/lit/ - Literature

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
So far 2, I am a native speaker of Spanish and I like to think that my English is good enough to not look retarded. I am also starting to learn Japanese.
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
For English, it was basically just osmosis, I really didn't put too much work on it, unironically video games and internet was what forced me to learn it.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
Almost everything I read is in English and I work close with native speakers so that helps, for Japanese I am a weeabo that has been watching anime for more than 20 years, but that probably would not help me.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
There are a few cognates between Spanish and English but I think that its also part of most spanish speaking people adopting some degree of spanglish.

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
Only english
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
By living in america
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I don't, i don't care about writing correctly and all that shit
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
No I only speak english

>>18612435
>spic
kys

>>18612445
You forgot to call me tranaime too or something mate.
0/10

>>18612313
wow that whore is just like me. we speak the same languages except i speak lithuanian instead of latvian and im from nz instead of australia

shes ugly like me as well

>>18612313

Hasn't this just been posted?

btw:

- English, Italian: fluent
- German, Russian: can only read and watch some TV.
- Chinese: just learning this. As far as native material goes, I can only read one children book, one comic and one RPG (I had to try a lot of stuff before finding these three I could somehow follow).
- French: just reading stuff for now

I usually spend the first weeks cramming a few thousands of common words and some basic grammar. After that, I just keep reading until I know around 7-10k words, I can follow my favorite material with ease and I can get at least the gist of everything else without using a dictionary. At that point I consider the language learned and go on to the next.

One exception for French: it's so similar to Italian that memorizing vocabulary or studying it in any way looks like a complete waste of time, so I've just started reading

No negative intermingling between languages. The more I learn the easier it gets, because I have more mental hooks to link new words / patterns.

>>18612313
She speaks Australian?

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
2, English and Chinese/Mandarin
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
I'm native chinese, and started learning english early on, I also took japanese during high school, can read and understand it, but I never bothered learning grammar so I can't speak or write it.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
Media Consumption
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
no idea

Dutch: native language
English: almost a second native language to me
Polish: been learning for 4 years. I can read fairly well, I read Ferdydurke in the last 2 months and it went better than expected, but speech, especially "natural speech" is still a problem
Serbo-Croatian: also learning for 4 years, I haven't done as much active studying with Serbo-Croatian but I've had a lot of speaking practice with my relatives, so compared Polish my technical ability and vocabulary aren't nearly as impressive, but I can hold my own in a convo much better
French: Had it in school for 6 years, have been doing some learning myself in the last year, I can read Camus if I look up a word here and there, I can have basic conversations where I pronounce too many letters, but not much more
Hindustani: Studied it infrequently in the last 2 months, I know Devanagari, 100 or so words, and very basic noun conjugation


>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
Input, going through my anki decks, language exchange apps
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
A lot between Polish and Serbo-Croatian but not so much between the others. I try to mitigate intermingling by having "Serbo-Croatian days" and "Polish days"

>>18612313
>>18612435
>>18612439
>>18612476
>>18612584
>>18612605
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
So far I speak two languages: Spanish (native) and English (ESL). I did my schooling back home practically up until middle school and went to highschool here in the US. Right now, I'm a senior college student expecting to graduate this fall. I've tried to learn French several times but I usually give up (my goal was to learn enough French to read Camus and other French literature). At the moment, I'm trying with Italian, which I find a lot easier. It has many words in common Spanish and the language's cadence isn't that different. I've found a few false cognates though and I know I'm bound to find more haha.
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
I learned English back in HS and from there I've been improving my knowledge of the language ever since. As for Italian, I'm doing the Duolingo course,l and reading an Italian novel (e.g., L'infinito Viaggiare); I don't have much of a vocabulary yet.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I speak mostly Spanish at home but all the media, writing, etc. I consume is in English alongside with most of my interactions outside home. I've noticed my Spanish has been affected a bit because of it though (e.g., forgetting s certain a word, being unable to express a concept in Spanish, etc). In English, I read as much as possible and look up any word I come and don't know. As for Spanish, I haven't read as much in the last few years, but I'm trying to rekindle it.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
There's not negative intermingling, I've tried to keep the languages as compartmentalized as possible though. For instance, if I come across a new word in whichever language I usually looked it up in the other language as a way to keep my vocabulary balanced, although sometimes a word springs up more easily in one language than the other. I actively avoid to speak Spanglish because 1) it seems to become an ingrained habit (e.g., few acquaintances cannot express themselves without using Spanglish at all), and 2) I find it's disrespectful and hard to understand to the other person unless they also speak Spanglish.

