Jump to content

What were your experiences with learning another language?


Tessie Spoon
 Share

Recommended Posts

I’m technically a native Spanish speaker, but my skill with that language is rather lacking. The obligatory Spanish classes I took while growing up didn’t help much, and admittedly, my personal lack of interest actually hurt things greatly. 

 

I’ve only started making more sincere efforts to learn Spanish last year, doing little lessons on Duolingo and SpanishDict. I was certainly surprised by things like how it often takes more letters to write things in Spanish that they do in English; at some points, I started joking that I was learning German instead.

 

I wonder if it’s the reason why Spanish voice-acting in anime often has so much fast-talking... So, what was it like for you guys, learning second (perhaps not technically) languages? What kinds of things do you do to make it more fun? I myself have been playing Spanish localizations of video games, wondering what I can do to make it more effective.

Edited by Tessie Spoon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I took 3 years of ASL (American Sign Language) in high school to meet the requirements for an Advanced Diploma. I wasn't interested in Spanish or French (which were the other languages offered). ASL is a lot more active with my hands, which is what I would prefer to do compared to running my mouth (talking for long periods of time tuckers me out). It was also a lot of fun with classmates and friends. I was pretty good with the expressive portion of ASL (meaning I was the one "speaking"), but awful at receptive (meaning I was the one "listening"). 

I've forgotten a majority of it besides the alphabet, numbers, and a few signs, but I still have the notes I took for it somewhere in my closet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In my second year of high school I and another friend signed up for Japanese language classes, which I liked a lot. It wasn't just learning a strange way of speaking, it was an experience of learning about the culture that's baked into the language. Japanese is so different from English that it gets you thinking about communicating ideas in whole new ways than you're used to. Truthfully I wasn't very good at it, but I stuck with it for three years, and then took the college equivalent of the fourth year soon after graduation. Unfortunately, that was the end of my regular exposure to the language, and as a result my skills have dried up to what is probably beginner level. Whenever I encounter the language now when it's written out for me, I'm stumped by the presence of Kanji. And when I encounter the spoken language, I'm too tripped up by the sentence structure that my brain can't dissect what's being said in real time.

I do still play a lot of Japanese video games, but we're a long way from an era where such games were lucky to see an international release. Everything gets localized these days. So learning Japanese to play video games is a very outdated concern, unless you're deep into retro games, and a lot of those have good fanslation patches. I also don't watch anime. Even as a teenager I couldn't see the appeal of those little boy-targeted cartoons that my classmates talked about. The animation quality was poor, nonsensical pacing, juvenile main characters. Japanese drama serials, low concept novels, and live action film on the other hand seemed awesome. Perhaps overly dramatic compared to English counterparts but that only helps you follow along. And they're speaking in realistic, practical Japanese that you can use. Perfect for learners.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

I like to watch Spanish shows with Spanish subtitles. It helps me un-jumble the words. (I recommend Club de Cuervos on Netflix 🙂)

Things I did to help learn Spanish when I was living in South America other than simple immersion were filling out children's grade school workbooks, and then moving on to reading books aimed at elementary school kids.

Speaking a second language is incredibly humbling and I found myself often embarrassed and afraid to even open my mouth in the beginning. Swallowing your pride and accepting that you will make mistakes, and being OK with it, was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome. Eventually I learned to laugh at my own mistakes and just keep going.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...