Trellum

I totally agree with you! A tutor beats a self-learning course, specially when you are in a hurry to learn a new language, specially if it's a difficult language. I'd love having a private tutor who could teach me colloquial Hebrew. That would be awesome Sadly I don't have cash for that or for anything that expensive right now, hehehe! Learning a new language is hard, doing it alone is even harder. A private tutor is definitely the choice of people who can afford that.

Pffff! I'd very much rather learn with the help of a tutor, specially because the language I'm trying to learn requires a lot feedback... I need to be told how to pronounce certain words and be corrected all the time. I learn English in my own, but this is a totally different thing! Having a tutor would be super useful. I'd definitely go for that if I had the cash, sadly I don't so I need to settle for a course. I'm sure many people would pick having a private tutor over learning a new language on their own with a simple course.

Fear of failing in my case in not an option, feeling that way is useless, because I have no choice but learn dutch. If I don't then I'll not be able to do the things I'm supposed to do, I might still not be able to do those things, but I don't want to be left with a lot ''what ifs'' in my head. I have never felt afraid of fail at learning a language tho. That idea has never crossed my mind, I often feel afraid of failure when it comes to other things, but not language learning. Maybe because language learning has always been a very relaxing activity for me. I'm not so confident with other things, but when it comes to learning a language I don't feel so insecure.

I like the British accent, but Ive been told there are different accents in Britain. So I guess I like the queen's accent the most I know a person who is from wales and wow! I can barely understand what this person says, lol. I don't like his accent at all! I have a friend who is from London and his accent is so different; I can understand everything he says and is just beautiful. I have met other people from the UK who had such a weird accent. I think the worst accent for me would be the Scottish one, hehehe! I can't understand a single word of what they say!

Oh yeah, I hear ya on that one. Finnish is a very odd language, lol. It's really really odd and makes no sense to me, the words are nothings like Ive ever seen, I mean, at least with dutch or Norwegian you can recognize some words, but Finnish? Finnish doesn't seem to have any kind of link to any other language. It might sounds crazy to you, but when I was younger I wanted to learn it, lol. I did it because my goal was to learn as many languages as possible. The verb ''to be'' is so weird to start with! A girl who used to be my friend of mine actually moved there and had to learn it. I still think I'm way luckier because I don't have to learn Finnish

Visiting Italy sounds like a really lovely idea I hope you get the chance to do it very soon! I'm sure that would be a really good experience, and it would surely serve the purpose of mastering your Italian There is nothing more motivating than traveling to the country where the language you want to learn is spoken, you just feel the urge to communicate back with the locals when they try to speak to you in their languages.

I hear ya! i truly love the japanese culture, mostly because I love their anime, but trying to learn that languages would be almost impossible for me, at least to a fluent level. Mostly because I have no motivation to learn it, after all I just like to watch anime! I don't need it to learn japanese in order to truly enjoy my loved anime I have a friend who is really motivated to learn japanese tho, he also loves anime and wants to actually move there. No idea why tho, maybe his desire to move the was born when he started watching anime I love anime, but I'd never go as far as for wanting to move there!

Back when I was younger and my interest in languages had just started, I really thought I could be multilingual later on. Sadly life got in the way and now I don't have the same mental capabilities (I had an accident a few years ago), so no, I'm pretty sure I can no longer be a multilingual person. When i was younger and had full capability I could have done it, I'm 100% sure of that, but not now. I can hardly keep up being bilingual I might be trilingual soon, but that's it. I know a lot Israeli guys who speak 5 languages.

My interest in languages started when I was a teen, I just want to challenge myself and see how far I could get. I wanted to learn a lot languages, as many as I could, sadly I fell super short. I wanted to learn a couple dead languages, as well as some indo-european ones. There were languages I'd never be willing to learn tho, like for example dutch and japanese. Things have changed now, I will just learn a language I know I will be using on a daily basis in the future, but learning languages just because is no longer an option.

Hehehehe, it seems the least favorite language is Chinese! And the favorite and most preferred french. To be quite honest with you I don't see what the big fuss about french is. I don't find french so appealing, but maybe that's because I'm used to the accent and people speaking french.

Wow, do you really speak Swahili??? I had never met someone who could speak it! I heard it was a very difficult language to learn! Btw, I know what you are talking about! I read about the kind of things that happen where you live, how some people are ridiculed for having certain mother tongue. I remember reading about it a long time ago, maybe 6 or 7 months, so my memories aren't even that clear. Shame on those who make you feel that way, what a bunch of jerks! No one should mess with others just because their mother language is different.

Hahaha! Yeah! I get the very same feeling actually, I don't like the sound of Chinese, it sounds to me like a very difficult language, plus it really seems they are talking about someone behind his or her back. We have a lot Chinese business owners over here, so I know very well the way the sound. I dislike German as well, sounds like they are angry!

