Are you learning a new language?

[wolfy]

For English speakers, this shows how many hours you're supposed to learn a specific language to become proficient: Language Difficulty Ranking | Effective Language Learning

Dutch and French are both in Category I (575 - 600 hours).

In case you're interested.

Wow, I speak Japanese. That is highest ranked. (*'-'*)

 

[Flâneuse]

For English speakers, this shows how many hours you're supposed to learn a specific language to become proficient: Language Difficulty Ranking | Effective Language Learning

Dutch and French are both in Category I (575 - 600 hours).

In case you're interested.

Interesting link. I've always heard that French is one of the hardest Romance languages for native Anglophones, but it's nice to put that in perspective and see that a "difficult" Romance language is still easier than most of the world's languages.

I'm not surprised that Dutch is considered relatively easy; I've read it's the second most similar language to English, after Frisian. The grammar and syntax are very similar and there are cognates everywhere you look. The only tough part is the gutteral pronunciation which can be difficult to English-speakers who aren't used to making those sounds.

 

[Cellmold]

I've been attempting to learn French for a long time.

But frankly I am very lazy and find little time to engage with it. If I want to improve I really need to put more effort in.

 

[Kas]

Quoting my post from Random Thread:

Guys, could anyone recommend me spanish tv series? Interesting with not very difficult vocabulary and no dialects...

Thanks [MENTION=22236]YUI[/MENTION] . My aim is to learn Spanish again, well maybe review what I learned before (for now). I learned Spanish for 1,5 year, but now hardly remember anything.
I would prefer series produced in Spain though. I like watching series/movies in the original language when I can and I like background (what they eat , listen to etc). I prefer not to use subtitles because my greatest problem with languages is listening. I just listen and try to understand as much as I can, sometimes replaying dialogues, repeating phrases. Also write down words I don’t understand (if they are often repeated)and look up in dictionary.

I watched this way El Internado (about two seasons) and the results were very good. At the beginning I needed to guess what they were saying then I understood most of that. Well… understanding children was difficult.

 

[Kas]

For English speakers, this shows how many hours you're supposed to learn a specific language to become proficient: Language Difficulty Ranking | Effective Language Learning

Dutch and French are both in Category I (575 - 600 hours).

In case you're interested.

French seems difficult. I once did about 3 lessons from the book, but when I saw how they read (linking the words and missing some letters) I gave up. And the numbers? It’s like they need to do everything in the other, original way.

Anyway I think French sounds beautiful...

 

[Frosty]

Yeah it would be cool to brush up on spanish to the extent where I can become fluent at it, I can generally understand the basics of it alright, but recreating it with all the smaller steps of grammar is difficult. Tried duolingo for a while but that really doesn't translate well to practice.

 

[senza tema]

Not right now. I'm reviewing my Latin and French so I can pass language exams for grad school this fall. I need to brush up on my German for a little longer because I only took one semester of it and just Reading German at that.

After that, I'm gonna have to see if it's worthwhile to continue with Arabic or pick up Greek instead and I want to work on Spanish at some point but I figure that'll be easier/quicker.

 

[Betty Blue]

I pick up languages best when I am in the native speaking country. I am one of those people who feels terrible visiting a place and asking everyone to speak English. I will always attempt it even if it means making lots of mistakes, I feel it makes others who I am trying to communicate with feel at ease and less like I am a British Empirelite attempting to colonise and wipe out the indigenous.

I seem to do quite well with accents however I have only attempted mainly languages on the cat 1 list (French, Spanish, Italian). German I found fairly easy at school... I also tried a little bit of Russian and Farsi but those are much more difficult due to the entirely different alphabet and writing etc. Farsi though has very few words and is a beautiful language, it is so called the singing language. I don't speak any of the languages above, but European countries have the latin in common and are quite easy for me to understand/decode. I speak conversational Spanish (used to speak French pretty well, as a child, but lost it-still remember some though).

I'd really love to learn some African Languages (especially some of the more tribal clicking languages) there are just so many and we see/hear virtually nothing of them in the west.

 

[nonsequitur]

Wow, I speak Japanese. That is highest ranked. (*'-'*)

So do I. But I learned it as a Chinese speaker. Kanji cheat ftw.

It's apparently really easy to learn Japanese as a Korean speaker and vice versa because the language structure/grammar is so similar.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Did anyone here tried to learn German ? How did that go ?

