Learning another language?

friar1610 said:
For anyone who wants to go further off-tangent….there is a very interesting (at least to me) podcast series called “Lexicon Valley” hosted by writer and Columbia U. professor of linguistics, John McWhorter. The Mar 15 edition discusses the similarities and differences between Ukrainian and Russian.
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I really enjoyed his book "The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language"
 
I moved to Thailand five years ago so naturally I started learning the language. I started with in- person group classes, then an in-person private lesson, and now group online classes. I would say that I am low intermediate. Personally I recommend YouTube resources. There really are some good teachers out there. One Thai language channel teaches only in Thai as a sort of immersion process and it is quite good. Throughout though you need live people to give you immediate feedback on your pronunciation.
 
tfudtuckerpucker said:
I became fluent in German many years ago. Here are my tips:

- learn correct pronunciation, in the beginning. Best to have personal coaching and feedback. It's hard to unlearn poor pronunciation. And pronunciation is a real challenge for many languages, since there can often be NO parallel sounds in english. For German, you need someone to teach you how to move your mouth and tongue to make the sounds.

- learn the basic grammar and sentence structure rules, in the beginning. Refresh regularly.

- Easy German is my preferred tool- you see both the english and german, and hear the words. Youtube has movies with CC (subtitles) that you can set to english or autotranslate. I even found I could understand some old Hitler speeches, but he seemed to always be yelling, which is harder to understand. Plus he had that austrian accent, which is a bit different from high german.

- Duolingo is fun and helps with motivation, but I combine with other tools.

- I'm missing practicing the "speaking" portion. I haven't found the best way to find someone who will talk in german with me.
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I took 2 years of HS German and got decent at it (most gone now). Visiting Germany after HS, folks thought I was from Austria. Meine lehrerin kommt aus Österreich. Have forgotten how to put that into past tense after 55 years of not using mein Deutsch. YMMV
 
We've been struggling to finally get over the so-called 'intermediate plateau.' Here are some things I have found which give me hope we can become much more fluent in Spanish...

Language Education is Broken

The following blog post goes into detail about the overall language acuisition issue, as well as details for Dreaming Spanish' specific program to implement Comprehensible Input, etc.

The OG Immersion Method


 
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^^^^^^^^

This is very eye opening. I always said that you've learned language at the functional level when you could think in that language. The only language beside English I ever felt I had arrived at that level was (wait for it) Fortran. Not certain if/how that relates to the concept of the videos, but I instinctively agree with the concept being discussed. YMMV
 
martyp said:
Throughout though you need live people to give you immediate feedback on your pronunciation.
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+1

I don't have fluent Italian speakers to help me out. It shows. The last time I was in Italy, my Italian friend told me "Chucknocci, please speak in English. When you speak Italian I can't understand you." :(
 
I've been learning Spanish very slowly for about 3 years. I had a 840 day streak on Duolingo, but many of those days were just "do a quick lesson to keep the streak alive" days. I have almost 500 crowns there.

I have got some online tutoring (1 on 1) for a bit in there as well. Last year I started working with Busuu, and I honestly prefer it over Duolingo when using the community as speaking answers and having them evaluated by native speakers, not some software that often gives me credit when I know I was wrong (Duo....) seems better. The "just answer a question on your own" part of it really helps towards learning to speak and think a lot better than reading a specific sentence as well.

I'm currently around an A2, working towards B1 on the fluency scale I'd say right now. I'm "tourist area competent" at this point, but still have a lot of work to do on the listening and speaking side of things since I spent so long just working with Duolingo that never really seems to push those aspects of the language very well imo.
 
Fun to look at video on acquiring language.
American English which is used in mostly northern US, begun to be an acquired language when I arrived in US at age 17. Took many years. With rapid acceleration in the Army at 19. never ever learned studied or was interested in grammar. Am sure it shows in my postings. And no, I still do not know how to use proper punctuation. Nor have any idea of what is a preposition, noun or verb or any of the many other descriptors of words. But I do manage to get understood, most of the time.

Recently found a free book on Latin. It is loaded with explanations and excercises in grammar. Thin on just conversations or stories. It must be the most atrocious, miserable method for learning. Put the damn book on to the free exchange shelf.
 
When I went to DLI, a big part of it consisted in memorizing long conversational dialogues every day. They contained common, useful phrases like:
"How do I get to the bank?"
"Go straight down this street, turn right at the corner, then left two blocks later."

Memorizing them burned those phrases into my brain and I found many of them extremely useful later. It's also a way of picking up the grammar without necessarily learning all the rules.
 
friar1610 said:
For anyone who wants to go further off-tangent….there is a very interesting (at least to me) podcast series called “Lexicon Valley” hosted by writer and Columbia U. professor of linguistics, John McWhorter. The Mar 15 edition discusses the similarities and differences between Ukrainian and Russian.
Click to expand...

This sounds interesting. Thank you for posting.
 
braumeister said:
When I went to DLI, a big part of it consisted in memorizing long conversational dialogues every day. They contained common, useful phrases like:
"How do I get to the bank?"
"Go straight down this street, turn right at the corner, then left two blocks later."

Memorizing them burned those phrases into my brain and I found many of them extremely useful later. It's also a way of picking up the grammar without necessarily learning all the rules.
Click to expand...

