Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with languagelearning

How do I learn my 4th language in my 3rd language?

besonders — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:51:43 -0800

LanguageLearning Filter: I'm about to start taking Turkish classes (my fourth language) in German (my third language). Any tips on how to make this a beneficial experience for all my languages? I took an intensive Turkish course in English this past summer, moved to Berlin and wanted to keep on with the language at my German university, where I was placed into third semester (B1 level).

On the one hand, I'm pretty excited! Germany's relationship to Turkey is the entire reason I decided to learn Turkish, so it will be cool to learn it in conjunction with Germans, and see what sort of bizarre jokes Germans make about the Turkish language.

On the other hand, I'm terrified! I've only been studying German for four years. So although my German is pretty good, I still often feel like I'm doing English-German translations in my head when I speak, and am pretty self-conscious about speaking in public.

Reading and understanding my Turkish-German textbook is okay (although sometimes I have to break out my Turkish-English dictionary because the German isn't cutting it), but today at my oral Turkish placement test I had a few moments where I felt like I was doing a three-way translation and floundering.

So, HiveMind, has anyone else had this experience of learning a new language in something that's not your mother tongue? Do you have any tips or tricks?

Should I make Turkish-English flashcards or Turkish-German flashcards, or Turkish-English/German flashcards? When I take notes on grammatical points, should I take them in sloppy German or good English? What haven't I thought about that I should be thinking about?

(Extra bonus question: Do you have any cool bilingual Turkish-German music I should be listening to?)

What are the most common 20% of words in any language?

jinatrix — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:11:11 -0800

What are the most common 20% of words in any language? In the interests of accelerated language learning, it would be useful to know the 20% or so of the words in any language that are used 80% or the time (Pareto's principle).

Trying to find a list of the most commonly used words - either a general list for all languages, or if there are lists for specific languages, even better

Tips for learning a tonal language?

AmbroseChapel — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:01:46 -0800

Tips for learning a tonal language? I'm taking Beginners' Vietnamese. It's a tonal language, like Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai etc., and I'm finding it very hard.

I think I've got quite a good ear for sounds, and I'm a little musical, so it's not the fact that tones are involved that's the problem, I'm fine with the concept.

It's just a lot to cope with, learning new words and learning the tonal thing at the same time. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Does anyone, particularly teachers or students who've worked with tonal languages, have any tips?

[Vietnamese, in case you don't know, is written with the roman alphabet, and the tones are indicated by diacritical marks, so you can at least look at a word and see which tone it uses, you don't have to memorise that.]

State of Japanese Kanji Learning Apps, 2009

Vorteks — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:36:35 -0800

Of all the web applications, Nintendo DS games, iphone/ipod touch apps, and other technology-based methods available for learning Japanese Kanji, what do you recommend? I have been searching for a long time for a "killer app" for learning Japanese Kanji. There are a number of different software options out there, but none of them have hit the "sweet spot" for me. What I'm looking for, in order of priority, is this:

A good automated review system. The software should keep track of how well you know each kanji, and periodically show you kanji that you've seen before. The more often you answer questions related to a certain kanji correctly, the less often it will show up. (Leitner system, or anything similar is fine)

Effective teaching of the WRITING of the characters, including stroke order. Animations or writing exercises strongly prefered.

Effective teaching of the MEANING of the characters.

Effective teaching of the READING (onyomi/kunyomi) of the characters.

Portability.

Example vocabulary a plus, but not essential.

Following the Heisig order would be a nice bonus, but I don't expect it.

Now, here's what I've tried so far:

http://kanji.koohi.com - This web app has a GREAT review system, and follows the Heisig order. It's my favorite app to date. But the downside is, it isn't portable, doesn't teach you much by itself (it's more for reviewing what you've learned in Heisig's book on your own), and doesn't show stroke order animations. Also it doesn't seem to be working right now.

Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshu DS - This Nintendo DS game is GREAT for handwriting practice, using the stylus to trace the characters. However, there's no built-in-review process. Once you move on, characters will never be shown to you again unless you deliberately go back and review them manually. Also, the game doesn't teach the meaning of the characters, and assumes a considerable mastery of Japanese from the get-go

Tadashii Kakitori-kun DS, other DS games - Not as good as the one above, and has the same limitations.

