Best way to teach yourself another language?
 

I am an English speaker by birth, but I am becoming increasingly more interesting in different languages. I can already speak French a conversational level (ie enough to get around, have a basic conversation, the basics for life pretty much) and I have been studying it for 1 1/2 years.

I wanted to know if those of you that are bi/multi-lingual (I know that there are quite a few, if not dozens) had any tips for learning a new language. Any language is good, French would be great or any other European language. The Romances seem to be easier to pick up after knowing one of them fairly well.

Thanks in advance!

I'm not bilingual yet, but I would say take a course then go to the country/region it's spoken. Preferably for at least a few months. Immersion is the only way to really learn the language, I think. But this is just from years of fruitless study of Japanese. I've never been, and thus do not speak/write/understand/read it very well at all. I've probably learned more Spanish just by being around it on occasion.

I've also tried to learn Latin, and it's way harder than Japanese. So I disagree about the Romances. I think it will be easier to learn a third language period.

I got to see a little of that in Europe. In Italy I could only understand just a few things, numbers, directions, commands, etc. But when I was in France, I suddenly found myself to be able to communicate without much difficulty and sometimes with ease. By the 3rd day I found myself speaking more French than English most of the time. But, still yet, not total immersion. I still sometimes find myself speaking French for basic phrases. (I'm tired. Where is that?...etc.) even months later.

EDIT: I was in France for a total of 4 days.

I do agree. Latin itself is VERY difficult. But, the Romances (French, Spanish, Italian mainly) share a number of roots and links. Thats why I think it would be easier to learn 2 Romances as opposed to a Romance and a Germanic.

i somehow can't get myself to really learn a language until i take a class. i'm not terribly disciplined. i've also found that the whole endeavor is largely fruitless unless you speak it every day -- i doubt i remember half the spanish i learned from four semesters of taking it. nonetheless i'm taking chinese in the fall -- that should be fun.

speaking of languages, i'm making one up -- it has its own alphabet and everything. it's called "plarthlakh" -- yes, that's the "kh" from the back of the throat like you hear in arabic and hebrew. here are some sample phrases, transliterated into the roman alphabet:

"chexhqrst." --hello. (the "xh" is the click from the xhosa language; the "q" is from the back of the throat, again borrowed from arabic.)

"ztan lrt pa?" -- how are you?

"beml lra." -- i'm well.

"qsbch lra." -- i'm ok.

"zme beml lra." -- i'm not well.

"xtht plarthlakh pa?" -- do you speak plarthlakh? (the "x" sounds like the english k.)

"xhab." -- yes.

"zmekh." -- no.


...i have way too much free time.

Hah sorry, I misunderstood you - yes, learning a second Romance language would probably be much easier.

I think the thing about Romance languages is that the vocabulary is generally very easy to pick up. We're all very familiar with the word structures, since we use many of the same words, if not directly, at least in higher vocabulary. Even if we don't know the words, we've taken so many that we have a feel for it. However, their grammar is a bit ridiculous and really hard to learn.

With Japanese it's the complete opposite. Their grammar is insanely easy. There's really nothing to it. No gender, no plural, hardly any voice even (though they have levels of 'politeness' which are really weird, but not necessarily grammatical.) Conjugation is extremely consistent, too. But then there's the vocabulary and word structure, which is so incredibly foreign to our ears and mouths that even mnemonic devices are practically useless. And of course the notoriously screwed up writing system, which you can't really learn just by being there.

So it really depends on the language, I guess, to determine the best way to learn. Different areas will be more effective through experience, others through books.

EDIT: Yes, qprogeny. You do.

German is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad language. With that said, I'll probably continue taking it in college. Stupid Germany and its stupid awesome movies.

In high school I was friends with a girl who was born in and lived in Russia for 13 years, came to America, and learned English in 2. She spoke it as well as anyone else in the school, but couldn't spell to save her life (although everything was phonetic and therefore easy enough to read). She said that classes didn't help her at all. She just watched American television and learned the language by how the characters in sitcoms interacted with one another.

and now to illustrate the sheer nonexistence of any life i have, here's some bona fide plarthlakh text.

