anna3101

For me, the easiest way is reading some magazines or fun books and listening to music. It's not interchangeable with serious learning but helps not forget the language until you're ready to tackle it again.

In Poland there are also several dialects (one of them is even supposed to be a separate language!), and also some bigger cities have their own "words" that are particular to that city/region. The concept of "Southernism" really interests me. I love country songs and those seem to originate exclusively in the Southern part of the US. Some of the words and expressions you hear leave me puzzled. Internet is my best friend when it comes to explaining those. Otherwise, I'd never ever understand what "Dixie" means

And to simple signs I can also add "read the labels". Nowadays there are so many products where you see the marketing info and the ingredient list in several languages. A great way to memorise some vocabulary - also in German (I buy a lot of German products so naturally there's always a part of text with information in German).

I also love reading books, in any language, though of couse it's much easier to do so in those that you already know at a better level. I remember my first novel in German was "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers". It did not go so well I was a beginner and struggled with the book for almost the whole summer until I finally gave up. So sad.

Hello everybody, Many people I know, and, unfortunately, I have to add myself to that list, use words which in my native Russian are called "parasites". Those are the words you use far too often. Probably the best English equivalent would be a "filler". I'm pretty sure you've heard people speak in this way: "Like, I don't know. He is, like, oh my God, it's great. But I'm not sure. Is it, like, really that good for him?" Do you have the same problem, in your native or second language? Do you try to fight it? If you do, how do you go about it? I know I tend to abuse "Well, ...", "cute" and "really" in English. And in Polish I make diminutives far too often which is probably extremely annoying for some people. Do you have some advice? Thanks! Ania

I have no idea how it is in the USA, but here in Eastern Europe your salary will be a bit better if you speak a foreign language. If you speak several, than you'll for sure have much more money that you would if you only spoke English and Polish. Of course, if the job requires those languages. If not, then you'll have no benefits, financial or otherwise. What's more, some employers will be less likely to hire you if you know "too much", ie speak many languages, graduated from a prestigious university or have two higher educations. I've personally witnessed several occasions when a less experienced and less knowlegeable person was given the job because "the other one will quickly get bored/get a better offer and leave" or because the boss is afraid of competition. That only concerns low to middle level office jobs though. I have no experience with how it is at the top "of the food chain"

The best language learning software I've used is Tell Me More. It may not suit everybody but it was fairly interactive, fun and helped me with pronunciation.

Hello bobbieb, Welcome to the forum, I hope you find plenty of occasions to practise your Spanish! Ania

Hello Lushlala, Thanks a lot for sharing! Looks interesting, and will definitely be useful. Ania

Seeing that we have quite a lot of introverts here, I'd like to share a link to an interesting TED talk of Susan Cain (who also wrote a whole book about the issue): https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?language=en#t-736538

I've added a couple Russian ones but only those that I immediately came to mind. I'll have a look later when I do some research, then maybe I'll find some more equivalents.

Motivation is a very interesting topic. Psychologists say that people are doing things either to get pleasure or avoid pain. I find that quite correct in my case I learn languages either with the idea of having something pleasant out of it (studying for fun, to better understand a person, to be able to communicate abroad etc) or in order to avoid something bad (studying to improve my mood when I'm sad, to not miss a good job offer and so on). But I do find love for the person speaking that language or simply for the language itself is the greatest motivator.

I like this idea a lot. Songs are not as "boring" as normal grammar exercises, and I think they can be very useful. Although the problem is to find suitable ones It's not so easy to find songs that are both pleasant in terms of melody, have easy vocabulary and the grammar is both neither too difficult nor "incorrect". I wonder if anyone knows English songs that are useful for beginners?

Here's a nice link for learning to correctly write Chinese in romanization: http://www.pinyin.info/readings/zyg/rules.html

Hello, For those who may not have discovered it yet: http://endic.naver.com/ Check it out! Ania

I'd like to share one of my favourite programs to measure the level of knowledge in some popular European languages. Not an app but I guess I can put it here among apps. I've been using it since ages, and although it has its drawbacks (who doesn't?), it's one of the best free programs to estimate a language level. Not very pretty when it comes to interface but what matters for me is functionality. Dialang needs Internet connection and Java. It has tests checking your reading, writing, listening, grammar and vocabulary, and later on evaluating them against the European Framework (from A1 to C2). You can choose from Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish-gaelic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Here's the link to download it: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/researchenterprise/dialang/about I hope it'll be useful for you.

You are a person after my own heart! I also no longer use Facebook and absolutely love casual games, all those time management, build-a-lot and kingdom-for-the-princess types, as well as some strategy and quests. I also find that, strangely enough, playing a good game often motivates me to other things afterwards. Like take a coursebook and learn some new French words. You feel happy and content, so you are more likely to do good things rather than just sleep or browse silly Internet sites.

No, actually I'm not that dedicated I try my best but very often I just say "no" to whatever useful and good plans I have and just fall to bed with some silly game on my phone or an extremely mind-numbing women's magazine. Leaving languages, dirty dishes, unsent emails and what else not. I used to mentally beat myself about it and guess what? It made me sad and angry and always feeling guilty but it never helped. It only made things worse. After all, if I believe I'm already a useless zero, incapable of ever learning Spanish or washing the dishes, what's the point of trying to change that? I'm doomed, period, no point in trying. It was only when I gave up on self-guilt that I actually started to make progress. I now go with "better to do something than nothing, and if I can't force myself today, then I'll try again tomorrow". It works WAY better for me. And when I can make it, I prefer studying in the morning, as my mind feels more "fresh" then but for any repetition or something less difficult evenings are great. But of course that differs so much from person to person.

