Learning another language

[ShortInSeattle]

You can read novels, with a good dictionary beside you. You can read popular magazines. I recommend Cosmopolitan en Español. Learn something of "los orgasmos buenos". You can watch movies, and often learn a lot of vocabulary and grammar by context and listening. Some movies even have subtitles in the language spoken in the movie.

Ha

If there is a TV show that you know well, watch it again with dubbing. I've learned important Spanish words like "los vampiros" and "bacteria con carne" watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the event of a vampire attack, I'll be ready to describe it.

SIS

 

[rodi]

I've used pimsleur CDs in the car and I've done some Rosetta Stone... both done in spurts before trips to Italy. It was enough that I was able to pull enough words out to converse with my husband's 2nd cousins when their daughter (who speaks English) was not around. But it was definitely not proper Italian, nothing was conjugated properly. Still - we communicated, had a good time, etc.

Fortunately our Italian cugini are very forgiving of my lousy Italian.

I've promised myself that getting serious about learning Italian will happen as soon as I pull the cord and retire.

 

[LOL!]

One of the hardest things I found was learning to not care about how you pronounced words and making mistakes at first. Sure, you want people to understand you, so you cannot ignore good pronunciation, but just get out there and talk! without fear or embarassment is a great technique as well. Go for constant, steady improvment rather than waking up as perfect native speaker.

 

[braumeister]

I took English as a foreign language in school for 9 years. I read magazines, watched movies, listened to tapes, etc... My TOEFL score was pretty good too. But after 15 minutes in the US, I knew I was in big trouble.

I can really relate to this.
I went through the six month total immersion course (Brazilian Portuguese) at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey when I was 37. I'm a native English speaker, and also fluent in French (4 years in high school and 3 in college).

At the end of the DLI course, I was easily the top of my class, and felt very comfortable since I could read Portuguese newspapers easily and the instructors said they were very pleased with my pronunciation.

Fast forward a few weeks. I've arrive in Rio and checked into a hotel. Turned on the TV and barely understood one word out of five. Disaster!

Needless to say, I spent as much time as possible actually talking with everyone I encountered, but it took many months before I honestly considered myself fluent. By the time I had been in Brazil for two years, I was routinely doing simultaneous interpretation at bilateral meetings (whispering in an American's ear while the other person was speaking Portuguese, or vice versa). That's very hard work but I really enjoyed it. It's especially tricky when you have to translate idioms on the fly.

But the other thing that made me crazy is that it seemed like for every Portuguese word I learned, the equivalent French word disappeared. It's like I have two boxes in my brain for each word; one is English, the other is "current foreign language".

 

[Gumby]

But the other thing that made me crazy is that it seemed like for every Portuguese word I learned, the equivalent French word disappeared. It's like I have two boxes in my brain for each word; one is English, the other is "current foreign language".

After English, the first language I learned was French. Sometimes, if I cannot remember the Italian word for something, I think of the French one. It is usually a cognate.

 

[ItDontMeanAThing]

For me the three keys were pronunciation, conversations with native speakers and getting over the fear & self consciousness of those conversations.

It's useless to know what a word means if the person listening to you doesn't recognized the word. I experience that almost daily among Thais and expats for whom English is a second, third or nth language. The other major benefit is as you learn pronunciation, words spoken in the language will 'pop' from the incomprehensible flow. You won't know what the word means but you will have isolated it and that's a start. Teaching yourself and not surrpounded by native speakers? I've read the International Phoentic Alphabet may help.

There are online language exchanges. Pair up with a native speaker of the language you're learning who is learning your native language. Uses skype. Some sites have suggested conversation topics for your learning level.

I believe in memorization of the most frequent words. Spaced repetition software uses your accuracy on flashcards to show you the words you're having trouble with most often while the words you stone cold know won't be shown again for years. I use Anki. Runs on Windoze, Mac and LInux, has some mobile versions, is free and under active development.

Some Spanish words have just stumped me because I get them mixed up with similar words. I'm trying something I read recently here How to learn a language without using translations. My new flash cards have a picture of the word, e.g. a pillow, and on the 'back' of the card the spanish word. No English. I'll see if it helps. Can't imagine it wouldn't, as rosetta and native learning work similar to this.

