Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: Beasley on January 04, 2011, 09:21:23 pm
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Have any of you more or less tought yourself a new language? Specifically, I'm trying to brush up on my french by this summer. Are there any programs/books you recommend?
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Rosetta Stone. It's a really fantastic program that teaches you the language to a decent level. It builds upon itself really professionally and has a structured program of learning so you, in effect, get a professional course.
Failing that, I know there's a DS game called TEACH YOURSELF FRENCH. If it's anything like the Japanese DS game I'd definitely check it out.
For best results: Try both!
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I've used Pimsleur audiobooks from time to time to try french and mandarin, and while they are pretty fun and good for just lying in bed with, I never got past the basic levels and I've forgotten most of it by now. If I started again I'm sure it would all come back to me but it's really vague in my head right now. I couldn't speak a word of mandarin right now, xie xie you very much.
I recently got the french lessons back, and I was thinking of making a go of it with that. I think french is the best bet since I've got a lot of latent vocabulary from school and self-teaching and I have a decent grasp on the grammar. It'd be great for learning other european languages cos the vocabulary can be really similar. Also, I hear that after you have learned one language it's much more likely you'll learn a second and while I'm probably more interested in learning mandarin it's probably out of my reach to begin with. French feels like a good beginner language, I guess. Maybe that's stupid, though.
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I'm currently teaching myself Mandarin before I officially take classes at uni in August. I just started really so I only know the basics. I didn't how to do it so I just bought a shit load of books/cds.
Mandarin is pretty easy btw.
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I taught myself english
It doesn't count but I learnt (kind of) some of Cyrillic alphabet by myself and I'm going to have russian classes during the first half of this year, and intend on learning the rest of it from internet forums and youtube videos
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i dunno about specific programs or books but the easiest way to get started is by taking some basic course or two. after that it's so much easier to just slowly improve by doing stuff like reading books or internet sites (e-magazines, forums and so on) or watching movies with subtitles in the language you want to learn.
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i took up to french 3 in high school, so i have the foundations, i just need some practice.
downloading rosetta stone right now, looks like it should be perfect. thanks all.
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Speak to Lord Typhoon! He helped me a lot when I was in first year.
How good are you at the moment though is the real question? Si t'es déjà un locuteur indépendant: regardes des films en version française. Je crois que j'ai regardé tous les films Disney en vf il y a 2 ans. C'est cool aussi de savoir comment chanter Hakuna Matata en deux langues. Moi j'peux le faire en 3. :-)
If you're pretty shite, then do some studying but mostly just talk to francophones. It's the most useful thing to do if you're beginner, talk to people that speak to the language.
En tout cas, bonne chance.
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didn't like rosetta stone at all when I tried it several years ago. it's useless for learning anything that doesn't use the roman alphabet btw, or at least it used to be
I liked pimsleur a lot. it attempts to teach you conversational language. I still know a lot of the japanese I learned over the summer and I still remember some turkish when I hear it but not off the top of my head
rosetta stone might be better tho if you already learned the basics in highschool, it does more with vocab than pimsleur. or use both
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How good are you at the moment though is the real question? Si t'es déjà un locuteur indépendant: regardes des films en version française. Je crois que j'ai regardé tous les films Disney en vf il y a 2 ans. C'est cool aussi de savoir comment chanter Hakuna Matata en deux langues. Moi j'peux le faire en 3. :-)
I can pretty much get the gist of this paragraph because its written down... Gives me time to think it over a bit. If it were actually spoken by a frenchman I doubt Id pick up too much.
Ill try to hunt down some fellow french speakers so I can practice, this is a really good idea!!
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How good are you at the moment though is the real question? Si t'es déjà un locuteur indépendant: regardes des films en version française. Je crois que j'ai regardé tous les films Disney en vf il y a 2 ans. C'est cool aussi de savoir comment chanter Hakuna Matata en deux langues. Moi j'peux le faire en 3. :-)
this is what i think youre saying... "If you're learning by yourself, you should watch versions of films in French. I have been watching Disney films in another language for 2 years (?). It is cool to be able to sing Hakuna Matata in two languages. I can sing it in 3"
i think thats close, but i doubt i could reply competently. so well see how it goes!
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I hear that after you have learned one language it's much more likely you'll learn a second and while I'm probably more interested in learning mandarin it's probably out of my reach to begin with. French feels like a good beginner language, I guess. Maybe that's stupid, though.
