Salv Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5442 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Studies: English* Studies: French
| Message 17 of 22 22 October 2010 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
slucido wrote:
I read and listen about learning languages in other languages than my native languages. |
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I was thinking about doing the same thing, except I've not been able to find a website like this in French. I imagine there are many sites out there...
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slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6704 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English
| Message 18 of 22 22 October 2010 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
I am very skeptic about language learning methods and more after several years in this forum. I am very chaotic in my own process.
I think the best approach is to keep it simple. Language learning = reading, listening, writing and speaking.
The trick here is to find out what are you passionate about and use this to interact in your target language. Nothing easier in our Internet age.
I see language learning as a mean of communication and a side-effect from other activities.
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fireflies Senior Member Joined 5210 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 19 of 22 22 October 2010 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
Juаn wrote:
For me, a textbook with exercises WITH ANSWERS is an ideal way to learn anything.
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I agree with you on that. As long as you have a good idea about pronunciation that works perfectly for languages.
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Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5345 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish
| Message 20 of 22 23 October 2010 at 12:19am | IP Logged |
s_allard wrote:
I really enjoyed Kato Lomb's book and heartily recommend it for self-study linguaphiles. The Stevick book is aimed at the academic market and is filled with lots study points for teachers and students. It has plenty of interesting material, but the thing that irritates me a bit is the lack of a) examples in the various foreign languages and b) any sense of how well the seven students speak the various languages mentioned. I'm a bit of a stickler for these issues because I am a tad skeptical when I see claims about foreign-language skills. I'm not doubting the veracity of the claims made in the book; it's just that I'd like to see more real examples. |
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Ill add to that that Stevick seemed to put too many words into the respondees mouths. Like "so you felt that xxxxxx, right?" and the obvious response. I also got bored as even though all the situations were intended to be different, they all seemed to blend together after a point. Of course maybe that could be attributed to the fact that I found myself most identifying with the first girl who could just tell what language someone was speaking and had no fear about jumping in and therefore everything else didnt really click with me...dunno...
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s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5459 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish
| Message 21 of 22 23 October 2010 at 4:14am | IP Logged |
If there's one thing I've learned from hanging around this forum, it is that we are all different. Different cultures, backgrounds, ages, interests, values, goals, personalities, etc. Hence we tend to have different approaches, methods and techniques for learning foreign languages. For some people, a textbook is fine; for others, it's an online program; for others it's a formal class. You have to find what works for you.
That said, there is one thing we probably have in common. I think that the majority of people here have at least a shelf, if not more, of books and software on the languages that they have studied or are studying. I've always found that one source is not enough. Is one textbook enough? I doubt it. I will say that I've regretted buying some things, especially those software packages, but I've always found a little nugget of useful information.
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6611 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 22 of 22 23 October 2010 at 5:52am | IP Logged |
s_allard wrote:
That said, there is one thing we probably have in common. I think that the majority of people here have at least a shelf, if not more, of books and software on the languages that they have studied or are studying. |
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I guess I'm in the minority, then. I did buy a number of Mandarin learning materials, but I've thrown them all away because they didn't do anything for me. Then I found the one source which took me all the way up to fluency (ChinesePod).
For Cantonese, it's been the same thing, except I never found a useful source. I just use a dictionary and native materials (the grammar is pretty much identical to Mandarin). So the thing I've learned is that I won't buy language learning books again (except possibly Assimil, which seems more like it could work for me).
So I don't have a shelf, but rather a couple, of books on language learning (and no software). But that's just because I haven't thrown them away yet.
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