Yah.. for once i have a more serious thread.
So here's the story...
I decided today (on a bit of a whim but I have enough motivation to stick with it) that I'm gonna learn spanish. So I signed up with a few friends to take some nightschool course the city is putting on free (and I guess you can get highschool credit for it). Now, at this point I speak no language other than English. Being from Canada, you might think I'd be fluent in french.. but I hardly know a word. Anyways... what I'm looking for is reasonable advice (something that works, not random opinion) on a good method to learning a new language. I want to be fairly fluent in the next year as I may move down to Mexico for a few months around then.
Originally posted by ih8sensque?
Yah.. for once i have a more serious thread.
So here's the story...
I decided today (on a bit of a whim but I have enough motivation to stick with it) that I'm gonna learn spanish. So I signed up with a few friends to take some nightschool course the city is putting on free (and I guess you can get highschool credit for it). Now, at this point I spe ...[text shortened]... be fairly fluent in the next year as I may move down to Mexico for a few months around then.
Yah. por una vez yo tengo un hilo más grave.
Así que aquí está la historia...
Decidí hoy (en un poco de un capricho pero tengo suficiente motivo para atascar consigo) que soy gonna aprende español. Así que yo me inscribo con unos pocos amigos para tomar algún curso de nightschool que la ciudad pone libre (y adivino que usted puede conseguir el crédito de highschool para ello). Ahora, en este punto yo no hablo idioma de otra manera que inglés. Es de Canadá, usted quizás piense que dominaría bien el francés.. pero yo apenas sé una palabra. De todos modos... lo que busco es el consejo razonable (algo que trabaja, la opinión no aleatoria) en un método bueno a aprender un nuevo idioma. Quiero ser bastante con soltura en el el año próximo como yo puedo bajar a México por unos pocos meses alrededor de entonces.
hehe www.freetranslation.com ... fairly accurate? I don't have a clue.. any bilinguals that know?
Originally posted by ih8sensSpanish? I think you should learn British instead.
Yah.. for once i have a more serious thread.
So here's the story...
I decided today (on a bit of a whim but I have enough motivation to stick with it) that I'm gonna learn spanish. So I signed up with a few friends to take some nightschool course the city is putting on free (and I guess you can get highschool credit for it). Now, at this point I spe ...[text shortened]... be fairly fluent in the next year as I may move down to Mexico for a few months around then.
Originally posted by ih8sensthe first foreign language is always the hardest, because you don't really see the common patterns in different languages. after a couple it becomes fairly mechanic, you first learn the basic stuff, then the few weird differences the language in question has compared to others, and the rest is just booking up on vocabulary and practice, practice, practice.
Yah.. for once i have a more serious thread.
So here's the story...
I decided today (on a bit of a whim but I have enough motivation to stick with it) that I'm gonna learn spanish. So I signed up with a few friends to take some nightschool course the city is putting on free (and I guess you can get highschool credit for it). Now, at this point I spe be fairly fluent in the next year as I may move down to Mexico for a few months around then.
this is how I would tackle a new language:
1) memorize basic personal pronouns
2) learn the few basic verbs in present tense, like: to be, to have, to give, go vs come, see vs look, talk vs hear, love, hate, drink, eat. 'to know' is an important one as well.
3) nouns, practical ones just so that you can construct the very basic type of sentences, like "I have a car", "I like beer" just something to get you going. articles go here as well if applicable to the specific language. learn to count to ten or so while your at it.
4) adjectives. good, bad, colors, old, yound, hot, cold, long, short, big, small, you get the idea. the adverbs 'well' and 'badly' might be appropriate at this point as well, just to point out the difference betweem 'well' and 'good' for example. a lot of things like these are something you might've never thought about in your native tongue, so you'll realize quite a lot about your own language along the way as well.
5) basic question words: what, why, when, where, how, how much.
6) this, that, here, there.
that should cover the basic building blocks on just about any language, and you can memorize these in just a couple of hours. you'll forget most of it over night, so do a quick repetition every day until you have them down cold. (and that's the thing with languages really, you need to know everything by heart, eventually.)
then you just start reading simple texts, looking up things you don't know or remember. if you have a beginners book of some kind, make sure you memorize the vocabulary and understand all of the text always. this will build up your passive knowledge of the language, the understanding of the language (which will allways greatly surpass your ability to produce it).
the other side of the coin is to actually produce text & speech, and nothing in the world but actually doing that will make you better at it. so speak the laguage as much as you can, and write as well. it doesn't matter that you'll be speaking like hulk at first ("hulk like carrot juice, hulk is tree hugger"😉, it'll all smooth itself out the more you actually speak & write.
tackle the more advanced grammar as you run into it, and remember that even though the things feel complicated or counterintuitive at first, all of the things are easy enough for a child to learn in reality. all of the things will ultimately reveal themselves to be no-brainers, because that's simply how languages work.
then it's just practice, practice, practice, and slow but steady your skill will improve. you just need to keep at it, and try not to get into the habit of having long breaks. it's just like practicing tactics in chess, jst a little every day will get you a long way.
don't worry about making errors, that'll only slow down your improvement.
Originally posted by wormwoodYep, this is the main thing, in my opinion, especially if you're mainly interested in speaking.
don't worry about making errors, that'll only slow down your improvement.
I know some people who have great written skills but tend to block when talking, out of fear of making mistakes. Errors are opportunities to improve.