Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4241 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian
| Message 1 of 4 06 April 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
Hello from the United States!
I've studied quite a few languages in the past, but I never really got fluent in any of them. I suppose the closest one that I've got to was German, which I took for six years in high school.
The other languages that I took were 1 year of Russian (which I'll probably pick up in a while, as my uncle married a Russian), 3 semesters of Spanish in college, and 3 semesters of Italian that I took when I lived in Italy for three years.
I've also dabbled in French, Arabic, Chinese, and New Testament Greek, but I doubt that I could "get by" having to use any of these languages if I had to.
Right now, I'm studying Mexican Spanish. I'm going there in May, so I have an incentive to speak it as well as possible before I go. While I know that they speak English in the tourist areas, it's still a good time to practice.
My biggest problem has always been going from having a basic knowledge of a language and being able to do basic transactions like going out to eat or buying a bus ticket to having a fluency where you can actually talk to real people, read newspapers and magazines, or watch television and understand most of what they're saying. It looks like many of you have been able to get over that hurdle; hopefully being here will help.
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DollyGarland Bilingual Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4246 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 2 of 4 13 April 2013 at 9:56pm | IP Logged |
Hi Lorren,
From one language dabbler to another, nice to meet you. At least you sound like you've
quite a bit of experience in studying languages, and understanding the basics, even if
you don't speak them fluently yet.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4999 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 3 of 4 14 April 2013 at 4:04pm | IP Logged |
Welcome!
Good luck with your Spanish.
A lot of the space in between the basics and being fluent lies in taking the leap from
basic textbooks and finding the path for yourself. COvering all the usual grammar,
learning more vocabulary, diving into native books and movies and so on. One of the best
examples of such progress is emk's log. A history of how he got to B2 French, very
inspiring no matter what language does the reader learn.
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5252 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 4 of 4 14 April 2013 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
Welcome to the forum, Lorren. I second Cavesa's recommendation of emk's log- French: Wandering towards C1. It is the best guide on this forum to how to go beyond beginner status. His advice can be applied to almost any western language.
Hope you'll find the inspiration and information you're looking for here.
Edited by iguanamon on 14 April 2013 at 5:25pm
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