Declan Software's Japanese Flash Cards - A good attempt, but the lack of a review system really kills it for me. Once the software decides that you've "learned" a kanji, it never shows it to you again, and even manually reviewing things is very tedious

Price is not an issue

Help me sound like I know a lot of foreign languages.

blahtsk — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:49:55 -0800

Help me sound like I know a lot of foreign languages. -I want to spend 30 mins a day for a month to sound as fluent in a foreign language as possible.
-I'll be using VTrain / leitner cardfile system / staggered repetition after the 30 days to maintain what I've learned.
-So in 6 months I should be pseudo-fluent in 6 languages...

The use cases are:
-Amaze co-workers with phrases like, "Good morning," "Let's go eat lunch," "Good night," "See you tomorrow."
-Dazzle strangers from faraway lands with phrases like "I only speak a little [LANGUAGE]," "I don't understand," "My name is [NAME]," "Nice meeting you," "I taught myself a little [LANGUAGE]," "What part of [COUNTRY] are you from," "Nice weather," etc.
-Make my wife swoon by saying "I love you" in a dizzying number of languages.

First I'll need a list of common interchanges, starting with the basics. Almost a flowchart of question:responses. For example:

SCENARIO 1: GOOD MORNING

A:
"Good morning."
"Good morning."

B:
"Good morning."
"Oh! Your [LANGUAGE] is very good!"
[Go to: SCENARIO 5:C, TALKING ABOUT [LANGUAGE]]

C:
"Good morning."
"How are you?"
[Go to: SCENARIO 3: WELL-BEING]

Then I'll need the actual translations and cultural insights that go along with each interchange in each language.

I think a simple way to do this would be to buy the basic Pimsleur for each language, and listen to one language a month. However, Pimsleur's curriculum goes into more detail than is necessary for the casual faux speaker.

What I would really appreciate, is if you guys know of any resources that will help me with my project, e.g.:
-Do you know of a list of common foreign language phrases that, say, covers 75% of "casual interchange" use cases?
-A site or product that provides audio specifically for commonly used phrases / interchanges?
-Any other tips or resources that come to mind.

Languages I already speak:
-English
-Japanese (intermediate)

Languages I want to learn the basics of:
-French
-Italian
-Mandarin
-Cantonese
-Hindi
-Urdu
-Spanish
-German
-Latin

Thanks in advance.

Analytic/Isolating languages in Latin alphabet?

zeek321 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:15:04 -0800

Analytic/Isolating languages that have standardized, highly phonetic writing in the Latin alphabet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_typology

I want to learn another language using flashcard software [Anki]. I'm already using the flashcard software for other things, so it would cost me almost nothing, in terms of time, to throw in more flashcards.

The biggest bottleneck, and a deal breaker, is adding cards. It takes forever. However, an analytic language would mean vastly less data entry. If this language used the 26-letter alphabet, that would save even more time.

So, what's my best bet? Does it have to be Mandarin, or is there cool stuff I'm overlooking? I'm less inclined to do Mandarin because of the non-phonetic, non-Latin characters. Pinyin et al. seems like cheating. (I will consider synthetic and agglutinating(sp?) languages, too. And I know that all languages have exceptions. I'm just looking for strong tendencies.)

Note: Anything that inflects is out. Spanish, etc., are definitely, definitely out.

Romance language learning for speakers of Spanish

Kosh — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:04:33 -0800

What are the best books/tools for speakers of Spanish interested in learning other Romance languages? I'm a native speaker of English, but I have decent fluency in Spanish, enough that I can communicate well, understand Spanish-language media, read novels, etc. I would like to learn other Romance languages (I have a smidgen of experience with French, but that's it), and I was thinking it'd be more efficient to learn them with Spanish as the base rather than English, given that Spanish is much closer to the other varieties of Romance than English is, and I already know it well. That said, I'm a U.S. resident, and it's kind of hard to find materials for speakers of Spanish looking to learn other Romance languages... most of the stuff in the U.S., naturally, caters to learning English, and I don't really know where to search outside of the Anglo areas of the web. I was wondering if any Spanish speakers could recommend me books on learning Italian/French/Portuguese aimed at Spanish speakers and good places to buy them from, so that I have a better idea of what to look for. (I know of the Assimil books, but the company wants 90 euro just for shipping from Spain for a 20 euro book.)

