[Advice]- Wanting to learn a new language

TheTerrorSquad · 2015-07-05T19:07:38+00:00

When I was young I travelled extensively. I never set out to learn a language but the one that I did pick up was the one that needed to. I mostly learned the language based around food stuff. It was a necessity as I loved cooking and wanted to learn how to cook that cuisine. My point is if you love WHY you're learning as opposed to WHAT you're learning you'll find it easy peasy

SouthernPetite · 2015-07-05T20:21:53+00:00

I know Russian, French, and Hebrew.

If it's not for job purposes, I recommend French and German. They, along with English, will enable you to get by pretty much anywhere in Europe.

frozen_strawberry · 2015-07-05T19:22:40+00:00

seconding the travel advice. you'd be surprised how fast you can learn to speak a language if you don't have a choice but to learn it. when i first came to the states as an exchange student i had some basic english skills from school and i could communicate alright but nowhere near fluent enough. after three months i even started dreaming in english (which was pretty weird at first). if you cant travel for whatever reason i suggest you pick a language and then start watching tv shows/youtube videos, listening to music and most importantly talking to people who speak that language as often as you possibly can.

i think every language is beneficial in some way but i guess if you're just looking for a practical one to know (which i dont advise you to) then spanish i a good one to learn.

jade_cat · 2015-07-05T22:39:13+00:00

I was just wondering, what other languages do you ladies know?

I'm a native French (Canadian variety) speaker (If you need someone to help you in French, I'd be glad to help). I also speak fluent English, basic German, some words of Russian and some words of Mandarin Chinese.

Is there one you feel is more beneficial to learn than the others?

It depends on many things. In which country do you live ? If there is more than one official language, you could learn the other one you don't know. Also, do you intend to travel ? If so, where ? Also, would the foreign language be used for your future job ?

The advice about travelling given by others is very good. However, if you can't travel, I would also suggest to look for a community in your city that speaks the language you want to learn. When I was learning Mandarin Chinese I went to Chinatown and practiced the sentences I learned. People were very excited to help me practice :)

I would also advise you to learn these words/sentences in as many languages as you can :

Hello
Sorry
Thank you
Goodbye
I'm sorry, I don't speak [language name]

ladieaupair · 2015-07-05T23:11:22+00:00

I read and write in Russian - I have translated a lot of firearms-related materials for my dad. It's a handy skill to have.

More and more I'm finding though that I should have put a lot more effort into my Spanish skills - I took 4 years of it in school and was nearly fluent, but disuse after school left my skills incredibly rusty and I have found that it's a VERY valuable skill to have anymore.

I started learning French on Duolingo but I didn't find the format to work for me; I would definitely love to learn French as it's a beautiful language that's handy to know in Europe and Canada, both which are places we plan to do more traveling.

memoryofpetals · 2015-07-06T06:47:20+00:00

I think this is a really lovely idea. It sounds like you are more interested in improving in your current job rather than actually going overseas as an expat. Since your hotel doesn't have one nationality more than others, I'd see what cultures and places you're really interested in. Could you ask your current boss for their opinion?

I speak Chinese and studied Japanese for my undergrad language focus. I lived in Asia, but then I married a man from Eastern Europe.

Language learning can help you discipline yourself and it might also lead to friendships with more feminine international women. This is why I mention the culture - once you study the language, you start making friends, eating foods and doing all sorts of new things even if you don't actually go to that country. Finally, I'd set a personal goal of passing a low-level proficiency test, which you should be able to do at a nearby university.

For online lessons, I like the 'pod' series, such as JapanesePod101.

itsnadya101 · 2015-07-06T08:29:24+00:00

I'm nearly fluent in french and pretty good at Italian because I've taken it and have friends who speak the languages in hs and college.

I wanna learn German and maybe Russian. Or turkish because I have a bit of family from there.

French has helped me with cooking certain recipes and a lot of people near me speak French.

At one point, I thought about moving to Germany. I just really like learning about german culture. Not sure if I'm going to end up moving though. Might stick to the US even though things aren't exactly perfect over here.

