learning languages.

reply to post by taoistguy


Best tip I ever had and works great........ Find a partner (lover) of that language.

When I came back to Malta, I had already forgotton next to all knowledge of the Maltese language. Even after a couple of years living in Malta trying to emmerse myself back into Maltese Society, I was still having trouble contributing to deeper conversations. That was untill I met a maltese girl...... The rest is history as they say and now I am fluent in Maltese again.
Because you have that person with you throughout good times and bad. Language after all is what we use to express our wants/needs/feelings/knowlege...etc.
You wont be able to get the full idea of the language from the local shop or neighbors but with a partner you will talk about everything and anything.

Mind though unless you find your soulmate with a pletherer of languages aswell..... you may be breaking alot of hearts on your language learning journey.

I picked up alot of Arabic and Italian because it was so similar to the Maltese language so maybe if you want to learn and master as many languages as you can, try to find collective languages. Once you are stable with Latin, Greek can come easily then Baltic languages and so forth.

Good Luck!!

The Mrs can speak a good few and for her its mainly get the internet TV up and start to listen as even if its gibberish at the moment you're training your brain to recognise the way the language rolls and then pick up a newspaper or two and start to read it, you might just pick up 1 on a 1000 words at the start but with the help of a dictionary you can soon start to increase the word count and world event shows are good as you'll have an idea what its about to start with

But for some reason when trying to learn Japanese using youtube videos from jinxy theres always a couple of things that pop out and distract me

taoistguy
anyone learning a foreign language? what difficulties do you find? what are your most successful technique tips?
i'm currently learning french, mandarin, latin and icelandic. yeah, i guess i'm a bit of a polyglot.

Ooh.. French tried to kill me once.

I am attempting to learn my German. The difficulties I am having?
I want everything to be neutral!
Die, Der, Das. Its frustrating me. Of course, Germans already know which things should be fem., masc., or nuetral. But I don't, and so I am calling masculine things feminine and mixing it all up.


That has been the frustrating part for me. But the thing I love about it is, that they don't care if you butcher their language. They just want you to attempt to learn it. I have never gottena chuckle or a strange look when attempting my German. They will correct you, thank goodness. But so polite. Yes.

I think the only tip I could have, is basiclly use the language. Even if you have to talk to yourself and answer yourself in the langugae you're learning. You have to use it to retain. And to speak it well.

I can count from 1-10 in six languages other than English. A little phrases or two from some languages, but nothing fluent as I imagine I should be eventually with German.

I say that with confidence and fingers crossed.

I speak German, English, French and Japanese (French and Japanese not fluently though, since I am still learning vocabulary). At the moment I am learning Korean and Persian (Farsi).


I normally start with the basic grammar and try to learn it to perfection, after that I learn basic verbs and adjectives.
If you want to learn a language with another alphabet, I would also suggest learning this alphabet first and then try to learn everything else written in the native letters. (not recommended for Chinese though, the Kanji are already a problem for me in Japanese, and in Japanese there are only 2042 basic Kanji)
When you get the grammar right, everything else is just learning vocabulary, which is pretty easy. (at least for me, I read a word once and will remember it arround 60% of the times)

Btw. I discovered, that immersive learning is basically the best method that you can do, but not possible most of the times. For me learning Japanese was pretty easy since I lived there and really had to learn it. I love to communicate and will never understand people that live somewhere without learning the language.
It is not only important for yourself, but also a sign of respect towards your environment.

Edit: btw. to all the people learning German:
I am German and my grades in school were far worse in German than in English. If you learn proper German all the people here will look at you like you are an Alien, because it is so uncommon for somebody to speak perfect German. A lot of people, myself included, don't know the proper grammar. We just assume we do, since we are used to speak like that everyday, but a lot of people make mistakes.
And since we have so many foreigner in Germany that don't bother trying to learn our language, because they can all get what they nedd with only using, for example, Turkish, we really love seeing people trying to speak our language.

aLLeKs




Btw. I discovered, that immersive learning is basically the best method that you can do, but not possible most of the times. .

When you say immersive, are you speaking of the same - you start French class, know not a word in French yet, and your instructor will only speak French?

I was thinking to myself, if I know not one word, and you refuse to say one word I can understand, how immersed will I be? I was quite frustrated more than terrified. I think it is that I still don't understand that kind of immersion. Perhaps after a while, one might pick up speed. But if I don't know that you are asking me if I speak French, because I know zero French words, how can I learn?

Am I even explaining that correctly? haha It has always made me wonder. Yes. French tried to kill me.

reply to post by taoistguy


I took some time to learn the grammar of most of these languages.

French

Pros: Some words resemble English words, It has more of an English syntax

Cons: Difficult to pronounce for English speakers, Words are not spelled as they are pronounce, Conjugations

Mandarin

Pros: The most popular language, a rich culture

Cons: Mostly spoken in China, one sound can be said with different tones to make different words, each word is a letter/character

Latin

Pros: Explore ancient writings, understand root words in many European languages

Cons: Very difficult conjugations

Icelandic

Pros: Many compound words to make learning new words easier, a very phonetic language

Cons: Not very widely spoken, some letter are not common

Language is very nice but I cant help wonder why learn so many?
I would only do so out of necessity.

I am more for one language (hoping English out of laziness).

We have language to communicate but it also acts as a barrier to do so!


Its all about practice, but when asking for study tips on 5 languages I feel you are not really asking for study tips

The only thing you need to learn any language is passion. Be passionate about the sounds of the language. Be passionate about learning the language's structure. Be passionate about the culture, music, food, etc. of the people for whom that language is the native language. Never think of a language as "difficult" - all languages require practice. In fact, many of us are not experts at our own native language.

Just so you know that I'm not randomly giving advice on something I don't know, I speak (other than English) three languages at an at least conversationally fluent level and have practical knowledge of at least three others.