciation rules for first Saṃskṛta and now Hindi (which are different).  After six or seven years, I can read and sound out words slowly, even though I may not know what it means.  I'm just starting to learn vocabulary and phrases with the help of friends from temple.

I have recited the Bhagavad Gītā entirely in Saṃskṛta and Hindi, for the purpose of learning to read and sound out the words in both languages.  I have read one other text in Saṃskṛta already.  I am now reciting Rāmāyaṇa (or Rāmacaritamānasa) in Avadhi (debatable whether it is really an eastern Hindi dialect or really a distinct poetic language often used for very important Hindu works).  In the Bhagavad Gītā, I look at the individual words and see how they are sandhi'ed together to form the correct spellings and pronunciation, from what I know so far, based on word morpheme boundaries (for example, (word)ā a(word) combines to form (word)ā(word), or (word)m (consonant-initial-word) becomes (word)ṃ (consonant-initial-word), etc.), and I look at the word grammar structure to try to get a rough idea of how it works prior to getting formal Saṃskṛta lessons some day.

The reason you won't find any reference to Galeh Yuvo is because it is an artificial or constructed language (conlang in short) that I created over 30 years ago out of frustration with the inability to learn a second language (as resources were not available to help me learn a second language per school requirements (I merely substituted some other classes in its place, and in college, I took Voice and Diction and other classes)).  It looks like this https://www.facebook.com/galeh.yuvo

[Lily.Arwen]

I am currently learning Norwegian, as I have recently moved here.

When my mind is a little less consumed with that, I should like to attempt Spanish.

[SlateRDays]

Hello everyone! I'm logged in today and noticed that my mail hadn't update me of the new responses. I'll reply to you each in time! Good to see you all!

[SlateRDays]

I'll start my replies from the bottom backwards. (Good ole' reverse me!)

I am currently learning Norwegian, as I have recently moved here.

When my mind is a little less consumed with that, I should like to attempt Spanish.

Now yesterday I took an online quiz on a website called study portal and found that Norway was on the locations suggested that I study in, based on my responses. Sweden, Switzerland, and i think it was Germany or Malta.

I found the answers shocking especially Norway as it wasn't an language I investigated studying, but I'm curious about it as a future option.

If you're able, could you share a little bit about your experience in Norway so far. Studies, culture, food or whatever you feel ok to share. I'm interested in hearing abit about it, as I don't know much about Norway itself.

[SlateRDays]

Hello Mohini! I'm saving you for last because I have a lot to say for what you've shared.

I love learning languages, is the best way to know differents cultures and people. I speak castillian spanish (native), english (intermediate level) and some italian and portuguese (very basic, but it's something  )

I would like to learn japanese or a nordic language 

Japanese is actually pretty fun, and if I may be honest, it's not hard. The challenge with Japanese is that is an extremely time consuming language to learn. There are the various writing system to practise writing (you can get good at writing katakana and hirgana in about 2 -3 weeks by practising a few times a day), but memorising them system with their roman-word, and being able to read that is time consuming. Kanji is fun to practise but time consuming to remember it all. Honestly if you had a language partner and practised a little words or phrases now and again, you could get very good at speaking it. Speaking it is easy once you know the rules, but then comes the illiteracy, and inability to write. That's how I would be more likely, complete mastery of speech with no ability to read or write.

If your heart is in it or you are just dedicated you'll get it and it'll be a fun rewarding challenge! And indeed it's a good way to connect. When you get to a point where you want to language exchange and you root out good candidates, you can make some good acquaintances and friends and most willing to share about their culture and country. It's a great way to reach for people with similar interests.

[SlateRDays]

Recently I've took it upon myself to start learning Korean, I'm nowhere near as good at it as I am with German, but other than that I find it's a very fun language to listen to, as well as Japanese. Languages like Swedish, Dutch, and Finnish are other languages I enjoy listening to, as they sound very interesting in my opinion.

Hey there! How is the writing system for Korean? Is it just it's own character system or is it a combination of writing systems like Japanese? How are the rule learning for Korean also? Anything that stands out to you? Does it compare to any other languages?

[SlateRDays]

Namaste SlateRDays...

I am profoundly deaf since infancy.  I grew up in my Deaf Years (from infancy to seven and a half years old) without being able to speak my primary language.  I had gone through kindergarten and first grade (first six weeks - the rest was spent in a school for children with developmental disabilities) without knowing what was going on.  I was just waiting for recess, lunch, and best of all, going home.  I was finally diagnosed after the first grade (I am 50, so mistakes like this did happen) during the summer, and my family moved to San Antonio, TX for me to go to the school for the deaf there.

