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[Gervassen]

However - compare speaking to a Chinese person on the street who has learned some English in High School with speaking to them in their native tongue. The fluency, the sharpness, I don't know - it's just not comparable.

你会说汉语吗？放屁！你装作你天天用汉语跟中国人有谈话。我不相信你。你事实上很不可能是听懂这个词“shabi”。哈哈

What a pitiful joke your pretension is. Continue to tell me about the richness that you experience while conversing with the Chinese man-in-the-street in his own language, and while reading Russian authors in the original. I especially loved the way you presented the description with an strained effort to reach me at my crude level of comprehension:

"The fluency, the sharpness, the... the... I don't know... it's just so ineffable to one such as you, little Gervassen. Boys such as you will never understand how elite I am!"

You never spoke a word of Mandarin or Cantonese in your life. I'm willing to believe you don't speak Russian either, even as you rave about Russian authors. But I was interrupting you describe how ignorant I am, so please continue enlightening me about your worldy knowledge of all things multilingual. Shabi.

[Owlbread]

你会说汉语吗？放屁！你装作你天天用汉语跟中国人有谈话。我不相信你。你事实上很不可能是听懂这个词“shabi”。哈哈

What a pitiful joke your pretension is. Continue to tell me about the richness that you experience while conversing with the Chinese man-in-the-street in his own language, and while reading Russian authors in the original. I especially loved the way you presented the description with an strained effort to reach me at my crude level of comprehension:

"The fluency, the sharpness, the... the... I don't know... it's just so ineffable to one such as you, little Gervassen. Boys such as you will never understand how elite I am!"

You never spoke a word of Mandarin or Cantonese in your life. I'm willing to believe you don't speak Russian either, even as you rave about Russian authors. But I was interrupting you describe how ignorant I am, so please continue enlightening me about your worldy knowledge of all things multilingual. Shabi.

Woah there, let's hold on a second. We might be having an impromptu debate but that's no excuse to be so rude.

You have misinterpreted my post quite badly and I'm sorry you thought I was trying to show off whatever. I did feel like I was writing a pile of wank at times but that's honestly how I feel about this topic, so I just said it. I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, I don't claim to and I didn't in that post. I just used it as a made-up example of what it's like when you do notice how much is lost in translation. I only chose Chinese because it seemed like quite a topical example. When I said "I don't know" I wasn't trying to come off in any way in particular, I honestly didn't know how to articulate that idea. I still don't know how to articulate it fully. It's just something I've noticed when I've been trying to speak to non-native English speakers. I often get quite angry when foreign intellectuals and so forth are interviewed in English on television to talk about a particular topic - let them talk in their own language for heaven's sake.

I don't speak Russian - I am learning Russian and studying Russian literature in the process. Having read stuff from Russian authors in English and then in Russian I did notice a difference. I found the same with German and Gaelic, a language I do actually "speak". I'm sorry if my attempts to make those premises clear to you came across as pretentious. I did get a bit angry however when you dismissed the benefits of learning languages as a student of mathematics (rather he should read self help books) and I found it ignorant, that's just the way I saw it. You know, I didn't even get into all the stuff about how some people see mathematics as a language in itself. Maybe mathematical brains find maths easier... or vice versa. My brain isn't mathematical, but maybe I'd find doing maths easier nowadays than when I was in school.

You know, we have had quite a large misunderstanding here. Given the apparent "outsider's perspective" you've shown, your fluency in Cantonese or Mandarin (I can't tell), your unnecessary rudeness and your misinterpretation of what I wrote - do you think that language barriers may be the problem here? Maybe I should learn Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever and we could work this little problem out together.

[Gervassen]

I would construe "That was very ignorant" as a rude starting point in itself. You can't expect good to come from that particular ice-breaker. We disagree, with my advice being more pragmatic, but to impulsively call either viewpoint ignorant before we even lay out any arguments is extremely uncalled-for.

The studies that you cite, if the same as those that I have seen, are largely junk science. Playing basketball makes you grow to 2 meters tall, don't you know? Such tests are rife with selection bias. Clever chaps learn a lot, including occasionally picking up a language here and there; but learning a language will not make you a clever chap. Playing basketball will not make you grow taller.

Moreover, there is an arrogance in assuming that a foreign intellectual can express himself better in his own language which an anonymous hack then translates to English. Is the native-speaker somehow more skilled in the foreign language than the obviously smart foreigner is skilled in English? How else to translate faithfully into English what a man with clearly better intellectual chops is saying in his own realm of expertise? English is the language of intellectual discourse with by far the most journal articles in any given academic field, written in perfect English by numerous professionals with names that you can't pronounce. If you are raised in an English speaking household, you have a considerable advantage... and life is a matter of playing to your strengths.

