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Success with Foreign Languages

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2
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.


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...
1 person has voted this message useful



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.
1 person has voted this message useful



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.

.


I agree with you on that. As long as you have a good idea about pronunciation that works perfectly for languages.


1 person has voted this message useful



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.


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...
1 person has voted this message useful



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.
2 persons have voted this message useful



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.

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.


1 person has voted this message useful



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