nathdep Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4045 days ago 11 posts - 15 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
| Message 1 of 43 03 November 2013 at 7:45am | IP Logged |
Hello everyone!!
I'm very excited to be here!
Just to introduce myself, I am a freshman in college located in NY majoring in French and piano. I have a
passion for
languages and am actually planning on taking French, German, and Spanish all next semester.
I haven't started any courses in Spanish. I'm taking a German 101 class now but the professor can't teach
very well.
Here are some of the languages I'm interested in learning:
Russian
Welsh
Romanian
Swedish
I really like the more guttural, Germanic sounding languages.
As you can imagine, I don't have much money since I am a college student.
Is there a way that any of you have learned a language without spending too much money? I realize that the
only way to learn a language completely is by living in a foreign country. Do you have any simple
ways that don't cost too much money but are effective?
Thank you so much and I'm excited to start my quest to become a polyglot!
Edited by nathdep on 03 November 2013 at 7:46am
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renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4359 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew
| Message 2 of 43 03 November 2013 at 8:11am | IP Logged |
Here is a free link with courses
FSI courses
You could take advantage of libraries as well, being in college, or maybe look for student priced programms (if they exist in Greece they must exist in the USA)
6 persons have voted this message useful
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 43 03 November 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
In case you ever want to learn Esperanto, Lernu has a lot of material for free.
2 persons have voted this message useful
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7206 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 4 of 43 03 November 2013 at 12:44pm | IP Logged |
Listen Reading is an inexpensive and effective method.
Edited by luke on 03 November 2013 at 12:44pm
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akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5409 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh
| Message 5 of 43 03 November 2013 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
Say Something in Welsh is a very effective course (at least it is for me). The first course (25 lessons of 30 min. each) is free.
The DLI courses are great. I don't know about the Romanian one but the Russian course is impressive (although lacking in audio).
With what is available on-line nowadays, I think it's totally possible to reach a high level in any language without spending that much.
Edited by akkadboy on 03 November 2013 at 12:57pm
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tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 6 of 43 03 November 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged |
I haven't checked the Romanian audio but the level is comprehensive from my impression.
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 7 of 43 03 November 2013 at 1:22pm | IP Logged |
There are lots of free resources for learning Spanish! Here are a few of my favourites:
Destinos
52-episode telecourse from the early 90s. It's cheesy and silly, but it's a great resource!
Notes in Spanish
podcasts for beginners, intermediate and advanced learners. I discovered it a bit later, so I never listened to the
beginner podcasts, but I highly recommend the intermediate and advanced podcasts.
Duolingo
Gamified language learning (also available for several other European languages). Surprisingly fun and addictive.
Relies heavily on translation - definitely not enough on its own to learn to speak, but good for vocab and basic
grammar.
italki
Find language exchange partners, hire affordable tutors, or post text to have it corrected by native speakers. A
great resource for learning just about any language.
FSI Spanish basic
One of many free FSI courses available - there's probably a course for most of the languages that you want to
learn. It's dry and dated, but I actually really enjoy the drills. Helps to build automaticity.
In addition to this, I spend a lot of time listening to music on youtube, reading children's novels (from the library
whenever possible) and watching TV shows on DramaFever.
Have fun learning Spanish!
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embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4611 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek
| Message 8 of 43 03 November 2013 at 4:31pm | IP Logged |
Many excellent suggestions have been provided above.
Since you are at a university I recommend that you see what's available at your library
and if you can't find much for the languages you are interested in, see what you can get
through inter-library loan.
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