pipps

I have never tried to learn any of these so this is just my personal opinion. But I think Chinese, Japanese and Arabic and probably the most difficult to learn. Although, I think every new language is tricky to learn at first.

Although when you have to start writing and speaking in symbols. That's when it gets confusing haha :')

I think it's a confidence booster! Also I think it's great to learn new things and experience a new culture. It could even help you land a job! You can meet new people and maybe meet the love of your life. I think there are loads of great benefits when you learn a language.

I have actually discovered a website called duolingo which I absolutely love, it's very clean, simple yet bold. And it's easy to understand. I think that is great for learning languages on. I'm using it for Portuguese right.

I'm sure mine were something common like mom or dad, too. I am, told, however, that when I was very, very young and not yet able to talk, I came running to my parents saying, "nake! nake!" Eventually they followed me outside, and I proudly led them to a rattlesnake I had found (we lived in the country).

So after mom and dad, I think "snake" was my first word. I'm still trying to figure out how a baby barely able to stumble around on two legs was left alone unsupervised long enough to find a rattlesnake!

Oh my goodness! haha, wow that could've ended differently. What a smart baby you were!

I think my first word was mama, around 6 or 7 months. I caught on quite quickly apparently.

For me it's writing. I feel like I can remember how to say the words and what they mean, and when I see the word on paper I know what is means. But if you gave me a pen and paper and asked me to write it out, I think I would struggle. I'm not quite sure why that is though.

I think the acronym "LOL" has such a bad stigma these days that even if I actually do literally laugh out loud at something I read in a text, I still don't want to actually type LOL. I'm not even sure what the right thing is to do in that situation. I think I usually write something like "I just literally laughed out lout at that", which has the added bonus of making a joke out of it.

I'm guessing their friend told them that they use the word too much and told them to cut it out. I've been there when a friend of mine called out another friend on how often they use LOL, ROFL, BRB and the like and it was something to that effect. Actually, I think they asked if the other friend (a guy in his twenties) was a 12-year-old girl on MSN, but close enough.

I actually don't think LOL has a negative stigma attached to it, I just prefer not to use it. I just think it use to be something that I would use all the time on msn when I was 12. Everyone was saying LOL back then but we have all grown out of that and yet adults and other people still seem to use it haha:P

As long as you can find music you like, I think this works well. I just can't find any Portuguese music I like. It can also be very soothing too and help you learn slang.

De nada, sempre às ordens.  I already miss learning languages, but I've studied so many I need to improve those I've studied instead of starting new ones.

All I know is your welcome from that sentence haha. What does the last part mean? What languages can you speak? and how did you go about learning these?

Once you've learned the language you need to keep it active. You can practice here, you can read books, you can listen to Portuguese radio stations online, watch movies with English subtitles, quite a few options available.  :party:

Thank you! This is a great list and I will jot this down in my notes of portuguese haha. Also has anyone else created their own sort of notebook on the language they are learning? I am thinking of doing it and just want to know how it has gone for everyone else.

Some of the beaches look absolutely stunning over there as well! Going to save up lots of money and really explore the whole country. I can't wait. Should be a great experience. But I want to be able to talk to people and I hope they will be sympathetic with my attempts at their beautiful language haha

Knowing and practicing good grammar is extremely important to me.  Over the years I felt like my grammatical skills, both orally and written, had gotten rusty and in need of some work.  I have been working to improve it and have started to see some positive results.  What's the point of learning a language, especially a native language, and not use it well.

How have you been working to improve your grammar (both orally and written)? I would love to know because I feel like mine have got a bit rusty now too.

I started learning a second language in middle school and throughout high school.  Unfortunately I didn't use it a lot right after high school and forgot pretty much everything until I took a refresher course a few years later.  Now I use it as much as I possibly can so I won't forget and need another refresher course one day down the line!

What language did you learn? I feel like in high school most people are not motivated and then when you leave you're like. Argh, I should've tried harder at that. Do you agree?

Wow, I have so many languages I want to learn.  I honestly think the next one I want to learn though is Arabic.  I have a cousin who is studying Arabic right now so I've been picking up little things from her, here and there.  I think it'd be great to find the time to fully study it with her though.  I love learning new things with someone else.  It makes it more fun and gives you someone else to bounce stuff off of when you might be stuck!

