The art of learning a new language

[Spirits Away]

If you're either bilingual or multilingual and are fluent, I'm sure you got some insight as to how this art works.

 

Question: Aside from going to the country, what is the best way to learn a language from zero to fluent within one year.

[QTpie87]

being around people who speak it. that's the easiest and fastest way to learn any language. You don't have to go to another country to do that either, just find people near you. at work, at places that help people when they move to this country, im sure they could speak it.

yeah my friend is about to move to mexico in a few months with some people that are his same religioun but speak spanish so he can learn. I think it's a waste to move though, just find people near you.

good luck.

Qtpie87

[otrebla]

Hi,

First, learn the very basics,

Second, Start listening to music in that language, try to understand the lyrics and when you're tired of it, get the lyrics and read them.

Third, start chatting online!, it's one of the best things you could do.

Fourth, Read a lot of books and magazines in your chosen language.

This is my advice, you can learn it fast and funny, wasting almost no money.

Always carry a dictionary, and, I haven't tried myself, but voice chatting might help you.

 

Cheers

[Spirits Away]

- basics, trying constantly to add to your vocabulary by reading books in the language, watching movies

- you have to learn to think in that language

- being around people who speak it

- Start listening to music in that language, try to understand the lyrics and when you're tired of it, get the lyrics and read them

 

I'm surprised that this question attracted so many intelligent people who got real insights. Thank you for the responses. I'll definitely try the advices one by one. By the way, melewen, how would you study if you were to execute your advice. "learn to think in that language". I got the same advice from really old langauge teachers as well. What is your way?

 

As for which language i'm learning: I'm planning to improve japanese and start on korean and philippine for career purposes. So i need to maximize the use of quality time in order to seriously achieve it, hopefully within 3 years. Anyone got anymore insight, please don't hesitate to bring it up.

 

I'm thinking maybe by reading some linguistic books may help facilitate language learning, but I'm not sure. Does anyone know?

[Guarana Galrok]

I've been teaching myself japanese for some time now. If you're going to read it, make sure you get japanese words in english text so you can understand it, unless you plan on learning the symbols. As far as thinking in the language, try counting it. Get it so that you do not translate it to english numbers, but that each word represents the same numeric point in your mind. I hope that makes sense and good luck.

[ian]

Yeah.

If you learn verbs first of all it becomes incredibly easy to learn a language such as French.

Some other languages are quite a bit harder.

With French the accent used doesn't effect you that much.

With Russian you need to understand stresses and what not

[darkblue]

I have studied French for 5 years and italian for 3..

 

I know more and speak better Italian.

 

This is simply because I like Italian.

 

Make sure you grasp the basics of the language and fully understand and can use them..

 

Verbs etc

 

This will make future learning all the more easier.

 

Good Luck 'n Keep Practising