Trellum

This is a really nice list of advice, I am already using some of those methods to learn new dutch words. I really recommend to keep using those new words as much as you can.  Try to create 5 phrases using that word, write them down in a notebook. Also simple thinking of the word ''car'' and visualizing it in your mind can help a lot.  I try to visualize most new words that way, and most of the time it works wonders for me

I think it depends from person  to person, but the method the user above me mentioned is the standard and it works well for most people.  I learnt English when I was just 16 years old all on my own, but my experience was super intuitive.  Plus I was so young, back then learning a new language was actually very easy.

If you are older and you are more of a visual learner, then working with homemade flash cards can do wonders. I actually plan to work with those later on (dutch past an future tenses).

English happens to be my second language and I say this because in my country we speak Creole first and only use the Queen's English when writing or when communicating orally for business. Sometimes you meet someone for the first time or someone who was raised to speak  English all the time and so you may adjust very quickly to English also. All in all, English is quite dominant here and I don't think I need to practice it everyday but I know i'll always have to figure out having a perfect grammar.

That is awesome, Rosa!  I think it's nice you guys grew up speaking a second language. I come from a country where people grew up speaking only one language, and speaking English is seen as something spectacular, lol. Ok, not spectacular, but speaking English well in my country is seen as a really big merit.  Yesterday a girl who works in the lace where I get my lunch from every Friday was amazed when she found out I speak English.

I used to be nervous. And never mingled much. I stuck to my own circle of friends and yes we all did speak English well but problem is that our exposure was limited. After I entered university and of course, back when the internet first started and when I got my first PC, I started to join Yahoo groups to do roleplay and write stories from my favourite stories and movies. Mostly animation! It works btw!

That is great!  Yahoo helped me greatly when I had just started learning and practicing English, I owe so much to yahoo chats that I can actually speak English. I made so many awful mistakes at first, but if it wasn't for yahoo chats I have no idea where I'd be now... surely not writing this right now!

I wish there were many movies in dutch, as many as there are in English so I could practice the language.  I'm struggling so much to find material in dutch, but English students have it so easy English, because they can find material to practice English anywhere, most movies are in English   I guess I'll have to give dutch podcasts a try.

Today we will watch the last mission impossible movie   I go to great extents to watch the dubbed version of most movies I watch all the time.

I don't want to admit to myself or others that there might be any problems with my pronunciation. Whenever this happens, one of my friends ask me to say horse and wh#res and we both realise that I pronounce both pretty much the same.

Whilst still in high school, my teacher couldn't tell the difference between 'pour' and 'poor' which left all students with a good laugh.

Later on, I had several friends who pronounced words as vegetable very funnily vege-table (like the word table...). This included all 'table' words, also comfort-table

Lol, omgg that is so funny!!!!  Was your teacher Swedish?  I love the way you guys pronounce words, I think when you speak English you guys got the nicest and cleanest accent, at least in my opinion.  I worked with several swedes when I was living in Norway, very nice and responsible people.  Nothing like the people I'll be working with very soon.

Were your classmates also Swedish or Lithuanian?  Lol ''comfor-table'', lol.  I bet that was such a laugh fest for any English speakers around, hehehe.  My mom makes the same mistakes when trying to speak English

I've checked a lot jobs in the are where I will be living, and it looks like it would be more than useful to speak both German and french. So I might learn those two in an attempt to get a good job   or at least an ok one, it seems I already speak 3 of the most asked languages in most jobs there: Spanish, English and dutch.

I just read up a little bit about the concept and it sure sounds interesting. So I'm not surprised that it's proving to be very popular. Although I'm not sure if it would work for me because I learn better through taking notes, it's well worth trying out just to see how I fare. After all, I don't have anything to lose

I used to think I  learnt better that way as well, but after seeing how easy is to remember info before an exam using mind mapping, let me tell you I really recommend you this technique.  If you are going to have an exam or really need to remember a set of grammar rules fast, then this is the way to go.  It's kinda fun to turn my notes into mind maps

To me it was  so weird that  in English you only use one question and exclamation mark   I thought it was odd, because I grew up being taught how important it was to open and close a question or an expression with opening and closing question/exclamation marks. 

