Mandarin II

Let's get back into a happy groove..I know some of you might have been caught off guard by that last entry!

This will be my second entry on Mandarin, and instead of explaining what I learned, I think I'd rather just tell you how I'm feeling about it.

I'm going to sound completely loco at this next statement, but I honestly believe that Mandarin is nowhere near as hard as it is made out to be. I have a good resource to assist me with writing in Pinyin and with the characters, and I even have a friend on LiveMocha who I can ask questions about words that I'm not too sure how to find in my resource.

In all honesty, I think Mandarin Chinese is quite easy. Some of you may be saying, "This MF right here is nuts." And you're probably correct in that assumption, but it's true. I went through my last lesson and it was a breeze. It's weird because I sometimes feel like I don't know anything, but when I really think about the language, and try to express some feelings, or have a light conversation, I find that I know a LOT more than I thought I did. 

Let me explain why it's so easy..Maybe it will help you who are trying to learn it and having difficulty. Mandarin is a tonal language, meaning that one word can possibly have four different tones, and therefore four different meanings. Trying to teach yourself from a book is going to be insanely difficult because the book can't vocally repeat the words to you. I started learning aurally, so naturally, I understand how to say the words, and because I understand it in the hardest aspect of it to grasp, the writing is much less of a chore (despite the number of strokes some characters have).

So, in short, if you're going to learn Mandarin, or any tonal language for that matter, make sure you learn by ear before you try to crack open a book. It will save you a lot of frustration, trust me. I think back and realize that I would be tearing my hair out if I had tried learning from a book first.

I'm still rapidly falling in love with the language, and you never know..This might be my third language I become fluent in!

Zaijian,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Arabic, Why Do You Hate Me?

Okay..Y'all probably are used to me writing happy entries about the things I've learned, what I'm excited about, and all things that are on the brighter side of the rainbow.

This is NOT going to be one of those entries..

I'm really frustrated with Arabic, and it's not my fault, and it's not the language's fault. It's simply the sheer lack of a good resource for it. Arabic has a ton of altered and Americanized ways of pronouncing a word without actually giving consideration as to what the Arabic letters actually say the word sounds like. We all remember how many ways people spelled Moammar Ghadafi, don't we?

There are really expensive dictionaries, that generally are only Arabic-English..Those just happen to be the better ones, but I'll be damned if I spend more than 50 bucks for a resource that's only one way.

Why am I so pressed to have a SOLID resource to help me with writing? Plain and simple: a language is more than just speaking it. If and when I visit the Middle East, I'm not going to expect things to be written in English. I HAVE to be able to understand the script.

It's just aggravating to already have two Arabic dictionaries and know that they CAN'T help me with the phrases I know. I have pages of stuff that needs to be completed with the script, and those two books only helped me with about 5 of the sentences.

My choices are these: Find an Arabic person who is willing to sit down and teach me how to write the words, become so good at the alphabet that I can create the words just by listening, or find the perfect dictionary. All three choices are going to be tough.

Wanting to be good at the language also presents its own frustration. This is the ONLY language that gives me fits. Even Mandarin Chinese seems easy to me. Why can't this work out just as well?

I hope you've enjoyed my rant, and if you have ANY ideas as far as finding resources to aid with writing, I would LOVE to know. And if you are interested in helping me write what I already have in Arabic, that would be fantastic.

Ma'a salaamah,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Anishinaabemowin

Boozhoo! Aniish ezhiayaayin?

What's "Anishinaabemowin"? Well, let me preface this by saying that you not only owe it to yourself, but you also owe it to these people to take some interest in their culture, especially after Americans wrecked their livelihoods.

Anishinaabemowin is the language of the Ojibwe Native American group. I'm not going to get into their history because a) I don't know enough about to speak on it, and b) I respect ALL Native Americans enough to not attempt to bullshit everything that pertains to them. If you want their history, read a legitimate book or meet some real Native Americans. I just can't bring myself to attempt to try to explain it all here.

Before I get into the ease or difficulty of the language, I wanted to first say that I NEED to meet some Ojibwe speakers. I love this language. But I'd probably be hard-pressed to find some here because Ojibwe speakers typically live in the northern part of the United States.

Easy? Or difficult?

I'd classify it as easy! It's surprisingly engaging. There are some long words, almost like in Turkish, but they aren't tongue-twisters, and they aren't easy to forget.

The trickiest part is probably the writing. I say this because sometimes there are two a's when it only sounds like there is one. You have to pay close attention to the accents when the word is spoken, and that'll give you an idea as to if the vowel is singular or plural.

Here are some words for you that I learned in this second lesson.

Hello: Boozhoo
You too?: Giin dash
Thank you: Miigwetch
No: Gaawin

I could continue, but that would make it too easy for you! ;)

I cannot WAIT to continue learning this Native American language. I'm proud to be one of the few who know some of this. I'm not sure how many people are actively studying it, and it's making me almost believe that it's dying out.

There is no word for "goodbye" in Ojibwe, so instead I'll say that I'll see you again!

Constructive comments, tips, advice, and questions are more than welcome!

Giga-waabamin,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Deutsch

Guten tag! Wie geht es ihnen?

I'm surprised that I haven't done an entry on Deutsch yet! O_o

For everyone confused, Deutsch is not Dutch! Deutsch is how Germans call their language. They sound different, but they're two completely different languages and people.

Where to begin?

I've been doing German for awhile now, and it's never been that hard for me because it just reminds me of American English. The two are Germanic languages after all. The writing is cake too!

In this lesson, I learned some important things, such as how to say

Or = Oder
One = Ein
Two = Zwei
With = Mit
Buy = Kaufen
Do = Machen

All of these are great to know, and it left me hungry for more. I'm glad I'm given things in pieces, because if I got everything at once, we all know that I'd probably only remember a couple of words. These words were put into sentences with phrases I already knew, so I was able to start asking things like, "What do you want to do?" That's a pretty useful question, especially since when you land in a foreign question, the first thing you're gonna need to figure out is what you're gonna do, right?

But here's what I need from my readers, I need practice partners! I'll probably make this its own entry, but eff it, why not start here?

If anyone is reading this and is fluent in German, I would love to practice with you. You can follow me on Twitter, and I'll be sure to follow you back. One of my Capoeira students is German, but I'm not sure how much he knows (I will DEFINITELY be finding out tomorrow, though!). But I digress, anyone willing to practice with me would be much appreciated!

Constructive tips, questions, and advice are always welcome!

Auf Wiedersehen,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Türkçe II

Merhaba! Nasılsınız??

Turkish is a bad ass language. I'm a little nervous about planning a trip there, but that doesn't mean that I can't practice and become fluent!

I repeat: Turkish is a bad ass language, lol. It is truly awesome.

I'm proud to acknowledge the fact that I've made it to the milestone that is learning about locations. To ask where something is in Turkish, the sentence structure is set up as such:

Place + Where = Sentence

So, if I want to know where Topkapi Square is, I'd say:

Topkapı Sarayı nerede?

Things also covered in this lesson were how to say "Here", or literally "This place here", and "There", or "That place there".

THE most important thing that I learned, though, was how to say "I don't understand". In Turkish, you say "Anlamadım". How useful is this, right? I know how to say "I don't know" and "I can't speak", but it's like..MANDATORY to be able to explain that you have no clue what someone is saying to you.

