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jfab

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When was the last time you practiced for a new language? What is the most effective practice for you? Do you still go to language schools?

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I'm not really sure what you mean by this question...

"FOR" a new language?

If you mean the last time I studied the language I am learning... It was yesterday evening. I was doing flashcards with kanji (after reading about them in Remembering The Kanji). Yesterday was all repetition though, because I felt like I needed to repeat all the 20-ish kanji I've learned so far, because I had forgotten a lot of them.

Flashcards are the most effective for everything. Flashcards will rule the world...

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For me right now language school is out of the question. There are so many free ways to learn a language. Including online or the library. They have complete audio cds that you can check out and learn a language at your pace. You can take the Youtube videos and look up songs with the lyrics onscreen and translate them. That is how I am learning!

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The most effective way that I have found to learn a new language is by teaching myself at my own pace. I took classe in high school and I always felt rushed. One day we are learning one thing and the next day we are learning a whole new topic. That is no way to learn a language fluently.

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I am learning just as a hobby so I need not push too hard. I study at my own pace but I must say when my daughter is at home my pace speeds up because at least I have someone who speaks the language around.

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Last time I studied Dutch was maybe one month ago. I know, quite disappointing, but I swear I barely have any time to do so. I have to work a lot....

A language school is out of the question!  At least right now, I barely make enough to pay the basic stuff. But in the future I might go to a language school.

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The most effective way that I have found to learn a new language is by teaching myself at my own pace. I took classe in high school and I always felt rushed. One day we are learning one thing and the next day we are learning a whole new topic. That is no way to learn a language fluently.

Hey there! Same here! When I was going to school I could never learn English, because I could never learn so well using books and following grammatical rules. I finally learnt English by studying on my own. I know my English is still deficient, but I'm still working on improving.

Sometimes people learn better at home :) At their own pace.

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The last time I practiced my basic French was 2 years ago when my French friend was over. It was so much fun when you can practice with a native speaker of the language you are learning.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't think I have enough patience to sit through school anymore, so I mostly just practice on my own. I like it and I think it's working just fine, but I have to admit that having teachers and classmates did make it a bit easier for me and gave me a proper push.

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I actually get to practice unintentionally, because I listen to this German band called "Rammstein" and I sing along to their songs a lot, so I find myself googling the lyrics and using a translator to find the English translation for the song.

I think the most effective way to practice learning a new language is to just find a language learning buddy who will teach you the proper way to speak the language, plus with accent lessons.

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For me language learning is more of a hobby - something I enjoy doing in my free time, so I rarely can motivate myself to "practice" rigorously. I force myself to read foreign newspapers regularly and see how much I can understand. For vocabulary and grammar excercises, nothing beats Livemocha.

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Right now, school is though as is, so I leave language learning for my free time. You really need to have a good will to learn, so I think one should always ask themselves really well why they want to learn a specific language? Will they use it?

If you gather many reasons and turn practice into fun with games, then doing it every day won't be a problem.

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The most effective way for me to keep up with my Spanish practice is to speak it every day. I sing along with my favourite Spanish songs and read Spanish books. I also continuously work on acquiring new vocabulary by immersing myself in my visual Spanish dictionary. Often before I go to sleep, I try to memorise at least 3 new words. This system works well for me.

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I actually get to practice unintentionally, because I listen to this German band called "Rammstein" and I sing along to their songs a lot, so I find myself googling the lyrics and using a translator to find the English translation for the song.

I think the most effective way to practice learning a new language is to just find a language learning buddy who will teach you the proper way to speak the language, plus with accent lessons.

Oh my...!!!  You like Rammstein as well!?  I never thought you liked that kind of bands as well, that's completely awesome, girl!  I remember doing the exact same thing you described in this post when I was 13 years old and I had just started listening to that bad.  Up until today I'm still a fan of their music.

Amazing how things like this can make us learn a few new words in a different language, huh!  I actually did the same thing with English bands.

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I was learning Korean, and I just copy and try and understand what they are saying in the Korean dramas. It's fun and make the drama more enjoyable. The only downside is that it takes a long time to get through on drama because I have to pause and go back multiple times.

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A lot of the ideas here are great! I find I get bored of doing the same thing over and over, so I like to switch up how I practice. I've tried:

- computer learning programs like Rosetta Stone and Byki

- flash cards done in different ways

- watching captioned television shows and movies

- listening to music, especially if it has a translation

- reading books, especially children's books, with either translations or that can be translated easily

- making my own comics, poems, stories, so on

- going to websites that are dual language or post dual language media

- watching instructional language videos on youtube

- reading language books and doing their exercises

- listening to audio versions of language books

- practicing with other speakers, of course

Anything involving repetition I find the most useful, at least right now while I'm doing the basics. So flash cards and stuff like it is really useful, and the audio to language books is helpful for perfecting pronunciation.

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I am currently not going to school. I learn best by myself either way. Direct me to the best material and I will use it. I learned how to speak better Spanish just by reading books in Spanish. The more I read, the more I also learned how to write in Spanish.

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I started trying to learn English when I was a little kid. At that time, English was not taught in classes here. But I decided to learn English myself with some help from my parents.

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