Getting To Know Everyone

DeerGlow said:

Duolingo has a flash card app too, tinycards, and there is memrise that are free. Bable seems okay if you're willing to subscribe.

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Memorizing Scripture can be great on more than one educational and spiritual level!

DeerGlow said:

I don't know if you could memorise scripture with flash cards.... maybe one side the where-it-is (Book Chapter:Verse/Verses) and the other the words?

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It used to be done a lot, years ago, anyway.

Psalm 119.11 ("Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.")

Shoetoyou said:

Hi DeerGlow,

I feel like I already know you well, having prayed for you so often recently.

Just call me Shoe (hence, Shoe to you). I'm a married father of two grown children, and a Christian since my adolescence when I found Jesus by the banks of a lake, when I was at my lowest, weighed down by heavy black shadows. I've strayed and come back over the years, but now have walked in His Way for many years.

Languages are not my forte, but I speak and understand English, some French, and have been trying to learn Japanese, German and Danish from Duolingo (without much success). I spent 6 years studying Latin (classical, not ecclesiastic) in middle and high school.

I write a bit, but not much recently. I like to read, especially theology and practical Christian living books, but also science fiction and fantasy. I used to play piano and clarinet, and am currently trying to learn guitar (with little success).

I have worked in the medical field for the last 26 years, seeing the best and worst that humanity has to offer (or at least the results of such).

I belong to a liturgical, charismatic and evangelical church, and facilitate its youth group (as unqualified as I am).

That's probably enough about me for now.

Non nobis, Domine, sed nomine tuo da gloriam!

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Danish is quite similar to German in some ways, isn't it?

faroukfarouk said:

Danish is quite similar to German in some ways, isn't it?

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It seems to be but the pronunciation is harder for me. It's also not a commonly used language anymore, so I might switch to trying to learn something like Spanish which would have more practical value. I like learning languages as I find it helps keep my (aging) mind sharp and introduces new ways of thinking, but I really only use English (and occasional French with my wife's relatives) in my daily life.

faroukfarouk said:

Danish is quite similar to German in some ways, isn't it?

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It seems to be but the pronunciation is harder for me. It's also not a commonly used language anymore, so I might switch to trying to learn something like Spanish which would have more practical value. I like learning languages as I find it helps keep my (aging) mind sharp and introduces new ways of thinking, but I really only use English (and occasional French with my wife's relatives) in my daily life.

Shoetoyou said:

It seems to be but the pronunciation is harder for me. It's also not a commonly used language anymore, so I might switch to trying to learn something like Spanish which would have more practical value. I like learning languages as I find it helps keep my (aging) mind sharp and introduces new ways of thinking, but I really only use English (and occasional French with my wife's relatives) in my daily life.

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Spanish and Danish are quite vastly different.

But then again, the combination of Danish and Spanish would a good asset to have.

I guess with your medical background, German would be useful also, with all the scientific history material that there is.

Shoetoyou said:

It seems to be but the pronunciation is harder for me.

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PS: Swedes sometimes say that Danish is Swedish spoken through a mouthful of porridge.

@DeerGlow: I guess you hadn't heard the Danish / porridge line before...

DeerGlow said:

No, and I haven't looked at danish but I'm studying Swedish.

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Danish and Swedish are rather similar. Good to read Swedish Bible verses also. For English speakers, getting the hang of the Swedish article suffixes is a significant stage.

DeerGlow said:

It's not as bad as French questions. I guess once you get used to article suffixes it's perfectly normal.

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Up here a lot of ppl are bilingual with French!

DeerGlow said:

Not so down here. Some places probably have tons of Spanish speakers but that's most of it.

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Yes, in the US Spanish has in many places at least unofficially become the second language.

DeerGlow said:

Hello? How is everybody?

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Blessed and praying for you.

Wow, missed this thread 'til @Shoetoyou pointed it out. I'll fill in my bio later.

I had almost given up on language learning a number of years ago because I couldn't really make much progress. It turns out I'd been doing it very ineffectively and was pretty much wasting a lot of time and energy for few results.

I've been spending a lot of time learning languages lately with a lot more success. 2 years of university German with As and not able to do much with it in a practical sense beyond ask where the bathroom was. I spent about 30 years banging my head against the wall not accomplishing much in NT Greek. Then I ran across some sites with successful self-taught polyglots and started adapting their methods instead of the traditional memorize grammar and vocab approach. 30 years of working on Greek and not able to do much more than look up words in lexicons and grammar tables. 5 years of better methodology and I'm now reading the NT and OT (Septuagint) in Greek for my devotional reading with occasional reference to English. I also learned about the Assimil language courses. I started with their English to Spanish course about 2 years ago. It started me on a path so I can now comfortably watch Spanish dubbed TV shows on Netflix (with Spanish subtitles). I'm also reading the NVI (almost done with Jeremiah) without referring to English. We got together with an old friend from Panama about a month ago. She seemed surprised (in a good way) with my pronunciation.

The key is not so much "language learning ability" as I had about given up on things, but actually practicing the skills you want to develop. It's much more about figuring out the best methods to use rather than just throwing time at it. I'm now using Assimil's Hebrew and Chinese courses to "prime to the pump" so to speak by just spending a few minutes a day getting used to the sounds and characters. In another year or two (once Greek and Spanish are to a solid level), I'll start hitting one of them harder. I started a thread on language learning in the Languages subforum awhile ago that shows a quick example of the approach I start with now.