This one is pretty short, huh? Everything else was pretty much review, which is shocking, because it had been a while since I had come to it. It's crazy how I'm remembering things despite the time between lessons. I guess learning more languages makes it easier to retain everything!

As always, questions, helpful comments, tips, and advice are always welcome!

İyi günler,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

ASL

ASL: My new language love.

ASL in this context does NOT stand for Age/Sex/Location (for all you Omeglers). To me, and for hundreds of thousands of others, stands for American Sign Language.

Being able to talk to with my hands, like learning 31 languages (probably 32 now), is something I never thought that I would learn nor would have the motivation to learn. I decided to scour YouTube and I found a few channels; one most important was the TWYH Blog (Talk With Your Hands). I paid the most attention to that because the teacher was able to give me the most basic information about ASL that I needed, and those things include:

-The Alphabet
-Numbers 1-10
-Pronouns
-Greetings
-Feelings
-Classifiers (Man, woman, girl, boy)

It was surprisingly easily, despite the fact that it was a lot of material. Most of the pronouns are symbols we use when gesticulating, which made having to recall commands a breeze. For instance, to say "you", you simply point your finger at the person you're speaking with. To say "your", you extend all your fingers and have your open palm  pointing towards the person you're conversing with, almost as if you're trying to use The Force with one hand.

The difficult part is finding good resources. There were a lot of videos on YouTube, but they were more Rosetta Stone-ish, in that they just gave you random words. You all now I'm in love with the Pimsleur method and the method from TWYH, which is to give you a sentence you can actually USE in conversation.

I think I'll have to find some REALLY reputable videos, because I don't want to spend money for an ASL Rosetta Stone. That would SERIOUSLY piss me off.

Another issue is finding deaf people or people who are fluent in ASL. I'm not sure there are any on my old campus, although there is one guy who always signs the commencement exercises for graduation. I might have to do some deep digging to find a practice buddy.

The language is soooooo fun. Sometimes when I'm bored now, I just practice the alphabet on both hands to build speed and accuracy, because let's face it, if I don't know the symbol for a word, I can always spell it out!

I can't wait to learn more.

Constructive comments, questions, advice, and tips are always welcome!

Until next time,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Eλληνικά II

Τι κάνετε?

Greek, Greek, Greek. A language of the gods, Athens, Thessaloniki, Santorini, and more gorgeous places that have stood the test of time. It is a BEAUTIFUL language, and I'm glad I'm getting the exposure to it, because honestly, when I was younger, I had no idea what Greek sounded like. Here I am, years later, speaking it, as well as writing it.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my previous Greek entry, but in this language, there are a lot of s, k, th, and l sounds that sometimes trip me up like a tongue twister. It happens because in English, we typically don't have a 'th' sound close to a 'k' sound with another word using similar sounds right after that. I'm not complaining at all; it's just something I have to work at, ξέρετε?

I got to work more on conditional phrases like "where" and "when" (πού και πότε), "now" and "later"(τώρα και πιο αργά) , "not now" and "not later" (Όχι τώρα και Όχι πιο αργά) , etc. I also got to work on locations, like your place (Σπίτι μου)  and my place (Σπίτι σας).

The biggest thing (though some of you might think it to be small) I got to learn is how to say "restaurant" (Εστιατόριο). This will be heavily important, especially to me, because when I go to Greece, I plan on getting fed CONSTANTLY with my girlfriend right by my side. I'll need to know where every single restaurant in a 5 mile radius is. It's mandatory, lol. So some of you may have guessed by now, that because I learned how to say "restaurant", that I learned how to say some words of things you'd find in a restaurant, like beer (μπύρα) and wine (κρασί). That doesn't help me because neither she or I drink, but hell, I guess it's good to know, ναι?

I learned that the word for wine is a neutered word, meaning that the article that precedes it is not masculine (I think I got that right). So:

Some wine: Λίγο κρασί
Some beer: Λίγη μπύρα

Writing in Greek has become a ton easier. I had already known the Greek alphabet because I knew a bunch of people in fraternities and sororities, and they would need to know the alphabet, so consequently, I would hear it. A lot. Now that I think about it, I could probably read the letters on their shields if they were words, or if I really wanted to delve into their secrets, which I don't lol. I've got enough to deal with. Back to the initial thought, though. I'm putting together words in Greek without looking at a dictionary, and only using Google Translate to check my spelling, which so far has been almost spot on. I'm not cocky, but I am so proud of myself for making it this far. I love Greek, and I hope that when I travel there, that the people see how much I appreciate their language!

Constructive comments, tips, and advice are always welcome!

Aντίο,

Your Favorite Polyglot
@Twitter: mistercapoeira

русский II

Доброе утро! Как дела? Я очень хорошо.

I love the Russian language. I realized recently that I'm almost as far in Russian as I am in Italian, which is a crazy reminder of how much I've put into this.

My lesson this time around dealt with numbers, and how to deal with buying situations. It's the same as the previous lesson, only that this time I learned MORE numbers and how to ask if someone has Russian money and how much I owed. I really appreciated the practice, especially since I haven't gotten numbers down pat yet, but I'm kind of waiting to learn something more engaging. Whenever I go to Russia, I don't think I will want to focus for too much on how much I owe someone. If I need to buy something, I'll get what I need, READ the numbers, and pay. All of which can be done silently, lol. However, I do think that one needs to know how to handle themselves.

One of the things that I learned is that in Russian, instead of asking, "How much do you have?", you ask, "How much exists in your place?"

English: How much do you have?
Russian: Сколько у вас есть? (Skolko u vas yest?)

But in Russian, if someone asks you that without including "есть" in the question, you don't need to include it in your answer. So basically, you can say "Skolko u vas?"

The numbers in Russian are starting to get bigger, and I'm learning how to ask for thousands of things because Russia uses the Ruble (just like Italy used to use the Lira). So for and example, something could cost fourteen thousand rubles (Четырнадцать тысяч рублей/Chetyrnadtsat tysyach rubley), instead of like, five dollars in America. The hardest part for getting the numbers down is remembering where the accent is. It's tricky, but doable, and sounds great for such a lovely language.

Of course I'm still writing down the Russian script as I'm going, and it is getting so much easier. Practice is definitely paying off.

I wish I had more to talk about from this lesson, but like I said, it was mainly about numbers and handling monetary situations! I'm really excited to learn the past-tense, but I know that won't come until later :/.

I will say this though. Being a polyglot has brought me in contact with a TON of speakers of foreign languages. I tweeted something about Russian the night before I did this lesson, and I got a response from another person who is interested in learning the language. We struck up a conversation, and just like that, now I have a person to practice with via Twitter who seems to know what he's talking about. 

Languages are a beautiful thing.

Constructive comments, tips, and advice, are always welcome!


до свидания,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

普通话

Ni hao, ni hao ma? Hen hao?

Hi again, my friends. I hope you've been doing well. This one might run a little on the longer side, but we'll see what happens.

I honestly think this might be my first entry on Putonghua, or as we Americans know it: Mandarin Chinese. First and foremost, there's a common misconception that everyone from China speaks "Chinese". This might be true, but we need to be more specific as there are a few dialects. Just as I spoke about it in my previous entry on Creole, you can't label the language(s) of China as just "Chinese". The two big ones are Putonghua (Mandarin) and Cantonese (Guangdong hua).

