Ask HN: How have you learned a speaking language?

might be tl;drs in here. Best thing I learned here is the app ANKI! http://ichi2.net/anki/

Simple flash card app that's amazing for vocab. Good luck, man.

Nothing new, really. Others have already suggested these tactics. But this is my story:

I grew up in a bilingual home but was not raised bilingual. I used to nag my mother incessantly to teach me German words and I picked up some vocabulary that way. I also used audiotapes some. When I was 16, a friend of the family got married and several of her relatives came, some of whom spoke no English. I finally began speaking German during the month they were visiting. I later lived in Germany as an adult -- not really in an immersion setting, though, because I mostly interacted with American military families and mostly spoke English. Still, living there did improve my spoken German a good deal. I speak conversational German but really can't read or write it that well and can't much follow the news because they use words I don't know. I studied French formally in school for a time. I read and write it a little bit but really don't speak it fluently and never developed an ear for it. Growing up in a home where I heard German regularly meant I started out with an ear for it, and that really helped.

FWIW: My mother has said she learned English by watching TV. I have found that helpful with trying to pick up a little Spanish but I am really not persistent enough with it.

This site seems pretty good for arabic Karaoke:

http://www.shawshara.com/wiki/Main_Page

The page for the song I linked to above is:

http://www.shawshara.com/wiki/Ayami_Beek_(song)

Edit: although looking at the (English) lyrics reminds me that karaoke is a particularly good way to learn to say how much you like somebody, which is useful but not the be all and end all

Edit2: The world cup Waving Flag song is fun and is translated into lots of languages. Here's the Arabic version with subtitles and translations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apeVbw02nzc

Kids in India typically grow up speaking at least 3 languages, and sometimes 4 or 5. My grandmother spoke 6 languages. Most common would be Hindi, and one or two regional languages, and possibly English. In the south it's more likely to be Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu or Kannada instead of Hindi, but there are others too. As you grow up you end up learning more languages at least at a comprehension level because you travel around for work.

I agree with you. Learning to understand the spoken language is the most difficult aspect. Pimsleur helps with this. It gives you an early view through that window, so you can see what it's like to understand the spoken language, and prepares you for understanding the language in the wild.

I think the choice of whether to use a grammar or not depends on the student. If you're a beginning language learner, then it may be best to put it off. If you understand the concepts of declensions and conjugations (and the different tenses, moods, etc. typically encountered), then a grammar can be a quick way to get the lay of the land.

One of the first things I do is to learn the personal pronouns, articles, and conjunctions (short work). Then I'll look at "to be" and "to have" (at least for the Indo-European language family). That way, when I start listening, I've got some scaffolding upon which to start building my understanding. This is one of the few areas where learning a language as an adult has an advantage over the immersion of a child--you can use your cognitive capabilities to take a short cut.