Mo’ bettah, Baggie Wahine!
I’m only a sophomore in high school, but am fairly proficient in Spanish with a small bit of French. However I would love to speak Russian, Arabic, Esperanto, Latin, Sanskrit, and Polish. Clearly I can’t learn them all, but would some seasoned vets of secondary languages tell me some excellent ways of learning them.
PS. I know nobody that speaks any of them, nor are classes offered.
Like I said a few messages back, for living languages, the best thing to do is learn as much as you can on your own, and then go to a place where the people speak it and practice!
For Latin and Sanskrit (and Esperanto, generally speaking), that is more difficult. Most people learn these languages only in order to read them, since nobody speaks them anymore (as a native language, anyway.) But since its easiest to learn languages in a natural way (by speaking them) some people try to practice with each other (I’m all for that in this case.) I must say, I have studied both Latin and Sanskrit, and the biggest problem has been forgetting everything I’ve learned through disuse – especially difficult with no longer spoken languages.
Good luck tatertot! Hopefully soon you can impress all of us dopers with your conversational German skills :).
Anyway, next semester i’m enrolled in the actual Spanish conversation class. So, i need to really get cracking on learning vocab, so I don’t have to be sent back to the intermediate classes. The cool thing is, this class is a community service type class, so I’ll be made to interact with native speakers. I guess i’ll have to get over my fear of actually speaking, since this class will probably help my fluency, and i’ll learn how native speakers actually say things.
Also, I really want to go over seas to Spain for at least a semester to get even more practice there, but i’m not sure how i’ll fit it in (perhaps a summer program). Oh well, i’ll work out some way.
Eh, WASSUP Baglady!!!
Nah, dis only da firs’ time I wen try fo’ write 'om down. No can use pidgin in college-kine pepahs, eh?! Yeah, I get one auntie in Sacramento, and she sez da same ting- get CHOKE Hawaii peepo!! Hoo, you find local-kine grinds ova dea? Das good, good!!
Just had to say: “San Fancisco” LOL!!!
Oh, da odda night, we went Mililani whea get da new Genki sushi place, eh? Hoo, da chicken katsu curry is ONO! Dey give plenny!! Good, I happy to hea you get plate lunch ova dea.
Eh, you like any kine food stuffs from ova hea, jus’ aks me, 'k?
giggles Damn, I sound like my ex-bf Kevin when he speaks pidgin…which, he being from Waianae, is 80% of the time :D…
Eh, missbunny, you steh from Hawaii too?!
Yes I speak a foreign language, English. It was hard the first two years. But even English, or German can be learned with some effort.
Couple in theater in Germany, husband says: Helga, this play is boring, after the first hour. She replies: Yes Hans, but let’s wait for the verb, at least.
I had 6 years of Latin in HS and College, but don’t plan on visiting the Vatican anytiime soon, so that doesn’t count.
Italian! I want to learn to speak Italian! Then Verdi and Puccini will make sense without the super-titles.
Any suggestions for self-study?
AudreyK, I haven’t lived in Hawaii (although my parents did and my brother was born there). I can’t really speak pidgin - I’m just a big faker; anything I know I got from reading James Michener’s Hawaii, one of my top five all-time favorite novels, about two dozen times. But I can understand a lot of what you and Baggie Wahine are saying.
Maybe you can explain poi - Michener goes on and on about how marvelous it is, but I’ve heard most people find it revolting.
Vi ne pravas! Multaj personoj - okolo du milionoj, si mi rekordas korrekte - parolas Esperanton munde hodiaû. Ne estas lingvo malvivo!!
matt_mcl, can you back me up on this a little?
I lived in Japan for three years without learning to speak Japanese with any fluency. Seems most Japanese were more interested in speaking English than they were hearing my Japanese! It was a real pain being illiterate though, I had to count on the ex-husband for a lot of stuff and sometimes he couldn’t be bothered. I’m taking Japanese classes in community college now because I still have to go back and forth a couple times a year. I figured better late than never! 
I’m still not getting fluent, but I do know quite a few more verb conjugations and sentence structures. I decided not to let the same thing happen to my daughter, she’s been in Japanese primary school for the past two years. She was born there, so it’s not a huge deal. (People always get so shocked when I say “my daughter is living in Japan,” as if I just packed her in a suitcase and shipped her off to Parts Unknown. It is to her benefit to be there, and yet people act like I’m some kind of evil monster. Ugh. “Well, don’t you miss her?” DUH, PEOPLE!!! (Sorry, mini rant.)) The only drawback is she’s going to have a country (as opposed to Tokyo) accent, but oh well… I’d rather have her outside playing in gardens and fields than in the city. It really is pretty over there.
I suppose I should offer postcards soon, since I’m leaving in a week and a half.
The other strange thing is that somehow during the trip over, my brain kinda switches. When I land there, a lot of what I knew comes back instantly; whereas, if I were still in the US I’d be struggling to remember.
A girl
Mi scias! Mi skribis “more difficult, generally speaking,” si vi rekordas korrekte! Mi ne skribis ke neniu eblas paroli esparante entute en mondo.
Ah, your language indicated that Esperanto was learned only for reading comprehension because it was so rarely spoken, if not dead.
Latin and Sanskrit, yes. Esperanto - ho, ne!
Whoops, little late getting in on this…
tater, thats great! Congratulations!! If it’s as difficult getting in to the German kindergartens as it is the Danish ones, youre really lucky!!!
Im bummed that you probably wont be moving to the Bay Area in a couple years, but it’s good that you can stay where youre happy. And this gives me an excuse to come to Germany to visit you!! 
Anyway, back to the topic at hand…I speak Danish close to fluently, on account of having lived there for two years. I picked up survival French after having backpacked through it for seven and a half weeks, but Ive forgotten most of it. Oh, and Continental English (different from British English). I lost my Californian accent while I was over there, but after two weeks here it’s come back with a vengeance. Bleah.
Hey, your post was convincing!
Poi is this vile substance made out of mashed taro root. It’s a nice purple color, but the texture is like… Hmm, did you see Ghostbusters 2? Remember that pink sludge that they found in the NYC sewers? 
As you can see, I’ve got a great opinion of the stuff. You eat it using your index and middle fingers as a scoop. It’s sold in some supermarkets in plastic bags. I tried some a couple years ago… it needed more sugar. I don’t really care for Hawaiian food, though, so I’m probably biased. There are people who eat poi as their main starch, or so I’ve heard. Me, I prefer rice.
Mm, wallpaper paste! :). If you want taro, try some of the Filipino recipes using it.
Anyway, I understood what baggie wahine was saying partly because there’s a lot of Hawaiian transplants here (used to ask them what “ono” meant, things like that), and also, pidgin sounds somewhat like the way my relatives from di pilipines tak :).
Hey girly girl, don’t worry! My parents did the same for me in reverse: they sent me to live in Oregon for a year and a half while I was in grade school! I lived with a legal guardian, and I did fine.
Be careful, though. It made me quite independent – too much so for my folks!
Oops, upon further review that is exactly what my errant wording seems to say. Oh well, maybe I should just stop writing in English! :o
What do you mean by that?
Really? I didn’t know Filipinos used taro… thought it was a Polynesian thing… neat!
Doobieous, where do you live? I’m curious to see where all these Hawaii people have meandered off to…
Not so you’d notice - but I can say shit in seven different languages…