Language Megathread 1.0

[/Pacha]

• Where do I start learning a language?
• What are dialects?
• Where can I practice?
• What can I post here to contribute?

Where do I start learning a language?

I have resources for Spanish, German, Russian, French and Japanese. (Others can give me more to add later, for more languages too.)

• Spanish - http://www.studyspanish.com/
• German - http://www.deutsch-lernen.com/
• Russian - http://learnrussian.rt.com/ (This site is really good for introduction)
• French - The only site that looks promising for French I've found is https://www.duolingo.com/ (which happens to offer courses in a few other languages)
• Japanese - http://www.japanese-online.com/

And of course, if you know someone who speaks a language you're interested in you could always ask them for help or even lessons if they're willing.

What are dialects?

In simple English:

A dialect is a type of language spoken by a group of people. Sometimes people who live in the same place make a dialect. Sometimes people who are similar in some way make a dialect.

There is no agreed difference between a dialect and a language. Some dialects are called "languages". They may spell words differently and even be known as a language (for example, English is sometimes called a Germanic dialect).

Other dialects are different types of a language that come from different places or countries (for example, British English and American English are dialects of English).

Differences in dialects can be found:

• In different words (for example, people who speak British English may go to church and people who speak Scottish English may go to kirk)
• In different pronunciations, where words are written the same way but pronounced differently by different speakers.
• In different grammar (for example, some people who speak English may say I dived, and others may say I dove)

Where can I practice?

The first and most obvious way to practice would be to talk to someone you know who speaks the language you're learning. If you don't know anyone or don't want to do this, well, there's always the internet. Your options on the internet are very wide too. Some people can learn simply from TV/Radio/Music/listening to conversation in the foreign language, or you can talk with someone just over text or on voice if you prefer. It might also help to practice by conversing with someone else who is learning the language. Although you can only really improve your language skills very well with natives, learners can help you with parts of the language they are more familiar with and you can return the favour.

What can I post here to contribute?

The list is pretty much endless as long as it relates to languages, I guess. What I'd like to see, however, is people in here getting help from one another learning a language. Or just discussion of a language or languages. Maybe even full-on discussions in another language!
I'll add more to this later. Gimme suggestions and stuff for the OP if you have any, too.

[Ad Bot]

[SlayerZ99]

How many languages do you know?

[/Pacha]

Personally I know two fluently. English and Romanian. I'm learning German in school but it's not very easy. My grandma taught me Romanian and the Cyrillic alphabet so I can usually read languages that use that alphabet but I'll have no idea what the forget I'm saying.

[Pie Crust]

English
Spanish
Italian
Some France
Few words in Japaneese
"Spicy Tuna Roll" in Chineese

I also know C++, C, some Torque, some Lua, FORTH, BASIC, a bit of Assembly and GML.

[Candy Apple]

I want to learn Japanese, mainly only because it looks cool and Tokyo seems like an interesting city.
I also want to learn Icelandic, but that's a dream and will never happen.

[Betelgeux.]

i only know english, asl (if that counts), and few german words

[Night Fox]

I know english
and I'm sorta learning german but not really

[SquartleTurtle]

i partly know blastoise

[Gumba Jonny]

brazilian portuguese was described very on-point by comedian russel peters as sounding like a deaf person speaking spanish

[Cool Boi]

Desu kawaii onichan

[Markey]

nvm, duolingo's on the thread

[SlayerZ99]

i want to learn german, french, and italian soo bad

[#Ravencroft]

I also want to learn Icelandic, but that's a dream and will never happen.

Why?

[Markey]

i want to learn german, french, and italian soo bad

then go to duolingo, they have all those languages.

[Champion]

i learn snot language