So the next time you want to ask if someone speaks Chinese, you'd better ask if they speak Mandarin or Cantonese instead.

Now for my thoughts on the language. I fucking love it.

Chinese is spoken all over the place. I just so happen to live in a city with a lot of Asian restaurants, from Chinese ones to Japanese ones run by Chinese people (yes, I know it's weird, but it happens). Have you ever wanted to know what they're saying? If they're saying nice things, or how Americans are greedy, fat bastards? Well if so, this is the language to know.

In all honesty, learning Mandarin (I'm studying Cantonese also) has been a JOY to practice with. Every time my girlfriend and I go to a Chinese restaurant (two in particular), I have to attempt speaking to the servers. The first time I did it, I got the "O_O" look. You know, the one that says, "Hol...y." And from then on, I was on a first name basis with everyone. At the restaurant closest to us, the server actually brought out her iPad and showed me how she was learning English and gave me some tips on how to read Pinyin (the Romanized pronunciation of Mandarin/Cantonese). Not even gonna lie, it HAS gotten me discounts on food. Yes, it's a perk, and if it keeps happening, I'd be a fool to try and stop it. To me, it seems like a token of gratitude for attempting a language as difficult as Mandarin.

That leads right into the seriousness of the matter. Mandarin is NOT easy. It is a tonal language, which means if you say a word with an incorrect tone, despite proper pronunciation, it could make the difference between cursing at someone, or giving them a compliment (Take Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 2).

The characters are pretty much like Japanese, in that you have to KNOW what they mean by looking at them, because there aren't many clues as far as punctuation goes. In addition to knowing what the characters mean, which can number in the thousands, you also need to be able to use the Pinyin system. It uses the Romanized alphabet, and has lines distinguishing which tone you need to use to get the proper pronunciation for whatever word you're trying to say.

Mandarin takes a lot of practice. In this last lesson, I learned how to express desire, learned "your place", "my place", "when", "now", and "later". It's tough. I definitely have to go back and practice the pronunciation. I AM also working on the Pinyin and Character system. I am writing out every phrase to get a good grip on writing in both ways. Of course the Pinyin system is easy because it's pretty phonetic, but the characters are really where it's at, despite their difficulty. Characters can have multiple strokes, which can make it seem more like a picture instead of a word. I'm using a Chinese-English/English-Chinese Webster's Dictionary to help me out. The book's print is pretty small, but I'm making it work. I've found that once you've written a character, it becomes muscle memory very quickly, and you can write them from memory. I've already gotten "ni", "bu", and "wo" without needing the book.

I do have a gripe, and it has nothing to do with the difficulty of the language. Everyone who follows me knows that I love tweeting in foreign languages. My BlackBerry actually has a decent number of international keyboards for me to work with. I tried to tweet in Chinese, but there were THREE keyboards for it, and I had no idea what in the hell I was doing. It was really tricky. That being said, I cannot WAIT to get my iPhone 5, because there is a way to use your finger and "draw" the characters you need to use, which would be fantastic.

I love Mandarin, and you should to.

Constructive comments, questions, and tips are always welcome!

再见,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Kreyol Ayisyen

Bonjou!

I took the leap of faith and tried Haitian Creole, and in all honesty, I love it. Why do I love it? Because I know French!

For those of you who don't follow, here's what I mean. Haitian Creole sounds like a dialect of the French language. There are lots, and I mean LOTS of borrowed words taken from French. Part of me wonders if someone who knows is fluent in French and knows zero Haitian Creole could survive in Haiti based on their knowledge of the French language. I honestly want to say yes.

Here are some examples of the similarities.

Hello/Good day
French: Bonjour
Haitian Creole: Bonjou

Good evening
French: Bonsoir
Haitian Creole: Bon aswè

I understand
French: Je comprends
Haitian Creole: M/Mwen konprann

So as you can see, there are lots of similarities, and I won't even get into the rest of them, as there are many. But if you already have a base in French, I think Haitian Creole would be a breeze. Once I become semi-efficient, I'd love to take a trip to Haiti and try speaking to the people there in their language. I can't wait for my next lesson...In the meantime, here's hoping there are some Haitian people in my city that I can practice with or some followers on Twitter who can hit me up in Haitian Creole!

Before I conclude, there's a reason why I always try to say "Haitian Creole", and that's because there are a few different kinds, such as Louisiana Creole. I wish I could name more, but I'm not able to right now. I just know that the various Creole languages are mixes, so to try just say Creole would require me to be more specific! Kreyol Ayisyen!

Orevwa,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Nederlands II

Goedemiddag!

I'm falling in love with the Dutch language. Seriously. It's ease and massive amounts of English cognates make it a breeze to pick up.

This third lesson first gave me the male and female ways to say American (Amerikaans and Amerikaanse) and the male and female ways to say that a person is Dutch (Nederlander and Nederlandser).

I have to spend the rest of this entry discussing the importance of the next two words I learned, and also that these were the only other two words that I learned.

"Ik ben" and "en"

"I am" and "and"

Super simple, but super important. Think about how many times during a conversation that you tell someone "I am......" or use "and" as a conjunction. Now that I have these simple and small, yet enormous words, I can actually start being to "Show ownership of my feelings" like they tell you to do when handling confrontations.

This helps a lot because I try to follow people from the various foreign languages that I'm studying, and of course I have some Dutch speakers on my timeline, and quite frequently I see "Ik ben....." Now that I know what it means, I can focus on what's coming AFTER the "ben". I guess what I'm trying to say is that knowing how to use the various forms of "am" and "be" can unlock a massive door. You might not be able to say much initially after learning how to say I am, but all you need to do after that is to just learn adjectives, verbs, and conjugations (and we all know what joy that is..lol).

I just realized that I learned how to say "but" also..(Maar). That word is is just as important, because now it allows you to form a response to someone or something.

Out of all the languages out there, I never thought I'd be liking Dutch this much. It's awesome. I can't wait to learn more!

Constructive comments, tips, advice, and whatever else are more than welcome!

Tot ziens,

Your Favorite Polyglot,
Twitter @mistercapoeira

Gaeilge

Dia duit!

I know it's been a while since you've gotten an update, but better late than never.

You might be wondering, "What the hell is Gaeilge?" I wouldn't fault you for one second if you did. You probably have heard the accent a million times, but you probably never knew that it had its own language.

Gaeilge = Irish!

I had some common misconceptions before I got started. I thought that Irish would be like French is to Haitian Creole, in that I thought Irish would sound like English, but only with some slight differences. Another example would be American English versus UK English. We can completely understand each other until it comes to slang, such as petrol. That was a horrible paragraph, but you get it!

Anyway, I could not have been more wrong. Irish is its OWN language, and sounds like nothing I've ever heard. It was fun and weird at the same time, because I've never been able to pull off an Irish accent, but after this lesson, I know that it's not impossible, being that you have to try to imitate what you're hearing and say it exactly like the speaker.

