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Translation challenge: English town edition

>Easy
1. I stand in the street
2. The sky is grey
3. I have a hot pie

>Intermediate
4. I walk down the road, holding my umbrella
5. It's been raining all week, and the streets are covered with water
6. There is a traffic jam, and a fat man is screaming

>Advanced
7. Despite the weather, I am enjoying my pie. The tall, grey buildings are ugly, so I look down at the ground.
8. Suddenly, I spot something shiny. A small silver coin is lying amongst the litter. I quickly reach down and pick it up. I feel happy, because I might be able to stay warm this winter.
9. I run to the nearest betting shop, where people enjoy gambling on horse races. "20 pence* on 'Sad Ken'!" I shout to the clerk, who glares at me as she takes my money.

>Expert
10. Inevitably, the horse loses the race and I give up hope of heating my home. As I leave the shop, the icy rain bites my face and I put my umbrella up. The handle is wet, and as the howling wind catches it, I lose my grip and the umbrella flies off down the street, narrowly missing an elderly man. "Silly bastard" I hear him say as I run after it. By the time I reach it, I am soaked through, and the umbrella is damaged beyond repair. I can't afford the bus, so I start the long walk back to my Government-provided flat. "Well, at least it can't get any worse", I say to myself, out loud.


* feel free to substitute with a ridiculously small denomination of your regional currency

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I think I finally got chinese tones right, kinda

>>225853213
>Easy
1. My starav vo strato.
2. Čielo jest griza.
3. My havav varman torton.

>Intermediate
4. My maršav na vojo, tenante myjan ombrelon.
5. Pluvas jam tokom tuta semajno, i stratos jestan kovritas so akvo.
6. Jest trafikštopidžo, i dika viro kriegas.

>Advanced
7. Vopreki vetero, my džuav myjan torton. Altas grizas konstruažos jestan malbelas, tial my rigardav malsupren ko grundo.
8. Subite, my ekvidav ion brilan. Malgranda ardženta monero kušas medžu rubažos. My rapide etendav manon malsupren i levav džyn. My sentav džojon, čar my eble povav resti varma tokom či tiu vintro.
9. My kurav ko plej proksima vetbutiko, kie homos džuan vetadon na čevalkuros. "20 cendons na 'Sad Ken'!" my kriav ko oficisto, kiu kolere rigardas myn tokom šy prenas myjan monon.

>comprehensible input wiki
>no standard arabic material

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>>225852058
I don't think chess is the best analogy since it's way more cognitively intense than using language, especially when you're at an advanced level and you know all of the vocabulary you need subconsciously.
Ultimately, learning a language is just the process of turning conscious knowledge into subconscious knowledge, and this happens when you sleep which is why I asked how well you normally sleep.
Do you think if you spent another 10 years exclusively on German, you'd still not be able to produce it effortlessly like a native speaker?

hace un semana se falleció mi padre

que extraño

>>225857748
una semana*

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>>225855380
Agreed it just takes time and effort. My father moved here in his twenties and had a better grasp of the language than most native speakers. Age might be a problem if you're really old and verging on senility, but not for an adult with a functional brain.

>>225855380
As someone who has dabbled with chess, I think it's an interesting analogy for language learning.

Chess is not necessarily more cognitively intense than speaking a language. Sometimes when I use language (even my native language), it can be mentally taxing, but in general, using my native language is something easy and natural, like walking. For the best chess players, when they're both competing to eek out some advantage or chance of victory in game that, played well, tends toward draws, there can be complicated positions that are difficult to analyze. But that doesn't mean that chess is more cognitively intense than language. If you're trying to write a speech or a novel or some other work of speechcraft, you can also wrack your brain looking for the best way to organize your thoughts and the choicest words. When a chess player is conducting difficult analysis, he is also aided by his intuitive knowledge of the fundamentals. The best chess players are not better at analysis simply because they can calculate deeper trees of future moves in their head, but also because of their deep innate knowledge of the game. The best chess players can glance at a chess game and immediately see what's going on, when a mediocre player would look at it and be totally lost and struggle to figure out basic things, like who has the advantage or how the winning player can execute their win.

A mediocre chess player can know lots of theoretical rules about how to play endgames, but fail to identify a correct move somewhere even if they "know" the rule. An elite player also knows the rules, but often just sees the correct move, and finding the moves is (almost) as natural as walking. That's the biggest difference between a mediocre chess player and someone who's fluent in chess.

