[Glider]

The whole point is to just start talking. Grammar doesnt matter as much as you say it does, get outside speak and listen.

Sitting inside doing a thousand grammar exercises and having no idea what someone says when you are in the real world has no value. By concentrating on grammar your will be worse off as you will always try and be perfect where you should be happy to be making mistakes.

[Yeti]

Re mistakes. So long as you remain present and focused, every time that you make a mistake, you learn something new.

Make a lot of mistakes and learn from it every time. Studying grammar is important but probably more important is having a solid vocabulary and practicing speaking.

[Americas]

Disagree that grammar isn't everything, it is. This is especially true for Latin based languages. Think of verbs + their conjugations as the skeleton of every language. If you don't know verbs and how to manipulate them, then you can't make coherent sentences. Every single sentence or command in any language is based around the root verb.

Learning basic vocabulary is obviously important as a beginner, but honestly you shouldn't really heavily focus on vocabulary until you are at an advanced stage in a language. It's easy to ask what a word is by knowing certain words related to it, and you should pick up a lot of words if you are immersed in a language anyways.

[Tactician]

I find the best way to optimize your learning is to balance between study and practice, and, further, to balance study between grammar and learning vocabulary. Something like this:

1. Study:
a. Grammar - Try to find a resource that introduces common / simple patterns first.

b. Vocabulary - As others have mentioned, memorizing the first 1000 or so words allows you to start applying your knowledge immediately. Sourced from the How-to-learn-any-language forum mentioned, I recommend Iverson's method of word lists. I've used it, with great recall, to memorize Korean words: http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Word_lists
You put in more effort up front, but the benefit is you forget far less words this way.

2. Practice:
a. On your own - Try to get into the habit of thinking or speaking to yourself in your target language. Have a small dialog with yourself. What will happen is you'll find things that you want to say, but won't be able to express. This'll help you in two ways. First, flexibility use other words or grammatical structures to get the same idea across, and, second, you'll get a concrete idea of the things you want to talk about. I usually write these down so I can find out how to say them later.

b. With native speakers - You'll get feedback, learn slang that you won't find in textbooks or a basic dictionary, and have opportunity to game them. For me, this part is the most fun. If there's a part of town where French people / people that speak your target language hang around, you can use a language opener with them. People are almost always genuinely interested when someone wants to learn their language.

The rational for taking a balanced approach is that grammar, vocab, and practice are interdependent and limited or enhanced by each other; it's hard to do either one without the others. Also, doing tons of grammar alone is demoralizing because it's the hardest to see results from without the others. It's like trying to get a 6-pack by cutting calories before you have any muscle mass to begin with. You'll just look weak because there isn't any meat there. If anything, do less grammar than the other two.

-

Lastly, the most important thing to learning a language is to have a strong reason for why you want to learn it. Consistency is key and learning a new language is tough. If you don't have a strong why, you probably won't make it. If you do have a good reason, it won't feel like hard work or like something you have to force yourself to do.

I see people quit languages all the time after one or two months of half-assed Pimsleur. I've done it as well. So, figure out your why. Tons of people speak French in Africa. There's Quebec too - http://www.thegmanifesto.com/tag/quebec



French is pretty easy for an English speaker compared to non-romance languages, but knowing your why will make it not feel like a chore.

[Helmutnl]

I'd say watch as many French movies as you can, with English subtitles you could advance very well in French., but of course that's after learning the basic vocabulary and grammar from a good book like Assimil, Alter Ego or Connexions Méthode de Français.

[frank_guest]

Grammar works for a very small group of people, maybe 10%, probably people who are very cerebral to begin with, but it doesn't work with the majority, which is why so many people (like me) spent 10 years studying French in elementary and high school and college, passed all the course, and still couldn't speak a damn thing after all that instruction. Also, no one learns grammar explicitly for their native language. Rather, we pick it up intuitively.

I eventually managed to become fluent in French by simply immersing myself in the language. AFTER I was able to speak, all the grammar that I had learned back in school possibly became useful, though I still think I could have picked it up just as well intuitively.

For Spanish, I plunged in headfirst by simply reading a dual-language English-Spanish book, looking up the words in the dictionary, while watching Spanish news to get the pronunciation down (couldn't understand much of anything, because the new announcers speak so fast, but I did get the sounds down). Then I went to Guatemala and did an immersion course to become fluent.