Rosetta stone drove my left brain nuts. I couldn't squash to need to look up the words I knew, according to Rosetta tests, to see if I actually knew them. It was long and slow process, but I wasn't doing it there way. But the words I did learn are cemented in my brain. I may give them another try on my next language.

I started reading comprehension by getting children's books from the library.

Chrome browser has a tool that translates occasional words from English into your learning language. Haven't tried it. Language Immersion for Chrome Teaches You a New Language While You Browse the Web

She'll hear something on a lesson and say "nobody says that, we say this...."

If they understand you, it doesn't matter (except maybe in France, if the stereotype holds true). Once you're routinely speaking with native speakers you'll pick up the slang, regional terms & accent, etc. Think about it. If you were approached by someone who pointed to your wrist and said 'Please, the watch say?' You'd tell them the time. (In some countries you'd also be likely to repeat the question in what you think is the correct form, with some form of attitude ranging from helpful to disdain.)

 

[W2R]

There is nothing better than spending all day, most days, with somebody who only speaks the desired language and who doesn't care if you make mistakes at first, IMO. I think this is why young children pick up languages so easily, especially if they have a playmate who speaks the language. You may not be grammatically perfect but the ability to communicate skyrockets in such a setup, IME.

 

[BigNick]

I think this is why young children pick up languages so easily, especially if they have a playmate who speaks the language.

Young children, up to the age of 8, have great neuroplasticity in the parts of the brain associated with language. They can also learn foreign languages very well in a classroom setting at this age. In particular, if they are taught by native speakers at ages 5-8, they will acquire near-perfect accents, which will often be retained even if they don't study a lot of vocabulary for the rest of elementary school.

Having a playmate who speaks the other language is great, but our experience is that the pair will quickly choose one language and use that almost exclusively. So while you may be happy that your kid is learning Spanish, her friend's Mom might be frustrated that her daughter isn't getting any English practice.

 

[timeasterday]

When I see a commercial on TV for Rosetta Stone with students showcasing their foreign language skills, I am less than impressed. As I have learned first hand, having a good vocabulary and grammar base is worthless if you can't master the pronunciation and make yourself understood. Their students' pronunciation is terrible IMO and I can't understand them very well.

But have you ever tried Rosetta Stone? Don't just judge by a TV ad. Pronunciation is a big part of the lessons on RS and if you don't get it just right they are pretty good at dinging you every time. I am quite impressed with the speech recognition. Some words I always have trouble with even though I think I am saying it exactly like them. But my wife takes the mic and it shows correct. So it really picks up the nuances, especially in a tonal language like Mandarin.

 

[W2R]

Young children, up to the age of 8, have great neuroplasticity in the parts of the brain associated with language. They can also learn foreign languages very well in a classroom setting at this age. In particular, if they are taught by native speakers at ages 5-8, they will acquire near-perfect accents, which will often be retained even if they don't study a lot of vocabulary for the rest of elementary school.

Having a playmate who speaks the other language is great, but our experience is that the pair will quickly choose one language and use that almost exclusively. So while you may be happy that your kid is learning Spanish, her friend's Mom might be frustrated that her daughter isn't getting any English practice.

I have never had any problem coming to some quick agreement about which language to speak. When I was a kid, I picked up nearly perfect Spanish very quickly from playmates. Their mother was great - - she didn't happen to care whether we spoke Spanish or English, and I picked up Spanish faster than they picked up English, so Spanish it was. When we first started to play together she would help us if we had trouble translating a particular word, even though her English wasn't great. After a few days we no longer needed her help. When not playing with my friends I was using my new-found Spanish to help translate for my parents occasionally as well. However, as soon as we left that country I began to lose my Spanish and I don't speak it at all any more. Maybe if I took lessons it might come back to me but I haven't tried that.

In college I had a Parisian roommate, and I spoke French pretty easily but she preferred to speak English in order to improve her English. That was OK with me, and she seemed to pick up English pretty quickly that way. She almost never reverted to French except when she had had a hard day. She would ask me about slang usages and so on, and I would tell her when her English sounded weird.

 

[braumeister]

The most remarkable thing I ever saw in this regard was when I lived in Brazil. In that country, all schools are required by law to provide instruction only in Portuguese. So when my fellow gringos brought their families with them, the kids were forced to go to school where they spoke only another language. It was kind of like throwing a non-swimmer into the deep end of the pool without a rope.

