Learning a new language

[Caffae]

I speak chinese, good luck with that ... it's probably seems really complicated with all the different words you have to learn, i started by figuring out the meanings of the different parts (mostly the sides) & they tend to sound similar if they look very similar or at least have the sâme

 meaning in a different context.    I'm learning french with duolingo, it's amazing & free.

[wassermelon]

Busuu.com is a site I have begun using, and I think the site+the time in my life will make it easy to commit to their program. It uses pictures, writing and recordings to introduce vocabulary (up to B2), and has writing and speaking prompts that you produce and upload. It's a social networking site, in that your responses are peer-graded, and you can also chat/video chat with other users to practice spontaneous speaking.

 

Oof, that sounded like I just copy/pasted a generic review of any language site, haha. But I really do think it can be a good starting point, to get your vocab and pronounciation up to the point that you can take over your education.

 

Of the languages you listed, it only carries Russian and Arabic ... But I feel like there is an especially large community of native Arabic speakers.

[CrimsonTide2006]

I'd love to learn to speak Arabic!

[Zombiekiller25]

While I was stationed overseas I learned Greek. I can honestly say the best and easiest way to learn it is to speak it. Before I went and when I got back I would go to Greek restaraunts and fumble over words and phrases. You'll get a few laughs but people are usual willing to help you. When I learned French it was all in classroom for four years and I can barely remember any of it. Experience is sometimes the best teacher.

[jfreaksho]

All of my life I've wanted to learn languages, and I've finally decided to go for it. I'm working on adjusting my eating habits, getting into shape, losing weight, and now I want to work out my mind as well by trying to learn a new language. 

I've tried to learn a new language before but I haven't been able to 1, stick with it or 2, find a method that works. I'm a very visual learner, but I can't seem to get a handle on a new language. The top five languages I want to learn are Russian, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, and Chinese. Does anyone have any advice/tips/tricks/suggestions/HELP! that they can give me? I would be VERY thankful for any comments you send my way. 

1.  Focus.  You won't likely have much success with five at once.  Especially not those five.  Arabic and Farsi have a little bit of crossover, and some of the really traditional Korean has similar meanings to Chinese, but that's about it.  That's at least three different language families, and all of them are pretty difficult in their own rights.  This is a long-term goal.  You'd probably be better off picking one for the next two years or more.

 

2.  I'm a visual/tactile learner.  Listening was my weak point.  I found that the more different ways I could get the words into my head, the better they stuck.  I used markerboards to write my vocab over and over and over and over, saying them aloud as I did so.  Sometimes I listened to vocabulary lists and then wrote them down as I heard them.  The more different ways you get it in your head, the better it will stick.

 

3.  For beginning conversational-level stuff, I'm a big fan of Pimsleur.  It's all audio tracks, in 30-minute daily lessons.  They do the best job of giving the most useful vocab and basic grammar constructions right up front, much better than Rosetta.

 

4.  I've had a lot of success with http://www.conversationexchange.com for finding language partners.  There are other sites that can do the same, but this one is the best I've found.

 

If you pick Chinese, let me know via pm and I'll send you more of the Chinese-specific stuff I use.

[fadagaski]

This is a gem of a thread - so many sites and resources and methods. Thank you everyone for inspiring me! I'm going to brush up my French and get cracking on Italian and Welsh.

[SnowWhite]

I'm going to start learning Italian after I graduate in May Good luck to everyone who's embarking on a journey to learning language!

[Schizzy]

As a linguist:

 

a language isn't something you can sit down and cram. You have to incorporate it into your life on a regular basis. Go about it the way you go about your fitness regimen! Make it a thing you do on MWF or whatever days work for you, and stick to it. Even if you only have the time to read a news article that day in your target language, do SOMETHING

 

There's also the site livemocha, which is amazing. It's a fantastic and free website. 

[KnitJoy]

I'm studying Russian and I would recommend the site lang-8, as well as bliu-bliu. In lang-8 you write in your target language and native speakers correct your writing. Bliu-bliu gives you lots of things to read that are at your level. Another thing that I am doing is creating flashcards with no English. I use Anki to make picture flashcards and as words get more advanced I will be writing defintions in Russian. I learned this from http://fluent-forever.com Hope this helps! Удача!

[decision_]

Definitely stick to something free or relatively inexpensive to start:

 

1) memrise.com   (free)

2) duolingo   (free)

3) Michel Thomas smart phone apps  (not free but I used to brush up on spoken Chinese before visiting my brother in Singapore)

 

Good luck and good skill!

[Marty]

I love learning languages. I picked up Polish by always being around it. I have since gone on to travel to Poland alone where I forced myself to only speak Polish.

 

My next language is Spanish. Many of you guys have mentioned the popular apps. I'm a fan of Duolingo because it's interactive.

