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- GramarNazi, on 07/07/2008, -0/+481. Immerse yourself
--Immerse yourself with the locals, their music, culture, media, politics, sports, family, etc.
2. Forget translating: think like a baby!
--Copy these expressions and sounds just like a baby would.
3. How do you say?
--Besides common greetings, the one phrase you should memorize and always have at the ready is the phrase is “How do you say that / what is that called?”
4. Write it
--After having conversations, jot down the things you remembered hearing but didn’t quite understand.
5. Use cognates and draw links
--Ever noticed how some words appear exactly the same across various languages? These are called “cognates.” Unlocking the usage of cognates instantly gives you several hundred more words to your vocabulary.
6. Local TV, movies, music
--Watch movies, listen to music, sing songs, and browse newspapers and magazines.
7. Non-verbal cues
--Beyond words, observe locals when they talk. Be it the Gaelic shrug or a slight tilt of the head, combining body language with a new tongue helps you communicate better.
8. Get emotional!
--Emotive experiences often etch impressions onto our memory. Make full use of embarrassing / funny / angry experiences by linking them to the new language.
9. A world of friends / then going solo.
--While individual classes can be highly beneficial for unsurpassed attention, group classes with friends can greatly aid learning.
10. Practice at every opportunity before and after you travel.
**Everything else in the article is just a personal anecdote, and not very helpful at that. - HuskyPuzzle, on 07/06/2008, -0/+37One thing I'd add to that list is when you're living in foreign city and you're hanging out with locals and speaking 100% in their language, there will inevitably be things you miss as they speaking fast with their other friends. If you don't understand something that was said, it's tempting to play it off like you did understand, but if you stop them and ask for an explanation every time you don't get something, you will double your vocabulary and pick up tons of slang terms that may not be found in the dictionary.
- inactive, on 07/06/2008, -1/+27A few years back I NEEDED to learn spanish and these tips are right on! If you want to learn as quick and thorough as possible Watch movies, listen to music, sing songs, and browse newspapers and magazines. It’s fun and helps improve your pronunciation and comprehension. Immerse yourself - the same way you learned your native language
- relic180, on 07/06/2008, -0/+21So the Rosetta Stone commercials are lying to me?
- earthandeconomy, on 07/06/2008, -1/+19I want to learn Hungarian so I can communicate with my wife's side of the family, maybe this will help...
- magamiako, on 07/08/2008, -0/+18This website is kind of useless. All of these tips are given, but many are only applicable in situations where you "have" to learn the language. When traveling, finding yourself in a place where they don't speak your language--Immersion is of course key, but you learn these habits out of the situation.
That said, not many of these tips will help a person who is sitting at home trying to learn a new language.
And as was stated above, the author's definition of "fluent" is very loose. But then again, you don't have to be 100% fluent in a language to be able to get around. You don't need to understand every single context, every single slang term, every single statement. You won't learn every single pronunciation and there are almost always going to be things you get wrong.
This is a biproduct of having to learn a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th language. However, at the very least you will be able to get around, move, get food, a room, and maybe have some light conversation. - Narcism, on 07/08/2008, -0/+15I don't think you'll want to know what your mother-in-law is saying.
- smitas, on 07/06/2008, -0/+156 Months!. Isn't that more?
- nullcodes, on 07/08/2008, -0/+14This should be useful for many american diggers who can finally become fluent in English.
- relic180, on 07/06/2008, -0/+13@Iztikeit
I saw something on discover or TLC or one of those with a savant who learned Icelandic in something like 4 days. Of course, they were saying he was probably the only person on the planet who could have done it. - kataztrophy, on 07/06/2008, -1/+12In six months, I will be able to annoy people in Swahili!
- ianmack, on 07/06/2008, -0/+10When attempting to speak the language, I find confidence is key. If you mumble a word because you're embarrassed if you're saying it right, it's that much harder for the other person to understand you.
- Rotzooi, on 07/07/2008, -0/+9And he wasn't fun to hang out with, despite speaking 67 languages fluently.
- liuite, on 07/08/2008, -0/+9i am surprise consuming alcohol is not on the list. sometimes what holds people back from trying to speak a foreign language is self-consciousness...a bit of alcohol might loosen up your tongue and lower your inhibition to help you get started.
- koreth, on 07/08/2008, -0/+8Rosetta Stone is not totally useless but it certainly isn't everything they say it is. Though I suspect it might work better for European languages than it does for Chinese, which is the version I have.
The structure of the lessons seems to me to be based around some assumptions about grammar that apply to Spanish and English (the other two languages I am familiar with) but not to Chinese. - davidmiller72, on 07/07/2008, -0/+8yes
- inactive, on 07/06/2008, -0/+8I think its better than those books claiming "Teach yourself a foreign language in 7 days"
- yuanzhoulu, on 07/08/2008, -0/+7sometimes asking everything may have two negative effects:
1. it can annoy them
2. it will cause them to switch to English
you need to use this with caution.
in my case, when learning languages, i like to pick them up largely with movies, and resist using them until i have heard them in conversation to know the proper context. i do ask a few things in conversation but only enough to understand and not every last word, just to make sure it doesn't spoil the social occasion. - socialwebtools, on 07/07/2008, -1/+8You could try http://livemocha.com too......
- Benjamin10, on 07/06/2008, -1/+7I've been trying to learn Spanish for years and these tips are money. Immersion is the only way and it's definitely possible in six months if you don't speak your native language and dive head first into the one you are trying to learn.
- Punisher2K, on 07/08/2008, -0/+6My Klingon has never been better!
