I like learning programming languages, so naturally one of my non-tech hobbies is learning human languages too! I'm currently teaching myself Russian (with the help of some patient friends!); in the past I've studied Mandarin Chinese, Finnish, French, Dutch, and German. My German is good enough that I'm trying to pass at least some of it on to my one-month old daughter. =)
I doubt I'm alone in this among developers, but I really enjoy video games, especially exploration-based ones like Salt or strategy ones, like the Civilization series. I'm tempted to combine this hobby with the previous one and tech and write a language-based mod for Civ VI.
I've been getting more into gardening lately. It's been out of necessity - those weeds won't pull themselves - but I've found it to be very cathartic.
Yes and no - for example, the shared lineage of Dutch and German gets really confusing, because sometimes I'll think the word is similar in both languages when it's not (good examples are "time" - Dutch tijd and German Zeit, or "work" - Dutch werk and German Arbeit), or something I'll think they're different, but they're actually similar (for example, Dutch wonen and German wohnen are both "to reside"). And then you have false friends like winkel - which is store/shop in Dutch and angle in German.
You end up picking up a lot about grammar along the way - learning German helped me to understand indirect objects in a way English doesn't really help with, and it helped me understand grammatical case, which helps with Russian a lot. Of course, when you look at Chinese, you can throw all of that out the window! What knowledge did transfer there was learning about the International Phonetic Alphabet and how our vocal tracts work - knowing that makes it a lot easier to figure out new sounds!
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That's so cool! So do you find there are overlaps and patterns in language that make it easier to learn/retain more dialects as you study?
Gardening is something I am slowly getting into, because I want to grow my own vegetables.
Yes and no - for example, the shared lineage of Dutch and German gets really confusing, because sometimes I'll think the word is similar in both languages when it's not (good examples are "time" - Dutch tijd and German Zeit, or "work" - Dutch werk and German Arbeit), or something I'll think they're different, but they're actually similar (for example, Dutch wonen and German wohnen are both "to reside"). And then you have false friends like winkel - which is store/shop in Dutch and angle in German.
You end up picking up a lot about grammar along the way - learning German helped me to understand indirect objects in a way English doesn't really help with, and it helped me understand grammatical case, which helps with Russian a lot. Of course, when you look at Chinese, you can throw all of that out the window! What knowledge did transfer there was learning about the International Phonetic Alphabet and how our vocal tracts work - knowing that makes it a lot easier to figure out new sounds!