learning new language

As ShootingStar noted, there's two important things about learning a new language, first vocabulary, then grammar. And grammar can vary widely from language to language. I studied French in high school, came out first in the class, but some years later I found out the hard way that there's a big difference in the way French was taught in the Mississippi Delta, and the way it was rapidly and natively spoken by real live French folks ;-)

I haven't kept up with my French since then, not even un peu... but in college I was required to take a year of German. (back then you couldn't get a chemistry degree without being able to read the Beilstein and Gmelin handbooks and the old German articles in chem lit.) This time the professor focused more on learning the grammar than rapidly building vocabulary, and it went a lot easier, and I retained more of it a couple of years later when Uncle Sam sent me to the U.S. Army in Europe for a six-year immersion course. After nearly 20 years I can still pretty well hold up my end of a converstion auf Deutsch, and it's a lot of fun listening to the dialogue in soem of the old war movies from the 60s and 70s and chuckling at what the folks writing subtitles left out ;-)

as a language teacher and a liver in a different language to my own, AND a cyclist. It's like cycling. The first time I went up the hill I got a quarter of the way up, then 6 months later I got half way up, a year later I got all the way to the top, now 2 years later I can get to the top in a harder gear!
This is of course, the product of getting out there on my bike 3 days a week!

I speak 3 languages fluently (Dutch - French - English), I can easily travel through German speaking countries and I speak a little Italian. :D The fastest way to learn a new language is to speak with native speakers, and don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself, because you don't. Most people really appreciate that you are learning their language, and they will be very helpful.

But the best way to really learn a language is to date someone who speaks the language you want to learn. :D

I am getting a little frustrated with Rosetta Stone. I am at the point where they are throwing in lots of stuff, but they don't explain it; I had enough previous Spanish to know it's a new tense or some grammar thing, but I can't get the pattern, because it feels incomplete. So, I go to my book, which helps, but I am having to slow down my pace of learning. I wish I had someone to practice with. My DH is much slower than me and although we are trying to speak together, I end up yelling at him a lot (I admit it).
I feel confident about traveling, "survival" Spanish, but I am half way done with Level 2 and not sure how much I am retaining through this method. I just bought Level 3, so that's my goal.

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Originally Posted by Crankin

I am getting a little frustrated with Rosetta Stone. I am at the point where they are throwing in lots of stuff, but they don't explain it; I had enough previous Spanish to know it's a new tense or some grammar thing, but I can't get the pattern, because it feels incomplete. So, I go to my book, which helps, but I am having to slow down my pace of learning. I wish I had someone to practice with. My DH is much slower than me and although we are trying to speak together, I end up yelling at him a lot (I admit it).
I feel confident about traveling, "survival" Spanish, but I am half way done with Level 2 and not sure how much I am retaining through this method. I just bought Level 3, so that's my goal.

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No Spanish-speaking shows in your area? At least it'll keep your ear reminded of the linguistic flows, sentence structure? Mind you, colloquial spoken language is different from formal verbal language learning.

I do have a role model with my own family on 2nd language learning: my father. He became fluent in English after considerable hard work of self-teaching as an adult. As a child I do remember big huge tape cassette reels, where he heard and taped himself to practice. He didn't have much time to attend ESL classes since his job had long hrs. and his big family was young.

He reads newspapers like the Globe and Mail..which is the Washington Post literacy equivalent.
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Papaver, have to say that the Chinese, German language learning swap didn't happen with us. Probably because we aren't motivated to learn and also each of us have ruined mother tongues by now. However he knows way more German than I have retained my Chinese..it's easy to test this with playing word games with English as reference point.

His German is getting a bit rusty since his mother died. But shouldn't take much if he were to go to Germany again. What I have learned from him, has been more cultural in terms of behaviours, attitudes, food :), regional differences. Just hearing German got me more accustomed when I worked for an international, but German-based engineering firm where there were alot of German ex-pats speaking German often/nearly daily.

I can only catch words and occasional sentences when I try to watch Spanish TV. They just are speaking so fast, it magnifies my feelings of stupidity. There are also a lot of Latin American colloquial expressions, which I don't understand (but can sometimes figure out). I am also sorry I bought the Spain version of the Rosetta Stone Spanish and not the Latin American one. I believe most of the Spanish I learned in school, especially in Miami, was strictly the Latin American version, so many of the words are different. My thought was that since we are going to Spain, the Spain version would be the best, but it's probably not going to be the most useful in terms of using the Spanish on the job.
Of course, right now, I would probably send someone into a deep depression if I tried to do a therapy session in Spanish!
Really, I am in awe of anyone who is bilingual (or trilingual). I wish this country had a different attitude toward languages, so we learned 2 of them at an early age.

Sorry I can't offer any input about Rosetta Stone, but I really wanted to get into the conversation. :)

I too am on a mission to learn a language. I grew up with my Mom speaking Dutch to me and in return I would answer in English. So, I understand it almost fluently as far as a day to day conversation goes. I wouldn't be able to jump into a business conversation or a history class. I can speak Dutch a little too; however, I have a very hard time forming sentences and remembering the words when I need them. It is the grammar that I am missing. What has worked well for me in learning Dutch is going to Google.nl and searching for "learning Dutch" in Dutch. I found some really great free sites that I would not have found by using our Google. Of course it helps that I know a little Dutch.

