Anyone Successfully Learn A New Language?

If the language is spanish (seems like it from your OP), then you're golden. Grammar is mathematical and always follows the same rules. Your issue will just be picking up vocabulary. If you can't immerse yourself in a spanish speaking country, you should at least find someone to speak it with every day.

Also TV.

There's tons of spanish programming (telemundo,univision,etc) in the states. Force yourself to watch some. A DVR might also help for rewinding and replay. There are tons of options to keep you engaged. Cartoons. Telenovelas. Jerry Springer type shows.

Also Radio (la mega se pega)
 


metalshark said:
I've been in Thailand for about 4 months now and I haven't even tried to learn Thai. I spoke to several expats that learned and the general consensus was (from English to Thai at least):

~8 months = barely able to hold a conversation
~2 years = fairly fluent

I only plan on being here a year so it's just not worth the hours in my opinion, I'd rather learn programming.

Of course many places in Thailand are popular tourist destinations, so there's still plenty of English everywhere. It's on the street signs, advertisements, hotels, electronics, malls, airports, keyboards, ect. English must be a pretty good language to know if you had to only choose one.

Although, some of the non-English speaking Thai girls are pretty enough that I almost reconsidered...
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Yes, being able to chat up random girls I meet is the only reason I would have for learning Thai, but the time needed for a half tone deaf person like me is not worth it compared to what else I could be spending time on.
 
rusvik said:
Yes, being able to chat up random girls I meet is the only reason I would have for learning Thai,
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"girls"


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But in all seriosusness, I taught myself a fair amount of German with the combination of Pimsler, Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, and reading my favorite books translated into German. 3 months later I'm fairly certain I could get laid in Berlin.
 
rusvik said:
Yes, being able to chat up random girls I meet is the only reason I would have for learning Thai, but the time needed for a half tone deaf person like me is not worth it compared to what else I could be spending time on.
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You don't really need to know the tones. I don't know the tones worth shit, and everyone seems to understand me just fine. They'll understand you based on context, even if you use the wrong tones.

For me, hardest part is the sounds that don't exist in English. For example, there's no words in English that begin with "ng". There's that one "dt" sounding character I obviously still don't know how to pronounce, etc.

And the vowel sounds you have to be a little careful with. For example, "maw" is doctor and "maa" is dog, so for a while there I was going around telling everyone I own two doctors, and keep them at home.
 
Nah, thai people don't understand me all the time even saying basic things which I've been saying time and time again like directions or numbers. Other times I can carry on almost-conversations and people understand me.

Sometimes I simply can't remember which tone or I hear the tone in my head but it comes out wrong, which is why I think I am half tone deaf.

I think I learned more Japenese in a month than Thai in a year. Sometimes you have to admit defeat, which sucks, because I think I really could enjoy Thailand and stay here if I could speak the language.

Props to you for learning it though, not easy feat at all.
 
Spanish- i just finished my union electrical apprenticeship so i had something to fall back on before i started marketing again, and i learned it by practicing with the carpenters and laborers. i also took it in school from kindergarten through 12th grade but it didn't help that much.
 
music4mic said:
I'm at this weird phase where I can hear and recognize a lot of words (as opposed to everything just sounding like gibberish), but I'm still trying to translate everything into English in my head, so I only comprehend bits and pieces. Reading is pretty easy now though.
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You get to a point where you don't translate everything into English. For example, when I hear "moloko" in Ukrainian, I don't think "Oh that means milk." I think more along the lines of "That's a white liquid that comes from a cow."
 
Kaedus said:
You get to a point where you don't translate everything into English. For example, when I hear "moloko" in Ukrainian, I don't think "Oh that means milk." I think more along the lines of "That's a white liquid that comes from a cow."
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Fuck that, that sounds way too hard.
 
groneg said:
If the language is spanish (seems like it from your OP), then you're golden. Grammar is mathematical and always follows the same rules. Your issue will just be picking up vocabulary. If you can't immerse yourself in a spanish speaking country, you should at least find someone to speak it with every day.

