mrhumphrey

I studied for about a year and a half with a teacher, but I never had the opportunity to hear it and practice speaking it back. The words I have learned I will not really forget because I go over them regularly, but as far as becoming conversational, I need to be around people speaking it in order to get any good at it!

I started by buying a book from the bookstore. I realized it was going to be a lot harder to learn by merely reading a book. After I realized that I went on Google and found a local teacher that offers private lessons. I called her up and met with her the following week. I spent a little over a year learning from her before I started grad school. Not only did I learn to pronounce things properly, I learned a lot about the language in general. Perhaps the best thing is that my teacher and I remain in contact. Good luck with whatever path you decide! It can be fun to just go on Youtube and learn to say some words. Its a start!

I do not think it would ever be useless. Learning languages exercises your brain. This has been shown to reduce your risk of dementia and Alzheimers. Further, if you do not use a language often, all is not lost! When the time comes for you to recall what you learned there is a good chance you will be able to catch on quickly. You will be able to adapt to the situation better than you would had you never learned a thing about that language!

I second this. I would love to learn German! As an English speaker I find it fascinating to learn how many words I use have their root in the German language. Moreover, part of my family is Dutch and that is a very close language to German. Might as well learn German and then just try and pick up some Dutch afterward! If I do not learn German next, I would like to try Arabic. I like how different it is and it would be so challenging to learn to read and write it. The major problem would be practicing it. Thankfully there is Skype I suppose!

I consider myself a slower reader, but I have increased my speed quite a bit in the last few years. Unfortunately I was not a big reader when I was young. Some books I really enjoyed reading, but that was a rare thing. When I got older I found myself reading more and more. The real boost was going beginning law school. The amount of reading required is even more than I had expected. After a few months of reading pretty much all day, everyday, I noticed my speed increasing. I was very pleased by that. I can see how long it takes me to finish something compared to other people reading the same thing. They usually finish quicker. I like to think I comprehend more though! Interesting question, thank you! I enjoyed reading some of the other posts on this thread.

I just wanted to take a second to say hello. I am learning Spanish and Mandarin, but it has been a long process. I took Spanish in high school and college, but never practiced enough to become conversational. In the last couple of years I began learning Mandarin, but I still have a long ways to go before fluency. I found a private tutor and was studying with her for about a year and a half. That sums up my background! I want to continue to develop my skills and hopefully become fluent in both Spanish and Mandarin. I feel that joining the forums here and getting to know some of you a bit more will keep me motivated to continue studying. I am happy to be here!