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Post by spindrift on Feb 9, 2009 13:39:26 GMT
I am lucky. I can easily learn the basics of a new language. A year of once-a-week night classes at my local Uni means that I can now speak enough Japanese to get by with my daily needs in Japan.
How about you?
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Post by spindrift on Feb 9, 2009 13:46:58 GMT
In my opinion the easiest way to learn a language is by listening to the Pimsleur Languages CDs... Best of all is combining Uni teaching with the CDs...
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2009 13:56:26 GMT
I purchased a Level 1 Rosetta Stone Italian at a garage sale cheap,cheap. Are they any good? Feedback please before I waste my time
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Post by palesa on Feb 9, 2009 14:34:11 GMT
I struggle to learn languages, I have often thought that people who are musical find it easier because they can pick up the different tones and pitches easily. Especially Chinese and I imagine Japanese.
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Post by happytraveller on Feb 9, 2009 14:52:02 GMT
I have no problem learning the basics of a new language. I am also pretty good with accents (so I've been told) But once I get to a certain level, I find it really hard to keep improving.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 9, 2009 19:30:23 GMT
I have a friend who used Rosetta Stone for Spanish. She says it's good.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2009 19:37:37 GMT
I easily pick up bits and pieces but have not yet had the motivation to seriously study other languages. However, if I ever decide to settle in a new country, it will be an absolute priority to learn the language adequately.
All my life, I have been handicapped by only wanting to learn what is immediately useful to me rather than appreciating the abstract beauty of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. So I instantly forgot things like algebra and chemistry, even though I was excellent in school. I would absolutely love to speak Vietnamese or Thai but not if I can only spend two or three weeks a year there -- and since I have been unable to go since 2004, it is all the more irritating to me.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 10, 2009 9:14:08 GMT
I don't know anything about the Rosetta Stone teaching method.
I borrow the Pimsleur CDs from my local library.
You can also download a lesson from the Pimsleur website so you can weigh up its content as to whether it's a suitable method for you or not. Pimsleur is high acclaimed.
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Post by ninchursanga on Feb 10, 2009 10:20:38 GMT
I bought a Rosetta Stone for Turkish yesterday and think it's pretty crap. But I think any method is crap that starts with sentences like "The horse is jumping." If all their CDs are like that I'd say they are overrated.
The basics of a language is what I can always easily grasp but for languages that are not related to the ones I know I'd need to do a course. Once I'm past the beginners level I tend to get frustrated because I don't learn quick enough and can't express myself they way I can in my own mother-tongue and I give up.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 10, 2009 10:51:09 GMT
Well, Pimsleur certainly doesn't start with stuff like "The horse is jumping"....
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welle
member
Offline
om sweet om
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Post by welle on Feb 10, 2009 10:59:55 GMT
For some reason, I always had a hard time learning French. Usually learning languages comes pretty easily to me though.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 10, 2009 11:14:23 GMT
Welle - did you learn Latin at school?
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Post by gyro on Feb 25, 2009 6:20:45 GMT
I can pick up languages - at least in a getting by/conversational level - pretty well. And I'm tone deaf at music ! !
Books and tapes/cd's are good; being taught by a teacher is better, but either way, it's amazing how much you realise you've learnt once you spend even a little bit of time in a country that speaks that language.
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Post by rikita on Feb 25, 2009 7:10:47 GMT
i don't think pimsleur is that great. it is okay for learning a few important phrases and pronunciation, but generally i need something much more grammar based and structured...
i think i am not that bad at learning languages (so i clicked it is easy for me, though it isn't THAT easy for me either)... mainly, it is fun, so i like doing it...
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Post by Kimby on Feb 25, 2009 8:01:29 GMT
I borrow language CDs from the library and play them in my car while driving around.
