General Introductions Post

[viklikesfic]

Welcome to language_learning!

This is a general post where we can introduce ourselves and meet those who speak or are studying the languages we want to learn. As the community grows, I will add language-specific posts geared towards matching people up with conversation partners, but let's start here and find out who on DW is learning a language!

Suggested format (feel free to modify at will):

Name you prefer:
Location:
Home country:
Languages you speak/sign/read/understand:
Languages you have studied or are studying:
Current language learning goals:
Favorite language learning tool or resource:
Would you like others who are learning or speak your target languages to add/contact you?:

Comments

Martyna's Intro post

[martyna]

Name: Martyna
Location:Paris, France
Home country: Germany/Poland (depends on definition)
Languages you speak/sign/read/understand: German (Deutsch), Polish (Polski), English, French (Français), Japanese (日本語)
Languages you are ACTIVELY studying: Japanese, (Spanish)
Current language learning goals: Reach a respectable level in Japanese
Favorite language learning tool or resource: Lang-8, http://languagelearners.myfastforum.org/index.php
Would you like others who are learning or speak your target languages to add/contact you?: Yes, sure, go aheadｍ you're welcome!

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[viklikesfic]

Welcome! A lengthy list of languages like that always makes me smile, because it makes me look less crazy ;-)

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[martyna]

Hu? Are you calling me crazy? *suspicious glare*
Well, maybe I am. *laughs* What's crazy about liking languages?

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[viklikesfic]

Hee! Only in the nicest way :-D

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[martyna]

Lucky you! ;)
Is it a paraox that I love language learning but hate the grammar part? :x

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[viklikesfic]

I don't think so! Everyone's got their favorites, I think. Me, I love grammar (it's like a puzzle) but I get quickly bored with reading and listening.

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[martyna]

You are my opposite! I don't mind not understanding every word I do read, and as reading is my favourite past-time... but I cannot acquire grammar just by rules without a lot, lot, lot of exposure. For both, French and English, I had to go for some time to the respective countries to immerse myself FIRST, so I could fix my grammar later.

Re: Martyna's Intro post

[viklikesfic]

Hee. See I love the immersion method in theory, I really do, but I've rarely been able to find an actual immersion experience with European languages. With French, I did live for a month with a host family, and they were pretty good about not speaking English, but I didn't actually learn that much new. I think maybe immersion is better if you can both a) fully immerse without English-speakers around and b) do it when you only know the very basics of a language. I don't think I picked up an "ear" for correct structures, for example, because I already used the language a certain way. Same idea with new vocabulary: it was jarring when I basically understood what someone was saying to ask "wait, back up, that word you used, could you spell that and tell me its exact meaning?"