Unusual ways to learn a language

[Jellyfish]

Do you know some unusual ways to learn a language? And have you even done something like that?

Share your stories.

[Czarownica]

I don't know if it's all that unusual, but I've learned basic English from video games when I was a little girl. Mostly vocabulary, not grammar, though, but when I finally got to go to an actual English class a few years afterwards, I knew quite a lot of words.

I wish it worked with Japanese as well...

[Gregor]

My Brazilian friend learned French just through watching daytime TV - he became a great cook at the same time!

[SpiralArchitect]

Whatever little Japanese I know, I learnt it from watching anime with subtitles. I don't think you can grasp the language completely via this method but if you put in some effort, you can learn enough to get by.

I suppose watching Daytime Japanese TV would have a similar impact.

[Jellyfish]

I don't know if it's all that unusual, but I've learned basic English from video games when I was a little girl. Mostly vocabulary, not grammar, though, but when I finally got to go to an actual English class a few years afterwards, I knew quite a lot of words.

I wish it worked with Japanese as well...

I know that. Just think of the options menu, you surely learn words like mode, difficulty, sound and such things really fast.

Does anyone remembers the booklets of Genesis titles? They had several columns with different languages. I wrote down all the words and learned them like vocabularies.

[pcgamer]

There is no unusual way to learn a language. It doesn't matter as long as you are doing good in a particular language.

Internet taught me more than 80% of English. So yeah, it's a bit unusual for me.

[kitkat0124]

I watch  foreign movies with subtitles, so I can understand the movies better. It helps me a lot. I'm not sure if that can be considered unusual. I also talk in front of the mirror, that helps me see my facial expressions and sometimes I pick questions from the internet then I record my answers. I'll listen with my voice to check my pronunciation, accent or diction.

[cinderr]

I hope I can stay on this site but I must confess, at the moment, I only speak English. I have always wanted to learn another language and have every intention of learning one but which one? I think Spanish would be good.

[linguaholic]

Hey Cinderr

The most important thing is that you have some real interest in talking about languages and language learning. As long as this is the case, there is no reason why I should ban you from linguaholic.com  :grin:. If you need help to choose your "second language", let me know.

[LauraM]

I'm not sure if this counts as "unusual," but when I was in high school learning Spanish, I used to listen to shortwave radio stations in Spanish at nighttime as I was falling asleep.  Radio Havana Cuba, in particular, but other stations if I could tune them in.  I had a very small, inexpensive shortwave radio so it was limited as to what I could get.

Later on, when I was interested in German, I would listen to Deutsche Welle on shortwave. 

This was all a part of doing as much as I could to immerse myself in the languages while still in school and not able to travel. 

[pcgamer]

I don't know if it's all that unusual, but I've learned basic English from video games when I was a little girl. Mostly vocabulary, not grammar, though, but when I finally got to go to an actual English class a few years afterwards, I knew quite a lot of words.

I wish it worked with Japanese as well...

I will admit that video games have played a big role in helping me out with getting the hang  off English besides reading blogs and having my own blog.

[mareebaybay]

I know some people who can learn languages using music. I think learning a new language using music is difficult. I think this because it would be hard for me to actually think, if I have music in my head. It would mess up my train of thought.