Learning a new language: reference, advice, suggestions.
 

Learning a new language: reference, advice, suggestions.

I want to learn a new language during my free time. What I need is some help from you guys in the form of a website/book good for reference and the actual learning process, advice on how to go about tackling a new language, and a suggestion for a new language, why it's a good language to understand, etc.

Thanks in advance
-Dave

Stop by a local bookstore. Look through books in the foriegn language section for one that appeals to you. A set of books I like are "Teach yourself" It's best to find something with audio so you can also listen to the language being spoken and that is very important.

Once you start to understand grammer and learn words, immerse yourself in that language. A great way to do that is to watch TV from that country if you have a broadband internet connection there's http://www.tv4all.com

The best thing you can do is to find someone who you can talk to in that language. Practice, Practice, PRACTICE!!! Learning a language is a lot of work. I myself speak decent German, halfway decent Russian, and a little bit of Italian, Korean and Japanese.

http://www.word2word.com/course.html for your online language resources.

For me personally, I am utilizing Berlitz courses to learn French.

Check your local libraries for these kits.

After learning French, I hope to learn Spanish, and eventually German.

go for the bands who speak the language.

i'm casually "learning" German from a lot of my favourite German bands.

i may never know what the words mean that i am speaking, but my pronounciation is now dead-on!
:D

but seriously....i also read a German-English dictionary that has conversion AND pronounciation of the German word (you would be surprised how many dictionaries don't have this)

There are some websites that are very good. Try to find one with .wavs or .mp3s, these are very helpful to learn the correct pronouciation.

I'm currently trying to learn Cantonese with the help of these sites..

surround yourself w/ people who speak that language.

that's the best way

I chose Japanese so I can understand all the cool imports like video games and movies. I think the only people around here that speak Japanese are raging anime nerds, so...fuck!

Actually, there's usually a japanese soap opera show on the foriegn channel, so I may be good.

Immersion is the best way to learn a language, in my opinion. One other very important thing is to make sure you learn to pronounce the vowels correctly. Any language sounds positively grating with incorrect pronunciation.

practice practice practice.

Did I mention learning the japanese alphabet is like shoving a red hot metal pipe up your ass? Well I just did. Really though, it's not as bad as I was told, I'm having fun!

I hope you're saying this after you've started learning Kanji.

Just hiragana and katanaka right now. Kanji is going to rock my face.

Immersion is definately the best way. I spent 4 years learning German, but in several trips in the different regions of Germany I picked up so much that booklearning could never teach me.

You need a good foundation before you try that, though. Try community college classes, or something.

I dont know how people learn languages on their own in places where the language that theyre learning is never used :/

Why does Kanji exist?

*curls into fetal position in the corner of his closet.*

hehehe
you sound like me during my second year of nihongo classes
stick with it.. it's not THAT bad.. I have an ex who is japanese and was born and raised there, and even she cant read all the characters.. It's all about memorization, and seeing the little "pictures" in the Kana..

Hell if you can learn Kanji, you can even read some Mandarin characters.. You know.. since the Japanese stole the written language from the Chinese and all :)