/lang/ - Language Learning General - it's all going downhill edition

That individual thread was archived but the /lang/ thread series isn't dead.

ah okay.
>/lang/ thread series isn't dead
I hope that never happens. /lang/ is the majority of the social interaction I get in the moment

are you on the computer version? on there they have tips and summaries of of what you're supposed to know for each lesson and some even link to external resources outside of duolingo.
never use that program on your phone because they literally don't explain anything there

which languages are you learning and what for?
is it a case lacking discipline, aren't you having fun learning or what causes you to stop learning?

>tips and summaries
Maybe i'm just a n00b, never even realized these existed, thank leaf user

French, Japanese and Swedish at the moment. I just learn for fun, and yes it is most definitely a lack of discipline. I like all the languages I study but when I feel I'm plateauing with one I'm tempted to jump to another for a while. I'm just impatient and want to learn all the langs

Hur god är din svenska?

Frens.
I am, at the moment, pretty good at English. Good enough to comfortably play most of the easier video games and to browse Yas Forums. Testmyvocab estimates my vocabulary to be about 17K words but I think that's total bullshit otherwise I wouldn't be encountering new ones every single day. Just today I had "frugal" and "refectory" and "hapless".
If I read through a difficult book, will that be enough to stop being functionally illiterate? I think The Lord of The Rings should do, with its general size and the amount of colorful pages-long descriptions in it. What do you think, /lang/bros? Any other suggestions?

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I had the same problem.
I progressed painfully slowly until I was eventually able to read to read a chapter of a manga with only looking up like every 4th words which for some reason motivated to seriously continue.
maybe set yourself a goal of a thing you'd like to achieve(ideally tell others about it) and work towards it?

test-english.com/grammar-points/a1/

What is this link, user? Are you trying to mock my grammar? If not, why else would you send me this?

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Cъeбaл нaзaд пoд тeкcтypы

I've got a C2 certificate from cambridge and got full marks in the vocabulary section and "use-of-english" section and I had to look up refectory and hapless just now.
"refectory" is a very specific word for a very specific context and I didn't even know the first translation for it in my native language (Refektorium)
"hapless" is just one of the billions of synonymous unnecessary adjectives for emotions, I wouldn't worry about that one either
I don't where in russia you are, but it should be late afternoon to evening there, right? and if those 3 words for all of today are the only ones you had to look up then isn't that really good? :)

but yes, reading longer texts(with a translator at the ready to look up unknown words) is a good way to expand your vocabulary

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Read more classics. If your aim to have a broader english, the classics will help you a lot.

>"frugal" and "refectory"
These words are never used. Read Dickens or Lord of the rings. If you can manage those, then your English is ok

it would mostly teach you antiquated words and phrases that no one uses anymore
bad advice

frugal is pretty common though, or isn't it?

You have no idea what the classics are.

Fine, maybe frugal

Challenge from last thread

Easy
>hello ma'am, how are you?
Γεια σας κυρία, τι κάνετε;
>that will be 3.50
Θα κάνει τρια πενήντα
>would you like a bag with that?
Θα θέλατε τσάντα με αυτό;
>sorry, we're all out of that product
Συγγνώμη, μας τελείωσε εκείνο το προϊόν

Medium
>excuse me, could you tell me where the toothbrushes are?
Συγγνώμη, θα μπορούσες να μου πεις πού είναι οι οδοντόβουρτσες;
>there's way too much selection, how can I ever pick just one item?
Υπάρχει πολύ μεγάλη ποικιλία, πώς μπορώ να επιλέξω μόνο ένα αντικειμένο
>hey, stop right there! I saw you trying to steal that razor, give it back
Έι, σταμάτα! Σε είδα να προσπαθείς να κλέψεις εκείνο το ξυράφι, δώσε το πίσω
>another day another dollar, i wonder for how long I'm gonna work in this shithole
Άλλη μια μέρα άλλο ένα δολάριο, άραγε για πόσο καιρό θα δουλεύω σε αυτό το shithole

>functionally illiterate at 17k words
>me getting 16k words

Anyway, at a certain point the only way to improve your vocabulary is by reading literature so yeah, you should read The Lord of the Rings.
You can also get your news from the BBC, I have the impression that they use much more sophisticated vocabulary than most other media outlets.

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there are a billion different definitions of what "the classics" are.
which specific set of specific set of classics do you have in mind, then

>when a word can mean 5 different things just by changing tone

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tillräckligt god för att kunna läser många saker utan alltför stora svårigheter, men jag låter onaturlig(?) när jag skriver eller pratar
not a bad idea. i also struggle to find interesting things to read/listen to sometimes, so perhaps i should set aside time to gather material then set goals for learning them. thanks fren.

