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Listen the music in the language you want to learn. Watch television or films in that language, Read and write poetry in that language, Go to restaurants of that culture's food, and order in that language. Most importantly, find at least one person that is fluent in that language that you can converse with on a regular basis. You have to basically make language learning enjoyable. Figure out ways to read, write, and speak the language. This will lead to the type of comprehension that leads to fluency.
See if there are Meetups in your area for people who speak your target language, and join in. You need an immersion experience in order to really become fluent... there are so many connotations and nuances that you can't get from a class.
There's a French girl who posts language lessons on YouTube in a lot of different languages. She taught herself for the most part using movies. Her videos have a lot of little skits that she creates to help teach languages, but mostly I think, to help her learn.
It depends on what industry you're in re: languages for global biz prospects. Chinese or Japanese? French, Spanish? German?
1. Let your ears do much of the work for you. Get a book/CD set, and listen to the CD when you're cleaning, driving, etc. Listen, & soak it up.
2. Use your imagination: even with just a couple of chapters of the book behind you, you can imagine situations in which you'd use the vocabulary. Play with it in your mind. Imagine yourself in the relevant country, having a conversation and using the new vocab. You can do this when taking a walk, going to the store, etc.
3. Quiz yourself on vocab by making a list of the vocab you know in the language (one side of a sheet of paper, folded in half), and the English translation on the other half of the paper. Cover one side of the paper and test yourself. Then cover the other side of the paper, and test yourself.
Wow thanks for all the advice guys, surprised no one mentioned rosetta but many of the suggestions given seem like a more natural method.
Its how we all learned languages as children.
I think I'm going to go with French since for certain hobbies and intellectual interests it will be a great boon to me.
If there was a #2 language in terms of being a lingua franca, especially in regards to business & technology, would any of you consider French to fit that bill?
Wow thanks for all the advice guys, surprised no one mentioned rosetta but many of the suggestions given seem like a more natural method.
The suggestion to get a book/CD set included the Rosetta-type approach. There are various options out there, but it's mainly about what you do with the resources you have. Once you buy your course materials, how do you make the most of them? That's what many of these suggestions were aimed at.
Business and technology? Well, English, of course. Much biz and tech vocab from English has made its way into other languages. Again, it depends on what kind of job you want, and whether it would involve providing training and exchanges with other countries, and if so, which countries. You know, a growing trend these days is in providing training to the Near East. Arabic can be useful. Clearly not what you had in mind, but this is one direction in which technology applications are headed. I have a couple of friends who have spent years providing training to Near Eastern and Central Asian universities; one in library tech, the other teaches administering and scoring SAT and related exams.
Wow thanks for all the advice guys, surprised no one mentioned rosetta but many of the suggestions given seem like a more natural method.
Its how we all learned languages as children.
I think I'm going to go with French since for certain hobbies and intellectual interests it will be a great boon to me.
If there was a #2 language in terms of being a lingua franca, especially in regards to business & technology, would any of you consider French to fit that bill?
Hello, I'd just like to get some recommendations for good language learning tools that are out there.
I know English is a very popular language globally but are there other languages that can help one's global business prospects?
Thanks.
You will laugh...but it worked.
When I lived in Germany for three years, we, (those who were also there with me), would watch Sesame Street in German. Sounds silly and yah, there were a lot of hilarious moments when we heard Kermit the Frog speaking in German in a different voice, (for example), but it DID help to learn some of the basics!
Try that. I wonder if YouTube has that kind of stuff....
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) and less expensive than forking over $100 bucks for a rosetta stone.