Also TV.

There's tons of spanish programming (telemundo,univision,etc) in the states. Force yourself to watch some. A DVR might also help for rewinding and replay. There are tons of options to keep you engaged. Cartoons. Telenovelas. Jerry Springer type shows.

Also Radio (la mega se pega)
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Nice idea with radio, totally forgot about this option. Found a nice list of spanish radios, I guess the news/informational ones are better than the ones playing mainly music.

Spanish radio stations streaming live on the internet - Listen online
 
Hale.Pane said:
Ah. The story of memrise is great. Their founder trains memory champions.

Speaking Mandarin is very difficult because it's tonal. Reading and writing is very straight forward though. It's just learning characters.

From Dental to Bubble Tea level up scenario - YouTube

^^^^Start at 33: 37 ^^^^^Check this guy out because he speaks really well for a laowai. His "mission" vids are hilarious if you understand other languages.

Beginners learning Chinese.AVI - YouTube
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This guy speaks well. He explains the tones really well, not just the tone itself but also when it should change. Will go over it again.

I speak basic fluent Cantonese which has 8 tones, though I still need to learn the tones for Mandarin.
 
bluechinagroup said:
I use quizlet.com and make flashcards to memorize Chinese words. It seems to work really well for me. I know over 1000 words, and my goal is to know 2500 by the end of 2014.

However I'm only memorizing pinyin. My ability to memorize Chinese characters has been complete shit. I'll check memrise out.

I find the tones super easy. Especially since when I want to say something, my mind's eye shows me the pinyin with tone markings. It's memorizing the Chinese characters that is hard.
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What is knowing 1000 words like, are you able to hold some kind of conversation with the locals?

I have to say, my ability to memorise Chinese characters were shit too, but memrise really helped. When I started learning Chinese in the past, my priority was speaking so I did not bother with characters. Though with memrise I end up learning both pinyin and characters.

Pinyin is good for writing characters on the computer but it comes to a point where we need to recognise the characters themselves when we are given several character options.

My listening is much better than speaking. Most of the times I can guess with reasonable accuracy of what people are saying. Thanks for my mother in law keep talking to me even when I don't know what she saying, eventually I started picking up my listening skills. Also knowing Cantonese helped as some of the sounds overlap.
 
Kaedus said:
You get to a point where you don't translate everything into English. For example, when I hear "moloko" in Ukrainian, I don't think "Oh that means milk." I think more along the lines of "That's a white liquid that comes from a cow."
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yeh, I see it happening slowly. I'm sure it'd be quicker if I was doing more conversational stuff, or even more Memrise. I'm just primarily reading and listening to podcasts for the time being though.
 
Hale.Pane said:
I'm currently testing out english shows w spanish subs and vice versa.
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Just a suggestion, but maybe try out Spanish movies with both, Spanish and English subtitles on at the same time. That's what I do, and I really enjoy it. Video players like KM Player allow for two sets of subtitle files to be loaded at the same time.

Buy some of your favorite movies in DVDs, rip them in Spanish language, download the two subtitle files, sync if needed, and you're good to go. The movie is in Spanish, with English subs at the top, and Spanish subs at the bottom. You get all aspects at the same time -- vocabulary, pronounciation, reading, and writing. Plus you're learning by watching a movie you actually enjoy, instead of some soap opera or news broadcast.
 
Mandarin tones were already too hard, I can't imagine Cantonese. And memorizing the characters, big nope.
Korean writing and speech were straightforward after a couple months but I need a lot more practice.

Kiopa_Matt said:
Then again, I can get by in Thai just fine, so I'm probably not giving myself enough credit, as per-usual.
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Congrats, it all looks like squiggles! Would like to learn to read it.
 
I suggest anyone looking to learn a new language to look up Michael Thomas, he's dead now, but his stuff can be found for sale online (and in torrents). I know English and Spanish fluently, but wanted to learn some French for a couple of trips I took there last year, and it really helped. I was able to go from place to place, order food, and most importantly order alcohol.
 
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