Wizard

You're definitely not alone, I can assure you of that. When I was in school where we had to take French lessons, I was always very embarrassed to do oral assignments, because I was afraid of messing up and being laughed at. I've always been very shy & timid, so getting past those fears was hard for me; in the end, I learned little to nothing of the language that I was able to keep with me beyond elementary school years. Unfortunate, because it really is a language I'd like to learn. One thing that has helped me with learning German, though, is to have my boyfriend who is a native German speaker help me out. I don't feel as embarrassed around him as I would with a group of strangers, and it puts me at ease. So one piece of advice I would give is to see if a friend or someone you already know who speaks the language can help you out with your learning. You're not as likely to feel shy around them, after all.

If someone could learn a new language in 15 minutes, we'd all be bilingual and able to communicate in every language by now, lol. No; I you definitely can't learn an entire language in 15 minutes. That's a ridiculous expectation, and anyone thinking they can seriously learn a language in that amount of time is being impatient and setting an unrealistic goal for themselves. Is this an actual marketing statement someone has used for their course? "Learn a new language in 15 minutes"? Sounds like one of those too good to be true sorts of things to me. A more realistic goal: "Learn a new language in 15 minutes a day."

Duolingo is definitely my favorite language learning app, and considering Japanese is another language I would absolutely love to learn, I'd be really happy to see a course come out! Considering how popular of a language it is for people to want to learn, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to hope for it sometime in the future; I just doubt it'll be anytime soon because most (if not all, I can't remember) of the languages on there are not in different alphabets. Okay but if someone prefers to learn a language from a certain method... they can do that if they want to? I find Duolingo easiest to understand and the funnest way. Learning a new language doesn't have to be a frustrating process; if someone wants to do it the way they enjoy, they're not "making excuses"; they just know their preferred method well.

The biggest motivator for me is my boyfriend, really. I'm learning German, and he's a native German speaker from Germany, so I want to learn his language. It makes him really happy when he sees me working at learning it. And that encourages me to want to continue so that I can be as good at it as I can. Its also a fun way to bond between us; I practice what I've learned on him and he corrects any mistakes and helps me out. It makes what would otherwise be an admittedly difficult task for me into something that is fun that we can do together. We've had a lot of good laughs over silly mistakes I've made, and he also praises me thoroughly when I manage to get through learning something new. Its really fun that way.

Well, right now I'm really only thinking about learning what I'm working on right now; if I start worrying about learning something else right away I'm just going to rush myself and get frustrated. But, if I do somehow manage to master the German language, I really would love to work on Japanese. I know it'll be hard, especially when it isn't even the same writing as English and German are, but I've always been very fond of Japan and the Japanese language. Some other ones I'd be interested in, but would be less likely to want to put the same amount of effort that I'd be willing to put into German or Japanese, would be Spanish & French. I live in Canada where French is the official second language, so obviously it would be helpful to learn. One of my close friends moved away to Quebec several years back, and it would be nice to know something of the language so I can communicate if I ever visit him there.

I posed this question to my boyfriend, who is a native German speaker that is also fluent in English. His response to the title of the thread was; "Yes, Germans make their decisions based on 'will I get beer if I do this?'" I got a giggle out of it... Especially because it goes hand-in-hand with the "German speakers are more likely to focus on possible outcomes of people’s actions", haha. Joking aside though, I can see how that difference could be, in fact, true. I don't know if its true in every case, with every German speaker thinking one way and every English speaker thinking another, but I do notice a significant difference in how he thinks from how I do, just speaking of the two of us. To him, life definitely IS based on thinking of outcomes... though sadly he has a habit of focusing on the worst outcome possible. My actions are more based on a whim, whatever I'm doing at the time. He is able to see from my viewpoint when I ask him to though, whereas I find it hard to actually think of outcomes beforehand.

The German language has always really appealed to me, but when I started dating a German that's what really started it, haha. Its fun to learn with a native German speaker, because he can correct me on my pronunciation and grammar. I've said stupid things to him a few times, like asking him in German for a glass of bread instead of a glass of water. It is like a bonding thing when he helps me learn though, so I find it really enjoyable, and it makes him smile to see me trying so hard to speak in his language. There's also the fact that my dad's native language is Dutch, which is very similar to German it seems. I was considering trying to learn Dutch before, but I didn't like the language as much as I like German. A lot of words are alike between the two though so my dad likes seeing me learn it, even though it isn't his own language.

One of my favorites of the tools I'm using is the Duolingo app. Of course, it doesn't seem to be the kind of app I could learn everything about a language from; I'd need other resources as well, which I am using. But Duolingo is very fun and easy to use, and I've been able to retain the things I've learned on there better than I have from anything else. Its a great app, and I'd recommend anyone learning a language check it out! Unfortunately they don't have a huge variety of language options (no Japanese, which is a bummer for most of my anime-loving friends), but you can see what languages they do have on their website! The other tool I use is the Living Language program. I have a full course, so it comes with audio courses, books and writing tools, access to online tutoring, and apps. It seems pretty great, but I've been having trouble motivating myself to use it a whole lot for some reason. I have this issue with starting out things. Once I get going its fine, but the program isn't as fun for me as the Duolingo app, which I can just get right into with ease.

I think that if someone is actually able to keep up with learning five languages at once, they are incredibly commendable; I can barely learn the one I'm trying my best with, let alone do 5 simultaneously. I know there are people out there that are better at learning languages in general compared to others, but even at that its hard to imagine someone doing THAT many. I think if it were me attempting it, though... Well, I'd be more than likely to end up getting words from different languages confused and speaking a weird mix of several languages at once, ahaha. Just picture German with some random Japanese, English, and some Spanish in there too, all going at once. Yeah...probably best I just stick with one.

Hello everyone. I'm new here; just joined the forum and looking forward to browsing around and seeing what all there is here. I hope to get along well with everyone. Please call me Wizard. I'm 19 years old - turning 20 in a few days! - and am a native English speaker from Canada. I am trying to learn German, and have been for the past 5 months or so. I am having a bit of trouble progressing past the basics though, and am hoping to find help here on the forum on how to keep my progress going. Thanks for having me here!