I like Julieta Venegas and Ely Guerra. Not a big fan of music in Spanish tho, I just don't like it as much as music in English for some reason. I very much prefer English speaking artists over Spanish speaking ones, most of the Spanish speaking ones are so cocky, obviously they can't handle binge famous that well. Plus, the songs aren't of my taste most of the time, they lack emotion most of the time, excepting for ''La oreja de van gogh'', most of their songs were amazing and full of emotion.

I did something similar, but instead of forums I used a chat room! It was so fun at first, because I felt so excited for being able to talk to people from other places, and being able to express myself in other language was just amazing! Mind blowing! Now talking to foreign makes me feel like ''meh''. LOL. Amazing how things change over time.

I couldn't have said that better! I actually no longer believe there is a best method out there, not after giving thought to the fact I learnt English in the most unorthodox way! I really think everyone learns differently and needs to search for a method that works well for them, that method cant be the same for every single person, it just can't!

Hahahahaha, sorry, I couldn't help but laugh at some of the comments under the article, some of them are so funny! Anyway, I think the immersion technique is the best. That linguist who knows over 50 languages has some good techniques, but I'm not sure if he is the guy I heard about a while ago, a very young guy? I liked his techniques, specially the walking one, exercise actually helps our brains to create more connections (or so I read) so no wonder that's he combines learning with walking.

Hey guys! Was wondering what language you like most and least! For me the language I like the most is Norwegian, that's a language I'd be so eager to learn. I like the way it sounds, spelling it is so easy and the grammar couldn't be easier! I love it! If I could chose a language to learn it would be Norwegian. Sadly this language is only spoken in Norway, unlike English and Spanish that is spoken in so many places. So learning it could be seen as kinda useless by many! Useless for me as well, because I know if I don't use it often I'll start forgetting it. As for the language I like least I'd say I'd have a hard time between Dutch and Icelandic, lol. I don't like Dutch so much because it's so hard to know for sure what the spelling of most words are, because they sound so different! In my language things are are written almost as closely as the way they sound, so it's confusing. What language do you like most and least?

Very interesting! I wasn't sure about some of the accents you guys used, I wish you could have used males instead of females, for some reason it's harder for me to pick the accents right with females. I'd dare to say tho, that some of those females had a different native tongue, was kinda hard to tell tho, but they way they pronounced some words was a dead giveaway. It was very fun, thanks!

It might sound funny, but I actually learnt English thanks to Yahoo chat and the internet in general, I'm very grateful to them for that. I guess the movies also helped me a lot, because thanks to them I knew what some words sounded like, so that gave me clues on how to pronounce them. That was super helpful, because I learn and practiced English only by writing it! The first time I spoke it I was so shy! Because I knew I could express myself of in the written form, but not so sure about the spoken form.

For me it would be Hebrew. I don't have tricks to offer tho, since the difficulty when it comes to reading a language with a different script varies. I dn't have such a hard time reading Hebrew, specially religious texts because of the nikkud. I might have a hard time reading colloquial texts, like news reports online and so on, but after a while you get used to it. I know Korean is a while different thing tho! Different reading system, so sadly I don't have a lot tips to offer, other than ask you to keep practicing it!

I love audio books, sadly they aren't enough if you want to learn to spell words right on paper. That's the problem I'm having with the audio book I'm using right now. It comes with a small booklet with some readings, but it's just a few words for each chapter. I wish it had a booklet with all the transcriptions of the conversation, along with some grammatical notes and so on, not too much, just something very basic.

I learn English online by just reading what people in a yahoo chat wrote day after day. Then I attempted to communicate typing when I was messaged. Then I move into forums and pen pals. Yup, it can be done, but you won't have the easiest time trying to learn the right pronunciation of many difficult words. Some words were no brainers and others... well, let's say the TV helped a bit as well. This isn't for everyone, it definitely won't work for everyone. I honestly don't know why it worked for me, probably because I wasn't even trying to do a thing... I don't even know why I did what I did and didn't stop. I often think it was some kind of thing that was written in my destiny and had to be done no matter what.

''Balada'' simply means ''song'', most of the time we use that word for slower songs, like for example love ones. Some people like to say ''balada'' instead of ''canción'' because they think it sounds more classy. As for the latter, not sure that means anything to be honest, most likely it's a game with words some artists like to use to make their songs stand out.

Yeah, I know very well what you are talking about, because at first I also had such a hard time trying to guess what the right word order was. I learnt a little neat trick to check whether the word order of a sentence was right or not. Sometimes it's really hard to know, specially in English, but in Spanish it must be more confusing! I can see why this is one of our weaknesses.

:vampire: Tell me about it, a lot Spanish native speakers where I live rarely include those accent marks, yes, not even when they are working on their homework! Our language is being destroyed by those people, they make so many orthographic and grammatical mistakes it's ridiculous. But I guess our teachers can't check every single word to see if the accent marks are where they are supposed to be. It's tough to be a teacher, ask my mother! So don't worry, even native speakers have issues with this, just keep on trying until you get it right. I still forget where some accent marks go from time to time, heh!