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
English and Italian, currently learning German.
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
For English it was only thanks to the internet and videogames fueled by my social alienation. I was lonely pretty much since middle school and that's when it started.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
All my forms of entertainment come from English speaking countries wheter it is Youtube, 4chan or anything else. Italian is my main language so there's no problem there.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Happens all the time, it's very easy for me to express myself in both languages but i'll mix them all the fucking time. My italian speech is very much influenced by my English and the way i express myself with that language.
Wish my german came off as naturally as the other two but for that to happen it's probably gonna take a decade or so...

bumping

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
Spanish(native), English(C2, almost native), Italian(B2-C1ish), German(A2-B1)
I can understand almost anything in Italian and I've even read a couple of books, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to read philosophy or any sort of complex literature. I can speak without an accent because I'm already native in Spanish.
I'm still struggling with German tho, I can understand most YouTube videos but it's hard and exhausting. I'm not really able to hold long conversations.

>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
With Italian I honestly just completed the Duolingo tree as fast as I could and then I started watching movies and YouTube in Italian. I also got a B1-B2 workbook(one of those with CDs) to learn more advanced grammar and vocabulary, and to learn a little bit more about Italy. If you speak one romance language and you want to learn another one, learn it in English with Duolingo. It's very easy, fast, and you manage to learn a little about everything. I'm planning to do this with French as well, and I hope it'll be even easier because of my knowledge of Spanish, English and Italian.
With German I am also doing the Duolingo tree, but I also watch YouTube videos, practice with Anki and I have a grammar book I read from time to time to understand the more complex parts of the language.

>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
YouTube, movies, music, and occasionally books. I think in English half of the time when thinking about certain topics.

>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Of course. European languages are very interconnected. I like learning languages precisely because of this. It's exponential. When you speak two languages, learning a third one that is close to those becomes so much easier. And after that, learning a fourth one is even easier as well. I'd say I can understand 90% of any Portuguese text or conversation now that I speak Italian, while before, I'd say I could perhaps understand 50%

>>18612313
French: native
English: read, listen, write, speak without too much difficulties.
Spanish & italian: read mainly, but those languages are close to french, so it's not really a big deal to at least get the gist of a speech, or convertly be understood in writing or speaking.
German: I really can only read and that's with a dictionnary, I'm planning to improve my german though.

I tend to mix up spanish and italian as I first learnt spanish at school and I'm currently in the process of learning italian, so I'm inclined to use spanish words or verb forms when I can't remember the correct italian.
I also notice I shun germanic words and phrasal verbs while writing and speaking in english, so my english tends to look like french with an english grammar.

>>18612313
1. Portuguese (native), English, Spanish and understand (most) French
2. Audio/literary consumption almost everyday
3. I have to speak portuguese in daily life, I read most things in portuguese; Spanish is very close so I don't need to refresh it; English I can "practice" (I have a good understanding of the language) everyday online; French is the trickiest but I get used to it. Making plans to watch this in its entirety
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4lJLtpfKDUEUofMMkp9XO0l8vM10BMAh
4. Yeah, I mostly think in English.... unfortunately.

>>18612612
>>18613947
>>18614032


.iso of an encyclopedia which contains Odissey, Iliad, Aeneid, "Italian classics (from pre-Dante to XX century)" and lots of aphorisms.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bBBIkUSasdoZkuQX93NaWA_SJh2CkaYO/view?usp=sharing


Install the program
then, while running the iso in daemon tools, run the program you installed (OmniaPBib). You might have to run as "compatible with Win95" or 98

>>18612313

>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
English, Italian, French (I'm not good with its grammar). Can understand Spanish, some German, some Russian
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
Bilingual family (Italian/French), English basically because everything is in English. Some German because I like Rammstein and my mother is almost a native speaker. Russian, I took some lessons, but stopped after a while.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I don't know how to answer
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
I can often see common roots in words. I mix Italian and French when I speak with my mother.