That said, it makes learning a new language for me very, very difficult.  I'm not fluent in any language, not even American Sign Language, other than my primary language.  There is a LOT of baggage associated with learning a language because of how late I started learning.  Imagine that I didn't get mainstreamed into public school until I was almost nine years old.  I really had to struggle to catch up in the first years, but then, my reading ability took a huge jump during high school, when I was reading a lot of science fiction.

I have had exposure to español, Esperanto, and Galeh Yuvo previously.  Now, I am actively studying Hindi and Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit).  I spent years learning and memorizing the writing system of these two languages (Devanāgarī), and learning the pronunciation rules for first Saṃskṛta and now Hindi (which are different).  After six or seven years, I can read and sound out words slowly, even though I may not know what it means.  I'm just starting to learn vocabulary and phrases with the help of friends from temple.

I have recited the Bhagavad Gītā entirely in Saṃskṛta and Hindi, for the purpose of learning to read and sound out the words in both languages.  I have read one other text in Saṃskṛta already.  I am now reciting Rāmāyaṇa (or Rāmacaritamānasa) in Avadhi (debatable whether it is really an eastern Hindi dialect or really a distinct poetic language often used for very important Hindu works).  In the Bhagavad Gītā, I look at the individual words and see how they are sandhi'ed together to form the correct spellings and pronunciation, from what I know so far, based on word morpheme boundaries (for example, (word)ā a(word) combines to form (word)ā(word), or (word)m (consonant-initial-word) becomes (word)ṃ (consonant-initial-word), etc.), and I look at the word grammar structure to try to get a rough idea of how it works prior to getting formal Saṃskṛta lessons some day.

The reason you won't find any reference to Galeh Yuvo is because it is an artificial or constructed language (conlang in short) that I created over 30 years ago out of frustration with the inability to learn a second language (as resources were not available to help me learn a second language per school requirements (I merely substituted some other classes in its place, and in college, I took Voice and Diction and other classes)).  It looks like this https://www.facebook.com/galeh.yuvo

First of all Namaste to you as well Mohini! I have to say, that how you overcome and adapted to your circumstances is quite cool. Your persistence and breaking things down and finding a rhythm to keep going, shows strength.

I had a chance to look at the link for Galeh Yuvo and it's impressive. Seriously impressive.

Now you said that it took more than 30 years to create this language.
1. How did you start with creating this language? Did you start with the character set? Or did you use voice and the work from there.

2. What's the language closest too? Is it close to what you were learning? Or is the pronunciation a mix of most of the languages you were learning?

3. Finally (but not). What's your sentence structure? I mean in the basic terms, what would one need to know to speak and write in a basic way to communicate?

Thank you so much for answering my questions in time, and your ability to do this, despite all you've struggled with, is extremely cool!

[Mohini]

Now you said that it took more than 30 years to create this language.

1. How did you start with creating this language? Did you start with the character set? Or did you use voice and the work from there.

2. What's the language closest too? Is it close to what you were learning? Or is the pronunciation a mix of most of the languages you were learning?

3. Finally (but not). What's your sentence structure? I mean in the basic terms, what would one need to know to speak and write in a basic way to communicate?

Thank you so much for answering my questions in time, and your ability to do this, despite all you've struggled with, is extremely cool!

Namaste SlateRDays!

Let me clarify that it didn't take me 30 years to create the language, but that it was first created over 30 years ago. 

I started out with creating the character set, which as you see it now is not the original appearance.  I was finally able to buy and download an inexpensive font editor that would actually work, not crash, and not do unpredictable vector directing and setting (all of which Font Forge was prone to).  I did this nearly 3 years ago.

Originally Galeh Yuvo started out as a coded language between myself and a friend, as we were taking a world geography class in high school, which is where the inspiration came from, not to mention we were heavily into the ideas of reincarnation, modern civilization thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago, and so on.  I did most of the creating, and he helped with suggestions.  Later on, the language merely became a way for me to write down passwords for computer accounts in plain sight at work without anyone being able to read it.  I extended that to home once the Internet became available in my dwelling (as I didn't want maintenance people seeing my information and cracking accounts while I was at work).

