161–170 of 207 posts
I know this is not the answer you were expecting, but I just wanted to highlight how quickly small children can learn a completely new language. If you have kids, consider temporarily moving to a different country :)
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Strongly agree that wordlists are useless (beyond the first few hundred that you are going to see constantly anyway) and making connections is key to retaining vocabulary. Another tip is to pull vocabulary lists from reading material, and then to review them you just re-read that text until it becomes easy.
I think wordlists and learning tons of vocabulary through deliberate study are generally underrated. However, I do agree that once you've got a good foundation, pulling words from texts is a great idea. I think the ideal thing to do is to get a list of words from a text before you read it, then prime yourself on them, and then really solidify them by reading the text. I think it makes the text a lot more enjoyable. I…
Based on what you have said in your text, you might find this old tool to be interesting:
http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/
The lextutor site has quite a bit of interesting information, although the interface and some of the tools are very dated.
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As a guy who grew up in French immersion schools in Canada, I consider myself to be fluent in French, although my grammar isn't quite perfect. I don't mentally translate it to English in order to understand it, at any rate. Recently, I took a short trip that included a few days in Paris, and I made a point of defaulting to French when starting conversations. However, for the most part, as soon as a French person real…
>I wonder if this is unique to the culture of France, or at least Paris, that they do not like to hear their language from a foreigner? Maybe the language is part of a group identity, used to identify locals who can be trusted to follow local customs? It was a little saddening. I'm sorry to hear that. As a Parisian, I don't think this had anything to do with protecting an identity, rather we're just as happy to pract…
Was this reputation always a myth? Or is it something that used to happen until a cultural change took place?
In most cases, I would say it's pointless at this stage. Machine translation is already much better than most people can achieve with 6 months of study, and it's improving rapidly. I used to love learning languages, but I try to avoid learning things automation will soon be able to do better than I can hope to. On the other hand, if you need to be functional in a foreign language for the sake of some broader short-term goal, it might still be a sensible investment.
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I also have a problem with the word "fluent". Ok you say you're fluent, here's a simple self-check: Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.). If you can't do this, or grapple with the fact that you don't have a repertoire of these words in your vocabulary, you might want to recons…
> Explain to someone in the language you claim to be fluent in how you'd go about making a fire without any matches. (hint: you need to use words like tinder, kindling, flint, etc.) I wouldn't be able to do this in my own native language (aside from "stone" and "stick", I'm clueless about the tools involved), let alone in a foreign one. I think this is way too specific to be a good test for fluency.
Given your situation, I would just launch into a German explanation complete with the bit where I say I don't know the real German words. Then I will muck about with hand gestures and phrases like "smaller bits of would" etc until they get it.
I would do all of this while screwing up my declensions and conjugations. And I would do most of the screwing up fluently. Less fluently if I notice the error.
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Is tinder a real word? I thought it was just a made up word for an app? I can't be expected to explain such words in another language when I can't explain them in my native language. But I think if you said spark instead that would be more reasonable such you need to rub two pieces of wood together and create a spark and then a fire starts.
Yes tinder is a real word. It's material used to kindle a fire. Silicon valley has ruined all these words. Then again, most people don't have to start fires.
But I also often hear the two-step usage where tinder is includes kindling.
1. Conversation exchange sites. You can find native speakers of the language you want to learn who want to learn your native language. Try to get enough language partners so you can do it a few times a week. People will cancel, so book more meetings than you'd like to achieve.
2. Films, TV, Radio, Youtube, etc. Don't use your native language for sub-titles. But do use sub-titles in your target language. Doing this will require a lot of faith at first because you'll understand almost nothing. Stick with it. It's no different than living in a foreign country where you'll also understand almost nothing at first.
3. Change your computer or phone or tablet so the OS uses your target language.
4. Play online games with people who speak that language.
5. Read some of your daily news in the the target language.
6. If you can't find local classes, you can find a teacher who will use Skype.
7. Think about things immersion would give you, and seek them out on the web: menus, street signs, store receipts, bills, product descriptions, adverts.
8. The other methods for learning a language have been mentioned elsewhere but I'll repeat them for completeness here. Duolingo (grammar), Memrise (vocab), Anki (vocab, ability to create your own flashcards) all of which are free. I like to supplement with a listening method like Pimsleur or Michel Thomas which are not free.
If you follow all of the above, put in the hours, and continue to think creatively and seek out opportunities for simulating immersion, you can come pretty close.
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Yes tinder is a real word. It's material used to kindle a fire. Silicon valley has ruined all these words. Then again, most people don't have to start fires.
Well the way I learned it, you kindle fires by igniting the kindling . The kindling then ignites tinder (an intermediate stage), which then ignites the real fuel. But I also often hear the two-step usage where tinder is includes kindling.
I'm fluent in German, English. I'm living in Japan and am almost fluent in Japanese and quarter fluent in Korean. I also recently started Hungarian and Spanish. The most important part in my opinion is to live in a country that speaks the language you want to learn. You have to immerse yourself as much as possible with the culture and language. Also very important that you aren't afraid to try to use what you learned…
As a guy who grew up in French immersion schools in Canada, I consider myself to be fluent in French, although my grammar isn't quite perfect. I don't mentally translate it to English in order to understand it, at any rate. Recently, I took a short trip that included a few days in Paris, and I made a point of defaulting to French when starting conversations. However, for the most part, as soon as a French person real…
Volunteering with exchange students in Norway[1], those that generally learn Norwegian the best in a year here, living in a Norwegian family, going to Norwegian school - are those that either speak little or no English, or those that manage to insist on speaking Norwegian (to the point of pretending not to understand English, even if that's their native language).
A suitable trade-off might be to make a deal with your friends/co-workers - only on Fridays, or (as you progress) English only allowed after hours Monday through Thursday etc.
For exchange students in the age group 16-18, those that speak a related native language (ie: indo-european), will generally start speak the language after 3 months, reaching fluency after 6 (a little faster for German, Dutch, a little slower for Spanish, French - about in-between for English). For those that don't (eg: Japanese), the bars are moved: starting to speak the language after 6, and fluency after a little less than 9 (slower start, but they tend to catch up).
It's quite refreshing to learn a language by immersion, rather than by tedious school lessons - the same way we all learn as children.
Another tip is to avoid jumping between languages as much as possible - or at least only jump between your native tongue, and the foreign language you're studying. Your brain seem to work better with immersion.
As for my personal experience, I learned English in school, from reading books and magazines, and watching movies and tv programs. While I agree that tv/film production often have overly clear dialogue - watching films first with subtitles, and later without, is great practice (for those that want a challenge in American English, I recommend trying to watch all of HBO's "The Wire" without subtitles).
After years of French in school, I also speak and understand some French, but I would probably have to go live some months in France (or some other place people speak French) in order to attain what I'd call proper fluency.
After spending a year as an exchange student in Japan, I'd say I speak fluent Japanese, but not quite at native level - I'm also somewhat stuck at "high-school" level, so I'm not quite comfortable in a "grown up" work setting. After my year there, it felt like I'd forgotten all my French - but as I've gradually improved my Japanese, my French as "come back".
Finally, I haven't seen singing mentioned here. Singing is a great way to improve pronunciation.
For what it's worth, I've heard people say that learning languages get easier after the fifth one. If I'm not counting Danish and Swedish (which one really shouldn't, as a Norwegian) I guess that means I have one more to go after I manage to brush off my French.