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Aspie and Foreign Language Learning?

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Joe90
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17 May 2012, 12:12 pm

I did read somewhere that people with AS will have a hard time learning a foreign language. But there has been several other threads here saying that Aspies are better at learning a foreign language, so I don't know what to believe. I think it just depends on the person.

I've always found learning a foreign language really hard. Spanish was my special interest at one time, but I still struggled in Spanish lessons at school. Can you believe that?


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Jtuk
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17 May 2012, 3:23 pm

Have you tried the rosetta stone computer programme / website? It's a bit expensive, but a very clever visual way of learning languages. You are shown a 4 pictures, then you hear a spoken phrase. You have to then pick the right picture, somehow they manage to teach some really advanced concepts through this method. Might be worth a try for something different.

My weakness with learning languages is always constructing conversation. So it's actually a in ability to make small talk / made up talk and then translate this into the language I'm learning. This really stunts my learning compared to others as I spend more time worry about what to say, than how to formulate my words in another language.

I've done better with really dry grammar books, a dictionary and going in way over my head trying to translate complex written materials.

Jason



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17 May 2012, 3:35 pm

I'm very good with languages. I speak 4 of them - English, German, Russian and Spanish.

In my Russian course this semester, I did -none- of the homework, and the professor allowed me to, and still gave me an A, because she (being an AWESOME professor) had the flexibility and good teaching skills to accommodate me for how fast I learn languages. I stopped taking Spanish classes because I was forced to do the homework, even though I did not need it to learn the language. A good analogy is to imagine doing beginner's English homework - it would be easy but VERY tedious and tiring, just a waste of time.

In the two weeks since I graduated, I've gone through and learned all the material from 7 chapters of my Russian book - we only did 4 chapters during the semester.

However, Language is one of my special interests - whenever I've lost interest in it, I've hard a hard time learning language stuff because I'm just not interested.



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17 May 2012, 4:38 pm

CrazyCatLord wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i have a much easier time reading a foreign language than to comprehend it being spoken to me, the latter being an insurmountable goal for me. the only way i can understand another person speaking anything other than english, is if they would just SPEAK - ONE - WORD - AT - A - TIME - - - S-S-L-L--O-O-O-W-W-L-L-Y-Y.


I had the same problem with English until I started to watch English movies and TV series with subtitles. Learning to read English was easy, but training my listening comprehension was a female dog. I still don't understand many British dialects and some U.S. actors with an extreme Southern drawl.


No offense to the British, but I'm an American-English speaker, and I can't understand many British dialects. :lol: :mrgreen:

I'd guess that the movies you are watching are mostly Hollywood moves. So you are learning a Western American-English dialect. Thats probably why you have difficulty with the British and Southern dialects. You just haven't listened enough to them.

I think the biggest probable for everybody with English is the screwed up spelling. Which isn't even standardized for all countries.



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17 May 2012, 4:57 pm

And then you have the 'Strine' dialect of English - England based, part American, phrases and terms undecipherable to either - "I nearly karked it when that sheila told me to give it a little choke when I took her to the shaboo in my ute'



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17 May 2012, 4:59 pm

Jtuk wrote:
My weakness with learning languages is always constructing conversation. So it's actually a in ability to make small talk / made up talk and then translate this into the language I'm learning.


That may be your problem. Translation is hard. If it was easy, Google's language translation software wouldn't be such a joke. I can't translate between Japanese and English. But if I talking to a Japanese who can't speak much English, I just have to carry on the conversation in Japanese and forget about English. When I do that, I surprise myself with how many things I can discuss in Japanese. You have to think in the target language, you are trying to speak.



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18 May 2012, 2:40 am

Nascaireacht wrote:
There are a lot of people on the net trying to learn languages, and trying out new things. Maybe it'd be worth checking out some of the sites. I learned Irish from an immersion class at the age of four, and was educated through Irish for most of my years in school. When I started French and German, I found them easy enough (they say a 3rd language is easy compared to the 2nd!). But there were certain things that really threw me. I found that I need an overall view of the grammar - I can't take it in as well if it's in bits and pieces. I have heard it said that Michel Thomas' method is good for getting that overall view of a language. I haven't really tried it myself, but I know someone who has tried his Spanish course, and found it really helped (though not so much with vocabulary). You can try it for free at http://www.michelthomas.com/learn-spanish.php and if you have a smart phone, there's an app of the first few lessons in Spanish.
Also, try mnemonics and tricks of that sort. They help me a lot. There's a site called memrise.com which has other people's mnemonic tricks and memory aids for lots of languages. Not so good for grammar, though. There are also some funny (and useful) hints on http://www.fluentin3months.com/ which is a guy who's learning lots of languages, and other people like him all talking about how they did it.


Cool, I'll have to check out Michael Thomas' app. I think I once bought his CD... the guy with the accent? I always buy books and CDs, get bored, and give up on them. I like the idea of an iPhone app for it. He says you can learn a language in a matter of hours/days, not years. I find that hard to believe, but I'll try it.

That memrise site sounds interesting, too... thanks.



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18 May 2012, 2:46 am

I tried the program a few times at a library or school that had it once I think. Maybe it was some other brand. Maybe I should try that again.

Is there a way to tell what Spanish college level a program like that would be at? I can't seem to find anything "advanced" enough for my school's requirement. Most of the audio CD programs and books I've bought have been 1st, maybe early 2nd year Spanish.
I'm glad to know they teach advanced concepts through that method somehow... maybe the apps and CDs are more helpful than I realize.

