Learning a foreign language - Page 4

southerndog · #31 06-09-2007, 11:13 PM

I think the desire to learn a new language is good, but its probably not going to happen unless you have to do it. Like in college, a lot of people say "oh, i'm just gonna sit in on this class for the learning experience". Truth is, they usually make it through the first week, and that's about it.

unfoldable · #32 06-10-2007, 10:03 AM

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I think the desire to learn a new language is good, but its probably not going to happen unless you have to do it. Like in college, a lot of people say "oh, i'm just gonna sit in on this class for the learning experience". Truth is, they usually make it through the first week, and that's about it.

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This is so true. In your case, joker, i would say that the odds are strongly againt you. Now matter how hard or simple the language is: You will have to put hours into it. A lot of hours. Quality hours. When there are already 70h+ gone, i dont see a realistic way of getting fluent in any language i know in a reasonable period of time. No software or book or coach can talk this away. So the first step would be to make some free space if you are really serious about it.

TheMetetron · #33 06-10-2007, 11:16 AM

This is true. For comparison, I had 3 years of high school study in Spanish and have lived in Argentina for 6 months now. While hear, I've had over 250 hours of private instruction with a tutor who is going to be way more useful than any software or book plus I've gotten real world practice. I'm still nowhere near fluent or even able to have in depth conversations in Spanish about all but the most basic of things. I can't understand a movie in Spanish without the Spanish subtitles there to read along with. This is going to take you a long time.

Sponger. · #34 06-10-2007, 12:18 PM

TheMetetron,

Have you been hanging around mostly Spanish speaking people? A few friends who have gone on semester aboard programs and really immersed themselves came out of it knowing a huge portion of the language. Then there are people I know who spent a few months traveling in Spanish speaking countries who surrounded themselves with English speakers and left without really advancing their Spanish in any significant ways.

TheMetetron · #35 06-10-2007, 01:12 PM

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TheMetetron,

Have you been hanging around mostly Spanish speaking people? A few friends who have gone on semester aboard programs and really immersed themselves came out of it knowing a huge portion of the language. Then there are people I know who spent a few months traveling in Spanish speaking countries who surrounded themselves with English speakers and left without really advancing their Spanish in any significant ways.

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I guarantee you they don't. You probably wouldn't notice unless you were very good or fluent, but I know people who have been here for almost 2 years and have tons of spanish-speaking friends and still have a ton to learn. It's like poker, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

I'm not saying I can't have a conversation in Spanish about anything I would need to get done, because that isn't the case. But to truly understand the language and think in that language is incredibly hard and takes a ton of work. I didn't also mean to say that I can't understand programs or movies in Spanish because that isn't the case. But I don't understand them nearly as deeply as I can understand a movie in Spanish. I guess it is just a different level.

To most people who don't speak Spanish, I would appear to be a good speaker, but I know that I'm really not as do others who speak as well or better than me. It's a lot easier to cope with a language (think of people in the USA who don't speak fluent English but can make their point known anyways using broken English) than to truly speak and comprehend that language correctly.

I believe it to be insanely difficult to ever become truly fluent in 2 languages if they aren't both learned early in life. Years and years of practice and study difficult.

To answer your question I have both english-speaking and Argentine friends.

Edit: I should mention that you are very correct in that you get out what you put into it. If you don't try to have conversations in Spanish or use it daily, you won't learn very quickly. I could live here and have horrible Spanish and probably get by OK, but I wouldn't really enjoy that.

private joker · #36 06-10-2007, 05:50 PM

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I don't think you've answered yet when/where/for what you are going to use Chinese. That's important.

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I don't need to be fluent in it and I'm not interested in reading or writing. I'm just wondering how difficult it would be to learn enough conversational Mandarin or Shanghainese to be able to talk to my girlfriend and her family. She's 100% fluent in English, but her parents and brother barely speak a word of it.

tarheeljks · #37 06-10-2007, 06:02 PM

it would be difficult. doable, but difficult. what's your timetable (sorry if you all ready said)?

TheMetetron · #38 06-10-2007, 07:04 PM

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I don't think you've answered yet when/where/for what you are going to use Chinese. That's important.

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I don't need to be fluent in it and I'm not interested in reading or writing. I'm just wondering how difficult it would be to learn enough conversational Mandarin or Shanghainese to be able to talk to my girlfriend and her family. She's 100% fluent in English, but her parents and brother barely speak a word of it.

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Ah, okay. Umm, very difficult. You could probably learn to say "hi, how are you?" and all that fairly quickly but to have any reasonable conversation about anything is going to be very, very hard.

Just have her teach you and speak to you in it as much as possible? That seems like your best bet. Even learning some basic phrases will impress her family. Pimsleur is also going to be the best commercial product you can get for this, but you will likely learn much more from her.

Expect this to take at least a year to get even remotely decent results (more than a few simple phrases and words) unless you put a lot of time into it.

boomshakalaka · #39 06-10-2007, 09:07 PM

Ill be attending culinary school starting at the beginning of july. We have to take I think 4 quarters of spanish since the american culinary industry is pretty much built on the backs of mexican immigrants. I always wanted to learn a language but never had a reason to, now that I have a reason Im pretty excited to go through with it finally.

Kintamayama · #40 06-10-2007, 09:53 PM

Even achieving the most basic conversational level of speaking will require a tremendous amount of effort on your part. If you can, I'd enroll in a local college course, where you'll have instructors to give you feedback and also homework demands to keep you moving forward when the going gets tough (as it will).

Good luck with Chinese. I was able to achieve near-native fluency in Japanese after beginning my study in my mid-twenties, but after two weeks attempting Chinese I was ready to hang myself.