The weirdness comes from the silent letters. Telling someone that you don't understand is "Ni thuigim", but phonetically it's said, "Nee hihim". The "t" gets left out. Also, saying yes is spelled like "Ta" but pronounced like "Sha". And my last example would be the Irish language itself. Americans would see the word "Gaeilge" and try pronounce it like "Gaylg", but it's actually pronounce "Gaylin" with a kind of glottal g at the end.

I don't really know what to say about Gaeilge..I won't totally discount the language, even though there aren't many people who speak it, but I know that this one will be a little bit tougher to get into my list of favorites.

Until next time,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Norsk and Svenska

I was going to separate these two, but after thinking about it, I decided against it. There are wayyyyyyyyy too many similarities to be able to have two informative entries without them looking like identical twins.

Instead, what I'm going to do is explain both, and show you the minute differences that I've found.

First off, Norsk=Norwegian and is spoken in Norway. Svenska=Swedish and of course is spoken in Sweden.

The two languages remind me a lot of German, and here's why. When you're making a statement, such as "you understand...", you say,

German: Sie verstehen
Swedish: Du förstår
Norwegian: Du forstår

But when you want to turn "You understand" into "Do you understand?" you switch the subject and the verb, so (leaving out German this time):

Swedish: Förstår du...?
Norwegian: Forstår du...?

Sidenote..Just because the Swedish version of the word "understand" has an extra sign doesn't necessarily mean there is a different pronunciation than its Norwegian counterpart. They sound identical. Jeg and Jag sound similar too. Jeg sounds like "Yai", and Jag sounds like "Yahg" with the g not as strong and glottal.

Because these languages have a lot of other similarities that I won't get into right now, I think the main thing for me right now (especially since I just started), is the fact that for Norwegian, language names end in 'sk', such as Engelsk, Spansk, or Portugisisk. In Swedish, they end in 'ska', so Engelska, Spanska, or Portugisiska.

They really aren't that difficult, and are actually quite beautiful. I've seen the writings of both of these and had no idea how to pronounce them, but now that I'm learning, I think these will be two more that I fall in love with. I'm betting Danish and Finnish sound pretty similar to these two also, but I don't have any resources for them yet :(.

As always, constructive tips, comments, and questions are welcomed!

See you later,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Magyarul

Hungarian, Hungarian, Hungarian, what can I say about thee?

It's got tricky pronunciations, and some weird grammatical structures, but to put it bluntly, Hungarian is cool as shit. This is one of the MAIN reasons I love the whole "testing myself" aspect of my journey. What Americans do you know that speak Hungarian, really? And better yet, what Americans do you know that actually want to. Well, if you didn't know any before, you know one now:

Me.

I don't care about how many symbols go on some of the letters, and I don't care about how long the formal version of "goodbye" is (viszontlatasra). Sidenote, I really need to learn how to put in special characters, because I know there is one on each of the first two As..I might just copy and paste. But like I was saying, I don't care that in Hungarian, "gy" sounds like "dyuh". It doesn't matter. Hungarian is awesome.

In my lesson, I learned the formal and informal ways (which the makers of the course should do early on like in this one) of how to say "Good morning".

They are:

Jó reggelt (informal)
Jó reggelt kívánok (formal)

The "kivanok" at the end essentially makes the full statement, "Wish you good morning." I also learned how to say "Nice weather"

Nice: Szép
Weather: Idő
Is: Van

Altogether, you say, "Szép idő van," or literally, "Nice weather is." Yes, I know it has a weird order, but are you going to waltz into Hungary and force a national language change? Hell no. Another awkward structure is telling someone they speak very well versus telling someone that you don't speak very well. I would break it down for you, but then that would take all the fun out of it for you! So go learn some Magyarul (Hungarian), and hit me up! Constructive comments, tips, and questions are always welcome!

Until next time,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

P.S. I know I didn't fix all the words needing symbols. Sue me. :)

Português II

Bom dia galera! Tudo bem?

You all ready how much I am in LOVE with Portuguese. I don't even need to get started on that right now, lol. Today, or rather, yesterday, I got to the near halfway point of Portuguese II, and I hit a big milestone. In every foreign language, not just Portuguese, there are certain very important words that you can't wait to start using.

In the beginning, you NEED to know how to say, "I don't understand" and "I understand a little" *insert whatever language you're learning here*. That's fine and well, but those are present tense. But if you think about it, most of the conversations we have are in the past tense. Here's an example:

Past tense
A: Hey, what's been going on?
B: Nothing much. I went to the store, and I got some apples, because my doctor told me that I should eat healthily.

Present Tense
A: Hey, what goes on?
B: Nothing much. I go to the store, and I get some apples, because my doctor tells me that I should eat healthily.

Weird when it's all in first-person, right? Exactly. Now I have gotten a grasp on how to conjugate normal verbs, but one of the trickiest verbs I got some help with today was the first-person, past tense conjugation of "ir", which means to go. Now, being that I have a lot of experience with Spanish, I knew that "I went" in that particular language is "Fui" or "Yo fui". Portuguese and Spanish are like cousins, so I should have had some idea that they would be similar.

I also learned how to use "foi" in a variety of sentences, as well as how to say lunch, which again, is similar to "almuerzo" in Spanish. In Portuguese, it's "Almocar" (forgive me for not having the proper 'c' with the mark at the bottom).

It's crazy how one word can open up a ton of conversation, and it makes you realize that even though we live in the present, we talk in the past.

I've been reading a book called "Dirty Portuguese: Everyday Slang" and have been able to translate things without needing to look them up. And let's face it, one of the first things everyone wants to know in a foreign language is how to curse (unless you're a goody-goody or don't believe in telling someone to shut the fuck up). It doesn't just teach you that, but it also gives you some really important phrases to use that a professional course won't teach you. I can't wait to try a couple of them when I speak to my Brazilian friend again.

As always, constructive comments, questions, and tips are welcome!

Ate logo meus amigos, e eu vou te ver mais tarde,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Francais

Bonjour!

Why not keep the streak of Romance languages going with some French? Tonight's lesson was the complete opposite of last night. I totally haven't forgotten any of my French. And I'm saying that while patting myself on the back!

I do enjoy the French language, and if you follow me on Twitter, you can see that I've tweeted in the language quite often! It's fun, and some people call it the language of love, even though I'd say that would have to be Portuguese for me ;).

My lesson covered handling monetary situations, similar to last night with Italian. The speaking was not bad at ALL. Asking my to do simple math problems, and learning how to say 14-16 was very simple (quatorze, quinze, and seize). I also learned one of the more important phrases, and that is "I have" (J'ai). In ANY langauge, you need to know that, especially if you need to tell someone you don't have any money.

The speaking has never been tough, until I try to say "tres" or "quatre". I know that'll come with practice, but if I went to France right now and said, "J'ai quatre de dollars" everything would sound like a native except for "quatre". I canNOT pull off that or "tres" to save the life of me. It's something with the tongue, or the French are just superhuman. That accent for those words is just really hard for me.

Another problem I have is when it comes to negatives. Most times you'll make a ne/pas sandwich to make a statement negative, such as:

Je ne comprends pas.

That seems easy, but it's not always consistent. Like, saying "not here" is "pas ici", not "ne ici pas", if that makes any sense. And "I don't have" is "Je n'ai pas", not "Ne j'ai pas". It's definitely tricky.

