Learning another language as an adult?

[BRISTOL86]

Who has done it and what method did you use? Class/self-learning through books/website? 

[BigTone]

51 minutes ago, BRISTOL86 said:

Who has done it and what method did you use? Class/self-learning through books/website? 

I speak French to an advanced level. I did this through self learning when I moved to France although spoke about 4 words when we first arrived (I was 46). Try watching a show on TV or DVD in French and turn on the English sub titles and listen to the radio etc when out in the car. For numbering I went to Lotto (Bingo) and picked it up that way. I can easily count to 10,000 in French now. Immerse yourself in their way of life and culture and you will pick it up quicker than you expect. My French got me a very nice job in Morocco for a couple of years (French is the business language there).  I also speak both Arabic and Japanese to a beginners level. Made a couple of great friends in Saudi simply because I tried to converse (Riyadh Chief of Traffic Police being one). In fairness most of them have a good level of English also even though I turned down his offer of marriage to his (rather attractive) Daughter !!

Most of all try and converse with the natives in their language and generally they will help you back. If you muck up then hey ho, I have done so many times !!!  Thought I told one lady in France that I was feeling hot when in fact I told her I was feeling randy !! We still laugh about it today and I still feel randy when I see her !!!

[BRISTOL86]

Merci, GrandTone - it’s actually French I want to learn! Useful info, thanks  

[phantom]

1 hour ago, BRISTOL86 said:

Who has done it and what method did you use? Class/self-learning through books/website? 

Before I went to Turkey last year I learnt a few phrases and was actually surprised how much I understood when over there

I wasn't as good as speaking it, but knew enough to get by

I used this app over about 10 weeks 

 

[BRISTOL86]

9 minutes ago, One man went.... said:

I would love to learn Russian and have learned the basics on google. But it is rather daunting because they have a whole different alphabet and letters sound different to how we normally say them.. 

 

[The Saturday Boy]

I did Italian classes at evening classes a few years. Then spoke it for two weeks on holiday.

Made a mistake asking for a kilo of figs in a little family run greengrocer. Fig in Italian is fica, the worst possible word beginning with c is figa. I asked for a kilo of fannies...

Much hilarity ensued!!!! For about ten minutes l had to keep repeating it to the whole family as they came in one by one to see what was happening!

[ralphindevon]

I've got a shed load of knowledge on this. We lived and worked in France for 11 years and came across hundreds of Brits and Irish either moving there full time or as a holiday home. 

The truth is, with Tone the exception by the sound if it, if you're over 18 and British it is really hard, we just don't have the brains for foreign language like the Dutch or Scandinavians. 

Of course it depends on how good you want to be, I've heard so many people say they speak fluent French and when they turn up trying to understand a local their French was holiday French at best.  My wife spoke it like a local, I was fortunate enough to do night classes in Bristol when I was still quite young so had quite a good vocabulary when I arrived but although my French was fine for my everyday life it was never as good as my wife.

I never met anyone who arrived with little or no French and went on to be anywhere near fluent, unless they married someone French or worked full time with locals. Many thought they'd do it but most failed to get past basics.

My advice is to learn numbers, this is actually fairly easy to do as is the alphabet. This will give you confidence in shops etc and CONFIDENCE is the main ingredient. Build up your vocabulary and practice on locals as much as possible and here's the best bit of advice....

When somebody speaks to you, don't panic, don't start thinking oh my god they're speaking too quick what am I going to say next, it's what so many people do. Just LISTEN, you'll be surprised how hearing a couple of words will help you understand the whole sentence. 

Also try and get to grips with formal and informal, it's quite important to get right and is looked upon as impolite to get wrong, I'd say more important than masculine, feminine which getting wrong is just an everyday mistake for a beginner.

When I was learning it was books and cassette tapes but I'm sure things have advanced since then. Whatever you learn will be appreciated, especially the further South and rural you go where English isn't spoken much. Good luck, it's a great place to live or visit.

[Maesknoll Red]

I work closely with a Design Office Manager in France and had a good chat to him about it, he’s Serbian and went to France when he was 16, with no French at all.  He now is as fluent as a local, speaks English and obviously Serbian.  He gave me the same advise as Tony said, watch films and TV programmes in French with English subtitles, that’s how he learnt.

I go to France/Belgium several times a year and start to get to grips with it (albeit still a beginner) and then by the time I return a couple of months later, have forgotten most of it.

For learning written French, I find Duolingo OK, but it’s not much help with verbal practice.

