19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3
Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 17 of 19 15 September 2013 at 2:42pm | IP Logged |
Theycalme_Jane wrote:
For me, what
appears to be working well in any case is to - both visually and audibly - be exposed
to words and to use them - and that doesn't have to be with people.
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It sounds like you've found a process that works for you, and that's great! I admire your dedication to regular
language learning videos - you'll have such a concrete record of your progress. And even better that so many of
your readers are native speakers willing to help you figure stuff out. I think that when you go to SA, you'll find
that your knowledge of Afrikaans makes your trip so much more enriching.
That said, I do think that - eventually - you'll have to talk to people. You've got a whole year before you travel to
SA, right? So do what you're doing for as long as you like. But at some point, if you want to be able to talk to
people on the streets, you're going to have to practice informal conversation with actual people. But you're not in
a rush - you have plenty of time to wait until you feel more confident in your skills.
I've been to South Africa - what a fascinating country. And, while I didn't understand any Afrikaans, I fell madly in
love with their accent in English!
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French
| Message 18 of 19 15 September 2013 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
Just to be practical, you can't really expect to be with people all the time. I'm looking into booking a French course
with the local French Alliance. You get to meet people in a social setting. And hopefully if everybody would do
what they are supposed to (stop using English outside the classroom) this would be the best way.
Other ways would be to watch movies with subtitles & close captions in your target language. You can choose to
watch with English subtitles first to get the context of the dialog and then switch to caption for the hearing
impaired. Go through a movie enough times you can get the new words & phrases to stay.
Don't think it is always necessary to live in a country for a few years to pick up a language. Know at least 1 person
online Carlos Douh from Canada who lived in Hong Kong and started posting videos of various Cantonese phrases
before he decided to move there permanently. The last thing would be to go through the whole dictionary from
top to bottom (A-Z) which is boring. From childhood experience passively picking up words and phrases with
grammar in a French class doesn't work.
Edited by shk00design on 15 September 2013 at 10:58pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6038 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin
| Message 19 of 19 18 September 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
I play video games in foreign languages if the option exists. I still want to play Skyrim in French. |
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Same here I played Civilization IV in Spanish for a few years. Great way to improve my passive vocabulary in a range of subjects.
1 person has voted this message useful
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