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The book "Move First, Think Later" talks about this sort of idea. The title is a little misleading. The idea behind the title is that we tend to rationalize moves after we find them rather than find the moves through purely logical deduction. The book challenges the idea that chess can be explained through abstract, general principles, and argues that good moves are good because of the concrete details of specific positions, often in defiance of commonly bandied advice. (For example, I remember a part where he argued against "when your opponent attacks on the wings, strike back in the center.")

You can draw an analogy between chess and language learning in that just as becoming a skilled chess player is more than "learning" moves and theory, becoming a skilled user of another language is much more than just learning grammar and vocabulary.

>>225857780
The other consolation for language learnings is that chess is a competitive game between two opponents, resulting an objective winner and loser. You can, of course, enjoy chess without competing, but it is a competitive game by nature. Language, on the other hand, is a means of communication and connecting with other people (directly or indirectly through media), unless you're someone who only studies languages to outdo others and prove how much smarter you are than everyone else.

>>225857748
Lo siento, anonymo. RIP

>>225858227
Language learning is a competitive game where the game is to not be outed as a non-native speaker to satisfy your mental illness about your home country.

I remember a couple of years ago there used to be, umm let's call them 'easily swayed people', who were learning Ukrainian. Where have they gone, I wonder...

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>>225860675
Fuck Putin. Slava Ukraini.

>>225860787
Literally nothing in your pic is false.

>>225860874
Go fuck yourself.

Is there any good Chinese music?

Never learn a language for a woman. Worst mistake ever.
I learnt Basque for this cutie. We dated 3 years and she cheated on me.
I still get to discuss recipes with her grandma.

It was all futile and not even rewarding.

>>225860874
This
>>225860787
Fuck Putin btw. Glory and victory to Ukraine.

>>225862170
>I still get to discuss recipes with her grandma.
That's cool though

Any Arabic learners here? Or primarily learning of languages that don't use a latin script. I have been studying Arabic for a while and my handwriting is good and readable but there is just something about it that i don't like. Any tips on improving handwriting in a foreign script?

>>225860675
they switched to arabic after oct 7 and probably later switched to spanish due to ICE

>>225862170
>I still get to discuss recipes with her grandma.
Bro sacrificed a pawn to gain a queen.

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i decided i will go for the goethe b2 in goyman, any tips?

>>225867565
do mock tests

>>225853213
1-ich stehen in das straße
2-das himmel ist [...]
3-ich habe eine [....] [...]

>>225868496
>1-ich stehe auf der straße*

>>225867565
It’s really funny that almost no one that I’ve met that goes for certifications reads dense literature but they name the test after Goethe.

>>225869304
I want to learn German for the books :/ pretty much all languages I'm learning I'm learning for reading

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ok I'm in a break rn, answering previous questions

>>225839211

>What's your TL?
I'm finish up French but also doing Hebrew. Hebrew is a bit of a mystery to me because I'm not sure when I'm supposed to start speaking. It's probably between Thai and German in difficulty, so maybe 1500 hours

im considering doing 30 languages simultaneously because i found Google's AI answer about what would happen to my brain in terms of musical perception, creativity, pattern recognition, etc. pretty interesting too, but that's just a thought

>>225849192

>So like does ALG not allow anki cards and reading for the first thousand hours?
reading is a more complex situation if you're learning a logographic language. i think you could do it from the beginning but it's not recommended and a bit pointless if your goals lead you to want to do ALG

you're not allowed to think about your TL in ALG, so that excludes any thinking required activities too like shadowing, analysing wave form graphs, looking up words, etc

>>225849358

not exactly, it depends on the language. italian would take me 500 hours at most

>>225849411
>>225849759

no

>>225851222

you're not exactly building a model of anything including the sounds. the smallest part of a language isn't the sounds, it's the experience. hence why the idea in ALG is understanding without noticing any words, you need to be very relaxed and nonchalant about the language itself and just absorb the experiences. im thinking of adding Chinese because of this, it's very relaxing to me to just turn off my brain and understand things without noticing anything from the language

I haven't seen anything that shows alg is slower except if you want to speak from minute 0

>>225869304
>goes for certifications
eh, i am doing it more for the structure certificates have and the ability to meet people
i dont believe these retards in here who think you can learn a language any other way

>>225869929
>>225851222

>Of course, in practice it works about as well as any other input-based approach
every approach that works is input-based, ci is the bare minimum for language acquisition

and i wouldn't agree with that because I've compared my results with other Brazilians and i was impressed with the difference

