clair02

Welcome aboard, JustDanJ! It's so nice to have you here. This is a great community for learning languages and you are going to get (and hopefully give) a lot of value in this forum. Look forward to interacting with you on the inside. Have a great day!

Welcome to the community, Gurzo. It's really great to have you here. We are going to have tons of fun learning together. I look forward to meeting you on the inside. Hope you have great day!

A great welcome to the community, GaeilgeGirl! I look forward to connecting and learning with you inside the community. Enjoy your day!

Welcome to the forum Enlivo! I look forward to interacting with you on the inside. This is the perfect place for learning languages and I know you're going to love it here. 

Hi DJlearns and welcome to the Linguaholic forum. Advancing your career is wonderful motivation for you to learn Mandarin, and you will find all the help you need here. See you on the inside. 

I don't think that intelligence has anything to do with it except that an intelligent person might be better able to come up with a learning routine or strategy that will enable them to learn faster and retain more things. But all things equal, intelligence alone doesn't really count for much in my opinion. Take a new born baby and raise them in a family that speaks one language and he will grow up speaking one language. Take them and raise them in a family that speaks 10 languages, and they will grow up speaking 10 languages, regardless of their IQ. 

I've never actually given this much thought. Every time I 'feel' like I am fluent in a language, I just move on to the next one, but I've never sat down to think about it or to ask myself, "Am I fluent enough now?" I guess you just know when you get to the point where you can actually hold your own in a conversation and you can understand things that are being said to you without asking people to repeat themselves slower, or having to look things up in the dictionary. Also when you speak and the native people have no problem understanding you, then I think you're fluent enough. 

Only while I was in school. But now that I'm grown, and make my own choices, learning doesn't feel so much like a chore anymore, but it's now something interesting and exciting that I'm doing to better myself and to get better results in my life. I also know now that giving up is never an option and I have the discipline to see things through that I never had while I was in school. Those are the joys of growing up, I suppose. 

On 7/31/2016 at 5:04 AM, VinayaSpeaks said:

sadly, when it comes to learn a language I am not very dedicated. When I start learning a language,I am very active in the beginning. I devote myself to learn the language. As the time passes gradually, my enthusiasm for the languages decreases, I begin to give less time for learning the language. And finally, I stop learning the language. This has  happened to me couple of times. I started to learn French 15 years ago. However, I have not been able to speak the language properly until now.

I understand what you mean. It's always fun and exciting in the beginning and when that initial excitement wears off, you start to lose motivation and enthusiasm for it. I experienced that when I first started studying another language and the technique that I used to help motivate myself was to remind myself why I wanted to learn that language in the first place. Your big 'why' plays a big part in your motivation and determination to learn any language. Do you want to be able to converse with your friends from another country in their language? Is it so you can get a better job? Whatever the reason, keep it in the forefront of your mind and think about it often and you will find the inspiration to continue with your studies. 

We are all so busy these days that it is a constant challenge to find time to do the things that we want to do, like finding the time to practice your language. It's very fortunate that you don't have to assign big blocks of time to language learning, but you can learn even if you just have a few minutes to spare here and there. That's pretty much how it has been for me. I have an hour long lesson every week, but other than that, I try to get in whatever I can whenever I can. And I also make sure to practice a lot, even when I'm alone, I try to think in the language and speak to myself in the language that I'm learning. It helps. 

I haven't given this much thought either. I only made the decision that as soon as I feel that I'm fluent enough in one language I would move on to the next, I guess I will decide what the next language is when the time comes. 

Mine has to be 'amore' which means love in italian. It just sounds so romantic and beautiful. 

Welcome to the forum, Valieria! It's great to have you here. As a teacher of Italian, I'm sure you will be able to give great value to this forum. I look forward to interacting and learning from you. 

1 hour ago, x0xLucyMx0x said:

Hello! 

My name is Luigi (Lucy) and I'm from Estonia. So my native language is Estonian. 

I started learning English in 3rd grade and got to choose between Russian and German in 6th grade. I chose Russian, because my family had a lot of Russian-speaking friends and my grandpa was also Russian. Each time we visited them, my parents would speak Russian with them and I didn't understand a thing. So that was my main motivator to learn Russian. The next language I attempted to learn was German in 10th grade. I took it for a year in school, but due to busy lifestyle, I didn't have time to learn it the proper way. I also tried to learn French on my own, but that didn't work out well too. 

The weird thing is that I tend to translate my name whenever I introduce myself in different languages. In English I usually say that my name is Lucy, in Russian say my name is Lyudmilla or Lyubov, in German I would say Luisa and in French Louise. Why? Because Estonians pronounce letters differently, so it's hard for foreigners to pronounce my name right. 

 

Welcome to the forum, Lucy! I really hope you have a great time here. That's quite a list of languages you have under your belt. Congratulations, and I hope you get all the help you need here. 

Good day Stogian, and welcome to the forum. I certainly look forward to connecting with you and helping each other learn along the way and having loads of fun. 

I don't think that would really work. How would you know if you were saying it wrong? And what's the point of practicing something unless you are absolutely sure it's the right thing? I don't think that tip will help you at all, but who knows, different things work for different people. 

I also struggle a lot with pronounciation. I try to get a lot of help from apps and online resources, but I know that it will never be quite the same as learning from native speakers. In time though, I hope I'll be good enough to possibly pass for a native speaker. 

I'm also really surprised to learn that Mandarin is fast becoming the most popular language that is being taught around the world. That really is news to me. I also would have said English was the most common language in the world. Spanish is also vying for that position. Amazing. But I do agree with Poftim that if we were speaking in terms of native speakers only, then that makes sense. 

I think it's really important to get the accent right from the get go, because a lot of times people learn the wrong way and then it becomes really hard to correct all the bad speaking habits later. When you speak a certain language, I feel that you should always strive to speak it with the particular accent. 

I guess that it's great that everyone here is so understanding. The game looks pretty interesting and fun. Congrats!

That's a great little trick. Thanks for sharing that. I usually watch soaps, movies and news in the language that I'm currently studying, but I have never thought to watch the Lottery draws. I will now. I can see how it's going to help me with those important numbers, seeing as they hardly ever come out in movies and films. 

I did not take language learning in school. I'm not sure I took anything serious while I was a student. It just didn't seem to matter at the time. Of course now that I'm grown, I've changed my tune. Learning doesn't feel so much like a chore anymore, but rather a great way to improve myself. I will always study languages. After the current one I am learning, I am going to choose another and then another. I find it so exciting that I don't think I'll ever stop. 

I have to say that my motivation for learning a new language comes and goes, and sometimes weeks go by without me doing anything to progress my lessons. If I could just keep my motivation levels high, I'm sure I would be much farther right now than I currently am. I'm lucky because when my motivation starts to wane, I have Afrikaans speaking friends around me who are there to remind me of the reason why I want to learn the language. 

I've never actually enrolled in a class to learn a language before, but maybe I would have if I had enough time. I am studying Afrikaans right now, and I do all my lessons by myself, with a lot of help from the internet. So far, I'm pretty happy with my progress and I think that I'm doing as well, if not better than I would in a formal class. 

I'm with Julian on this one. You really need to immerse yourself into the language. It might be even better for you to find native speakers and converse with them regularly. That's what I've found to help me the most. I also try to listen to songs, movies, generally anything I can get a hold of in that language while I'm doing my chores. A lot of the stuff you retain without even trying if you expose yourself enough.