[Owlbread]

I would construe "That was very ignorant" as a rude starting point in itself. You can't expect good to come from that particular ice-breaker. We disagree, with my advice being more pragmatic, but to impulsively call either viewpoint ignorant before we even lay out any arguments is extremely uncalled-for.

It was a rude thing to say on my part, for that I apologise. I called it like I saw it on an emotional basis rather than an intellectual one. I do, however, find it less rude than dismissing someone's arguments as a laughable, pitiful, pretentious joke, and accusing me of treating you like some kind of sub-intellectual "boy".

The studies that you cite, if the same as those that I have seen, are largely junk science. Playing basketball makes you grow to 2 meters tall, don't you know? Such tests are rife with selection bias. Clever chaps learn a lot, including occasionally picking up a language here and there; but learning a language will not make you a clever chap. Playing basketball will not make you grow taller.

You've made a number of assertions there like "learning a language will not make you a clever chap" when I wasn't really talking about making you "a clever chap", I was talking about how it helps you assimilate information. I base that on personal experience. I feel brighter and more articulate now than I ever have done because I have studied different languages over the last few years. I think it's actually helped with my dyspraxia that means I'm not very articulate to begin with, though I'd have to think a bit more about that.

Would you mind explaining how this is junk science?

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/it-s-official-learning-languages-makes-you-smarter#.Ub-ImLSsbTo

Moreover, there is an arrogance in assuming that a foreign intellectual can express himself better in his own language which an anonymous hack then translates to English. Is the native-speaker somehow more skilled in the foreign language than the obviously smart foreigner is skilled in English? How else to translate faithfully into English what a man with clearly better intellectual chops is saying in his own realm of expertise? English is the language of intellectual discourse with by far the most journal articles in any given academic field, written in perfect English by numerous professionals with names that you can't pronounce.

Isn't it equally arrogant to assume that the anonymous hack can write better in English than the foreign intellectual? Is it better to receive the information as an interpretation of what once came straight from the horse's mouth? "The languages of intellectual discourse" are all fine and well, but the sad truth is no matter how well they write it'll be artificial. It won't be "as good" as if it was expressed as naturally as possible in their native tongue that they are most comfortable with. Scholars said that about Rabindranath Tagore's English poetry - it seemed false, lifeless, though beautiful in all the ways that non native speakers would recognise. That's coming from Mr. Tagore too, a literary genius.

Now, this is going to sound like a pile of wank again, but when I read through an English translation "Beyond Good and Evil", translated by one R.J. Hollingdale, a great, self-taught scholar, I was bored stiff by its needlessly complicated sentence structure and floweriness. It was a chore to read. When I read parts of it in the original German it was so much more concise and it made more sense.

Of course, written pieces wasn't really what I was getting at. It's more like when I watch Al Jazeera and listen to an interviewer who obviously speaks Arabic interviewing an Arab intellectual on something like the Syrian War - and they're doing it in English! The old guy (or young woman for that matter) is stumbling over his words and I'm half asleep by the end of the interview. I can barely understand him. Often they drone on and on monotonously. If they were speaking in Arabic together with English subtitles (the interview isn't live remember) the guy (or woman) would be able to make their points more concisely, more naturally, more effectively. It would also be more enjoyable to watch. I admit I've seen this more with interviews with Gaelic speakers conducted (absurdly) in English when the interviewee would clearly be more at home in their native tongue.

If you are raised in an English speaking household, you have a considerable advantage... and life is a matter of playing to your strengths.

I often wish I wasn't raised in an English speaking household so I could learn languages more easily. My strengths and interests lie in learning languages, so it's a shame I'm at a bit of a disadvantage there compared with someone who can already speak 3-4 languages by the time they're 13 years old.

I will say that we are about to embark on a very large debate. I am unsure how we should conduct this, given that we will smother the OP as we derail the thread. Perhaps PMs may be best.

[ggamer]

Things haven't gotten too intense yet, but I would rather not have this thread turn into a passive aggressive dick measuring contest and get Toady called on my thread

I think i'll start trying to learn Japanese first. It might be harder, but it will be easier to find a pen pal on the internet, possibly even on these forums.

I'll look through all these links and start my education, thanks guys!

Also, to those saying that taking a class would be the best way to learn, I don't have any japanese language classes available. Motherfucking schools in Alabama have classes on Mandarin at least, and I can't learn any language other than Spanish (Classes were a joke, I barely know anything past the grammar structure of Spanish. I suppose if I ever need to expand my knowledge of this I could talk to a couple people on this forum).

