I’m not talking about taking classes. I accept that’s usually a pretty good way to learn a language, but I’m thinking about doing it on my own at my own pace.
Cheaper is better, but if there are good methods that cost more than cheaper methods, I’d definitely consider it.
I’m leaning towards Spanish. I took some in high school and retain some fundamentals, and it’s probably the most practical language to learn in the US, especially the southwest. I also know a native speaker, so that may be good practice.
So, what sort of methods do we have available? There are books geared towards teaching yourself a language. Non-interactive auditory methods like “books on tape” to teach yourself. You could watch TV shows in a foreign language to try to pick up on it. There are some new, interactive, computerized methods like babbel and https://www.duolingo.com/. There’s total immersion, just trying to go places where that’s the language everyone uses, but that’s a bit much for a learn at your own pace sort of thing, I think. Maybe there are other methods I’m not thinking of.
Which of these are most effective? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the computerized/interactive ways of doing it in particular?
My colleague used to recommend to foreign graduate students that they get an English speaking girl-friend. (They were almost all male, but a female would have gotten the opposite advice. That some might be gay never occurred to him.)
I’ve been dabbling in duolingo for Spanish and Norwegian off and on for the last few years. I’m not sure that it’s really been all that helpful. Like, when the app says “Jeg spiser eplet” and gives me a pick list to choose from, I can think through the translation. But if you asked me to off the top of my head say something in norwegian, I don’t think I could. (Spanish I can but I’ve taken classes in it so I don’t think it counts for this.)
I think the best way to do it is to find entry level material written in Spanish and work your way through it with a translation dictionary. Then find someone who speaks it and try to converse with them. I find one of my biggest issues is word for word translating and talking with someone who can correct you when you say something that doesn’t really make sense is pretty helpful.
I suppose that if the relationship includes a lot of talking, and the girlfriend gets to do a fair share of it, that might work. Real world application might vary.
Tris
In a place where no one speaks your language you might learn another language, or learn to shut up.
I sort of recall a passage from McCullough’s biography of John Adams that went something like Adams learned French from textbooks while Franklin learned French in bed.
Varies with the student (some people work better with memorization, some like to understand the structure first and then add vocabulary on top) and the goals. Do you want to be able to read it, understand it spoken, write it, speak it? The method chosen should focus on written or spoken comunication depending on which is your own focus.
If you want to work on all four, remember two things:
one, you did not learn English in a month. Your current level of English took decades. Don’t be your worst enemy by expecting to learn another language at that same level in a few weeks.
two, in any language, everybody has better comprehension than expression. We all have words that we understand but that we have never used. Depending on whether you use written or spoken language most, you will be better at one or the other. Do not expect to have all four parts move at equal speed, they won’t.
When working on verbal skills using videos, many people find it best to begin by having on the subtitles for their own language and, once they arrive to the point where they know those words which repeat a lot (*), switch to the same language on subtitles and track. And the cool thing about many of the streaming services is that you can always go back and, if necessary, rewatch a particular scene with a different set of subtitles.
for English or Spanish the types would be similar: auxiliary verbs, articles, the most frequent nouns and adjectives…; the kind of words which provide structure more than meaning.
I’ve been learning French by immersion at work. It’s left me kind of… tilted: since most of the people I speak with are from work, I learned to say “click on the clock” (that being a frequent icon in the Big Blue Database) a lot sooner than “socks” (which I only learned last week). I already knew two close Romance languages; this has been both a help and a hindrance. Msr Pierre Larousse is my best friend in the world, leconjugueur even more than the dictionaries. I’m a “grammar first” kind of person, though: I need to understand the grammar of every sentence, which is the aspect in which knowing two languages with very-similar grammar has been super-helpful. I don’t think I’d be able to work the same way with Japanese or Finnish, whose grammar is very different: I’d need a book, a teacher or a bunch of youtube videos explaining that grammar. For someone who’s more memory-oriented, “just get there and start learning whole sentences” would work equally badly or equally well for any of them.
If you do indeed go for Spanish, rae.es will eventually be a good resource, but you need to be at least low-intermediate: it’s not going to do you much good to try and read the Ortografía before you have enough vocabulary to do it (plus, it’s a technical book, not a novel; trying to “just read it” is a good way to fall asleep, once your Spanish is good enough). That address collects the dictionaries and other documents prepared by the Academies of the Spanish Language. Your local Academia is ANLE (US Academy of the Spanish Language), with APLE representing Puerto Rico.