> What i speak
I am fluent in Slovak and Czech (grew up here) and English. I am trying to learn French and also thinking about learning German too

> How'd you learn
Grew up in Slovakia and learnt Czechia there too, learnt English as a kid by fucking around on planetminecraft.net as a kid so much until I somehow understood the language. It is probably closer to me than my mother language to be honest. With french I just find some text or a book and try to read it and memorize any word I do not know yet, on a good day (4 or 5 days a week) I learn 50 new words and refresh the newest 300 or so.

> How to keep them fresh
I read in all 4 of those languages regularly

> intermingling
Czech and Slovak are very similar, English and French are fairly similar


I am hopeful I can reach a somewhat fluent status (b2ish) in french by next year and start to learn german as well. To be fair though I have no idea whether that is an extremely optimistic or pessimistic guess.

>>18614890
Whoop, meant to say be somewhat fluent in french by summer of next year

>>18614650
>Install the program
Could you post pictures of it and tell us a bit more about it? I'm hesitant to install something like that at random, and I don't even know what it is

>>18612313
>>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
2
>>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
English was mandatory in school. I speak it better than the average American. I my writing is even better than that
>>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
English is fucking everywhere. Fuck english. I cant wait until america finally collapses so we can all learn chinese to appease the chinks.
>>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Yes but it is extremely rare in my case. I would use the grammar of one language in the other.

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
Native English speaker, know a semi-passable amount of Spanish, recently started Latin
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
I took ineffective Spanish courses in school and college, but enough of the basic vocabulary and grammar structure stuck with me through them that I could start learning on my own and get the clarifications I needed (and still need), and from there have used Anki, books, podcasts, and shows to expose myself to the language. Long way to go, but progress is very satisfying. For Latin I'm using Wheelock's textbook, with LLPSI as a supplement. I am also fortunate to have a credentialed Classicist as a tutor, and although I need to drill vocab and declensions a lot, it's fun so far.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I actively work at them daily or near daily, typically through the methods I said above.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Cognates are great. Even better, having a knowledge of Spanish has made Latin much easier due to some grammatical similarities, and learning Latin has also clarified some things for me in Spanish as well.

>>18615751
I posted a picture of it here >>18606453

It was part of a CD encyclopedia named "Omnia" by DeAgostini in the early 2000s
At the time there was no wikipedia/not everybody had internet (or it was 56k), so CD encyclopedias were a cheaper alternative to paper ones (which are notoriously expensive)


Here's a screenshot from the Iliad, in the Vincenzo Monti translation btw

>(Vincenzo Monti (19 February 1754 – 13 October 1828) was an Italian poet, playwright, translator, and scholar, the greatest interpreter of Italian neoclassicism in all of its various phases.[1] His verse translation of the Iliad is considered one of the greatest of them all, with its iconic opening ("Cantami, o Diva, del Pelide Achille,/L'ira funesta[...]", lib. I, verses 1-2) becoming an extremely recognizable phrase among Italians (for example, being the text shown when opening a font file in Microsoft Windows). (Source: wiki)

>>18612313
>spanish, italian, and french
>3 versions of the exact same language
I learned Japanese. That means I get to read in traditional chinese and classical korean (pre-~1400) as a bonus.
>no you can't
Put something in traditional chinese in front of me and I can get about 30-50% of it, enough to get the gist. Here's a poem in classical Korean before they retarded themselves with hangeul.
>how
I'm a weeb
>intermingling
I say "maji" instead of "fuck this shit" out loud at work so I won't get fired for my exasperation with Winjews 10 just fucking my shit up. No one has caught on. I also translate porn for horny weebs sometimes.

>>18616404
>translate porn for horny weebs
where get job

>>18612439
Please consider suicide.

>polyglot girls
this is a euphemism for romanian prostitute in germany.

>>18612313
>>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
Polish, english, german and japanese
>>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
Polish is my mother tongue.
English through lessons as a kid, playing online games and watching anime with subs.
German through private lessons 2 times a week and reading dictionary.
Japanese by selfstudying jlpt materials, watching youtube grammar videos, taking all jlpt exams and reading VNs with texthooker.
>>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
Reading in that language a lot.
>>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
For sure. For example there are a lot of words in japanese taken from english and there is even a bit of overlap between german and polish.

If I had to give a single tip I would say study language that's fun for you and gives you satisfaction, not only because of possible job prospect.

>>18617352
AHahahh nice! I know a Ukrainian girl who speaks 5

>>18617694
foul seductress, ye shall not tempt me!

