Learning a new language

[ShaunNecro]

I took a German class back when I first started college, but didn't get very far with it. I'm learning again after about five years and I already feel like I understand it better now than I did after a full semester. Maybe it's because there is less pressure on me to learn it, or I'm not as embarrassed since I'm not screwing up in a room full of people or whatever. I'm enjoying myself.
Anyone else working on becoming bilingual or already know several languages? Anybody with tips for remembering rules? Or anyone that just wants to post in another language in this thread?

[MeSoFuzzy]

I lived in Germany a little over 3 years. I'm a military brat, so we lived on a military base. I think it was Patch Barracks, and it was just outside of Stuttgart. I was very young at the time, around 7-10 years old. I wish I wasn't ignorant about learning German. Its not that I was totally resistant to learning, but I certainly did not try very hard. Everyday at school we had about 45 min. of time devoted to learning the language. We had pen pals and one day, we met our foreign pen pals. It was pretty awesome!

Shaun, are you using Rosetta Stone for your studies?

[tuffteef]

i REALLY wanna learn japanese (screw french)
i think i work better in a class environment though
potentially my nye resolution

it would be nice to converse with some people who can speak japanese via email or something to keep things stuck in my head

[backwardsvoyager]

i REALLY wanna learn japanese (screw french)
i think i work better in a class environment though
potentially my nye resolution

it would be nice to converse with some people who can speak japanese via email or something to keep things stuck in my head

same here, hoping to get a language elective for it next semester.
I took japanese classes in high school for 2 years but I totally slacked off and really regret that now. I think on one test i literally just wrote 'inu desu' (dog) for every answer.

[tuffteef]

i REALLY wanna learn japanese (screw french)
i think i work better in a class environment though
potentially my nye resolution

it would be nice to converse with some people who can speak japanese via email or something to keep things stuck in my head

same here, hoping to get a language elective for it next semester.
I took japanese classes in high school for 2 years but I totally slacked off and really regret that now. I think on one test i literally just wrote 'inu desu' (dog) for every answer.

ive been looking into it im prob gonna pick up a tafe class or something

[ShaunNecro]

I lived in Germany a little over 3 years. I'm a military brat, so we lived on a military base. I think it was Patch Barracks, and it was just outside of Stuttgart. I was very young at the time, around 7-10 years old. I wish I wasn't ignorant about learning German. Its not that I was totally resistant to learning, but I certainly did not try very hard. Everyday at school we had about 45 min. of time devoted to learning the language. We had pen pals and one day, we met our foreign pen pals. It was pretty awesome!

Shaun, are you using Rosetta Stone for your studies?

Right now I'm using duolingo, which I guess is sort of a free version of rosetta stone. I tried to get it before, but it was ridiculously expensive. I do have a book as well though, so I'll be able to read it if I have any further questions.

I would love to go to Germany one day, I have heard that it is beautiful.

[Mudfuzz]

ugg… I need to get back on track… I have the full pimsleur japanese set… and yet… never get around to it

[Grrface]

I took a German class back when I first started college, but didn't get very far with it. I'm learning again after about five years and I already feel like I understand it better now than I did after a full semester. Maybe it's because there is less pressure on me to learn it, or I'm not as embarrassed since I'm not screwing up in a room full of people or whatever. I'm enjoying myself.
Anyone else working on becoming bilingual or already know several languages? Anybody with tips for remembering rules? Or anyone that just wants to post in another language in this thread?

Practice, practice, practice. Find someone who speaks the language you want to learn and talk to them. Don't be afraid to ask what that word they just used means, or how do you say. Best two phrases I learned in Spanish? Que significa? (What does that mean?) and Como se dice? (How do you say?)

[goroth]

It's difficult when you're not in the country, but you really need to take the most diverse approach to learning that you can. Make everything relevant to language learning.

The formal stuff is really important, learning grammar, remember how things conjugate, but you get nowhere doing just that. Watch films, try and read a headline in Der Speigel, listen to some Rammstein or Knorkator or crappy German hip hop, cook some german food and try and do it from a german recipe. Anything you read about, try it in real life - regardless of the language spoken. For example, if you're learning phrases about shopping, when you're standing there in the queue at your local supermarket, try and follow the conversations of the people in front of you, but "in German". Say the cashier says "that'll be 44.50" try and work out how you'd say that in German. If the cashier says bye to the customer in front respond (in your head for least embarrassing results) in German. If you're catching the bus take a map of the Berlin metro or something and instead of "Next stop, Wiltshire Ave" try and imagine "nächste Station, Hackescher Markt". Learn chords and the lyrics to 99 Luftballongs. Who cares! The closer you can get to the total immersion that a child has when learning a new language the better the results will be. Yes, children have certain neurological advantages when compared to adults that allow them to learn language faster than us, but at the same time how many adults immerse themselves on the level that children do? How many adults can be bothered with the level of repetition that young children can apply to anything?

So my tip for learning a language: Build a manageable/small fundamental unit of formal knowledge, then go nuts. Apply it to everything. Then repeat.

[RR Bigman]

Wunderbar mein Freund!
Ich sprechen sie kleine Deutsch
Mein Deustch ist hasslich hahah
vor sieben in der schule


and that's all I can remember...not even sure if that really means anything. Also, what goroth said

[D-Rainger]

Ive just finished my first semester of russian. It's a load of fun, starting to get hard - but then lots of words are almost the same as english! I can order vodka pretty well, and start to chat away a bit, but then I hear the CD of actual russian people talking...... and realise I'm nowhere.

Go to a language meet-up group - if you can't go and stay in the country.

[bigchiefbc]

I took German I - VI in college, and then spent a semester in Germany. By the time I left to come back to the US, I was getting pretty close to fluent. Unfortunately, it's faded a lot over the last decade. But I got a cracked version of the first few units of the German Rosetta Stone, and I fire it up every now and then and go through a half-dozen lessons, to make sure it doesn't fade completely away. I think that if were sufficiently motivated, I could probably get back to that point relatively quickly.

[sonidero]

If you learn wie sagt man (English word) auf Deutsch you'll be ok...

[tuffteef]

everybody knows what my german is like

heuheuhehueh

[ShaunNecro]

Thanks for the tips guys! I hadn't thought about listening to music or anything yet. Once I have a good amount of words under my belt I plan on starting to read more stuff in German on wikipedia and such. I got several Beatles singles in German so I'll listen to those a bunch. Sadly, I don't really know anybody that also knows German, so I'm probably out of luck there. I'll see if I can get a pen pal or something. Sadly, even though most of my family is all German and Russian nobody knows any bit of the language.