Are you currently learning a language?

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I've never found studying languages traditionally (in a class learning grammar/vocab words) to be helpful. I always go the immersion route.

 

I learned Japanese to fluency in high school/college because I was bored. Anime without subtitles plus flashcards was about 80% of it, the rest was reading LNs and watching Japanese youtube and such. Passed N1 without studying for it after about two years of immersion. Ironically I don't even like anime and haven't watched any since attaining fluency. I just used it as a tool since they enunciate well and more or less use the same dialect in most anime, and there are often Japanese subtitles to copy-paste into my flashcards.

 

Currently learning Spanish partially for selfish reasons (people in my line of work who speak it get paid more) but mostly because I'm bored again. Started out with Dreaming Spanish, but now (level 4, intermediate) I mostly use it for tracking the podcasts I listen to.

[everywhere and nowhere]

Now I'm also relearning Norwegian, that is, trying to recall what I had learned during my studies and partially forgotten later... In this case it's for the practical reasons I appreciate much less (because I need to respect myself for self-esteem reasons, and so I tend to develop a strange pride in my impracticability, my "social maladjustment"...): after all, many people speak German, less people speak Norwegian, so relearning it could improve my chances of finding a new job... But I'm optimistic about it: recalling latent knowledge is easier that learning from scratch, and at least according to my credit book, I had achieved a level of B2 in Norwegian... I indeed remember that I was able to converse quite easily when I've been to Norway with my mom in 2003. Now she tends to just be worried about my problems only deepening over time and I feel that she doesn't appreciate me - or just doesn't have the energy for that - but I think that she was a bit positively shocked when I was freely talking to the owner of a Chinese reastaurant in Oslo...

And besides, Norwegian isn't difficult. It's even easier when you already speak English and German, and the "template" character of textbooks by the publishing house Edgard Foreign Languages allows making a comparison... Sub-section "The verb" in my Norwegian textbook: 4 pages. Sub-section "The verb" in my Turkish textbook: 13 pages...

In fact, Edgard's textbooks pretty much parasitise on one another, they reuse the same dialogues in different versions over and over... (I'll have to ask Bella about her English and Czech textbooks.) I got sure about it in chapter 2, because this slightly silly piece of dialogue is unmistakeable... I understand that it's supposed to teach something, but I'm quite sure that "in real life", an average person's response to "What is the time now in Tokyo?" would be "I have no idea", or even "Am I supposed to know that?".

The most pop-quiz-y part of this (in)famous dialogue:

Quote

(...) - Og hva er klokka i New York nå?

- Klokka er seks.

- Om morgenen eller om kvelden?

- Om morgenen.

- Og hva er klokka i Tokio nå?

- Klokka er 2 om natta neste dag.

- Det betyr at det er onsdag hos oss, og allerede torsdag i Japan?

- Ja.

- Og hvilken årstid er det nå?

- Den samme som hos oss - sommer. Men i Argentina er det vinter nå.

Quote

(...) - New York'ta saat kaç?

- New York'ta saat on.

- Sabah mı akşam mı?

- Sabah.

- Tokyo'da saat kaç?

- Tokyo'da saat bir sonraki gün gece iki.

- Bu bizde çarşambayken Tokyo'da perşembe mi demek?

- Evet!

- Şimdi orada hangi mevsim var?

- Aynı bizdeki gibi - yaz. Fakat Arjantin'de kış var.

Anyway, I think that, in the future, I will have an opportunity to learn what time it is in Tokyo once again in another language... maybe Lithuanian? 

[Piotrek]

8 hours ago, everywhere and nowhere said:

Now I'm also relearning Norwegian, (...)

That's quite a collection you've got there. English, German, Turkish, Ukrainian, Norwegian, Russian (?) 👏 Even if you only learn the "survival" expressions, that's a lot, assuming (1) people want to converse with you (2) they can actually understand you (3) you can understand them

 

 

[everywhere and nowhere]

16 minutes ago, Piotrek said:

That's quite a collection you've got there. English, German, Turkish, Ukrainian, Norwegian, Russian (?) 👏 Even if you only learn the "survival" expressions, that's a lot, assuming (1) people want to converse with you (2) they can actually understand you (3) you can understand them

I also learned some French and Latin during my studies. But, to be honest, I always found learning French difficult. But I still... somehow felt I "should", considering my partially French roots. (Anyone knows the movie "Madame Sans-Gêne", with Sophia Loren - or perhaps its theatrical original, although I don't think it's played much anymore nowadays? The protagonist, Catherine Hübscher-Lefebvre, was my ancestor. )

[everywhere and nowhere]

Also by the way, as for learning Norwegian - at least at that time I was still at an age when I travelled with my mom... and now she prefers travelling with her husband, and I can't afford travelling abroad at all. So I'm unlikely even to revisit Norway ("even"... actually, I haven't even been to Ukraine, which is quite clearly closer anyway, and small ski towns such as Nadvirna or Vorokhta can be considered safe even now - although it's a valid question whether it's OK to visit Ukraine in a touristic manner during the war, as if nothing happened...), and I went there just knowing that there are supposedly about 40 or so ski jumping hills in Oslo area alone. And I only climbed two, Holmenkollen and a little one close to Gråkammen station... I forgot even about such an obviously existing facility as Midtstuen normal hill!