I don't think that's a bad idea. West European languages are awesome in how they support each other in vocabulary and grammar both and it's definitely true that learning languages gets a lot easier when you have already studied a few, even if they're not related. If you want a really easy language, try Swedish/Norwegian :) (I think Danes have some difficult phonemes, don't know about Icelandic).
Mandarin is pretty easy btw.
Isn't it supposed to be especially difficult with all the very precise phonological stuff I don't understand? Or is that Cantonese or something?
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didn't like rosetta stone at all when I tried it several years ago. it's useless for learning anything that doesn't use the roman alphabet btw, or at least it used to be
this. i tried the arabic rosetta stone and it completely forgoes the alphabet (good luck retaining any of the vocab you learn!), the definite article and sun and moon letters, among other things. it's pretty much an interactive flash card system. i didn't get far enough to know how it teaches conjugation but i'm betting it doesn't explain that, either.
also http://forum.wordreference.com/ is an excellent resource to get in touch with native speakers of pretty much any language.
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I've done the whole Pimsleur thing religiously, all 3 CDs for Japanese. Every morning at the same time without ever skipping a lesson (according to the manual that's how you're supposed to do it). While it was great for learning the absolute basics and the pronunciation, I really recommend learning it in a classroom setting above everything else. That's when you really begin learning instead of just memorizing. But every bit helps. The most important thing is that you are innately motivated to do it.
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Currently learning Japanese by playing games in Japanese.
Works wonders.
I've found that just immersing myself in an environment of the target language is the best way to learn it. It's not just games either. Reading blogs and such is an amazing resource for casual talk. This has done much more for me than grinding and memorization has ever done.
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this is what i think youre saying... "If you're learning by yourself, you should watch versions of films in French. I have been watching Disney films in another language for 2 years (?). It is cool to be able to sing Hakuna Matata in two languages. I can sing it in 3"
i think thats close, but i doubt i could reply competently. so well see how it goes!
Somewhat :-)
locuteur indépendant = independent speaker
avoir regardé = watched ( and not have been watching)
il y a (time) = (time) ago
The last sentence is a joke. From what I can tell, you're about level C2. Basically what I did when I was above attending lectures was spoke to French people on ventrillo + Lord Typhoon on IRC every now and then. I also used Rosetta, it's great for vocabulary building but I don't think it's the ULTIMATE application: it needs to be supported by other material.
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The biggest things you get from taking a course that you don't get from doing it yourself is you have a) someone MAKING you do it whether you want to or not and b) someone who can answer your questions and keep an eye on you making sure you aren't making some mistake over and over
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Isn't it supposed to be especially difficult with all the very precise phonological stuff I don't understand? Or is that Cantonese or something?
The only hard thing I would think (because I haven't started learning these yet) is memorizing all the characters. Aside from that it is easy. The grammar is basically identical to English, nouns don't take genders like most European languages, you don't conjugate verbs and there are no verb tenses. The only other confusing thing for some could be the tones because one word pronounce almost the same can mean different things depending on the tone.
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I like the C programming language by K&R >
>
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I tried studying Swahili but didn't reached too far.
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I've done the whole Pimsleur thing religiously, all 3 CDs for Japanese. Every morning at the same time without ever skipping a lesson (according to the manual that's how you're supposed to do it). While it was great for learning the absolute basics and the pronunciation, I really recommend learning it in a classroom setting above everything else. That's when you really begin learning instead of just memorizing. But every bit helps. The most important thing is that you are innately motivated to do it.
did this work for you? I have those mentioned cd's and I only got to lesson 2 on the first disc. and i didnt do it everyday either :/. Might try again though
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The only other confusing thing for some could be the tones because one word pronounce almost the same can mean different things depending on the tone.
Yeah this is basically what I meant. That differences in tone/weight that we can barely notice without practice can make a huge difference.
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The only hard thing I would think (because I haven't started learning these yet) is memorizing all the characters. Aside from that it is easy. The grammar is basically identical to English, nouns don't take genders like most European languages, you don't conjugate verbs and there are no verb tenses. The only other confusing thing for some could be the tones because one word pronounce almost the same can mean different things depending on the tone.
i dont know why but i doubt you know any at all from just the way you are saying these things sir
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did this work for you? I have those mentioned cd's and I only got to lesson 2 on the first disc. and i didnt do it everyday either :/. Might try again though
It did, but you have to realize that all that crap about "learning like a child" and how it's the best method ever is nonsense. It's good to get a solid basis from where to start properly learning.