I think it helps to hear the way the language SOUNDS before you spend much time looking at how it's written. (Especially French, where it can seem like most of the letters are not pronounced!) I can learn a lot of useful phrases in the weeks before a trip, and use them to get by while travelling. But it's amazing how fast I forget it all when I get home. Or how easily I confuse two languages that I've learned a little of...
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Post by hwinpp on Feb 25, 2009 8:18:25 GMT
I'm interested in languages and I pick them up pretty fast. Tonal languages, except those written with e.g. Chinese characters, aren't that difficult to learn if you learn how to read and write at the same time. Thai, Lao and Vietnamese all have markers that show you which tone to use. I find Khmer a bit more difficult because of the pronunciation. But then I'm not learning how to read and write due to lack of time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 25, 2009 14:31:56 GMT
Hwinpp, did you learn those tonal languages while living in the countries where they're spoken? Do you think it would have been harder learning it on your own if you couldn't have heard them on a daily basis?
I think lots of learning a language is how well a person listens, whether it's to tapes or to real people. Spanish is a relatively easy language -- some say the easiest -- but listening to native English speakers go at it can be painful. There are few and simple rules about where a word is accented, plus you can hear people say common words all the times. The basic rule is that a word is accented on the penultimate syllable, thus many English speakers practically yell that syllable whether or not it's appropriate.
Since accents on words occur in English as well, they're easy to learn if one tries. But tones? That seems much harder.
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Post by rikita on Feb 25, 2009 20:16:44 GMT
i wouldn't say there are relatively easy languages, and there definitely isn't an "easiest" language - there are languages that are easier for some people. it always depends on you, and on the languages you already know. i read somewhere that babies (who i guess all start out with the same language knowledge) take on average the same amount of time to learn to speak, no matter into what language they are born...
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Post by Kimby on Mar 8, 2009 21:42:23 GMT
Have others noticed that women seem to find it easier to absorb or understand new languages than men? Maybe it's the listening thing. Or maybe it's a left-brain right-brain thing. I can understand a lot of a conversation in a language i know very little of, while it all goes completely over my husband's head. I think he's trying to interpret every word as it's spoken, falling farther and farther behind before giving up. Meanwhile, I listen for key words that I recognize and keep in mind the context and can usually get the gist of it. If we're standing at a hotel desk, the clerk is probably not asking us about cinema!
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Post by spindrift on Mar 8, 2009 21:53:01 GMT
Yes Kimby, I have noticed that women seem to pick up languages quicker than men.
Strangely , when I used to ski down into Italy from Switzerland I used to be the one to have to ask directions in Italian and I knew nothing of the language but had to guess my way with my knowledge of French and Latin. Very funny but mostly I was understood.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 23, 2009 7:07:38 GMT
I wouldn't say I speak them. I've formally (reading and writing) only learned German, English, French, Farsi, Arabic and Mandarin. Farsi and Arabic are completely gone, the last time I was living in an Arabic speaking country was '82. But the Mandarin was quite ok. I went to the course 1 on 1, every day in my lunch break for 6 months. I'd guess that if you were only studying the language, without having to do other stuff, it'd be pretty easy. When I was very young and still living in a house with all my aunts I picked up Hainanese and Cantonese. The Hainanese is all gone but I feel comfortable with the Cantonese whenever I'm in Kuala Lumpur or even if I meet the odd Cantonese Khmer here.
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Post by spindrift on Mar 23, 2009 9:38:54 GMT
Isn't it difficult to learn any Chinese language due to tonal intonations?
I was wondering about this.
Japanese hasn't any...luckily for me.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 23, 2009 16:13:44 GMT
Have others noticed that women seem to find it easier to absorb or understand new languages than men? Maybe it's the listening thing. Or maybe it's a left-brain right-brain thing. I can understand a lot of a conversation in a language i know very little of, while it all goes completely over my husband's head. I think he's trying to interpret every word as it's spoken, falling farther and farther behind before giving up. Meanwhile, I listen for key words that I recognize and keep in mind the context and can usually get the gist of it. If we're standing at a hotel desk, the clerk is probably not asking us about cinema! I think you've hit on something with the listening thing, but I don't think it's male/female. Living here, I can see exactly what you're describing in action, and like you, feel frustrated because I can see the various ways people are sabotaging themselves. Your way of listening gives you the confidence to relax in order to get what's being said. And your husband, by relying on you has ceased to listen at all. Of course the more immersion, the more chances to really learn the language. Studying a language in a book, even with audio aids, is very different from being suddenly surrounded by it and all its variations.