 

However, NOTHING beats full immersion. You need to surround yourself with that language! 

[wilkymouse]

I'm fluent in German and have been learning it basically my entire life, but I've also taught it and learned even more in college. Now that I've been out for almost 4 years (ugh), I find that I have to make more of an effort to not lose what I know. I'll talk to friends/family in German (the ones who speak it of course) and read articles or short stories in the language. I also listen to a lot of music in a lot of languages.

I'm a huge proponent of using music as a tool to learn languages. It helps to have a context for words. Even if you start with kid's music (which tends to be basic and repetitive), that helps! I went to German Camp in Minnesota for 2 summers and every day we sang in the mornings, at night, and before meals. It improved my vocabulary and even my grammar (e.g., I can remember which cases are used for certain verbs because of lyrics).

Use a program where you say things out loud too. Hearing yourself is really useful and just the act of saying things helps push words into long-term memory.

I'd also suggest playing games and making it fun. Make some cards with words and illustrations and play memory. Play cards but only say the numbers in that language. I always loved scattegories, even with languages I was just starting to learn.

Have fun and good luck!

[Walkingtree]

I'm working on Mandarin Chinese now. I was functionally capable in Korean not too long ago, but my University level German is far gone.

 

If I could throw my two pennies onto this heap of coins I'd say: after you gone from absolute zero language skill to beginner, stop "studying" the language. By this I mean put most of your efforts into using the language, and use your textbooks and vocabulary lists as tools to serve further communication and not as goals themselves. Otherwise you'll end up with a bunch of disjointed non-contextual information that you'll never be able to remember quickly enough for it to be useful.

 

The neurons that fire together, wire together. Gotta use the language, not just study it.

 

 

That being said。。。我想跟你们一起练习普通è¯ï¼

[A banana]

Just improving my japanese is difficult, hardest part for me is reading/writing. In the future I'd like to learn french.

[Shouathra]

It feels like my Japanese ability has plateaued even when I'm surrounded by the language, so actually I'm tempted to get a textbook and start studying systematically once more.  Watching J-dramas for listening works for getting the gist of conversations better but as it doesn't actively teach the vocabulary, I've found it hasn't helped much with reproducing new language.

 

Kanji especially is like a bottomless pit.  I've been trying to learn a handful a day - aiming to average 10 a day, which has NOT been happening due to shifted priorities.  The sheer amount of drilling and revision needed to retain them becomes a ridiculous burden.  On the plus side, patterns really do start emerging in terms of frequently-used radicals and how Kanji are combined in vocabulary.  Doesn't help with the writing much, but it sure helps when deciphering notices.  It should be soon enough that I can start guessing at vocabulary using Kanji combinations.

 

 

Once Japanese is out of the way, Mandarin's my next target.

[Walkingtree]

From what I understand Kanji and Hanzhi are just two sides of the same coin. After getting my MA I plan on heading to Japan for a few years so my wife can get her Japanese up to snuff. 

 

Have you tried Skritter? I find it immensely helpful. I used it for about an hour or two a day, but now even with only 10-20 mins a day I still find new and useful Hanzhi.

[Igi]

I think I'm in love with this thread. As someone who deems herself a linguist, I enjoy comparing my language experiences with others. I'm Polish, which means that since I was a child, I have been learning one of the most difficult languages in the world (seven noun cases, incredibly complex flexion and syntax, crazy word formation, pronunciation that is instinctive to a native but nearly impossible to learn from the stratch - yay Polish!). Fortunately, it means that nearly any European language I'll try will be easier. As you can see, I'm fluent in English and currently on the upper-intermediate level of German, starting my Italian studies next year (so yes, working on it).

 

From my experience as someone who is not only interested in effective communication, but in the very rules applied to any language, it's important to understand why the structures or phrases you learn are shaped in this particular way. Grammar may seem unneccessary and tedious at the beginning, but based on the logical assumptions derieved from it, the speech becomes increasingly fluent and natural as you establish the word patterns in your brain. Knowledge of the rules also helps in an unfamiliar situation, preventing a mistake - for example, when you don't know the word, but you know its grammatical case, you can still inflect it properly and place it in a sentence. Learning European languages, I also found it extremely useful to know at least the very basics of Latin - almost every language is somehow affected by its grammartical structures.

 

Of course you must always work on your idiolect, because nothing can be done if you don't know the words. And I agree with the opinions above that repetition and immersion in the language - whether by music, reading or just living in the country where it is spoken - is the best way to do it =) worked for me! Though now, after I played a pirate RPG, I seem to have picked up a really bad Welsh accent. xD

[Walkingtree]

I like to think of grammar in terms of moves ala Mortal Kombat. At first "down + back + low punch" is really hard to do, and you can't do it most of the time. Even if you do pull it off, it's awkward and slow and inappropriate. But over time you'll get a feel for when and how to apply it.