I felt that I was forced to develop my language as a liturgical language for Hinduism, as I don't know Sanskrit enough to form my own pūjās that I use every morning.  It started out in this new direction three years ago as well, as I was in a Christian-run homeless shelter in deep East Texas for 3 weeks.  I was compelled to come up with something in defense against the Christian traditions they forced on everyone there in the shelter.  They WILL try to convert you, which I resisted.

The vocabulary, spelling modifications, and pronunciation all come from seven different languages; English, español, Scottish, Latin, American Sign Language, Turkish, and Sanskrit.  Each of these languages only influence a very particular aspect or two of Galeh Yuvo.

Galeh Yuvo means "To simply be."  You might also say, "You are that."  It is also a greeting, a reminder to each other to "just Be as you are."  Pronunciation is based on the pronunciation rules in español (flat vowels and unaspirated consonants only).  Scottish gives one thing - the "ch" sound as in Loch to indicate something to the listener so as not to confuse the listener what the word or the spelling is.  Turkish gives me loan words I can't find elsewhere. 

The writing system for Galeh Yuvo is what I would call a hybrid abugida.  I say that because specifically in reference to the writing system and what it represents in print, Latin and Sanskrit influences how to read the characters in Galeh Yuvo.  An abugida is a type of writing system in which consonants have priority over vowels.  In Sanskrit, you NEVER see consonants written in a different form UNLESS it is part of a consonant cluster like ng, st, stv, cch.  Vowels could be written in full form OR in dependent form (diacritics around the consonant before you pronounce the vowel sound).  This means that if you see this - srwuy - it may indicate to you to say, sarawooya.  The consonant "w" will have a marking about it that will tell you to say "woo," not "wa."  The "u" letter after w in this case will not be written in its full form, as it is attached to w.  If it was spelled like "uznv," then you would see the "u" written out in its full form.  This is how it works in sanskritized languages like Hindi.  Now, in the Latin alphabet (not the language necessarily), you will see that there is only one way to write the vowel sounds, and that means if you saw aplicant, that's how it was pronounced.  Not as apolicanyt, aplicuanoti, etc.  You did not insert extra vowel sounds if there wasn't one written there.

Again, Sanskrit is a language in which the writing system places emphasis on consonants (you don't always see the vowel letters written for the "a" sound, but it is there and you have to pronounce it even though it is not written).  Another attribute of Sanskrit is that it is one sound for each letter.  You never see f and ph having the same sound, or "t" as in Tom and butter having the same letter.  The same applies for vowel sounds.  A language using the Latin alphabet typically shows you that what is written vowel-wise is to be pronounced, nothing more, nothing less.  If it's not there, you don't say it.  Galeh Yuvo combines the two in a way that every letter has only one sound, a consonant, without a vowel written after it, is pronounced with the inherent vowel grouping it belongs in (five groupings; a, i, u, e, o in this order), otherwise a vowel letter (always written in full like in Latin) written after it modifies the pronunciation from the default.

As far as I know, the language doesn't seem to resemble anything out there as far as sound goes.  It's not intelligible to anyone as far as I know.  Incidentally, Galeh happens to be the name of a village somewhere in the middle east... (Galeh is not how it's spelled, but it helps a non-speaker pronounce it correctly, more or less)  The sentence structure is largely based on American Sign Language.

Sorry for the complicated explanation...

[SlateRDays]

Hello there Mohini, I'm just dropping by to let you know I had a chance to read your post and will reply next week when I get a clear slot of time to focus. Take care and have a good weekend everyone!

[SlateRDays]

Hello Mohini,

Was awhile, but now I have some free time to write.

You have done a lot of work in creating Galeh Yuvo. In fact, how you approached the creation, could give clues to how other countries created their own languages. Once you start studying languages, you realise that the tower of Babel situation is more than likely real. The frustration of not being able to say things like others or for other to understand, then eventually dividing each other off in to groups of people who GET what you're saying. Taking that a step further and speaking, then creating character sets, and the eventually down the line making rules and omitting certain words and changing the word order so that the language has it's own flow.

If someone wanted to learn Galeh Yuvo, how long do you supposed it would take them to get just the basics? The ability to speak, and then the ability to read? And in total how many characters are there that would need to be learned?

Also it's no worries on the length of the explanation. It's interesting the read the process and motivation in how the language came to be. Just reading it over and over again, I feel it would take some time to fully grasp the rules, and the ability write/draw out the characters. I figure it would be similar to Japanese in time consumption, but not AS long as Japanese. There are 3 characters sets you have to remember, and be able to write/draw. That would take more than a year to come close to being basic.

