"I give the advice for what it's worth: if you wish to learn a foreign tongue properly, study it in bed with a native girl. I'd have got more out of the classics from an hour's wrestling with a Greek wench than I did in four years of Study at school."
Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
21–30 of 115 posts
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#22Are you using an SRS (Spaced Repetition) flashcard program? It helps if you're starting and stopping because it will force you to review all the words, grammar, sentences etc. that you used to know.
You can fit it into any other learning you do. It really helps put things into your "long-term memory".
Software: Mnemosyne - http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/ Anki - http://ichi2.net/anki/
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#23This is how I've learned English and French: * Step 1: Learn the grammar and the few thousand most important words. This is the hardest and least fun part. * Step 2: Read a lot in order to obtain a large vocabulary. A lot. * Step 3: Listen to the language. TV, Radio, Movies, etc. * Step 4: Talk to native speakers. A lot.
Having taken a Masters in Linguistics, and learned 3 languages besides my native one, I'd say that 1, 3 + 4 are basically the key to learning any language. It really is "Use it or lose it" when it comes to learning a new language.
Would you say you're a rare case, as far as learning three languages? Many that pursue linguistics seem offended when asked how many languages they speak.
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#24For Arabic, check out Al-Kitaab (and its predecessor book) at Amazon.com (worth reading the reviews, imho). Part of a three year course. Still I think forms the basis for most university programs. May be available on the internets.
Some day it'd be great to have rich, interactive ways to do learning. Rosetta Stone is cool. My experience is that this is good for a colloquial/conversational emphasis. It's all about details at some point though -- so Alif Baa / Al-Kitaab might not be so bad.
Personally, I don't know Arabic -- but I had a friend who was staying with us who was studying it at a university -- so I was curious to look it up. There are a lot of different theories about the best way to learn language: immersion, multimedia, native speakers, etc. I think when you're learning a language for the first time though, there's so much ground to cover, that it doesn't matter which direction you take. The best direction is the one you can go furthest in (is the most sustainable because of interest, convenience, availability, etc.) which is most positive and least negative. I.e., we don't learn a language perfectly the first 100 times traversing through it. But gradually we get there.
But it's probably like with programming -- the most undervalued link is actually just putting yourself in front of it (as much as possible, in a sustainable manner). This can be something as simple as eating at a restaurant where they speak Arabic. Or it can be flashcards, etc. At any rate, I guess they still use it at Midd too (I'm from California -- UC Berkeley and Stanford, I think use Al-Kitaab too, or used to):
http://www.middlebury.edu/ls/arabic/curriculum/courses
But yeah, depending on interests / how engaged you'll be with the language in the future (reading a newspaper can be both a goal and a tool -- but only if you really need it / want it), it probably all depends.
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#25I recently had a conversation with my best friend's grandmother, who floated from Cuba to Puerto Rico at the age of 27 (and 30 years later moved to Miami). At the time, to obtain work in Puerto Rico, you were required to be proficient in English. Since she didn't know any English and had less than $5 to her name, her solution was to watch television only in English, read stuff that was only published in English, and eventually she said she refused to talk to anyone if they weren't using English. After a year of this, she knew enough to get a job. Similarly, I have another friend who is part Cuban whose dad learned English by watching tons of Sesame Street and English news programs.
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#26"The best way to learn a new language is in the horizontal position [i.e. with a lover]." — Recently retired NPR correspondent in Moscow
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#27Read read read read. And then do some more reading.
Yes, but don't forget pronunciation.
This is actually the most important thing. Have an awful vocabulary, a rudimentary grammar, but get the pronunciation right. You can always buff up on your words or rules, but getting rid of an atrocious accent is very hard to do. Utterly impossible if you're Styrian.
I wonder whether singing helps. The overall musical structure might make proper phonetics easier to memorize; on the other hand I've heard quite a lot of people who can sing without an accent, but sound very differently when actually speaking. Maybe it is too much rote memorization.
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#28Need to have a grasp of basic grammar - after that it's all conversation, if you can't talk to real people watch tons of TV/Movies with subtitles (both movie and subs in original language of course).
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#29The first thing to bear in mind is that language learning for an adult is a completely different proposition from language learning as a child. Kids are wired for it, they have the time, and usually have external pressure to make progress. Learning methods for kids therefore tend to be slow, tedious and - because kids haven't fully developed their capacity for abstract thought - dependent on rote memorization.
My recommendation would be to start with a Pimsleur course. Don't worry about writing and vocabulary at first, just get a feel for the language. With Arabic, you have a different alphabet to learn - do that before you try learning written vocabulary, or you will be forever hamstrung by romanized transliteration messing with your pronunciation. For vocabulary, spaced repetition is the way to go. There are lots of sites and systems for this. Go with the ones that give you a high level of control over what you are studying, and train only production (i.e. going from English to Arabic), recognition will take care of itself. For grammar, here's a cute idea I had some success with in Japanese which has highly regular grammar (I don't know about Arabic): as you learn the grammar rules, write code to produce them. E.g. write a function to conjugate the past tense. When it's working, you have the basis of a game to test yourself. Use your powers of abstraction to bypass rote memorization.
Don't be down about the fact you don't manage to keep studying religiously. As long as you get some studying done, no matter how little, you are making progress. There is a lot of snake oil out there - if you find something isn't fun or isn't working for you, don't try and force yourself. Most of us learnt languages the wrong way in school, and learned a lot of bad study habits and worst of all, got the idea that it's supposed to be hard and take a long time. Not true - use your experience of learning programming as a template for what your experience of learning a real language should be like. (assuming you are a programmer, apologies if not)
Re: Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?
#30Immersion is the best way. If you can go to a country and take language lessons there, you will learn much more quickly. Learning a language requires lots of correct repetition.
If Spanish is what you want to learn, then it's pretty easy. Go to Antigua, Guatemala and spend 12 weeks in one of the 150 language schools. It will cost between $150-$200/week for classes with your own private instructor.
I spent 10 weeks at this school:
http://www.travelpod.com/ad/Proyecto_Linguistico_Francisco_M...
Be careful, this is a backbacker and gringo town. You might find yourself partying late into the night and not studying too much. Here's my favorite bar: