polybus

I love learning other languages, but I have never wished that English wasn't my native language. It is the most useful language for travel and business in the world and I am glad that I didn't have to learn it as a second language. The only downside of English is that when you are learning a new language it can be hard to get others to speak their language with you if they know English. I doubt I would have this problem if my native language was Albanian for example.

Anyone or any product that tells you that you can learn another language "in your sleep" or while you do something else should be avoided. It is not possible to listen to a tape or watch TV and not study at all and through some magic learn the language. It would be nice if it could work that way but it cannot. Learning languages takes effort and study.

One time that Spanish has come in handy happened this past year. My wife's stepsister was getting married to a Spaniard here in Canada. While the couple was busy with all of the wedding stuff, my wife's family and the groom's family were sitting together and trying to get acquainted. The groom's family did not really speak English and my wife's family does not speak Spanish so I was asked to interpret. I had a lot of fun interpreting and I helped the families get to know each other a little better.

I sometimes had problems understanding the code-switching that I experienced in Taiwan. If I was speaking in Chinese with a Taiwanese person, they would occasionally throw in the odd English word here and there. These were usually very simple words that the person knew in English and probably thought they were helping me by using some English words. But actually I found this confusing sometimes as I was following in Chinese, and then a heavily-accented English word would be thrown in where I expected a Chinese word and it would throw off my understanding for a split second as my mind had to realize it wasn't Chinese and then switch to pick up the English word.

I would have to say that I just don't care for the sound of Arabic. I like and respect the language in other ways but I cannot get over that ayin sound. It sounds like the person is gagging and it is almost impossible for me to reproduce. I can see why Persian and Urdu speakers when they use Arabic words basically just ignore the ayin or make it a glottal stop.

I have never tried to learn a fictional language before. It is not because I think it would be a waste of time. There are many things that I do in a day that others would consider a waste of time. In fact I am sure that a lot of people I know would consider studying "real" languages a waste of time. I think that I have never tried to learn a fictional language because I am just not enough of a fan of a show or book that has the language in it. I think it is pretty cool that fully functioning languages were created for Klingon or Elvish, but personally I am not going to learn them.

I am not a native speaker of Spanish, but I find the easiest Spanish to understand is Mexican. This is partly because I have more exposure to this variety and partly because I feel they pronounce the word very close to how it is written. I found Cuban Spanish quite difficult at first but I eventually got used to it. I also found the Spanish in Andalusia quite difficult at first. Both varieties seemed very fast to my ears and some syllables in some words are not pronounced or pronounced very lightly and that makes it harder to understand.

I think that Spanish is a relatively easy language to learn for an English speaker. I think the hardest part for me was the verbal grammar. From an English point of view there are so many different conjugations for verbs, imperfect, subjunctive etc. Most of the conjugations are regular and not too hard to learn, but there are also a lot of irregularities. The best parts about learning Spanish is the easy pronunciation and the Latin-based vocabulary.

It is definitely not necessary to know more than two languages, even in this more globalized world. As long as you speak a large national language, and not a smaller regional language, you can be just as successful without knowing more than your native language. You can always use translators if you do need to communicate with someone in a different language. And since you can't know every language, there will always be times that you cannot communicate and you have to hire a translator. That being said knowing more than my native language has definitely enriched my life.

Yes iqiyi is a lot like youku or tudou. I find that iqiyi had more full movies that I could actually stream though. Thanks for the Chrome plugin. I didn't know about this.

I remember reading in Barry's Farber's great book "How to Learn Any Language", that he thought that Indonesian was the easiest language to learn in the world. This was mostly because Indonesian pronunciation and especially grammar was extremely easy. I think that vocabulary is more of a hindrance than grammar when it comes to learning a different language. Although I have never really learned Indonesian, I have opened a couple books to get an idea of this language and although the grammar seems easy, the vocabulary is not at all easy for a speaker of a European language, except for some loanwords. From my personal experience Spanish was the easiest. Easy pronunciation. Easy vocabulary coming from English. The grammar can be a bit difficult but overall not that bad.

I live in Canada and work with many immigrants that have children who were either born in Canada or came here very young. These colleagues of mine struggle a lot trying to get their children to speak their "mother tongue". They send their kids to weekend classes or try to schedule trips back to their home country. It seems most of the kids can understand the language fine, since they are exposed to it all the time, but many seem to have a much harder time speaking it.

I have occasionally had dreams in other languages, but it doesn't happen all that much. If I am traveling to an area where I know the language and I am exposed to it all day, that night I will sometimes have a dream in that language. It is pretty cool. But for me it doesn't happen a lot. I have heard other language learners having dreams in foreign languages a lot more.

I would accept it if my child didn't want to learn another language. I hope that my wife and I will show a positive attitude towards other languages and offer positive reinforcement if our child did show an interest in other languages, but the truth is, however, you do not NEED to learn another language and if our child is really not interested, or is more interested in other things, I will accept that.

I learned cursive writing in school in Canada, but I believe it stopped shortly after I left. A funny thing happens at my work these days. If one of the older guys has to write something down on paper, they will usually write in a beautiful cursive writing. Many of the other employees at my work do not speak English as a native language or are quite younger and have problems reading cursive writing, so I always have to "translate".

I traveled to Taiwan to learn Chinese. I was there to teach ESL but the reason that I chose Taiwan was because it is Chinese speaking. One important thing though is that just going to the country is not good enough. My wife was also with me and she didn't learn Chinese. She got by as best she could with just English. Even in another country you still have to study the language to be successful. It just makes it easier.

Like some other people here I started French because it was mandatory in school. We start in Grade 4 which is about 9-10 years old. I really didn't enjoy my French classes in school and only did well enough to pass but never really learned the language. When I was in university I decided to go back and relearn French and I enjoyed it a lot more and was able to reach a level I am happy with.

I think like in other Romance languages the subjunctive tense is the hardest in French. At least for me it is. I feel like I understand when to use it but it can be difficult to get it right. I have heard that this tense is on the decline in the spoken language, like the simple past, but I am not sure if that is true or not.

I did not attend a French Immersion school, but I have several friends that did. This is a discussion that my wife and I have been having lately. Should we enroll our child in French Immersion? We still have a few years to decide, but we are having a tough time deciding. What is your impression of the program leahcim132, since you went through it yourself?

I think looking back I was mostly interested in the fact that it was so different than the French or Spanish that I had been learning. Being able to read those characters seemed like such an amazing intellectual challenge to me.

I have heard from some respected polyglots online that learning Esperanto helps you learn another foreign language much faster. I was never interested though. As many have mentioned here I would have no motivation to learn a language that has no country I can travel to and speak it. And of course it never did become an international lingua franca and it never will. I just think my time would be better spent learning a "real" language.

I thought I would share this link in case some Chinese learners had not found it yet. It is a site where you can stream TV shows and movies in Chinese, which is great for listening practice. Sometimes you run into problems with permissions not being in China, but often it is fine. The site is: http://www.iqiyi.com/

I had the same experience as you. I did not like French in school and only did the minimum I needed to in order to pass the class. Years later I learned Spanish and had a great experience. Because of that I revisited French and tried to learn it again on my own. I would suggest if you feel like you don't know much anymore that you get a course to learn on your own and start essentially from the beginning, but the good news is you will fly through the course. You already have most of that knowledge in your head you just need to reactivate it. Good luck!

Learning languages is definitely a hobby for me. In fact I used to have very high goals for myself when it came to learning so many languages in a certain amount of time. In the end I fell short of all of the goals. I decided to look at it more as a hobby and it has been a lot more enjoyable since then. I don't have much spare time these days but when I do, learning other languages is a great way to entertain and educate myself.

Reading a lot and making flashcards (either electronic or paper) is a very classic way to increase your vocabulary and one that I used a ton in the past. Another good way is to find a podcast that teaches Spanish. There are several good ones. Coffee Break Spanish comes to mind since I have it on my phone, but there are many others. Often these podcasts specifically teach several new words and if you can find a podcast at the right level for you, it will be a great way to learn a couple new words a day.