Waaay OT: Kind of? Languages? Bucket list?

[1happygirl]

Hey fellas and gals . The Paceline is a really smart group of people, so thought I'd ask a couple questions about something I don't think I've every really seen much mention.

Has anyone tried to learn a language lately? Mostly as a hobby, or also if you had to for a specific practical reason like for a job/profession or relocation? (reason I ask I'm sure the vehicles for learning would be much different)

I'm also curious how many of us are multilingual? I'd be really interested to know how many took up languages past the age of 14-18 seriously and what steps you took? A lot of folks say past 14 yrs old yr kaput as far as learning, or rather it's much more difficult.

I said kind of OT but in case I ever decide to bicycle travel to cool locations in other countries or even listen to bicycle race feeds, they would tend to be in languages other than English and I would want to participate in the culture and not just stand around being translated too. So it does relate to bicycles a bit. As my Daddy says 'bout things in general, if you can do it yourself, you should!!!

So how 'bout y'all? Have you learned? I'm trying and it requires a lot more effort than I originally though (and TONS of time).

PS When looking online I was really surprised at the incredible number of learning sites and related materials related to languages.
It seems you don't have to go to a proper university class anymore to become versed in language(s)

[seanile]

i recently tried learning german via duolingo for the sake of opening opportunities to move to the EU (i have dual citizenship with US and ireland), and i found it very difficult to maintain a good work ethic without anyone to practice it with. ultimately i postponed it until i can find a partner who knows the language already and can converse with/educate me.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by 1happygirl

Hey fellas and gals . The Paceline is a really smart group of people, so thought I'd ask a couple questions about something I don't think I've every really seen much mention.

Has anyone tried to learn a language lately? Mostly as a hobby, or also if you had to for a specific practical reason like for a job/profession or relocation? (reason I ask I'm sure the vehicles for learning would be much different)

I'm also curious how many of us are multilingual? I'd be really interested to know how many took up languages past the age of 14-18 seriously and what steps you took? A lot of folks say past 14 yrs old yr kaput as far as learning, or rather it's much more difficult.

I said kind of OT but in case I ever decide to bicycle travel to cool locations in other countries or even listen to bicycle race feeds, they would tend to be in languages other than English and I would want to participate in the culture and not just stand around being translated too. So it does relate to bicycles a bit. As my Daddy says 'bout things in general, if you can do it yourself, you should!!!

So how 'bout y'all? Have you learned? I'm trying and it requires a lot more effort than I originally though (and TONS of time).

PS When looking online I was really surprised at the incredible number of learning sites and related materials related to languages.
It seems you don't have to go to a proper university class anymore to become versed in language(s)

Ho provato più di una volta per imparare colloquiale italiano, con un tutor, uno contro uno, ma io non potevo farlo. Così parlo americano e cattivo american..only.

Babelfish fluent..tried twice..fail.

[1happygirl]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Ho provato più di una volta per imparare colloquiale italiano, con un tutor, uno contro uno, ma io non potevo farlo. Così parlo americano e cattivo american..only.

Babelfish fluent..tried twice..fail.

Hey, OP until that last line you could have gone on letting me think you were brilliant!!
I still think that (I'm apparently dismal at languages)

Well I can't really say that as I haven't really tried learning before but as I said it requires much more thought AND time than I realized. Kudos to people who learned early and often. I'm going to go kick my parents now.

And learning has required me to re learn or rather learn English parts of speech.Who knew I was such a dummy with my own language (not really who teaches possessive/pronoun adjective in school)? Even in college? I asked my friend a linguistics PhD and he said very few ppl would be able to name the things I have been asking about.
Not so stupid feeling now.

[R3awak3n]

The best way to learn a language is really to go live in the country the language is spoken but of course not everyone can do that.

I was born in Portugal and speak fluent Portuguese, moved to the US for the past 11 years and now speak fluent English (some people think I dont have an accent). I also lived in Morocco for a few years and was starting to pick up french and I regret not trying harder (went to an american school insteat of French but I guess that helped me with my english which is more important). I understand French no problem but cannot speak it, here and there.

Arabic is also a language spoken in Morocco but it was impossible to pick up, I knew a few words here and there.

I never tried rosetta stone but I know my wife has and she was into it for like a month and then never touched it again.

