Hello, everyone (that's what the topic name says ).
I've just recently registered here at the forum. I adore language and hope to find some interesting discussions around here. Looking at the dates on posts around the site, I'm guessing things don't move too, too quickly around here; which is good because I really don't have the time to keep up with a forum that sees 2000+ posts per day. lol.
Anyway, I've been studying language for many years now. I've been learning Japanese for six years (which is where it all started, really). Unfortunately, I only ever had the opportunity to take one class in Japanese and never even got to finish it. So from then on I've been teaching myself (which is a much slower process). I'd say I'm at an intermediate level.
I've also studied German, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Mandarin, and Ancient Egyptian. I can't say I speak any of these languages with any discernible amount of fluency, but you can only get so far on self-taught. However, I do try to learn as much as I can (I asked for language books for Christmas. hehe. <3)
While I may not fluently speak any language other than English, my studies in this array of languages over the years has not been for naught. After having seen the myriad of ways in which language and thought can be cognated, constructed, and expressed, my perspective has been greatly broadened (is "cognated" a word?).
I have used this perspective to evolve various conlangs over the years. Not only for my own amusement and accomplishment, but also to further familiarize myself with all of the aspects and intricacies of linguistics that I can, so as to perhaps go into the journey of learning a language in the future and be better equipped for doing so. On that note, I'm gonna' go post in the conlang section now. Hope you guys will welcome me.
Šålköi.
~ Rhamos Vhailejh

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Welcome to the Omniglot forum, Rhamos Vhailejh!


You know, it's possible to reach basic fluency through self-teaching. And you can get there a lot quicker than sitting in some classroom.


I love that show.

It's true; I've gotten so much further in Spanish with Michel Thomas, the Internet, and Native Speaker friends than in my classroom.

In class, we've learned two tenses in the indicative tense; on my own, I've learned all the tenses in the indicative and the subjunctive as well as the imperative moods and I can comfortably use the indicative and imperative moods and a few of the tenses in the subjunctive.

Now that you mention it, even when I was taking the class, I was also teaching myself and learning from my friends at the same time. In the class we had learned A, I, U, E, O, and KA, KI, KU, KE, KO in Hiragana. While the teacher and the rest of the class were still on TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO, I had taught myself all of them all the way up to N, in both Hiragana and Katakana. My teacher didn't believe me that I'd learned all of the Hiragana and the Katakana, so he had me go up to the board and draw out a random symbol of his choosing. He told me draw out ME in Katakana. Now, as many of you may know, the Katakana symbol for ME strongly resembles the letter X (at least as far as Japanese characters go, anyway). And I'd be lying if I said I had completely mastered all the symbols at the time, and so I accidentally drew the symbol backwards (with the higher stroke on the left instead of on the right), and so then the teacher said something to the effect of "You don't know the Kanas. Sit down." It was very embarrassing.
The only symbols I have any trouble with these days are TSU, SHI, N, and SO in Katakana, and KA in Hiragana. I know the differences between those symbols, and I do understand them. I just find them a little difficult to draw without them lookin' funny.

I still suck at writing <ら> & <や>.

Yeah, those two are really tricky as well. Especially ra. Ya is okay sometimes. I actually find yu to be trickier. (I would be using the actual Japanese characters, but I'm on a relatively new laptop that doesn't have language support installed, and I don't know where my Windows CD is right now)

You know, it's possible to reach basic fluency through self-teaching. And you can get there a lot quicker than sitting in some classroom.


I've been self-teaching my Magyarul, with the help of my husband, in-laws, and neighbors in Hungary - the hardest thing to teach oneself, I think, is the grammar - I speak a lot of present tense!

And welcome, Rhamos!

Thanks, Erzsebet.
You're lucky to have the support of your husband, in-laws, and neighbours. I don't really have the support of anyone at all, which is kind of why I joined this site in the first place. My family and friends could care less; "Can we please talk about anything else," or "God damn it, will you shut up with your stupid languages already," they'd say. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in my entire city with a passionate appreciation for language.
If you want to buy a book on linguistics here, you'd better hope you're looking for an English-French dictionary, 'cause they don't go much further than that. There's simply no demand, so they don't stock them. My brother managed to get me a Japanese book for Christmas though. So yay!

Hmm are they complaining about you talking about your conlangs or languages in general?