Learning a new language. How did you do it?

[Pens_Dark]

I wanted to scratch up on my very, very basic knowledge of French and see how far I can take it. There are apps out there such as Duolingo, Babbel etc that seem pretty gimmicky but I'm sure they serve a purpose in learning something.

Has anyone picked up a second language? If so how did you do it? 

Clearly the best way is to throw yourself in to the deep end and fully immerse yourself in the country...a luxury I can't afford.

I suppose I already have a second language anyway living in Dundee...

[2426255]

It's really not easy mate to do if you aren't living in the country. I never have had any success with Duolingo etc. If you're serious about learning then I'd probably start with reading and writing - maybe get some french kids books from amazon and build up your knowledge of the language.

The listening and speaking and adaptation is the hardest part and there is no substitute for being in the country so I'd consider taking a few short holidays to France and force yourself to only speak in French - that'll be an eye opener. I did that in Caen and it was difficult and with Polish in Krakow (years ago) because I felt it was shit just turning up and speaking English.

You can also take evening classes probably at your local University/College which is a good way to get feedback on how you're doing. If you do all that then over a period of years I think you could successfully pick up a basic and probably wooden version of French without living in the country. It's not an easy undertaking and anyone who thinks they can pick it up with an app is probably barking up the wrong tree IMO.

[Pens_Dark]

8 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

It's really not easy mate to do if you aren't living in the country. I never have had any success with Duolingo etc. If you're serious about learning then I'd probably start with reading and writing - maybe get some french kids books from amazon and build up your knowledge of the language.

The listening and speaking and adaptation is the hardest part and there is no substitute for being in the country so I'd consider taking a few short holidays to France and force yourself to only speak in French - that'll be an eye opener. I did that in Caen and it was difficult and with Polish in Krakow (years ago) because I felt it was shit just turning up and speaking English.

You can also take evening classes probably at your local University/College which is a good way to get feedback on how you're doing. If you do all that then over a period of years I think you could successfully pick up a 2nd language without living in the country. It's not an easy undertaking and anyone who think they can pick it up with an app is probably barking up the wrong tree IMO.

All good ideas - thanks for that. I, much like you, have a thing about turning up to another country and not knowing even basic phrases. 

French appealed to me because for quite a few factors and I'm definitely not under any illusions that you need to be serious about it to get any kind of reward back. There are courses that are offered in Dundee which is a good start. 

I know a couple of people that have went off abroad to study a new language. One went to Salamanca where the tutors did not speak a word of English. A shock to the system but I've no doubt the best way to actually learn.

 

[Salt n Vinegar]

Pretty much agree with @Pens_Dark. I'm learning Gaelic and while Duolingo is a help, and the TV Speak Gaelic course is good, I really had to find conversation groups and attend as often as possible. 

I resisted writing in Gaelic for a while, as I told myself that I "only" wanted to speak it, not write it, but as time passed I came to realise that was holding me back.  You might find writing a great help.

Bonne chance!

[2426255]

19 minutes ago, Pens_Dark said:

All good ideas - thanks for that. I, much like you, have a thing about turning up to another country and not knowing even basic phrases. 

French appealed to me because for quite a few factors and I'm definitely not under any illusions that you need to be serious about it to get any kind of reward back. There are courses that are offered in Dundee which is a good start. 

I know a couple of people that have went off abroad to study a new language. One went to Salamanca where the tutors did not speak a word of English. A shock to the system but I've no doubt the best way to actually learn.

 

I forgot to add if your partner or someone you live with are wanting to learn also (they must be equally committed) you've won a watch as it will speed things up because you can just communicate between yourselves only in French. I remember seeing recently in the news that an English speaking footballer or actor did this with their son. I can't remember who it was exactly - but it's a good idea.

It really has to be someone you live with to be worthwile. What you are aiming for is to keep forming the links in your brain so it has to be daily to be worth doing otherwise you're just going to be constantly learning then forgetting.

Edited January 25 by 2426255

[PWL]

In a similar vein, I decided to learn a bit of German as I was visiting annually for football etc  and wanted to get beyond the Ja and Nein. 

I used to like Duolingo but they changed the format about 18 months ago and I just didn't find I was progressing. Their boffins decided that gameifying it would mean more profits as people would be forced to buy premium to get to next level. 

I can now order food & drink and understand the basic tourist requirements etc. The problem is when they speak back to me and I'm lost. The apps don't really prepare you for conversation. 

Or worse - they just respond in English. 

[2426255]

31 minutes ago, PWL said:

I can now order food & drink and understand the basic tourist requirements etc. The problem is when they speak back to me and I'm lost. The apps don't really prepare you for conversation. 

