Choosing a language to study

I thought I'd just update this thread on what I am doing, for now.

I realized through taking the tests again, that my sudden drive to enroll in something, NOW! could possibly be due to this not focused/low acetylcholine thing. Also, after some analysis (and some time-out time- stuck myself in the corner and did some extra EE, ha!) I think that taking a class in my case really would be beneficial, in the end I think that for learning something social like a language actual practice with others interested in doing the same thing is important. Also it would confront whatever program I have that is preventing me from really pursuing this. If I was reading someone else's post concerning this, it might almost see like there was a fear of failure- either in not having the capacity to learn the language (this could be through self-study or in a class), or in not being able to learn it as well as others given the same circumstances (ie, in a class).

So, I'm holding off on enrolling on anything for right now. I missed the deadline for some of the classes anyway at this point. I am making sure to take all supplements regularly. Unfortunately the ones listed for acetylcholine are very expensive, so I'm investigating some options. The one in particular is called Brain Vitale, and is over $50/bottle, one needs 3 bottles a month to start according to UM solution. Yikes! I have been smoking just a little bit regularly which is a tremendous help, usually 1-2 cigs a day, they are organic American Spirits that I roll myself somewhat thickly, so each one is more like 2+ regular ones. They really seem to help me focus, which has been consistent throughout my experience of smoking. Next time I get to the grocery I will see if anything is on sale as far as supplements go, maybe I can get 2-3 cheaper things that are all components of the brain vitale, which is a mix of Acetyl l-Carnitine, Phosphatidyl Serine, GlyceroPhosphoCholine, inositol, and ginkgo extract. I'm sure I can find some sort of ginkgo extract at least for pretty cheap.

Universe seems to have responded with some help, anyhow. I figure that the three best languages for me to learn are: French, Spanish, and Serbian, any of these would be good. I am going to enroll in something after I get back from some travels in August, I've got the calendar dates for registration marked. That will be either French, or Spanish, depending how the schedule works out. In the meantime, I had made plans for a friend of a friend to house-and-cat-sit for me while I am gone for a month. It turns out that she is fluent in Serbian, and also is interested in sharing my apartment with me after I come back. She just lost her job as a nanny (got out of a situation with a really psycho/narcissistic sounding woman) and is seeking work, and saving up to get her own place (and for school, she is here on a school visa right now- this whole thing is a long story). I said if she will practice with me she can stay with me for free for a while. Of course I would let her anyway for house-sitting, and because she needs help, but this situation seems to be a good barter. I will have some enforcement of learning, and a native-speaking teacher on premises!, and she said that she will feel much better in staying at someone's place if she is doing some work for it. And of course it's not too much work that would conflict with her trying to get a new job, which hopefully she will have by then anyway.

In the meantime I wrote myself a contract that I will practice Spanish 4 times a week, this is easy enough to do- 3 times a week while I'm sitting on the bus to work, and another time on my own. The book is easy enough to follow. Hopefully I won't renege on it and will follow through.
 
Hi , I recently had the intention to learn Russian, I have been practicing a little, and even though some characters and sounds are a bit different from latin, I found it was not as hard as I thought.

Now from that to word memorization it will definitely take me some time, but I'm learning basic things here and there.


this one helped me:
http://learnrussian.rt.com/alphabet/

so the red ones are what we would call vowel sounds and the blue ones consonants. and there are the green ones that have a function i don't understand yet :P,

The good news for us is that Russian has a lot of words that come from latin and sound very similar too.


I put the post here because it seems fitting , anyone has like a good grammar link for Russian language? :read:
 
As a teenager i was obsessed with Japan, and so found learning a few phrases, parts of the alphabets, structure rules and even mannerisms, much easier. I didn't get much further than the absolute basics but i still remember much of it. I love the way it sounds too.

Then i moved onto Spanish, thinking it was a language spoken by many people, and i liked the attitude (a sweeping generalisation!). Then, due to their economy failing, as in the UK, i also ended up with many friends who moved from there, to London, so again i became familiar, with the sound at the very least.

Also, growing up for some time in Germany, i did 2 years of it at primary school (8-10?) as well as many, many days out with friends, with no adults, so asking for the delicious "pommes mit mayo bitte" is now part of my being. So is the mayo, i miss it so much... I adored that place - one place we lived was Spandau.

In London i also spent about a year basically living in the pockets of a couple that spoke French a lot, (he was Greek, she was Corsican/French from Hong Kong) so i picked up on how similar some of it is to English. That always made me laugh!

Anyway, so now I’m learing French, very slowly, for the last few months. And in case any one is interested, i found this excellent youtuber/tutor Vincent :D who has literally tens of hours of lessons which i think he began posting at the end of last year.

He says his French is the proper type - i think.. i don't remember for sure. But his graphics are very helpful in giving you an overview of the different tenses and genders, seeing them all together is super helpful for me, because i'm always thinking about what is being left out 'for later'.

Also, he chops and changes back and forth between topics every 20 minutes or so, so i don't get too bored ;) Plus, i like to write everything - very messily - as well as repeating it usually three times, believing that it does help me remember more. And i think it does.

The other recommendation i was given was duolingo.com which does everything from Russian to French, maybe even Swahili, i'm not sure. This is excellent for me because it's like a video game with sounds, audio of speakers, visuals and typing - so you can blitz through, they give points too but that doesn't really interest me.

The other thing is, i think you can 'trick it' (and yourself) by just temporarily memorising what you got wrong, which i've done, and it made me appreciate the lesson video (below) even more. At the moment i'm doing 30 minutes to an hour of the video, then as much of the duolingo as i can - much more than the lesson, like an hour easy - before i realise i'm just cheating again :D I liked it so much though, that i'm doing the German version too. And the levels/'score' that i'm at seem to be the same.

I genuinely like the guy; he makes fun of ALL the exceptions, even the pronunciation. And i will donate to say thank you for giving them away for free. His channel has lots of short videos, videos of expressions, 40 minutes of random phrases and so on.

This is the first video of the video's in an eight part series that I’m working my way through:

Learn French in 8 days # Day 1
[3hours+] [i'm taking months! :P]
FRENCH FROM BEGINNERS TO ADVANCED

344,593
212,406
Published on Aug 22, 2015

SUPPORT ME IF YOU LIKE MY WORK / http://www.imagiers.net/support-me/
Learn French with your motivated, skilled, relaxed and native French teacher. Learning a language should be fun and I have been trying, for years now, to produce videos that would please you and help you become fluent in French. Watch the video, take some notes if you need...watch it one more time and try to see if you remember the important points of the video.

If you have any questions, please contact me through my website
http://www.imagiers.net/contact/

SUPPORT AND DONATIONS WELCOME:
Support me / http://www.imagiers.net/support


To also add: i hated English 'language' in school and thought the rules were so strict and complicated - and our family was far from academic - that i thought i'd never learn them, i'm still unclear of the technical terminology. Reading books - which i didn't really do till i began to 'wake up' - was one of the things that demonstrated that, tbh, people seem to make them up as they go along and it's more about how it reads, and this seems to differ from person to person. Laura's work instilled pretty much all of it. Again, this was probably due to the total immersion and delight when reading them. I've come to realise how important it is in being able to express yourself clearly. Before, i could barely use a comma.

And it was in trying to learn a language, and helping foreign friends speak English, that i came to learn anything of the terminology and the like. So i think learning a language can actually make you appreciate your own, and others learning it! I have great gratitude for my time with those friends.


edit: grammar :P
 
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