If you are learning a new language, post your tips on how you are learning it?

[skottiejay]

I'm trying to learn a multiple of languages at once, which probably isn't a good thing. However I'm doing duolingo, memrise and just trying to immerse myself in the language itself. Spanish speaking shows and what not (spanish is the language I've decided on at the moment, I took some in school but have forgotten just about everything) but I don't feel like I'm learning enough. They base a lot of it on repetition of words that you got wrong, this understand, but I want to progress faster and it isn't helping when out of the blue I'm getting a word they tried to teach me 3 or so pages ago.

So just out of curiosity how are you learning these languages? I spent a good 2 hours on spanish last night, and I am still getting sentences like me gustaria un poco de vino por favor (which i'm pretty sure is wrong) wrong still.

Does anyone have any language tips they can give?

[bitsmichel]

I'm trying to learn a multiple of languages at once, which probably isn't a good thing. However I'm doing duolingo, memrise and just trying to immerse myself in the language itself. Spanish speaking shows and what not (spanish is the language I've decided on at the moment, I took some in school but have forgotten just about everything) but I don't feel like I'm learning enough. They base a lot of it on repetition of words that you got wrong, this understand, but I want to progress faster and it isn't helping when out of the blue I'm getting a word they tried to teach me 3 or so pages ago.

Its possible  to learn multiple languages at once, but if they are close linguistically it gets easy to mix them up.

I spent a good 2 hours on spanish last night, and I am still getting sentences like me gustaria un poco de vino por favor (which i'm pretty sure is wrong) wrong still.

Does anyone have any language tips they can give?

Practice like its a second nature. Record several questions in a cassette, playback and answer the questions as phrases.
This forces you to answer quickly, and over time it will get more natural.

In addition, basic phrases really help. Try to learn the present form of these http://sipuebla.com/verbos/100verbs.htm like "I open", "I buy" etc

[skottiejay]

Thanks, that's something I know in school at least I had a lot of trouble with was past/present tenses and how to talk to someone formal informal, etc. That will most likely help out a lot, linguistically I read that if one language has roots in others it doesn't make it terribly hard to learn the others but maybe I read that wrong.

[bitsmichel]

That will most likely help out a lot, linguistically I read that if one language has roots in others it doesn't make it terribly hard to learn the others but maybe I read that wrong.

That's right. The more close a language is to a language you know, the easier it is to associate it with something you already know. This has something to do with brain connections;
For example, if you know Spanish it's easier to learn French than Russian.

[CodyAlfaridzi]

1) first of all you need to learn how to speak in language you want to learn
2) learn the vocab
3) learn the grammar

that's all my tips for learning the language, hope its very usefull for you

[Nobitcoin]

In my opinion the best way is to learn the swear words of a given language and also maybe get a job where they only speak the language that your trying to learn and see if you swim or float.

[rubencho65]

I really enjoy learning and speaking languages, the practice is one important step, learn the vocabulary and start creating sentences in the language that you're learning. Also try listen and watch programs or music in your goal language and it will be really useful to learn about the vocabulary.

[dadugan]

You will need to be a geek to do this sort of thing.

Learning by practice is the only way to become an expert.

[skottiejay]

That's why I'm intensively going over the stuff at memrise and duolingo and making sure I remember things, I'm even marking down the things I"m forgetting to look up later. I'm still only at basic spanish vocab and I don't even have a general grasp at that. But eventually I'll probably get it, I don't know.

Any other tips tipsters?

[Hazir]

I am just not 100% convinced that learning multiple languages at once is good thing for normal human with normal intelligence, memory and capabilities. You should maximize your efforts and focus on one language at time. And if you want to learn multiple languages start from the easiest one.

[skottiejay]

Yeah, I realized that after the last time I wanted to learn Spanish and another language at the same time. I've already had some school time in with Spanish/French and some stuff I'm relearning again and picking up quick but there's still some things I need work on. That's why I'm going over basic vocab first, just to kind of refresh myself. I'm not sure what language I want to "focus" on entirely though because I'm interested in so many.

[BitsBitsBits]

Duolingo.com is a great website to learn languages I heard. You should look it up in case you haven't.

[skottiejay]

Duolingo.com is a great website to learn languages I heard. You should look it up in case you haven't.

Yeah I've been there and memrise, the problem is retaining the learned information and being able to hear it and answer to it. Like if I was to say me llamo skottiejay I know what that means, but I wouldn't know if someone was ASKING me what my name was, that's what the problem is the listening for the words and understand what they are saying, but maybe that just comes in time.

[TwinWinNerD]

Duolingo.com is a great website to learn languages I heard. You should look it up in case you haven't.

He even states in his opening post that he is using it

[TwinWinNerD]

I used to learn german when I was in college.

It was like learning any other language, it did work, you just need to practice with native language speakers. that's it.

College = USA? 

Wie lange hast du gebraucht bis du Deutsch flüssig sprechen konntest? Würde mich halt echt interessieren, weil die meisten sagen dass es für sie extrem schwer ist das zu lernen..

lg

[skottiejay]

Yeah how long til you spoke fluently? I took some german in college and I could not for the life of me getting the sentence structure the vocab and etc down, I ended up failing the class because even with a tutor I couldn't figure anything out.

[DolanDuck]

I'm trying to learn French and I'm happy with my method, I just memorize the most used expressions, don't care about the rest. 

[skottiejay]

I'm trying to learn French and I'm happy with my method, I just memorize the most used expressions, don't care about the rest. 

The "learn along the way approach?" ? Yeah that seems like a good method, I just want to know what I'm saying so I don't offend anyone really.

[devil2man]

I am currently trying to perfect my English, the best and fastest method would be with a native speaker teacher, however I am making considerable progress with the duolingo android application

[pakhitheboss]

I am from India and I know in total five languages and they are:

• English
• Hindi
• Urdu
• Bengali
• Telegu

I can read and write almost all of them and presently I am learning French. In my opinion your mother tongue or your native language is the base for you to learn all other languages as your mind tends to convert your mother language to another language. Hence, In my opinion you should know your native language thoroughly then only you can speak in other languages.