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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Antelope Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5456 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish, Greek | Message 1 of 11 10 June 2009 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
I'm sure there are many threads covering this, however, I felt compelled to start a new one. Questions: How do you reach the stage in language learning where you can literally say whatever you wish to say? For example, anything that comes to my head in English, I could also say in a second language. Do you have to learn as many sentences by heart as humanly possible? Is that what language learning is about, learning thousands of sentences? If not, then how do you get to a point where you can converse "freely" about most things? Because surely you'd need to know the sentences first in order to do this? Thanks for any help. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GuardianJY Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5495 days ago 74 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 11 10 June 2009 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I recommend watching YouTube videos from Professor Arguelles and Moses McCormick.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfASAr http://www.youtube.com/user/laoshu505000 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5507 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 11 10 June 2009 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi,
You will have to assimilate the language. A child will speak before it can read or write, how did it do that? Success! Staf 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6704 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 11 11 June 2009 at 6:23am | IP Logged | ||
It can often be the other way around actually: The deeper you go in your knowledge of another language, the more often things will come into your head that you will be struggling to express in your native language. This is exactly as it should be. Your mind, previously tethered to the limited set of thoughts and associations that you can spontaneously express in your pre-programmed collection of sentences in English, is breaking free, and exploring new territory beyond those old horizons. Edited by Hencke on 11 June 2009 at 6:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Antelope Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5456 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish, Greek | Message 5 of 11 11 June 2009 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for all the replies,
I've been looking at the links provided by GardianJY, accordomg the fella on the YouTube videos, you should learn how to actually learn a language first. I have no idea how I'm going to do this by myself I shall just have to persist I suppose... Thanks for your input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Antelope Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5456 days ago 49 posts - 49 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish, Greek | Message 6 of 11 11 June 2009 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok...
How about this? I want to learn Italian, so will learning an entire phrasebook for the essentials followed by a course called "Assimil Italian" make me level of at least a "basic fluency" in the language? Thanks 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| diabolo menthe Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5783 days ago 68 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Swedish, Japanese | Message 7 of 11 11 June 2009 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assimil's Italian course is quite good, some Italian resources can be dubious. I would shy away from learning stock
phrases from a phrasebook, though of course some of the basic greetings and things are just that. But in learning these things it's important to learn why they are said a certain way, i.e. which words are the verbs, how they are conjugated to signify who is speaking and in what tense etc. Languages are to be moulded and played with, not just memorised and regurgitated :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5821 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 11 12 June 2009 at 12:19am | IP Logged | ||
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It seems to me that memorising sentences more often than not leads to stilted, unnatural language. There's an almost infinitive variety of sentences that can exist in any given language. The more you repeat each sentence (whether by hearing, saying, reading or writing it) the lower the number of distinct sentences you will encounter, and the less well you will know the language.
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