Learning, teaching, interested in them, apps, interesting youtube stuff, even English language questions, doesn't matter lash it up here.
I have a question somebody probably can answer. In older forms of English did we ever use a construction similar to the following structure:
'If I were to buy a horse, it would be a brown one' but with using would or should instead of was?
Something that springs to mind immediately is the Pogues song 'If I should fall from grace with god..'
Basically, in Spanish we have what's called the subjunctive which is used quite regularly, and such a hash is made of teaching it that often students take ages to learn it.
I'm almost sure that in Oscar Wilde's writing or in something like Moby Dick we would sentences such as the following.
If I would row the boat to shore..
If I should speak openly..
I'm making a bit of a hash of it but I'd say some of you here would know what I'm getting at
Also, very nice Apps I'm using at the moment are Speakly and LingQ. I've tried many others and they've been poor.
Speakly has limited languages but a nice approach to things.
LingQ is based on ideas from language experts such as Krashen that believe 'comprehensible input' is the way forward, based on ideas a out how kids learn. Very nice indeed.
Finished the duolingo Irish course a while back. I was always fairly shite and dismissive of it in school, the usual "what's the point in learning that?" bollocks. Still though, a fair amount was really familiar so something must've sunk in, but I found the app itself to be fairly limited outside of learning phrases and vocabulary
Had a look at a few other ones but none of them have an Irish section
A subjunctive mood exists in English, but occurs less frequently than in the Roman languages (the ones I know at least a bit of anyway) and also the change of verb form is more subtle, easier to miss.
"It is imperative that he improve his Spanish grammar," for example. "It is imperative that he improves" is also a correct form, these days anyway, but it doesn't quite carry the same, well, mood.
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on February 03, 2021, 09:45:17 PM
A subjunctive mood exists in English, but occurs less frequently than in the Roman languages (the ones I know at least a bit of anyway) and also the change of verb form is more subtle, easier to miss.
"It is imperative that he improve his Spanish grammar," for example. "It is imperative that he improves" is also a correct form, these days anyway, but it doesn't quite carry the same, well, mood.
Very nice example. I can't help but feel there is a even more obvious example that would have been used in the past in posh boarding school up and down England. I'll keep looking but cheers!
Quote from: Pedrito on February 03, 2021, 09:07:52 PM
'If I were to buy a horse,
Why is it, If I
were to buy a horse, not if I
was...
Quote from: Emphyrio on February 03, 2021, 10:14:55 PM
Quote from: Pedrito on February 03, 2021, 09:07:52 PM
'If I were to buy a horse,
Why is it, If I were to buy a horse, not if I was...
The subjunctive mood it's called is used there. It's far more apparent in Spanish for example..you recognise it immediately. In English we put a 'past tense' on it which just confuses the fuck out of everyone. Any other word apart from were or was would have worked fine. It's like saying 'If I somehow would be you, I would buy a Ferrari' or some shite like that :laugh:
Google: Why do you use IF I WERE and not IF I WAS? The reason we use WERE instead of WAS is because the sentence is in the SUBJUNCTIVE mood which is used for hypothetical situations. This is a condition which is contrary to fact or reality (the fact is, I am NOT you).
Bringing in the aul Gaeilge, in "go raibh maith agat," the "raibh" (which, just like "were", also appears to be a past tense form) is a subjunctive, grammatically equivalent to "sea" in Spanish.
I'd claim that my ignorance is due to Gaeilge being my first language but then I could be asked to explain the Modh Coinníolach!
I dunno about much of the technicalities mentioned here but all my kids went to or are in a gaelscoil and I've picked up some Irish as a result and I'm sorry I didn't know how to enjoy it when I was younger. Trying to speak the basics at home with the lads and they fluent really highlights it.
Going to try use it more often. A bit jealous of ye multilinguals but one thing at a time..
Anyone can learn a language. It takes a bit of time is all. People get upset about Irish but if we look at the way it was taught and really the lack of actual time we spent actually practicing it in school, it was far from ideal. I'm sure it has come on a lot.
