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I love Norway and decided to learn Norwegian :)
I have motivation :)
I want to establish business in Norway and probably later I will move to Norway to spend there rest of my life :)
"In my country people say: "As many languages you know, so many times you are human"."
We have a similar saying in my country: "As many languages you know, so many times you have pity grammar."
The only really valid point from demotivator is the lack of resources for Norwegian.
*Age: 37 is not too old to learn a language that is close to English. I know someone who learned Mandarin to a good level after the age of 50. *Studying alone with a book: This is a first step. There may be companies in Norway who want to do business in Ukraine. Even if English is used, it's usually an advantage to know a bit of the language of one's trading partner. "Even if he goes to Norway, who's going to speak to him in Norwegian..." Hmmm. Who are Norwegians and Norwegian shopkeepers? That's my answer, "Alex". "Weirdo" and "not cool" observations * Lol. If someone wants to learn another language s/he usually has to take some risks-including being ridiculed by a demotivator. ________________________________________________ Tom, There are plenty of language learning resources for the following languages: French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese. That's to say that there are ADVANCED materials in these languages-music, literature, scholarly papers, etc. I understand very well the difficulties in finding good material in other languages. However, it helps to be flexible about one's materials. It isn't necessary to use Harry Potter in translation or video games in order to learn a language.
"As many languages you know, so many times you have pity grammar."
Could I see that in Polish, please?
I think that was an obvious instance of sarcasm. Why else would Tom use the same bad grammar and awkward sentence structure?
My saying is:
The more languages you claim to know, the worse you know them. There seem to be several polyglots around, but if you investigate, you'll find out that even though they claim to know five or more languages, they often have poor listening skills and can't watch a movie or listen to the radio in most of the languages they claim to know. You know, often people say they know a language even if they are beginners. Anyway, everyone's got their reasons to learn a language, and they are free to decide how fluent they want to become too. That said, try to make the right choices, and good luck.
<<"As many languages you know, so many times you are human". >>
That's all well and good, in theory... It sounds good but is it really true?.. Let's see some counterarguments: - Language and humanness are not very related. By learning a language no one is going to have a better life. If you want to be more human why don't you go do some social work and improve the dire situation in Ukraine... - It may be intellectually stimulating for you, but does that make you more human? Are you equating knowledge with humanness? So am I more human because I have a strong grasp of mathematics? - Why languages? They're a tool for communication. Why does that make you more human if you can use another language? I can use a spanner and a hammer, am I more human that someone who can use only a spanner? It helps you understand other people, you say, but they're only people like you so what's to understand? Language has little to do with understanding people - I've found that the differences between people in different countries are minimal, and these differences are dwarfed by the differences between INDIVIDUALS. I can understand some dude in the American south 20 years my junior, but I can't understand my crazy next door neighbour who's demographically identical to me and so on... - Why does it have to be another language? It's about the IDEAS isn't it? So just read about the ideas in your native language, and become more human that way. - Plenty of notorious evil people were multilingual. - Often being multilingual creates a false sense of worth and enlightenment, this makes you seem arrogant and inhuman. - etc... So do you really think if you go and learn Norwegian you are suddenly going to become a better person... I think not! If anything you will become detached from reality and obsessive and all for naught!
It's nonsense to say that 37 is too old to learn a language. I am 37 and didn't speak any German until I was 32, I'm now rather good at it, and I've never actually lived in the country (although I do have a German partner).
I would recommend using books/tapes/CDs to drill the basics into you and gain further exposure by watching DVDs with Norwegian dialogue and English subtitles. There's no substitute for practising with a native speaker and if you don't know any Norwegians personally then hire someone to chat with over a coffee or a beer. There are always students looking to earn a few bucks.
K. T.,
I see, "experts" aren't able to reply you, so I'm answering :) In Polish it'll be: "Ile jezykow znasz, tyle razy jestes czlowiekiem" :)
Johnny,
Generally I agree with your words about polyglots, but it doesn't mean that a polyglot in a duty to be fluent. For example, if you will go to Poland or to Russia, China, etc, you will be limited to your hotel staff, but a polyglot will be able to travel freely, communicate with people. Also a polyglot will be able to understand style of living, culture, traditions, etc. And you will be sitting in your hotel room and watching BBC or CNN or walking along streets like an alien from another planet :) Finally a polyglot will return with new contacts, new knowledge, with more wide point of view on different things and you will return with a faked gift from a central street and with a few photos you could always find with Google :) That's the difference.
Дуже дякую за інформацію! I hope those characters are readable. I tried to write "Thank-you very much for the information" in Ukrainian. If I wrote it wrong, please help me and correct me. Some Ukrainians tried to teach me a few words last year.
"Ile jezykow znasz, tyle razy jestes czlowiekiem" :) Okay. Now I don't speak Polish, but I can see words that are similiar to words I know in Russian and Serbo-Croatian. Where is the word "grammar" in all that? "Jezykow znasz" must be something like "languages knows" and "razy" is probaly like "ras" (times), but what is czlowiekiem? It must be some form of "man" in Polish. In this Polish expression, is the grammar written in a way that indicates that learning many languages makes one poor at grammar? Is that what Tom's unusual, ungrammatical translation is indicating-that there is a joke imbedded?
I don't know Polish, but relying on my Russian, here's how I understand the phrase "Ile jezykow znasz, tyle razy jestes czlowiekiem."
jezykow - языков - languages znasz - знать - know razy - раз - times jestes - есть or быть - to be czlowiekiem - человеком - human The "ile ... tyle" construction seems to serve the same purpose as the Russian "сколько ... столько." So... we have something like "You're a human as many times as the number of languages you know."
Thank-you, g-spot. I don't know what pity grammar means. I know some expressions with "pity", but none with "grammar"-well, not yet, anyway.
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