 

[Dyslexxie]

I use Pimsleur quite a bit. I'm not learning a new language, but am just trying to maintain my knowledge of French and Spanish. It's a really good tool to use in the car instead of listening to radio nonsense.

 

[Kas]

I use Pimsleur quite a bit. I'm not learning a new language, but am just trying to maintain my knowledge of French and Spanish. It's a really good tool to use in the car instead of listening to radio nonsense.

These are audio lessons or something more than that?

Did anyone here tried to learn German ? How did that go ?

I learned German in school, but I didn’t like it so I made a great afford to not learn anything. Now I’m mad at myself...

Anyway I remember that the grammar was very logical and some words were similar to English so it was easier to learn.
A friend who learned it for a longer period of time, says that no other language she's learned has such a logical structure.

 

[Dyslexxie]

These are audio lessons or something more than that?

Yeah, focused on carrying conversations (as opposed to memorizing words and verb conjugations). They're quite good at helping you become conversational but I've had to use books for grammar lessons.

 

[windoverlake]

If you're learning one right now discuss it. Techniques, and tools you're using to get started with, etc? Are you enjoying it? And why did you want to learn that particular language?

I need as much immersion as possible. Audio CDs, language books (kids books are great), I'll watch films, search for soap operas (Spanish telenovelas were really helpful for learning Spanish), TV programs (accessible drama/comedy, not CSPAN-type stuff), and if I can find them, youtube channels of vloggers who I find watchable. If I'm really serious I'll get a language tutor so I can chat with them in the language. I prefer idiomatic and conversational styles in general (I want to blend in vs. just ordering something or asking directions), and contextual information is extremely important to me; grammar is not a first concern for me unless I'm interested in translating materials or writing serious stuff in the language, but at a certain point, once I'm past the 'first impressions' phase, I will delve into grammar structures and so forth. I think I'm kinesthetic when it comes to learning a language, so I need to be using it constantly. For me, learning a language is very much like learning to hear a different kind of music. If I can't get a firm hold of intonation, it's as though I don't learn.

If I had to pick one tool for learning a new language it would be a stack of really excellent films or a TV series. I'll watch it a bunch of times with subtitles, then later without.

 

[Yama]

Did anyone here tried to learn German ? How did that go ?

I took 4 semesters of German in high school and did extremely well. Even went to Germany with my teacher and was able to communicate in German when needed. However even after all of that learning, I was barely at a preschool level. I remember the structure of the language well enough; however I have lost nearly all of my vocabulary from lack of use.

I do not remember if I still have any of my notes, since it's been 4 years; but I will look for them, and if I manage to find anything, would you like me to share it with you?

 

[Kierva]

Did anyone here tried to learn German ? How did that go ?

I'm learning it right now. It's quite difficult at first because the grammar is quite different when compared to English, but once you get the hang of it, it doesn't get more difficult like English does.

I still have problems with knowing the forms of the word. I can hardly know which gender the word is.

 

[Yama]

I'm learning it right now. It's quite difficult at first because the grammar is quite different when compared to English, but once you get the hang of it, it doesn't get more difficult like English does.

I still have problems with knowing the forms of the word. I can hardly know which gender the word is.

In my class whenever we learned a word, we'd learn it with the gender. Like "das Buch" instead of learning "Buch" and trying to figure out what gender it is.

 

[Kierva]

In my class whenever we learned a word, we'd learn it with the gender. Like "das Buch" instead of learning "Buch" and trying to figure out what gender it is.

I learn that way. The problem comes when applying to sentences like "Das ist mein Buch", where I don't know if it's meinem/meine/mein. Or "kein Problem" vs "keine Sorge".

I cannot remember the rules and gender of the said word, or most words for that matter.

 

[Yama]

I learn that way. The problem comes when applying to sentences like "Das ist mein Buch", where I don't know if it's meinem/meine/mein. I cannot remember the rules and gender of the said word, or most words for that matter.

Oh, I see. Conjugating can be difficult; I mostly had problems here with the masculine ones. I have never been very good at the subject/direct object thing. As for knowing how, say, die and eine are both feminine, I was able to do that. If I can find my notes (assuming I didn't throw them out) I'll post anything helpful I have written down about it.

 

[Kierva]

Oh, I see. Conjugating can be difficult; I mostly had problems here with the masculine ones. I have never been very good at the subject/direct object thing. As for knowing how, say, die and eine are both feminine, I was able to do that. If I can find my notes (assuming I didn't throw them out) I'll post anything helpful I have written down about it.

I also don't know what's the point of putting "nach" or "sich" in sentences.