Languages

[Pimpin]

That’s great for customer service.

Porque me hablas asi mamagneva

Qual es tu problema maricon

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Burlao

 

[Kakaroto]

Ta burlao si pajarazo

 

[Fapuccino]

ビッグ ディック アウシリオ

 

[Kramerica Industries]

Ok, so here's my problem when it comes to doing any language study with, literally, any language:

I have zero capability of understand the grammatical nuance that goes into languages. At all.

For example - these last few days I've decided to start putting together a Google Sheet for Italian words, phrases, stuff of that sort. I do this kind of thing with any language I'm either studying or might like to study in the future for a few reasons, the two most obvious reasons being that it gives me a quick place to consolidate information that I've learned off websites or from books and have it placed in one easy to access link (and, yes, online because my computers have a bad tendency to go bust and I'm not going to risk not having an up-to-date copy on a USB drive, and I'm not totally about always updating USB drives either), as well as the fact that the act of having to write down what you're reading helps to reinforce it just that little bit more into your memory. I've got spreadsheets in several languages, though all of them have room for added information, of course.

But, you know, ok, I decide to poke around on Reddit earlier and look at the sub they have for Italian language study and, well, I come across this (and it could be many other things, this is just the example I saw) and I see this:

Traditionally, intransitive verbs for which essere is normally used, including verbs such as andare, venire, partire, arrivare, uscire, entrare, stare, rimanere, morire, diventare, succedere and so on, or other verbs, when used in an intransitive or reflexive way that would require essere as the auxiliary for the present perfect, will also take essere when used with auxiliary verbs such as dovere, potere, volere, and so on.

Now, I don't doubt that a lot of you people with actual grammatical understanding capabilities could read that and know exactly what was being said, and what all those things like "intransitive" and "reflexive" and whatever mean. Me, however?



Like, what the fuck does that stuff even mean? I remember taking grammar classes when I was in, well, we call it middle school here in the United States, I dunno what it's called elsewhere in the world but during my 6th-8th grade years (age 11-14), and, frankly, I couldn't even do this shit well to any degree in English, and English is my g-ddamned mother tongue. I can speak English and speak it generally quite well because I have 25 years of experience of speaking it. I didn't have to, you know, "learn" it in a way where I consciously realized I was learning it. That's not the case with any other language that I would want to study, or was forced to study (or, well, "study") when I was in school. It doesn't help that my interest in linguistics that I have now didn't exist when I was in grade school. Like, at all. I'm not going to express regret because literally every adult-aged person on the planet has things they wish they did differently when they were in grade school, or just when they were a kid in general, but those experiences shape who we become as adults anyway. But I digress, I find language study fascinating, and it's something I really would want to be better at somewhere down the road (hopefully not too far down it) because I kinda hate thinking that English is the only language I can really speak*, but while there are other ways I guess of being able to learn languages without being too much able to comprehend grammatical concepts, the only way I can really think of that would, well, "work", is the brute force way of immersing yourself in a given language entirely and basically learning to spot patterns of which words fit in which cases and memorizing it. It can work, sure, but it's a much more difficult way of doing it, surely.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. Just a bit of a frustrating problem and, well, this thread on a language with people all across the world who come from non-English speaking countries on an English-language forum seemed like about as good a place as any to write this out towards. Thanks for reading, those of you who did.

*People born in English-speaking countries definitely have a disadvantage with this stuff

 

[firmino]

I'd suggest you use better sources than subreddits (or at least than that particular subreddit) 'cause there is a blatant mistake in the part you quoted.

there are two auxiliary verbs in Italian: avere and essere. plus venire, which can be used in place of essere for the passive voice (but not always and it's much less common anywayss).

dovere, potere and volere are NOT auxiliary verbs: they are called MODAL verbs.

and even the other sentence is a bit messed up. when they say: "that would require essere as the auxiliary for the present perfect", it almost makes you think that in other tenses such verbs could be paired with another auxiliary. which isn't the case at all: the auxiliary for each verb is either essere or avere.