With modern Greek, I learned using the Pimsleur courses plus a phrasebook to add vocabulary. Wow, what a difference compared to the inefficient methods I used for French and Spanish. However, I had to repeat the Pimsleur course twice. So the 60 lessons actually ended up being 180 lessons. Towards the end, I did two lessons per day, but then occasionally I had to skip days because I was busy. So I probably spent at least 6 months to get through all this learning. This was sufficient for basic conversations, but not fluency by any means. I never bothered with grammar and Greek has a far more complex grammar than French or Spanish. I doubt anyone thought I was stupid because I was making grammar errors right and left.

I tried learning Turkish, and had to repeat the Pimsleur course 3 times for that language, but there are only 30 lessons total and that is not enough to do more than bargain with hotel managers for a better price, but even that was useful.

I'm currently learning Russian using the 90 unit Pimsleur course. Russian has a very complex grammar, which I have no intention of studying. If they don't like my grammar errors in Russian, we can speak English instead. My aim is to achieve the basic level of fluency that I achieve with modern Greek, for use traveling in Bulgaria and Ukraine. I'm currently on lesson 18 and have had to repeat all the preceding lessons once. Once I get through all 90 lessons, I'll go back and repeat starting at lesson 11, and then probably repeat again. So that means lessons 1-10 done twice each, lessons 11-90 done four times each, for a total of 340 half-hour lessons.

The reason I recommended budgeting a year for the Pimsleur French is there are 150 lessons total. If you do lessons 1-10 once, then the remaining lessons 3 times, but do two repeated lessons per day towards the end, that will take about a year to get through them all. Maybe those of you who are smarter than me don't have to repeat lessons, but I tend to forget things. Part of why people drop out of language learning is they expect results too quickly, or they burn out because they work too hard at first. With the Pimsleur courses, you only need a half-hour, and repeating lessons you've done previously is particularly easy. But you do need to give yourself a big lead time with the Pimsleur method.

The great advantage of the Pimsleur lessons is they come in MP3 format and are pure audio, so you can do them while driving or otherwise occupied with your hands. Repeating Pimsleur courses that you have already finished is a great way to keep up your language skills. For example, during a recent 3 month trip to Spain, I went back and redid my Greek Pimsleur course, because I could sense that my skills in that language were getting rusty. Just let the audio run for a half-hour while lying in bed in the morning. Very easy.

Also, when you factor in the repetition is when you realize that Pimsleur courses are actually very inexpensive (about $1 per lesson, after accounting for repeating 3 times), since each half-hour lesson is equivalent to at least an hour of live instruction, due to the rapid pace of the Pimsleur lessons. No way you could get live instruction for $1 per hour lesson. Also, live instruction is inconvenient because you have to arrange a time of day with the other person.

I also taught myself to read basic German by looking up words in a foreign language dictionary. This is useful for certain hiking guidebooks only written in that language (such as a Guidebook I used while in Greece). I can probably speak basic German as well, based on this reading knowledge, though I've never tried.

I also can read Catalan, Gallego, and Portuguese, which comes in useful while traveling in Spain/Portugal. I picked this reading ability up by simply asking people about the words in those languages that are significantly different from both Spanish and French. I never bother speaking those languages since everyone in Spain speaks Spanish, as do most of the Portuguese in the hotel industry in Portugal.

Finally, I can read New Testament Greek. I'd never actually read the Bible and am not a religious believer, but I was curious to see if my knowledge of modern Greek would transfer to ancient Greek. It did, though with difficulty. Then I became truly interested in the Bible. It's a wild tale, and the craziness becomes particularly apparent when you read in a foreign language.

So my recommendations are based on lots of language learning experience.

[Update: BTW you can get discounts for Pimsleur courses by doing a search on "Pimsleur coupon". I know I sound like a salesman for Pimsleur, but I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I just have a very high regard for these courses.]

[Americas]

I think it goes without saying that if you don't have any immersion (either manufactured, or more preferable, real immersion) then the likeliness of learning/speaking a language to a high level is almost null.

For example, in Spanish. I actually suffer from too much immersion and not enough formal learning (I am addressing this disparity at the moment). I am at an intermediate/low-advanced level, and what I know of the language, can speak it well. I don't have a thick accent and most of the time people understand what I am saying. In a lot of ways, in simple situations I am almost fluent, but I wouldn't consider myself at a high advanced level of Spanish. This is from living in Mexico for quite a while and having a long-term girlfriend there who I only spoke Spanish too.

