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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/24/2012 8:43:18 PM   
sunshinemiss


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quote:

To quickly pick up a language, memorize all inflections of the 200 most common words (google "Swadesh list" or "word frequency") in batches of 15 minutes a few times per day, then start to read a translation of a book you're already familiar with. Use a marker pen to underline things you think you need to learn, try to get things by context as much as possible, and use the dictionary when a crucial word makes it impossible to understand a paragraph without looking it up. Keep going until you can read the book without too much difficulty. Then do a less familiar book, or a new one, before moving on to websites. After this, since oral comprehension is important, start watching children's shows and newscasts. Those tend to have "clean" language that proceeds at a slower pace than normal. Eventually, you should be able to read newspapers and watch TV shows.


Quite right.

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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/24/2012 8:58:16 PM   
Winterapple


Posts: 1343
Joined: 8/19/2011
Status: offline 		I think the article said southeastern Asian
languages specifically Vietnamese.
I don't remember the reasons given if
there were any. I think the articles focus
was more on speaking the language not
reading or understanding it.

I had a friend who was an English as
second language teacher who taught
an accent reduction class who said the
students who had the most difficult
time were Vietnamese, Japanese and
Polish and from Eastern Europe countries.

She had also worked with Americans
from the south and said they(we) were
nearly impossible to do anything with.


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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/24/2012 9:14:33 PM   
Demspotis


Posts: 61
Joined: 3/11/2005
Status: offline 		Try lingq.com; it was founded by someone who taught himself quite a few languages and is based on the methods he found useful. As it happens, they're much like what someone else described above: learning core vocabulary and regular practice with reading and listening. The site includes material for a fair number of languages. Russian is there, and a favorite of the founder. I haven't checked, but that might mean that it has more Russian material than some of the other featured languages.

He also made and continues to make clips on youtube in which he shares tips and thoughts useful for language learners.

Note that Russian is a relative of English, as someone else said. It might be worth learning enough linguistics to be able to recognize words that are related, and how the sounds correspond to each other. Aside from that, Russian and English share a large body of words borrowed and/or adapted from Greek and Latin, which can help.

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Profile   Post #: 23
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 12:02:42 AM   
ashjor911


Posts: 7793
Joined: 9/7/2010
From: balcony, having a Smoke
Status: offline 		I am not here to bust your balls or anything .. but.. as a german speaker... (sort of)..

I know for a fact that you live in a non Russian enviroment.. so you may not practice your russsian with anyone..
that is the hard about learning another language.

you see i have not got anyone to practice my Deutsch with... i kinda forget 50% about it..

its funny how i got to remember 30% of my forgotten English from here..

good luck man

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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 5:10:27 AM   
calamitysandra


Posts: 1682
Joined: 3/17/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: sunshinemiss

quote:

To quickly pick up a language, memorize all inflections of the 200 most common words (google "Swadesh list" or "word frequency") in batches of 15 minutes a few times per day, then start to read a translation of a book you're already familiar with. Use a marker pen to underline things you think you need to learn, try to get things by context as much as possible, and use the dictionary when a crucial word makes it impossible to understand a paragraph without looking it up. Keep going until you can read the book without too much difficulty. Then do a less familiar book, or a new one, before moving on to websites. After this, since oral comprehension is important, start watching children's shows and newscasts. Those tend to have "clean" language that proceeds at a slower pace than normal. Eventually, you should be able to read newspapers and watch TV shows.


Quite right.



More or less the way that worked and works very well for me too.


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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 6:40:47 AM   
sunshinemiss


Posts: 17673
Joined: 11/26/2007
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quote:

ORIGINAL: ashjor911

I am not here to bust your balls or anything .. but.. as a german speaker... (sort of)..

I know for a fact that you live in a non Russian enviroment.. so you may not practice your russsian with anyone..
that is the hard about learning another language.

you see i have not got anyone to practice my Deutsch with... i kinda forget 50% about it..

its funny how i got to remember 30% of my forgotten English from here..

good luck man


I would disagree. I live in ASIA and have a core group of people I speak Spanish with. If you want to find people who speak the language, you can. Also, there are plenty of meet up groups, chat rooms / message boards, 12 step programs online/skype of multiple languages, books to read, society groups, etc. You could host a Russian movie night, complete with Russian food, you could take Russian dance classes - I'm betting people who dance it either speak the language or know someone who does! I knew a fellow years ago who used to do German crossword puzzles just so he wouldn't forget. I listen to music / books on tape / television shows in Spanish.