I get what they meant though, but it's not the best wording for what they were trying to say.

these people may know Italian but they certainly don't know how to teach it.

 

[forzainter257]

I want to master French. It has been my dream since my teenage when I became Mylene Farmer's fan. I finished 1 semester 7 years ago and couldn't continue because I had lots of trips. All I remember is: Elle est tres amusante. Mais attention! Elle a un petit ami

 

[Wobblz]

I want to master French. It has been my dream since my teenage when I became Mylene Farmer's fan. I finished 1 semester 7 years ago and couldn't continue because I had lots of trips. All I remember is: Elle est tres amusante. Mais attention! Elle a un petit ami

I studied French for 8 straight years. Currently, I've shit to show for those years spent.

As per usual you should actually use a language to become decently fluent, so the gateway to somewhat easily learning a language is to be exposed to it daily. Being interested in the country's culture, like movies and books helps a great deal.

Grammar for me is useless, I don't want to be a fucking philologist I just want to be able to communicate and people don't know 90% of their native grammar anyway.

 

[forzainter257]

I studied French for 8 straight years. Currently, I've shit to show for those years spent.

As per usual you should actually use a language to become decently fluent, so the gateway to somewhat easily learning a language is to be exposed to it daily. Being interested in the country's culture, like movies and books helps a great deal.

Grammar for me is useless, I don't want to be a fucking philologist I just want to be able to communicate and people don't know 90% of their native grammar anyway.

8 years!!! WOW... you probably just didn't have desire to learn it? my younger sister is so passionate about KPop and Korean culture. So she went to language courses and learnt Korean in 1 year. Well I can't assess her level, but I heard her speaking on the phone in Korean without stammering.
I will restart my french soon

 

[Wallace]

I guess it depends on what you use the language for. Having less than good grammar makes your opinion sound less convincing to people regardless of the actual validity of the opinion.

Another thing is accent, without some kind of US/UK accent, or in my case NZ accent, people judge you like crazy on everything.

 

[Wings]

@Kramerica

Try applying those terms to English. Most likely you are familiar with the concept in English, just not by those labels.

Also, sad to say, but I think brute-force memorization (or some equivalent level of effort) is required to learn a language by this stage in your life. Learning languages is just different for adults, although I'm sure you realize that.

 

[Fapuccino]

I studied French for 8 straight years. Currently, I've shit to show for those years spent.

As per usual you should actually use a language to become decently fluent, so the gateway to somewhat easily learning a language is to be exposed to it daily. Being interested in the country's culture, like movies and books helps a great deal.

Grammar for me is useless, I don't want to be a fucking philologist I just want to be able to communicate and people don't know 90% of their native grammar anyway.

Same for me. Studied French for years, even took some hard courses. But I have no reason to use it.

You really need constant exposure to make that leap to the next level.

 

[Wobblz]

8 years!!! WOW... you probably just didn't have desire to learn it? my younger sister is so passionate about KPop and Korean culture. So she went to language courses and learnt Korean in 1 year. Well I can't assess her level, but I heard her speaking on the phone in Korean without stammering.
I will restart my french soon

That was 15 years ago, I started learning French in 1st grade. And back then I think I was decent, the thing is - I forgot everything. It's not about learning a language, that's my point - it's about using it daily as we do with English here on FIF, for example.

I guess it depends on what you use the language for. Having less than good grammar makes your opinion sound less convincing to people regardless of the actual validity of the opinion.

Another thing is accent, without some kind of US/UK accent, or in my case NZ accent, people judge you like crazy on everything.

Agreed. I meant that knowing the rules of grammar, why certain things are the way they are, is pretty pointless to me. I can speak Bulgarian, yet I don't know "grammar" in the sense that if I have to explain why things are like that to someone else I'd probably fail to paint a comprehensive picture of how the language works.

About accents, the other day I stumbled upon a website that claimed to be able to discern whether you're faking your accent thanks to some AI neural network. Bullshit, since the AI labelled me as 99% British. I wasn't even trying and I'm pretty sure I sound more American than British. Anyway, for a proper accent, you need to have a certain talent.