[LordBucket]

I think i'll start trying to learn Japanese first. It might be harder, but it will be easier to find a pen pal on the internet, possibly even on these forums.

I speak a little japanese. I've been to Japan. And I had a japanese pen pal. Couple comments and general suggestions:

1) Even after one year of college courses, hundreds of hours of watching anime, half a Pimselur course and an instant immersion computer learning CD...even random people walking the streets in Tokyo spoke more english than I spoke japanese. Learning to speak japanese well enough to be useful at all might take years.

2) It's much easier to find penpals who want to write in english than it is to find penpals who want to write in japanese. They also can't generally help you with pronunciation. Also, writing in japanese is a non-trivial hurdle above and beyond speaking it.

3) Learn hiragana before you learn katakana. Incidentally, if you don't know what these are, japanese has three character sets: hirgana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana each have either 48 or 104 characters...depending on how you count them. These two character sets are completely redundant. か is ka in hiragana,  and カ is ka in katakana. Which one you use depends on the word. Except when it doesn't, and people just use the wrong one to draw attention to a word, sort of like italics. And while ka looks pretty similar for both, not all do. For example, か and カ are both ka, but た and タ are both ta. Incidentally, be aware that in addition to this...if you want to be able to read at even the 6th grade level, there are another 1006 kanji characters for you to learn, and roughly 2000 to be able to read at an "adult" level.

4) There are some nasty pitfalls when it comes to reading that your life will be much easier if you know about in advance rather than trying to figure them out on your own. For example, o (お) will generally be substituted with u (う) in the case of a double vowel. Which means that you might see a word, look it up...and it doesn't exist in the dictionary because the romaniztion rules and kana rules don't completely agree with each other. つ is pronounced tsu, but when it's smaller it's also used to indicate double consonants. For example, while あさり is pronounced asari, あっさり is NOT pronounced atsusari, it's pronnounce assari, with a tiny pause between the two s's. お and を are both "o" but they have completely different use and are not interchangable. And sometimes, some people, will pronounce を as wo instead of o, and that's completely correct and valid. Be careful about this kind of thing if you're learning on your own.

Also, to the guy saying Pimsleur courses are worthless...sorry, I disagree. Even after an entire semester language course, even the basic Pimsleur 1 course will still be valuable. The Pimsleur method might be insufficient on its own, and I acknowledge that. It is a very deep tool, but it is not at all broad. If you do a 30-day pimsleur course in the manner they recommend it, at the end of the 30 days you'll only know about 500 words. That's not very many. But...you'll be able to use those words completely comfortably, at conversational speeds, with good pronunciation, and you'll be able to create sentences from those words on the fly. Compared to tools like rosetta stone or instant immersion, which will help you memorize countless individual words...which you'll be completely unable to use or recognize them when actually spoken in a sentence. I highly recommend pimsleur. Just don't expect that method alone to be enough to allow you to become fluent. That's not what it's for. In a classroom environment with 1 teacher and 20 students, very little time will be spent engaging is speaking practice with a competent speaker. Sure, you might partner with with other students, but the students you're partnering with generally don't know what they're doing either. A typical 30 minute pimsleur lesson is 5 minutes of instruction combined with 25 minutes of nasty, hardcore drilling of listening to speech and responding to speech. It's a very good tool, when used for the specific purpose it is intended. A saw is good for cutting wood, but it's silly to expect to use a saw alone to build a house. Pimsleur is a heavy duty power saw...but you're going to have a difficult time building a house with it unless you have the hammer and nails too.

[cartmann]

Russian language is quite easy to learn - I learnt the alphabet perfectly after a week. However, actively reading out russian is something that will take a long time to be able to do. Then even once you've learnt the typed alphabet, you then have the cursive alphabet. That's another alphabet to learn..

But the best thing is how much fun it is! feeling some accomplishment when someone sees some russian and says "What's that crap!?" and you respond by reading it out - Coolness +10

I recommend these few sites for learning russian

A spoonful of russian - Not used this much but a bit of human input as opposed to generated
Random russian word generator with translator - Because why not?
Latin alphabet -> Cyrillic and back - When I first started, this was my bible.
Google translate! - Never will be 100% accurate, but it does act as a thesurarus too!

And if you're serious about learning russian, keyboard stickers make life far, far easier (If you can be arsed to spend about 20 mins sticking them on)

Spoiler: image (click to show/hide)

Ofcourse if you don't decide to learn russian then that's fine... сука 

Edit: Cursive's a bitch.

Spoiler: largeish img (click to show/hide)