Same experience. I went there in 1971 for Russian. Gradually lost proficiency over the years. About 10 years ago we went on a Russian River cruise. I spent some time starting about 6 months before working on getting some basic skill back. I was surprised how many phrases from the dreaded dialogues came flooding back. I’d long forgotten what case the nouns and adjectives were, but I was getting many of the endings right.
 
Learning another language is all about making it come alive for you. With the internet there is so much more content available that wasn't there when I was a high school student learning Spanish. I had to put a lot of effort into finding books and music then. Now you can find videos and music easily on YouTube.

Everyone learns differently. Some people like total immersion. For me, spending a little bit of time breaking down the grammar so the language makes sense is important. But playing with a language by listening to music, watching movies, reading makes it much more interesting.
 

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I’ve been learning French for a few years. I didn’t like Rosetta Stone that much bc as some users have described it’s hard to learn some of the complexities through pictures.
I attended an immersion coarse in Ville Franche, a small town just north of Nice. Excellent Instructors and setting except that in the evenings you get to hang out with the other students in town and the conversation tends to devolve into the language you’re most comfortable with no matter how hard you try.
Since then I’ve continued Duolingo supplemented with textbooks…I’m a fan of the progressive series if you want to remain immersed.
For listening comprehension I use ‘News in Slow French’. They have beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. it comes with full transcript and notecards. It’s a Very cheap monthly subscription and well worth it.
I think the language learners secret weapon though is Italki. It’s a program that connects you with native speakers for conversation only or instruction. You pay a different fee depending on their level of education/instruction. I can connect with people for conversation only for $7/hour or with a university level instructor for 40-60/hour. I settled on a long time tutor without a formal education for $20/hour and she’s great. I do it 4-5 days/week. Many of them offer a free or greatly discounted first lesson.
Good luck!
 
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Regular Conversations With Native Speakers

I second Scouts's recommendation of italki and more generally any platform or opportunity where you can have a regular conversation with a native speaker as suggested by Anethum.

I have been studying Italian since retirement. Trust me, I am not a natural! I started at community college, and continue to take Zoom group courses that and meet with a couple of private group classes with native speakers where we speak and read literature. I listen to podcasts and Italian radio. I go to Italy to study at a local language school for a few weeks to a month, usually once a year.

I feel like I have tried everything in my never ending quest to learn Italian and I have a long, long way to go. But the one thing that has helped the most is that I have a 30 minute conversation every week with a teacher on italki. This forces me to listen to, understand and speak Italian in real time. It helps my accent, it reduces my "deer in the headlights what did that person just say to me" panic. It's made a huge difference and the cost is minimal or even free. My suggestion is that once you have a basic mastery of the language, the next step is to force yourself to speak it regularly if you want to be able to use the language in the real world.
BR
 
I'm on my 4th foreign language. I use Duolingo a lot.

When I was immersing myself in my first language, Italian, i watched films, listened to music with clear singing; and took classes.
When pandemic started, my hispanic neighbor, who works in a restaurant sat home and couldn't work. I took 2 years of weekly spanish lessons; and augmented that with Duolingo.
Next just for yucks and jollies, I started Dutch.. This year I started Portuguese, the last two
are only via Duolingo.
 
Once you learn one Romance language, half the work is done with learning the next one. I started with Spanish and French in high school and then later added Portuguese in College. Farsi isn't a difficult language to learn per se as it is an Indo European language. It's just that they use Arabic script and that was definitely a huge stumbling block when I tried learning it many years ago. Immersion is a very slow process for me as I am a visual learner and don't learn as well just by hearing something. The new language apps where you can hear the sound and then see the word made all the difference for me.
 
Fun with Language Learning

Fun with Language Learning
I’ve picked up DuoLingo again after 5+ years.

I decided to ramp up a bit again in anticipation of our Europe Trip.

Mainly because I have a wee smattering of German, and with just a bit more I can deal with a few more interactions.

Also Nederlands (Dutch) which is close of course - dangerously so. I actually finished the entire Dutch DuoLingo back in 2017/2018. I still retain some, enough to understand my nephews and SIL at times, at least basic stuff, and read some signs. But I have lost a lot. Nederlands is not particularly useful as everyone there insists on speaking to you in English, whereas in Germany everyone spoke German to us at first.

I have been studying French off and on the past several years. That’s the one language I want a more extensive command of and I will probably travel for an immersion course in a year or two. Latin languages are a preference for me since I already have a good base in Spanish.

So this upcoming trip I’m going to work on my German via DuoLingo, switch to Nederlands as we travel to Amsterdam, and then brush up French again.

Next year I hope to visit France and do a week immersion somewhere. After this trip I’ll be preparing for that and maybe also online classes French conversation tutor beforehand.
 
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I am still picking away on Duolingo. It's been about a year, but I missed a week when I went away last May. With regard to pronunciation, I repeat the sentences and the choices of all the words (except when it gives me 15 minutes to earn double points).

I would really love, love, love to travel overseas for an inversion course, but traveling has become painful for me.
 
MarieIG said:
I am still picking away on Duolingo. It's been about a year, but I missed a week when I went away last May. With regard to pronunciation, I repeat the sentences and the choices of all the words (except when it gives me 15 minutes to earn double points).

I would really love, love, love to travel overseas for an inversion course, but traveling has become painful for me.
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Oh that’s unfortunate! You still have a video chat option.
 
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