December is language learning month.

[MeshGearFox]

Not officially because I just made this up, like,  right now*. It's sort of like nanowrimo except more futile but potentially more interesting.

About a million years ago on the how to learn any language forums I introduced this idea of a group Learn A New Language Month sort of thing, where the goal, obviously, wasn't fluency, but just learning a lot about a language that was new to you, or working extra hard on improving another language, or whatever. Nobody was interested, though.

Then a few months later some guy proposed the exact same thing and everyone jumped on it. F'ing bastards.

Anyway, I'm trying to revive this. The basic idea is that you pick a language you want to learn some of, and, starting December first, you start studying it, and see how far you get by January first. It's sort of a personal edification thing. Log your progress. Make Language Buddies. Whatever.

So, just throwing the idea out there. RPGfan's a somewhat international community, this seems like it could prove interesting! Any takers? I'm thinking of maybe doing Inuktitut.

* Someday I'm running for king of Ohio on the platform of making this real and also legalizing peyote because I want to grow lophs because they're adorable. It's like if someone combined a cactus with a bunny and filled it with mescaline.

[CastNuri]

I might spend this month trying to practice my Spanish.

I'm originally Malaysian and I've studied Spanish for two years now but I'm really keen about not getting out of practice. It's a very beautiful language.

[Dizzy]

I've actually been trying to re-learn my native language (Tagalog) again. I was actually pretty good at it back when I was younger, but then sometime in elementary, I had to take ESL and I eventually lost everything I knew about it. :P

[Hidoshi]

I'm going to learn exaggerated forms of Lou Albano Marioisms.

'EY LUIGI IS THESE FAGGOTS KOOPATROOPAS GONNA MAKE GOOD BAWLS FOR DIS SPAGHETTI SAUCE?

Ah, off to a fine start already.

[Roger S. Huxley]

I'm already learning Arabic and it's a pain in the ass.

[Aeolus]

After watching this I have this sudden urge to learn Klingon.

[Lard]

Taking Japanese in University and after four quizzes, I'm getting 100%! :D

[Fei]

My family speaks Finnish, but they never taught their kids (meaning my cousins and me).  I know far too little of the language.  Perhaps I will play along, as long as this thread becomes an interesting read.

Mina rakastan pieni vittu!

That line always makes our parents blush.

[MeshGearFox]

Oh, hey, I tried doing Finnish for the first thing. It's fun! Ymmarra Suomea is a good resource.

http://www2.edu.fi/ymmarrasuomea/

Specific difficulties I had with Finnish were consonant gradation as it wasn't entirely regular. Additionally, synthetic languages with heavy sandhi make it sometimes difficult to un-conjugate a word. What I did though was basically go through YS with a dictionary and various case charts, translating it, and checking my translation with people on HowToLearnAnyLanguage. I don't remember any of it but you might want to give it a try!

FSI made Finnish language tapes and that FSI archive site has them though I don't think the book was converted to PDF format.

[Tooker]

I speak (and read) Spanish fluently, so if anyone needs someone to practice with, lemme know.

I'd love to learn either Japanese or Hindi - the first would help me here, the other would help me in my paying job.  Not sure how to go about starting the learning process, though.

[MeshGearFox]

Hindi might be easier. You speak Spanish and English, and from what I understand Hindi's pretty bog standard for Indo-European languages, sooo...

[(Tunnels)]

I recommend German for anyone looking for something not too complex as a language, since I think it shares more with English than other languages since they're both Germanic, but I could be wrong. I've been studying it for 5 years now, and I have somewhat of a reading proficiency with it, and I can speak it on a basic level. Dunno if I'll try to learn another one for December, but if I do I'd like to try French or Portuguese.

[MeshGearFox]

since I think it shares more with English than other languages since they're both Germanic, but I could be wrong

In order of most to least closely related to English, you have Scots, Frisian, Dutch, and German, with Afrikaans probably being somewhere between Dutch and German since it's an offshoot of Dutch. Also some people debate whether or not Scots is a language or a dialect. Additionally the weird Scottish accent in Dragon Quest 4 was not in fact Scottish English but a sort of pidginized Scots, I think?.

Also "German" and "Dutch" are more bizarre dialect continuums in the sense that Scots and English are probably equally/more mutually intelligible than, say, Hochdeutsch and Bavarian are.

Anyway, despite being less related, Swedish is faaaaaar easier than German for an English speaker. Namely, only two genders, fairly regular pluralization, verbs don't conjugate, and no cases. Also the general sentence logic is closer to English.

[(Tunnels)]

since I think it shares more with English than other languages since they're both Germanic, but I could be wrong

In order of most to least closely related to English, you have Scots, Frisian, Dutch, and German, with Afrikaans probably being somewhere between Dutch and German since it's an offshoot of Dutch. Also some people debate whether or not Scots is a language or a dialect. Additionally the weird Scottish accent in Dragon Quest 4 was not in fact Scottish English but a sort of pidginized Scots, I think?.

Also "German" and "Dutch" are more bizarre dialect continuums in the sense that Scots and English are probably equally/more mutually intelligible than, say, Hochdeutsch and Bavarian are.

Anyway, despite being less related, Swedish is faaaaaar easier than German for an English speaker. Namely, only two genders, fairly regular pluralization, verbs don't conjugate, and no cases. Also the general sentence logic is closer to English.

Ah, I stand corrected then. :)  You're right, the small amount of Swedish I've been exposed to has appeared more logically similar to English.

[CastNuri]

I speak (and read) Spanish fluently, so if anyone needs someone to practice with, lemme know.

I'd love to learn either Japanese or Hindi - the first would help me here, the other would help me in my paying job.  Not sure how to go about starting the learning process, though.

Quiero practicar mi español! Mi madre habla Hindi y puedo preguntarle por consejo?

I think I got that right.