Or worse - they just respond in English. 

It's bit embarrassing to start a conversation in French and then get found out after one or two rounds of conversation. Makes you feel a bit of a fraud. 

You have to go through it though as there's no other way to improve. You're better off just doing some prep and when in France then just throw yourself out there - as much as you can take. It's like driving - you could learn all the theory you like, but no amount of learning from a book will prepare you for actually getting out on the road.

I'm not a fan of canned phrases if you want to properly learn the language for this very reason as you won't be able to adapt and you'll form a dependency on them.

Edited January 25 by 2426255

['WellDel]

Would agree with the opinions on Duolingo etc.

Although I do tend to holiday in recognised tourist areas, I like to take a wander off the central streets and find a nice wee bar or restaurant that the locals use, and in doing so you often and understandably find the people speak little or no English, in which case it's obviously beneficial and courteous if you can communicate with them in their own tongue.

For this purpose I've used Duolingo to learn the basics of asking directions and reading/ordering from a menu etc. in Spanish. The app is sufficient for that, and although very obviously a tourist and unable to engage in any lengthy conversation, no matter where you are the locals will tend to appreciate you making at least some effort. If you want to be fully fluent and conversant, an app isn't going to achieve that and finding a course to attend would be the route to go down. Hoping to get round to that one day.

[Pens_Dark]

49 minutes ago, Salt n Vinegar said:

Pretty much agree with @Pens_Dark. I'm learning Gaelic and while Duolingo is a help, and the TV Speak Gaelic course is good, I really had to find conversation groups and attend as often as possible. 

I resisted writing in Gaelic for a while, as I told myself that I "only" wanted to speak it, not write it, but as time passed I came to realise that was holding me back.  You might find writing a great help.

Bonne chance!

Good advice! I must admit the exact same thing crossed my mind. Interest in speaking and trying to hold a conversation only. I'll keep that in mind.

[Richey Edwards]

Just speak English to people, but very loudly and very slowly.

[Pens_Dark]

46 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

Would agree with the opinions on Duolingo etc.

Although I do tend to holiday in recognised tourist areas, I like to take a wander off the central streets and find a nice wee bar or restaurant that the locals use, and in doing so you often and understandably find the people speak little or no English, in which case it's obviously beneficial and courteous if you can communicate with them in their own tongue.

For this purpose I've used Duolingo to learn the basics of asking directions and reading/ordering from a menu etc. in Spanish. The app is sufficient for that, and although very obviously a tourist and unable to engage in any lengthy conversation, no matter where you are the locals will tend to appreciate you making at least some effort. If you want to be fully fluent and conversant, an app isn't going to achieve that and finding a course to attend would be the route to go down. Hoping to get round to that one day.

I like to learn at least something when we go away. Italy, Portugal and Greece in recent years faring slightly better in France because I knew some basic stuff. You're right, it's just the courteous thing to do - we would expect the same here. 

[atfccfc]

I've a good grasp of Italian and German. 

I lived in Italy for a few years. That helped massively and I've German relatives who I speak to in German and them English to me. It works. 

To keep it up I read Magazines, books and watch TV shows and listen to music in Italian. I'm lucky that I have a couple of Italian colleagues who I can speak to. 

I do find my reading and listening in both is stronger than my speaking. Especially in italian

[DiegoDiego]

Few tips here:

Children's books sound great, but they're filled with onomatopea and unless you want to grow up to be a nurse/astronaut/Turok dinosaur hunter, the vocabulary usually isn't so useful.

There are some good podcasts which are "The news in Spanish for beginners" or similar. With learning, ten minutes each day is better than one hour once a week, and podcasts like that are perfect for it.

You need motivation. If you want to speak French, find a bird you want to pump who speaks French but no English, you'll be a star pupil in no time.

Speaking English is actually what holds us back. I learnt some Finnish but really stalled as it was just so much easier to have a conversation with a Finn in English than struggle through one in Finnish. Of course, the most difficult part was finding a Finnish person willing to speak at all.

Whatever your main interests are, find articles about that in your target language. I put down the speed at which I picked up Italian to wanting to understand what they were saying in Gazetto della Sport. A few key words a day and the basic grammar you'll figure out by osmosis.

Learn English. I had to learn English grammar when I taught it abroad and realised how clueless I was. Knowing the mechanics of English helps enormously when learning the grammar of other languages. Best of all, you already speak English, so it should be easy!

[Derry Alli]

I used to work with a guy who learnt Italian by shipping the papers over. He also taught some weird language at Uni during his days off so maybe that helped in some way but I could never grasp how reading words in a different language unaided helped you learn the language. He couldn't write it for shit but we had Italian boys over installing some machinery and they said his Italian was great.