I guess I had more trouble than I initially thought, lol..But for real. I do really appreciate this language. I can't wait to get better!

As always, if anyone has comments, questions, tips, or just wants to show support, please drop me a line! And follow me on Twitter for constant updates!

Merci et au revoir,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Italiano

Buongiorno! Come va?

I'm crazy. You ain't gotta tell me. And I'm putting this out there from the jump, it is 2:46 in the morning..I'm tired..Going off of fumes..I'm not gonna be too particular about making this entry perfect. I just wanted to give you something before I forgot.

I did Hindi earlier, and I decided to work on some Italian because I had nothing else to do.

I must say, out of all the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Italian), Italian is probably my weakest. I'm not even going to count Romanian because I don't know any...yet. One of my teammates from my MMA gym speaks it fluently..But that's another story.

When I first started, I didn't know how far I had gotten. I'm more than halfway done with the first set of lessons (16/30). For these past few lessons, the main focus has been on handling situations regarding money. I guess that's a really important thing to know when visiting Italy...Actually, it's probably an important thing to know when visiting anywhere.

My trouble comes from two things in Italian..When to use 'ne', and when to use 'dei'..It's going to be the death of me..I'm making it a point to get up and go over my notes to keep it all together.

Italian rolls off the tongue. It's a fun language, and isn't that hard, with the exception of the things I just mentioned. I didn't use any dictionaries or anything like that, as most things are phonetically spelled. If I had a problem, I just ran it through GT to make sure. Usually I was spot on.

My favorite word from tonight's lesson was "abbastanza". It means "enough". It just sounds cool.

I can't wrap my head around why I'm weakest at Italian when I'm pretty far into it. I can remember French easier than this, and I'm not as far. It's weird. But that just means I need to beat it the hell into my head.

I'm passing out as I'm typing this..So..I'm calling it right here.

Sidenote..Tomorrow, I'm going to speak to my GF all day in foreign languages..No English. Here's hoping that A) I can pull it off, and B) she doesn't shoot me. <3

Ciao,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

हिंदी

नमस्ते! आप कैसे हैं? बहुत अच्छी?

What's up everyone?

I started on this last night, but just got to finish today. You guessed it: Hindi!

If you don't know Hindi, I know you know someone who does. India has about 1.2 billion people, and it's only logical that there are a lot of immigrants that came to America to live. Unfortunately, lots of Indians get a negative stereotype, and that's not fair. Not every Indian is a taxi driver or an operator of a convenience store.

But I digress, we all know someone who speaks Hindi. And I'll bet that you already know some Hindi, ESPECIALLY if you do yoga!

My lesson was actually pretty fun. I got to learn how to ask for directions, and how to say things are over there, or over here. The main thing I wanted to get from this lesson is the monster that is Devanagari. This alphabet is gorgeous, but it's super hard because there are so many letters and modifiers to the letters. It's almost like drawing hieroglyphics because everything is connected by a horizontal line, which you can see in the title and in the opening line. From what I've concluded from the alphabet that I handwrote with each sound, the words are spelled phonetically. The hard part is knowing exactly what sounds/letter you're supposed to use!

The first time I saw Devanagari script, I honestly was wondering what the hell I was looking at, and I still kind of feel the same way, but it is definitely getting easier, and it will continue to get easier with practice.

I do need a dictionary though because Google Translate didn't show me how to spell some of the words I needed for this lesson. GT and Omniglot.com did do a good job of helping me out, though.

It's not that difficult of a language to learn, the only tricky part is the grammar.

For instance:

English Version: Where is Main Street?
Hindi Version: Main Street where is?

Once you get past that, and the need to change word endings depending on gender, you're good. It's a fun language. I definitely will keep this going (even though you know I'm going to keep them all going!)!

नमस्ते,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Writing in Arabic

What's up everyone?

I just finished working with Write It in Arabic: Second Edition by Naglaa Ghali to help tighten up my writing of the script. This book is phenomenal (I'm reading it on my kindle). It gives you a breakdown of every letter, symbol, and also gives you words (with phonetic pronunciations) that use the letters you just learn. It also has a complete section just for supplementary exercises. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L piece of work.

For those of you who read my previous entry, you know how disappointed I was in my audio lesson. Tonight's "workout" made up for ALL of that. I was even tweeting in Arabic, and one of my followers responded IN Arabic. It was awesome. Not gonna lie, I did need to translate some of what she was saying because I'm not that good at reading it just yet, lol. But it was great nonetheless.

People don't mind talking to you when you speak their language. Even if it isn't the person's native language, and even if they aren't that good at it themselves, there is still the opportunity to learn from each other.

Here are some of the tweets that I posted tonight...Yes, they're random, but I felt accomplished making them. And thank you BlackBerry for having an Arabic keyboard!

طبعا!!

تبغ <

البرد القارس

حب وحنان

مشكلة? مستشفى.

It was a joy working with this book. It actually doesn't seem to be as bad as I expected. I just need to really know how to spell each word that I learn from my audio lessons. That requires a bigger dictionary than the one I have now..So I guess I need to get on that.

I'm not all that tired, so I might do some Hindi for you tonight. Devanagari is another beautiful script that I suck at, but I can only get better with practice.

وداعا,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Twitter: @mistercapoeira

العربية

Merhaba!

What's happening everyone? Sorry for the delay! I promise I didn't forget you.

Tonight's task was Eastern Arabic...And I have to say, I'm not impressed with this Pimsleur series. It isn't because of a lack of information or anything like that; it's simply because it moves INCREDIBLY fast. I learned about 10-15 new words tonight and barely got the time to practice them. With other Pimsleur programs, you'll learn maybe two or three..at the most 5, and then you'll get them beaten into your head, which makes for easier learning. I just don't know how I'm supposed to retain all this and learn probably the same amount for my next Eastern Arabic lesson. It's weird because this one language is the only one that's weird like that.

Anyway..For those of you who don't know, Arabic is written from right to left, just like Hebrew (yes they do have some similarities), but many words are based on a root system. What I mean is that there will be a base part of a word, and then to change it to fit the sentence's context, you are required only to change a part of the word.

For instance:

Day: Yom
Two days: Yom'ayn

Feel me?

It is definitely a tricky language because you really have to know the endings and the words, and also if the word is masculine or feminine. The gender of the word will help determine what the ending will be.

I am by no means good at it, but I do practice with my friend Nayef who owns an Arabic restaurant, and apparently I speak it very well, despite the fact that I think I suck at it.

Unfortunately, I didn't write in Arabic for this lesson, but I will go back and do it, mainly because you have to be spot on, and the dictionary I have sucks. As far as resources, I will aim to have the most in Arabic, just because of its complexities.

I just wish this course was slower. Everyone knows that this is one of the tougher languages, so why make it harder to grasp it by shooting a gatling gun's clip full of words at me? Either way, I'm going to keep going, no matter how much I want to "skip" Eastern Arabic when it shows up in the rotation.

Until later, my friends.

وداعا,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Tiếng Việt & Español

Buenas tardes mis amigos?!

Tonight, I'm happy to say that I accomplished the monster that I owe you all. Annnnnnd I decided to double up for you for the hell of it. Yes...I know you love me.