Wow, arabic is an unusual one to learn. Is it hard to learn? What made you want to learn this, is it because of your cousin? I've never even thought of learning arabic.

I do agree that it is a lot more fun when you are learning a language with someone else.

I used to use it way too much. Then one day a friend called me out and I tried to use it less frequently. Truthfully though, there are rarely times when I actually laugh out loud while texting.

haha, yes that's so true. I can't remember the last time I sat there and was laughing out loud to something somebody has text me.

What did your friend say to you in college to call you out?

I'm not even sure it would work if you wanted it for help when you travelled somewhere. I don't know if I would like to try it just because it seems to have so many errors. If you were desperate though, it could probably help you.

I've heard listening to music from the country of the language you are trying to learn can be very useful and actually help with pronunciation and overall learning.

I have tried to find some good Portuguese (Brazilian) music before but actually really struggled to find anything decent. Mainly because I have no idea where or what to start looking at.

So if you are Portuguese, feel free to give me some good artists and bands to listen to as it would much  be appreciated.

I can't remember the last time I text LOL, never mind say it! It did use to be funny but now I don't get it. I just put 'haha' instead now. 

I was wondering if there is anyone on here who is not english. Do you use LOL? Is it the same in your country or do you use something else? I would love to know this.

When I first started learning a foreign language at school , there was a lot of emphasis put on getting the right grammar, and it would take up so long that after a couple of lessons you could say one sentence, and you could say it properly in all tenses and so on, but at the end of the day you only knew one sentence. I think that conversational skills are much more important than getting the grammar right the first time. I think that you should learn to talk the language , and then all the pieces will fall in place. I think that this is something of a controversial opinion so I was wondering, what do you guys think about this?

I agree with what you are saying because all throughout school you are taught to write and speak with proper grammar but I think just learning how to have a conversation is more important and then you can focus on that. I didn't really think about it until you said it and it takes the pressure off having to learn everything perfectly.

Olá.  :indian: How long have you been studying Pipps?

There is a ton of material online, I checked this one out and seems pretty decent: http://ielanguages.com/portuguese.html

If you have questions please post them here, we will be glad to answer. 

Thank you! If I have any questions I will be sure to ask here as I am pretty sure I will start having lots the more I learn. I have been learning for a few weeks now. Just 20 minutes in the morning but it is all adding up. I keep going over the same lessons until they are planted in my brain

I do worry though that once I have learnt something and it's been a few months or a year that I will have forgotten how to speak it because I only plan on visiting Brazil in 2016. Does anyone know how to deal with this?

I am learning the Brazilian version and plan and going to see the olympics and explore the country in 2016. I can't wait! I have also been to Portugal on family trips and I loved it there too. Everyone is friendly and the food! Yum! I love seafood and I'm hoping Brazil will be just as good and the people justt as friendly and nice.

Google translate is a good tool that is free to use, which is great. But it does have some major flaws and faults and should never be used for academic reasons. As I have learnt from experience...

Yay! Thank you for posting these. I have just posted about trying to find something similar to this but this is a massive help for me so thank you! Or muito obrigado

Ola!

I'm relatively new here and I have just started learning the lovely language that is Portuguese. So far, I am loving it. It's such a gorgeous language and eventually I want to be fluent.

I was wondering if anyone had any good grammar or practice sheets that they could post a link to on here? For English to Portuguese. I am surprised at how quickly and easily I am finding it to learn this language. I think it's because I'm very enthusiastic about it. But I still would love any help I can get

Muito Obrigado!

Ola!

I have just started learning Portuguese and so far, so good. I am finding it a lot easier to learn than French. However, I want to know if anyone has found a good language learning site that is free? I have a very low income and would love to join one of these sites but a lot of them require you to pay a monthly fee. Which I just don't have.

If anyone knows a good site, I would love to know which one

Muito Obrigado!

I really love a lots of accents and I think all languages are the languages of love. I love Portuguese as it just flows and sounds so poetic.

But again, French and Italian are other great languages that sound very romantic.