Foreign languages

[Nomad]

I have taken Spanish for four years and still don't know enough to hold a good convo with someone. I want to learn Japanese but I can't find a good place to. I want to take that or German. Or, what I really want to do is to goto college in Oklahoma, where my dad's from, and learn Choctaw, and Native-American language. Spanish is somewhat easy, having it four years in a row can actually teach ya somethin, hmmm...... I am currently a Sophomore in high school (11th grade here).

[stardust]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Sara [/i]
[B][size=1]Really? I thought German was very easy. A lot of it is very similar to English, especially first year stuff.

I don't know; maybe I just have a head for language.[/size] [/B][/QUOTE]

It does have a lot of words you can figure out by just looking at them,but there are many confusing things,like how to pronounce words.Especially vowels,they're so hard to say.

[BabyGirl]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Sara [/i]
[B][size=1]Really? I thought German was very easy. A lot of it is very similar to English...[/size] [/B][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]When I was in Bern, Switzerland, which is a German-speaking city, I was trying on a dress and actually had to listen closely people talking in the dressing room. At first I thought that they were Americans speaking English, but time and again I was fooled by people speaking German...it just sounded so much like English.

Maybe that's because I was in Switzerland and they have different accents than people who live in Germany? The people of Bern are very stylish, too. Just thought I'd add that.

I took French for four years. I really enjoyed it, but I dont' really remember anything because my teacher seemed to think that she was teaching elementary kids how to speak it as opposed to high school students. I'm good with language so I could have benefitted from having a better teacher, but I suppose it's ok because she loved me. I've never been a teacher's favorite student...but I was definitely one of her's![/color]

[Guest Filleyice]

itotosan(younger brother, when talking to your family)
Onisan (older brother same situation)

[Pie]

I've been taking French for three years and I really enjoy it. I like learning languages. As I live in Ireland, I have to study Irish in school. Irish is such a confusing language. I've been studying it for nine years and, while I can speak enough to be understood, I don't think I'll ever speak it fluently. I find it too hard to string more than nine or ten sentences together.

Some Irish words:

Sea (Pronounced Sha) = Yes
Níl = No
Liathroid = Ball
Obair Bhaile = Home Work
Madra = Dog
Cat = Cat (Surprisingly enough!)
Tá mé i mo chonaí ar = I live at
Pie is ainm dom = My name is Pie

[Genkai]

I plan to be what some people call a polyglot?someone who speaks more than 5 languages. I already have my list. I am already learning spanish for the 3rd year and Chinese for the second... I've started slowly learning ktakana by translation romaji into katakana.. in the form of songs... Yay me. I also want to learn icelandic because of it's beautiful language(not a lot of people like it, I LOVE it...), and because of my slight obsession with their music (Bjork, Mum, Sigur Ros..), German, and possibly cantonese or taiwanese, since I'm learning Mandarin now. Also, arabic and afrikaans...

[Spikey]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by wrist cutter [/i]
[B]Heh heh, Japanese newbie mistake #1: using ?í as the particle "wa". While that symbol is phonetically "wa", as a particle you use the symbol ?Í (which is "ha"). ?Í is pronounced "ha" in every situation EXCEPT when being used as a particle. You might be thinking it's not being used as such, but both greetings "konnichiwa" and "konbanwa" use ?Í:
?±?ñ?É?¿?Í
?±?ñ?Î?ñ?Í

Don't worry, I made these same mistakes when I started too. Everyone does heh. Oddly, I've actually seen some Japanese make that mistake with "konnichiwa" before... I don't know if they just can't spell or if they're trying to be stylistic or something. [/B][/QUOTE]

Yeah, metatron informed me about my mistake. I think he said Choushi dou was a way to ask How are you. So if I am correct i think it is:

今日は ちょうしどう？

こんにちは ちょうしどう？

I think those are right, correct me if I am wrong.

[wrist cutter]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Spikey [/i]
[B]I think he said Choushi dou was a way to ask How are you.[/B][/QUOTE]

To be honest I don't think I've ever asked anyone "how are you?" heh. It seems like it would be a common thing, but I don't ever really remember it coming up.

For a long time, I thought the standard "how are you" was "?¨?°?ñ?«?Å?·?©", but I believe that's more of a "how are you doing now", as if you haven't seen the person in quite a long time.

It may very well be ?¿?å?¤?µ?Ç?¤, I assume Metatron knows what he's talking about a bit more than I do heh.

>>>EDIT: Yep. I took a quick look around some random Japanese websites, it looks like they mostly use this term when asking "how are you?"

As for your initial "?¢?©?ª?Å?·?©", I think that means more like "how is it?". As if you were buying some clothes, and you showed them to a friend, kind of like "so what do you think of this?". I could be wrong though.

[Spikey]

OtakuSennen has a work book and everything and he says that it's really Ogenki desu ka? I think that it might be ikaga desu ka? I have a dictionary in front of me and it says that Ikaga desu ka means How is it? How are you? So here are both:

Alright I have finely found out.

?¨?°?ñ?«?Å?·?©H

How are you?

?¢?¢?©?ª?Å?·?©H

How are you doing?

o genki desu ka

ii kaga desu ka

Okay that is what I found so I think it might be right.