Tips for learning new lanuages

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Hottiedoggie
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Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Hottiedoggie » 2017-07-11, 6:05

Hi guys, I am new to this forum and also new to learning new languages. My first Language is English and my mother tongue is mandarin. I would like to know what are all your tips when starting to learn a language. Do you first learn the characters or phrases?

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-07-11, 12:08

I'd start by trying to learn how the writing system works in general, then learn a few phrases while trying to learn the characters (at least if the script is new to me).

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Antea
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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Antea » 2017-07-11, 14:45

I started to learn Chinese this year. My teacher was teaching me first, the basic sentences, how to say hello, how to introduce yourself, the personal pronouns, some basic verbs, like "to be", "to have", "to live". But has not yet introduced the Chinese writing characters. Unfortunately, I'm still at that very basic stage, so I don't know what comes next :hmm:

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-11, 16:49

Hottiedoggie wrote:My first Language is English and my mother tongue is mandarin.

Could you elabourate on that? For most people, their "first language" and "mother tongue" are the same. In Ireland, Irish is often called "mother tongue" by those whose first language is English, but that's exceptional. The usual term in the USA for a language which was spoken in your family (perhaps as recently as the previous generation) but which you didn't learn from birth is "heritage language".
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Hottiedoggie
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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Hottiedoggie » 2017-07-21, 0:43

linguoboy wrote:
Hottiedoggie wrote:My first Language is English and my mother tongue is mandarin.

Could you elabourate on that? For most people, their "first language" and "mother tongue" are the same. In Ireland, Irish is often called "mother tongue" by those whose first language is English, but that's exceptional. The usual term in the USA for a language which was spoken in your family (perhaps as recently as the previous generation) but which you didn't learn from birth is "heritage language".




Well in Singapore, English is the common language. That's because Singapore is a multiracial society. We learn our mother tongues in school so for example. The chinese would learn mandarin, Malay would like malay and Indians would learn tamil/hindi.

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby linguoboy » 2017-07-21, 2:26

Hottiedoggie wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Hottiedoggie wrote:My first Language is English and my mother tongue is mandarin.

Could you elabourate on that? For most people, their "first language" and "mother tongue" are the same. In Ireland, Irish is often called "mother tongue" by those whose first language is English, but that's exceptional. The usual term in the USA for a language which was spoken in your family (perhaps as recently as the previous generation) but which you didn't learn from birth is "heritage language".

Well in Singapore, English is the common language. That's because Singapore is a multiracial society. We learn our mother tongues in school so for example. The chinese would learn mandarin, Malay would like malay and Indians would learn tamil/hindi.

And if you're mixed race?
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-07-21, 4:30

linguoboy wrote:
Hottiedoggie wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
Hottiedoggie wrote:My first Language is English and my mother tongue is mandarin.

Could you elabourate on that? For most people, their "first language" and "mother tongue" are the same. In Ireland, Irish is often called "mother tongue" by those whose first language is English, but that's exceptional. The usual term in the USA for a language which was spoken in your family (perhaps as recently as the previous generation) but which you didn't learn from birth is "heritage language".

Well in Singapore, English is the common language. That's because Singapore is a multiracial society. We learn our mother tongues in school so for example. The chinese would learn mandarin, Malay would like malay and Indians would learn tamil/hindi.

And if you're mixed race?

Then it varies, but my understanding is that the various ethnic groups interact minimally, so this doesn't happen all that often.

Even otherwise, it isn't that cut-and-dry because there are exceptions.

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Meera » 2017-07-22, 15:41

Which language do you want to learn?
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Milly19 » 2017-09-18, 8:09

I found it really useful to read books in the language you are studying. It can be simple fairy tales for the beginning. But it adds a lot of new words to your vocabulary.

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-18, 9:22

That's a huge part of how I learned (to improve my) Malayalam.

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Saim
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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby Saim » 2017-09-18, 10:14

Which language(s) do you want to learn? What do you mean by characters?

Hottiedoggie wrote:Well in Singapore, English is the common language. That's because Singapore is a multiracial society was colonised by the British and then kept English as the official language upon independence. We learn our mother tongues in school so for example. The chinese would learn mandarin, Malay would like malay and Indians would learn tamil/hindi.


Brazil, Bolivia and Kazakhstan, to name a couple of examples of the top off my head, are also multiracial societies and the presence of English there is minimal.

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Re: Tips for learning new lanuages

Postby vijayjohn » 2017-09-18, 15:23

Saim wrote:What do you mean by characters?

I'm guessing they mean "script/writing system."


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