[ceolwulf]

I absolutely love learning languages. I started with Japanese around four years ago now. Never really thought it was all that difficult until I started Italian and Dutch a couple months ago and thought I'd activated some kind of cheat mode, it was that easy

Duolingo is a great way to get your feet wet in a new language.

Most commercial learning products are not worth it, especially Rosetta Stone. It's a lot of money to inefficiently learn a small subset of the language that is most likely not going to match your interests.

Read. Read some more. Read massive quantities. It really is the key. And massive amounts of listening too. And it has to be material you're interested in. Watching races on steephill with Italian (or whichever) commentary is going to be learning on turbo boost for most people here but someone with no interest won't get much out of it, for example. If you have the patience for it listening to things multiple times is very helpful (I unfortunately seldom do). Use native materials as soon as you can. Graded readers are very helpful if you can get them; but for most languages graduating to native materials won't (shouldn't) take long. Don't worry too much about grammar. Absorb rather than learn where possible. Grammar explanations can be very helpful - after you've seen the pattern several times and started to have some notion of how it works.

An SRS (Spaced Repetition System) program will help you tremendously until you get to quite an advanced level. I recommend Anki - www.ankisrs.net .

You will find the material at http://antimoon.com very helpful.

Once you're ready to practise your writing and speaking (this is not something you should be doing immediately, in my opinion. There's definitely two schools of thought on this. Speaking right away will help you get to a reasonable level faster. But without exceptional self-awareness you will probably acquire bad habits that you will never be able to shake.) you can use http://lang-8.com to find native speakers that will read your posts and correct them, and in return you correct theirs. It's a good system. It's also a good place to find native speakers for Skype language exchanges.

Your first foreign language is the hardest. If you can stick with it for six months you have it made, I'd say.

As you can tell I love talking about this stuff so ask away either here or PM

[Gsinill]

I grew up in Germany in the 70s and 80s, so learning at least one other language was mandatory. I say at least because it depended on what route you chose in HS.
Back then English was the first one they taught (5th grade) and when I got to 7th, I chose French as the 2nd one which I actually matured in.

Had a friend that lived in Italy and visiting him introduced me to a totally different country compared to the tourist trap locations we went to as kids with my parents (i.e. Adriatic coast).
Fell in love with the country and the language and decided to learn Italiano.
I took classes at a community college 2x week after work for a year.
The teacher was fantastic (Italian lady from Perugia) but she mentioned from the beginning that there is no way to become really good without spending time in the country.
Did the basics at the community college and then took off 6 weeks from work the next year to take a class in Florence, 8h a day, 5 days a week.
Lived with an Italian family to force myself to speak Italian after school AND best of all, they had a 6 year old boy that was brutal in correcting me.
At the end and many more 4 week vacations and some project work in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, I would say I came very close to being fluent.

I have to admit though that knowing French was a huge advantage.
This was about 20 years ago so a lot of it is lost (actually, I think it's more dormant).

I tried a refresher via Rosetta Stone and Duolingo a few years ago but had the same issue Senile mentioned: too dry and not enough real life interaction to keep me going.
Also, initially my goal was to live and work in Italy in the near future, that really added to the motivation, now without that perspective, it seems to be much harder to get motivated...
If I were you, I would still pursue the CC route; try to find one with a teacher native to the country the language you are trying to learn.
I was in a fairly stressful job back then and most of my colleagues thought I was crazy to add more to my schedule but since I was in IT, learning Italian was actually rather refreshing, almost like left brain vs. right brain.

You might not get perfect/fluent but I think it's a good start...

Good Luck!

Ps. Yes, 4 and 6 week vacations are one of the benefits of living and working in what many folks in the US would call a "socialist" country

[MadRocketSci]

Here's my strategy...i travel very frequently these days to different European countries for work. Every time I go somewhere for the first time, i order the intro Pimsleur set of CD's (yeah still the CD's cuz my car only has a cd player and no aux jack). Since they want you to go on to buying the rest of the program, the intro set is given a teaser price of $20. I learn that stuff so I have the basics needed to travel and don't go to the full set.

Next step, I download all the google translate language dictionaries into my phone so I don't have to worry about poor wireless access. When I need to say something, I'll type it into the google translate app and practice saying it a few times. Then I'll use it. It will be grammatically suspect but you'll get the point across, just like a foreign person asking a question in broken english will usually work. The app will save all the things you've asked to translate, so you can spend time reviewing and reinforcing these phrases at your leisure. So eventually you have a good database of how to convey things that you've needed to convey at least once.