If you WANT to find someone to interact with, it's definitely possible. It's just a matter of doing it.


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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 2:35:12 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		And there are a billion and one places online to interact in other languages.

That's even more accessible than finding people offline.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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Profile   Post #: 27
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 2:42:32 PM   
GreedyTop


Posts: 52100
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Savannah, GA
Status: offline 		I think I might like to learn NOrwegian. My cousin ( a member, here in teh US, of Sons of Norway) used to take lessons. If I can borrow an hour or two a week from him away from his newly adopted child, maybe I can get him to help! Not counting on it though.. he is totally wrapped up in this new 'parenting' thing *silly grin*

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Profile   Post #: 28
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/25/2012 3:03:40 PM   
DeviantlyD


Posts: 4375
Joined: 5/26/2007
From: Hawai`i
Status: offline 		I would have liked to have learned Norwegian...but my Dad wouldn't teach us as kids...stigmas and all. *sighs* I was getting to fluency in le Français but it was one of those use it or lose it situations.

To the OP: I don't know the difficulty of Russian. I just know that it isn't always easy, as an adult, to learn another language unless you are already bilingual (or trilingual, etc.) I do know immersion is helpful, so as someone suggested, finding someone who speaks the language fluently and having them around to try to converse with will help tremendously as you are learning.

I did learn this with French: I started off translating different things in my head as I went along, but once I learned to stop doing that and to think in French, it went a long way to be able to speak it. As for starting out though...that's the most difficult part and I'm afraid I have no helpful information there.

Bonne chance! :)

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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/26/2012 1:03:14 PM   
Yleia


Posts: 8
Joined: 8/26/2012
Status: offline 		@OP

I had about a year of Russian classes in high school, spelling wise it's nice once you've learned the alphabet as it's very much a say it as you see it language. However, as a heads up, the handwritten characters look different to the printed ones. There are a lot of borrowed French words in Russian too, from the history of French speaking upper classes, so having some knowledge of French might help too.

I've heard good things about Rosetta Stone for basic vocab acquisition, but have also heard that it lacks a lot of grammar so that might be something to bear in mind.


To the people wanting to learn Norwegian, I'm a Brit who moved out to Norway with a *very* basic vocab and am getting towards fluency after a year and a lot of practice, immersion and classes. Norway has two official written forms of Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk although Bokmål is the version most often taught to foreigners and the one I have studied most. Speaking/listening is the most difficult part of learning as the spoken language bears little to no resemblance to either written version and every area has its own dialect which can radically change pronunciation. For example, 'hvordan' (How) in the local dialect here is pronounced 'korshan'. It can be a bit of a stumper. NTNU (Trondheim University) has a really good free online course and the 'Teach Yourself Norwegian' book is also a really nice start too. Feel free to message me if you'd like to chat/practice. I can probably teach some of the basics too :)

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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/26/2012 2:04:34 PM   
ARIES83


Posts: 3648
Status: offline 		Yleia, you have a CMail

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Profile   Post #: 31
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/26/2012 6:08:26 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		Hey, Yleia...

Somewhat off topic, but Bokmål is the average between Danish and one set of Low Norwegian dialects, whereas Nynorsk is the simplification of Landsmål to be easier for the administration to use than Landsmål was, since they were used to Danish (we were under the Danes for a while, so it was the language of government in that period). Landsmål, by contrast, is the "common thread" through all Norwegian dialects, including the High Norwegian ones, which makes it a West Norse language. All native dialects are West Norse, whereas Danish, Swedish and Bokmål are of the East Norse language group. That's why it doesn't make much sense to use it as a starting point for understanding anything that isn't a strictly lowland coastal dialect or from Oslo and Akershus.

Quos is the root (kʷos) which became quosen, then korsen, in most dialects. Some dialects tend toward korsan. Many will have R trigger a mutation of the subsequent dental in a cluster into a retroflex, which makes S sound like SH. Eastern dialects drop the R as well, but we still "hear" the R, because the retroflex mutation leaves an imprint. This is similar to how final N will disappear in French, leaving behind nasalization of the preceding vowel.