Spanish is up first. I've been studying Spanish since I was in the 9th grade. Because of the sheer amount of time that I have been exposed to the sexiness that is Spanish, the words that are supposed to be "new", that of course would be for a newbie, were usually nothing more than review for me. I'm almost on Unit 2, and I have only picked up maybe a few things I didn't know from before. However, I do think everyone should learn Spanish because the Hispanic population is becoming more a force each day. The upside: the language is easy...The downside: there isn't one! Learn it.

I always imagine myself in the position of one of those guys from this hybrid car commercial where they start a language course and are barely speaking Spanish, and by the end, when they pump gas, they're speaking it fluently.

Now...For what you've all been waiting for..Vietnamese..

A: I feel better about it.
B: It's still pretty damn hard.

Vietnamese is like Thai, Cantonese, and Mandarin, in that it's a tonal language. Meaning that an incorrect tone can give a word a completely different meaning. The upside is that they generally use the same letters that we use in the English alphabet. The downside to that is that there are lots of little dots and lines that can go above or below certain ones that alter the pronunciation.

The only resource I had to help me write was Google Translate. If it weren't for that, I would never have known where the modifiers for letters went. Aside from that, it wasn't so bad. It's just going to be tough charging it all to memory because there are lots of little words and the grammar can get awkward at times. It's not easy, but I think it's definitely worth learning. I even used some earlier today when I went with my girlfriend to the nail salon!

Adios,

Your Favorite Polyglot
Twitter: @mistercapoeira

Polski

Dobranoc!

I'm not going to lie. I was a little disappointed with my Polish lesson tonight, but it's for reasons that I should be proud of. I learned about zero new things...The most important was how to use the word "but" (ale). The only other things I learned were how to say I'm Polish for a man and woman.

Polish is already easy because I've had experience with Serbian and Croatian. All of the languages of that area sound pretty similar. Croatian, Serbian, Czech, Polish, and even Russian...They all borrow words from each other.

Pimsleur, I love you to death, and I know this lesson was super easy for a reason. Maybe Polish is going to get really rough and they want me to go into it with more confidence, or, rozumiem  po polsku bardzo dobrze.

I will say though...I love Polish..If it remains this easy, then I will undoubtedly become fluent in it..Some words get complicated (spelling-wise) because there are words with major lacking of vowels, like "przepraszam", which is how you say "excuse me". It looks like gibberish, but it's surprisingly easy to spell.

Don't let Polish terrify you. It's really easy. Go learn it!

I didn't need any dictionaries or anything because I had my notes from a previous lesson, so I know how the phonetics work!

If the lesson gave me more, I'd be able to give you more..But this lesson was basically a quick way to kill a half an hour.

Do widzenia,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Русский + Ελληνική

Τι κάνετε?

I doubled up again for you all tonight! Two of my favorite languages!

Drumroll........Russian and Greek!

I love these languages...In all honesty, I never thought that I'd be learning these two (or anything other than Spanish) 
because I'm from Nowhere, USA. No one really cares about foreign things there. 

Let's begin with Greek. Tonight's lesson was lots of review, but I got to learn some important words, like when (pote) 
and now (tora). I'm surprised that I did as well as I have since it's been a while. For anyone thinking of pursuing Greek,
don't be afraid. The only think you'll have to worry about is the alphabet, but even that isn't as hard as it seems 
because each letter is phonetic! So once you know what sounds each letter makes, you are GOLDEN. Lots of the 
letters look similar to the ones we use in English, with the exceptions of a few, but they take no time to get down.

Tonight, I also decided to try something that I never have done before..I left out the English pronunciation totally. I 
stuck strictly to the Greek alphabet. Nothing more. It was easy because I knew the sounds, but I know it will only
make my Greek stronger without having to picture the English pronunciations in my head.

Greek is an awesome language...You truly are speaking the language of the gods.

Onto Russian.

Let me first say, that Russian was brutally intimidating to me before I ever got started it way back when I was on 
lesson one. It had a weird alphabet, super-long words, and all of the "Mother Russia" jokes that are associated 
with a great country. I didn't know where to start. That was twelve lessons ago. I still am not totally solid on the
Azbuka (alphabet), but I have a good idea of what letters make which sounds, and I can even read a little bit, 
even if I don't know the words yet. I can sound it out like I'm in kindergarten again.

Tonight, I began to get into some bigger numbers, ranging from tens up to thousands, in order to be able to handle
myself in situations where I need to buy something. I also learned the national currency of Russia, which is the Ruble!
Everything else was review (things like telling time), and that was surprisingly easy, yet refreshing, also. Russian is
a really good asset to have. Just make sure you can understand the alphabet too!

For resources on both, I just used notes from the past and Google Translate. I had two dictionaries sitting next to me
which I've never opened, and they remained that way tonight. I didn't need them at all. I think that shows a TRUE
sign of progress and skill. 

This whole polyglottal "journey" I'm on isn't just something that's limited to me. ANYONE can do it. You just have
to go for it. 

I'm sorry this one is a little lackluster as far as detail goes, but look at the time. It's late, and I'm tired. 

I promise I'll do Vietnamese tomorrow! 


до свидания,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Nederlands

Goedemorgen! Hoe gaat het met u?

I tackled Dutch tonight..And in all honesty, it wasn't even tackling..More like mauling, destroying, obliterating, vaporizing, or basically choking it out.

Dutch has by far been one of the EASIEST languages to pick up, and here's why: it has some Germanic roots. Don't know any Germanic languages? No? You're lying. If you can understand what you're reading right now, then you definitely know a Germanic language, because English is one!

Also, let me clear something up, because I used to be in the same boat. Dutch is spoken as the official language of The Netherlands. There is no country called Dutchland. Norwegian is spoken in Norway, Danish is spoken in Denmark, and Flemish in Belgium. Got it? Heel goed.

Tonight's lesson dealt with greetings, such as "How are you?", "very good", and basically anything to get me in and out of a short casual conversation. But I really wanted to focus on how easy it was. Because English is Germanic, and because Dutch has Germanic roots, a lot can be understood just because some words look and sound the same.

For instance:

English - I speak.
Dutch - Ik spreek.

English - Thank you.
Dutch - Dank u.

English - Not so well.
Dutch - Niet zo goed.

See where I'm coming from? There are differences when it comes to pronunciation, and there is the breathy 'g' sound for words like 'goed', but it's nothing that's impossible to anyone. It almost felt like I was a child in nursery school learning to speak English all over again. Dutch = Super easy. Learn it.

Resources to help me spell: None except Google Translate. Once you understand the sound words make with a "oe" and with a "g", you really barely need to use it. A lovely language from what I am sure are an equally lovely group of people. Can't wait to learn more.

And before you say anything...Yessssss I know I need to do Vietnamese for y'all...It's coming..It's coming..Chill.

Tot ziens,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Tagalog

Magandang tanghalian!

I was feeling froggy, so I wanted to give you another one tonight.

Soooo...Remember how I said that Tagalog was a monster? And how scared I was of it? Man...I almost slapped myself at how wrong I was. This was superrrrr easy. Maybe it's because I'm still in the beginning stages, but if apprehension is easy now, it should remain that way later on right?

Let's hope so.

