Learning New Languages

[GrinningManiac]

*Inspired by the awesome conversation I had with Furburt (largely in Spanish)*

Learning languages is a drag, but speaking them is cool. This is an irrefutable law of the world.

I, for example, learnt Spanish over the course of a brief, forced-upon-me education in years 7 through 9 which I forgot, and an intensive period of 4 weeks in Peru during one of the most awesome treks of my life. I don't speak it well, and I don't remember half the stuff I CAN speak, but I can have basic conversations.

I now want to learn a language by myself, and I like languages that let me "Ch" (the noise you get when you pronounce "loch" properly), So I want to learn Hindi and Arabic

I'm doing Hindi first, and I got one of those learn-by-yourself tape n' book things, and I plan to learn enough to impress the Indian mother of my friend and perhapes learn the rest off of her

But what's the best way to learn languages, in your experience? Listening to the tape and reading the book is just giving me basics on pronounciation, and I cannae remember the rest!

How do you learn languages, and what ones have you learnt?

(Yo, Furb, ask your mate Manchán for tips. He seems to be a psycho at this stuff)

 

[WrongSprite]

Best way to learn a language is to live in it's country. Always has been, always will be.

 

[Miumaru]

Supposedly the best way is to just be around it.
Id love to learn japanese, but its very...intimidating.

 

[CloggedDonkey]

Well, I want to learn Russian and German, but there where too few people who signed up at my school for German and we didn't get Russian. I'll be able to learn both in a year though.

 

[leviathanmisha]

I took 3 years of French in high school. I love how on the Rosetta Stone boxes it says you'll never have to memorize anything ever again. But if you DON'T memorize whatever it's teaching you, you'll just forget it...I swear, they say the weirdest things on these boxes.

 

[SHWiMM]

Right now I'm doing an exchange year in Slovakia and am progressively learning the Slovak language. In my opinion, immersion is the best method, though I learned Spanish mostly in High School, but then I lived in Panama for a few months, which pushed me to fluency.
Those are the only two languages I've learned, Spanish being one of the easier languages to learn, Slovak being in the top 5 hardest.

 

[Fayathon]

Working on learning French, and I'm using Rosetta Stones, which are really nice, it's full immersion with fairly accurate vocal input to help you with pronunciation.

 

[GrinningManiac]

There's this guy called Michael Thomas who does these CDs that get into your head and teach you without having to do exercises or revision. Apparantly they work really well. My friend uses them, and he's damn fluent in Spanish

 

[Blair Bennett]

I'm Canadian, so I was forced to endure 8 years of half-assed French classes, the majority of which I have forgotten.

I've been learning Spanish for just over 2 years now, and spend a lot of time in Spanish speaking areas. In addition to this, I'm currently attempting to teach myself German. I've been using this disgusting old textbook I found at a second hand book store. This is sort of funny because, apparently, before I started taking classes there, my school used to teach German as a class, but there weren't enough people who had signed up for it. If only more people were interested, I might have some idea as to what I was doing.

If you ask me, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself completely in the dialect. Traveling to an area where your mother-tongue is not the norm can be intimidating, but ultimately quite rewarding if you're trying to learn another language. A lot of people have said this already, but I find it's one of the most sincere truths about spoken languages.

 

[GrinningManiac]

I'm Canadian, so I was forced to endure 8 years of half-assed French classes, the majority of which I have forgotten.

I've been learning Spanish for just over 2 years now, and spend a lot of time in Spanish speaking areas. In addition to this, I'm currently attempting to teach myself German. I've been using this disgusting old textbook I found at a second hand book store. This is sort of funny because, apparently, before I started taking classes there, my school used to teach German as a class, but there weren't enough people who had signed up for it. If only more people were interested, I might have some idea as to what I were doing.

If you ask me, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself completely in the dialect. Traveling to an area where your mother-tongue is not the norm can be intimidating, but ultimately quite rewarding if you're trying to learn another language. A lot of people have said this already, but I find it's one of the most sincere truths about spoken languages.

Thanks, man!

Hopefully, if I can get the basics down, I can learn off a native (friend's mum) and I can achieve even better results when I reach India during my gap year.

Althuogh they do speak English in India as well, so it might be too easy for me to give up...

 

[Snork Maiden]

Unless its a programming language I suck ass at learning languages. I don't enjoy it, and its one of the things that I'm really *really* not very good at. I got only just scraped a B in German GCSE, but that was through learning a lot of words which I didn't really understand and just repeating them.

I learnt some Hiragana, but I didn't have the willpower to keep it up. I'd love to be able to learn another language though.

 

[Shanannara]

I learned Welsh. I've forgotten a lot of it now but it's a great language for swearing in. In fact, if you say anything at all people tend to assume you're swearing at them. It was pretty easy to learn I found. It's more or less phonetic so once you know the alphabet you're sorted.

 

[Quaxar]

Of course, living in the country of origin is the best way, but I think it's suffice to regularly speak it.
I've learned Italian for four years, still I can order food at best because I never really spoke too much.

I'd love to learn Gaelic as I think it's an extremely beautiful language, but I guess it's pretty hard to find any good instructions for such an "exotic" language...
Not to forget that I'll probably never need it or get to speak with anyone.

 

[Egitor]

I've learned English through immersion. Most of my school courses were in English during a three-year period as part of a bilingual education program. Meanwhile I tended to be around the English language for most of my spare time - be it silly American sitcoms or speaking English to people in online games like Runescape.
I also know some French and German because I had classes in these languages for four years in school. Most of what I've learned there never stuck, partly because I held no interest in the languages and only studied so I could pass tests, partly because I stopped using the language at the classroom doorway.

(oh, my mother language is Dutch. I started learning English at the age of twelve.)

 

[Znakemane]

Learned english, french, german and spanish in school, and am now studying japanese at a university. Rosetta Stone's are a great help, and i am going to japan as an exchange student later this year. I've always felt that being in the country of the language you're trying to learn really speeds up the process.

Btw, i'm danish.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

I've learned english, spanish, swedish, a bit japanese (Still learning), i took a course in french once and i can understand but not speak danish.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Learned english, french, german and spanish in school, and am now studying japanese at a university. Rosetta Stone's are a great help, and i am going to japan as an exchange student later this year. I've always felt that being in the country of the language you're trying to learn really speeds up the process.

Btw, i'm danish.

I heard Danish was one of the hardest languages in Europe. I guess you can't comment, being a native speaker. Rosetta Stones, you say? I'll check 'em out

 

[GrinningManiac]

I took 3 years of French in high school. I love how on the Rosetta Stone boxes it says you'll never have to memorize anything ever again. But if you DON'T memorize whatever it's teaching you, you'll just forget it...I swear, they say the weirdest things on these boxes.

Would you reccomend them? Did they work?

 

[Cakes]

Immersion is the only way. None of that learn-by-yourself shit, you need to get out there and surround yourself. I knew no French whatsoever, went to a French school for middle and high school and now I'm practically fluent.

I wouldn't recommend Hindi by the way. What do you actually intend to use it for? And keep in mind, it is very difficult to learn a language like that from an English background. Not to discourage you or anything, but I think you'd be far better off learning a Germanic or Romance language, unless full immersion is practical in your situation.

 

[leviathanmisha]

I took 3 years of French in high school. I love how on the Rosetta Stone boxes it says you'll never have to memorize anything ever again. But if you DON'T memorize whatever it's teaching you, you'll just forget it...I swear, they say the weirdest things on these boxes.

Would you reccomend them? Did they work?

No, my boyfriend was trying them but he said he learned more French by just casually glancing through my Advanced French book then using the program.