Teens who like learning languages

[danny elfboy]

I have a passion for languages and I'm starting a personal project of learning one language a year hoping some day to speak 20 languages fluently. As a young guy I feel alone in this passion because not many teens seems interested in languages and other cultures. I'd like to see a blog for kids interested in speaking and learning many languages.

I don't want to be alone in this because I don't want to feel like an egghead. Sometimes we're labelled for our intellectual interests as if they were a substitute for a lack of social skills or capacity to have fun or precocious senility. And I think sometimes we feel forced to act against our nature or instinct to avoid being easily labelled.

Yes I want to learn languages, I play the piano, I meditate, I study philosophy and I even want to improve my math skill and still I love being active, having fun, techno music, random humour and I treasure the folly we all have and I hope to maintain my crazy, rebellious, risky side till the end of my life. We don't have to be one-dimensional individuals, in fact I would rather not exist than exist as a one-dimensional individual.

So I was wondering how many kids here can relate with what I'm talking about and how many of you have a passion for languages while not feeling like an old white-bearded mummy who think intellect is for the old and the boring (school helps to establish this rotten ideology) for that

[Bob]

I'm interested.  But I'm not a teen.

[retrouvailles]

Yeah, I'm not a teen either, but I am very interested in learning languages, languages in general, and linguistics. I, too, am an aspiring polyglot and can speak 3 languages (almost) fluently and am working on a few more. I also know a lot of random expression in a lot of random languages and taught myself the IPA to help with pronunciation. I believe having these skills makes you more appreciative of cultures worldwide, for I believe that language, along with the food (that's for another thread), conveys the culture best.

[danny elfboy]

I'm interested.  But I'm not a teen.

I'm not interested in the age difference per se, I'm just interested in seeing an interest in languages as something a young person (young by attitude) could be interested in, not just as the hobby of someone with achy bones, too old (by attitude) to appreciate more crazy and frantic interests using his appreciation for gentle calm hobbies as a statement of his being old and mature hence compelled to choose certain activities appropriate for his status.

In other words: I'm interested in seeing learning languages considered a "cool" thing, fitting in a youth counterculture rather than just an activity for accademy nerds. In a way I'd like to know ther are other people like me who think there's no opposition between intellect and fun, between loving skateboarding and golf at the same time or Scrubs and David Lynch movies at the same time.

[john11inc]

fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap

[samjohnson]

I am also very interested in languages, but can't claim to speak many myself.

My advice: study latin first!  It is the most fun and most interesting; it will greatly improve your understanding of English and make your study of all the 'Romance' languages considerably easier (what are they but poorly pronounced and ungrammatical Latin anyway?)

Good luck.

[samjohnson]

I'd like to know ther are other people like me who think there's no opposition between intellect and fun, between loving skateboarding and golf at the same time or Scrubs and David Lynch movies at the same time.

I'm not sure I entirely follow your example....
Does golf require intellect?

[danny elfboy]

I'm not sure I entirely follow your example....
Does golf require intellect?

I would say so to a certain extent.
There are several technical decisions to make and data to calculate, a bit like pool.
It's also a less visceral passtime and a very slow, calm sport. Kids who like golf are derided by calling them "granpa" or "senior". It's seen as a spot for retired aristocrats.

[danny elfboy]

fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap

I guess I can't blame you

[gyzzzmo]

I have to admit that i'm not a teen, nor i have any interest in languages. I just hate memorizing stuff, i rather understand stuff

[ghchopin]

I lost that interest a couple months ago when I  started taking French I.
I should have just taken Spanish, I was born in Argentina, so I can speak spanish pretty well, although I have been forgetting it due to speaking English in school/home every day.

It doesnt really do you any good to know 20 languages fluently if you dont use them, you will forget them.

[littletune]

i love different languages!  i wish i could learn really a lot of them too. but i dont like so much learning all the rules... i much rather learn languages just by listening and reading
(and i think even if you forget a language u can remember pretty fast when you start speaking and thinking in that language again)

[rc]

It doesnt really do you any good to know 20 languages fluently if you dont use them, you will forget them.

That was my first thought as well, which ties into the next thought - immersion.  Which is probably the most practical way of learning a language, and incidentally travelling becomes VERY cool in the eyes of college age kids.

My advice: study latin first!  It is the most fun and most interesting; it will greatly improve your understanding of English and make your study of all the 'Romance' languages considerably easier (what are they but poorly pronounced and ungrammatical Latin anyway?)

According to Benjamin Franklin, it works the other way as well.  After learning a few romance languages in the course of his life, he found latin very easy to learn.

