Posted on 12/02/2018 1:28:11 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
If you want to learn another language, one good way is to listen to music in a foreign language.
I did that with Polish and it’s helped me a lot.
listen to music in a foreign language.
Obviously. Toddlers do it all the time.
I can’t. My brain works more on calculation (algebra) than on rote memory (geometry). Things can be figured out, but foreign words are not usually ‘linkable.’
Then we spent three years in Japan, studied Japanese and used it frequently (including avoiding hotels and staying in traditional Japanese inns out in the boondocks, where no one spoke English).
But, when we returned to the States, switching back to Spanish -- even tasks as simple as offering an old, tottering Señora a seat on the bus -- was embarrassingly difficult, without starting in Japanese ...and translating myself into Spanish...
Weird brain, I guess...
TXnMA
Young minds are very fertile ground for learning languages. If they don’t keep up with it, though, they lose it. I have friends who were bilingual as young kids, growing up in mixed-culture households; but they lost it.
Great way for an adult to learn language is to teach it to 3-6 year old children. They’ll remind you what you forget.
Studying Latin is very helpful for becoming proficient in English.
In my experience with learning three romance languages, they need to be dissimilar. Otherwise, the stronger of the most similar ones will tend to “erase” the weaker one.
With French, I’ve gotten pretty good and speaking and reading it.
But for the life of me, I cannot pick it up when someone is speaking it. Especially now since French use a lot of slang, not to mention their silly habit of using “Verlan” to reverse words, like “Cimer” for “Merci”.
I learned PHP and Perl at the same time
I pretty much learned Java and C# at the same time.
I would like to be fluent on sight reading with violin and piano. But I think I need 10,000 hours for each.
If you’ve got French and Spanish, try Italian. It’s fairly easy to pick up with the Spanish background. Or the reverse can work too. Portuguese can be read, perhaps not spoken, with the Italian and Spanish to rely on. They’re all Romance languages after all.
The younger you are, the easier it is.
Dear God, don’t say that. It makes it worse. It’s habits of thinking that make it “harder.” Sure memory is quicker when young, because our thihking has become so selective and habitual. But do give it an intensive 10 years and you should be more eloquent than a 10 year old.
optimum consilium!
I encouraged all 3 of my kids to take Latin in HS because it helped with their English and also helped them with thinking skills.
I have similar goals tho not as broad as yours :) I took French from grade 6 or 7 through Junior year of College...I understand a lot of Spanish, but would like to learn more.
So how do you like Duolingo? I am assuming you like it if you have stuck with it.
Testimonial/thoughts would be appreciated!
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