What other languages do you know?

[Why Syzygy]

There isn't a language group on DU, but who knows words better than writers?

I know a little Spanish. I've had the desire to learn conversation Spanish due to the large Spanish speaking population in my state and because many jobs require bi-lingual. Never have.

However, I am studying HUNA and this has sparked a desire to learn the Hawaiian language. It is a very old language, and said to possess keys to spiritual secrets. I have found some cool websites and will be looking for anything local.

Does anyone here know it? Any tips on learning a foreign language? I had a mean Spanish teacher and did my best to goof off as much as possible. I don't think there would be similarities to learning Hawaiian anyway because Spanish is so close to English in many ways.

[HamdenRice]

1. Best advice: Make friends with people who speak the language

At various times I've been conversational in several languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Afrikaans (the Dutch dialect spoken in South Africa). I've studied, but never mastered, Setswana (the language of Botswana and western South Africa) and German. Right now I'm almost fluent in Spanish, and conversational in Portuguese (Brazilian only).

The best way to become conversational in a language is to practice with friends who speak it. A weekend hanging out with Spanish speaking people is worth a semester of Spanish in a course.

Another bit of advice is to learn a family of languages. When you get good at Spanish, that's the time to learn Portuguese. If you speak and read Spanish, you literally can learn Portuguese in a week. At some point, the Romance languages begin to sound like accents of each other. For example, I've never studied Italian, but when the Italian cable shows are on, I can understand what they're saying. It "sounds" to me like a weird combination/accent of Spanish and Portuguese.

[Why Syzygy]

4. I notice there

is an informal class offering Portuguese. There are also Spanish classes, of course.
That's tempting. What do you think of pursuing Portuguese with only a small comprehension of Spanish?

I have always been interested in other languages and word translations. Some of my work is in the floral field and I get a kick out of the Latin vs common names. For example, equisetum and 'horse tail'. I feel a compulsion to learn more languages.

[Orrex]

2. I am passably fluent in English, but that's about it

I would love to know a second language, but aside from the basic stuff I learned in high school and college, I'm out of luck.

Of course, I do know a little bit of Old English, so if ever I'm trapped in a meadhall eleven hundred years ago, I'll be all set.

[sybylla]

3. 2 years Latin, 3 years German, and 4 college semesters of Spanish

And I'm not fluent in any of them anymore because I don't have the opportunity to use them and remain familiar with them. Spanish I do better at in part because it is more recent and in part because we have a Spanish language newspaper at my grocery store.

I'm thinking of taking a refresher course in German because I'm getting into the German area of my genealogy and will need to be more fluent.

Latin, well, it was useful in helping me learn Spanish and though I can't conjugate anything in Latin anymore, I know it when I come across it occasionally in genealogical source documents and head straight for my dictionary.

My experience is that it isn't all that hard to learn a language. The problem is in keeping it. So my only advice for learning a language is finding a way to make it part of your life. Are there magazines or newspapers you can order in the Hawaiian language? Is there something you can find to read regularly to keep it up front in your memory?