Thanks so much for sharing about the processes that have gone into birthing Galeh Yuvo, and please have a wonderful weekend!

[SiobhánF]

Yeah, for sure. I started in high school. I took French for three years, officially, but I self-studied Japanese and Russian. Learned a bit of Spanish, but it's pretty easy if you know French (even though French is more difficult). I took elementary Korean while I was stationed there for the first time. I can read, write, and speak it, but comprehension is splintered. I love languages. I want to learn Swedish, now.

[Mohini]

Hi SlateRDays,

I can say that there are 26 letters, in that there are 26 sounds only.  No combination of consonants are used to make extra sounds like "ch," "sh," "x," nor are there consonant conjuncts such as "sk," "mn," "nm," "pt," etc.  ALL consonants have their own inherent vowels, one of five vowels.  This means that you don't run into the tongue-twisting combinations of consonants like in "mixture," "punch machine," etc.  However, there are tongue-twisting combinations of successive sounds, like this - woolehneerohmeerohlehmee. You have to remember which consonant belongs in which vowel group.  The one exception is the "vowel retainer," the last letter of the alphasyllabary.  This does not have its own inherent vowel, but has you make the "ch" sound as in Scottish "ch," "Loch" after the inherent vowel sound of a consonant and before the matching written vowel sound that follows the consonant.  This is an example:

grsom

That would be pronounced as "geh-ree-soh-'ch'-oh-mah."  This sound indicates to the listener that the word is spelled grsom, not grsm, because the inherent vowel of s is "o."  By hearing the "ch" sound, you realize that the "o" sound after the "ch" sound is not the inherent vowel of "s," but a written vowel letter that has to be written down for proper spelling.  Dropping the written "o" and not pronouncing the "ch" accidentally could give you an entirely different word with a different meaning. 

Another instance is when you see a word like jtdeetm, which would be like "jeh-too-deh-eh-too-mah."  "Deh-eh" means that two written vowels together have to be pronounced as a vocal stop (say "deh," pause for just an instant, and then say eh - don't say the "h" at the end of these syllables because they are there to make you see and hear eh as in "Clever buggers, these yanks, eh," and not "ee" as in bead).  This way, the Scottish "ch" tells you of an unwritten vowel/written vowel combination, and the vocal stop tells you of TWO written vowels together in a word.  It IS possible to have both sound effects in one word!

The nice thing about my character set is that, like Hindi and Sanskrit, there are no capital letters to learn.  The old alphasyllabary from 30 years ago had this capitalization feature, with the addition of a small prefix marking that helped one to realize that this was a capitalized letter without having to alter the character itself.  Later, I dropped it after learning the Devanāgarī writing system for Hindi and Sanskrit.  I had somehow been leaning that way for a few years prior to that, anyway.  Mental impressions from a previous life as an Indic language speaker?

I cannot go into certain details (this language is undocumented, as ALL TEXT found online exist as images only), but I can say this.  Creating the vocabulary is easy in the romanization mode, but one has to practice the writing system, and the font is available so that when you install it as a font for your browser, you're able to learn to read the writing system by reading the font in English.  However, there are a few letters or sounds that are missing from Galeh Yuvo, in that all vowels are long and flat, one consonant has been deprecated in favor of another consonant letter, and another secondary sound of that letter has been relegated to another consonant and kept there, which creates the situation where there is NO guessing as to whether this letter is sometimes an "s" sound or a "k" sound, whether the "a" is sometimes an "a" as in sad or "ah," etc.

To learn the language?  I'm not sure.  I'm sure it could be mastered within a year if one would put all the time one could into learning this language.  You have to learn the writing system, its sounds, begin forming vocabulary, and learn grammar.

The numerical system is also 10-based, but the numbers graphically represent some kind of image progression as you go through 1-10, and the pronunciation of the numbers is very systematized and worked out to the extent possible to avoid sounding like a possible word that is non-numerical.  Like "one" and "wonderful."  I'd have to work with vocabulary extensively to see if there is a word containing the sound sequence used for a particular number.

[popa910]

I definitely enjoy learning languages!  I speak English natively.  I'm actively learning German, French, and Japanese, and I'm also brushing up on my Spanish.  And if you count programming languages, I'm nearly fluent in Python and I'm learning C++   I use both for my job.

