Hej! Cześć!
Today I realized something cool on the train as I went through my Polish and Swedish books of the エキスプレス (Express) series for learning languages.
Since I speak fluent German and have also studied some Russian I realized that there was some important info from these languages that could help me learn faster.
As I studied Swedish today I bumped into some words I had already learned (Or Similar) in German such as Väder(Wetter in German) for weather, Ungefär (Ungefähr) for approximately, båda (Beide in German) for both, riktigt (Richtig in German) for correct, Kök (Küche in German) for kitcheb, Stol (Stuhl in German) for chair, Stan (Stadt in German) for city, Möbel (Exact spell in German) for furniture to name a few. In addition to that I also learned få (Which reminded me of FEW). That's only what happens in terms of vocabulary. I could also look at grammar but that's a topic for another episode. It is no wonder that the Swedes learn German or English much better and faster than speakers of Latin languages, for example.
Next let's try Polish that belongs to the slavic languages along with Russian and another couple of languages.
I was surprised the word used for asking for permission "można" when Russian uses МÓЖНО, I also learned PRAVDA (Truth) which is ПРÁВДА in Russian, JĘZYK (Language) which is ЯЗЫК in Russian. I am sure that more similar words will come to the surface since the Slavic languages are said to have many similarities in vocabulary, something that's not a reality when it comes to Latin languages. As a Portuguese speaker I'm still struggling to improve my vocabulary in Spanish, Italian and French because words with a similar spelling might have meanings which are as different as language from different linguistics families. I remember I tried to say FUNNY in Italian and use the Portuguese DIVERTIDO, which means funny in Portuguese but in Italian that meant "FAT" and the word for funny is DIVERTENTE. I'm not sure about the Italian spelling, though...
In Portuguese PASSA might mean GET OU OF HERE when in Spanish one invites his/her guest to come in by saying the same word.
French is so different from Portuguese that I learned German much faster by comparing it with English.
When it comes to asian language like Japanese, Chinese and Korean, these are so different that one feels like learning a new language. However, Korean and Japanese share a lot of grammatical similarities (The so called Altaic languages) which are said to diminish the more one researches in older forms of these languages. Chinese was easier for me to study because of the characters that help me learn vocabulary faster but I still had to learn (Still struggle) the tones...
Well, that's all for now and I'm looking forward to your comments and/or corrections.
Tack så mycket, Dziękuję
Assinar:
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Polish and Russian are similar because as you have probably found out by now, all Slavic languages are more or less dialects of each other, more closely related and more mutually intelligible than the separate languages of any other language group (with the exception of North Germanic languages, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, etc.).
Brother, I have been meaning to contact you and get in touch, but until this moment have not tried. You are a younger and far more successful version of myself in the area of languages, and you are even living in my foreign country of choice, if I could live somewhere other than the USA… Japan!
I am a Polish-American with a general knowledge of Slavic language from my illiterate childhood, but English is my mother tongue, German my second language (took 4 years in HS, 2 years in college), Spanish my third (2 years in primary school, plus living in the US), French my fourth, reading only because no Frenchies to talk to here and no access to French broadcasting.
I am an evangelical Xtian in the Greek Orthodox Church, and so I have a pretty fluent reading and speaking ability in koiné Greek, which is the language of the bible and of the church services. My Hebrew is getting better from daily study of the Tanakh.
I wrote and published a catalog on Northern Song dynasty coins, http://beisong.blogspot.com/ but my main pursuits are evangelism and blogging for Christ. My one visit to Japan, documented very partially at my blog Taka's Japan, made me fall in love with the country, its people and even its native culture, and my Orientalist background enables me to understand the Japanese mind, Shinto and Buddhism somewhat. I would like to return as a missionary, but that is all in God's hands and my ability to learn colloquial Japanese quickly.
This last interest is what makes me want to contact you, as well as the knowledge that you too serve the same Lord as I do and are living, possibly, in the same way that I am.
Sorry to be leaving this as a comment on an old blog post of yours. Hope you don't mind.
I welcome your comments to me at my email or on one of my blogs, which are traceable through my user name on this comment.
Go with God, brother.
PS - I am beginning to learn Brazilian portuguese just from on the job requirements and from blogging.
Dear brother Ρωμανός
Thank you so much for your inspiring message. I'm glad to know that there are other people who SERVE GOD and dedicate their time to learn languages in order to preach the gospel.
No way I'm a more successful version of yours. Your accomplishments in languages are indeed an inspiration for me. I wish I could read in Koiné comfortably...I studied for 2 years in college and started studying again in Japan but never really studied for a long time. I also started Hebrew and started reading the old testament. I burst into tears when I read Genesis 1:1.
It's such a privilege to read our Lord's words in the original languages.
So you're Polish-American huh? Polish is a language I felt in love with because during high school I had a penpal from Jelenia Góra and got attracted to the Polish people's kindness. I have some books for studying but a long time has passed since I last studied the language (1993).
About Brazilian Portuguese, I recently started a youtube account called "cariocaportuguese" and would be glad if you could check it out and give me some ideas. I also have a Japanese language-related youtube account called "aulasdejapones" (Japanese classes) and would love to have your feedback and subscription.
May the Lord bless you abundantly!!
Júlio
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