Anyway...Tagalog is the language of the Philippines..So if you have any Filipino friends, this might be something to look into. It might sound a little like Spanish because there are some loan words like "Ingles", "Nakakaintindi" (Entender), and "Amerikano".

I attribute the fear to my stupidity and not paying attention the first time I tried Tagalog. And I wasn't writing what I learned either. Once I solidified the word order and what each word really means (I was under the impression that nakakaintindi was at least three words), I was golden.

No dictionaries for this language yet. Just Google Translate, which did a good job of giving me the word I needed the spelling for!

Tagalog by FAR, has my favorite way to say yes: Oo. That's pronounced oh-oh.."Oh" as in the "au" sound in "automobile."

Tagalog, you're cool.

Paalam!

Your Favorite Polyglot

Double Whammy (Português and Հայերեն)

Oiiii! Tudo bem, meu amigos? Espero que tudo esta bem com você!

I wanted to have some form of compensation for the delay, so I decided to give you TWO language updates in one. I know you love me for it.

First up, I'll take care of one of the, I guess, minor languages as far as popularity, and that would be Armenian. I always had the impression that the language would sound like a mix of Turkish, and I was partially correct. It sounds like a hybrid of Turkish AND Hungarian, even though Hungary is not too close to Armenia.

Since it was my first lesson, I got the basics. You know..Excuse me...I'm American...Do you understand English/Armenian...Etc. That stuff I got down no problem. The wrench that got thrown in my gears is the fact that Armenian has its own alphabet. When I found that out (because I write in whatever language I'm studying), I was like, "What the hell, man?" I thought that because it would sound like Turkish and Hungarian, that it would have at least semi-Romanized letters. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.

The Armenian alphabet system is made up of alterations and adjustments to the letters T and U (uppercase and lowercase). Sometimes you'll need to add a little marker to a letter to give it a different sound, and quite frankly, it looks...Well..Weird. I've never seen any kind of alphabet system like that, nor have I tried to write it in, and believe me, I've seen a ton of systems.

There isn't much more to say about it. It's a cool language, one which I'll keep studying. We'll see where it goes.

Nowwwwww...For what I really wanted to talk to about. POR-TU-GUESE! Excuse my language, but I fucking LOVE Portuguese. Not only because I teach the Afro-Brazilian martial art of Capoeira (Shout outs to O Grupo Floreio Fenix), but because the language just sounds so engaging. I love Spanish too, but Portuguese just sounds much smoother with its -zh and -ch sounds.

I'm currently at a point where Portuguese is not hard at ALL. I think this is what it feels like when you're close to fluency. I ripped and tore through my lesson, barely pausing and barely writing notes because I knew how to spell and sound out everything, even when I learned a couple of new words. I don't know what it is...I just took to Portuguese like a fish to water.

One day I'll be like this with every language I know, but for now, this is DEFINITELY my strongest language. I love it so much. I'm planning on taking my girlfriend and I to Rio in 2016 to the Olympics. It will be a BLAST to finally get to speak Portuguese basically all the time. I'm confident that I can survive and then some. My lovebug even speaks a little (she really doesn't have a choice, lol..she lives with me, and also does Capoeira).

Portuguese WILL be my second fluent language. I promise you. If you don't know any, learn some. I guarantee you will never ever go back. It is my favorite. I curse in it, teach in it, converse with my Brazilian friend in it, and attack any opportunity to use it with gusto.

That's all for tonight...I think.

Maybe I can knock out another one for you..Tagalog? I know I still owe you!

Boa noite,

Your Favorite Polyglot

日本語

こんにちは！

Let's get down to business. Japanese kicked my ass tonight.

I don't know if it was because I haven't done it in a while, or what, but it was rough. Some of the things in the lesson were NOWHERE in the preceding lessons, so I was super confused.

You'll have to forgive me if this one is a little short...I'm kind of discouraged.

I took phonetic notes, and wrote in the Japanese script, but I'm going to wake up tomorrow and, for lack of a better phrase, talk to myself. I was sooooo good in the beginning, but tonight...I was just off. It doesn't help that Japanese is a weird language anyway.

I had some help with the writing. I've got the Random House Japanese-English/English-Japanese Dictionary. It is a BEAUTIFUL piece of work. Of course all of the conjugations aren't there, but once you learn how to write 'imasu ka' and 'desu ka,' everything begins to stick, and it becomes a matter of "copying and pasting". Some of those characters took FOREVER to build. I don't know the proper way to write them just yet (stroke orders and whatnot), so tonight, it was as if I were drawing lots of pretty pictures.

Japanese is just like Thai. Don't look for many spaces. Look for lonnnnnnng lines of characters.

Tomorrow I deserve a break. I'm thinking Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and/or French. Romance languages all DAY.

さようなら,

Your Favorite Polyglot

ภาษาไทย

สวัสดีคร้บ!

Today, I took on the MONSTER, that is the Thai language. New alphabet, tonal language, and sheer fear.

Here we go.

While I was raring to get to started, I was terrified, because I had already gone through this lesson once, and I was appalled at how horrible I did. This time around, I actually felt comfortable, and that I didn't have a reason to be scared. Just like my girlfriend said, "Thai won't bite you."

This lesson was the essential bare bones and most basic of the basic. "Excuse me," "I understand," "I don't understand," "I understand a little Thai," "I understand English," "Yes," "No," and "Are you American?" For those of you who don't know, based on your gender, Thai has a word that you will be adding to the ends of most of your sentences just to be polite. For the ladies, you would add "Ka". So saying hello for you would be "Sawasdee ka". Guys would say "Sawasdee krub". The trickiness comes from simply raising the mandatory things about the language.

Tonal requirements + Ka/Krub + irregular word orders + lots of one syllable words = Difficulty.

Despite all that, I do think I have got a hold on what I covered. Part of me even wants to go back and do the  lesson all over again.

For Thai, the only extra resources I had to help me write in Thai were Google Translate and Thai2English. Both are websites, but the latter was of greater help because it broke down what each word meant, so I'll definitely be using it again.

That brings me to writing in Thai. The letters are weird, and there are a ton of them. It appears to be phonetic, but that doesn't help too much because there are multiple letters for similar sounds (I think there are three for the "Th" sound. Tweeting in Thai was MUCH harder. I'm sad to say that I gave up trying. The letters overloaded my BlackBerry keyboard to the point where some keys had more than one letter in addition to having a whole new page of letters. That's a battle that I will definitely have to pick up another time.

Oh yeah..Thai doesn't seem to have spaces in between words like we do. Either that, or I'm not sure what in the world serves as a marker.

Really..Go try and read something in Thai, and it'll look like a line of characters.

This isn't my favorite language, but I'm forcing myself to learn it. Maybe I'll love it one of these days...


ลาก่อนคร้บ,

Your Favorite Polyglot

안녕하세요!

안녕하세요!

I hope everyone is having a great Friday night (depending on your time zone). Tonight, I chose to work on my Korean. In my city, this is the Asian language that you should learn before Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese. There just so happens to be an influx of Koreans here, especially on my old college campus. The ones I've met have been nothing short of respectful and willing to speak to me in Hangul. There were also a bunch of students at the summer camp which I worked who also were Korean and helped me out. In fact, if it weren't for one, I probably would be more lost than I am now, but we'll get into that more later in this post.

