Learning a new language.

[K-lusive]

Arabic is just a bunch of squiggly lines. Unless you are native to the arabic world its just so confusing

If you're not native to a country that uses roman alphabet, does the alphabet not look like a bunch of squiggly lines as well? Being native to one such country, all other alphabets from Russian to Arabic to hieroglyphs all look like squiggly lines to me..

 

[Lethos]

I think consistency is really important. I've been taking Japanese classes for around 3 years now, and I'd say I'm at a good conversational level. I found that when I got into the habit of practicing an hour everyday, I started picking up the language a lot faster than I did when I was doing maybe 2 hours one day, and an hour 4 days later. Basically I would recommend putting a bit of time into the language everyday, rather than a lot of time every so-and-so day.

I'm also of the opinion that it's simply impossible to become fluent in a language without being in a place where it's spoken for an extended period of time. I don't have any evidence to back that up though.

Edit: Also make some friends who's first language is the language you want to learn. My Japanese skyrocketed once I went to uni because I made loads of Japanese friends who I talk to in Japanese.

 

[shootthebandit]

Arabic is just a bunch of squiggly lines. Unless you are native to the arabic world its just so confusing

If you're not native to a country that uses roman alphabet, does the alphabet not look like a bunch of squiggly lines as well? Being native to one such country, all other alphabets from Russian to Arabic to hieroglyphs all look like squiggly lines to me..

Roman alphabet would probably be equally confusing I suppose

 

[lee1287]

Thanks for all your great input people! I've Downloaded Duolingo, and ive recorded myself speaking a few phrases in french, and play it back to help it sink in and see if I understand it, seems to be working quite well for me

Another language I'd love to learn is swedish, but I feel that is way to hard for me at the moment, not saying french isnt hard, but I seem to be picking it up, no doubt with atrocious pronunciation though, aha. Keep em coming guys!

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Hi all, first, apologies for any bad spelling or grammar you encounter in here. On to the topic!

Now, I've been wanting to learn a new language since coming home from a two month trip to Europe, and something a German girl i met said, 'There is no downside to learning a new language'

That made me think, there really is no downside to it, and it could open up so many new possibilities, job wise, social life wise, travel wise. Anyway, i decided to learn french, mainly because it's just a euro star trip away,(I'm English) and I've always wanted to go to Canada, and i know not all Canadians speak french, but it couldn't hurt to know it when i go, right?

Anyway enough rambling, my questions are, what are some great learning tools you guys and girls can recommend? Has anyone learnt a new language other than their native tongue, and has it ever come in handy? (New job, love interest, anything!)

Thanks

As a Canadian, I must warn you, the french you will learn, and the French you will encounter here, are two completely different animals.
The Canadian French is a separately evolved language splitting off of an older french dialect, and has quite a few differences, mostly in pronunciation. It's kind of like how there are many different Cantonese dialects, and even though there are many similarities, I wouldn't expect to have fluent conversation using one dialect to speak to someone of a different one.
Also, most of the French speakers in Canada are in like, 2 provinces, so it's kind of a minority thing, and most of those people also speak English fluently, or speak a smattering, like a bunch of the people here in Moncton New Brunswick who speak what is known as shiac, which my friend, is like the result of throwing poorly pronounced French into a blender with really basic English, even the little bit of French I KNOW, when spoken by said people, is nearly impossible for me to understand.

But it would be useful to learn it if you were going specifically to France itself, or were intending to stick to Quebec when visiting Canada, as a building block on which to learn Canadian French so that you could actually understand them, not saying you shouldn't learn it, the more languages you know the better, but I would choose something a little more useful, like Mandarin, seriously, if you visit the west coast, Vancouver especially, you might need it. Seriously though, if you wanna see some interesting differences in Canadian cities, go visit Victoria BC, then hit Vancouver, then take a bus to Calgary, and so forth until you hit Quebec, then go south to New Brunswick, and look at the differences in local culture. One interesting thing you will notice is that the road signs in BC only have English on them, stop signs for instance, just say STOP, then you hit the east coast and depending on where you are they have it in french, or both.