Ask HN: Learning other (non-programming) languages? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Learning other (non-programming) languages?

#11

Post by pasbesoin » Sat, Jul 16, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

Find some music you like that has contemporary lyrics in that language, and listen to it a lot.

"Tune your ears".

In addition to working to pick up the semantics of the lyrics, different languages emphasize different frequency ranges and sounds. You do need to literally "tune" your hearing to better perceive these.

Music you like turns this from a chore to a pleasure. Also, with music, video, books, etc., you start to pick up some of the culture, which helps you to become more "native" in your approach. There's also a lot of "slang" and contemporary word usage and dialog that will not make it into a text book.

Re: Ask HN: Learning other (non-programming) languages?

#12

Post by sunspeck » Fri, Jul 22, 2011, 3:31 AM UTC

auganov wrote: post #10

99% of all that is crap. Period. Persistence + dedication + passion and you can learn any language for free to a functionally fluent level in less than 2 years doing 3-4 hours a day. No different than hacking effort-wise. The catch is that some amount of rote learning is a must. Immersion, real life practice etc is all cool, but it's just not the most efficient way. The never dying argument that children learn langua…

By "feel" do you also mean grammar? Because I do believe that immersion is necessary for an intuitive understanding of the structure of a language. Rote grammar will get y9ou so far, but it's a different beast.

I agree that vocabulary is a more mechanical memorization task. Knowledge of linguistic antecedents (eg. Latin for the Romance family) greatly helps this along.

Re: Ask HN: Learning other (non-programming) languages?

#13

Post by joksnet » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 10:29 PM UTC

sunspeck wrote: post #12

auganov wrote: post #10

99% of all that is crap. Period. Persistence + dedication + passion and you can learn any language for free to a functionally fluent level in less than 2 years doing 3-4 hours a day. No different than hacking effort-wise. The catch is that some amount of rote learning is a must. Immersion, real life practice etc is all cool, but it's just not the most efficient way. The never dying argument that children learn langua…

By "feel" do you also mean grammar? Because I do believe that immersion is necessary for an intuitive understanding of the structure of a language. Rote grammar will get y9ou so far, but it's a different beast. I agree that vocabulary is a more mechanical memorization task. Knowledge of linguistic antecedents (eg. Latin for the Romance family) greatly helps this along.

For immersion, the best is go and live in a country that speak the language you wish to learn. Et si est le pays d'origine mieux. Muchos paises adoptaron los modismos a tal punto de "crear" un nuevo idioma.