We traveled to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 2008 and I was so impressed by how many people there could speak so many languages. It makes me really want to hold a conversation in Dutch with my Mom sometime in her lifetime.

I was totally impressed meeting Chinese-Canadians living in Quebec, some who speak and write all 3 languages quite well. These folks I met, engaged in counselling services, so they really had to know 3 languages well to serve their clients and also network across Montreal with the other agencies professionally.

Chinatown signage there, some of it is in 3 languages in Montreal.

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mhami.. the pattern in our family, is to answer in Chinese to my mother, who speaks/knows primarily only Chinese and then fit in English if we don't know the Chinese word(s).

So yes, it sounds like a dog's breakfast. And it is. So that's why in such family situations, there has to be intuitive trust by parent and child so that there is SOME familial bond and ongoing communication.

Despite this sort of linguistic purgatory, it does help in language retention. So never be afraid of looking stupid. My parents and relatives appreciate it.

Crankin, you don't have to understand all the Spanish on the TV or radio to get benefit from it. Just listening to the cadence and rhythm of the language is incredibly useful. I would encourage you to reconsider not listening to Spanish TV or radio because you don't understand everything. Just go with it and have it on a little every day. It's particularly useful if you are learning European Spanish with Rosetta Stone and want to also get a sense of Mexican and Central American Spanish (which is what most of the TV/Radio stations tend towards, at least around here.)

I found Rosetta Stone (Portuguese) to be very useful with the pronunciation. But I still needed the grammatical rules since I already speak French; it just makes more sense to me. So I took some private lessons and studied out of a book in addition to Rosetta Stone. That's what I'm going to do with Spanish starting in January, too.

Also, when you are in the process of learning a new language it is perfectly ok if you don't know what's going on. You don't have to understand everything, and you don't have to know what tense is what, or anything.

Learning language is something that humans do, sort of like digesting food. It doesn't help to worry about it so much.

Think of little kids learning a first language. There is quite a lot that they don't understand, sometimes it is adorable, sometimes funny, sometimes frustrating.

Just keep up your exposure to the language and you'll get better.

I know all of these things, but right now it seems impossible. I actually feel that I can learn languages fairly easily when I have the structure of a class or some immersion, so maybe I can swing some private lessons before the trip. I will start watching the TV. I loved taking Spanish in HS; it was my second foreign language. I took 3 years of French (everyone took French here in MA), so when I moved to south Florida, I decided to add in Spanish. I just wish I had continued it in college!
My son took 2 years of college Italian in a year, in an intensive style course. He lived in the international student dorm, where he had to speak in Italian part of the time, the semester before he went to Italy. He said he still could not understand the TV, etc when he got there. He arrived on Jan. 3d. When we went to visit him in the middle of April, he was totally fluent. So, I guess really does take immersion.
Shooting Star, I remember being in a Chinese restaurant in Montreal and marveling at the trilingual menu and wait staff.

When we were in Spain, we'd come back to our room sometimes and watch game shows. For the most part, the vocabulary was limited enough that between DH and me with our middle-school Spanish and, in my case, enough other European languages to give me grammar and cognates, we could understand enough to enjoy the shows and maybe pick up on a bit of the slang.

You should be able to find a slang dictionary, too - obviously there's no substitute for immersion, but for me, having spent a grand total of one day in France, my French slang dictionary is hugely helpful in reading online forums.

In language learning research the thing you are feeling has an official sounding name: the affective filter.

Anything you can do to reduce your affective filter could help.
(Alcohol works for some adult learners.)

I've had good luck with Pimsleur language programs, both with Italian and Spanish. I don't know how it compares vs. Rosetta Stone, but it's a pretty efficient system if you're preparing to travel somewhere and don't have a ton of time to take a conventional language course. (I've had years of formal French and Mandarin coursework, and I felt like I got comfortable with the "feel" of Italian much more quickly using the Pimsleur tapes).

The emphasis is on the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation that you would need as a traveler, so you get drilled with greetings, how to order at a restaurant, discussing transportation, using numbers to describe things and money.

I think an advantage to using a product like Pimsleur or Rosetta is that you're not sitting in a classroom listening to your classmates struggle with pronunciation. One of the things Pimsleur emphasizes is to listen and respond to the speaker at a similar speed. Early lessons are a bit slower and simpler, but then they get progressively more complicated and speed up to a more regular pace of conversation. Two months of working with recordings and I was much more comfortable with Italian vs. seven years of French, albeit with a limited vocabulary.

Probably any system like this is no substitute for practicing conversation with native speakers, but they can help you get a good foundation with things that you would find immediately useful.

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Originally Posted by malkin

In language learning research the thing you are feeling has an official sounding name: the affective filter.

Anything you can do to reduce your affective filter could help.
(Alcohol works for some adult learners.)

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Interesting! It's true...I'm much more talkative when I'm having a glass of wine. That's true for English, as well as French and Portuguese! I'll find out with Spanish in the spring.