What is something like a hobby or skill that you belive almost anybody should give a try, and what makes your suggestion so good compared to other things?

i feel like this is a descent question i guess.

  • kani@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Learning a new language. You learn a bit about how languages work, understand other cultures a bit better, usually learn new vocabulary for your native language, understand the relationship between different languages, learn the roots of loan words and generally helps your brain stay healthy, even by only studying the basics.

      • The_Empty_Tuple@kbin.social
        0·
        1 year ago

        Not OP, but I’ve asked myself this as well. I think it depends on where you live and what you want out of your language learning experience. If your goal is to learn something more useful in everyday life and you live in the southern US, Spanish is a great option. If you’re from Canada, French is probably the most useful. German and Mandarin are useful in the business world, but the latter is significantly harder to learn. If you’re not worried about maximizing the utility of what you learn, Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages for English speakers, and let’s be real, Norway is awesome.

        It’s more important that you stick with whatever you choose though. That’s the part I’ve struggled with.

        • kani@sopuli.xyz
          2·
          1 year ago

          To be honest I’m not a native English speaker so your advice is probably more useful anyway. My husband is British and has studied plenty of languages, finding Swedish and Norwegian definitely the easiest to pick up. Romance languages have more complicated grammar but you’ll find a lot more TV and movies to watch to casually pick up a bit more of the language, which I find useful because I only speak English as well as I do from watching a lot of TV (first with subs) when I was younger.

            • kani@sopuli.xyz
              1·
              1 year ago

              Some from recent memory:

              • Real Humans (Äkta Människor) tv show, I liked the UK version a bit more
              • Young Royals, tv show about a young gay prince
              • Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves, a heartbreaking miniseries dealing with Aids epidemic
              • Raspberry Boat Refugee, a movie about a Finnish man who believes he should’ve been born Swedish
              • Glowing Stars, a movie about a girl looking after her mom who has cancer
              • Stormkärs Maja, a miniseries on the hard life on a tiny island
              • Roy Andersson Also has a lot of fun absurdist comedies
              • Also movies/miniseries based on Astrid Lindgren books are sweet and nostalgic and despite being aimed for children

              I think those might be easy enough to find online depending on where you look.