[MichaelRobartes]

I've been learning German on and off for about a year and have reached B1 level. I agree with Tone and others that the most important thing is to talk. I found the masculine/feminine/neutral articles and endings, as well as the 4 cases quite daunting but if you listen and speak then a lot of it comes automatically after a while. 

Ralph is right about not worrying too much about masculine/feminine. People will recognise that it isn't your mother tongue and won't be bothered by that. You have to be prepared to make mistakes. 

I do a course for a couple of hours a day now but before I came here I went through all the Duolingo modules. It's not great but I found that I remembered quite a lot of words and basic sentence structures so it might be worth it for supplementary exercises, especially as it's free.

[BigTone]

9 hours ago, ralphindevon said:

I've got a shed load of knowledge on this. We lived and worked in France for 11 years and came across hundreds of Brits and Irish either moving there full time or as a holiday home. 

The truth is, with Tone the exception by the sound if it, if you're over 18 and British it is really hard, we just don't have the brains for foreign language like the Dutch or Scandinavians. 

Of course it depends on how good you want to be, I've heard so many people say they speak fluent French and when they turn up trying to understand a local their French was holiday French at best.  My wife spoke it like a local, I was fortunate enough to do night classes in Bristol when I was still quite young so had quite a good vocabulary when I arrived but although my French was fine for my everyday life it was never as good as my wife.

I never met anyone who arrived with little or no French and went on to be anywhere near fluent, unless they married someone French or worked full time with locals. Many thought they'd do it but most failed to get past basics.

My advice is to learn numbers, this is actually fairly easy to do as is the alphabet. This will give you confidence in shops etc and CONFIDENCE is the main ingredient. Build up your vocabulary and practice on locals as much as possible and here's the best bit of advice....

When somebody speaks to you, don't panic, don't start thinking oh my god they're speaking too quick what am I going to say next, it's what so many people do. Just LISTEN, you'll be surprised how hearing a couple of words will help you understand the whole sentence. 

Also try and get to grips with formal and informal, it's quite important to get right and is looked upon as impolite to get wrong, I'd say more important than masculine, feminine which getting wrong is just an everyday mistake for a beginner.

When I was learning it was books and cassette tapes but I'm sure things have advanced since then. Whatever you learn will be appreciated, especially the further South and rural you go where English isn't spoken much. Good luck, it's a great place to live or visit.

We moved to France in 2006 and I relied on my Wifes French for a while as mine was crap. Unfortunately she then had an accident and ended up in hospital for about 6 months so it was a matter of I had to learn. I would never consider myself to be fluent as there are too many situations that arise when you suddenly realise what you don't understand. For example trying to explain to a Doctor in French exactly how you are feeling especially if its more of a mental problem rather than physical.

If talking on the telephone I very often ask them to talk slowly so I can understand fully what they are saying. The exception to that is the ones who ring 5 times a day asking if I want insulation in my roof !! They get a slightly different response !!

What does annoy me is the number of Brits (and others) who do not try and pick up the language when they come to live here. One guy I know has been here as long as us and his French extends to ca va. Another who has been there longer cannot even order a drink when she goes to the bar. One day on the Metro in Paris we met a South African woman who was moaning that everyone only spoke French. Listening to my Wife tell her what she thought was highly amusing to say the least.

We tend to mix more with French friends rather than English which is quite delberate and has helped us advance our language skills.

As Ralph says it is a great place to live.

PS: If you really want to impress them then tell them that Johnny Halliday was the dogs bollox !

PPS: he wasn't

[nebristolred]

Which language?

For Spanish, I can't recommend Duolingo and this link below enough:

https://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-spanish

[Robbored]

Back in the early 80s a news guy began working at the hospital and I first met him in the ballroom which every Tuesday afternoon became cinema for the benefit of the patients. We happened to sit next each other and he offered me a sweet. After the film I asked him his name and he said ‘Pedro’........but he didn’t have enough English to ask me my name. I realised  that he was Spanish.

Over the next few months his English improved tremendously and he told me that he wanted to become an air traffic controller in Spain but to do so would need to be fluent in french and English and that before joining us he’d spent 18/12 in Paris and had become fluent in french. He was able to speak in french with our Mauritian guys who were very impressed!

He reckoned the quickest way to learn a foreign language was to live in that country and mix with local people and after about 2 years he returned home to Spain.