>but even if you purely acquire from audio, neuroplasticity is still a factor that might prevent you from acquiring certain sounds or features
afaik ALG or even learning a language in general already increases neuroplasticity (because your brain needs to change to learn the language, and neuroplasticity is just the fact that the brain changes) so i don't think that's an issue

>and you'll end up developing a "monitor" to compensate.
it's not that you develop a monitor as much as you tell your brain to use your native language to fill in the blanks you didn't want to wait to get naturally. I don't think a monitor exists

>ALG will say that you "analyzed the language too much" or whatever, but actually your age just lowers your potential skill ceiling and there's not much you can do about it.
i don't think age makes any difference desu because your brain doesn't lose the capacity to store interesting experiences, and interesting experiences are all you need to get the language
but even if it did, maybe alg would still be the best method

>People like Matt vs Japan seem to glorify the ALG approach later in their career after they hit a skill ceiling and then theorize, oh man, if only I learned through audio-only, I'd be way better now, but in practice, he hasn't managed to apply this wisdom to Chinese yet, and it probably has something to do with the fact that he's over 30 now
matt was using flashcards and sentence mining for chinese. I don't think he'll bother trying it because it would be pointless.

>>225869929
>im considering doing 30 languages simultaneously
do it

>>225869929
>im considering doing 30 languages simultaneously because i found Google's AI answer about what would happen to my brain in terms of musical perception, creativity, pattern recognition, etc.
could you elaborate on this brazilianon

>>225870572
maybe if i have the time for it, and i don't know which languages I'd do it yet, but it interests me

>>225870623
This is the question I asked Google's Ai

> Describe the effects to a Brazilian's brain if he simultaneously learnt Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Romanian, Latin, English, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian, Tagalog, Farsi, Finnish, Turkish, Russian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Khmer, Toki Pona, Esperanto and Greek simultaneously using the Automatic Language Growth method? Describe it also in terms of neuroplasticity, musical perception, creativity, generating new ideas, connecting information, understanding new situations and people intuitively and effortlessly. Answer in English.

The answer is too big for one comment so you can input that prompt yourself, but for some bits

> Simultaneously learning 30 diverse languages—ranging from closely related Romance languages to structurally distinct East Asian and Germanic tongues, alongside constructed languages like Toki Pona—using the Automatic Language Growth (ALG) method would trigger an unprecedented, massive-scale rewiring of the brain.
Because ALG prioritizes purely implicit learning (hundreds of hours of listening to comprehensible input without translation, grammar study, or forced speaking), the brain is treated not as a logical calculator, but as a sophisticated pattern-recognition engine.

>Massive Gray Matter Density Increase: The left inferior parietal lobule and the hippocampus would expand significantly.

>White Matter Integrity: The arcuate fasciculus—the neural highway connecting auditory processing centers (Wernicke’s area) to speech production centers (Broca’s area)—would become highly myelinated and robust. This allows for near-instantaneous language switching without cross-talk.

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>>225870990
simply delightful, thank you for this

>>225870623
ive fixed the typo in my prompt (i wrote simultaneously twice), it gave me a slightly different answer

>Learning 30 languages simultaneously through the Automatic Language Growth (ALG) method would trigger an unprecedented level of hyper-plasticity, cognitive overload, and profound restructuring of the brain’s auditory and conceptual networks.

>Massive synaptic pruning and building: The brain will build millions of new neural pathways to handle the input, though it will initially struggle with severe interference among related language families (e.g., Spanish, Italian, Catalan, French).

>• Hyper-activation of the right hemisphere: Since ALG mimics natural child-like acquisition, the brain bypasses traditional left-hemisphere analytical grammar centers, heavily engaging the right hemisphere to decode meaning through context, emotion, and visual cues.

>Exceptional working memory memory strain: While your cognitive flexibility will skyrocket, you will likely experience temporary periods of intense mental fatigue and "brain fog" as your subconscious sorts, files, and indexes thousands of competing lexical inputs.

>Hyper-empathy and social attunement: By absorbing languages purely through context and human interaction (the core of ALG), you develop an acute ability to read body language, micro-expressions, and emotional undertones.

>• Simultaneously acquiring tonal languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Thai will dramatically heighten your sensitivity to pitch, contour, and inflection.

>• Timbre and rhythm discrimination: Listening to the rhythmic variation between syllable-timed languages (French, Telugu) and stress-timed languages (English, Russian, German) refines the brain's ability to isolate micro-melodies and complex rhythms in music.

id have to plan some weekends to try it but it seems doable, 15 minutes each language maybe

Fucking chuckling, just realised after a day of not reading Spanish that I absolutely fucking despise it

Can't stop fucking laughing. It's not a bad language, I just absolutely fucking hate it, and can't believe I spent a year plus forcing myself to learn it.