[pianochick93]

I love learning languages, however, I'm limiting it to one and a bit.

I take an avid interest in the intricacies of the English language, and love to study it, read it, write is, and analyse it.
I'm an intermediate Japanese student, and while I also love Japanese, I don't actively study it outside of lessons. I find it hard to do so without structured lessons, or someone to turn to and ask 'Why is that so...?'

I'm slowly picking up tidbits of French from my boyfriend, who has just finished his year 12 French course. He randomly speaks it, so I learn to randomly guess/translate what he is saying.

[john11inc]

I guess I can't blame you

Oh, no sugar.  You've confused me for you.

Believe it or not, there *are* people who aren't fapping to you.  You're not one of them.

[samjohnson]

According to Benjamin Franklin, it works the other way as well.  After learning a few romance languages in the course of his life, he found latin very easy to learn.

That is certainly true.  But not all of us are as amazing (or as dedicated) as Benjamin Franklin!

[danny elfboy]

I got a private message of someone telling me that he taught himself Gaelic at age 10 and was interested in learning other languages at age 11 and 12. Now, that is cool!

So learning languages can be a passion and hobby like sport and music and not just a status-quo for old bored intellectuals.

[thalbergmad]

I have dabbled in a little bit of Gaelic.

I decided that i would like to try to pronounce the names of some of the Scottish Mountains i slogged my guts out to climb.

Thal

[invictious]

Too bad you were not born in Europe! Most of my European friends speak at least four languages! I have an Italian friend who speaks Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, and is teaching herself Chinese and German! I only dabbled slightly into French, German, Italian and little bit of Latin.

I would recommend one to learn languages by system, i.e. related languages. For example, learning Italian will make learning Portuguese and Spanish much more efficient. This will make your life easier. You will see how one language influenced another, and how it all connects.

I listed Italian first because we are all familiar with the musical terms, and you may not realise it, but it adds up to a decent vocabulary base (piu forte is a term you can use in bed too!). Either way, good luck with your goal.

[Bob]

(piu forte is a term you can use in bed too!).

(Bob raises eyebrows.)  You mean like as in sleeping, right? 

Like...  Tutto Forza... which would of course be a reference to loud snoring. 

And as opposed to say... estinto. 


(Bob thinks loud snoring would be more fun.) 

[Bob]

Wait... Is that Italian? Or French?  It almost sounds French to me.

[franz_]

If there are people who want to train my russian a bit, contact me.

[invictious]

(Bob raises eyebrows.)  You mean like as in sleeping, right? 

Like...  Tutto Forza... which would of course be a reference to loud snoring. 

And as opposed to say... estinto. 


(Bob thinks loud snoring would be more fun.) 

Perhaps I should correct myself. It should be 'O MIO DIO PIU FORTE PIU FORTE SI SI'.

You can spice it up by using other terms, e.g. accelerando, ritardando, sforzando etc



Marcato.

[Bob]

(Bob still thinks this is some pretty strange snoring.)

[invictious]

(Bob still thinks this is some pretty strange snoring.)

(In retrospect, I would agree that it is indeed pretty strange snoring.)

Cheers.

[countrymath]

I'm interested.  But I'm not a teen.

[2]

I love to learn new leguages, but 20 is pretty much to me. I want to learn English, spanish, italian and german.

[richard black]

It may not be coincidence that all three of the outstanding linguists I've met in my life (one certainly spoke more than 20 languages, the others many though I can't put a number on it - more than 10 I'd bet, maybe more than 20) are/were musically inclined too. Interesting...

[countrymath]

It may not be coincidence that all three of the outstanding linguists I've met in my life (one certainly spoke more than 20 languages, the others many though I can't put a number on it - more than 10 I'd bet, maybe more than 20) are/were musically inclined too. Interesting...

We like to learn.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I love learning languages!! But I only really know 3 right now.
 And I don't care what people think of me and my language learning obsessions (I don't care what people think about my piano obsession either!)

But wow, 20 languages!? I'm inspired. If only I had the time...

[Bob]

[2]

I love to learn new leguages, but 20 is pretty much to me. I want to learn English, spanish, italian and german.

Throw in some French and Russian.  Round it out for music that way....  At least for the European ones.

I don't quite see the point of 20.  Maybe if you are a linguist or something.

[richard black]

I don't quite see the point of 20.

I think I can best answer that by quoting the above-mentioned friend who spoke practically every European language. He was asked which language he thought in. His reply was, 'It depends what I'm thinking about'. That, to me, justifies the argument that you can't know too many languages.