Something that I notice people saying a lot is 'dia dhuit a chairde'. Now my Irish is gone to hell but it should be Día d(h)aíobh a chairde because chairde is plural. For some reason I think there should be a h on daoibh there..open to correction
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/29144631/Difference-between-dia-duit-and-dia-daoibh
I thought there was a d there as well. Just asked the daughter she says there is.
The main problem I think back in the day was that the Irish wasn't spoken as much as written. My lads do the maths in it and all and they just take it for granted
Yep it's just amazing. Once you have 2 languages I think the world's your oyster. You crack the code in a way. The problem was we though it interfered in the past when the opposite has 'largely' been shown to be the case.
I do a bit of Spanish on and off on DuoLingo. It's grand for getting basic sentences and vocabulary in. I find Coffee Break Spanish on Spotify to be good. Yer man is easy to follow despite the Scottish accent. It's a huge advantage if you can chat with a native speaker. The missus is South American and I've picked up more from listening to her than I have from DuoLingo. Granted a lot of that is swearing but sure that's the best part of languages! :laugh:
I was decent enough at Irish and German back in secondary but had no enthusiasm for them at the time. Largely forgotten both now but still occasionally end up saying something from either of those languages when trying to think of something in Spanish so I'm sure with practice I could bring the levels up again.
Streaming services with foreign language tv shows that allow you to watch with subtitles in the native language are a proper godsend. Ten years ago, I used to spend hours trying to find French subtitles for French movies, etc., but now that I'm trying to improve my very limited Spanish in order to have any level of conversation with herself's folks, there's no shortage of shite to watch, online dictionary open in a tab, and off you go (once you have the basics down with some Duolingo or whatever type platform first).
The beautiful thing about learning a Latin/Roman language is that its cousins, with the exception of Romanian, which is very tricky indeed, become more readily accessible, at least in some aspects. The Mrs speaks Galician as a first language, and it's easily understandable for any Spanish or Portuguese speaker. I took up French from absolute zero in 2014, and I'm now getting ready for a C1, and that's from Duolingo, the Chris subtitle technique, Jacques Brel albums, Le Petit Nicolas, Camus and other simple, cheap or free resources. Consistency is the key. I have never taken a French class(a few language exchanges aside). Several of my students have French parents and some of them even contact me in their mother tongue now, which is a nice compliment.
As Pedro alludes to, once you have one cracked, you'll want others. My kid is half polish, and attends a Polish school here in Madrid so I've put enough together with a few books and apps to have a reasonable conversation, and as my posts suggest, I'm not a genius, so it's not beyond anyone, and Polish is challenging on paper.
Same with Russian/Serbian/Bulgarian, the former two I've been trying to get into. I learned the Cyrillic alphabet in about two hours. The grammar is a pain in the hole, but I think the alien letters give the impression that they are harder than they are, and the vocabulary crossover with Polish is enormous. Slightly tougher than German but not Korean or Arabic or something horrifically difficult like that.
Kev you're an animal for languages in fairness. I wouldn't even come close but it's great to hear that you could learn French only through Duolingo like that. I must add it to my list again. In fairness it helped me kick off big time with Portuguese, a language you'd come to dominate fairly rapidly I'd say. I'd wonder if Italian is similar? Consistency as you say is the way. Yoi need to be doing something every day.
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on February 03, 2021, 11:30:46 PM
Streaming services with foreign language tv shows that allow you to watch with subtitles in the native language are a proper godsend. Ten years ago, I used to spend hours trying to find French subtitles for French movies, etc., but now that I'm trying to improve my very limited Spanish in order to have any level of conversation with herself's folks, there's no shortage of shite to watch, online dictionary open in a tab, and off you go (once you have the basics down with some Duolingo or whatever type platform first).
The changes are amazing. You could literally teach yourself from free youtube classes and Netflix these dats.
Im using Mango to learn French,its about 7 euro a month.
Duel lingo is ok but it very limited.
Michel Thomas is good also.
My mum listens to Michel Thomas stuff, but he does rattle on a lot...in English moreover.
