I fancy learning to speak German anything I need to know, best methods etc?

The Rosetta Stone product is supposed to be pretty good. Mrs busydog learned passable Spanish with it. No matter what method you use, it does take a lot of practice. Probably the best way is immersion by living in the country where the language is primary, but most of us don’t have that luxury.

I second the immersion theory, ultimate motivation and the best teachers you could hope for.

Yep, as an ESL teacher, it’s about dedication. Tutors are best and they’ll only use the target language. Try advertising for a teacher. Local unis (the Lang. Dept.) are good places to ask.

Tapes etc can help but, of course, there’s no one to correct you when necessary.

A holiday to Germany’s the best way!

Marry a girl from a foreign country and move there (it worked for me)!

move to the country.. i dont remember much Hungarian 20 years later but i had a damn good time and was remarkably fluent for a while..

I always say learning a foreign language is a lot like learning a musical instrument. You need to practice daily once up to speed and it does involve a lot of dedication. If you do have lessons then try to have a native speaker as a teacher as they know better than anyone else the ins and outs of the language.

I’ve been trying to learn french for years

after every trip there I get a bit more confident in it

would love the immersion technique, but its a catch 22, can’t really get work there without the language

Whichever method you choose it could be worth using Memrise in conjunction. It has lots of courses for free and can help to expand your vocabulary at the very least.

Sid

but its a catch 22, can’t really get work there without the language

or get a job with one of the main contracting companies that provide staff for several pan-european / international organisations.

But then you find the working language is English, and the social language will be too if you hang out mostly with colleagues and expats. So the immersion is up to you and how much effort you put in to it.

Rosetta Stone is a bit pricey for what it is, I thought (if you pay).
Michel Thomas CDs are popular.

that is something I have thought about

it’s finding the right agency I’m having trouble with

Duolingo is free and pretty good.

I’m having a frustrating time learning German even though I now live in Germany.

Taking lessons at Klubschule in Basel.

Classmates are from Vancouver, LA, Kosovo, Balaton in Hungary, Venezuela, Dominican Republic , Thailand and Spain and we have no single common language.

Being taught by a very patient Swiss guy, in German using text books in German. Just understanding what the book is asking me to do is bad enough….

Personally a tutor speaking English so I can properly understand how the language is built up would be better for me.

the problem with learning german in germany is that so many germans want to speak english….

after a 2 month course and then another 3-4 months on top of living and working i was able to communicate confidently in german. working and living “auf dem Land” with a load of farmer boys/chippies helped as they couldn’t speak english, just Baorisch.

Once you’ve got the absolute basics try to make it less like work if possible, watch TV box sets in german with german subtitles, read german books, or even better comics graphic novels etc etc. TV box sets are good because the dialogue and plot is often fairly similar in each episode.

I’ve learnt a couple of languages professionally and once you start to use a language instead of studying it things come pretty quickly.