Before I started tonight, I thought I was further than I actually was, so I was disappointed, but now I know I have a long way to go. Tonight's lesson was a 30-minute audio lesson, combined with writing the Romanized pronunciation as well as writing in Korean letters. The speaking wasn't too hard at all. Korean is a very smooth language. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish when a word ends and when another begins (to those who don't know any Korean). But while practicing, it actually makes working on it easier because you don't get caught up in hard K, T, or B sounds. I particularly like saying goodbye!

But I ran into an issue tonight, and it was an issue that I expected. As I told you before, my audio course doesn't teach how to write, so of course, I have a resource to back me up. I have the Berlitz Korean Concise Dictionary: Korean-English/English-Korean. It might be the language, or it might be the dictionary, but there were lots of times where I could NOT find the word I was looking for. In fact, there were times where the word would have about eight definitions, and none of which were the one I was looking for. For instance, the pronunciation I learned for "excuse me" is "Sillyhejiman," and that's probably a bad attempt at Romanization, but that's all I can do, lol. There were some similar looking words, but none were the exact one that I needed, so for some words I only was able to spell (in Korean letters) pieces of the word. And it doesn't help that there are some tiny words at the ends of root words like -ga, -ka, -da, etc. that aren't attached to the words in the dictionary.

Luckily one student from the summer camp I worked at said I could send him a list of the words I couldn't get and that he would translate them for me. That kid is a GODSEND.

Material for tonight: asking for directions, you do/don't speak well, addressing a "you" in for formal way, here, there, not here/not there, and some review from before. Pretty easy stuff.

Korean is definitely one of my favorite languages, and I'm excited to get to the next lesson. I just hope I have a better grasp on the country's letters and spelling.

I've still got Thai, Tagalog, and Vietnamese on my radar...Don't worry!

안녕히 계세요,

Your Favorite Polyglot

עברית

שלום!

So...It's almost 3 in the morning..And I JUST finished my Hebrew lesson. I started approximately two hours ago, and now, my head is SPINNING. I've been doing Hebrew for awhile now, but now that I have the resources to write what I'm learning in the actual Hebrew letters, I'm taking the time to master the Aleph Bet. 

That's also why it took me an extra hour and a half and not just a half an hour. Tonight I learned how to say "at the hotel", "with you" and "with me" (they differ based on who is speaking), refreshers from before, more verbs, and of course, the writing.

In case you didn't know, Hebrew (like Arabic) is written from right to left, so I had to get used to switching everything. Now I know how lefties feel. It was awkward, but I got the hang of it after a while. Since my audio course doesn't show me how to spell what I'm saying, I've had to be a little more enterprising. I purchased two books: Webster's New World Hebrew Dictionary by Hayim Baltsan and Teach Yourself to Read Hebrew by Simon & Anderson. I had to look up each individual word, write down the proper phonetics, and then write the proper Hebrew spelling. 

You can imagine how much time that took, but like I said earlier, if you want fluency, go get it. I'm not fluent in any languages yet, but I promise you I will be fluent in at least 7 by the end of next year.

The two books are incredible. The Simon & Anderson book shows you each letter, the sound it makes, and gives you exercises to practice. It uses a vowel system that apparently is only found in prayer books, which is different than the Hebrew you would write with. It gives the reader a great grasp of the Aleph Bet, and I'll definitely be going to it again and again.

The dictionary is well..a dictionary. It is HUGE, and I love it. It has phonetic pronunciations, Hebrew spellings, and two dictionaries (Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew). It's really helpful when you think a word starts with a letter only to find out that you were wrong. If the book wasn't bilateral, I would have been stuck searching, which would have probably caused me to be still working. 

My throat is dry from all of the "ch" sounds, but discomfort has to correlate to SOME progress, right?

I'm going to get some apple juice (Mott's all the way!) and head to bed. You all be safe, and hopefully I can tackle Thai, Tagalog, and Vietnamese tomorrow, which are monsters in their own regard.

לילה טוב,

Your Favorite Polyglot

P.S. If there are typos and grammatical mistakes, you're just going to have to let me be. It's now 3:15 and I could care less about if it could get past my old English professors, lol.

номер два

здравствуйте! Как дела?

I think this first legit exploration of learning languages is the main question I get asked: How do you do it??

Being that I'm in a city with a typical demographic of people, African-American, Caucasian, and Hispanic, with small amounts of other ethnicities, it is extremely hard to find people to practice with. My girlfriend speaks a few foreign languages (She just so happens to be Mexican, so I go to her for Spanish), so she is a big help, but when we go out, we typically don't hear anything foreign unless I'm at the nail salon with her or randomly in Wal-Mart. This is unfortunate, because as you know, conversational practice is VERY important.

What to do, what to do? IMMERSE YOURSELF. Just because you might not be in a typically diverse neighborhood doesn't mean that you can't practice speaking and learning. You can immerse yourself by following people of foreign languages on Twitter (You'd be surprised at how it helps your reading), going to ethnic restaurants and speaking their languages (You never know...You might get free food...Not like I'd know anything about that, lol), walking up to ethnic looking people and striking up a conversation, writing in foreign languages in your spare time, joining LiveMocha.com, and countless other ways.

There's a new Thai restaurant in town, so you already know I'm going to test what little Thai I know there.

If you want fluency, go get it. Forget trying to let it come to you. Seek it out. Immerse yourself the best you can. It's gotten me pretty far.

How am I learning? Well..Aside from the paragraph before, I've found that using a program called Pimsleur helps out a lot. I was a fan of the Rosetta Stone, but then I got tired of sitting in front of a screen only learning words and not learning how to be conversational. With Pimsleur, I can be walking around, sitting in the library, lying in bed, or at the gym, and just have it playing on my iPod. And because I'm an aural learner, it sticks so much more. I remember the first time I tried Hebrew. I thought I was going to forget it ALL, but I woke up the next morning and remembered it all. That's not to discount the Rosetta Stone. I just don't have the time to be stationary for that long.

To keep you from having to read more blocks of texts (because I was going to go over a lot), I will continue in the next post!


До свидания,

Your Favorite Polyglot

Numero Um!

Bem-vindo! My girlfriend gave me the idea to start this blog today, and I am jumping all over it. For the past few months (longer in some cases), I have been studying a veritable cornucopia of foreign languages. Why? Well, the answer is simple. America is America, and we can agree on that. We can also agree that the national language of this country is American English. Lastly, we can agree that The United States is a melting pot; there are countless people from other countries residing here, and many of them have a first language other than English.

I do love my country and all that jazz, but my interest comes from the fact that no one should have to completely give up their native language in order to make it here. That's not fair by any means. In fact, I think we should do more to make the transition from one's home country to the USA, i.e., learning languages. It's fine if I'm the only one who chooses to branch out to every possible culture, but for those of you who don't, you're missing so much.

I've QUICKLY come to find out that people appreciate it so much when you try to speak to them how they're used to. It definitely has its perks.

The languages that I am currently studying are Eastern Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Dari, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Western Armenian!

...Crazy, right?

I'll be posting things that I learn, things that interest me, books I recommend, and various linguistic resources! I am open to feedback, and learning languages that are not on the list!

Muito obrigado e boa noite,

Your favorite Polyglot