Since I've done a TEFL training course in my time, taken French courses for a few months in the Alliance Française in Dublin, and also had the experience of switching from an English speaking primary into a Gaelscoil secondary, I'm all, all, all, for the single language, full immersion approach if you're really serious about learning a given language. If you're in it mainly for pleasure, DuoLinguo, Assimil, etc., can be perfect, but real learning is without a safety net, and that's why it's what happens via TEFL and all the accredited "embassy" language schools like Alliance Française, Goethe Institute, etc. Again, for the most common languages, the streaming services are a godsend for creating the illusion of full immersion, with the advantage of being able to pause, look up a word, replay for pronunciation, watch shows a second time without the subtitles, etc. Seriously like, if you put your mind to it a bit, the resource those hours of transcripted dialogue provide is an absolute linguistic gold-mine; pronunciation, spelling, context, everything you need is right there.
I did an Alliance course a long time ago and there are pretty good in fairness.
Anyone planning on learning a new language for the new year? I'm going to the Goethe in the new year to get into the German. Or at least that's the plan...
Seems to be a huge demand for and supply of resources. I'm in it for pleasure alone, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone is motivated for other reasons, foreign Mrs, work abroad etc.
I downloaded the duolingu app back in October and doing a bit of German everyday. Not looking to be super fluent, just able to order food in a restraunt and shops without having to point and shout louder at things.
Only did French at school to GCSE and was shite at it. Got an E. Did Latin for the first three years of secondary school and was quite good at it. Didn't help me with the French though
Quote from: Caomhaoin on December 07, 2021, 12:27:11 PM
Anyone planning on learning a new language for the new year? I'm going to the Goethe in the new year to get into the German. Or at least that's the plan...
Seems to be a huge demand for and supply of resources. I'm in it for pleasure alone, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone is motivated for other reasons, foreign Mrs, work abroad etc.
I'm still struggling with the Spanish nevermind starting another one :laugh: I did dabble with a bit of Irish on Duolingo. I wouldn't be able to string a sentence together going by memory from school to save my life but I was surprised how much intermediate level stuff I could recall when it's on the screen in front of me
I did German in secondary. Like the Irish it's all fairly hazy now but it wasn't too bad of a language to learn. You can expand the vocabulary pretty quickly. The most confusing part is trying to get der, die, das right.
That business of remembering the gender of words is what lets me down big time. Although I imagine if on holiday and you said das pizza instead of die pizza they'd know what you're on about.
The gender in German seems totally random, but a German woman I met on holiday said there is a certain logic to it, like big masculiney things like BERG will take der. I wasn't convinced though.
Sometimes it's obvious father, son, dog, elephant are all masculine while mother cat, mouse are feminine.
Although sausage is femine as is pizza but Salad is masculine. Ive just learnt this through repetition and no doubt I'll forget if I leave it for a while.
I think bikini is masculine too.
Currently learning German (first time) and French ( only did it from first to third year in secondary school, also over twenty years ago!) on Duolingo. Need to find a better approach. I tend to blitz say two/three weeks of French, then two/three weeks of German. Then when I go back, it can be a bit tricky trying to remember everything. Did about a week of Irish, but abandoned it. That language is not for me.
Duolingo is a terrific app, but it's best to augment it with other resources, it can only take you so far. Reading is key, and films in French with the french subtitles. Even reading the newspaper helps immensely. Clozemaster is a free app which I enjoy too.
I have a buddy in Belgium who sends me daft memes in French every so often too, good laugh :)
I done well with Languages in school but never kept them up. Are the apps good for learning a new language? Or would you still need to go to a class
I have never had a French class in my life apart from first year in secondary school, and started from zero a few years ago. Started off just doing a bit if Duolingo but didn't get anywhere until I went David Goggins on it. I'm not a big fan of the French themselves but they possess the most gorgeous language on the planet, I got obsessed with learning it. Going to do a C1 before the summer, see how I get on.
So, if you are determined and willing to sacrifice an hour a day and be organised, you absolutely do not need classes.