Learning a new language

I learnt Pashto (in the forces!) followed by a 6 month tour as an interpreter. That was a good motivator for learning let me tell you!!

Best advice I can give you is to revise English grammar first and get an understanding of how language works ie different tenses, verbs and conjugation etc. This will help your understanding of how a new language works.

Also, I found flashcards helpful. Have the English word on one side and the foreign word in the other.start off by learning 5 a night and take it from there. If you are feeling brave, learn to read and write it at the same time.

Good luck!!

 

This was the reason for learning Latin - it gives you the structure, grammar and syntax of language. Makes learning other languages easier later, or failing that makes English easier to get right. Sadly Latin has now been largely dropped, and we are reaping the harvest. I doubt if anyone will agree with me on that point though.

 

I done latin in me school like years ago,it very helped me speeek gooder.

 

I have some discs to learn French. One little gem on them was that somebody went through an american broadsheet news paper an counted all the different words used. The total was 600 or thereabouts. With french a lot of the words are similar so concentrating on the grammar and sentence and composition should crack it.
Thats just French.
Other languages wont be so easy.

 

Ask Lucozade how easy it is.

 

I have learnt to speak Konkani, one of the 114 languages of India. I learnt mainly out of frustration with getting lost when I was trying to get home late at night from party's in Goa, and ending up blundering about all over the place, running low on fuel on my motorcycle, and not finding anyone who spoke English. I started with very simple stuff such as 'Where does this road go" and 'How many kms is it to x' and just kept asking how to say simple things. Gradually, over the years I have a vocabulary that enables me to have simple conversations with the locals. They very much respect me for this, and my ability to speak Konkani has got me out of trouble with the cops on several occasions!
I certainly don't have any natural ability to pick up languages, in fact it's probably the opposite. I have a terrible memory, but the desire to want to learn I found is the key. I quickly got over any embarrassment about trying to say things and just kept doggedly at it . Now I find when I speak I am very often bought small things like cups of tea, or little snacks, as the shopkeepers are so delighted that a Ferengi can speak their language.

 

so much easier when your young, so going by the average age of a ducati rider i suspect your pretty much feckd there mate.

 

I can't even remember the very rudimentary french I learnt at school. The British are truly crap at languages as a general rule, whether this is down to lack of schooling or just sheer bloody-mindedness I do not know.

 

You are completely right, I am currently with the family in Southern Holland, thank God everyone speaks fluent English, or we would be stuffed

 

I was on another motorcycle forum when i read a title to a thread
"*** Dealer in Berlin Doesn't speak English"

The first thought that popped into my head was you arrogant Bastard then I saw that the person posting was Portugese.

I think that the fact that the international language of the Air and the sea is English we only need to learn a nother language because we want to. Most of the others have to learn English because they have to

 

I learnt some very basic Arabic when I was in the Gulf for a while but I can't remember any of it now! My French is pretty poor as well, and as it looks like I'll be working there full time soon I'd better learn! I've never had much luck with languages, so I'll look forward to lots of tips on this thread!

 

I am completely useless with languages, no matter how hard I try nothing sticks. My late mother in law tried over a long period to teach me French without success.
Annoyingly, she soaked languages up like sponge. Being Israeli she was taught Russian,Farsi (Iranian),Hebrew and Arabic as a child by her parents.Later on she added French,German,English and Turkish. She could also 'get by' in Italian,Hugarian and Pashto.
Boy did I ever feel stupid not being able to manage even one.

 

I have taken elementary Japanese via a night lass at a local s hoop before spending some timefood scandal hit the catholic church, communion wafers found to contain 0% christ!

in Japan. My experience of grammar (I learnt Latin at school and taught French for many years) stood me in no stead at all but I discovered that the Japanese are incredibly grateful if you even try to speak their language.

 

As an (English) EC Civil Servant once said in an opening address "there are three types of European; those who are multi-lingual and speak many languages, those who are bilingual and speak two languages, and then there are the British..."

working all over the world, I tend to fall back on this quote in an apologetic kind of way prior to delivering training and similar.

currently trying to learn German via Rosetta Stone, so will report back in a few months with progress.

 

First impressions - it is very American (working for a large American company, it does grate a bit more than most for me).

maybe age doesn't help, as I am finding it is not really sticking, and for the hours I have put in so far, I could not strike up a basic conversation.

so far, not overly impressed, but I am going to plough through and try to speak with my German colleagues a little more once I get past "Das Hund", etc. (my eldest son, who is learning gcse German, continually corrects my die/Das/der!)