Melee

Watching English shows on TV, and reading English sub-titles is great, but one has to speak the language as well. Reading those sub-titles out loud will be a good thing to do, to keep the tongue in gear with the brain so-to-speak. Reading books in English will definitely help, also talking on the phone and in person to English speakers is great. Anything that engages you and has you speaking the language is a good thing.

Well, you said that she is going to start high school this year, so she has plenty of time to take a foreign language class, or even more than one, if she chooses to do so. Like someone else said, learning a language is hard, so she has to be motivated to do it. It's good that you didn't force her to take a class that she didn't want to take. She might be really good at learning languages in high school, and only time will tell that, but music is a great class to take.

I totally understand this whole thread, and I agree with you about it not being possible for people to forget their own language, especially when they leave their native land as full grown adults. I have a friend who is from Guyana, who has 4 black children but now, since coming to America, only dates white men. She is very adamant that from now on only wants kids from white men, and tries to talk like she is some valley girl from California, and brags about how she sounds like a white (an American white) girl (American, British-which is what most "fakers" try to copy, no matter where they are from). It kind of cracks me up a bit. I love her dearly, but she is just too much at times. I personally know some people who go out of their way to preserve their language and their culture once they come here (to America), but I know others who go out of their way to pretend that they are something they are not. Not all of them do it, but it definitely happens. It depends on a person's sense of self and how they feel about where they originally come from.

I really like Duolingo, and I think it is fabulous that it is free. The only issue that I have with it is an issue with myself really, and that is that sometimes I forget to do it everyday. I get caught up with the every day things of life, and realize that a week or two have gone by and I haven't studied. Right now I'm using it to study Spanish, and when I go through that entire program, I want to start on another language as well.

I think my pronunciation for the most part is good. Where it isn't, I don't stress off of it too much. I just try to practice more, accurate practice of course, making sure that I'm speaking correctly so as not to be practicing in error. If I'm unsure of a way a word is pronounced, I'll go to the Internet and see if I can find a dictionary that breaks down the pronunciation, or one of those sites that actually says the pronunciation of a word for you. I also like the idea about writing down a word in the way that it should sound, but checking several sources first to make sure. You could write things down in a small notebook, the words that are especially troublesome for you. Write them there and practice them often. You can look back on your notes one day and see your progress. Some people can't pronounce certain words, they just can't make their tongues do certain things. Others can learn a language, and sound like a native speaker. Just have to do the best you can.

Most of the informal greetings I hear are just simple one's like "Hi" or "Hey". When I'm at my son's high school, you hear all kinds of different informal greetings, even though the immediate surrounding areas sound nothing like that. If I travel 10 to 15 miles in a different direction away from where I live, then the language style might be totally different, especially depending on what neighborhood you happen to go to. That's true in a lot of places.

I write a lot, sometimes I get paid for it, sometimes not. I agree with what someone else here wrote when they mentioned just writing how you talk. That's how I write most of the time, in the same way that I speak. However, there are times when I'm a bit more formal in my writing; I enjoy being able to use words via text that I would not normally be able to easily slide into a conversation without it sounding too contrived. Some people may write with a lot of big words that they don't usually use in every day conversation, and that's fine for them, I guess especially if they are really trying to "sell" something. Selling written work often involves adding more to one's writing than one would normally add than if it were just for personal use ie a letter to a friend.

I wouldn't join in to a conversation if I don't know the people. If they address something to me, then yes, I'll respond, but I just don't want to get into their business trying to prove that I know their language when in fact I'm not fluent yet. It's great to be interested in people, and it's good to be sociable, but I usually don't feel like inserting myself into a random conversation.

I study foreign language because I think that the sounds of different languages are beautiful. Add to that being able to communicate with different people, and that is what has made me "into" languages for many years. I'm not yet fluent in anything though, which is a shame, because I really should be. Just recently I have been taking learning languages far more seriously. In my personal 'home library' I guess you'd call it, I have many language-learning books and tools that can help me, so I look forward to the journey.

As I already wrote you on another post, I hope that you will upload your journey to learning the German language. It's very motivating to watch a person really get serious and actually learn a language, especially for someone like me who has been taking language courses in school for many years (but not now currently), and still am not fluent in anything! You're showing that it can be done.

Like someone else here wrote, I think that it would be easier if all sign language was universal, but I guess it's not. I'm only learning about this fact just right now today. I didn't know that sign languages were different in different places. To me, though, it would seem that using a sign could be universal. Like don't almost all stop signs look the same across the country, or most of them? Why can't the sign language sign for "stop" be the same thing universally? On the one hand it seems like it would be so easy to have a universal sign language, but on the other hand one has to take into consideration different cultures.

I like learning, and trying to learn, languages because it allows me to communicate with so many different people. I'm not yet fluent in anything, but I have studied bits of Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, American Sign Language, and Russian. Even without being fluent in any of these languages, I have met and became friendly with many different people. Sometimes not only is it good for a person to learn a language, but it is good for people to know that you are trying to learn their language. Sometimes that breaks down the barriers and misconceptions that they might have towards you. I think that most reasons to learn a language have some kind of validity. I mean, there are some people that are already sensitive to different cultures, want to learn about them, but just don't know the language. In their particular case, learning a language doesn't make them less prejudiced because they weren't prejudiced in the first place.

You have really been on your grind learning Spanish. All those flash cards, and doing all the activities in some of those books. You have put a lot of time and effort into learning, that's great, and that's why you're successful. I watched a couple of your videos. It's good that now you can talk to your dad in Spanish, and be able to communicate with certain people in your girlfriend's family. I hope you post your journey to learning German too. Thanks for sharing.

I'd say that although you are frustrated with your teacher, now-a-days the Internet has so many online courses to help with language study that there is bound to be something out there that can help you. It's frustrating when a teacher is not providing you with what you need to learn, but there are ways to get around that if you really want to. My son is in his second year of Chinese. He's had the same teacher for two years. She's a really good teacher, so thankfully there are no complaints, however, if he was feeling frustrated and feeling like he was not learning enough in her class, we would definitely turn to the Internet for help.

I agree with what others have said here. If you're writing a language, then no one knows whether your pronunciation is correct or not, they are just reading what you have written. I myself find it kind of difficult to write different languages as well, but as the saying goes, and as you wrote, practice makes perfect. Learning a different language takes time and patience. Some people may not want to speak a new language because they feel they have not practiced enough in order to sound half-way decent. As with most things, I think that with practice comes confidence.