>>18616312
Thanks (you) anon, it's pretty cool

>>18612476
>7-10k words
Yeah, right.

>>18612435
>So far 2, I am a native speaker of Spanish and I like to think that my English is good enough to not look retarded. I am also starting to learn Japanese.
Are you me?

>>18619142
Spread it to other places, share it with others

>>18619335

What's wrong with 10k? Do you think it's too low or too high? By the way, it's 10k lexemes, or word-families.

I remember the first time I realized that a foreign language was so natural to me that it made no difference whether I read something in it or in my native language. I wanted to know how words I knew at that point, and a website estimated 20000.

With my second language, I marked the first time that I felt confident enough to read something without a dictionary, and at that point I knew somewhere between 7000-10000 words (estimated from my Anki deck).

So 20k and 10k became my points of reference for complete fluency and acceptable familiarity, respectively. Reading the stories of other language learners, it seems a pretty common experience.

>>18612313
Yo esta intendo aprendar Espanol, es facil relativemente a Latin cual yo tengo en escuela. Yo vivo en Miami y es necesito para mi trabajo.

Pls rate me

>>18620081
>Yo esta intendo aprendar Espanol, es facil relativemente a Latin cual yo tengo en escuela. Yo vivo en Miami y es necesito para mi trabajo.
I'd write those sentences like this:
Yo estoy intentando aprender Español, es fácil y relativamente similar al Latín, el cual tuve en la escuela. Yo vivo en Miami y lo necesito para mi trabajo.

>>18620081

2/10

>>18612313
>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
I can speak fluently in English and Serbo-Croatian and I'm ok at German.
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
English and Serbo-Croatian are my mother languages (emphasis on English) and German I learned in school. Currently trying to learn French but vacation fucked my schedule so It's gonna be back to square one lol.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I use both of them daily, German I use when reading sometimes.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Not really.

.

>>18612313
>english
>russian
>french
that's it. im not a polyglot

>>18612313
Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on her speaking all those languages.

>>18621873
I always enjoy the polyglot takedown vids where another ytber who is a native in the foriegn language BTFOs them for improper word usage/grammar/shitty pronunciation.

>>18612313
What does this facial expression imply?

I'm fluent in English (native tongue), alright at Spanish (though reading is much more difficult than speaking to me), and a beginner at German and Farsi. I think the only way you can keep a language fresh to you is by immersing yourself in the language, either by physically living in a place that has people who primarily speak the language or by reading in the language.

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, as I asked a similar question the other day, so I figure this is as good of a thread as any. Has anyone here read Storm of Steel in German? I'm looking to read my first book in German, but I want to read a classic. Storm of Steel is a book I've wanted to read for a while, but I never got around to it, so I figure I might as well read it in German. Is this feasible for an A1/A2 German novice?

>>18619335
Not him, but my mother speaks four different languages, Farsi being her native tongue and English being her second or third. I recently had her take that test there was a thread on a few days ago (the one to see how many words you know in English), and she scored around 18000. She's been speaking the language for many years, but she doesn't read particularly much, at least not in English. I can totally see anyone being able to learn 7-10k words in a language if you read a significant amount of material in said secondary language.

>>18623159
Nevermind, I found a pdf of In Stahlgewittern, and all but the dialogue is unreadable to me. I need to learn more vocabulary before I can even attempt to read this

>>18612476
how are you going about characters with chinese? and the tones? I don't believe this can be self-taught for verbal desu

>>18616404
what's wrong with hangeul? I find it unique actually

>>18612313
So many polyglots overblow their conversational skills, at least in terms of celebrity ones. Fluent vs conversational is a pretty steep difference, and most evidence you get is either a scripted situation, or encounters where you say very basic small talk if anything.

>>18621914
Any links?

>>18623380

I started memorizing whole words and got to around 1000. Then I realized it would have been much better to learn 3000 common characters first, and started working on the Heisig sequence. I'm still learning new words by reading, but I only SRS characters for now, until I hit 3000.

Since I'm only interested in passive skills I don't worry about pronouncing tones the right way. As for recognition, I load the audio version of graded readers in WorkAudioBook and keep listening to every sentence until I either recognize all the words, or can at least transliterate it to pinyin with the right tones.