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Currently learning Japanese by playing games in Japanese.
Works wonders.
I've found that just immersing myself in an environment of the target language is the best way to learn it. It's not just games either. Reading blogs and such is an amazing resource for casual talk. This has done much more for me than grinding and memorization has ever done.
yeah this is what i'm doing. i've been teaching myself Japanese since i was like 7, but only doing it more seriously for the past couple years. i read http://www.ajatt.com (All Japanese All the Time) a lot, which has a lot of immersion-learning resources. i have my facebook and all my technology in Japanese so i am not allowed to do silly things like social networking and games unless i practice Japanese by doing so. i read a lot of Japanese blogs and BBS too (like 2chan). i also try to do the thing with computer flash card systems but i don't ever have time. i'm planning on doing an exchange trip to Japan after high school, so i definitely need to improve my Japanese over the next year and a half...
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i F8ckig hate you weeaboos
ruining white culture
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why does everyone want to learn japanese?
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why does everyone want to learn japanese?
dont gotta wait for subs
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people are obsessed w japan
you can pretty easily teach yourself a language with few outside tools other than some grammar and vocab texts if you've got enough motivation. itc the pronunciation and accent are tough but pimsleur or movies can help you with htat
by the way you don't learn japanese from video games and anime unless you want to speak japanese like a video game or anime character
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Isn't the learning japanese thing just media exposure? This is a topic that is probably done all over the internet. What I mean is, how can you expect people not to be interested in learning a language when lots of their favourite media is from that place, and at least originally in that language? When I was younger I went through different phases of I'm Gonna Live There with the USA, France and Japan and probably a couple of other places that weren't as big a deal. USA for all my favourite tv shows and some movies, France for their art/philosophy shit (at least partly just aesthetics - i was a kid!) which I liked, and Japan for their games and movies and all three for intangible aspects that just have to do with feelings regarding space and atmosphere etc.
I'm still into pretty much all of that stuff that I was - better quality versions of what I liked then, and I don't just go bonkers over it like I did when I was a kid but I'll always be a bit more interested in the languages of these countries than like Italian or Russian or something. That is unless I find a trove of cool stuff out of some place that makes me want to go there. It's all personal, anyway, the reasons people have. I wouldn't really ever say to anyone, 'oh you're learning japanese? bwahahaha, how embarrassing for you', because heck if they can speak Japanese that's something they're doing a lot better than I am. Maybe in the context of their whole personality it's just another facet of some strange, internet-fueled obsession but who cares unless it's that creepy way some people are obsessed with Japan. There are as many good reasons for wanting to learn Japanese as just about any other language I can think of, anyway.
Like, there are levels with the judgments of these kinds of things and some things...some things just don't matter anymore. Maybe I'm old. Had my day in the sun. This old dog just wants to lie on it's back and pee into the sky.
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by the way you don't learn japanese from video games and anime unless you want to speak japanese like a video game or anime character
Well, you can still use them even though they use unrealistic language. Especially anime uses extremely simple words and grammar constructs so a beginner might find it useful. You just have to realize that you can't use any of it verbatim in real conversations (note: this is also why it's not a good idea to learn any language outside of a classroom or some other real environment).
There are as many good reasons for wanting to learn Japanese as just about any other language I can think of, anyway.
Yeah I mean a lot of people start learning a language for all the wrong reasons (like for example they went on vacation there and thought "oh let's learn this language for next year, it'll be fun") and they usually drop out after the first three lessons because they didn't realize it would actually take a considerable effort on their part. Everybody else must have a genuine interest in the actual language itself as well because without it you simply won't keep at it.
I mean if the only reason for learning Japanese is video games and anime then you're either crazy obsessed or you're going to drop out.
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That is unless I find a trove of cool stuff out of some place that makes me want to go there.
ghana
and yeah I still have motivation to learn Japan but I think I find it one of the more interesting/fleshed-out foreign places in my head more than BAD or GOOD at this point. Why wouldn't you want to learn about places that feel genuine to you and not just stock footage of eiffel tower