EPTAnd to anyone who learned a language on their own, how did they do so? I'm thinking a language program like Rosetta Stone.
Thanks!
Learning a new language this summer
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Kezzer
United States1268 Posts
And to anyone who learned a language on their own, how did they do so? I'm thinking a language program like Rosetta Stone. Thanks! | ||
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Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
Edit: French may be grammatically closer to English, but it still really comes down to what language you think you'll use and what will keep you motivated. | ||
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ScrubS
Netherlands436 Posts
 . German is prolly the easiest as its closer to English than French. Both German and English are West-German languages as French is a roman language, like italian. Dunno what else you would like to know, but if you want to learn it as quickly as possible, go with german | ||
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Slakkoo
Sweden1119 Posts
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Integra
Sweden5626 Posts
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Atlare
Australia893 Posts
Aside from that I've learnt a small amount of french and I did Japanese for like 5 years when I was in High School. | ||
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nbaker
United States1342 Posts
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Mactator
109 Posts
On June 05 2011 22:30 Integra wrote: Wouldn't Swedish be the easiest though? Half of our language already consists of English words Scandinavian languages are often hard to learn for foreigners for many reasons. Why do you wanna learn a new language? People usually have some kind of motivation. German? lots of modern philosophy and other literature is written in german. French? no clue, girls? You are learning a language to use it for something. I would say you have to figure out what that something is. I know a couple of languages myself. Learned them because I wanted to read some famous literature. One more thing, if you are trying to learn to speak a specific language for some reason then the best/most fun way is to travel to the country and stay there for a while. | ||
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Ghostcom
Denmark4783 Posts
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DwmC_Foefen
Belgium2186 Posts
It can sound unbelievably gay or amazingly harsh and awesome ^^ | ||
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Phrogs!
Japan521 Posts
As for which to pick, I would go with whichever interests you the most and not think about which is harder because honestly I don't think language learning is "hard" so much as it just takes a lot of time and to put in that time you're gonna need interest and motivation. | ||
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Deja Thoris
South Africa646 Posts
The Germanic / Dutch languages seem have vocab and rules that aren't too massively confusing to people whose native language is English. French / Spanish / Italian all form a different branch that quite simply defeats my little mind! If you wanted to learn languages for business German will be more useful than French. However, Spanish is more widely spoken than German or French so you might want to give that some thought. To learn a language effectively you need to immerse yourself in it. That means practising it in practical situations. It's all very well repeating into a computer microphone, it really focuses the mind when you need to order food or ask for directions in a foreign language though. | ||
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Uraeus
France1378 Posts
German has pretty strict rules, whereas French has a LOT of exceptions to myriads of subtle rules. As a result, I doubt you can get to a semi-decent level in French over summer, whereas you could probably get the basics of German. The biggest problem of course would be vocabulary, as only time or immersion can help here. As of which to choose, it depends on WHY you want to learn a language. Because sincerely, German is close to useless unless you want to live in Germany. It is only spoken in Germany, Austria, and some parts of Switzerland, and people there usually speak English pretty well. French however, is the official language in many African countries, Belgium, Switzerland, and is widely spoken in many countries (somehow people all over the world learn French at school). And French people are TERRIBLE at languages in general and English in particular, so knowing the language is very useful even for tourists here. | ||
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Mattes
Germany1116 Posts
On June 05 2011 23:54 DwmC_Foefen wrote: I'd go with German :p It can sound unbelievably gay WAS? NICHT SCHWUL!! >:/ or amazingly harsh and awesome ^^ ok..i can live with that :D (funny...most germans consider french sounding pretty "gayish" ) On June 06 2011 00:17 Uraeus wrote: As of which to choose, it depends on WHY you want to learn a language. Because sincerely, German is close to useless unless you want to live in Germany. It is only spoken in Germany, Austria, and some parts of Switzerland, and people there usually speak English pretty well. French however, is the official language in many African countries, Belgium, Switzerland, and is widely spoken in many countries (somehow people all over the world learn French at school). And French people are TERRIBLE at languages in general and English in particular, so knowing the language is very useful even for tourists here. tbh...that should not be of that significance if you dont consider living in the country If it comes to usefullness one should perhaps consider chinese (though it should be a lot harder than french/german) | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
I would advise against Rosetta stone, or any other such overpriced programme. Do yourself a favour, and go down to your local used book store, and look for language-learning materials, preferably pre-1970. The awful commercialisation of language learning delivers the typical effects of dumbed down gimmicks. Flip through the book, and you can often gauge the vocabulary-span of that given book. If there are fewer than 1000 words, it's probably not worth purchasing. Other telltale signs are the infusion of "games," "cultural information," or colourful pictures. Avoid all of these as you would poison. Finally, avoid the Internet. Find a good hand dictionary, course book, and tapes. If you are good with phonetics, you probably don't even need tapes, but apparently they are supposed to be of help if you are good at audiocentric learning. | ||
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IamBach
United States1059 Posts
Both have lots of great literature though French might have the edge. Music German wins by a long shot. Bach, Mahler, Schubert (though they are pretty difficult to understand if you don't have a the lyrics in front of you). If your not into that kind of stuff, then I would check out Wir Sind Helden on youtube. They are really easy to understand and fun to listen to. Really if I were you I would try learning Spanish. I know it may seem kind of boring if your American, but it is a really fun language and not too challenging grammatically but rather getting a hang of idioms and all the verb cases are, but usually thats the kind of stuff people like! | ||
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