Another way to learn?

[Denis Hard]

You've heard it all. Read. Write. Speak. But is that all there is to learning a new language? How do you practice speaking if you have no interlocutor? Simple.

Write dialog and read it aloud.

Those are not my thoughts but it sounds interesting. Can this help you get better at speaking a language you're learning?

[MyDigitalpoint]

I just remembered two methods that I read once about, not sure if this will work though

One of them were sold massively; "Learn a language while you sleep" whether buying an audio cassette or the who system that included a Walkman.

The other method was probably based on the above method but suggested by someone who published in a magazine once; put a dictionary under your pillow and "some" language would be caught by your mind.

Don't aks me how :wacky:

[Denis Hard]

I'd like to try the second method because it doesn't require much. Just have a dictionary and sleep on it. LOL. If only that could work, I'd be fluent in thirty or so languages if put my head on them, literally. Just get the dictionaries and use them as pillows!

Anyway, what of the system where you read a dictionary from cover to cover? Can the mind store up some of the words and extract them for you when you badly need to use it [or them]?

[Trellum]

Well, using the internet can help a lot to learn a new language   It did for me, I basically learnt english when I was a teen thanks to the might Yahoo! chat.  I just sat there watching what the people wrote, paying attention to the phrases and the context in which they were used, I also listened to what they said on the mic.  I started to participate as well!

I later found some pen pals online... I learnt a lot that way.  I made a lot funny mistakes, but that was the most important part of my learning.  Not sure what name I'd give to this super unorthodox method, but it really worked for me.  It was so natural! Wish learning Dutch was as easy as it was to learn english.

[SirTenenbaum]

It depends on what your goals are. If you want to be able to understand authentic language in newspapers, magazines, books, advertisements and/or be able to speak it conversationally with others, I don't think reading a dictionary would be effective because it's not the way the language is used in communicative contexts. What would really help your vocabulary/grammar acquisition is reading a novel or news articles in the target language where you understand the majority of what you encounter. Through that process your brain absorbs lots of information in ways the language is actually used. The good thing about reading a novel is that you can often not understand a whole sentence or even a whole paragraph and still be able to follow along with the plot.

A tip I have is that you have to do something you think is fun. If it's not fun, you'll most likely quit doing it rather soon. Also, if you don't have a speaking partner, you can literally talk to yourself throughout the day in the target language. Writing something and then reading aloud is pretty much reading aloud rather than speaking (since speaking, as most people mean with foreign languages, is spontaneous).

As a final tidbit, it can take up to 15 different encounters with a word in context (sometimes more) before it's stored in the brain for retrieval. I'm afraid there aren't any shortcuts. (Sad, I know.)

Anyway, what of the system where you read a dictionary from cover to cover? Can the mind store up some of the words and extract them for you when you badly need to use it [or them]?

[sidney]

Download songs of the language that you want to learn, then listen to it and try to translate it. It can also help you to know the proper sentence construction of that language and how it is used, since it's also similar to speaking. I'm actually now learning German unintentionally because I love listening to Rammstein.