Language learners' discussion thread !! :D

[icebags]

Hello all, any language enthusiasts out there ? Who feel there are more languages out there than our typical 3-language boundary and that need to be leaned to understand the world better ?

Then join here and find your kins to practice, discuss and to share and obtain guidance for your linguistic skills ! I personally learned Mandarin for 2 years, but forgot a lot of it because of not using it. Also, I know a little Japanese (got interested by watching those anime and listening to JPop songs ). So, if anyone out there want to keep on practicing, sharing or even want to start learning ..... please step forward and introduce yourself !!

Starters may see this page : Omniglot - the guide to languages, alphabets and other writing systems

About my knowledge and interests:
Bengali (Mother tongue !!)
English (From school ! )
Hindi (Picked up from TV: can speak/ read, but to write, give me a news paper plix ! )
Mandarin (need practice, forgetting .....)
Japanese (trying to learn)
~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~
Language enthusiasts' name base:
I am hoping interested people will find their guide or pupil with this. I will be happy to provide support with whatever little knowledge I have, but I do want to find a guide too.

Spoiler

I will be using following legend to identify users, if anyone wants on/off the list or a particular legend, please let me know.
Bold -> Wants to teach / guide; Italics -> Wants to Learn; Normal -> User

Arabic
chintan786,Liverpool_fan
Assamese
Sam,JojoTheDragon
Bengali
krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons,Sam,icebags,Krow
Bhojpuri
nims11,Kola2842,dashing.sujay
Creole
Sam
French
clmlbx,krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons,chintan786,Sam,dashing.sujay
German
freshseasons,Charan,esumitkumar,dashing.sujay
Gujarati
nims11,clmlbx,freshseasons,chintan786,Krow
Haryanvi
chintan786,
Hindi
nims11,clmlbx,krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons,chintan786,Charan,abhidev,Sam,esumitkumar,icebags,Krow,axes2t2,Kola2842,ajai5777,Liverpool_fan,JojoTheDragon,dashing.sujay
Italian
freshseasons,JojoTheDragon
Japanese
nims11,freshseasons,icebags,JojoTheDragon
Kannada
Charan,
Konkani
Charan,abhidev,Krow
Korean
rhitwick
Maithili
Krow
Magahi
dashing.sujay
Malayalam
ajai5777
Mandarin (Chinese official language)
clmlbx,krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons,Charan,icebags,
Marathi
freshseasons,Charan,abhidev,Krow,axes2t2,
Nepali
abhidev,
Persian
freshseasons,
Punjabi
chintan786,
Pushtu
chintan786
Sanskrit
nims11,Kola2842,dashing.sujay
Spanish
krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons
Tamil
krishnandu.sarkar,Charan,Krow,ajai5777
Telugu
Charan,rhitwick
Oriya
krishnandu.sarkar,Liverpool_fan
Urdu
krishnandu.sarkar,esumitkumar,

Language learner's starting / reading materials:
I will post here whatever useful materials are posted in this thread. Please suggest them upon someone expresses interest to learn it. Practicing 3 times a week with 2 hrs session each should build up some good base in you in a few months. Please don't hesitate to post here if need answer to any query, just find users from the above list and direct your question toward them.

Spoiler

For East Asian languages, you need to install East-Asian language pack in your OS, if you want to view/type them. Just go to control panel and open "Language Settings" icon and install it as directed.
Bengali
*www.omniglot.com/writing/bengali.htm -- Bengali scripts, nearly same in using as Hindi.
Mandarin
BBC - Languages - Real Chinese -- Introductory Mandarin (Chinese)
Learn Chinese - Learn Mandarin - Chinese Course -- Serious Introductory Mandarin
Elementary Chinese Readers part 1,2,3,4 -- most widely used textbook for learning Chinese. Search google and see if you can find soft copy.
*www.declan-software.com/chinese_ime/index.htm -- Chinese IME installation for typing.
Japanese
Learn Japanese Free - Complete Resource For Learning Japanese -- a very nice and easy guide for beginner to intermediate.
Learn Japanese - How to Type in Japanese -- japanese IME setup
Simple alphabet comparison chart (Devnagari / Bangla / Oriya / Telegu )
Post 117

Please keep visiting, with regular updates on your progress !

 

[nims11]

langs i know -:

gujarati
hindi
english
sanskrit (from school)
bhojpuri
very little japanese (from anime) (would love to learn more to avoid looking at the subs most of the time in animes and to play some JRPGs)
and if it counts
few programming languages

 

[clmlbx]

I love learning-knowing about different cultures and languages..

Languages I know :-

Gujrati
Hindi
English

most Indians must be known to at least 3 languages I believe..Mother tongue/regional language,national(hindi),universal(englsih)

Languages I like To learn for now..

mandarin
French

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

From where you guys are learning languages??