I'm a native speaker, and normally write Bokmål.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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Profile   Post #: 32
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/26/2012 6:15:07 PM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

I think I might like to learn NOrwegian. My cousin ( a member, here in teh US, of Sons of Norway) used to take lessons. If I can borrow an hour or two a week from him away from his newly adopted child, maybe I can get him to help! Not counting on it though.. he is totally wrapped up in this new 'parenting' thing *silly grin*


I can lend a hand. Would suggest memorizing the Swadesh list first, though. The Wikipedia articles have a pretty decent grammar, if memory serves.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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Profile   Post #: 33
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/26/2012 9:48:24 PM   
ARIES83


Posts: 3648
Status: offline 		BTW, thanks for the tips Aswad.
Memorising the word frequency was a good
idea, i'm on my way now!

-ARIES

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Profile   Post #: 34
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/27/2012 12:18:36 AM   
Aswad


Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
Status: offline 		No need to thank me, I just stumbled across the tip one day myself.

If you have an address, I can ship you a book on learning Russian that I'll probably never get around to using.

And, as a sidebar, if you're ever looking to learn Latin, the best I've seen is Lingva Latina Per Se Illvstrata... even the copyright is in Latin, but the whole thing is structured in a way that makes it easy to see what they're doing and pick the whole thing up as you go. Illustrations are used when something might be unclear, and the rest is just Latin that starts at a level of "Roma in Italia est" and then works its way up to Cicero and the like. If you stick with it, you should be able to read any Classic Latin text fluently without ever having touched a dictionary or a grammar, and without ever using any other book to learn it. Pretty cheap as such books go.

IWYW,
— Aswad.



_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.


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Profile   Post #: 35
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/27/2012 12:26:10 AM   
ARIES83


Posts: 3648
Status: offline 		I'll CMail you in a sec.

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530 DAYS

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Profile   Post #: 36
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/28/2012 9:09:47 AM   
tj444


Posts: 7574
Joined: 3/7/2010
Status: offline 		I tend to try the library first, see what they have there that can borrowed, if there is something i want to buy then i try half.com (& other used sites, ebay too sometimes) and see what prices i can buy used stuff for..

I am wanting to learn Spanish and then maybe Mandarin.. That would be about it for me tho, I think...

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RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/28/2012 9:15:47 AM   
GreedyTop


Posts: 52100
Joined: 5/2/2007
From: Savannah, GA
Status: offline 		Spanish would be good for me, in my neighborhood (DAMN all those wasted years in L.A.!!! LOL... I took FRENCH in HS and still failed..LOL)

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Profile   Post #: 38
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/28/2012 10:19:58 AM   
BitaTruble


Posts: 9779
Joined: 1/12/2006
From: Texas
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ARIES83

I've been thinking about learning another
language and I think I like Russian.

Has anyone here learnt Russian?
Any tips/ pearls of wisdom?

I realise Russian and English are pretty
different but I kind of have my heart set
on it because I... (it might sound weird)
Love how it sounds!

I kind of speak bits and peices of a few
languages that I've just picked up along
the way but I really want to become fluent
at Russian.

So I'm probably looking at part time classes
or something.
I thought I'd see if anyone here had any
pointers or experiences they would like to
share?

-ARIES

Try contacting your local embassy. I found invaluable help through the American Embassy when we were living in Europe and they have access to various groups and stuff with other ex pats who were trying to learn the language where I lived. We had a native mentor and it really helped most of us who got together with vocab and things of that nature. The biggest problem I had in Portugal was trying to find folks who would help me practice my Portuguese because most of them wanted to practice their English with me! I didn't have that problem in Italy.. no one there wanted to speak English! lol

Rosetta Stone (I've used it for two languages now) has worked very well for me and when combined with the hands on immersion that comes from actually living in a different culture, I learned fairly quickly. Good luck and try out the Embassy!

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Profile   Post #: 39
RE: Curious about learning another language. - 8/28/2012 11:46:34 AM   
tj444


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Joined: 3/7/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop
I took FRENCH in HS and still failed..LOL)

I took French in HS too, the only thing i can remember in French is how to ask for a cigarette.. which since I dont smoke is the most useless thing I could possibly remember..


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Profile   Post #: 40
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