Third, to get a better feel for pronounciation, grammar, and building vocabulary, watch movies with subtitles. Surprisingly, this is how I'm told that non-native english speakers drastically improve their school-taught english.

Fourth, fill in the gaps with english. Because the professional world communicates in english. But any effort you put in to speak in the native tongue of the country you're in is greatly appreciated with bravos and superbs and wunderbars.

But to get really good, you'll have to immerse yourself, ideally in the country itself.

[unterhausen]

I keep trying to learn French so I can ride PBP more easily. Some things I still remember from 4 years ago, but it's tough for me.

My son, on the other hand, learned French mostly from reading posts on Answer.com

He's also about 1/10th of the way into reading a 1200 page book in Spanish.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by R3awak3n

The best way to learn a language is really to go live in the country the language is spoken but of course not everyone can do that...

I heartily agree. I was part of the first generation in Canada who were supposed to be bilingual--compulsory French in High School, but it was a bit of a bust as far as speaking. Since there was no opportunity for conversation, I "learned" the language--grammar, verb tenses etc--but had limited conversational chops, as I found out once I was trying to do business in Quebec.

(Later I did get better at reading French, but that is another story...)

Flash forward a lot of years--I was the 'trailing spouse' when my wife took a job in Germany--and the only perk for me (aside from a car) was free language lessons, and I took full advantage of them, riding my bike over to the next town and having a lesson nearly every day.

I had such a block--fully convinced that an adult learner could not get inside a language. and yet within a few months I could make myself understood, and by the time we left Germany (2 years) I could converse pretty well.

What my (brilliant) teacher did was force me to learn the language the way a child would--drills for simple stuff (counting, time-telling,etc), trips to the market, cooking with her in her kitchen, interaction in cafes, etc. Only later did she help formalize what I had picked up, just as a child would get drilled in grade school.

The next step is to read (& write), as ceolwulf says--so it was reading kid stories and trying to write eBay ads to sell on German eBay that my teacher would help me with. It was so cool to "know" a word from a phrase and sound and then have that kid-like recognition "Oh, that's how it's spelled!"

So yes--(oldish) adult learners can learn a language--but a good teacher and immersion really help.

[Louis]

I cheated and grew up speaking three languages at the same time (English, French, and Creole) but if I were truly motivated to learn another language today I'd try to find someplace offering it via the Rassias method. I don't know how widespread it is, but it works well and students love it.

http://www.adfl.org/bulletin/V12N4/124023.HTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSyrBKrTG2Y

[gomango]

I married a Bavarian.

She taught me a little Bayerisch and a whole bunch of Hoch Deutsch.

Seemed to be a good method.

[dustyrider]

Whatever language I try to speak, native peoples appreciate the thought and immediately communicate with me in whatever English they have. The French and German seem very particular about their language.

I firmly believe the act of trying breaks down the language barrier and puts everyone on the same page, so I continue to try. I have the hardest time with the gender differences in some languages. I often times use the femine form instead of the masclulin form. Being a man this disability makes for an immediate smile in most cases!

Really the only way I'll learn to speak another language is if I have to...which means total and complete immersion.

Reading is an entirely different thing, and I've successfully done this many times. Loads of effort but doable.

[exapkib]

Absolutely. I teach a difficult language (the most difficult group for native English speakers--category IV (no that really is how we rate languages--not just climbs!)) at a large university in the US.

I tell my students that the key to language learning is to have the end in mind--we learn languages so that we can connect with other people.

Anything you can do to create those connections in your life will increase the rate of learning and the motivation to continue studying.

Technology has changed my profession so profoundly--a big part of what we do in our first and second year curricula involves steering students toward online tools (youtube, music services, online newspapers and magazines) and training them to use these materials effectively in their quest to learn a language.

We also require all of our students to spend at least one semester 'in country,' and have moved all of our third-year courses to our study abroad program. Nothing can take the place of making your experiences with the language 'real,' though there are now many ways to approach this before you are able to travel.

[numbskull]

Going to Italy this fall. I bought Living Language Italian off Amazon. Small money. Seems pretty good (6 discs, website extra, 3 books beginning, intermediate, advanced) although I'm just starting it.