saphir wrote:Hello,
oh, a half Austrian, that's completely different!
it's more different then you think. And since most Germans say it's the same as being German I make a point to point out that I am half Austrian and that it is different.
hajimemashite. watashi wa saphir desu. dozo yoroshiku. genki desu. ima kohi o nonde imasu. kyo o-tenki wa ii desu ne.
I didn't get ima kohi o nonde imasu. I guess I have to work a little harder. And i simply love that the Japanese have ganbatte for that.
I hope, the Romaji are correct. I don't use them very often. It's better to use Kana and Kanji. I know some Kanji but I'm not sure how many Kanji I've learnt in the last 2 years. One reason starting to learn Chinese is to keep them in mind. Yes, I signed up for ChinesePod101 and I like it. The different tones are the greatest challenge at the moment. I'm afraid, it's more singing than speaking.
I am only fit in Hiragana, in Katakana I only know few. I haven't even started kanji. it's hard with the different readings.
There are four different ways of pronunciation in Chinese if I remember correctly. That must be a bitch to learn.
I thought I might learn Korean after watching a Korean TV show ( a remake of a Japanese show that is based upon a manga) but I have so much trouble pronounce the word I don't think I can do it. Like French, I hate French just because of the pronunciation
Sometimes I watch Japanese TV-shows ( e.g. cooking shows) and commercials on youtube. That's so strange and funny. I like anime, too. Manga and anime are great learning motivation. But you should be careful. Many phrases are very casual and depend on the social status of the speaker. If you learnt and used phrases without keeping that in mind, you would learn to speak like yakuza boss tanaka or princess moonlight, for example.
Oh I do keep that in mind. And I also know that Japanese usage of media is different from our. Which makes it really interesting for me to watch (meant as schauen & beobachten). I do media studies so it's one of my kinks^^
But i admit my first Japanese word was "baka" not one you should probably start with *lol* Though it's great to learn vocabulary better - as I do with English words as well. I take a scene that I remember very well and try to understand every word - or when I learned something new I try to find it in that scene. For example when I learned about formal and informal language I tried to hear when what was used. Or what version of I (atashi, watashi, ore, boku,..) is used. Or when they use a word over and over again I look it up. For English that was "indeed" Tuvok in Star Trek Voyager always said that and I didn't know it at the time so I looked it up and hence it's stuck in my head.
You live in the Ruhrpott? My fiancé grew up there but lives for years in Cologne. He always laughs, when I struggle with the English continuous forms and cry, there is nothing like that in the German language, I'll never understand. He jokes then, that I should learn the 'Rhenish continuous' (my translation for: "Rheinische Verlaufsform") first. I've only moved to Cologne 3 years ago and never heard about that before. This sounds like something like that: 'Dat Chantal is sich die Haare am machen.' I think, you know, what I mean. But German learners out there: Please, please don't use this phrase, that's very special, very strong dialect. For other Germans it sounds like comedy!
Yes Germans cope with "am ..." for example: I am cooking = Ich bin am Kochen. (instead of Ich koche gerade where gerade is used as indicator of right in this moment) It's grammatical incorrect but it shows what the continuous is used for. Do you have problems with the -te form in Japanese? I read it's like the -ing form in English maybe that would be of help.
Like the Japanese doesn't have a future tense it's the same as we woudl say (again grammatical incorrect) "Morgen gehe ich in die Stadt" instead of "Ich werde morgen in die Stadt gehen"
Listen in GermanPod101 is a great idea! I'll try that. Thank you. Certainly we can help each other.
Big plus is that you get English in the connection to your own language.
I wonder why nobody answers your question here. What native languages learners at EnglishClass101 have, is interesting. Is that such a secret? Maybe there are not enough people, who visit the forum. It is really empty, so no one stops by.
Maybe people are just shy. Or they don't speak well enough English?
Maybe we need to open more threads to get people going?