[littletune]

I think in English really a lot of times! Sometimes even more often than in my language  Sometimes I try thinking in German and in French too, but then I'm thinking a lot slower     

[m1469]

In my alternate reality, I would like to speak the following languages:

German
Russian  
Brazillian Portuguese
Italian  (I'd be OK with just a working knowledge)  
French  (same here)
Spanish
Chinese (working knowledge)

[countrymath]

In my alternate reality, I would like to speak the following languages:

German
Russian  
Brazillian Portuguese
Italian  (I'd be OK with just a working knowledge)  
French  (same here)
Spanish
Chinese (working knowledge)

Brazillian portuguese sux.

[ongaku_oniko]

people call themselves polyglots, and then say they speak european language I, european language II, european language III... can you even call that "like to learn new languages"?

It's like me sayin I want to learn shanghainese and beijingnese and cantonese and hokkien..., wow I can speak 6 languages! (add mandarin and tianjinese to that).

So Eurocentric.

My top choice for languages that I want to learn in my lifetime:

English (done)
Chinese(mostly)
Japanese(a little bit)
German(so hard)
French (cuz my cousins live in france)
Arabic
Hebrew (most sophisticated language in the world)
Swahili

[littletune]

European language?  That sounds funny! Is that an American thing to say that?  Because you know languages in Europe can be VERY different!!    I mean I'm from Europe and I don't just understand all European languages! I mean some can be similar, like my language and Croatian language are a lot alike and maybe all Slavic languages are kinda alike and I can understand some words... but French and German and Italian are nothing like my language, if you don't learn them you can't just understand them. And besides there are some languages in Europe that are not even Indo-European languages, like the language they speak in our neighbour country Hungary is as different as Chinese compared to my language!   

[richard black]

No, it's a valid point, many European languages are closely related. I used to feel quite proud of myself for speaking French and German (not brilliantly, either) until I married a lady whose native language is Georgian - it's not related to any other European language at all (though its structure and grammar a very similar to most of them) and has its own alphabet. She also speaks fluent Russian - technically related to most Indo-European languages but hardly close to English, and again with its own alphabet. Looking at those three I realise that English, French and German are practically dialects. And Asian, African, Pacific etc. language groups are way further removed- even!

[littletune]

Oh ok sorry then, I'll remember European languages are all just dialects... but it's weird that people have soooooo much problems learning and understanding these other dialects. I mean I think a dialect is something that you can still understand at least a little...  but well whatever 

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Many European languages are similar but I wouldn't call them dialects!
because each language also has their own dialects, so what do we call those?
 I have a friend who is Italian, she tells me she can't even understand the other Italian dialects very well... let alone another European language. Many European languages are very different, for example, I know English (European language) but I can't make sense of any Icelandic (European language) or Hungarian (European language) at all. Even when languages are really similar, like Spanish and Italian, I don't think it's fair to the language to call them dialects, they have a lot of distinct features/rules that we can't ignore/ overlook.    

Speaking of European languages being similar... I had a camp counselor who was Ukrainian and she told me that she moved to an area where there were a lot of Indians she realized that Ukrainian and Russian are called Indo European languages because they're actually kind of similar to Indian languages... she even gave me a bunch of examples...  so are they dialects too? Pretty interesting.

I want to learn sooo many languages. All languages are cool in their own way... I don't even want to make a list because I know I'm going to leave about 150 languages out. 

 Btw, Georgian script is soooo pretty. Well so is Cyrillic, but Georgian is a little more unique (: I tried learning Hebrew before but I don't think I was ready. Same with Inuktitut. Now those languages are REALLY hard. I couldn't even get the alphabet down. 

[Bob]

Latin descendants. 

Hmm...  I thought Romance languages included German.  Guess not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

I didn't realize English was a Germanic language either.  I thought was a mix/evolution of Romance languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

[ongaku_oniko]

My cousin who learned spanish french and English could understand what people were saying in Italy while on vacation. She never learned italian at all.

Not understanding the other languages does not imply that they aren't similar; I don't understand cantonese either. Or Hokkien. Or Shanghainese. But in essence, they are still Chinese.

At best, the more complicated european languages would be similar to Japanese or korean, which still has a lot of Chinese (latin) influence.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I didn't realize English was a Germanic language either.  I thought was a mix/evolution of Romance languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages

Yeah but I think Romance languages are still easier for us to learn than other Germanic languages... Maybe because German has trickier grammar?

@ongaku, I get what you mean... I was talking more about speaking/writing rather than just understanding.
My point was that the differences are important.. otherwise we'd just end up butchering other languages