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 24, 2009 4:16:41 GMT
Isn't it difficult to learn any Chinese language due to tonal intonations? I was wondering about this. Japanese hasn't any...luckily for me. That's what you concentrate on, there's not that much grammar to learn. And with Chinese you need to learn the classifiers. Mandarin only has 4 tones. Khmer has no tones but it's difficult because of the pronunciation. I get the pronunciation wrong because I'm not learning the script.
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Post by bjd on Mar 24, 2009 10:16:22 GMT
I like languages and learning them, although I have only ever learned Indo-European ones, so I don't know how well I would do with Mandarin or Arabic. I think it's also easier to learn languages if you start off with 2 as a child. Maybe because your mind knows that there is more than one way to say something? And also the physical aspect of pronunciation. I find many English or French speakers never get rid of their native accent, esppecially if they learn another language as adults.
When I felt like learning another language about 10 years ago, I didn't want to learn Spanish (though I live about 3 hours from Spain by car) -- I just didn't like the sound of it. So I did a bit of German, then took Italian classes for 3 eyars. Then I heard Latin American Spanish in Chile & Argentina, plus wanting to return to S America, so I started learning from a friend. After about 2 years of on-again, off-again conversation and a bit of reading, I spent 3 weeks in near total immersion in 2006 and could carry on conversations, deal with phone calls, watch the news on TV, etc.
Since then I have been reading a lot, but totally lack conversation/listening practice. And just can't get the motivation going for learning more grammar. But I am leaving for S America on Friday, so maybe a miracle will occur and it will all come back to me.
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Post by rikita on Mar 24, 2009 10:45:05 GMT
yeah that is supposed to happen - if you knew a language and then forget, but then go back to where it is spoken, that after a few days you suddenly remember...
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Post by Kimby on Mar 25, 2009 22:02:53 GMT
I took Spanish in 7th and 8th grade plus 3 years in high school. Then didn't use it at all for 20+ years until we went to Mexico in 1991. I was amazed at how much vocabulary still resided in the dark recesses of my mind. Putting it together into sentences was painful, though, but with enough time, I could do it.
Since then I have been to Spain and back to Mexico, and still found my rusty Spanish useful. Even in northern Morocco, some Spanish was helpful. But as for carrying on conversations, maybe with a 5 year old! I'm sure more time immersed in the language would help.
When choosing a language, I would suggest one of the "romance" languages, since if you know one, it's much easier to pick up another. My Spanish helps with Italian and Portuguese and even French. I do get confused going from one to another, though...
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Post by lagatta on Mar 26, 2009 21:47:48 GMT
Yes, the Romance or Neolatin languages are mostly much closer to each other than English and German (Dutch seems sort of in between, with the sound shifts). I studied a bit of Arabic - loved writing it! - but had to improve my Castillian/Spanish in a hurry so couldn't continue. I'd love to get back to it, but I'm getting too old to reasonably hope to be able to fluent enough in a non-(Indo) European language to be able to translate it, or write and speak it like a literate person. Circumstances (ahem!) got me back to studying German, in any event I'm enjoying that.
I'd advise younger people to delve into a non-European language while they have their working lives before them.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2009 21:50:04 GMT
Apparently, Mandarin has already risen in France to the 5th most studied language in school (after English, Spanish, German and Italian).
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2009 22:44:39 GMT
With the summer holiday season getting underway, has anybody with travel plans been brushing up on their language skills?
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