Best way to learn a Language

is an understanding of words absolute necessity ? i mean literally absolute...

 

if you are somewhere that you need to get food or some other essential it certainly helps.

It also shows a bit of respect to be able to do things without expecting everyone else to know your language.
Whether knowing words helps I am not sure but in my experience the more words I knew combined with drawings and mime the more fun I had!

 

My thoughts exactly. It is so rude to go to a country and assume that they will speak English. I mean, when people come to the UK we don't instantly start speaking French, German, Punjabi etc. So why do we expect people to do it for us?

 

i mean can't one trust in non-verbal language , even psychic vibes ? we might consider that psychic language has a logical form .

 

there's always sign

 

good point, there is more to communication than words. And an awareness of this definitely helps you when you are in a country that you don't know or have mastery of the language> However there are times when the practicalities of the situation mean that the words are so much more helpful, and the respect thing still applies .

by the way fountains of nay, sign would be awesomely useful in Japan as so many people have learnt it there, in proportion to people here that know it that is.

 

people usually got nothing to say , just chatter chatter . to survive in a strange land , tho , you gotta be able to understand what's important even if you are deaf . for the most part , you might as well be .

a stranger in a strange land can be , will even more likely be , respected for natural intelligence and a good intention . we share conciousness . we can do this with silence , like the silence in music .

you can hear a few words common to most every human language . the word huh is one . you know its meaning .

another simple word is .a as in gag , .a is obviously the sound of puking and certainly means the opposite of .

 

Useful perhaps, but definately not as fun to learn. I love speaking, reading, thinking in Japanese. Hence my plans to major my degree in it next year

 

try "eh" with a twist of the head and you have huh....sorry I didn't quite get the second bit, could you elaborate?

 

Huh has no meaning, it is just a filler in the English language. No lexical meaning at all.

 

in aussie english huh will often mean "what?". Fillers are really important and vary from culture to culture...culture being the definitive point rather than language maybe. Given I think language reflects culture and carries all the nuances with it it starts to get rather complicated......
:H
and I would probably even argue that point with myself which I take as being indicative of how complex the issue can be rather than there being a defibitive solution.

 

Aye, we use it as a "what" or for confusion too. However, it is still a filler. We don't find it in our English dictionary, maybe the slang dictionary... I will check

 

i guess i don't of any word (utterance) that has no meaning . even if there's a word that means no meaning ...


if the definition of any word would be its purpose , the speaker intentionally creates purpose and the receiver may or may not honor it . couldn't the length of a single word take all of a day to say it ? probably if you felt obligated somehow to hear the word out and felt nothing but perplexed through-out , and at its end you closed your eyes and happened to see a color-field of the purest , softest violet ... would you really think you had understood nothing ? anyway , who would be crazy enough to reply huh and have to hear it again ....
maybe someone who heard it as music ?

 

i work with Philosophy for Children , and especially a children's language . i'm not so good at it as the kid's are , and indeed at times i am severely corrected for making stupid nonsense with it . sorry that last paragraph seemed altogether tangles .


it's not so hard to believe we are born with language , with symbols and meaning and purpose . listen to the babies .

i can explain something simple about how our true native language works . every phonetic sound is a word , and every combination of sounds is also a word . meanings are purely associative and so very, very at One with the child's immediate feeling and surroundings .

funny , all of life speaks
this language .
the little bird dances .

accepting this even just a little bit - and otherwise skeptical
as you please - i am sure you will hear it spoken in the
world . in life .

 

I have read a bit lately about this movement that talks about baby language, some women released a book that got really popular. I have been led to understand that some have found it a bit simplistic when it comes to the actual reality of dealing with a baby though useful. Whilst I agree that they definitely communicate I also think that we learn from those around us what each sound signifies and therefore we develop the language of our parents and homelife. Children are really good at soaking up sounds and it is well known that babies up until a certain point are all capable of learning any language, however they will go with the one that is their "mothers" tongue in the end because this is the one that is most useful for them.
What's your native language tikoo?

 

i'm sure at first i spoke the baby language , then american english . english would be my tribal language . in college i began remembering the primal language , it appearing in my art projects . i noticed it , played with it , both in paintings and within the context of a kids radio show i produced . my interest continues ...i've had many good experiences with it . these have been solid , meaningful connections to life .


what you just wrote is good with me .

and some aspects of the language are still pretty mysterious to me .

the essential meaning of a sound is given by the parent ?
the parent knows the language ?
the parent knows
baby language is fully meaningful ?


huh .

or the meaning is genetic
like a birdsong ,
or... i don't know .
seems i'd be more kind to parents by believing in birdsong . seems
the language is repressed for sake of tribal/nationalism .

some kids do keep the primal language . it gets quite elegant .
.
.

 

i'm just trying to say there is a common root to all national languages , and i encourage you to explore it with your child . with a bit of faith . our common language that is and is of nature endures .

i'll be quiet now .