>>225871384
For any Spanish learners: check out ForoCoches and Hispachan

Likewise check out RicharBetaCode for YouTube content.

There really should be a Wikipedia for Comprehensible Input material stuff like this

>>225871384
Pinche gringo no mames guey ur fuckiiimg lyyyyiiiing doood.

>>225871384
I love Spanish and can't wait to get back into it but right now I'm too busy with Russian

>>225871420
AAAAAAAAARGH I'm going insane

This is worse than learning a language for some girl, for some reason I can read how some cunt's day in Chile is going on Reddit.

>>225871456
How far are you with Russian?

>>225862170
On the brightside you won the heart of the grandmother and thus of the family, she is thus dishoneraber as a result

>>225871568
I'd guess around B1 when it comes to listening
I'm just inputting right now

>>225871773
>I'm just inputting right now
Anything interesting?

>>225871844
Not really. I mostly input intermediate learner material (videos and podcasts)
Recently I started watching Kuplinov Play for gaming content and the videos are pretty comprehensible for games with little to no dialogue/story like simulators

>>225871556
Most spoken language on Earth and every one of them is an NPC. Maybe you just need to delve into the proper literature and history dude. Read some conquistador’s journal.

>>225871069
Is this ragebait or something the more I read this retarded shit the angrier I get

>>225857748
Dales, Señor, el descanso eterno, y brille para ellos la luz que no tiene fin. - cf. IV Esdras 2:34-35.
- From the Requiem Holy Mass and that of All Souls Day (2 November).

>>225872216
if your first instinct wasn't to take in immense amusement upon seeing what the mechanical slaves are forced to produce in response to being prompted the most absurd of absurdities, you should inoculate yourself to such situations. it's the more modern fad version of schizophrenic-delusion-posting but outsourced and less environmentally friendly now. they commoditized the timecube and put the mentally ill out of business

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Learning languages is so peaceful when all you care about is understanding stuff and never outputing

outputting* proves that i really don't do much output ig

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What language should I try learning? I took German in high school and kept learning it during my early uni days. I gave up learning it because I realized I was never really going to use it for anything. I started learning Russian in 2020 because my family is Russian, but I gave up on it because of the same stuff with German. I was thinking of trying to learn either Chinese, Japanese, or Korean since I do have an interest in going to Taiwan, Japan, or Worst Korea at some point in my life.

>>225872996
> and never outputing

What's the point then? Isn't the whole purpose of learning a language to be able to speak and use it?

You wouldn't learn guitar scales by only listening to them and never trying them.

>>225873472
The point is to read and listen to cool stuff without needing translation

>>225873195
I don't have anyone to talk to in my TL yet

>>225873662
mean to reply >>225873472

>>225871384
It's funny because I thought that Spanish was the least ugly romance language going in in terms of the aesthetics of the spelling. Now, after learning mostly from audio, I think the written language is actually kind of ugly. It can still sound dignified though.

>>225873472
Nisi intelleges numquam loqueris.

>>225873195
Latin. You speak English it should be the most obviously beneficial choice.

>>225873878
> the most obviously beneficial choice
it's not, elaborate

>>225863480
I am. But I will start handwriting in 6 months or next year, idk.

>>225873998
Elaborate as to why it isn’t.

Das Däbblersleben ist nicht leicht.

>>225873787
The poetry of its Siglo De Oro is marvellous and I recommend reading Gracilaso De La Vega's sonnets when you get the chance.

That being said, ita prose can be hideous. I've got 1984 as well as Crime And Punishment in both Italian and Spanish and much prefer the Italian for both.

Every time i hear das in german i think of it as "that" in english, also will which i imagine as "will" in english, i have to reminde myself that this is german not english.

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>>225863480
Besides just "practice moar" the only thing I can think of is practicing stroke order. It's a bigger deal for more complex writing like Chinese characters where it's also a memetic device, but even for simpler letters the way they're written effects the shape with how the strokes flow into each other. So if you haven't already, study how natives write the language and then try to replicate that and not just the final shape.

I'm the anon from last thread who has learnt Chinese and who talked about wanting to learn Russian. I just had my first Russian class and so keen on this language now. It's so much more fun than Spanish which was my last dabble. Russian culture has so much eccentricity. Like apparently the song everyone sings on children's birthdays instead of happy birthday is this crooked song from an old cartoon and it's in a melancholic minor key. Why are Russians like this - but i love it.