Learning languages?

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Hello. My first language is English but I can also speak French and Latin. I have an aim, which is to be able to speak seven languages that aren't English to some degree of fluency by the time I am thirty. I can speak two already so I need to learn five new ones. I would love to learn German and Russian and am planning to buy some language learning software and books.

Does anybody know if the Michael Thomas method is worth the extra money? Is it worth spending a few hundred on a Rosetta Stone course if none of the cheaper methods work? I would like to know if anybody has tried these methods of learning languages and would greatly appreciate some tips. I have a natural knack for picking up foreign languages but I'm also willing to persevere.

One last thing; does anyone have any suggestions as to which three other languages I could learn? I don't want to learn Spanish or Portuguese, even though they're so widespread etc, because I don't like the way they sound and have no interest in them. I've thought about learning Slovenian because it's my boyfriend's dad's first language and it sounds great, but none of his family speak it so it might be a bit awkward.

Thanks, if you can help

If I were you, I would learn Japanese, Mandarin and Ancient Greek in addition to Russian, German, French and Latin.

My rationale is that those are the languages which offer the most culture throughout history.

Last edited by JohnOldman on 16 Jul 2011, 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I did French and German GCSE then French A level and Spanish A level at sixth form as well as Spanish GCSE in a year at the same time as doing the A level. I also did a short course in Italian as an extra.

I then studied Scandinavian languages at university with Norwegian, Swedish and Danish and a term of Finnish.

I moved to Japan and learned Japanese there and I have also studied Hebrew.

My recommendation is not to study languages like Swedish or Dutch because they all speak English and won't be willing to put up with you practising your language skills.

Slovene is a nice language and has a dual plural which is quite unusual.

I'm dutch and I hope to improve my English here but I have to admit that it's not exactly easy to translate your thoughts and feelings in another language.

Michel Thomas' books are good if they suit your learning style, but Rosetta Stone is never worth the money. From my experience, the best books in general are Teach Yourself and Colloquial, although each language has it's own books. I have tons of books for many languages, so I could help you find materials if you needed it.

For one of your languages, you should definitely learn Basque. But, seriously, only you can decide which languages you want to learn. I chose to learn begin learning Basque to fluency, not because it's widespread or has a lot of speakers (since it is neither), but because I love the culture and history, and deemed it worth it to learn. Everyone has their own reasons for learning languages.

You can't go wrong with German and Russian though, and Slovenian is pretty cool. He's an awesome song in Slovenian:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDKzcm8WrxQ[/youtube]

I know several languages, but I learned them in different ways. I learned English and German at school. I use English for learning Esperanto. Some people find it weird that I use one foreign language (English) to learn a second one (Esperanto).

I absolutely love my German teacher. She teaches us by immersion, and it's both effective and hilarious.

I had been taught English since I was 13 by non-native teachers who used standard ways of teaching. Originally we had to learn Russian form 5th grade on in the communist era, but I hardly remember anything of what's been taught, except for a few words and counting. I know a few words in Slovak besides counting too, and I had had good use of what little I know of Slavic languages when I was to Slovenia as well. TBH, I'm at least 1/4 Slovak.

I'm not good at learning foreign languages, I've developed my English primarily to have a powerful means to connect with the world outside my country. It felt claustrophobic in a sense. Besides, I guess I'm somewhat obsessed with English by now, despite I'm still having difficulties with it.

May I suggest learning Hungarian?

Introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_language
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/ ... index.html

Impressions about how it sounds:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35142

A poem (listen to it first):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wff8JUIJ ... re=related

Another sample:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pBIGMKz ... _embedded#! (a scene depicting the time of Hungarian Nazis)

My first language is French. I study English and Italian at school, and Japanese (own choice).

OJani, for someone struggling with English, you write very well!


NUJV, my suggestions for languages would depend on your motivation for learning them. Are you looking to connect with an eclectic range of history, literature and cultures, while becoming conversant with large numbers of people? Perhaps a troika such as Arabic, Mandarin and Bengali would be worthy of consideration. Are you looking for a linguistically diverse set of languages, possibly with less emphasis on necessarily using them for regular communication? Maybe a pictographic language such as Chinese, an agglomerative such as any of the Inuit languages, and a language such as Sanskrit would provide for linguistic diversity. If you do not have a particular objective, think of places you may want to travel, and learn their languages. In any event, enjoy the experience – it is never a bad use of your time to learn another language.

My first language is [Brazilian] Portuguese. English is my second language (learnt at school and at college). I learnt some French at school and some Latin and German at college, too, but without the practice I "forgot" much of what I had learnt. I've been studying Hebrew for almost 5 years. Also, I'm self-studying Yiddish (of which I knew only some words and phrases) and Icelandic, and I'm trying to learn Welsh, too.

Hungarian would be nice! Actually I had once studied some Hungarian pronunciation, but I forgot it, too.

My first language is Dutch.
I learned French, English and German (was good at it, but never use it so forgot almost everything about it, still understand it though) at school.
I studied Spanish for a year and hope to study it a bit better when I have the time.
I also study Japanese by choice.
The ones that do not count because the knowledge was very very basic: Latin, Greek, Chinese.
I'm interested in almost all languages really..

Understandingly, I'm suprised no one speaks any minor language or peculiar ones, such as the whistled language of the island of La Gomera, in the Canary Islands.

Yes, but this is probably because there's few information available about minor languages. For example, I'd like to learn some minor Neolatin languages / dialects such as Nnapulitanu or Aragonés, but I can't find all I need to learn or even to study them a bit.

I've been studying Spanish for about 7 years both at school/university and on my own. I can hold a competent conversation (just last week I had a chat with somebody for over an hour exclusively in Spanish, which got me excited ) and I can write pretty well (but not nearly as well as I can in English, my native language).

I love foreign languages and I've even constructed my own personal language (weird I know) to get a better idea of how linguistics works, and to make people sitting next to me in class wonder what the hell I'm writing in my notebook!

In the past in school since my dad's job kept us moving around every few years I was able to take gaelic in Ireland. I had to ask my Irish friends for help since I started in the third grade and they all started in the 1st grade. Then in 5th and 6th grade I took Spanish and was very good at it and really liked it. Later on in high school I took French and Spanish and was able to practice Spanish since I had friends who were bilingual. Then in college I wanted to major in foreign languages at first and I took French and Spanish some more. I can always read and listen and understand Spanish and French pretty well, but speaking it is more difficult. Later on as an adult I have been able to practice and teach myself Italian since I lived there for a few years. It does help to be able to live in the country where everyone is speaking the language and I like watching TV in different languages.