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nik- · 03-08-2014, 10:44 PM

There was a thread the other day about learning french and moved to discussion about Duolingo and such. I figured maybe a thread about learning languages, a place for people learning the same language to chat about victories and failures, and hopefully a place for native speakers of languages to weigh in would be helpful.

I'm currently attempting to learn Spanish and am using the following resources to get a tapestry and not just memorization of the "course" material:

Duolingo
Michel Thomas method
Memrise for vocabulary and some grammatical (I find the actually teaching of this pretty weak, it's basically flash cards with no explanation)
Babbel Spain for vocabulary and pronunciation.

Anyone else learning a language and want to weigh in on their experiences?

OffsideSpecialist · 03-08-2014, 11:23 PM

Good idea! I went to Germany and several other countries last summer, and I have to say that I found German surprisingly easy to learn. Over a couple months of practicing (using primarily Duolingo) before the trip, I found I had about a good of a grasp on German as I had after learning French through school for 9 years. Of course, in the situations where I'm faced with in Canada speaking with francophones, most of them can easily tell quickly that I am English right away and will start speaking English for me. On the other hand, in Germany I kind of forced myself to speak German and liked it that way. I found German very easy to learn and have heard that it is quite easy for English speakers to learn.

Other than that, I visited Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and found the languages in those countries much, MUCH more difficult to get a hold of. I managed at a minimum to say hello, please and thank you in each one of the languages and that went well for me.

Within the next year, I plan to venture to Hong Kong and Southeast Asia and will be interested in learning a bit of the local languages there before I go.

nik- · 03-08-2014, 11:50 PM

Did you hit any walls with Duolingo where you felt that that you weren't really learning and were just starting to remember the questions?

I'm about halfway through the tree on a 31 day streak and it definitely feels like I'm not retaining like I should be. Did you often go back to review certain lessons or did you just do strengthen skills?

OffsideSpecialist · 03-08-2014, 11:55 PM

Yeah, it did feel like I hit a wall a couple of times. I definitely learned quickly that it was too tough to just plow through all the lessons, so at one point I did learn frequently go back and redo some of the lessons to regain some of the language that I had forgotten, and using the "strengthen skills" was a good way to tell what I was strong at and what was lacking.

It's worth mentioning that I had gotten decently far in both French and German but had not completed the program nor have I looked at it since I took my trip. Could be worth trying it out again just to keep up.

missdpuck · 03-09-2014, 04:28 AM

I signed up for a couple of free Russian courses on udemy.com but haven't gotten into them yet.

Just posting it now in case others are interested

JonDuke · 03-09-2014, 08:16 AM

I downloaded duoLingo a week ago and still haven't en tried it. Excited to give it a shot though.

worth · 03-09-2014, 04:39 PM

When I went to Egypt in 2010 I decided to lean some Arabic before I went. I used Pimsleur's Egyptian Arabic cd's and got to about lesson 18 or so. It helped a lot, and a lot of locals thought it was great that I could speak some of their language.

In 2012 I went to Europe and really did not study anything, and I felt pretty stupid. I really didn't find anything easy to pick up, although I did not spend much time in any of these places. I was only in Europe for a total of 3 weeks.

I really want to learn French, and I did not retain any French from school. I tried Assimil french program and found that it was not working for me at all, so I quit that.

I am leaving for China on April 1 and I have gone back to the Pimsleur's program for Mandarin. All it is is memorization, so I don't think that is particularly the best way to learn a language, but it helps.

I'm planning on going to central Asia, so I am going to be studying Russian along the way and may even stop in for Russian classes when I am in Kyrgyzstan.

I think one of my problems is I need to focus on one language. I think my other problem is studying consistently.

When I get back from my year long travels, I do plan to sit down and once and for all learn French to the best of my ability.

prarieboy · 03-09-2014, 06:43 PM

You can learn Spanish on this website.

http://www.spanishdict.com/learn

J pold · 03-09-2014, 09:10 PM

Great thread idea, I am trying to learn Spanish as well. I'm taking an official course at the U of C and using DuoLingo.

nik- · 03-09-2014, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J pold

Great thread idea, I am trying to learn Spanish as well. I'm taking an official course at the U of C and using DuoLingo.

http://studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm

This might help, it does a good job of simply explaining grammar. There's a paywall for most of it, but there's enough free content there to really help. Object pronouns in Spanish sort of blew my brain apart until I read this site.

sun · 03-27-2014, 11:46 PM

Started learning French since I have tentative plans to spend a year in France starting this summer.