Which language would a lazy Martian linguist learn?

greytape — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:27:14 -0800

Are some languages objectively harder than others? If so, which ones? This has been bothering me for a while now. Obviously Japanese is harder to learn than French for us English speakers, because French and English are related languages. But what about Japanese compared to, say, Mayan?
When I was in Malaysia a few years ago I learnt that Malay had no tenses, which farely amazed me, but also led me to believe that it was a simple language. Now I'm not so sure, as I've noticed that all languages tend to have hard elements and easy elements. For example: French has a difficult conjugation system, but a relatively small vocabulary, whereas in English the situation is reversed. So I now tend to think that there was probably some other aspect of Malaysian that was crazy difficult.
Does the human mind adapts language to an approximate level of complexity, so that all languages are of a fairly similar objective difficulty, or are there any natural Toki Ponas out there?

What next after French?

greytape — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:38:15 -0800

Is there any point learning German? So I'm coming to the end of a year in France, and I'm keen to begin learning a new language sometime this year. I've thought for a long time that it was going to be German but I've read a few things recently that have begun to change my mind.

My major concern is that lot of Germans speak very good English, which makes it both pointless and hard to learn. Nothing annoys/frustrates/depresses me more than trying to speak to people in a foreign language only for them to switch into English. I recently went to Spain and found that hardly anyone speaks English there, a joy that contrasts markedly with my experiences in Northern France. What are your experiences trying to learn German as an English speaker? I found this which gaveme hope, but it's from a biased source.

Secondly I learn that German isn't very popular as a second language. I had thought learning German would open up large parts of Eastern Europe to me, but I read recently that English is more popular there now, and that Russian was the former second language of choice. This table gives me hope too, saying that 14% of EU citizens speak German as a second language, but I suspect those people already know English as well. Anyone ever tried travelling around Europe using German?

German attracts me for a lot of reasons. I like the culture, the peacenik eco-hippiness of the place, and that it's just a short ride on the train from Britain (where I live). But is it worth the trouble of learning the language?

(If I were to give up on German I'd be looking at Spanish, which doesn't really interest me, or Russian, which I'm afraid will be too hard/cold/far-away.)

Will work for French conversation.

greytape — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:44:38 -0800

Where can I stay in France this summer? OK, So it's looking like I'm going to have two months free this summer that I wasn't planning on, and I want to spend it speaking French. Last summer I did WWOOF on a farm near Provence for a month, and it was a good experience so I'll probably do that again. But I was wondering what other volunteering oppurtunities might be out there?
I'm ideally looking to for a place where there are plenty of young people to sit around chatting to. I'm prepared to spend up to a thousand euros or so if it would be worthwhile, but language school seems like a bit of a waste of time at this point, I just need to talk to French people!

Merci d'avance.

(I've been working as a language assistant in France for six months, but mostly hanging around with the other English assistants. I can converse pretty freely in French, but certainly not well enough to do an actual job that anyone would pay me for).

Jelou, jou ar llu.

Memo — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:42:37 -0800

How do I re-learn how to pronounce words in English and minimize my accent? I learned English by 'osmosis'. That is, by reading, watching movies and videogames. It wasn't intentional so I didn't apply a lot of effort to reading aloud and improving my speech. This, of course, means that while I can understand and produce English, I can't actually speak it without having a very strong accent. I think this is because I started reading before I knew how to pronounce so my brain had to make up most of it.

I have been studying English formally for a couple of years and while my grammar and aural comprehension have improved, my accent is only marginally better.

I can learn how a word sounds, how it is pronounced (thanks to IPA) and repeat it a couple of times with good pronunciation. However, my brain insists on using the old pronunciation I have on my head when I have to use it afterwards.

So, besides practicing with native speakers (which I plan to do sooner or later by Skype or something), what can I do to improve my accent? Is it even possible?

Dedication's what you need

greytape — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:31:17 -0800

What tasks are equivalent to learning a language? So I'm coming to realise just how much work is required to learn a new language. I've heard the figure of 500+ hours for an English speaker to learn another European language, which works out at about an hour a day for nearly two years. I'm struggling to put this into context though, what others tasks require an approximately similar level of dedication to achieve a certain level?

Does there exist audio of natural Spanish-language conversations together with a transcript of the audio?

Ashley801 — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:37:48 -0800

Is there any Spanish-language learning material which consists primary of audio of natural, colloquial conversation (as opposed to sample conversations with carefully enunciating speakers, created specifically for language learning) together with a written transcript, either in Spanish or in English? Barring that, are there any Spanish language TV shows or talk radio programs available which have word-for-word transcripts? My main goal is to train my ear, and typical television captions would be useless for this purpose, since they usually paraphrase heavily.

Auf Deutsch, bitte!

