spanglish1205

No problem good luck!

Hi Welkdom, I use Italki http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469. I guess its similar to Rype that the other user mentioned in that you connect with native speakers over Skype. Its a really simple payment and scheduling system. Along with Spanish theres like a 100 other languages and 1000+ teachers on the site. It definitely helped me move my Spanish along tremendously. 1hr lessons average around $10-12 so its pretty cost effective. Best of luck!

Hi Filipe, yes I definitely agree but that's just natural that its going to be harder to find material in those niche languages. I hate to keep shamlessly plugging italki (http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469) but its a great resource and there are a lot of teachers out there in those less popular languages. For example I just checked and there at 27 Catalan teachers and 8 Danish teachers. No Estonian teachers tho. The other hand is that these teachers usually are a tad more expensive. Supply and demand! Good luck.

Hey languagelover, where do you get your podcasts? I think a couple times but cant really find a good app/source. I would love to find a good one. I have an Android and Anki is free on there. If you have an iphone I remember it being like $20 when I tried to download it on my fiances phone.

Hey Lushlala, Yea it works great for me! Yea the money is a factor but we all have our hobbies that cost money, do what makes u happy u know! Spanish is my primary language that I'm focusing on and looking to eventually take the DELE C2 so I take 2 sessions a week. Right now Italians my secondary language so I do that once every other week. Like you said it all depends on your individual needs and goals. And of course budget. But it's well worth it to me and I think its prob the best ROI out of any learning method. I was thinking about taking grad school classes or classes at Instituto Cervantes to improve my Spanish and that works out to about $50-60/hr for a GROUP class! So its all relative. There's also "community tutors" that you could get for cheaper ($5-10/hr) that aren't trained teachers but could still help you out. Best of luck!

Hi Enrico, First tip, if by 80/20 you mean to shortcut I wouldnt take that approach. But if you are asking which methods make the most of your time I could help with that. From point 0: I like Pimsleur as a beginning step. I think its a great tool to get you from 0 to a functional speaking level in 1-3 months. Since its all conversational its very relevant. It is also all audio so you could do it during your "dead time" commuting. Anki flash cards - GREAT app for memorizing vocab. You could download decks other people have made or construct your own. Italki tutoring lessons over skype - http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469. By far the best resource to go from beginner to intermediate to advanced to native. It is basically a network and payment system for you to find and pay native speaking language tutors. You take advantage of exchange rates so the average lesson is about $12/hour. Best of luck!

I haven't used Assimil so I couldn't say for that method specifically. I think for a beginning crash course I think Pimsleur is awesome to give you a base conversational functionality in the language. Levels 1, 2 and 3 are 90 half hour lessons all together and its all audio so you could do it while driving to work. Even midway through level 2 I was functioning pretty well when traveling to Italy. Best of luck

"that being said" or "having said that" transitions to the following topic or effect from the prior information that you discussed. For example, "Our company has lost $1 million this quarter, that being said, we will not be making any further investments" Been is the past participle of to be and being in the present progressive form of the verb. In that sense "that being said" is a confusing phrase because it refers to a past action but that is just how the saying works. Hope that helps.

For me: Spanish - perfecting it bc its my heritage Italian - travel a lot there for work and I love the language, culture etc Portuguese - love the language and people. I do brazilian jiu jitsu so its an opportunity to connect more with some of those ppl. Mandarin - haven't started but its on my long list to learn. I love the culture, hope to visit soon and it would be a great challenge for me. The trick is to see if you have the motivation that will keep you learning the language. All the languages I am learning or set to learn are ones where I'm very interested in being able to communicate with the language and the people. So I think thats a good place to start. Good luck

Hi Lushlala, Yea originally I was thinkin about doing a graduate course which would cost around $3000. This is for a group class with say 45 in class hours and 15 homework hours so that ends up being $50/hr! So if you're gonna enroll in a class this is much more cost effective. Yes the teachers range from "Community Tutors" that could be like $5-8/hr to "Professional Teachers" that avg that $10-12/hr but could go as high at around $25/hr. They have credentials and everything posted on the site. I agree in part about what you say. I've seen some non native speakers teaching a foreign language here in the US that are TERRIBLE. But, on the other hand, to get to that initial level of proficiency I would think a non native professional teacher could get you to that level. Past that the "community tutor" type of native speaker would be great for just conversation practice bc they could tell you what sounds good or not. And then again native professional teachers are better than both!

I think it goes into the initial selection of a language and what level of proficiency you set out to achieve. This is important to give yourself a realistic view on how much time you'll actually put in. The initial selection is going to include its suitability and usefulness to you and how interested you are in communicating with the people of that language, rather than just "collecting languages". The level of proficiency you want is also going to affect your motivation. If you start from zero and say, "ok I wanna get to C2 right now", it may be a little too aggressive and feel like an insurmountable obstacle and affect your motivation. Instead if you say "ok I want enough to get around the country" or "i want to be able to carry a basic conversation" and readjust your goals from there. That's just my opinion but I hope it helps.

I'm a huge fan of Italki (http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469) so I'll continue to recommend it on this forum. You can find a huge amount of students that you can have German/English exchanges with over Skype to polish up your conversation for free. You can also take private classes with professors on the site. Hope that helps! Best of luck.

Just as a general rule, I wouldn't learn a language unless I was truly interested in the country, culture and people to want to be able to communicate in that language. For instance I travel a lot to Italy for work and I love the culture and people etc. so learning Italian has been motivating and fun for me. The question is being able to translate biblical texts, which by the way will require a pretty high proficiency in the language, enough motivation to carry you through those hundreds of hours to get to that level?