Most native English speakers are shocked at how broken some people sound yet they never really tried to learn any other languages, let alone becoming proficient enough to care about the accent and sounding "native".

 

[firmino]

I'd suggest you use better sources than subreddits (or at least than that particular subreddit) 'cause there is a blatant mistake in the part you quoted.

there are two auxiliary verbs in Italian: avere and essere. plus venire, which can be used in place of essere for the passive voice (but not always and it's much less common anywayss).

dovere, potere and volere are NOT auxiliary verbs: they are called MODAL verbs.

and even the other sentence is a bit messed up. when they say: "that would require essere as the auxiliary for the present perfect", it almost makes you think that in other tenses such verbs could be paired with another auxiliary. which isn't the case at all: the auxiliary for each verb is either essere or avere.

I get what they meant though, but it's not the best wording for what they were trying to say.

these people may know Italian but they certainly don't know how to teach it.

i must add that there are indeed some verbs that can be used with either auxiliary, although very few and most notably those regarding the weather (e.g. it rained = ha piovuto/è piovuto).

 

[firmino]

this is for the 2 or 3 of you guys here who have achieved an advanced level in italian. it's kind of hilarious from an italian's perspective.

you know how the "accademia della crusca" is the de facto authorithay for what is ok and what isn't in italian.

in southern italy, in the common speech, it is kind of normal to say "esco il cane" (let the dog out, walk the dog), which at least in theory is plain wrong as "uscire" is an intransitive verb. so you should say: "porto fuori il cane", or something like that. something similar can be said for expressions like "siedi il bambino", which again is common in the south (you should rather say: "metti a sedere il bambino").

well, guess what. now the accademia della crusca says "esco il cane" is ok. ahah this has kind of unleashed hell on earth, as people from northern italy find it ridiculous.

http://www.accademiadellacrusca.it/...a/domande-risposte/siedi-bambino-fallo-sedere

 

[snake]

my younger sister is so passionate about KPop and Korean culture. So she went to language courses and learnt Korean in 1 year. Well I can't assess her level, but I heard her speaking on the phone in Korean without stammering.

What's her @?

Asking for a friend...he is a Korean language tutor.

 

[dedalus77]

Speaking of languages, I find it hard to get updated on all the latest news about Inter as I don't know Italian at all. I mean, I can google translate, but of course, there are clear limits. Are there some good English fan sites (or news sites) that provide enough news articles and get updated timely? (I am actually wondering there might be a forum here that will do that for me, but so far I couldn't find one.) I used to visit Football Italia often, but it's mostly useful to get headlines. (Eventually I would have to go elsewhere to learn further.) Sempreinter.com is OK, but they seem to be shorthanded and do not provide enough news. Your suggestions? (Or, direct me to a forum where I could get some tips on this.)

 

[Wobblz]

Speaking of languages, I find it hard to get updated on all the latest news about Inter as I don't know Italian at all. I mean, I can google translate, but of course, there are clear limits. Are there some good English fan sites (or news sites) that provide enough news articles and get updated timely? (I am actually wondering there might be a forum here that will do that for me, but so far I couldn't find one.) I used to visit Football Italia often, but it's mostly useful to get headlines. (Eventually I would have to go elsewhere to learn further.) Sempreinter.com is OK, but they seem to be shorthanded and do not provide enough news. Your suggestions? (Or, direct me to a forum where I could get some tips on this.)

Best English news site currently would be https://fedenerazzurra.net

 

[Armes]

What fucking sane guy would willingly learn and pretend to be passionate about french if it weren't for the pussy?

 

[Wobblz]

What fucking sane guy would willingly learn and pretend to be passionate about french if it weren't for the pussy?

Appetite comes with eating and that's especially true for languages... and pussy. French ain't bad just like any other language you get to know.

 

[firmino]

By the way... Where the fuck are the French users? blivious: ? I remember one guy only and I haven't seen him around for quite some time. For the law of large numbers, there should be at least a couple from there.