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How to learn a new language in 90 days

freestylemind.com

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Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#11

Post by tokenadult »

splat wrote: post #10
DrJokepu wrote: post #6

One thing that is often gets unmentioned in "how-to-learn-x-in-y-days" discussions (whether x is a programming language or a "human" language) is that learning an (n+1)th language is a lot easier than learning your first (or in the case of human languages second) language. Not just because you discover patterns but also because you sharpen your methodologies - with human languages you'll know which is the best way fo…

This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complic…

it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language.

The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. This has been my experience, after learning elements of about a dozen languages, with proficiency in Chinese such that I can support myself through interpreting Chinese into English or the other way round, or translating from Chinese into English.

For scientifically based information on Esperanto, see

http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#12

Post by quant18 »

The whole "once I land in a foreign country I'm going to stop speaking my native language" advice is only applicable to people with very specific personality types and life situations. To the rest of us, it's not inspirational, it's demoralising to the extent that many people living abroad simply never acquire any good command of their host society's language. You can easily find American bankers in Shanghai who speak poor Chinese, or Korean shopowners in Sydney who speak poor English, or whatever. And you can deride them as lazy immigrants who refuse to assimilate, or arrogant expats who are only there because they failed in New York, or whatever. Or you can try to help them.

The best advice I ever heard for learning foreign languages is: treat your brain the way it likes to be treated. This doesn't mean being lazy, but it does mean not putting yourself in situations that go against your personality type. And it means using learning methods that don't continually expose you to a sense of failure you hate feeling. Because otherwise your brain will just hate you later for putting it under stress, and take revenge by shutting down.

That means you give yourself the kind of intellectual, social, or physical stimulation that you need to feel happy during the time that you do devote to your target language, and ignore the people who think you are "stupid" for doing this. Read a book in your native language, talk with people in your mother tongue, eat food from your homeland every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is doubly important if you are learning your target language not because you LOVE LANGUAGES (like 100% of people who write language learning blogs) but because you need it for specific purposes.

And finally, if you are the kind of person who is very sensitive to embarassment, then you do not have an "inhibition" to be "overcome", you have an extremely good system for detecting when you are violating social norms --- and knowing social norms is just as important as conjugations & vocabulary. No one wants to communicate with a guy who is fluent in their language but rude and uncouth by their cultural standards. Don't deliberately try to suppress your embarassment just so you can get 10 minutes of horrid conversation practise with the impatient cashier at your local supermarket while the line builds up behind you.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#13

Post by randallsquared »

tokenadult wrote: post #11
splat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complic…

it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. This has been my experience, after learning elements of about a dozen languages, with proficiency in Chinese such that I can support myself through interpreting Chinese into English or the other way round, or translating…

The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language.

I think an unstated assumption was that Esperanto is much easier to learn than "natural" languages.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#14

Post by hugh3 »

splat wrote: post #10
DrJokepu wrote: post #6

One thing that is often gets unmentioned in "how-to-learn-x-in-y-days" discussions (whether x is a programming language or a "human" language) is that learning an (n+1)th language is a lot easier than learning your first (or in the case of human languages second) language. Not just because you discover patterns but also because you sharpen your methodologies - with human languages you'll know which is the best way fo…

This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complic…

Does anyone in the world have Esperanto as their first language?

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#15

Post by tokenadult »

randallsquared wrote: post #13
tokenadult wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. This has been my experience, after learning elements of about a dozen languages, with proficiency in Chinese such that I can support myself through interpreting Chinese into English or the other way round, or translating…

The parent comment to your comment expressed the idea that ANY previous language aids learning the next language. I think an unstated assumption was that Esperanto is much easier to learn than "natural" languages.

I believe you are correct about that being the unstated assumption, in regard to one of the comments above. My experience as a learner of multiple languages from several different language families is that Esperanto is not particularly easy, so I think the assumption is false.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#16

Post by tokenadult »

hugh3 wrote: post #14
splat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true, and I think it's one of the reasons that Esperanto works so well as one's first second language. (I recall seeing one study where a group of students who learned Esperanto for one year and then French for three years ended up knowing French better than a group of students who studied French exclusively for four years straight. Not conclusive by any means, but suggestive.) By eliminating the complic…

Does anyone in the world have Esperanto as their first language?

There are a few children of dedicated Esperantists who have been brought up with Esperanto as one of their native languages. They don't have a lot of people to talk to, alas, whom they can't already speak to with whatever other languages they know.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#17

Post by c00p3r »

It might be not so difficult to learn Spanish if you know French or English.

Try to learn some language from the different family (non Latin), like Hindi, Nepali, Tibetan, or even Japanese at least in one year. =)

btw, to know a language doesn't mean that you've memorized some basic phrases and most used words. I, for example, can read and translate on the fly to my native language some scientific books on subjects with which I'm familiar, but speaking and writing are extremely difficult to me. It is already an issue of the age.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#18

Post by j_baker »

DrJokepu wrote: post #6

One thing that is often gets unmentioned in "how-to-learn-x-in-y-days" discussions (whether x is a programming language or a "human" language) is that learning an (n+1)th language is a lot easier than learning your first (or in the case of human languages second) language. Not just because you discover patterns but also because you sharpen your methodologies - with human languages you'll know which is the best way fo…

I don't know that it's beneficial to think in terms of languages (at least in terms of programming languages). It's probably better to think in terms of paradigms. For instance, once I've learned an object-oriented language, I can pretty much learn any of them easily. The same is mostly true for functional programming languages (although some are admittedly more difficult than others).

I could imagine natural languages are roughly the same way. For instance, I'd believe that learning another Romance Language would be easier after you've already learned one. Same for different variations of Chinese and Hindi.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#19

Post by ecaradec »

"How I Learned French in One Year" : http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/29/15258/287 is a very insighful article on how to learn language without going to the country. Advices are not specific to french. The best advice I retained is that commute time are your friends when learning a language.

Re: How to learn a new language in 90 days

#20

Post by dragonquest »

c00p3r wrote: post #17

It might be not so difficult to learn Spanish if you know French or English. Try to learn some language from the different family (non Latin), like Hindi, Nepali, Tibetan, or even Japanese at least in one year. =) btw, to know a language doesn't mean that you've memorized some basic phrases and most used words. I, for example, can read and translate on the fly to my native language some scientific books on subjects w…

Not to nitpick, but I think you meant Hindi (the language) as opposed to Hindu (the religion). :)
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