- yuanzhoulu, on 07/08/2008, -0/+6this list is just about everything i do and it works. when i was young i was living in a city with a lot of chinese speakers and began to understand a few things. later on i decided i would just learn it and started taking classes, but found them to be slow and annoying other than making sure i got the grammar right. later on i just quit class, since the dormitory i live in here in boston is over 50% chinese-speaking. as social life here is rarely in English, i learn a lot more here than in class.
i have one more tip of my own to add:
11. once you reach an intermediate/basic functional level, switch your computer's OS and web browser to that language, and use that language as your default on any multi-lingual website. - iBlinkalot, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5Spot on tips, but the writer's definition of "fluent" is clearly loose.
- smacksaw, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5The true oral skill that foreign women enjoy isn't linguistic.
- thePTS, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5@relic180
His pronounciation was horrible, autists can't immerse the same way, but they associate much better. This guide is about learning the language "naturally", and I completely agree. This is how I learn languages too. - Thrilltone, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5I lived in Panama for about 7 months. When I was with a girl who didn't speak English, I was always studying my Spanish/English dictionary and asking friends how to say certain phrases and making a list of all the words that I was adding to my vocabulary. Whenever I switched to a girl who spoke English, I completely forgot about learning any Spanish.
Motivation and Immersion were the keys for me. - DephexTwin, on 07/08/2008, -2/+7It is strange that you describe yourself as a person who has "been trying to learn Spanish for years", and then go on to endorse these methods as though you have some sort of authoritative opinion. I want to hear that this stuff works from someone who "tried and succeeded at learning Spanish in six months".
- Iztikeit, on 07/06/2008, -1/+6That's the definitive way to learn a language. Approach it like a kid, ask a bunch of questions and repeat the funny sounding tones emitted from your foreign friends mouth.
- tigerglebe, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4Or want to know what she is saying.
- unfilterthought, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4Rosetta Stone tries to get you to think in a new language. But it isnt the same as having someone speak it and explain it to you and you really see how their mouth moves, their emotions etc.
- spookyttws, on 07/06/2008, -1/+4I'm entering the restaurant business in Southern California and my Spanish is crap. I'm going to take these terms to heart.
- Iztikeit, on 07/06/2008, -0/+3LOL! Super genius savants can't even learn languages that fast.
- sjmulder, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Me too. Two languages are more than enough. ;)
- Vagari, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Well compared to many language courses the Rosetta software at least _tries_ to be more like what's described here. A lot of earlier lessons revolve around creating new associations with pictures as opposed to direct word translations.
Regardless it's ridiculously expensive. - das0408, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3his name's daniel tammet, and i think he did it in a week
- ineptsavant, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Of all those things, I'd say immersion is the most important. I've been living in China for a few months now... and I can finally hear the seperations in the words when people speak and I can put the sounds into roman characters (pinyin) in my head in realtime. I can read a little too... but reading chinese doesn't help you speak it much as the character system is not phonetic. I think within a year I will speak workable Chinese. Thanks submitter for the other tips in the article.
- Auxon, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3"...it's definitely possible in six months if you don't speak your native language ...." Well, that would pretty much limit it to toddlers and mute people wouldn't it?
- Stupidumb, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3It's more the 5 months...
- suttercain, on 07/08/2008, -2/+5How do you say "Can a ***** get a table dance" in Slavic?
- josephbloseph, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Of course, having conversations in front of other people in a language that they don't understand is going to be rude in most cases, especially since it isn't your first language.
- inactive, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3I've found youtube is good for learning languages. You get to hear people speaking in a different language and comment with them. Not ideal for speech but it's the closest thing you can get to immersion without travelling.
- 101phones, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3I know a lot of people that are very fluent in dumbass and it most certainly didn't take them 6 months to learn the language.
- orchidee2, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2I had the idea to fresh up my French after not having spoken this language for 12 or 13 years. So, each night, when I went to bed, I tried to recapitulate the most important events and experiences of the day only in French (looking up the missing vocabulary!). When I woke up in the morning I also had my first thoughts not in my mother tongue German, but in French. After two month or so, I realized that not only all my competence had returned, but when I really took lessons, I was able to speak more fluently than ever! Besides, it doesn´t really matter what you think about in bed ...
- Phearce, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2For what it's worth: combine (1) immerse and (2) "think baby" by reading basic children's books. This will give you a solid handle on basic sentence structure. Plus, seeing common words spelled out can help improve pronounciation. I've employed this twice on extended stays in Denmark and Germany with good results.
- yuanzhoulu, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2yeah, i've lived in switzerland.
but it can still annoy others. if you're really trying to get work done with a Chinese speaker and you insist they speak Chinese and then ask them questions all the time, when both of you could get the work done in English, it can be annoying when work is the priority... as goes for any language. social situations where you are relaxed are much easier.
as for the French, the reputation goes that they mostly want you to learn their language, so of course they will help you. - ZenGlen, on 07/07/2008, -2/+4Just what I needed here in Thailand. I've been living here for a year and have been struggling with the language. Great work!
- Icetype, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2I agree. But it has to be one that doesn't speak your language as well as you speak hers, or you'll just end up speaking English. I dated a girl in Japan that didn't speak English at all, it was awesome.
- jj2me, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2@josephbloseph,
French ... rude ...
Get it now? - secrity, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2When I was in stationed in Korea, a number of GI's married Korean women. Most of the Korean wives spoke little or no English and the GI's spoke no Korean; "Yobo sayo, me numba hanna GI" doesn't count.. I can't figure out how somebody can get married to someone who they can't have a conversation with.
- clutchperformer, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2It only annoys the Swiss when attempting their completely screwed up version of German (read idiosyncratic). Everyone else in the world I've met are completely fine and infinitely patient with questions. The French (Parisians), despite their haughty reputation, I found downright cool about helping you out without insulting you.
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