But there comes a limit where your language skills won't progress no matter how much immersion and speaking/listening practice you do, and that's why grammar is so important.

My verb knowledge is actually quite behind the level of Spanish I actually have. Sure, I can express things and some people in certain situations will understand, but it's not even close to proper. I have trouble with perfect tenses and the subjunctive tense. It's pretty hard to express emotions, dreams, or even hit on a girl without the subjunctive tense in Spanish.

Sure, you can just get away with using preterit + present indicative + future indicative and function at an okay level in Spanish. It depends what you want out of it. But when it actually comes to expressing complex thoughts or things that are not based in reality, you will sink faster than a stone in water.

So this is why I suggest really hammering out grammar from the start. Building a vocab is pretty easy and comes a lot more natural than learning grammar. Yes, you definitely need to immerse yourself.

I am going to use the example of Spanish just because it's what I know the best:

1) Start with learning some basic vocabulary (numbers, pronouns, basic and common words).
2) Learn regular + irregular common verbs in present tense.
3) Learn indicative past + future tenses of regular + irregular verbs.
4) Learn perfect tenses
5) Learn imperatives
6) Learn subjunctive + beef up your vocabulary as much as possible.

This is the basic process of learning Spanish to an advanced level. Of course, every step should be learnt through exercises, reading, and speaking/listening simultaneously. Whatever resources you use to achieve these goals is fine, but also formal classes are really good for learning grammar.

[Sidney Crosby]

I didn't realize people actually bought Pimsleur, just like music and movies you can easily find it on a torrent site.

[TravellerJay]

I found this site the other day http://www.surfacelanguages.com/ and I tried portuguese: it is really nice.
Also tried Czech and Romanian. I think it deserves a nice review for whatever is your language of choice..

Also the how to learn any language site, although it is just a summary of books and tips on learning, which is not bad, the most useful thing I found is the review of hard and easy points each language has and which languages have any similarites.
For instance > french, italian, spanish and portuguese has many root words and if you learn one you can easily pick up one of the others. the bigger the percentage the easier will be for you.
English has around 50 or 40 percent of close relationship with Dutch and german. So clearly is one of those language with no roots into latin romanenesque languages or slavic ones like russian, estonian, ukrainian.
but it also means very few ties with any other language and if you find the ties is 50 percent at best.

[frank_guest]

(11-09-2014 04:57 PM)Sidney Crosby Wrote:  

I didn't realize people actually bought Pimsleur, just like music and movies you can easily find it on a torrent site.

Yes, I pay for them. I have a lot of money, and I try to support people/businesses that provide me with goods and services that I want, so they will continue to provide more of these goods and services in the future. I bought several of RooshV's books as well, though I'm sure those can also be found on torrent sites.

I don't take a strong moral position on people without a lot money using torrent sites, but I don't think they should encourage doing so on a public forum like this, nor should they suggest people who pay are chumps. It's very counter-productive to their own interests. If no one buys Pimsleur courses or RooshV's books and whatnot, there won't be anything new to download in the future on torrent sites, or there will be pressure for draconian DRM protection or invasive law enforcement tactics with draconian penalties for copyright infringement. So if you're young and don't have a lot of money, do what you have to do, but please don't talk about it in forums like this.

Have a nice day!

[Sebastian]

Conjugations are insane.
http://french.about.com/od/verb_conjugat...manger.htm

Look how many words are there for one word 'eat'. holly fuck......

I thought I should memorize the common words and its conjugations.
(Eg: If I was learning english, I would memorize what Eat means and also memorize Eats, Ate, Eaten. That is all!)

This is too insane and I can't even think of doing that.

So I am just going along with DuoLingo.

[Rawmeo]

I am a native French speaker and I think the language is similar to English in many ways, and a large portion of the vocabulary is similar. Learn the basic grammar, which is not too hard to grasp. Verb tenses may seem hard, but there is a logic in understanding how a particular word should be written. Most of the time, you just follow this logic and get it right.

I was born in Quebec, we are a very small country with 8 million people, but if you travel to France, you have better chances, because the French spoken in those 2 countries has some small but noticeable differences.

I recommend busuu.com to learn any language if you are ready to pay ~$20 per month, otherwise, GIYF.