I guess I find it hard to imagine that anything- flashcards, apps, anything- will really get me to the advanced language level I need.
I guess studying with these books, apps, flashcards over and over will eventually develop the language, but I don't understand how. I know they use books in school, so I suppose it works... I just don't understand how people learn languages.


Jtuk wrote:
Have you tried the rosetta stone computer programme / website? It's a bit expensive, but a very clever visual way of learning languages. You are shown a 4 pictures, then you hear a spoken phrase. You have to then pick the right picture, somehow they manage to teach some really advanced concepts through this method. Might be worth a try for something different.

My weakness with learning languages is always constructing conversation. So it's actually a in ability to make small talk / made up talk and then translate this into the language I'm learning. This really stunts my learning compared to others as I spend more time worry about what to say, than how to formulate my words in another language.

I've done better with really dry grammar books, a dictionary and going in way over my head trying to translate complex written materials.

Jason



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18 May 2012, 3:16 am

NarcissusSavage wrote:
Language for me is a mixed bag. I learn the rules of the language with ease, but pick up vocabulary...slowly. Using flashcards with visual depictions of what the word represents right on the card with the word always helped me more than other regular rote memorization techniques.

that is the opposite of me, i have always had trouble learning the rules of games or anything else in life, to the point of being the last to learn anything. but i learn individual words quick as a wink. i wish i could swing the pendulum of intellect closer to the middle, where i can learn the rules decently well and yet still have some ease in picking up vocabulary.



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18 May 2012, 3:29 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
i have a much easier time reading a foreign language than to comprehend it being spoken to me, the latter being an insurmountable goal for me. the only way i can understand another person speaking anything other than english, is if they would just SPEAK - ONE - WORD - AT - A - TIME - - - S-S-L-L--O-O-O-W-W-L-L-Y-Y.


I had the same problem with English until I started to watch English movies and TV series with subtitles. Learning to read English was easy, but training my listening comprehension was a female dog. I still don't understand many British dialects and some U.S. actors with an extreme Southern drawl.

i'm glad to hear i'm not the only one with trouble hearing the language and immediately comprehending the words/sentences spoken. there is a funny joke about our southern accents [there are several different "southern" accents" which can be divided between "CAW" and "CaRRR"], in a book called "jimmy carter's america- a dictionary of southern-speak," it goes-
Q-what is the northern definition of the word "smear"?
A- a stain spread by friction.
Q- what is the southern definition of the word "smear"?
A- one's organ of hearing. for example, a west texan might say, "yuh say what's that undur mah heh-uhr? well, that's smEAR!" :)



Last edited by auntblabby on 18 May 2012, 3:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

auntblabby
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18 May 2012, 3:41 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
I've always had a knack for languages. Some aspies are good at math, others excel at languages, others again are very creative and artistic. Sometimes I think that we're actually not all that different from NTs in this regard :)

Edited to add: It might be harder for a native English speaker to learn foreign languages than the other way around. Unlike many other languages, English has a rather simple grammatical structure and doesn't have grammatical gender and cases. I also find English very easy to pronounce. The only sound that gives non-native speakers some trouble is the voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative that is better known as "th" :)

it seems simple mainly to foreigners used to complex grammar and syntax in their own languages, but in my experience many amuuricans often trip over their tongues when they have to speak in a formal [strictly-speaking grammatically correct] manner [as opposed to normal slangy speech]. i wonder, how easy is it for a european to NOT trill their R's when saying a phrase such as "Ruffles have Ridges" or "RefRigeRatoR"? i have heard little european kids make this trilling sound with no trouble at all, as though it was the most natural thing for them- but most americans seem to lack the brain's speech module thingie that enables fluent rolling of continental R's and will always fail to even come close to making that trilling sound.
p.s.- i read someplace that the "voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative that is better known as 'th,'" is called a "thibilant-" superficially this makes sense to me, but i don't know how accurate the original author of that factoid really is on that point. :shrug:



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18 May 2012, 4:30 am

Jtuk wrote:
I've done better with really dry grammar books, a dictionary and going in way over my head trying to translate complex written materials.

Jason

I often console myself for lack of conversation skills by reading texts and books that are actually NOT easy reading.



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18 May 2012, 6:41 am

In my case language learning is a restricted and repetitive behaviour, like learning the phone book or memorising number plates is in the case of some people. I just keep learning one language after another although there is no practical or academic reason to do so. It is a kind of disorder that I have :roll: .



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18 May 2012, 9:36 am

It is nearly impossibly for me to successfully learn a foreign language. I've tried spanish, and I was trying Latin before I quit. I kept telling my academic advisor that "foreign language is like math...I can't learn it". She would always look at me with a confused look on her face and say "No, it's not like math at all". :roll: I suppose what I was trying to say was that it doesn't register in my brain...like math doesn't.


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18 May 2012, 2:53 pm

zombiegirl2010 wrote:
It is nearly impossibly for me to successfully learn a foreign language. I've tried spanish, and I was trying Latin before I quit. I kept telling my academic advisor that "foreign language is like math...I can't learn it". She would always look at me with a confused look on her face and say "No, it's not like math at all". :roll: I suppose what I was trying to say was that it doesn't register in my brain...like math doesn't.


Yikes. Do you have a language requirement, or is there a chance you can skip it? Language learning frustrates me just as bad. I get the same responses from people "but, you learned XYZ. How hard could Spanish be?"



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18 May 2012, 9:08 pm

Halligeninseln wrote:
In my case language learning is a restricted and repetitive behaviour, like learning the phone book or memorising number plates is in the case of some people. I just keep learning one language after another although there is no practical or academic reason to do so. It is a kind of disorder that I have :roll: .


LOL. Not a bad disorder to have. I wish I could learn languages like that.