All the children I knew did just fine, and were speaking accentless Portuguese very quickly. I believe that if you can learn another language before puberty, you can achieve flawless pronunciation, but after that point you almost never will. Anecdotally, I can point to Henry Kissinger, one of the smartest men around, who still has a noticeable German accent. He immigrated when he was about 15 years old.

 

[kramer]

Keep in mind that the optimal approach for a particular person will depend on their language learning goals and their particular learning style. I always opted for diversification of learning methods. If your goal is fluency, you can't do that without a foundation in grammar whereas that is not so important to someone whose goal is simply to communicate at a tourist level.

My own sense is that most people simply don't stress memorization enough.

I remember when I was taking a Thai language class, it started on a Friday. I had learned a handful of words before coming to Thailand, but knew very little but I had learned an English Mnemonic system for Thai script (not too hard really). After the first day of class, I could see I was behind the other 2 students who had taken the course before. I knew I would get lots of pronunciation help in class and I couldn't really learn that on my own anyway.

So between Friday's first day of class and Monday's second day of class I created my own flash cards and memorized the better part of 300 words. My teacher was astonished on Monday and it definitely helped me do well in the one month long course.

Maybe someone learning from a computer program would have the opposite problem. They need to shoot for diversification.

When I was an intermediate Spanish speaker, I found that memorizing phrases helped me a lot. I used books that focused on intermediate learners (e.g., Breaking out of beginner's spanish -- I memorized just about every tidbit in that book). Memorizing phrases helped me even more in Thai which has a more alien sentence structure.

If you can send your readings to your Kindle, there are decent Spanish-English and French-English dictionaries that you can buy that allow in-line translation (just put the cursor next to the word and the definition will appear). Hopefully, someday this will be there for more languages.

 

[Gotadimple]

If there is a TV show that you know well, watch it again with dubbing. I've learned important Spanish words like "los vampiros" and "bacteria con carne" watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the event of a vampire attack, I'll be ready to describe it.

SIS

Could be worse!

Yo quiero Taco Bell!

 

[Marathoner]

Chuckanut -- what language are you trying to learn? There may be specific recommendations, depending on the language.

I learned French by living in France for a year in high school, but keep it up by watching movies on DVD in French when that's an option, reading books in French, and my massage therapist happens to be French, so I get at least an hour's practice every month.

Language Learning Forum this forum might also have some helpful tips for the specific language. Right before I found about my ex's infidelity, I was starting to learn Turkish, using resources I found here that had been recommended. I will get back to it once life settles down a bit!

 

[TromboneAl]

It's like I have two boxes in my brain for each word; one is English, the other is "current foreign language".

This effect is very strong for me also. If I start a sentence in French (old
language), it ends up in Swedish (new language).

But after 15 minutes in the US, I knew I was in big trouble.

The first thing I did when I first went to Sweden was buy an ice cream cone. I thought I had the numbers down cold, but I had no clue what the vendor said. I had to do the foreigner thing of put some currency down (I probably put down $7,000), and hope for the correct change.

 

[omni550]

The first thing I did when I first went to Sweden was buy an ice cream cone. I thought I had the numbers down cold, but I had no clue what the vendor said. I had to do the foreigner thing of put some currency down (I probably put down $7,000), and hope for the correct change.

I did the Pimsleur conversational CDs (borrowed from the library) prior to my trip to Italy two years ago.

Little did I know, but in some venues there it seemed to be a 'sport' to try to rip-off tourists. One example: I asked at a train station how much the fare would be for 2 to Pompeii. He stated a price. I handed him some money (in bills) in excess of the fare, knowing what change I should be getting back. He tried shorting me something like 10 euros. When I pointed this out, he just shrugged his shoulders and handed me the missing amount.

(To be fair, a very similar thing recently happened to me here in the U.S.)

Fortunately, honest people seem to be in the majority.

omni

 

[audreyh1]

My everyday Spanish improved considerably when I started watching Spanish language telenovelas on a regular basis. I already had the basic grammar and some vocab, so I didn't start from scratch. Turning on the Spanish captions was really useful so I could see how a word was spelled if i didnt know it or missed what was said. Initially, my vocabulary grew considerably, but then I noticed my heard comprehension take a huge leap, and finally, I have heard the common verbs conjugated some many times in real sentences, that I don't even have to think how to conjugate in any tense, and subjunctive use comes readily.