Using duolingo (11 day streak) and Pimsleur. Like Pimsleur a lot. Hated rosetta stone.

Liked this blog post on language learning. Might start skyping with French speakers soon.

tkflames · 03-28-2014, 05:18 AM

I am learning Spanish at the moment. Based on my experience to date (3 months) I would recommend:

The Michael Thomas method first. This is a very valuable tool for being able to say a lot of important things very quickly. Even if you have never practiced the language before, you can probably start at the intermediate level. It is important to repeat the cd's/lessons after a week or so to make sure you were able to retain most of it. The biggest disadvantage to this method (I found), is that it gives you very little in the way of vocabulary. You do get a lot of really good information on how to translate a lot of words from English to Spanish and it gives you all of the ground rules for verb conjugation which is basically the fundamental building block to saying and understanding sentences. (He was able to teach me about Spanish, in about 7 hours, what middle/high school French could not in 6 years).

Rosetta Stone: I have found this to be a helpful follow up to the Michel Thomas method. I find Rosetta stone is very focused on Vocabulary and helps you get a thorough understanding of the language. However, it takes a lot of effort to get to the point where you are saying meaningful sentences. Also, by having taken the Michel Thomas method first, I have found that when I do learn a complete sentence in Rosetta stone, I can easily conjugate this for: past tense, present tense, -ing tense, would do tense, will do tense, future tense, going to tense...etc.

nik- · 03-28-2014, 04:24 PM

My spanish progress has totally stalled. I still do a bit of practice every day, but I feel Duolingo is just throwing words at me at this point. I need to find spanish people and just throw myself into the deep end.

J pold · 12-31-2015, 01:10 PM

Obligatory New Years bump. Still working at Spanish but like nik- have stalled.

Does anyone have any experience with a tutor in Calgary? I would really like to actually speak with someone and a scheduled lessons as well as the financial commitment would keep me accountable.

nik- · 12-31-2015, 01:12 PM

I actually ended up going to Spain in Sept of 2014 and I did pretty well after the initial shock of "oh damn, my spanish is not good". Was conversational, made jokes with people, did ok.

... however, since then, zero practice, it's pretty much all gone. I've been thinking about starting up again, maybe this thread getting bumped is a sign.

rubecube · 12-31-2015, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nik-

I actually ended up going to Spain in Sept of 2014 and I did pretty well after the initial shock of "oh damn, my spanish is not good". Was conversational, made jokes with people, did ok.

... however, since then, zero practice, it's pretty much all gone. I've been thinking about starting up again, maybe this thread getting bumped is a sign.

I don't know what it is, but I can barely catch what people are saying if I watch a movie in Spanish. It's not just that I don't know the words, I legitimately can't make out which words they're using. However, when in Spain or Mexico, and speaking with someone, it seems to be much easier. Not sure why.

nik- · 12-31-2015, 01:43 PM

Well for one it's easier to see their mouth moving which I find helps a lot. Second, in person they likely recognize you're not a native spanish speaker and probably tone it down. The language just flows too well and is spoken so fast that understanding a native speaker really is the hardest part. Especially if there's any sort of accent.

In person, some of the Spain accents were murder.

rubecube · 12-31-2015, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nik-

Well for one it's easier to see their mouth moving which I find helps a lot. Second, in person they likely recognize you're not a native spanish speaker and probably tone it down. The language just flows too well and is spoken so fast that understanding a native speaker really is the hardest part. Especially if there's any sort of accent.

In person, some of the Spain accents were murder.

Yeah, I've definitely found I can understand Latinos better than Spaniards.

rubecube · 12-31-2015, 01:46 PM

Although, one of the funniest things about going to Spain is heading to Barcelona and having the Catalans glare at you when you try your Spanish on them.

nik- · 12-31-2015, 01:47 PM

It feels like Spaniard speak spanish further back in the mouth ... if that makes any sense. It's hard to get across what I mean.

Also, in some parts of Andalucia they'll drop the s sound on the end of words. Gracia instead of Gracias (which is already a th sound instead of a c in the middle) Die instead of diez (like deeyay) ... this shattered my ####ing brain.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rubecube

Although, one of the funniest things about going to Spain is heading to Barcelona and having the Catalans glare at you when you try your Spanish on them.

I found Catalan exceedingly rare in Barca except for the signage and at the Barcelona game, since I was apparently sitting in the one pocket of members in a sea of tourists. The whole Catalan thing (and the whole independence thing in general) came off very Quebecer to me.