[VincentGuerin]

I can speak German. Could work in a German-speaking job if I had to. In the last year the missus and I have been learning Italian because we go there quite a lot and like it. She already speaks Spanish, so she's finding it a skoosh.

Strongly disagree when people say it's difficult to learn a language. It's simply a case of devoting the time to it you need to, and finding opportunities to speak. Italki is good for getting a teacher/someone to chat to.

Agree with the advice above about focusing on your hobbies. I've posted on German-language fitba forums on and off and am a long-term reader of Elf-Freunde and Kicker (as a wean even). You'll stick at it if you're interested in what you're doing.

There are loads of different ways to do it, but you need to be devoting time to it pretty much every day. Which is piss easy once you realise how much time we all waste every day. And there are wee tricks you can use. My missus has wee stickers around objects in the house that say things like "Switch on the lamp if it's dark" and "I usually make coffee in the morning" in Italian. Sounds borderline deranged, but having stuff like that around all the time is a reminder of how to use different structures etc.

It's not rocket science. If you're motivated, you can do it.

[19QOS19]

Been using Duolingo for German as I'm going in July and hope to be able to speak some of the basics. Always feel awful going abroad and making no effort  to speak the lingo. 

Finding it quite good tbh. Though I think actually speaking with someone in German would be really helpful. 

[GuyIncognito]

A few tips I've found useful:

- Apps such as Duolingo and Babble should be viewed as a compliment to learning and you shouldn't revolve your whole learning schedule around them. You can learn words through these apps but they don't explain things like grammar at all. There's plenty of free resources for whatever language you're learning such as Youtube channels and websites. You should use them predominately and then use apps to reinforce it or to pick up some new vocabulary. Of course there is no substitute for actually speaking one on one with someone or being in the country though.

- As was said earlier a good way to pick up new vocabulary is to put post it notes or sticky labels of the names of household objects in the language you're learning on them, and by using them every day it will reinforce it.

- Try to make it into a routine to study it every night. Duolingo is good at incentivizing you with the streak and league system but like I said doing Duolingo lessons for half an hour every day won't make you fluent. You don't need to do a lot each day but by establishing it as a habit it will make it far easier for you.

- Try to learn a certain number, e.g 5, of new words every day. It creates incentive to learn and you'll expand your vocabulary faster.

- Find methods that work for you. I've been learning Russian for a wee while now and I found that the only way to learn the alphabet for me was to copy it out onto paper and read it over for 5 minutes every day, and within 2 weeks I had mastered it. Watching news in the language may be easier than reading books for you so always look for different ways of picking up vocabulary etc and see if you can improve.

- If you are motivated enough and can constantly practice, you can do it. Of course some languages will be easier than others, but its definitely doable.

[DG.Roma]

36 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

My missus has wee stickers around objects in the house that say things like "Switch on the lamp if it's dark" and "I usually make coffee in the morning" in Italian. Sounds borderline deranged, but having stuff like that around all the time is a reminder of how to use different structures etc.

I did that too, it's definitely helpful. 

I can speak a bit of Italian, not very well now as I've not kept up the practice, but when I put the time in I got pretty good.

I used Rosetta Stone. It's expensive but far better than Duolingo etc. It doesn't use translation at all, working with the theory that you learned your first language without translation, so don't rely on it for your new language. If you can afford the time to be consistent with it, an hour a day, every day, its surprising how quickly you can pick up a fair bit of vocabulary.

However, as everyone is saying, you need to be able to put it into practice in order to get it to stick. That's obviously not so easy if you're doing it alone, but try finding stuff to listen to. I listened to Italian radio stations online, tried to find streams of football games in Italian, turned commentary into Italian on PES/Pro Evo (delete as your preference!) I picked a few films I either already knew well or had just recently watched, and tried to find them in Italian.

At my best, I happened to find a bar whilst on holiday that had loads of regulars who weren't from Italy, but Italian was their common language. These guys didn't speak as fast as the natives so I was able to converse quite well with them.

My pronunciation must be interesting. When we're in Italy no-one asks if we're Scottish, English, or any kind of British. We get all sorts, but the most common one is German. I take it as a compliment, at least they don't think we're English!

[DiegoDiego]

People think young children are better at learning languages. They are, but for two reasons:

1) They have no other option

2) They're not afraid of embarrassing themselves.

Be a child. Learn a language.

[Ross.]

Children’s books. Also, watch movies you have seen before with subtitles on and just read the subtitles, or watch movies in that language with English subtitles on.