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31-10-2020, 11:53 AM
31

Re: Magical language abilities

Originally Posted by Minx ->
Nice choice
Also Fukien or Fujian. I spent the better of a year in Taiwan.
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31-10-2020, 12:52 PM
32

Re: Magical language abilities

Mandarin would be my choice. Many years ago I learned Russian because I was planning to drive across Russia in my Morris (in the end I travelled overland to India via Iran, Afghanistan etc in the days when you could)

I digress... The tutor said that Optimists learn Russian and Pessimists learn Chinese, he might have been right. However i travel a lot with Mandarin and/or Hokkien speakers and frankly the language is far more useful and more widely spoken than English in most Asian countries these days.
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31-10-2020, 01:03 PM
33

Re: Magical language abilities

I've been studying Portuguese for 30+ years. It's not easy, similar to Spanish & Italian, of course, but I think pronunciations are a little trickier.

However, I think this is an interesting approach. If you know your Latin based English then quite quickly you know half the Portuguese lingua.

education ... educacao
foundation ... fundacao

school ... escola
student ... estudante
stadium ... estadio

parliament ... parlamento
disappointment ... desapontamento

etcetera ... etcetera

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31-10-2020, 01:07 PM
34

Re: Magical language abilities

Originally Posted by keezoy ->
My son speaks almost fluent Latin and can translate anything written. So I would love to be fluent in Latin as he doesn't get to practice much in the spoken form. Otherwise Pitjantjara. So next time I visit Uluru I can speak to the locals in their own language.

Had to google that.

Good luck with it.
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31-10-2020, 05:28 PM
35

Re: Magical language abilities

Originally Posted by Judd ->
Italian. I'm in the process of learning it with an App on my tablet - don't know why really, just interested and if it keeps my brain going, so much the better.
Originally Posted by AnnieS ->
I tried to learn Italian, it wasn't as I expected. Not quite like the Godfather films.
Italian is a lovely language to both learn and speak. I found it relatively easy to learn the basics but I found some of the grammar difficult (entirely based on Latin). However, my Italian colleagues, neighbours and most others really appreciated the fact that I had made the effort to learn and speak their language. By the time we were coming up to returning to the UK, I could watch the TV news (TG1) and understand what was happening without having to record it and play it back several times .

I can also speak French to a certain degree, German and Spanish badly, and enough Portuguese to tell people I can't speak Portuguese
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31-10-2020, 09:57 PM
36

Re: Magical language abilities

When I was a teenager in the UK I knew a few people learning Esperanto which was supposed to become the universal language. There was even an society promoting its use in my town. People seemed very keen on it in the 1960s.

Since then its use seems to have died though that might be because I am in Australia where I have never heard of it at all.

Does anybody know if it still exists as a viable movement?
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01-11-2020, 02:29 PM
37

Re: Magical language abilities

Originally Posted by Bruce ->
When I was a teenager in the UK I knew a few people learning Esperanto which was supposed to become the universal language. There was even an society promoting its use in my town. People seemed very keen on it in the 1960s.

Since then its use seems to have died though that might be because I am in Australia where I have never heard of it at all.

Does anybody know if it still exists as a viable movement?
I think it started as the European shared language, but not a lot wanted that!
 
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