Once I thought I'd be learning but then I lost the enthu

BTW I know...
Bengali
Hindi
English
and Oriya (Can only understand, actually my dad was posted there and my schooling started at Orissa only, so I used to know this language very well, but after coming to Bengal and lack of practice and all I forgot writing / speaking)

Languages that I'd like to learn...

Indian:
Urdu (1st Priority)
Tamil

Foreign:
Spanish
French
Chinese

 

[freshseasons]

The art to learning the new language is waiting there just till you complete the lessons.It seems pointless at a point especially after few lessons but suddenly trust me it all starts making sense.

Known languages.
1)Bengali
2)Hindi
3)Marathi
4)Gujrati

5)French
6)Mandarin
7)German
8)A Very small amount of Persian enough to make basic conversation but nothing beyond.

Would love to learn
1)Italian
2)Spanish
3)Japanese

 

[chintan786]

Languages i know:

Hindi
English
Gujarati
Haryanvi
Punjabi
French
Pushtu ( little bit)
arabic (little)

 

[RCuber]

I know C, C++, C#, VB, VB.NET and Javascript.. wait......

English, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, I can understand a little bit of Konkani and Marathi

I want to learn Mandarin and German.

 

[abhidev]

I know
English
Hindi
Marathi

and a little bit of
konkani
Nepali

 

[coderunknown]

Assamese
Hindi
English
Bengali (understand but can't speak)

Wish to learn:
French
Creole (know a bit)

 

[esumitkumar]

I know

Hindi
English
Urdu

Want to learn

German..as I am big fan of Rammstein !

@krishnandu.sarkar..why Urdu first priority ?.want to appease some mehzabeen thru sher o shayari

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Nothing like that

But I love the urdu wordings, I mean I like to listen Urdu. The words sounds awesome.

 

[icebags]

Thanks all, for showing such interests, you have given me inspiration to create the name base and study material base. I hope it will be now easier for anyone to find a partner or reading materials this way.

@nims11,freshseason
Very interested huh ? lets learn together then ? I am following the above mentioned link, its very nice, easy and elaborated - even though Japanese gets very difficult when it comes to advancement in writing. However, speaking part is not that difficult. You will basically have to learn few pages of basic grammar and sentence structure and build up you vocabs through any materials you find. Japanese Pops, animes, mangas are quite popular, so this should not be much of a problem.
When it come to writing/reading, there are 3 kinds of scripts - hiragana, katakana & kanji. Hiragana is like plain English, but has more characters, you can write most Japanese words with this I think. Katakana is same as hiragana, but used to write foreign words, that are not native to Japanese. Kanji is Chinese characters, where one character represent a whole word. i.e. if you know 3,000 different words, then you have to learn 3,000 different kanjis to rite them. It's interesting and difficult, isn't it ? so learn it after you mastered hiragana.

so lets start with these convos :
o hajimete kudasai ! kore hanashiga o mite !
[hajimete - start; kudasai - requesting; kore - these; hanashi - talks; mite - see ]

watashi wa icebags desu ! yoroshiku onegaishimasu. [watashi - I; wa - subject indicator; desu = Hai in hindi, yoroshiku - regard me well, onegaishimasu - please].
wathashi wa salaryman desu.

Go figure the meaning yourselves.
To celebrate the start you may see this inuyasha song ^.^

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]Q6AnGH68V9Q[/YOUTUBE]

Also : Looking for some one skilled in Japanse to learn from, please introduce yourself if you are such person.

@clmlbx,krishnandu.sarkar,freshseasons,Charan
I have added some starting Chinese studymats, see if you like to advance !

@esumitkumar
i like some Rammstein songs too, "Ohne dich" is one of my favourite.

 

[Krow]

I can speak and understand Marathi, Tamil, Hindi and English. I can understand Bengali (learning to speak it) and a bit of Gujarati and Maithili. Want to learn Konkani.

 

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Thanks @icebags

Learning Chinese together would be a good idea.

 

[axes2t2]

Only English Hindi and Marathi.

And a little bit of Sanskrit coz I opted for it since I hate reading and writing Hindi.

 

[rhitwick]

Je ne ses pas...

Someone teach me Telugu and Korean

 

[Alok]

I know English , Hindi , Sanskrit and Bhojpuri (can understand only)

hey i want to learn one (foreign) , Please suggest me with importance...

 

[Ethan_Hunt]

Want to learn Konkani.

It's very similar to Marathi. Some of our words are actually pronounced similar to those in Marathi.

 

[ajai5777]

English
Malayalam (mother tongue)
Tamil
Hindi

 

[Liverpool_fan]

English
Hindi
Oriya (Mother tongue)

I wanna learn Arabic. Love the Arabic Commentary.