[BRISTOL86]

47 minutes ago, BigTone said:

We moved to France in 2006 and I relied on my Wifes French for a while as mine was crap. Unfortunately she then had an accident and ended up in hospital for about 6 months so it was a matter of I had to learn. I would never consider myself to be fluent as there are too many situations that arise when you suddenly realise what you don't understand. For example trying to explain to a Doctor in French exactly how you are feeling especially if its more of a mental problem rather than physical.

If talking on the telephone I very often ask them to talk slowly so I can understand fully what they are saying. The exception to that is the ones who ring 5 times a day asking if I want insulation in my roof !! They get a slightly different response !!

What does annoy me is the number of Brits (and others) who do not try and pick up the language when they come to live here. One guy I know has been here as long as us and his French extends to ca va. Another who has been there longer cannot even order a drink when she goes to the bar. One day on the Metro in Paris we met a South African woman who was moaning that everyone only spoke French. Listening to my Wife tell her what she thought was highly amusing to say the least.

We tend to mix more with French friends rather than English which is quite delberate and has helped us advance our language skills.

As Ralph says it is a great place to live.

PS: If you really want to impress them then tell them that Johnny Halliday was the dogs bollox !

PPS: he wasn't

Good on you mate, I completely agree. I wouldn’t dream of living somewhere and not being bothered to try and learn. 

At present my time in France is limited to a few days a year if I’m lucky, but wouldn’t hesitate to live there if the opportunity ever arose to do so, love the place. 

I think for the time being I’ll have to content myself with being able to decipher written French. We visit again in September and by then I’d like to be confident deciphering menus and stuff without looking up every other word on the internet! Things like Duolingo and similar seem like a good grounding for getting some basics under your belt. 

[BigTone]

3 hours ago, BRISTOL86 said:

Good on you mate, I completely agree. I wouldn’t dream of living somewhere and not being bothered to try and learn. 

At present my time in France is limited to a few days a year if I’m lucky, but wouldn’t hesitate to live there if the opportunity ever arose to do so, love the place. 

I think for the time being I’ll have to content myself with being able to decipher written French. We visit again in September and by then I’d like to be confident deciphering menus and stuff without looking up every other word on the internet! Things like Duolingo and similar seem like a good grounding for getting some basics under your belt. 

May I suggest that you look for an online French newspaper in the meantime. It actually isn't as hard to read French as you might think and if you then compare a story to the same story in an English paper you will pick up the words quite quickly.

Just a thought.

 

[BigTone]

May I also say that if you want to blend in with the French then is perfectly acceptable to go everywhere in your slippers.

[BRISTOL86]

2 minutes ago, BigTone said:

May I also say that if you want to blend in with the French then is perfectly acceptable to go everywhere in your slippers.

As if there was another reason needed to love France. 

[Kid in the Riot]

16 hours ago, ralphindevon said:

The truth is, with Tone the exception by the sound if it, if you're over 18 and British it is really hard, we just don't have the brains for foreign language like the Dutch or Scandinavians. 

Surely you don't actually believe that? It's got nothing to do with British people's brains, it is the simple fact that English is widely spoken in most countries we visit as tourists and the most popular music and film in the world is 99% presented in English. Danish, Swedish, Dutch etc are languages spoken by so few people in a global context that they know they have to start learning other languages from a very early age. 

Regarding ability to learn languages, it is true to say that generally women find it easier to pick up another language, as when they talk they use both hemispheres in their brain, whereas men only use one.

[elhombrecito]

16 hours ago, ralphindevon said:

I've got a shed load of knowledge on this. We lived and worked in France for 11 years and came across hundreds of Brits and Irish either moving there full time or as a holiday home. 

The truth is, with Tone the exception by the sound if it, if you're over 18 and British it is really hard, we just don't have the brains for foreign language like the Dutch or Scandinavians. 

Of course it depends on how good you want to be, I've heard so many people say they speak fluent French and when they turn up trying to understand a local their French was holiday French at best.  My wife spoke it like a local, I was fortunate enough to do night classes in Bristol when I was still quite young so had quite a good vocabulary when I arrived but although my French was fine for my everyday life it was never as good as my wife.

I never met anyone who arrived with little or no French and went on to be anywhere near fluent, unless they married someone French or worked full time with locals. Many thought they'd do it but most failed to get past basics.

My advice is to learn numbers, this is actually fairly easy to do as is the alphabet. This will give you confidence in shops etc and CONFIDENCE is the main ingredient. Build up your vocabulary and practice on locals as much as possible and here's the best bit of advice....

