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Spending money to learn. The trade-off | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6680 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 17 of 30 10 January 2011 at 8:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Labor omnia vincit improbus. Nihil sub sole novum.
Edited by slucido on 10 January 2011 at 8:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5212 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 30 10 January 2011 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm of the "time is money" opinion, and since I have a job, an active social life, and several hobbies, I don't exactly have loads of time. I'd happily pay for an hour of private tuition rather than go to a free meetup.com event that lasts 3 hours during which I get the chance to speak about 4 sentences, as it's far more time-efficient.
As for immersion courses, long trips abroad, etc.... I have neither the time nor the money for that :P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Seljak Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5714 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian | Message 19 of 30 10 January 2011 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have been learning foreign languages, mostly on my own, for about 50 years, and I truly
love the self-study process. But the fastest, most satisfying progress I ever made was with an experienced private tutor of Italian -- at the rate of $20/hour, as I recall. The key factor was that he really knew his craft. I was confident in his ability because I had observed with amazement as my wife made rapid progress learning French with him. (He was a native speaker of both languages.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 20 of 30 10 January 2011 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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With today's internet, we're lucky to be able to access loads of resources for free. Consequently, most of my learning is done for free. I also meet regularly with language partners, which is also free.
On the other hand, I've invested in a good electronic dictionary for close to $500 and I've allowed myself the luxury of going to Japan 2 years in a row. Still, as a daily hobby, it costs me nothing. I've given up on classes as that definitely doesn't work for me; however, I have nothing against tutors as long as they are able to withstand my constant barrage of questions. The knowledge I am trying to obtain resides in native speakers and I, in turn, have knowledge they need, so I love doing language exchanges. I really wish Yabla were available in Japanese... P.S.: I can imagine owning a sailboat as a hobby I'd enjoy, but I wouldn't be living in Canada... Edited by Arekkusu on 10 January 2011 at 8:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5476 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 21 of 30 10 January 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes this is one of the best ways of making progress for me too. I find there is no real relation ship between the cost and how good they are at this. The best language partner/tutor I have is a "free" one - although he is already quite fluent in English, he has a strong desire to explore all the details of idiomatic English usage. He wanted to know things like if the expression "to have a run in with .. " is current Canadian English and if the word "swote" was current (which he claims to have found in a Scottish novel). I gave him a thumbs up on the "run in" and a thumbs down on the "swote".
It is with some regret that I must downgrade my previously high recommendation of Yabla. The main problem is that by far the vast majority of the videos are extracted from news broadcasts, documentaries and interviews. After studying over 200 of them I have become much better at understanding documentaries from France. I find however that in other contexts such as movies, comedy TV or just on the street, people don't talk the same way. The final straw for me was a collection of phrases found in Yabla that I asked a tutor about today and found that 7 out of 10 (or more) of them would either never be heard or rarely heard in Canada today and some of them were even rare or dated in France. She would say something like "Oh I guess some people in France still say that" and I would recall that it came from the mouth of a World War I vet in a documentary!! She was in a great position to answer these questions too, being born and raised in France and now having lived 25 years in Montreal. Example, don't say "de fil en aiguille" use "au fur et à mesure" instead. Edited by microsnout on 10 January 2011 at 9:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 22 of 30 10 January 2011 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I shall also regret to inform you that both "de fil en aiguille" and "au fur et à mesure" are both in current use in Québec, and that they don't mean exactly the same thing. "De fil en aiguille" is something "one thing lead to another" and "au fur et à mesure" means roughly "progressively", "little by little, "as you go along".
Sorry to hear that about Yalba. Or else maybe I should be happy to hear that, knowing there's no Japanese version :) Edited by Arekkusu on 10 January 2011 at 9:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5119 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 23 of 30 10 January 2011 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I still use "de fil en aiguille", it's just different from "au fur et à mesure" :S. The former would be used when a series of events is happening one after the other, like one thing leading to another. It's actually pretty "graphic", you first take the thread, and then comes the needle, or in a French example "je lisais un excellent roman policier, les actions se succédaient et de fil en aiguille, tu découvres qui est le meurtrier". "Au fur et à mesure" means at the same time, or in a French example "Dans ce roman policier que je lisais, l'histoire d'amour se développait au fur et à mesure que le meurtrier commettait ses crimes". But, that's French French, and I'm from Brittany, so maybe it's just my region using it (not convinced). And this website is great. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5386 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 24 of 30 10 January 2011 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Seems our usage is exactly the same on both sides of the Atlantic! Edited by Arekkusu on 10 January 2011 at 9:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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