My husband was more the beginner. He hadn't studied Spanish since high school briefly, long ago, and he was not interested in book learning for grammar, etc. but he also has progressed tremendously. His comprehension is pretty good now. He mostly reads the Spanish captions, but understands them well. He'd be able to speak beyond common phrases and basic sentences if he cracked a basic grammar book for sentence structure, but we might travel to an immersion course in a nice exotic location instead.

I participate regularly on an English website blog that is devoted to "recapping" episodes of popular telenovelas as soon as they are broadcast (mostly Univision prime time shows). Many of the folks got involved because they were trying to learn or improve their Spanish. Getting involved in a story is very motivational in terms of learning a language. Some folks use English captions, others Spanish. The English recaps help folks pick up details they might have missed and help beginners follow along. Oh, and the volunteer recapper has considerable license in how they write and embelish the recap and most of them are very witty and talented. Often the recap is far more entertaining than the original show. Those of us watching also get to share opinions in an active and lively comment section. It's been a lot of fun. Search on Caray, Caray! and you'll find us. Here it is: Caray, Caray! I'm currently serving as a recapper for one of the shows.

Audrey

 

[lightspeed]

I used "Coffee Break French" to relearn French after a 25 year hiatus from speaking it. On itunes there is 3 years worth of weekly 10-15 minute lessons free from very basic to fairly advanced. When I went through it I wished I had it when I learned the first time. There is also "Coffee Break Spanish" which I suspect is just as good. I used Rosetta Stone for German, and got through the first 3 levels. Problem was we went to rural Bavaria where my wife's family spoke a totally different German, but at least I could put together sentences and they would understand me (at least I think they did).

 

[BigNick]

Problem was we went to rural Bavaria where my wife's family spoke a totally different German, but at least I could put together sentences and they would understand me (at least I think they did).

Don't worry too much about this. Bavaria is regarded as hillbilly country by most Germans. I speak moderately comprehensible German; in most of Northern Germany, when they don't get me, they willl say "Kommen Sie aus Bayern?" ("Do you come from Bavaria?").

 

[braumeister]

Bavaria is regarded as hillbilly country by most Germans.

I'm always reminded of one of my father's family stories along those lines.

They lived in a very rural part of Iowa with a heavily German population. The grandfather was from northern Germany (near Cologne) his wife's family was from southern Germany (Franconia which is an out of the way part of Bavaria).

Between themselves over the years, they gradually developed their own compromise dialect, which had the advantage of allowing them to talk privately in front of the children, but the disadvantage of being fairly incomprehensible to their friends and neighbors.

 

[deserat]

Learned Spanish in high school - did an immersion in Ecuador 20 years later for a month with a family and daily 8 hours of classes, one-on-one and *repeat* immersion. Lived in Germany and took German classes through German American friendship club and MWR and then the German version of ESL training for people who were immigrants to Germany. Also, took a French class from a German through MWR. What have I found: my Spanish is the most entrenched, even though it is not the most recent language nor place I have lived. I even understand French and Italian better than when I listen to German and yet I've probably had more exposure to the German. I've also learned that there are dialects in all languages and those dialects can sometimes be 50% different from the 'official' language you may have learned. For example, when I listen to Radio Regenbogen near Baden-Baden in Germany, I understand up to 80% of the German - when in Stuttgart, which is more Schwabia, I understood maybe 50%. For the French, which was de rigeur in Alsace, I understood up to 75% - go figure....it's the romantic language tie - I also could read it quite well.

So, learn it early and practice....best ways to make it happen-and be prepared to be a bit disoriented and not as good as you thought you might be when/if you visit and try to understand. Also, do not be afraid to try and practice your language skills - i.e. speaking - that makes a huge difference as it forces you to think in that language structure and respond to someone....it's not scripted, so you have to exercise your grasp of the language. Most people are very grateful when you try to speak with them in your language and will help you with your grammar or pronunciation. Sometimes, you will find they want to practice their English, so they will speak in English while you speak in their language. That can be disconcerting as you do wish to practice your skills, but it can verify if you are conveying the right information (like: where is the bathroom versus where is your sister or something like that).

Lastly, your brain can hurt while doing this - it definitely exercises other pathways if you haven't done it before.