English post today to share my language background and goals.
- Cantonese - technically the first language that I learned to speak. During elementary school, I had Cantonese classes Monday-Friday after all my English classes (plus study hall). But my in-laws never taught my husband so I rarely speak it now unless I see my parents. Over the past few years, I've definitely noticed that I'm slowly forgetting more and more words. Goal is to improve vocab, writing, & reading.
- English - my strongest language because I was born in the US. No real goals for this besides to read more Stephen King and Terry Prachett books.
- Mandarin - my parents speak Mandarin a lot on the phone but they never taught me. I started some classes in 5th grade but nowhere near as much as Canto*. When I attempt to write in Chinese, I tend to think in a mix of Cantonese & Mandarin since written Cantonese is much more formal than how it's spoken. Not really a priority but improving my Cantonese (and learning Japanese Kanji) has been improving my Mandarin vocab too.
- French - took 2-3 years of classes during high school. I've forgotten most of it but it's not a priority right now. Maybe my goal will just be to do Duolingo occasionally to prevent my skills from degrading even further.
- Japanese - started during quarantine. My exposure to Japanese has mainly been through anime, so I knew the obvious simple words and honorifics. This is my highest priority language right now. I don't have a deadline but my goal is to spend at least 5 days/week working on this. My main resources right now are Pimsleur, JapanesePod101, and a couple of YouTube channels of native speakers.
- Korean - also started during quarantine. I've had much less exposure to Korean than to Japanese. It's mostly been through kpop; I've watched some kdramas but they're usually too dramatic for me... Hangul has been so much harder for me than Hiragana/Katakana so my progress has been super slow. I think it's because Hiragana/Katakana have a pretty standardized way to organize all the sounds whereas Hangul seems more unorganized. Like a latin-based alphabet I guess. This is lower priority than Japanese so my goal is to learn one HTSK lesson every 1-2ish weeks? Still working on my plan for this.
(we can only do one level of numbering/bullets?)
*Do you guys get offended when Cantonese and Mandarin are shortened to Canto and Mando, respectively? There was a post one time on Subtle Asian Traits where the poster said they were offended by this. But I (and a lot of people I know) use Canto & Mando all the time in casual conversation. Maybe it's a generational or regional thing?
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I really admire your varied language skills, and your ambitions to improve them!
I'm curious - do you think knowing Cantonese and Mandarin is much of an advantage when learning Japanese? I realise Japanese is quite a different language, but I think there is a strong Chinese influence on vocabulary and writing?
On an unrelated note - I'm happy to see another Terry Pratchett fan. I'd strong recommend his books to anyone with a quirky sense of humour, though his style uses a lot of word play, which may make it difficult reading for those without a fairly advanced level of English.
Whoa, a real polyglot! Thanks for comments on my writing.
The Canto and Mando don't bother me but that's probably because I don't know anyone that speaks those languages despite living in Asia haha.
I admire your drive to learn 4 languages simultaneously since I'm doing the same thing hahaha albeit at a less serious and slower pace than you.
Just a few thoughts on Hangul: I learned the basic alphabet faster than Hiragana/Katakana because there are less characters overall plus the vowels always combined with the consonants to form what I see are blocks of sounds or syllables. So if you memorize the alphabet and are familiar with the sounds, you can write and sound out any text quite easily. Knowing vocab, grammar, sentence structure, etc is a different story though >.< haha *Disclaimer: I learned Hangul in school cause it was required in the Korean Studies class. I'm not currently learning the language.
As a parting note, you inspired me to write my own language background post. Thank you and good luck~
@Sean - I think knowing Cantonese and Mandarin can help with Japanese. There are some words that sound very similar, share the same characters, or both. But the downside is that you may know so many different ways to read one character that it can be confusing to remember which one to use.
That's awesome that you're a Terry Pratchett fan too! YouTube randomly recommended the HogFather to me one year and I ended up really liking both Susan & Death. I'm only up to Soul Music right now but I have also started The Witches series. Which book(s) are your favorite?
@Zentrus - I haven't learned enough Korean to notice common blocks of sounds/syllables yet but I will definitely be on the look out. Good luck on your language studies and can't wait to see your language background post!
It's nice to see someone else who has been studying Japanese during quarantine! I've been using the Learn Japanese From Zero! books/free Youtube videos as a sort of guide/roadmap. The books aren't too pricy, and the YouTube videos are very helpful!
@cjwun - Thanks for the insights on Chinese languages vs Japanese. The potential interference between the languages with similar characters is not something that had occurred to me. Super interesting! I hope one day to study an East Asian language (or many!), but I'm sticking the "shallow end of the pool" with French for the moment ;) As for Terry Pratchett, I couldn't pick a favourite - partly because it's been quite a few years since I read them. I do remember really appreciating some of the "newer" novels that added more real world issues into the mix (e.g. "The Night Watch", "Making Money", etc.) but really, I think he was very consistent, and I enjoyed everything I've read by him.
I am glad that I was privileged enough to meet and chat to Terry twice while he was alive. I truly warm and friendly soul.
I am interested in learning both Korean and Japanese, and I was wondering if I could get some advice about which one I should choose to learn first! Since you learned both of them while in quarantine, I was wondering about how your experience has been for learning both of them. I personally have a lot more interest in Japanese due to my love for Nintendo games, however, I've always oddly been interested in learning Korean and would love to start learning it with a friend of mine. This would also be my first time learning a language with a non-latin alphabet as well, what is your experience with learning these two languages?
@FocaFofa - Personally, I would choose whichever language you're more interested in because it will provide you with the motivation to keep going. As for learning a non-Latin alphabet, I thought Japanese's hiragana/katakana were much easier than Korean's hangul. However, Japanese also has Kanji which makes it a much harder written language overall. Knowing some Cantonese/Mandarin really help me though, because a lot of Kanji is either written the same or very similar to Chinese characters. Good luck!