alexseanchai | (no subject)

angelofthenorth is doing a café post thing for language learners, which I can't play in real effectively because I have zero percent confidence in my ability to construct sentences in anything but English, but which has reminded me that I want to learn languages

the one language I ever did get confident in my ability to construct sentences in is Latin, which is also (for perhaps obvious reasons) the only language where the curriculum began with declination and conjugation charts instead of basic sentences sans explanation of how the words went together. (the school where I took Latin I? didn't use the Cambridge books. if I'd moved to the school I graduated from one year earlier, the foreign language graduation requirement would have been fun, by which I mean hell.) does anyone have any ideas where I could find any (ideally free) course in any of my languages of interest that I won't bounce right back off of? French is probably the easiest ask here. maybe Gaeilge.

given the above and given the different script, does anyone have any idea where I could start with Mandarin?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gaeilge is effectively Yoda's grammar (verb-subject-context-object-predicate), but the conjugations are horrendous and inconsistent, and both eclipsis and lenition (when to add letters to modify pronunciation) take a lot of memorization and guessing unless you're working from an audio source. It's also half-Germanic, half-Romantic, using a lot of the opposite roots as English. I say this after a year of constant practice. Wish I could help with that.

…and since the reason I gave up on this last time I tried is I couldn't hear the difference between broad and slender consonants for the life of me…

😿

thanks

If you wanted to join in on the cafe, we have an Irish thread going....

If I were closer to fluency, I would, but I'm far from it still. Phrases and pronunciation at the most. But thanks!

Just FYI, you really don't need to be fluent. Pat phrases are completely OK - just so you know for when you want to practice you can join in on a future cafe

I looked up the illustrated books on learning the radicals that I borrowed from my dad when I was 9-ish, and I regret to say that Milkshake Duck has waddled all over it. So I have no recommendations.

woooooe

What are you interested in learning?

*gestures expansively*

the three I mentioned, Chinook Wawa, and ancient Greek are the most obvious ones (though also I am interested in French primarily because Miraculous Ladybug and that is also what has bumped Mandarin way up the priority list)

Somehow I missed that twice.

http://lexicity.com/

sweet!

(Old Irish!)

But also. ask Astraea on the Bacchic Threads server about Greek.

👍🏻

Honestly, I think for extreme beginners, you really do benefit from a classroom environment (unless you just want reading knowledge). Here are my thoughts on how to go about learning French if that's not possible. Duolingo is ok for basic vocabulary, but you'll want a secondary grammar to go along with it. The good thing is your Latin background would help you a lot with French. I think the best approach would be to do Duolingo for the basic vocab, see if you can find a grammar online (the Canadian government might have good, free resources for learning French) and then try to find a pen pal or a conversation group in your area so you can practice writing/speaking for free.

the thing about classroom environment is, where am I going to find one that won't start in the way that won't work for me? and Duolingo is definitely on the list of those that don't.

like, never mind any concerns about social anxiety or tuition or physically getting to the classroom. (these are all concerns.) what language class will start somewhere I can make sense of, instead of with the basic conversational stuff that works for everyone else?

There is a reason I said not to use Duolingo on it's own but as a beginner but rather as a vocabulary supplement to your grammar (and also suggested where I think you would find good grammar texts for free!!). If your goal is to construct sentences, you need both grammar and vocab, you know? And if you only want to use materials that are freely available you will have to repurpose them in ways that work for you.

If you just hate the Duo interface and the gameified thing about it, you can get a french "word a day" email or something similar. (I would suggest the flashcard system from MemRise but unfortunately that is no longer free; and Kwizzy also transitioned away from free - though you can check out their free trial & see if you maybe don't hate it; Duo is one of the few that doesn't seem to be planning to transition to a paid model)

Re classes: A good adult language teacher will understand that you learn best from paradigms and will adapt the lesson plan to include that for you, but yeah, unless you do private tutoring they will have to consider other students' needs as well. The good news is, for French, it's not super popular in the US, so classes are usually <10 students, which means you do get individual attention to some degree.

The main thing I think you would benefit from w/ a class or a tutor is having someone correct your work and prevent beginner mistakes from becoming habitual. If you are willing to pay a little, one solution might be to just drill with your grammar and vocab for a bit and then find a writing tutor who will correct a short paragraph or something & do that every couple of months to see what you need to work on and how you are progressing.

I know nothing about Mandarin, but have you read https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=43981 ?

I have now!

I would bet money that there are free language textbooks online.

In the mean time, here's some of the grammar-y bits I remember from French:

* Sentence structure is generally subject-object-verb. The example my French teacher gave us as the only/primary sentence in English with the same structure is "I thee wed"
* You know how in English we say "I am hungry" or "I am tired" and so forth? In French, you mostly use "have" instead of "to be" for "I" statements; there's a list of exceptions where you still use "to be", and the mnemonic device for it is called "the house of etre" (where "etre" is "to be")
* In French, as in English, we can turn sentences into questions by raising the tone of our voice at the end of the phrase, or by changing the word order in pretty much the exact same way we do in English; for example, to turn "you (do) like something" into a question, you make it "do you like something?" by switching the order of "you" and "do"
* I already mentioned on the Discord, but I may as well repeat it here! In French, you rarely enunciate the last letter of a word; if the word ends in "e", you can say the preceding consonant, but otherwise you ignore pretty much all consonants except C, R, F, and L—so be CaReFuL 😜