Instituto Cervantes provides an electronic library, including books, audiobooks, videos… Again, don’t just try to begin by reading El Quijote. Which reminds me: another resource I’ve found helpful is stuff I already knew in my own language. While reading El Quijote in Spanish is still not something I’d recommend as a first choice even if you’ve read it in English, you may benefit from… Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, or los Cuentos de los Hermanos Grimm, to mention a couple of literary works which you’re probably already familiar with. And hey, the original for Alicia is in English but the Grimms you know are translated from German in any case
Those tapes (Pimsleur, Rosetta, etc.) are cheap enough and OK for a basic introduction. The main issue is that, classes or no classes, you need to put in a consistent effort- is your own pace going to be an hour per day? Two hours? Half an hour? Keep in mind that going from zilch to fluent takes hundreds of class-hours or the equivalent. You also need to practice writing and speaking as much as, if not more than, reading and listening.
As an adult learning a language you will also benefit from formal explanations of grammar, but those are easy enough to find in various textbooks.
By far, Rosetta Stone is the best for learning to speak a language.
It does have limitations. Rosetta Stone doesn’t focus much on grammar or reading a language. You will to read signs abd menus. But a book written in Spanish? Nope.
I studied Spanish with Rosetta Stone. Much later I took a fully accredited college class. I was quite surprised at how little grammar I knew. All those finicky adjustments to Spanish words. I had no clue until I took the class.
Same thing for very formal, polite Spanish vs conversational. Rosetta Stone isn’t much help.
At first, I liked the neat interface and the format, with series of short exercises, made 15 minutes a day a very manageable goal (regularity is essential).
But I soon found it extremely repetitive, with a rather flatish learning curve. The lack of proper grammar lessons and the very limited vocabulary, usually no more than a couple of new words per lesson repeated ad nauseam, was also disappointing. Plus, my native French made learning the vocabulary pretty easy which in turn made the repetitive nature of the exercises all the more annoying : “Lei mangia il pane” = “Elle mange le pain” - OK, I think I get it (especially after 56 occurrances of that very sentence). You’d probably feel differently with another mother tongue, though.
In short, it’s good at very slowly making you recognize and understand sentences, not so much at making you speak.
Do they still advise you, if you want to learn Spanish, to watch Spanish language soap operas? I heard that, although I never tried it.
Apart from that, it’s like the directions on how to get to Carnegie Hall - practice! The only time I was ever even close to fluent in any language other than English was when I spoke German every day. (My grandmother spoke it as her first language, and I had some neighbors who were German.)
I’ve learned several languages to varying degrees of competence in my adult life. It’s a great way to connect with people and a great intellectual challenge.
If I weren’t taking a class but wanted to learn, I’d do a mix of duolingo or Rosetta Stone plus a formal textbook for the grammar. Then I’d recommend listening to the news in your target language. Newsreaders speak clearly, and you’ll have some idea what they are talking about already.
Once you’ve gotten past the basics, though, there is nothing better than talking to real people (native speakers or fluent non natives) face to face. Meetup is a group resource for that. I see at least one fairly active group in the Vegas area.
I had a good friend who learned English in the worst possible way: reading IBM technical manuals.
He was Rumanian and already spoke French and some Russian (required, although he hated it). But his English was his passport out of the country when IBM invited him to a course in England and he just never returned. His English was excellent, by the way.
TV, TV and TV, but without subtitles (or with subtitles in the language you’re learning and in which the audio is) , I knew English by my 13.th year on a C1 level and I learned it 90% through watching American series and shows without subtitles, I of course learned a bit in school, but most of the time I was learning things that I already knew. I don’t live anywhere near a English speaking country and most of my friends speak English much worse than me even now 10 years later when I’m 23, so that kind of says it all on how effective TV can be.
I repeated the same process with Russian (which does share many words with my native one, but still…), I watched several TV series for about 2 or 3 years without subtitles and now I’m able to speak (and do speak) with Russians on any topic out there, I can argue, write complex sentences,etc.
At the moment I’m learning German, I started with Duolingo about 3 weeks ago (an app that teaches you words, some grammar and shows you examples in sentences and has you write or select correct answers out of a few possible ones), in addition to that I am watching German TV (RTL and ZDF) and by doing that I reaffirm the words I learn with duolingo and I also hear some new words that stick with me, so I guess that this (app+tv) is a great method, though I just started doing it.
My class’s motivation was the same from 4th to 12th grade: pass the fucking class. The difference in 9th and 10th was that Micaela’s method was one that stressed understanding over the sheer memorization of every single other teacher. Memory-based students found her irritating; analytical ones loved and still love the hell out of her. If it hadn’t been for her I would never have learned enough English to work or live abroad; I’ve later applied what she taught us to learning several other languages. The best methods and the worse ones vary by student.
They do, and one mistake commonly made by teachers is to assume that what helped them will help others.
Learning a language takes a considerable amount of work. I have many many students who think that one hour a week is going to help them.
What is that oh P and anyone else considering learning a language, I would really recommend asking yourself why do you want to learn. Not to discourage them, but to focus on that. Make sure that it’s enjoyable.
