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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5834 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 1 of 3 11 December 2008 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hello everyone,
I've been reading this forum for a few months now, and just signed up for an account yesterday. I'm almost 17 (my birthday is in January), and I speak English. I've been studying Japanese at high school for about a year and a half now, so I can converse a little and read a little, but not very well. When I was in elementary school, I learned some French, but I have not kept that up so now all I have left is little bits of vocabulary. I've been interested in language and linguistics since a very young age, but until recently I did not have the know-how, opportunity, and motivation to learn any new languages. Now that I have decided I want to become a polyglot (the more languages, the better, but my current goal is 5), I have been studying methods and resources before beginning. Some information about me that affects how I learn: I have Asperger's syndrome, and my most severe trait is my Executive Dysfunction. I find it very hard to organize myself and my time, and I struggle to complete homework, although I do exceptionally well on tests. I worry that this could sabotage any attempts I make at independent study; however, I also have the intense focus found in most "aspies" (what we call ourselves), and when something catches my interest it is near-impossible for me to stop studying it. I hope this will help me with my language studies, but I fear I could have even more of a problem with wanderlust than most language enthusiasts. I also have a near-eidetic memory, which has certainly helped me in my Japanese studies so far, and I was taught language at a low level every year during elementary school, so I have the advantage of that early exposure (although I am not sure how much of an advantage it really brings if I never became fluent). I am female, which I guess makes me a bit of an oddity on this board, and bisexual, and right-handed (I mention these due to having seen the discussions surrounding them in other parts of the forum). The time it takes to learn a language is important to me, because I want to be able to use it soon and because I am very busy at school- in addition to a normal load of homework, I also have a graduation project to work on, and mine is a full-length documentary; a pretty daunting task. So I decided to begin with Esperanto, since it is so easy and still quite useful. I have heard that learning it improves the speed with which one grasps new languages in general; is this true, in your experience? I plan on using Lernu!.com at first, and probably buying at least one book, but I haven't decided which one yet. Any advice on the best Esperanto textbooks would be greatly appreciated. Since I have a lot of work, I've told myself I won't begin Esperanto until this June, when school lets out for the summer. This will give me three months in which I can devote large chunks of time to my studies. However, I find myself impatient to begin. What would your advice be? Should I start it now, or wait? Lastly, I want to ask your advice on my Japanese studies. Next year, I will have completed the equivalent of university-level Japanese 1, but my high school will not be offering any more Japanese classes. Should I take Japanese 2 at the university, take Chinese 1 at my school next, or take no language classes at all and devote the saved time to independent studies? After high school, I plan to take two years off and spend the second traveling around Europe with friends. After that, I want to go to a four-year specialized college and become a sign-language interpreter- although that plan is subject to change. Currently the languages I am most interested in pursuing are, in order: Esperanto, Japanese, ASL, French, Gaelic, Arabic. The ones I think I will actually learn are, in order: Esperanto, Japanese, Portuguese, ASL, Italian, Arabic. I want to know Arabic because my bf/husband is majoring in Religion and we want to learn Arabic and study the Koran together. Gaelic and French are both part of my ancestry, and Portuguese and Italian appeal because of their beauty (and their ease to learn one-after-the-other). If all goes well, languages I would want to master later (i.e, the ones I fantasize unrealistically about!) would be Cherokee, Korean, Swahili, Afrikaans, Hindi, and Polish. (I apologize if this post is oddly put together or hard to follow; I'm having trouble translating thoughts to language today, a common problem for aspies I think) ETA: I've also been thinking of using the Wikibooks textbooks for Esperanto and Japanese; does anyone here have any idea how stable Wikibooks language texts usually are and whether they're good for independent study? I'm a big wiki aficionado (and fan of Open Culture in general), so it appeals a lot to me. Edited by Luai_lashire on 11 December 2008 at 4:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6476 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 2 of 3 12 December 2008 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I believe Esperanto is a good choice for you, because it will provide you a feeling of success and it will show you the way in your other language learning. It will also be a great base for French/Italian/Portuguese, German if you get around to it or European languages in general. It might even help you with Japanese a little, because sometimes you can do a descriptive translation of concepts in Esperanto that can't be translated to English.
I would use Lernu to study Esperanto, because they are way better than the Wikibooks course and even better than commercial programs available for Esperanto, such as the Assimil. Start out with the course "Ana Pana", go on with "Ana Renkontas". After these 16 lessons you should know all grammar and can assimilate more vocabulary and structure by reading Esperanto - for example the novel/course "Gerda Malaperis", the short stories and jokes with pop-up dictionary on Lernu, the novel "Fajron sentas mi interne", or even the lyrics of Esperanto songs.
If you're motivated to learn a language now, there is no sense in waiting. Depending on how motivating and fun the learning process is for you, you could even make language study your reward for getting the work done for the day.
How much do you think the classes helped you? A lot of forum members have found that independent study allows them to learn faster, but of course it requires more discipline (or self-motivation). If you start learning a language on your own now, you can see from that experience how good your progress is without a teacher. Otherwise there is always the option of a private teacher, with whom you could make progress faster, and you could solve the discipline issue by e. g. meeting regularly every Monday at 6pm, or whatever. Private teachers don't need to be expensive either, for example Myngle.com has this promotion where you get 30 days of classes for 49 EUR flat. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5834 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 3 of 3 13 December 2008 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you for your answer.
I started lernu's "La Puzzlo Esperanto" introductory course yesterday, mostly as a way to satisfy my interest; I really like it, and after talking to a few friends I have decided that I will begin studying Esperanto now. I'm finishing the last 10 lessons in "La Puzzlo" tomorrow and then will move on to "Ana Pana". It's a very beautiful language and the use of the affixes really interests me. I like the structure of a class, having classmates to talk to in the target language, having a teacher to ask questions; and I like the fact that I don't have the option to simply choose not to do it on any given day just because I don't want to (which I think helps with waxing and waning interest). These are all reasons why i would prefer a class. However, I like the ability to set my own pace and spend more or less time on different parts of the language as I need to. I learn at a much quicker pace than most of my peers so I am always a little impatient in classes. This would be a reason to choose independent study. I think for now I will not make up my mind; instead I'll wait and see how my independent study of Esperanto goes, and if it goes very well I will choose not to take a language course next year, but use the time for independent study instead. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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