skills needed to learn languages...

[BigPoppa]

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the difference between those that learn and those that don't is the amount of work put in. A lot of smart people fail at learning a language because you can't breeze through it.

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[TheMetetron]

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How different are catalan and castillian? I thought they were about as mutually intelligible as Swedish and Norwegian?

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Wow no way. Catalan is much different than Castilian especially when spoken. Written it is still very different but like the difference between Castilian/Italian where many things can be deduced. Actually, I'd say the difference between Castilian and Cataln is about the same as the difference between Castilian and Italian.

Language CDs are crap and won't really teach you a damn thing. Seriously, the biggest things are tons of hard work and willing to make an ass out of yourself when learning to converse. Took me a while to realize no one expects me to speak perfectly. Once you begin talking freely often it comes much more quickly.

Edit: I'm assuming the difference between Swedish & Norwegian is close to the difference between Swedish & Danish since those are the only two I can remotely understand. If this is wrong, I don't think it is, let me know. When I only knew Danish I could understand a lot of spoken Swedish if I just imagined a Dane singing everything they said with a weird accent. That doesn't work with Castilian/Catalan.

[JMa]

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How different are catalan and castillian? I thought they were about as mutually intelligible as Swedish and Norwegian?

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Wow no way. Catalan is much different than Castilian especially when spoken. Written it is still very different but like the difference between Castilian/Italian where many things can be deduced. Actually, I'd say the difference between Castilian and Cataln is about the same as the difference between Castilian and Italian.

Language CDs are crap and won't really teach you a damn thing. Seriously, the biggest things are tons of hard work and willing to make an ass out of yourself when learning to converse. Took me a while to realize no one expects me to speak perfectly. Once you begin talking freely often it comes much more quickly.

Edit: I'm assuming the difference between Swedish & Norwegian is close to the difference between Swedish & Danish since those are the only two I can remotely understand. If this is wrong, I don't think it is, let me know. When I only knew Danish I could understand a lot of spoken Swedish if I just imagined a Dane singing everything they said with a weird accent. That doesn't work with Castilian/Catalan.

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swedish and norwegian is alot closer than swedish and danish. when i go to denmark, i speak english b/c i cant understand a single word of what they say.

[TheMetetron]

JMa,

I've heard it is easier for a Dane to understand a Swede than the other way around. I've found this to be true as my ex-gf would understand when people spoke to her in Swedish and she'd attempt to respond in Danish and about 90% of the time they'd just stare at her confused. She understood about 90% of them though. Eventually, we both came to the conclusion that English was just easier all around.

[Kintamayama]

Rote memorization skills and a willingness to put forth the effort.

[Blarg]

I did well in languages in school, and I think a real key to it was first constantly thinking about it, and then trying to think "in" it.

I would just try to find words for the common things you see and do every day. Like, look around you and see that you have a window, right? Look it up. What do you do in a car? You drive it -- look that verb up. What are the ingredients in today's dinner? Basically, try to make sense of the world around you in that language. Take an active part, and pursue what makes YOU curious. That will give things a context you can relate to -- your own life -- which makes things stick in your memory much better than many lessons do. What do you care about some lesson regarding everything that happens in, say, an airport, if you never get on planes yourself?

When you can gather some words that are relevant to your own life, you have the basis to start trying to think in that language. And that's when things really start to click. You start moving from searching your brain to just speaking. You can worry about all the many verb tenses and conjugations and perfect grammar eventually, but you don't need to be technically perfect to start thinking in a language and being able to speak it a bit. You just need to start living in it a little.

The goal is to make it second nature, and I don't think you can do that even with a perfect understanding of conjugations and technical things anyway. You don't need a big vocabulary for it, either. It comes more from a combination of curiosity and confidence. You don't get that by grudgingly studying a book for a few hours a week, or cramming for exams like you can with other subjects. It's something you have to care about a little, or it gets really hard. Just try to get yourself as soon as possible to the point where you can think in a new language, even if it's not about much yet. If you get that mindset going, things will progress rapidly from there. Let your own curiosity propel you, and think of books and lessons as a help and supplement to that, not as the main thing that is going to teach you.

P.S.: Don't hesitate to carry around or have quickly accessible a small but good dictionary. You want to keep your curiousity fertile -- if you see something and suddenly want to know what the word for it is, it's very motivating to find it out immediately, and that helps it stick. And it's kind of de-motivating sometimes to remain in the dark, which can feel kind of like punishing your brain for caring.