I wish you luck! When I was in the Netherlands and tried to produce some sentences, they replied to me in English in 80% of the cases If I went now, I'd just go on stubbornly trying to talk Dutch to them anyway. You should probably do the same

To start it off, here are some real-life examples taken from Russian textbooks for foreigners learning Russian I've translated some of them into English so you could have a laugh too. I've kept the site's comments too The full list is here: http://www.adme.ru/zhizn-marazmy/sumasshedshie-uchebniki-russkogo-dlya-inostrancev-776010/ Choose symptoms and diagnosis. Create dialogues according to this example: - I have constant headaches. - You shouldn't study Russian // Because to study Russian you need to have clear mind and a sturdy head. This is a tiger-daddy, tiger-mummy and their tiger-son. And where is grandma Nastya? // When you have three tigers, your grandma may disappear just like that. Vegetarians eat only fruit. All illnesses come from hunger. The one who eats a lot lives longer. It's not true that vegetarians love animals, they just hate vegetables. Hitler was a vegetarian. To be healthy, you need to eat a lot and sleep a lot. Dostoevsky was a vegetarian. If someone is starving, they have a red face. Alcohol trains your willpower. Lent is a period when Buddhists don't eat fruit. // Just say good-bye to logic. Zoya Borisovna is not getting any salary... but she goes on working. // This German coursebook knows Russian reality quite well. We are not Albanians - Mummy, what language do Estonians speak? - Estonians speak Estonian. - What language do Albanians speak? - Albanians speak Albanian. - Do I speak Albanian? - No, you don't speak Albanian. - Do you or daddy speak Albanian? - No, we don't speak Albanian. - Why? - Because we are not Albanians. // I wonder what else this child may ask... Illnesses in Russian You have a cold/ a flu/ throat inflammation/ allergy/ hangover. You are tired/pregnant. // Looks like we don't have that many health problems. - What did you beat your husband with? - First with hands and legs, and then with chair. - Serves him right. Good job! It's his own fault anyway. // Just a normal, daily situation. - Is the coursebook here? - Yes, it is. - Is the notebook here? - Yes, it is. - Is the pencil here? - Yes, it is. - Are the cigarettes here? - Yes, they are? - And vodka? - Unfortunately, it's not here. // What a pity. - Hello, my name is Dmitry Tikhonov, I'm a journalist, I work for "St Petersburg" channel. Who do you think this is? It's a football star Andrey Begunov. Andrey, is this your family? Is this your wife? Is this your son? Are these your medals? Is this your team? Is this your coach? Is this your car? Is this your autograph? - Yes. - Thank you for the interview! // The perfect interview in its entirety. I used to like going to the university but now I prefer to dance in a club, to walk in a park, to think about work. At work I'm giving interesting lectures but stupid students don't attend them. Sometimes I take drugs and then students say that my lectures are great and they want to listen to them some more. // A typical Russian professor. - What did you buy in the shop? - I bought some vodka. - Do you buy vodka often?! - Of course not! No, I've bought it today because I've just passed all of my exams. That merits a celebration. // Small celebration of a typical Russian girl.

Hi! I was reading about some of the crazy sentences that Duolingo offers sometimes, and I remembered a lot of absolutely hilarious examples of (mostly not intended) stupid sounding sentences from various coursebooks. When I started to learn Polish with some obscure "teach-yourself-in-three-months" book (and that was back in 2007 - not 80s or something), I was treated to lovely dialogues of this kind: - Hello, are you going to the shop? - Yes, I need to stand in the queue for several hours. I will get meat! Real meat! - Oh, it's so hard to get meat! You will be lucky! Obviously the authors kinda thought Poland was still in the Socialist times, and the book was published around 2005! Then there are numerous "sample dialogues" meant to teach you something and they sound so unnatural that it just makes you laugh. In my second Polish coursebook, from Berlitz I think, they started off with dialogues that I just couldn't help giggling to. It's a pity I don't have the book anymore to quote it word for word. But the dialogues went something like: - Do you want to go to the cinema? - Yes, I do. I want to go to the cinema. - So you want to go to the cinema? - Yes, I want to go to the cinema. - I am happy you want to go the cinema. When will we go to the cinema? - Let's go to the cinema tomorrow. Do you want to go to the cinema tomorrow? Always reminds me of the terrific Monty Python sketch from "How To Irritate People": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aUbGGFySdU Do you have examples of such strange/funny parts from your foreign language textbooks? If yes, please share! Ania

Hi lozpayne, The sentence makes sense to me but I'm not a native speaker, so let's hear their feedback. Just one orthographic correction: the word "surely" goes like this -> sûrement Ania

But you see, I mean people who are only using Polish and occasionally English in their work. You could just have Polish keyboard, and that would suffice. You can type Polish letters with alt, and if you want English, you still have the same letters. But in several offices I've worked I've seen people add both keyboards. When I asked them about it, they'd just say "Well, I don't know... isn't it better to have a separate keyboard for English? Maybe they have something special we don't have in the Polish keyboard". Do they really have something special? I'm not so sure

That is so funny! I'm thinking that's probably the reason Duolingo makes those weird sentences - to make people say "WHAT?" and actually remember. There's been some research about that, and supposedly people learn things faster and better if they are emotional about them. If something makes you go "wow", in a positive or negative sense, you are much more likely to remember it. On the other hand, the usefulness of "being a banana" when it comes to daily situations is, of course, doubtful

Hello Andreas, Welcome to the forum! Glad to have you here, and kudos to you for being fluent in Chinese! Hope to see you around, especially on the Chinese subforum. I'm sure many people will be grateful for advice about learning Chinese. Ania