When somebody speaks to you, don't panic, don't start thinking oh my god they're speaking too quick what am I going to say next, it's what so many people do. Just LISTEN, you'll be surprised how hearing a couple of words will help you understand the whole sentence. 

Also try and get to grips with formal and informal, it's quite important to get right and is looked upon as impolite to get wrong, I'd say more important than masculine, feminine which getting wrong is just an everyday mistake for a beginner.

When I was learning it was books and cassette tapes but I'm sure things have advanced since then. Whatever you learn will be appreciated, especially the further South and rural you go where English isn't spoken much. Good luck, it's a great place to live or visit.

In the nicest way possible, I think that is absolute rubbish (the highlighted sentence, not all of it). Our brains are no different to any other nationality when it comes to learning languages. I think it just comes down to how prevalent English is around the world, and to be perfectly honest, it is a lot to do with laziness  - I mean, why bother to learn a foreign language when they all speak English anyway? 

Personally, I wouldn't dream of going to another country without at least bothering to learn the very basics before I go. Nothing annoys me more than being around other English people on holiday and hearing them making absolutely no effort at all to use a single word of the local language. I mean, it's really not difficult to learn 'please' and 'thank you' etc. 

As for the original question that @BRISTOL86 raised, I can't recommend Duolingo high enough. You can either use it online or via the app and it's completely free. 

https://www.duolingo.com/

[One Team In Keynsham]

1 hour ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Surely you don't actually believe that? It's got nothing to do with British people's brains, it is the simple fact that English is widely spoken in most countries we visit as tourists and the most popular music and film in the world is 99% presented in English. Danish, Swedish, Dutch etc are languages spoken by so few people in a global context that they know they have to start learning other languages from a very early age. 

Regarding ability to learn languages, it is true to say that generally women find it easier to pick up another language, as when they talk they use both hemispheres in their brain, whereas men only use one.

Probably high on my list of life regrets is not continuing with another language: my wife is fluent in German, and conversational in Spanish and French; my sister-in-law is fluent in French, and 2 of my nieces are bilingual French/English and the elder of the 2 getting very proficient in Italian. Me? I stumble about with O-Level French and German, and a bit of night-school Spanish. I am an embarrassment to that side of the family (probably for numerous reasons, not just languages, to be fair).

[Kid in the Riot]

9 minutes ago, One Team In Keynsham said:

Probably high on my list of life regrets is not continuing with another language: my wife is fluent in German, and conversational in Spanish and French; my sister-in-law is fluent in French, and 2 of my nieces are bilingual French/English and the elder of the 2 getting very proficient in Italian. Me? I stumble about with O-Level French and German, and a bit of night-school Spanish. I am an embarrassment to that side of the family (probably for numerous reasons, not just languages, to be fair).

Same. Tried learning Spanish a few years ago but didn't get too far. Ultimately, I think you really need to immerse yourself in it and that's tricky when you don't live in the country where the language is spoken.

[BigTone]

30 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Same. Tried learning Spanish a few years ago but didn't get too far. Ultimately, I think you really need to immerse yourself in it and that's tricky when you don't live in the country where the language is spoken.

Correct. Remember as well the little differences that come from different regions. The Arabic I have picked up is mostly from Morocco and therefore slightly different to that in Saudi so very often they would look at me sideways with what I might say. The most widely understood Arabic is actully that spoken in Egypt.

[elhombrecito]

42 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Same. Tried learning Spanish a few years ago but didn't get too far. Ultimately, I think you really need to immerse yourself in it and that's tricky when you don't live in the country where the language is spoken.

Watching Spanish TV definitely helps. So much easier than it used to be, with loads of decent Spanish language programming on Netflix, all with subtitles.

[ralphindevon]

2 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Surely you don't actually believe that? It's got nothing to do with British people's brains, it is the simple fact that English is widely spoken in most countries we visit as tourists and the most popular music and film in the world is 99% presented in English. Danish, Swedish, Dutch etc are languages spoken by so few people in a global context that they know they have to start learning other languages from a very early age. 

Regarding ability to learn languages, it is true to say that generally women find it easier to pick up another language, as when they talk they use both hemispheres in their brain, whereas men only use one.

 

2 hours ago, elhombrecito said:

In the nicest way possible, I think that is absolute rubbish (the highlighted sentence, not all of it). Our brains are no different to any other nationality when it comes to learning languages. I think it just comes down to how prevalent English is around the world, and to be perfectly honest, it is a lot to do with laziness  - I mean, why bother to learn a foreign language when they all speak English anyway? 