I speak dutch, english, spanish, italian, portuguese and a little german.
The best way to learn a language is to live in the country of the language you want to learn.
If you put some effort into it, you should be able to converse with others within 6 months.
Another good way is to watch foreign films and read a lot of subtitles.

Hmm, am I missing something? What movies are you refering to? Hehe (me being from Germany)

I`ve been to France for a month once, but didn´t learn too much of the language, only a few lines.. looks like german and english will be it, for the rest of my life. :(

By speaking your own language correctly.There isn't much point in even trying to learn a foreign language unless you master what you have got already.

German is a West Germanic language. It is a member of the western group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family and one of the world's major languages. Spoken by more than 120 million people in 38 countries of the world, German is — like English, Spanish and French — a pluricentric language with Germany, Austria and Switzerland as the three main centres of usage.
Worldwide, German accounts for the most written translations into and from a language. Furthermore, it belongs to the three most learned and to the ten most spoken languages worldwide (according to the Guinness Book of Records).

I don't get your point?!?

my advice is to take a class and stick at it as you really have to keep it up in order to gain any knowledge. the other thing is to actually go to the country in question so that you will have the opportunity to use it. its bad if you learn in your own country and then cant use your skills. it can be quite an eye opener as well as i thought i had german nailed until i moved to berlin and realised i was still at a a very basic level.

i want to learn american.

immersion is the only way, but even though i came to japan to immerse myself, ive ended up with friends who speak great english. i have no none japanese friends here but all of my japanese friends, my boss, my housemate all speak fluent english, which is shit because it means there is no pressure on me.
i can get by. and im lazy. and when you add all thoes things up you wil see its just not happening for me.
its difficult to make friends who dont speak much english when you cant speak much japanese, but thats what i need to do.
also the fact that you learn polite jp and all of your friends when speaking to each other use plain jp which means you cant recognize any of the verbs you learnt from your books, means you dont understand a word.
i can speak alot more than i can understand but im so shy to speak because i know the answer or conversation that follows will likely be impossible for me to understand, then that person wont want to speak to me anymore.
do you think certian people are cut out for learning languages and certian people just are not?
i think that if you learn HOW to learn a language from an early age then its not so difficult for you. so many mainland europeans seem to speak so many langauges, and when i talk to people about it they tell me they learn from a very early age. my school in england had the attitude of "fuck it , your english, dont worry about it, yll be sorted wherever u go" and we were taught very half heartedly.
might sound like me trying to excuse my shitness at japanese but it is true.

yup, total immersion is the way forward. It's not enough to just move to a country that speaks the language you're trying to learn though, you need to make sure you aren't living with English speakers.

I'll warn you in advance though: you can go to the country, live there a year, immerse yourself totally and come back feeling pretty damn proud of your fluency and find an 8 year old who has become more fluent in 6 months. As we grow older our language acquisition gets slower and retains less. So prepare emmigrate and be shown up by the brilliance of children!

We watched Goodbye Lenin in my Germanclass the other day, awsome film. But after one year with German I cant say that I have learned alot, but I have 2 years more to come so. Haben Sie eine rote Rock? Möcthen Sie eine Tasse Kaffe?

It's a fun language to learn, but the grammar is hopeless, hope I'll learn more.

Auf Wiedersehn.

I've gained most of my english skills at shcool, but I love to watch british tv-series to pick up some words, Inspector Morse, and Jack Frost for example. Those are ace. Do you brits watch those anymore?

Yeah, I agree with everyone suggesting the immersion method. A friend of mine studied Japanese for a few years and understood it at a very basic level. But then he went over and actually lived in Japan for a while and was basically forced to learn the language, now he's much better at it.

the best way to learn a language is to just go somewhere with no knowledge of the language and stay for a considerable amount of time! you'll soon learn the lingo!

I ran into that problem in Europe. Everywhere I went people wanted to speak English to me and converse in English, but I didn't want to. I WANTED to speak French/Italian. They probably thought it was rude of me to burst into speaking French while they we're trying to speak English to me.

I have taken classes in French 1 1/2 years, going from another semester this Fall. Advanced French III and IV, I think it's called.