Discussion
Me: "I want to learn German."
Them: "Why would you do that? Don't bother!"
Me: "Because I spend half my time on the Fediverse clicking on the 'Translate' button."
I can't help it if so many of the awesome accounts I follow are in German. And I want to be able to understand their messages without clicking on 'Translate' 50+ times a day. Plus this way I would understand / could attend ALL the talks at Berlin #FediDay.
I'm putting this here so that people hold me accountable 😅🤗
I have been slowly resuscitating the part of my brain that took a few years of French in the early 90s because I see lots of interesting French-language posts.
@_elena My experience is that these accounts are worth the translation click.
@_elena kein Problem. ;)
@_elena do learn German and/or any other language. Every extra languagge you learn will open up new perspectives and will give you more understanding of how language and culture are connected.
@_elena As someone from Germany I don't get it, but I still wish you good luck on your journey. Honestly I'm ready to face the fact that I might have to leave Germany in the future if shit hits the fan and if that happens I would rather forget my native language. Might be a bit cynical, but oh well.
@_elena I don't speak it, but I understand some basic Te Reo, because of all the awesome New Zealanders one of my alts follows - they have a habit of using a lot of names from the indigenous people of those islands, as well as other words.
I also speak Doric, a variant of Scottish, which oddly pronounces "wh" as "f", something it shares with Te Reo.
However I’m happy that the Fediverse seems to be a "German thing". ;)
(Taking into account the other current "German Things" …)
@_elena I'm right there with you! Every time that I look at my Fediverse feed I want to learn German, not only to read the posts here, but because of all the cool events that I see happening in Berlin.
I was complaining to a friend the other day that I cannot find any in-person Free Software, BSD/UNIX, etc. meetups in my area (there were several regularly scheduled ones pre-COVID, but now, none), and concluded that I need to move to Germany.
estoy en la misma...
@_elena There's a translate button in mastodon 😅??
@_elena I post on two accounts, one in English, one in German. I often translate to the second language, so you'd often get the same post in English and German. If what I generally do is interesting to you, it might help. :)
This is one of the best reasons to learn a language. 😊
Oh. And do you know LanguageTransfer? It is a really good free language course taught in English audio. It focuses on understanding. I used it to learn Spanish.
@_elena Seeing a few recommendations here to start with learning German I wonder if there is perhaps something similar to https://waywordradio.org/ for German? It's a radio show with two linguists taking questions from audience and it is such fun! I always wondered how they did it, answering the questions on the spot so well. Anyway: Question to your audience (If I may): Is there something similar for German?
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@_elena what really made it natural for me, after I did a few courses across 1,5 years was to be forced into a work environment where I was the only English speaker. So find some environment where you have to use it and that will definitely help. Viel Erfolg und viel Spaß beim lernen!