Honestly most of the native english speakers would have no idea what a "refectory" was.
Not even I do.
"hapless" isn't not used in any context except old books and

Your Grammar and syntax is quiet good, I think you're at the level where you might benefit from studying English informally to get a more normal (and less technically correct) grammar structure

Congratulations Brat

>when a word can mean 5 different things just by changing a consonant
>bet
>net
>get
>jet
>set
they're different words, user. chinese just has different definitions for what qualities differentiate words

I'm getting cross that Mandarin words don't seem to have an individual meaning.
>4 characters for a phoneme
>4 tones for each character
>characters may have 6 entirely unrelated meanings
>more than a hundred characters
>Many characters for stand alone expressions when combined

12, even
>wet
>pet
>set
>get
>het
>jet
>let
>yet
>vet
>bet
>net
>met

Thanks for all your answers frens.
Portugal, you may have the (or A worse?) worse vocabulary (even if by a small margin) but you make much more expressive posts and I wish I could write like that.
It's because they are actually different words. Kind of like "зáмoк" and "зaмóк" in Russian (couldn't come up with an English example), speakers of languages that don't have stress wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them as well.
>quiet good
What do you mean "quite" good? I know the placement of "at the moment" at the beginning isn't very natural but I thought that'd be fine.

So it's settled then. Starting The Lord of the Rings. I hope it will work out well.

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>4 characters for a phoneme
I thought Mandarin didn't have separate characters for its phonemes, it's a logography after all. what do you mean?

>characters may have 6 entirely unrelated meanings
I think chinese had lots of mergers
kinda like in english where some words with the same spelling have 4 different meanings with completely different etymologies

>more than a hundred characters
more like thousands

>Many characters for stand alone expressions when combined
I'm to retard to understand

Hard
>dear customers, due to recent events and In compliance with government recommendations, we kindly ask that you keep a 2 meter distance from one another to help prevent the spread of covid-19 and keep everyone safe. Once you are done your shopping please leave the store to allow us to let other customers in. Thank you for your cooperation
Αγαπητοί πελάτες, εξαιτίας προσφατών γεγονών και σε συμμόρφωση με τις συστάσεις της κυβέρνησης, ζητάμε ευγενικά να κρατάτε μια απόσταση των δύο μετρών ένας από τον άλλο για να βοηθήσετε να αποτρέψετε την εξάπλωση του covid-19 και για να κρατάτε τους όλους ασφαλές. Μόλις τελειώσετε να ψωνίζετε παρακαλούμε φύγετε το μαγαζί για να μας αφήσετε να αφήσουμε τους άλλους πελάτες να μπούνε. Ευχαριστούμε για την συνεργασία σας.
>I wish this damned line was shorter!! Don't these idiots know I've got places to be! I doubt I'll ever make it on time now
Μακάρι να ήταν πιο μικρή αυτή η ουρά!! Δεν ξέρουν αυτοί οι ηλίθιοι ότι πρέπει να πάω κάπου! Αμφιβάλλω ότι θα φτάσω στην ώρα μου τώρα.

>couldn't come up with an English example
íntern (i.e. a person who works somewhere to gather experience)
intérn (i.e. a person who is internded, more commonly used as the adjective, meaning internal)

>tillräckligt god för att kunna läser många saker utan alltför stora svårigheter, men jag låter onaturlig(?) när jag skriver eller pratar
"Läser" (reading) should be "läsa" (to read). Otherwise correct, and "onaturlig" without the "t" is correct considering the grammatical gender. Generally speaking, words describing living things belong to the "common" gender. The main exception would be "barn" (children).

Why do you think you sound unnatural? If someone told you so, did they elaborate on why they felt like that? If you want more natural writing then it's probably just a matter of learning more words and even more importantly ways to say things more idiomatically.

And those things come with time as you learn more.

Forgot to add, I am studying exclusively informally and never took any lessons except in my shitty public school, if that's what you meant by "informally".
Thanks Germany, your example is more accessible.

also pérmit(noun) and permít(verb) now that I think about it

But learning by hearing consonants is much easier, you hear the consonant. The moment you use the word even with the correct tone without given context can create confusion. Because if you do that you have to really put effort into using the tone. Using it in a sentence sometimes defeats the purpose of tones becuase you will understand it. Like an accent/dialect.

>different words
I know they are. It's just really confusing at times in speech. But the moment it's in written form it's a piece of cake.