Hey DrX, I like Pimsleur the most out of the packaged language programs marketed. It definitely gives a solid functional base of a language. But all the language programs out there are going to take you to a A2, MAYBE B1 level. To get past that my favorite methods are Anki flashcards for vocab, grammar books and lessons on Italki, http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469. That will definitely move the needle the most in a cost efficient manner. BTW are you planning on learning ALL those languages? :amazed:

Hey Rosa, Its all about that first step! Just keep in mind that anybody can learn anything. Once you get over that first hump you'll be fine. I posted a thread called "study methods" that shows what I do. Pimsleurs a good starting point and you could always torrent that if you are concerned about money. Speaking of enrolling in classes, I would check out Italki, http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469, itd be way more cost effective. A private class with a native speaker averages around $10-12/hour. You'll be fine just dive into the language! Best of luck!

VNTomboy, yea I'm at the point where I'm pretty much letting go of Rosetta Stone. If you could find an Anki deck with photos its basically the same thing and a much better use of time. I used DuoLingo a little but the sentences you go over are ridiculous like "The lion is eating the monkey" so I dropped that. Anki and Italki lessons I feel definitely move the needle the most for me. lushlala, yes! you're totally right. I hate that double standard.

Yes thats crazy, same thing happens here with immigrants in the US who go into their own neighborhoods and never learn the language. Sad. Happy easter to u too!

Hey Mark, Yes italki rates are basically governed on exchange rates and supply/demand. But it usually nets out to around $12/hr depending. You could also meet people and exchange languages for free via skype. So you're an American living in Ecuador? Go outside and talk then lol! Yes video games are good. Having your entertainment in your target language is always a good thing. I also heard some people who switch their settings on their computer and phone to the target language. I should do that...

Hey guys I posted this on another thread but didn´t get much hits. I was really curious to see if anybody has any other methods to share other than what I am doing. I´d be glad to hear! I usually go through the following programs to study a language: Beginner: -Pimsleur and Michel Thomas during my commute to work. This is good because it is during "dead" time. Pimsleur is especially very good at getting a base, functional level of conversation down. Michel Thomas is okay but better than nothing to help during this "dead" time. -I use Rosetta Stone a little for vocab but its not the greatest - money or time wise. Intermediate/Advanced: -Anki flash cards - EXTREMELY helpful to learning vocabulary. It is a spaced repetition program that will program the cards to reappear at a specified interval for you to be able to retain. There are several shared decks available in each language or you can create your own. -Read newspapers: any new vocab I put into an Anki deck -Read books: start off with children's stories and work up. If you have a kindle you can get a english translation dictionary and every word you highlight is translated and saved. Later on I go and put these words in an Anki deck. -For listening practice I watch TV, movies and TedTalks. -Grammar books of course. -Skype one on one tutoring - definitely the method I've progressed the most with. I use http://www.italki.com/?ref=1555469 which basically connects students and native speaking teachers. You can take advantage of exchange rates so the avg lesson is about $10/hour which pretty much beats any other paid course you can get. You can also connect with other students and exchange languages on Skype for free. Best of luck on your language learning!

Yea like I said that´d be an onerous task because you would have to input it manually. It doesn't function as a dictionary it helps you learn new vocab. The program gives you the vocab card at spaced repetitions to retain the memory of it. On the flashcards, you have options of "Again" "Good" or "Easy" that will determine when the card is shown to you again. For a completely new card that is usually Immediate/10 minutes/4 days. After that Immediate/1 day/4 days. Then it'll be Immediate/3 days/5 days. So its great to retain new vocab over time. And you could download decks that other people have. For you, it'll prob be hard to find a pre made deck that has your level of German. But as you go day to day with Dey Speigel you could enter in words there and use to app to retain them.

Transposing 15k words is an onerous task but I would check out a flashcard app like Anki for new vocab, I could retain new vocab pretty damn quickly with it.

English is definitely the language of business, no one can dispute that. Yet with that native English speakers shouldn't rely on English's success as an excuse not to learn another language. Besides that, if I was to speak in general terms (disregarding personal needs) I would probably say Spanish and Mandarin as far as population that speaks it and commercial prominence.

Yea I heard that 25,000-30,000 word figure as well too for native speakers. If I were you I would kind of view it as a journey rather than as a destination. Keep adding words everyday and just keep learning at a pace you can sustain. Even when you do reach 25k words there's still a ton more out there to learn so I wouldn't obsess too much on the number. As an aside I dont know where you are putting these words in but Anki, a flashcard app which is free on Android and the computer, has been an awesome resource for me to learn and retain vocab. I download decks and I have my own deck to put in words I see from reading.

In a case like that I probably wouldnt either so I don't blame you. But keep in mind that a lot of people would really enjoy to hear their native language spoken by someone else and be happy to help you out. People really appreciate it when people, especially english-centric Americans, try to learn their language.

I am currently improving on my Spanish because that is where my family is from and I feel very connected to it. I travel to Italy a lot for work so even though you could kinda survive with English, I chose to start learning Italian to learn something new considering I have a great opporunity to be able to go there. Next up is Portuguese and Mandarin. I love the way Portuguese sounds and it is closely related to Spanish, and Gallego, which is the language of the part of Spain my family is from. Mandarin will be my personal challenge and because I enjoy the Chinese culture. Hopefully my job will be sending me there sooner or later! I think at the end of the day you are going to want to chose a language that you would want to connect with the people and the culture. If you are not interested in that you are not going to have the motivation nor will you enjoy the learning process.