>>18624085

Oh and I forgot: the spoonfed anki deck is also a great resource. It's some 11000 sentences in order of difficulty, with the new ones including what you've learned in the old ones and going a step further. I'm using it mostly for listening practice and learning grammar inductively, but I've heard of people who shadow every sentence and they say it's good speaking practice.

Is Chinese worth it? I believe there is some good literature out there

>>18625649

Tons of stuff, but it's all shit. All wuxia, sentimental drama, and webnovels where they randomly mix every kind of trope and genre like a swarm of AIs gone crazy.

I'm learning it as a bet. 1billion+ people who until recently lived in poverty and ignorance are quickly getting 'activated' by access to education, technology, and the free time required to create cool stuff. That makes me hopeful that in 5 years a lot of crazy interesting things will start coming out from China, and I will be ready to participate in their culture by then.

The only remaining problem seems to be their censorship, at the moment, is crippling the development of every form of art, but I hope that they will find a solution in the near future. Considering that they seem ready to be the next world leader, they will probably need to spread a more attractive culture and gain some soft power.

>>18623394

This. So many "polyglots" can't talk beyond some functional level.

>>18623394
I speak Chinese to a conversational level, but I literally cannot read a piece of even relatively basic literature or talk about anything that is truly abstract. I remember once having a 20 minute conversation with a coworker's parents (who were visiting from China and came to visit my company's office), coming away feeling somewhat bad that my range of possible conversation topics felt so limited, and afterwards having one of my (exclusively English speaking) coworkers say that I must be "fluent" to have such a long conversation and be understood by the native speakers.

This dissonance underlined to me how easy it is to impress people with your "language skills" - but if that same coworker had a translated transcript of what I said, they would realize I was talking at the level of a 6 year-old, at best.

Am I a polyglot if I can have long conversations with native speakers? I would say no. I think the test for being considered to speak a language is if you would be able to function in the capacity of an adult if you lived in an area where that language is spoken exclusively and be able to basically always communicate everything you think and feel.

>>18623435
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey0gJvLO15c

>>18612435
Do you study engineering in Argentina? I think I know you.

>>18617694
mam nadzieję, że wykorzystasz znajomość japońskiego żeby pojechać do Japonii i roochać żółte suki?

>>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
Spanish; English; French; Italian; Catalan.

>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
By writing complex sentences on a notebook, then memorozong them, and start switching words around.

>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
By going on /int/ and using them in the generals.

>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
Yes.

Unfortunately, here in México not many people know other languages asides from the few who do onow English.

>>18623394
This is true. In my experience, people claiming to speak numerous languages are only really proficient in 2 or 3 at a maximum. In the rest, they can chat in the basic phrases on the first page of any language book or order coffee but nothing beyond that.

>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
So far only 2. English is my first and German was my second. I learned a decent chunk of French for family reasons, but I don't consider myself a French speaker; I can read math or children's books in French but not literature. Currently teaching myself Russian
>How did you learn (or are currently learning) each respective language?
I learned German from family and learning it in college. For Russian, comprehensible input youtube channels and grammar books.
>How do you keep each language fresh in your mind?
I have a really long memory.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages (e.g., acquiring a new word in language and assuming you already knew it in the others, being able to recall a word easier in one language than others, etc.)?
German taught me alot about word formation in English. French showed me where alot of English vocabulary came from. Russian has significantly less overlap so far.

>>18612313
21, undergrad student in German
>Danish native
>Learned English in school and by reading novels and shitposting
>Learned German mainly in college
>Learned French to a level where I can read novels by using Duolingo for grammar in combination with input (reading, music, video games, etc.), I'm still trying to get better at it
Also I'm taking Medieval Latin at college now.

>Want to learn Italian and Spanish

Which one should I start with? I've heard they're similar.

>>18612439
so based

>>18612313
The Polyfrot youtube community is garbage

>>18612313
American here. Just started learning French

>>18612313
>Portuguese (Native), English (C2), German (B2), French (B2)
>English learned naturally, both german and french learned on the internet through various sources, it helped me a lot to study linguistics beforehand
>I don't think about that, I spent 2 years without watching anything german and it took me like 1 week of study to get back where I was
>Definitely, Portuguese helped a lot with french since the words and sintax are very similar. German was a fucking painVSAWK in the ass tough

>>18612313
>Half-Mexican born in US so speak English fluently and Spanish is just enough to get by but I can only speak in present tense.
>I've studied Koine Greek for two semesters so far and I have another two in undergraduate. I can only read/write it for translation though since it's a dead language.
>Start Old Testament Hebrew next semester, will take at most four semesters as an undergraduate.
So I speak two, read/write three, soon four unless I study Ecclesiastical Latin in Seminary.