 

Learn those moves baby! I'm working on modals right now in my target language - a very quick way to add complexity to simple sentences!

[ch3]

I have been studying english by my own, and I started reading books for babies, a Winnie Pooh one

[ch3]

 I'm Polish, which means that since I was a child, I have been learning one of the most difficult languages in the world (seven noun cases, incredibly complex flexion and syntax, crazy word formation, pronunciation that is instinctive to a native but nearly impossible to learn from the stratch - yay Polish!).

 

 

 

Oh yes, polish is really hard, I was studying it and hardly got to Czesc, jak sie maz? Ja imie Jose.

 

But the biggest achievement I did in polish, was to recognize it, I am a spanish native speaker, so, slavic languages all did look the same! Sometimes I even consufused polish with Japanese, but now I'm able to say Tak, that's po polsku!  

 

[Igi]

Oooh, that's always very nice to hear that someone is learning Polish a very brave move, actually, verging on suicidal. Have you ever been in Poland? Maybe mastering the practical use will be easier for you than learning grammar from the scratch. I gotta tell you, most Poles don't grasp the concept of 'proper' grammar. xD

You confused it with Japanese, of all languages? Seriously? xDDD for my ears, it sounds absolutely NOTHING alike. It's funny to know how people perceive your language, though.

 

And you've just said something in the lines of: "Hey, how are you? Me name Jose". that's actually adorable.

[ch3]

Oooh, that's always very nice to hear that someone is learning Polish a very brave move, actually, verging on suicidal. Have you ever been in Poland? Maybe mastering the practical use will be easier for you than learning grammar from the scratch. I gotta tell you, most Poles don't grasp the concept of 'proper' grammar. xD

You confused it with Japanese, of all languages? Seriously? xDDD for my ears, it sounds absolutely NOTHING alike. It's funny to know how people perceive your language, though.

 

And you've just said something in the lines of: "Hey, how are you? Me name Jose". that's actually adorable.

 

 

haha yes, well, I'm not killing myself learning polish any more. I was going to Poland, past year, I had planned to go there, but finally wasn't able to go ( the year 2013 was the worst ever for me), actually I have no plans beyond passport renew.

 

Yes, my practical polish is signals with tak/nie affirmations ...Have you ever studied spanish? Try hearing spanish and portuguese, sounds similar to people without native romance language.

 

------

And to don't make off-topic, when I was learning polish, studying the alphabet taught me some stuff, for example, they use many letters as one, like "dz","dzi", so I started to recognize better the words.

 

But I never learnt well the weird words, the one with dots over it, all sounds like blowing your tongue, check it out: 

 

http://youtu.be/6s-vMd_pBks?t=27s

[Mixy-Chan]

Currently I'm working on Japanese... I have slacked off though in the past few weeks due to moving to a different place. But I use a lot of music and movies to listen to the language and bought myself a few books. I can read and write the kana systems and I roughly had about 100 kanji but I feel like I forgot them. In future I want to do some mission work in Japan. After Japanese I plan on studying Mandarin and then move onto Korean.

One thing I can not get over is when I speak a bit of Japanese. Everyone thinks I am speaking Spanish...I don't think the two remotely sound a like....

A tool I have used to study kanji is putting the character on colourful post it notes and sticking them to my wall across my bed and read them before sleeping.

[PxelN]

I learnt English with online forums + online newspapers + Google translator + Youtube.

First study some basic stuff (words like or, and, in, then, before etc and basic rules). Then try to translate (with online translators) everything you don't understand while reading, exercising writing with online forums, and watch tons of YouTube videos in that specific language.

[Phoenix_Riviera]

I am visual too and I often like to find patterns with languages that are visual.

 

For example I learnt to conjugate verbs so if you take Spanish, you can easily see a pattern form:

 

(Without adding accents)

 

Hablar:

Hablo     Hablamos

Hablas   Hablais

Habla     Hablan

 

Comer:

Como    Comemos

Comes  Comeis

Come    Comen

 

So once you find the pattern you can pretty much conjugate your verbs.

 

While you are doing that, also pick some key vocab you want. Like look at everyday objects and go "I want to know the word for this" Use post it notes to stick the foreign name for it and you will notice yourself remembering it because you are looking at it. Eg. post it note your mirror with the russian word for mirror and you will learn it in no time.

 

An app that I find good once you have the basics sussed is Duolingo. It won't teach you the patterns for conjugating verbs but it is good to learn quick phrases in different ways (speaking, reading, writing, listening).

 

Another thing that might help you stick to it is thinking what you really want to learn. For example, is it key travel phrases? Is it all the numbers so you can count to infinity? Is it that you just want to be able to point at things and name everything? Pick little mini goals and then go from there.

 

Hope that helps!

 

Keen to hear how you got on