PremiumGoose · 2015-07-06T08:50:22+00:00

For Japanese I use japanesepod101.com

I think it's free for a week then basic access is a few dollars. I've found it to be more than worth it as they have all different levels of understanding and beginner/newbie lessons taught by different people so you can find teachers you prefer. They also have a podcast which I listen to on the bus. I've been using them for a few months now and feel pretty confidant in my japanese and they other month when I was in the Narita airport I finally put it to use!

justanotherusername4 · 2015-07-06T16:48:22+00:00

Call it synchronicity but I've just come across this post today by Tim Ferriss. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/01/20/learning-language/ Also great content on youtube of this gent (author of 4 hour workweek, among other books).

MrsLabRat · 2015-07-12T10:31:37+00:00

I know German and some Spanish. Working on Turkish (relocating/talking to in-laws).

My main suggestion is to NOT use Rosetta Stone for non-romance languages. There was an AMA a few years ago where someone from the company mentioned it being less effective for those languages and I've found it to be true personally having used trial versions of a few languages.

Sawagurumi · 2015-07-14T22:20:04+00:00

Japanese. For courses, I think Assimil are the best (by some distance). There are two courses for Japanese, and they are good. Get the version with CD for pronunciation. You also need to learn three script systems. Hiragana and Katakana are not difficult, but Kanji is a real mountain to climb. Best approach is Heisig's 'Remembering the Kanji' (three volumes, of which 1 and 3 are most essential).

For other languages (because I don't think it works so well for writing systems like Japanese), if you want a lot of progress over a relatively short period of time, look into the Listen-Read system.

Let's say you are learning, or improving, your French. You need text, preferably novel length, in French, and a translation in English of the same novel. This should be a fairly close translation, so you can line up paragraphs. Ideally, this is organised as a two-column document, with french in one column and English in the other, paragraphs matched up. You also need an audio recording of this novel in French by a native speaker. It should be a novel you enjoy.

Here are the steps.

One. Read the novel in English. The idea is that you are already familiar with the story, so you have lots of context. Personally, I read one chapter at a time. If you already know the story well you can skip this step.

Two. Read the French while listening to the (French) audio. This is because when you first encounter a new language, it often seems a torrent of sound. You don't know where the words begin and end, it is just a continuous stream of syllables. By reading the words (even though you don't know the meaning) while listening, you get a sense of what constitutes words. If you have no difficulty breaking up the stream of speech into words, you can skip this step.

Three. This is where the real learning begins. You read the English text while listening to the French audio. Since you can read faster than speech, it means you can skip around to compensate for different word order, and you can scan a sentence to get the meaning before the audio covers it. In short, it gives you massive comprehensible input (Krashen). At first you only pick out odd words, but as you go along you get more and more of the sentence. This is like you naturally pick up language, in that you understand the context, and match up unknown words with meaning based on that context.

Repeat this 3 to 5 times. By the end of that time, you should be understanding almost all of the audio. THis is best done immersively. That is, dedicate maybe 8-10 hours in a day, and do it several days in a row until you complete the book. You are just flooding your brain with the new language. The amount of grammar and vocubulary in a novel is far beyond what is included in a course.

Four. Having repeated step 3 3-5 times, you have made good progress on listening and comprehending, so now you work on speaking. This is done by what Prof Arguelles calls 'shadowing'. You read the French text (out loud) while listening to the audio. Try to read synchronously with the audio. Try to copy the stress pattern, accent, intonation, etc, of the native speaker in the recording. Your mouth has to get used to making these unusual sounds.

Five. You have listened, read, and spoken. Finally, you train yourself to write. You go through the novel again, covering up the French side of the page. Read the paragraph in English, and in a notebook write out the translation. After each paragraph, uncover the French and compare, correcting any mispelling or bad grammar.

Resources: I make my own from disparate resources generally. eg I have put together L'affaire Lerouge by Emile Gaboriau, and I have Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert. Materials for Flaubert came from https://archive.org/details/Salammbo. Lots of good ones are at http://www.audiocite.net there is also http://www.farkastranslations.com/bilingual_books.php and http://www.litteratureaudio.com

You can find translations of Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock homes, Three Men in a Boat, Agatha Christie and many others for free. Commercially there are lots too (eg Harry Potter has been translated into many languages).

Title	[Advice]- Wanting to learn a new language
Author	WifeyGoals
Upvotes	4
Comments	33
Date	July 5, 2015 5:57 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWomen
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/3c7pq6/advice_wanting_to_learn_a_new_language/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWomen/advice-wanting-to-learn-a-new-language.85473 https://theredarchive.com/post/85473

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