>>18626928
Yes they're pretty similar. Many Spanish and Italian speakers can understand what the other says without having learned anything about the language.
You should start with Spanish, as it has a vast amount of learning material for English speakers and media content.

>how many languages do you speak, understand via listening, and write in?
English (native), Italian (spoken at home and in extended family), Persian (undergraduate degree), French (B2 to C1), Romanian (slower in speech than in English/Italian/French/Persian but that's more a question of practice, I don't have any trouble in conversations), Portuguese (understand it fluently and speak it to about B1-B2)
>how did you learn each respective language?
Italian required a little effort as I didn't read it much as a child, but having grown up around it and understanding it, it wasn't so difficult. I'm more fluent than my siblings and non-Italian father so I tend to be the one who translates and navigates when we visit our family in Piemonte. Persian came through formal university study and weekly speaking lessons (free from an Afghan refugee). I did French at school but mostly taught myself through watching films and reading novels. I speak with a (native) friend in the language regularly and I didn't have any language trouble in social situations. I started to feel much more confident when French people stopped switching to English when I spoke to them. I am currently learning Russian and Turkish and while I don't have too much trouble following the news in either language and I can speak them conversationally, I don't think it's fair to say that I speak them as >>18626128 points out. For the same reason I wouldn't say that I "speak" Hindi (studied it for two semesters) or Yiddish (spoken by extended family, I understand it well). It's much better when ordinary people, as in France, are reluctant to indulge you if they don't feel that you speak the language sufficiently well to hold a practical conversation when they consider themselves more proficient in English than you are in their language. My wife speaks Romanian and she was always too generous about my level of competence in the language. It wasn't until I travelled there for a sufficient period of time that I realised that fluency in the language entailed much more than my wife and her family tolerating my obviously limited level of conversational facility. As another poster pointed out, native speakers will understand when you are constructing your sentences in a more primitive way. It's accurate to compare to the way a child speaks, I think, because a child who speaks their native language may have a much more limited vocabulary than an adult who has committed a lot of specialist vocabulary to memory but lacks the ability to intuitively understand implicit meaning or grammatical cues. This is something that I am slowly coming to understand with Russian, where grammatical construction communicates a lot of implicit meaning.
>how do you keep a language fresh in your mind?
Practice.
>Is there any intermingling among your languages?
Naturally there are many cognates in Romance languages, but the only cases of them bleeding into one another is with family (italian/english) and my wife.

>>18623159
سلام ازیزم از امریکا هستم

>>18628819
can i add you somewhere I want am learning farsi. ممنون

>>18612439
How sad.

>>18612313
all that' ill say is that i don't know how non french ever get to into literature

>>18629302
Probably by reading.

>>18629302
Translations?

>>18629325
>>18629339
i just don't know what you get out of reading beaudelaire/villion chateaubriand translated

>>18629357
The premise?

>>18629388
>plotfags
grim

>>18629392
Yeah, okay. I'll learn French to read a few books. I've got nothing else I need to do in life.

>>18629401
it's a very long but rewarding journey you are embarking yourself on anon, good luck!

>>18629357
Baudelaires poetry is heavy on images and ideas so you can get quite a bit in translation. Of course its organic beauty is lost

Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrables
Que vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remords,
Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort,
Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables

You can translate this quite literally into English and feel what he was saying. Incidentally the selection of translations on the fleurs du mal website are terrible so maybe I'm wrong lel. I just wrote a little literal translation but I am too embarrassed to post it

>>18612566
>Australian
yeah nah cunt pull the other one. Verification not required.

>>18629451
sure the ones with strong allusion to his mother or alcoholism wouldn't be understandable translated without reading notes

like this fucking kino here

Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées;

Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilité,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l'onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.
Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides,
Va te purifier dans l'air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l'existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d'une aile vigoureuse
S'élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;


Celui dont les pensées, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
- Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!

>>18629462
Above the marsh, and above the valleys
Mountains, forests, the clouds, the seas
Beyond the sun, beyond aethers
Beyond the starrEd spheres' confines

It could maybe sort of work

>>18612313
You can learn to speak Australian!?