UPDATE: 09/28/23
I just signed into my account and this post has been sitting in my drafts for the last five years! I'm publishing it, because why not. I'm also only focusing on Brazilian Portuguese. Yep, it beat out the other gazillion languages I was dabbling in. I want to get back to blogging about language learning again, so I guess this will be my reintroduction. :) Now back to that old draft, originally written in and waiting since 2018...
I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted. I've continued to be interested in languages, but fell away from learning regularly. I recently moved back in with my parents for the time being, and had to box up most of my language books. I did keep out my books for Bulgarian and Norwegian, since I had enough to make some progress in those two, but not so many resources that they would take up a lot of room on my small bookshelf.
I've been doing the Norwegian course on DuoLingo. It's helped refresh my memory on pronunciation. This means that obviously, I've decided to continue with that language, as well as the others listed in this post for now. I'm also doing the Romanian Duolingo course.
I think this program is a good stepping-stone into learning a language, and they offer a ton to choose from. In reminds me somewhat of Pimsleur in that it jumps right in, so you learn things like pronuncation as you go. I personally like this approach, especially when it comes to pronuncation. It seems more natural to me. I learned how to pronounce Spanish and Portugese (Brazilian) through music, before I ever thought of learning either of the two. So, instead of a guide telling me approximate sounds, I made connections with the singing and lyrics. Selena for Spanish, and Daniela Mercury for Portuguese were the two singers that got me into learning those respective languages.
Anyway, I got a little sidetracked. The Duolingo app is great (I use the Android version.) Here are the languages that are offered to English speakers...
~Chinese
(I'm assuming this means Mandarin.)
~Dutch
~French
~German
~Hawaiian
(I was gonna do this one, even though I'm not officially learning it. I love Hawaiian music though, and can sing along pretty well if I have the lyrics. Check out Robi Kahakalau. I have her first three CDs, and they include both the Hawaiian lyrics + English translation, so it's interesting to see what's being said.)
~Irish
~Italian
(I may or may not try my hand at this one...I'm learning toward not the more I think about it, although I did purchase an old Hugo phrasebook from a thrift mall earlier this year. I think I like the idea of speaking Italian more than actually learning it.)
~Japanese
~Korean
(Of the three popular East Asian languages, I like Korean, and did go through a couple lessons on Duolingo, but I decided not to continue - can't wrap my head around the characters. I do like the look of Korean compared with Chinese and Japanese, and how the characters are put into little blocks. A good Korean movie I watched recently is I Saw the Devil. It's very violent and disturbing, so be warned.)
~Navajo
~Portuguese-Brazilian
~Russian
~Spanish
~Swedish
~Turkish
I think this program is a good stepping-stone into learning a language, and they offer a ton to choose from. In reminds me somewhat of Pimsleur in that it jumps right in, so you learn things like pronuncation as you go. I personally like this approach, especially when it comes to pronuncation. It seems more natural to me. I learned how to pronounce Spanish and Portugese (Brazilian) through music, before I ever thought of learning either of the two. So, instead of a guide telling me approximate sounds, I made connections with the singing and lyrics. Selena for Spanish, and Daniela Mercury for Portuguese were the two singers that got me into learning those respective languages.
Anyway, I got a little sidetracked. The Duolingo app is great (I use the Android version.) Here are the languages that are offered to English speakers...
~Chinese
(I'm assuming this means Mandarin.)
~Dutch
~French
~German
~Hawaiian
(I was gonna do this one, even though I'm not officially learning it. I love Hawaiian music though, and can sing along pretty well if I have the lyrics. Check out Robi Kahakalau. I have her first three CDs, and they include both the Hawaiian lyrics + English translation, so it's interesting to see what's being said.)
~Irish
~Italian
(I may or may not try my hand at this one...I'm learning toward not the more I think about it, although I did purchase an old Hugo phrasebook from a thrift mall earlier this year. I think I like the idea of speaking Italian more than actually learning it.)
~Japanese
~Korean
(Of the three popular East Asian languages, I like Korean, and did go through a couple lessons on Duolingo, but I decided not to continue - can't wrap my head around the characters. I do like the look of Korean compared with Chinese and Japanese, and how the characters are put into little blocks. A good Korean movie I watched recently is I Saw the Devil. It's very violent and disturbing, so be warned.)
~Navajo
~Portuguese-Brazilian
~Russian
~Spanish
~Swedish
~Turkish