Soliloquy — Sun, 20 May 2007 09:37:48 -0800

Can anyone help me get a copy of DragonDictate in German or French, or point me towards a discrete speech voice recognition program in either language that's currently on the market? I would like to brush up on my German and learn French, primarily by taking courses in each and corresponding with relatives, etc. I use DragonDictate voice recognition software (yes, the obselete old version) to do all my typing due to disabilities, and am balking at the thought of training/spelling out each foreign word complete with accents.

Since the nature of my disabilities makes it difficult to impossible to use continuous speech voice recognition programs, I can't use the German and French versions of NaturallySpeaking. (Please don't tell me anyone can use continuous speech voice recognition, I have tried it several times.) I'm willing to try other brands, but I need a program that uses discrete speech like DragonDictate. Would be nice if it ran completely hands-free as well, but since it won't be my primary interface I can deal with the hassle of a non-hands free system for a while. Must run on Windows XP Pro.

I've tried Google, eBay's Want to Buy, and had an eBay alert set for over a year now with no results. Any leads would be appreciated.

Blog for language learning?

Memo — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:09:15 -0800

After reading this answer, I have decided to follow its advice to improve my written english. However I feel that I have nothing to write. Don't misunderstand me, I love writing when I have to, however I have repeatedly failed to maintain blogs because of a perceived lack of things to say or write. My personal life seems so... dull that I can't feel motivated enough to write about it.

I guess that I'm not a 'dear journal' guy, however if it's not about my life, what I could blog about?

No hablo espanol!

Jeanne — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:43:34 -0800

I've been self-studying Spanish for a while. While my reading comprehension and my vocabulary are good, and my grammar isn't bad. I can even largely understand the people I come in contact with. But, when it comes to my end of the conversation I totally freeze up. Has anyone been in similar straits, and what can I do about it? Additional facts that may be relevant:

I'm pretty much fluent in French and Japanese. I think the French has hurt me by helping me; what I mean is, enough of the grammar and vocabulary carry over that I think I'm better than I actually am.

I've heard of several students of both Spanish and Japanese getting interference from one language when they try to speak the other, and I'm not sure if that's because of some phonological similarities between those languages or for some other reason, but it's happening to me. I keep thinking of the Japanese word instead of the Spanish word. But the Japanese is really important to me and I don't want to let that slip in order to focus more on Spanish. (The Spanish is a job-related thing).

Language Learning for Lonewolves?

qvantamon — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:16:36 -0800

What is the most efficient way to learn the native language of a country while traveling there on your own? My friend gone from beginner to fluent in Italian in about a month in Italy, but his situation was very favourable: He was in a church community oriented to dialogue and integration, living with foreigners, working, and having a lot of social interaction with Italian as lingua franca.

What I want to know is: in the lone backpacker situation, not previously knowing anyone around, and with no organized group activity, how to maximize social interaction in the local language? Staying in a hotel and watch TV all day won't do it, and placing orders in restaurants is not enough.

Is it better to stay in the same city/hostel or vagabond around all the country? (consider a country like France, Italy or Germany, with lots of dialects)
Is it common for groups of lone backpackers staying in the same hostel to band together and talk in the local language? (most cross-language interaction I've seen in hostels has been in english instead of the local language)
Is there some protocol for traveling people to meet local slackers to talk and walk around? (If you know a place to do this, in any country, please list it)
For someone with beginner knowledge of the language, is it smart to take a course about some subject (not about the language) just to meet people?
How about using some local relationship site to setup casual dates?

Getting the most out of my Rosetta Stone software.

BuddhaInABucket — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:35:22 -0800

I'd like to get the most out of my Rosetta Stone software. Any advice? I just got the level 1 Arabic software and I'm loving it. Any advice from more experienced RS users?

Is there a language learning program for parents and newborns?

BrodieShadeTree — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 16:27:53 -0800

Let's say a mono-lingual (English) family has a newborn and a strong desire to educate their child to be bi-lingual (French and English). This family would like to take the opportuinty of teaching language to their child and expand it to themselves as well by learning and teaching a language new to themselves as well as the native tounge. It there a program/procedure/recommended reading for such an endeavor?

Do you know of software, sites, or books that can help in learning Hebrew?

greengrl — Fri, 09 Jan 2004 11:13:27 -0800

I've just started studying Hebrew (the class has a focus on "Biblical Hebrew"), and I'm looking for some additional resources outside of class. Does anyone know of software, internet sites, or books that might be helpful in learning a language so different from English? So far the class hasn't been too bad, but I'd like to do additional learning at home.