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Learning French to learn other languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5451 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 1 of 19 12 April 2010 at 12:24pm | IP Logged |
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This may be the wrong reason to learn a language for, but I thought I should probably take up French real soon, not really for other reasons, but only to use the French resources to teach languages (like Assimil). I've noticed that the French usually have the best materials for learning languages, and often they have materials for rarer languages too. How long do you think it would take for someone who is in basic fluency for Spanish to become proficient in French that is used in language instructional books? What sources should I use?
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| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5421 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 19 12 April 2010 at 1:00pm | IP Logged |
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I've been thinking about doing it in the opposite direction: starting from "basic fluency" in French, I might learn a bit of Spanish in order to access languages where the available materials are in Spanish.
My main question is how much Spanish pronunciation and listening comprehension I would need to master. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6771 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 19 12 April 2010 at 1:19pm | IP Logged |
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That's certainly not a bad reason to learn a language. Professor Arguelles recommends that an aspiring polyglot
learn French and German first for that very reason. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6072 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 4 of 19 12 April 2010 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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I'm learning French through Assimil to use Assimil's French-base programs. There's no 'wrong' reason to learn a language, although it helps if you like learning it. I love French and had always planned on learning it anyways.
I would recommend using Assimil New French with Ease and Using French to become proficient in French. You won't learn the language any faster (using this method) than a monolingual English speaker, for example, but the grammatical concepts and vocabulary will be easier for you to absorb. It should take you about 6 months total to complete both courses, if you complete one lesson per day. Edited by vikramkr on 12 April 2010 at 8:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5498 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 5 of 19 12 April 2010 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
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The only precaution I can think of is losing motivation. This might not apply to you,
but I figure it's worth posting anyways. For example, say one wanted to learn a regional language, such as Chechen or Occitan. It would likely make available many more resources if the person in question were to study Russian or French, respectively. Additionally, someone interested in these regional cultures would likely also have at least a minimal interest in the major country to which they belong, therefore making the major language more enjoyable to learn. On the other hand, let us now consider someone who wants to learn Portuguese, but intends to do so through Spanish. The assumption here is that the learner has no interest in Hispanic culture, only Portugal and Brazil. It is likely that there is a greater volume of quality material produced in Spanish, but since the person has no interest in Spanish, it might quickly become a chore to learn the language. In the grand scheme, this might hinder progress or, even worse, halt it altogether. I'm not trying to go against Professor Arguelles' advice, I'm just playing the Devil's advocate here. Another distinction should be made between those who aspire to become a polyglot, and those who are just language studiers, with an arbitrary cut-off number of languages separating the two. If for whatever reason (time, money, motivation etc.), one only wanted to learn a few languages, it wouldn't make sense to learn French and/or German(assuming these weren't the desired languages!) before embarking to study the ones of true interest. However; for one who wants to learn many languages, it certainly does make sense to start with French and German. Finally, to answer your question, I would guess a year maximum for me. Edit: Correction Edited by canada38 on 12 April 2010 at 11:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 19 13 April 2010 at 5:47am | IP Logged |
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That's one reason I want to learn French :)
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| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5342 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 19 13 April 2010 at 8:04am | IP Logged |
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Yeah I know Spanish so I have a pretty decent understanding of other Romance languages such as French, Portuguese and Catalan :)
Great reason to learn a language! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5343 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 8 of 19 15 April 2010 at 9:55am | IP Logged |
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There are indeed a wealth of information and materials out there in French/German when it comes to learning other languages. In my opinion, there are more German books out there in the market, compared to French ones, when it comes to learning other languages.
Practically almost every year, Hueber (a leading German company involved in the publication of foreign language books) publishes and updates their range of language books, ranging from Spanish, Italian, to Mandarin, Turkish, French etc. Of course there are other German publishers too, such as Klett, Digital Publishing. As a matter of fact, I used solely the Sprachkurs A1-A2 Italienisch and Spanisch from Digital Publishing to pass my CELI B1 and DELE B1 exams, without attending any language classes that can be awfully expensive here in Switzerland. On the other hand, knowing French certainly does help one to learn other romance languages much more easily, hence, if one is interested to learn other romance languages, then French is the one to begin with... On a side note, I realized that, when it comes to learning Korean, you would benefit alot if you know Japanese, because there's such a wealth of Japanese books targeted at Korean language learners. But one irritating aspect of the Japanese books which I discovered: their CDs are very often, diplomatically speaking, lacking in terms of quality. A Korean sentence will be spoken (at lightning speed) once, and a beginner is 'supposed' to already know/repeat the sentence. Comparatively speaking, Elementary Korean and the PONS Koreanisch offer CDs that speak at a more tolerable speed that enable beginners to follow and get the prononciation right. Voila, that's my personal experience so far... Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 15 April 2010 at 10:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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