I’m losing my shit trying to learn Czech. I learn some things, go do something while speaking Czech and people respond in perfect English. No idea if I said it right because I don’t get corrected.
Definitely need to get serious about dating.
I can’t roll Rs in Spanish or throat them in French. Too bad because I could get the fuck out of here while they destroy America.
A good chunk of America will seek asylum up north and probably end up in camps on the border if there’s a God.
Your written English is very good despite people giving you shit. There is just something off about idioms, word/phrase ordering, and something I guess I would call conceptual contractions. Those are things that are understood and not formal rules of English necessarily.
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Your level is solid lapka. Based on your writing, you’d probably pass a C1 test.
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Just practice I’m afraid. I still roll the wrong r’s occasionally to this day. Don’t sweat it too much, native speakers won’t give you a hard time and will be delighted to find a gringo who has made the effort to learn.
It has to be two trills, never 3. I find if you try it always comes out as 3 or more. Eventually if you don’t try the 2 trills kind of takes over.
I just exclaim “perro!” every time I see a dog for practice. Or “perrito!” for puppy. Random people who hear me basically yelling “doggie!” at their dog, probably think I’m differently-abled or whatever the proper term is.
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My English is okay, but i have issues with R’s and Th sounds. Most of my verbal medium-rare orders are writtren down as medium well so i learnt to double check after some burnt ass meat.
I worked with a German guy who we constantly asked to say squirrel. It came out about like this. Endless entertainment.
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The French can’t say squirrel either. Which is fine as ‘écureuil’ is impossible.
What’s a word that Americans can’t say? Besides r-trilling or Swahili clicking or stuff like that.
I can only speak about French, but every time my kid has yoghurt for breakfast I am annoyed as I can never pronounce ‘yaourt’ well enough for the people at daycare to understand. In general I have trouble with multiple vowels, and the r’s. I think I’m ok on the nasals, but probably not.
And you are native Russian-speaker speaking French as a second language, is that right? Or am I getting you mixed up with zarapochka?
British ‘speaking’ French.
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The modern way Hebrew R is pronounced isn’t rolling, but it sounds nothing like an R sound. When my wife tried to explain how it’s pronounced in her work someone from the other side of the room came and said she has never heard that sound made by a human.
I like the add your voice technique. The comparison to s/z, f/v and p/b was really illuminating.
Many Hawaiians can’t say “ice cream” properly.
Decided to start learning my 4th language last week, Portuguese.
I’ve visited Porto and Lisbon in Portugual and enjoyed them and could see the country as a possible place to live in the future and would like to visit Brazil.
I’m about 5 days in and it’s been going pretty well. My Spanish and French knowledge have helped a ton and I’m finding the experience really fun. I’ve been using a combo of Duolingo, a pronunciation trainer, and Memrise. I’d like to start taking a few classes on italki in about 2 months once I’m capable of decent convos and maybe tackle a series or 2 in Netflix in 3-4 months. I’ve already watched 3% w/English subtitles, so watching w/Portuguese subs might be an option since it doesn’t matter if I miss a ton.
I think after Portuguese, I’ll probably learn Italian, since it seems relatively easy to acquire a new romance language once you have a couple under your belt. After that I’m not sure. Possibly German and then I’d stop there. I really enjoy going from 0 to about a 7/10 with a language, but so far it’s only been romance languages. I feel like most of the fun would be lost if I tried to learn something like Japanese or Russian w/very little in common. Just don’t want to put in that work unless it’s a country I end up living in.
But even if these languages aren’t all that useful, I consider it a hobby since I’ve been having fun with it, and I guess it can never hurt to have a nice base of knowledge in a handful of languages.
My wife speaks French and Spanish and says she can read a decent amount of Portuguese but the accent is really weird. Italian and Spanish are very close—much closer than either is to French—to the point where if you’re native in one then you can get by at a low level in the other without much bother, you both just speak your own language. (My source on the latter is conversations with Spanish and Italian people who were pissed off at how hard French was for them 
)