Personally, I wouldn't dream of going to another country without at least bothering to learn the very basics before I go. Nothing annoys me more than being around other English people on holiday and hearing them making absolutely no effort at all to use a single word of the local language. I mean, it's really not difficult to learn 'please' and 'thank you' etc. 

As for the original question that @BRISTOL86 raised, I can't recommend Duolingo high enough. You can either use it online or via the app and it's completely free. 

https://www.duolingo.com/

I really believe that due to the reasons you both gave, that English is so widely spoken we haven't had to learn other languages like others have, that our brains aren't geared up for learning languages like others. 

I've seen so many intelligent people really trying to learn French at classes etc with little success. A Dutch person comes along, already their brain is geared to learning English and maybe German and they go from very little French to almost fluent in 3 months 

Their brains know how to learn languages, ours not so much

[ralphindevon]

The exception to what I've said is young, school age children, even British kids pick it up in no time at all because they are emersed in it at school and their brains are like sponges. 

They then have to act as translators for their parents which is funny to see, a 6 year old translating the words of a bank manager for their mum and dad. 

[BigTone]

46 minutes ago, ralphindevon said:

 

I really believe that due to the reasons you both gave, that English is so widely spoken we haven't had to learn other languages like others have, that our brains aren't geared up for learning languages like others. 

I've seen so many intelligent people really trying to learn French at classes etc with little success. A Dutch person comes along, already their brain is geared to learning English and maybe German and they go from very little French to almost fluent in 3 months 

Their brains know how to learn languages, ours not so much

Ralph, do you think that their ability to learn a new language is down to the fact that in many cases (Netherlands as an example) they speak several languages anyway and are therefore more open to learn ?

[Eastside Moonwalker]

speak English, German and a bit of Czech. Learning Russian at the moment. You have to force yourself to learn x amount per day. Words, Grammar, Context. Listen to music, watch tv, watch learning videos, read books etc. 

 

Being able to speak English and German fluently has helped me loads in my life.

[Eastside Moonwalker]

22 hours ago, One man went.... said:

I would love to learn Russian and have learned the basics on google. But it is rather daunting because they have a whole different alphabet and letters sound different to how we normally say them.. 

It's hard, learn cyrilic for 3 hours it shouldn't take too long. Then begin with the actual language itself. 

But being able to go to any country east of Poland and talk should be enough motivation, i'm currently around an A2 level

[marcofisher]

38 minutes ago, BigTone said:

Ralph, do you think that their ability to learn a new language is down to the fact that in many cases (Netherlands as an example) they speak several languages anyway and are therefore more open to learn ?

I get the impression that they are also far better educated in the grammar of their own langage.

This allows you to identify different units in a sentence more effectively when learning other languages as well as their functions.  

I have a degree in French and Spanish and have almost finished my masters in translation.

It made me realise that learning another language increases one's grasp of English tenfold. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Brits would struggle if asked to identify different units of a sentence and tenses.

[ralphindevon]

35 minutes ago, BigTone said:

Ralph, do you think that their ability to learn a new language is down to the fact that in many cases (Netherlands as an example) they speak several languages anyway and are therefore more open to learn ?

Yes mate definitely, I guess it's a combination of they've learnt before and its been successful so have no hang ups wheres for us it can be a bit daunting. Plus they would have had English and Dutch on their TVs etc all their lives while we only hear another language when we're abroad.

I know a lot of Brits are just lazy and as you said before there's nothing more annoying than seeing Brits make no effort when basic politeness in another language is so easy. But I have genuinely seen many retired people throw loads of money on 1 to 1 lessons in a desperate attempt to become near fluent only to fall way short. They learn enough to get by in shops and exchange greetings with neighbours but a trip to CPAM or the like is too much for them

[ralphindevon]

12 minutes ago, marcofisher said:

I get the impression that they are also far better educated in the grammar of their own langage.

This allows you to identify different units in a sentence more effectively when learning other languages as well as their functions.  

I have a degree in French and Spanish and have almost finished my masters in translation.

It made me realise that learning another language increases one's grasp of English tenfold. I would hazard a guess that 95% of Brits would struggle if asked to identify different units of a sentence and tenses.

This is a very good point.

I can remember my wife trying to explain how and why you construct a sentence to someone trying to learn French and they weren't interested saying just teach me some things to say and I'll build on that. It's not how it works and something I'll admit I fall down on. My French is like listening to a foreign football manager do an interview,  you can understand all of it but it's full if grammatical mistakes.