I don't entirely know why I enjoy learning languages so much.  A couple of things that I know I like about learning languages are:
1) Often, a language will reveal information about the culture(s) which speak it.  For example, whilst learning Japanese, I noticed that the word for "bread" is written in the set of characters that are reserved for things from foreign places, and that it actually was the same as the corresponding Spanish word, "pan".  Based on this, I was able to deduce that bread was (surprisingly to me) not native in Japan.  After research, I discovered that it was brought by the Portuguese in the 16th or 17th century.
2) You will learn new ways of thinking, simply because the language expresses things in a different way.  Occasionally, the new language will allow you to think or express things that simply can't be expressed in a different language.
3) Also, I want to travel a lot, so learning languages should be helpful.

[CoriM]

Since it got the bump up, it's my turn!

I took Spanish for 3.5 years in high school, then got seduced by German in my senior year. The teachers really didn't like it when another student and I spoke (oh what would you call it, not Spanglish, Germanish? Spanman?) and cracked wise.

I college I took Attic Greek, using Homer's Iliad for a base.
another year of German 25 years later and I only use any of them for listening.

[Kylo]

I did 5 years of French in school, one year of Spanish and I have some knowledge of Japanese. I don't learn languages easily - except English, which I was very good at apparently... probably only because I read a lot of books as a kid (wasn't allowed to watch TV much). The French and the English sank in at a young age, but anything I try to learn now has to be hammered in by constant use or it falls out of my head quickly.

The best way of learning really is to be in the country that speaks whatever language... then you're forced to make use of it. If I'm doing that, I can pick things up well, but if not... it's quite difficult to retain anything. I'm really not a natural at it, unlike several of my teachers who all knew 6+ languages fluently. I'm long past the stage of brain development where learning languages comes almost naturally. Now it's like if I'm not being made to remember something by necessity, I won't.

[Jennifer RachaelAnn]

I'm currently learning 3 languages. Spanish, French, and German. I have always wanted to learn Spanish and French. Not sure why. And German is a huge part of my heritage (except for 1932-1945) and I take great pride in my heritage. I'm also Scottish, Irish, and Cherokee. I want to learn Gaelic and Latin, but so far haven't found any resources to learn either. For the first 3 I have Rosetta Stone for all. It's a rather intense schooling, but totally worth it.

[SonadoraXVX]

You learn a language, you learn another worldview and potential friends of other cultures. My first language is Spanish(born in Mexico, raised in the U.S), parents were Mexicans but naturalized American citizens, best and only way to communicate with my parents WAS spanish. Best way to stay sharp in any modern language, is to practice it in its environment(i.e.I live in South Central Los Angeles(predominantly Spanish/slang English language). Ancient language, I guess just reading it daily, to really know what the language is saying.

I personally stick to Spanish/Portuguese, and some French, since their all a stone throw's away from Spanish.

P.S. Want to learn that target language, try to find people who speak that target language, and befriend them, and you will be golden. Ancient language, I guess just reading. I know Esperanto had these or may still have these conventions where people would get together and network on that language only, really cool.

[SlateRDays]

I'm going to replying to you all tonight. It's not always alerting me when I have a notification for this thread.

[maksim]

Like Mohini, I'm very hard of hearing (though not legally deaf) and I have sensory processing disorder, so that makes learning new languages VERY difficult.
However! I am currently learning Russian, primarily focusing on reading and writing with proper grammar and expanding my vocabulary. It helps that I have friends in Russia to write with. A bit later on I'll worry about actively speaking and listening with little time to process, once I have grammar and vocabulary at a good level.
I'm hardly able to understand English, and my ability to listen and distinguish words in Russian is about the same. Thankfully I have one friend who is very understanding of this, and we do speaking and listening exercises together, where she will speak Russian or English and I'll respond with the transliteration of the audio as well as the translation to whichever language, and she'll do the same. We do this back and forth.
My pronunciation is terrible, and I've heard that I sound very aggressive when I'm speaking Russian. Really, I'm just speaking at a level where I can understand myself. But I'm working on toning that down some too!

Other languages I've tried to learn but lost interest in are Japanese, German, Spanish, and French. As far as speaking and listening goes, Japanese was by far the easiest, but it was by far the hardest with reading and writing (darn you, kanji!). The hardest to speak and listen to was either French or German, it's really a toss-up between those two, but writing was pretty straightforward.

Russian is a good balance of both. It's pretty much a phonetic language (with a few exceptions), so it's spoken just as it's written. That really helps! But for anyone interested in learning Russian that's reading this, beware of the letter "о" - sometimes it's pronounced as if it's an "а"!