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i don't pronounce or stress those words any differently. it might be because i speak the lowest common denominator english (as shown by this map) so i just merge a lot of the pronunciation

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App Duolingo only includes tips for a couple of languages, while the website version gives tips for pretty much all of them I think. I wonder why they haven't implemented them all yet. I'd advise to also use the option that makes you write the sentences yourself instead of just choosing words, another feature that is missing from the app version as far as I know.

Dude, it doesn't matter as long as you keep consistency in all three. The only setback is that you will take longer to reach fluency. That's all

Your grammar and syntax are good, It's not a criticism.

I am an Anglophile and I take issue with the grammar and affectations of many native English speakers.

Keep going friend!

but only because your native language hasn't got them.
for a native speaker, tones are as distinctive as is the difference between [k] and [m]
that's the difficulty of learning tonal languages. fortunately, most popular have comparably simple grammar (NOT looking at you, navajo)

I'm embarrassed to ask you explicitly, but I actually expected you or someone else to check the grammar here:
> Portugal, you may have the (or A worse?) worse vocabulary (even if by a small margin) but you make much more expressive posts and I wish I could write like that.
I think both should work?

>If someone told you so,
oh, no. i just know i word things wrong and my pronunciation isn't very good yet, but it's just lack of experience. Swedish feels very intuitive to me tho, and I feel confident that I can improve
thanks for the tips fren
I suppose that's true, I'm just inclined to believe that it's not a good habit. but I still learn either way, and I'm not in a rush to learn as quickly as possible, so I guess it's fine.

>i just know i word things wrong and my pronunciation isn't very good yet, but it's just lack of experience
Yeah, experience will do the trick. Don't feel bummed out if you can't pronounce the "sj" sound like a southern Swede, just go with "sh".

>feels very intuitive
It's a very simple language and also very close to English, so your intuition is right. You'll do progress in no time if you just practice.

бoльшoe cпacибo бpaт

A common issue in English grammar is how to handle pluralization of abstract nouns.

So you have a "chair"- it's a noun.
The plural of "shair" is "chairs", this is easy.

But then you get abstract nouns like "happiness" or "sunshine".
Often the plural form of an abstract noun is irregular.

"sunshine" is an abstract noun, because we callout count how many "sunshine" there is.
We could have three "rays of sunshine" - because we are counting the "rays" not the "sunshine"

"Happy" is an adjective- so we would say "happier" to mean "more happy"
Native speakers will often say "more happy" sometimes but this is wrong.
But if we are talking about "happiness" there is actually no noun, instead of an adjective it is an "abstract noun"
You will often see this when a quality like is spoken about in a broad or universal contect"

I am happy
Tomorrow I will be happier
I want more happiness in my live (becomes abstract noun)

>Portugal, you may have the (or A worse?) worse vocabulary (even if by a small margin) but you make much more expressive posts and I wish I could write like that.
well vocabulary is a noun- but "worse" related to a quality.
If the other person can guess which quality of an object is worse then it is OK,
But often an object has so many qualities that it is confusing.

It is hard to understand what about a vocabulary is "worse".

I hope that makes sense

yeah, I initially thought of including it being both countable and uncountable
I guess it just is uncountable in my idiolect

but of the two choices, "the" sounds way better (but still wrong, to me)

Ah, simple answer.
there are many "vocabularies", so you would say "a worse vocabulary" as it is one of many.

The only time you might say "the worse vocabulary" is if you were comparing the vocabularies of only two people; in this case either "a" or "the" are OK.
EG. between Sam and tom; Tom has the worse vocabulary.

countable "vocabularies" sounds hideous to me.

My question wasn't about pluralization or anything, it was about which article I should've placed in that sentence. I'm sorry I didn't state it more clearly.
I already know that "the worse vocabulary" is correct, but what if I switch the article to "a"?
>It is hard to understand what about a vocabulary is "worse".
Really? I think it's pretty obvious here. "Worse" means "less desirable".

I see now, that's what I was thinking. Thanks for clearing this up.

You're not supposed to depend on Duolingo exclusively. Get a grammar text and use them together.

My app prompts me to write full sentences. I just realized the other day that there's an option to enable spoken input exercises. It probably varies depending on language; I'm doing Russian, for reference.

Lord of the Rings should do. Someone else mentioned Dickens, you'll run into plenty of new words there. If you want to know what god-tier English prose looks like, read Edward Gibbon's history books, though it's slightly antiquated at this point.

Victorian literature is still fairly relevant, but you will run into some antiquated style on occasion. You can try reading American novels (there's a whole list called "the great American novels") and you'll find that the prose is fairly modern.

Use "a vocabulary" there to be correct, but it does sound more natural this way:

The reason is that you have a seperate vocabulary for every language you know.
I have three vocabularies, one French, one Russian and in for English.
Thus, they are countable in some contexts.

glad to help