Learning a Language

[fastortoise]

honestly, just watch 1 hour of French TV each day.

 

My mom teaches English as a second language in a primary school with an extremely low budget. (the main language being French or any other foreign language)

 

Without proper books or enough teachers, it's pretty hard to teach in the ghetto (East-end Montreal). So one year she asked all her students to watch 1 hour of English television each day, and by grade 6 the kids were bilingual.

 

 

 

So suck it up if you don't like French TV, princess, cause that's the best shot you got to being perfectly bilingual. The Olympics on Radio-Canada (French CBC) is a good place to start (like that other guy posted already). And if you can find a French friend, or one that wants to learn it as much as you do, ALWAYS speak to them in French. Speaking it is also (obviously) very important.

[hohto]

After few learnt languages (around 5-6 depending how do you count the learning, not counting in different dialects) I'd give the following instructions:

 

* Don't study it by learning certain sentences by heart, think why do it go like it does. The better you understand the idea behind the language the better chances you have to actually learn to speak it.

 

* Repeat, repeat and repeat. You have to use the language a lot in order to be able to speak it. Forgetting a once learnt language is easier than learning a new one.

 

* Notice the difference between understanding and creating your own stuff. Just by reading or listening to the language you don't learn to write and speak it.

 

* Once you think you're good at some certain language, think again. There's no such thing as perfection in languages, you can always become better, learn more and understand the meanings behind different structures better.

[dragoonson]

Personally I try to think in the language I'm learning,it worked for English and French,but with Chinese its going no where.I'm getting good at Hokkien because of it too.And Hokkien gua(songs),but yeah,try to think in the language.

 

 

 

I'd recommend listening to songs too,for the grammar,and it makes an interesting way to learn.

[RSBDavid]

I have always wanted to learn any dialect of Chinese. I don't know where to find a guide and my school doesn't offer a course in it.

[dragoonson]

I have always wanted to learn any dialect of Chinese. I don't know where to find a guide and my school doesn't offer a course in it.

 

 

 

I can help.Only in dialect,Chinese itself gives me trouble.Hokkien's my domain,give a PM if you want =P

[ThurinEthir]

I have always wanted to learn any dialect of Chinese. I don't know where to find a guide and my school doesn't offer a course in it.

 

The most helpful dialect will most likely be Mandarin. Still, it's an extremely hard language to learn, if you can even find a way.

 

Which reminds me, I should start learning some Cantonese and Taiwanese. I can't stand it when my parents/relatives speak them and I don't understand a word.

[dragoonson]

Mandarin is what people consider "Chinese",so a dialect of Chinese would exclude that.

 

 

 

If you want to learn Cantonese listen to Ai Pia Jia Eh Yia,Cantonese version.Though it sounds like TeoChew personally.

[warren211]

I really wish my parents had tought me the language they spoke (Urdu) as I was growing up. Bilinguality (is that a word?) would be extremely useful. Instead, they prefered to use it so they could tell eachother things that they didn't want us to know. Now I'm entering high school and am taking Spanish. I would have had Urdu AND Spanish down, but now it's kinda late. Learning two different languages at the same time is hard. Although I've always thought German was a really cool language, and I have a couple books on learning German, maybe I should try it...

 

 

 

My friend has a cousin who's 4 years old. She's already just as fluent in some African language (I think its Swahili or whatever language Ethiopians speak, I'm not sure) as she is in English. She talks in Swahili/whatever language to her mother and in English to her father, who is Indian. It's amazing and will give her a huge advantage in her life. I don't know how you teach a 4 year old another language when they're still trying to master English, but she's pretty fluent and makes me feel bad. You see, I'm the kind of intolerant bastard who only knows how to say "Do you speak English" in several languages because I'm too lazy to learn theirs. I should work on that. It wouldn't be very nice to go to Germany and go "Sprechen sie Inglis" to every person I meet when I need help.

[Deiophobus]

I've set myself a goal of learning Finnish before graduating University. I took a class in it last year, and really liked it. And I managed to visit Finland for a bit too, that was good for learning some new stuff.

[dsavi]

Good luck. I've been working at it for 7 years.

[Deiophobus]

Well then you must not be working very hard :P

[Wisp]

I speak english, and am semi fluent in spanish. After I finish spanish in a few years, I'm going to learn chinese, and if I have time later on, arabic. The best way for me is to just take classes.

[fakeitormakeit]

Do you have any friends or family that speak french? It helps alot to talk with them, T've learned basic Italian from speaking to my grandmother and it made learning it in class aloooooot more easy. I also picked up Arabic from her, which I am now continuing with a personal tutor

 

 

 

OFF-TOPIC ABOUT ARABIC: [hide=]Anyone wanting to learn Arabic and you have no clue about it, there is Nahwe(spelling?) which is the official, but you basically just speak the colloquial versions unless its bussiness, but if you learn one colluquial version its completely different from another; example: if one person were to be speaking Libnani and the other spoke Sudani you wouldn't understand, happened to my grandparents once when they were visiting Lebanon and my grandma thought the person was saying he wanted to vomit on her face until he repeated it to my grandpa who speaks Lebanese Arabic and understood he was asking if they wanted him to paint their room :? .[/hide]

[mrpez]

taking classes is only half the process of learning a new language.

 

 

 

you have to find a way to use it daily and get familiar with it in every-day life.