Just like with most languages that use our writing system... it's the same.  I think I'm very close to becoming fluent in Dutch, I calculate my level is now a bit beyond basic, but in other 6 months it might be on the verge of ''advanced''.  At least if I keep working as hard as I have been working lately

In short, the moment you don't have to think do much before building a sentence on the spoken or written for, that is the moment when I can truly say I am fluent.  When things flow naturally  and effortlessly that is when I know I've mastered the language.

There is not such a thing as ''columbian Spanish'', lol.  You meant ''Colombian'' Spanish I am sure.  If you want to learn more useful expressions in Colombian Spanish ,then check this page out: http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/18-funniest-expressions-colombian-spanish-use/ 

You can try watching Ranma 1/2 dubbed to Latino american Spanish on YouTube, I loved that anime so much   It might be worth checking it out for you, I also know a channel that has a lot Bleach characters is Latino american Spanish.  I actually prefer to watch my anime in Latino american Spanish most of the time, specially if i had watched it dubbed on TV already, like I did with Ranma 1/2.

You couldn't have put it better, Trellum! The tragic thing is that some people buy whatever they say, line, hook and sinker!

If you don't mind me asking, how many languages do you speak and which ones are those? I don't know why, but I get the feeling that you have quite a few languages under your belt! -and I'm ever so envious LOL

Right now I only speak 3 languages   I speak both English and Spanish quite fluently, I also speak some dutch (I'm in the process to master it - it should happen in the next 6 months). 

I can read some Hebrew as well (but I need to brush it up, since I have forgotten quite a bit).  I  wanted to learn a lot languages in the past   I have some very basic knowledge of Norwegian, but super rusty. Maybe one day i might learn it jut for fun (it's so easy).

My favorite online resource for language learning is probably Duolingo. It's pretty good for getting good at the basics of a language, and they have quite a few languages to choose from now. I'm really excited for the release of even more new language courses like Russian! I haven't used it, but I've also heard that Babbel is pretty good, and similar to Duolingo.

Are they going to be releasing Russian soon?  I think the last time I checked (6 months ago) they were already working on it, but had no exact date?  I've always wanted to learn Russian, so going back to Duolingo would be a wonderful way to start, at least learn some basics, it didn't help me much with dutch, but maybe it can help me a bit with Russian.

I highly doubt it.  If you want to truly learn a language you definitely need more than just 15 minutes,  you need a lot focus and dedication to do that, at least one hour daily for at least half a year.  Just like I have been doing the last few months with dutch (showing results already).

Right now I am studying dutch, I'm only studying it because I need to learn it before I even think of moving there.  I learnt English when I was 16 years old or so   That was done for fun, unlike dutch that I feel it's something I really gotta do. 

I've always felt some sort of interest in learning languages, all started when I was 15 years old, after learning English I had plans to learn as many languages as possible, but that plan never materialized   So here I am!  Finally learning a third language

Good for you, Lena   I also learnt English on my own and at home using the computer only.  I did it when I was just 16 years old and my life has completely changed thanks to that decision.  I'm glad this method worked well for you as well, and you can soon find a really good job, where you can practice and improve your English.

I had the same problem while growing up, the teacher didn't know more English than we did, so she would make us write several words and look for their meaning in a dictionary.  I' not even sure if she wrote that right...because I rarely found them in my dictionary, so I guess she didn't even write them right.

No one in that class could ever get far with English, excepting for me, of course, lol.  It was a huge coincidence I did, after that first try to learn English I felt so unmotivated...

I've definitely used mind maps a lot for languages, and I find them very useful once you've worked out how to lay them out. It took me one or two messy mind maps to get the hang of fitting things efficiently onto one page, but once you're got it, it's a really easy and efficient way to take language notes. I also remember things better when I've mind mapped them.

That is awesome Mind maps can be applied to many different areas, I  never used them for other subjects at school, but I think they are perfect for learning languages, because even if they take quite a bit time to make and design... it's ok, because you will be going back to them often enough if you need to freshen up your knowledge.  This is why I don't feel annoyed they can be so time consuming, they are so worth it it.

You are welcome @lushlala, Mind mapping is something I first heard about when I was just 13 years old.  I was taking a NLP course and some sessions as well to help me deal with some issues. It was then when I was introduced to this technique, but I never could get into it until now. To be honest I thought it was tedious, but I don't anymore, to me it is more tedious to write all those notes and then trying to remember all those grammar rules later. With mind mapping is much easier to remember things.

Learning 5 languages at a time seems seems very challenging. Maybe some people can manage it, but I don't know if I could! I think that if you're learning 5 languages at once you may not be able to achieve full fluency in the language, and if I'm learning languages, that's really my aim. I'm finding it pretty hard to manage French and German at the same time, forget taking on three more new languages!

Yeah, same here.  I care too much about fluency, and that is why I'd never dare to learn 5 languages at once (or try to learn).  You just can't reach complete fluency on all those languages at same time, because if you study 5, then your least favorite language or the one you don't study as often or with the same enthusiasm ends up being the least fluent.  Not for me, I'm old fashioned and lime to focus in only one language.  I respect those learning 5 or more language at once though, no idea how they find the time to do anything else.

I say if you want to do it, and think you have the time, then go for it! I am currently studying 4 languages, although I started hem all at different times, so I'm at different levels in them all. I will most likely add a fifth (and sixth, and seventh ) at some time in the future, as the mood strikes me. But since I just added the fourth one very recently, it will probably be at least several months to a year before I add another....

Really?  What languages are you currently studying and how many can you speak fluently at this point of your life?  I'm just curious.  I'm not good at multi tasking, so I doubt I will be learning a new language anytime soon   Other than dutch, but I must say I admire those studying several languages who also seem to find time to do other things as well.

Right now I am learning dutch   I'm not even close to being fluent in dutch, so for the moment I don't plan to learn any other language.  I first plan to perfect dutch, then after that I might polish my Hebrew reading skill after that I might actually learn colloquial Hebrew.  Once and if I ever master it, I might jump to learn French.  I have been dreaming about learning Russian, but I doubt that will ever happen.

It's obviously difficult to achieve total fluency in any language. However, many of us aren't aiming for total fluency in our studied languages. As long as you can speak all of them well enough so native speakers can understand you and not think, "what an xxx", then you have achieved the goal of communication, which is ultimately the point of learning a new language. Fluency would be great, but we only have a limited amount of time and effort, and sometimes it's better to spread yourself thinner.

Talk for yourself   My aim is to speak all the languages I learn with fluency, then what is the point? If you don't speak it with fluency you might make some huge mistakes, like a friend who didn't speak English fluently... he went to a cafeteria and tried to order something.  It went something like: ''I want a coffee black''.  The guy threw at him a death stare... I clarified my friend wasn't fluent in English, so he got the order wrong.  Then the guy just laughed... that could have escalated quick, you know?

Sometimes little mistakes like that make a huge difference... if you don't have time and you just learn languages as a hobby (like this other guy I was talking about does) then why not take the time to focus in just one language and polish it til near perfection?  Makes more sense to me, but then again we all are different and see things differently.  I personally see no point in half learning a language without becoming fluent...

I totally agree with you there, Trellum. Sometimes we have to be careful what we take from these bloggers, because it's their subjective opinion. What they prefer may not necessarily work for the next person. This is why I steer of the prescriptive types. I always think it's best to suggest, rather than to cite a certain way as the gospel truth, or even as the one only method that works. Some people even prefer the most unconventional methods, which may not make sense to others. So yes, it's all about what works for you as an individual

Yeah   I dislike those people that because they have a blog think they are an authority when it comes to learning languages or how the brain works, lol.  They think they know the absolute truth because they used a method that worked great for them, and they think that as a result it will also work for others.

What irks me most is that they make those claims not even having a second thought on how those words will affect someone else's choices, because some people believe everything they read in a blog, specially if the author seems to be so confident what he is saying is the absolute truth.