Best way to learn a new language?

Hi all,

Like many I assume, I’d like to start learning a language now. I’ve picked Spanish – have never learnt any before.

I am pretty terrible at languages (did French, German, and Welsh at school, did not get far with any). Not seriously tried to learn a language since then, so fingers crossed I can have more success now.

Anyway, any recommendations on best approach/method for someone starting from, scratch? Duolingo/other apps? Rosetta Stone? Zoom lessons?

Happy to spend a bit of money, but not too much hopefully!

Thanks,
Duane.

I’m relearning my terrible German, proudly achieved grade 4 CSE at school.

My basic failing is a lack of knowledge in all those grammatical terms (accusative case anyone?), so just flat out listen, remember, repeat is my only hope.

Duolingo is where I have started. Found it helpful to do each section, write stuff down, use the “practice” option to run through sections again a couple of days later. I do actually seem to be making some slow progress.

It’s probably going to end in tears.

There are lots of online language courses but IMO there is nothing better than an experienced teacher who knows exactly what a student requires. Learning a language is much more than just words, you also need to learn the culture behind the language.

There are lots of different courses that employ different theories of language learning. Some are good at certain stages of language learning but become detrimental at other stages.

At the end of the day you have to accept learning a language is not an easy undertaking and you need to employ various strategies to enhance your learning experience.. The more exposure you have to the language the better you become.

When handcuffed to a chair I learned “Madame s’il vous plaît donnez-moi ma liberté” pretty quick. May or may not work for you

Go to the country where the language is spoken. Bit difficult right now.

I’ve tried books, cds, apps and courses with real teachers.  Courses with real teachers beats everything else by a long way, partly because you have to do it and you have to get homework done.  Second best was cds with accompanying books as they tended to be structured.  Easiest to do but weakest was apps like duolingo but they still work.  I have friends who have to learn new languages for work up to a fluency level and they don’t just give them a phone and a copy of duolingo.  They get courses with real teachers where they have to speak.  If you are really serious about it that is the way to go.  The other ways will work but recognise that if you going down that route then you aren’t prioritising it quite as much as you think you are

I’m using Duolingo, it’s useful and is working well for me but you definitely need some interaction with a native speaker to explain some bits.

Go to the country where the language is spoken. Bit difficult right now.

I was going to say that, or else find someone who speaks the language and get them to move in, or move in with them…
Neither option is practical at the moment, though.
My g/f speaks Welsh, but only because her family moved to Barmouth, and learning it was a requirement, she went up to O-Level, and still has a reasonable handle on it, although she’s likely to struggle a bit in conversation with a native speaker, after something like forty years away from Wales.

Go and live there for six months and go and get pissed in the local bar every night. You’ll learn faster because you won’t be afraid of making mistakes.

I have been learning Spanish for just over a year,on a 500 day streak with Duolingo, also until current events intervened did a language class and a Spanish conversion group once a week, hardest part for me is getting my head around the grammar. Lots of useful stuff on YouTube I particularly like Espanol con Juan

Might be worth having a look at the Michel Thomas course(s). I haven’t done the Spanish one but I did find the French one very useful. I’d struggled with the French word order/construction plus the usual verb endings and tenses. His course put all that in place for me.

He has a somewhat unusual style that probably doesn’t suit everyone but it did for me.  There are some taster, freebie material around if you want to have an initial look.

I did French with Michel Thomas. Up to that point I’d tried all the other learning CDs which I quickly lost interest in or I could preempt what was coming when I been through them a couple of times but could never recall when needed.

From the beginning he starts with words that you will already know and expands from there. He uses word association to introduce other words. He also teaches to a class, you will make up a class of three.

I found that it gave me a foundation to move on to other lessons. He does have a strange accent that you have to get used to but, I can highly recommend his method.

+1 for michel thomas. I learnt Spanish Initially with his course and found it much better than the traditional text book method. I don’t think it works for everyone though, my misses tried it and couldn’t get along with not seeing things written down.
He does have clickymouth and the guy in the class is abit annoying are the only downsides.

Sleeping with a native speaker is by far the best route.

Putting postit notes with vocab on items around the house and narrating farcical stories about the objects works for me (the cat ate all the cookies in the cupboard! Bad cat!)

I’m finding Babbel quite decent for Spanish. It seems more about using realistic examples than annoying app games. I think a week trial is free at the moment and it’s fairly easy to get a discounted deal from there on.

The Rendelf method is also good.

I have been using duolingo, suits me and the daily streak thing makes me do it every day (Spanish).

I have tried Pimsleur before but gave up, I am also going to try some of the Spanish stuff on here:

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue

Dedication, hardwork and practice!

If you already have learned a second language, the third comes much more easily – especially if it’s similar i.e. Spanish to Italian. If you haven’t, be warned, it’s a traumatic and taxing process but highly rewarding and satisfying too.

Most Brits are disadvantaged because we’re not taught grammar, so you also need (no in everyone’s opinion though) to familiarize yourself with grammar terms i.e. present continuous tense, conditionals, subjunctive, etc. This is a task in itself.

Of course, other people disagree this at all useful, but the reality is that if you go to language school/online teacher, that’s how they’ll roll because the alternatives are too expensive/confusing/time consuming.

What do you want to learn for? Motivation is key and it usually determines the sort of stuff you should learn. In any case, I recommend:

Exposure – listen to Spanish podcasts, put your phone in Spanish, (maybe not immediately!), stickie notes all around the house on items with Spanish name, listen to Spanish film, watch Spanish TV (Netflix with English subtitles and once you hit B1 switch to Spanish subs). These are receptive/passive skills, so not toooo much effort.

Reading – read a lot – much harder. Start simple e.g. spend 30 mins reading a news item from BBC World Spanish or CNN or something. They are good articles which deal with narrative tenses. Good for building up your vocab. I wouldn’t start this until you’ve got the basic tenses and verbs.

Use the app Quizlet to record new words and practice them. The app is very very good and it’s effective .

Download Duolingo: nice app, free, builds up basic vocab and builds both receptive and productive skills (reading, listening + speaking*, writing).

* I think it does speaking? I can’t remember.

Online language courses are improving all the time and provide you with structure, activities, tasks, and maybe a chance to converse.

Likewise, if you live in a big urban area there are bound to be language exchanges.

Definitely worth getting a bilingual teacher. Try iTalkie.com – You can go full on Spanish but honestly I think it’s better to have it explained in English. The initial stages of language learning are traumatic and very disorientating.

You’ll hit many walls but you’ll get a few breakthroughs too, and these are highly satisfying. Also, you’ll get to know a new culture and realise that other cultures have words for things that don’t even exist in English. Really cool!

Good luck 🙂

Be prepared to put in the work, honestly. You’ll hear of magic bullets and 90 days to fluency and honestly it’s bullshit. Why do you want to learn another language, and what do you want to use it for? These sound the same, but they aren’t. I’ve lived in the Netherlands for three and a half years now and I am still nowhere close to fluent. I can get by, I don’t have a problem in shops or cafes, but I can’t always find the words I need and end up talking around the problem. I’m like a four year old trapped in an adult’s mind, almost. Or maybe the other way around. So be prepared to be frustrated!
Before we came here I hit Duolingo hard, maybe three months before? It’s good for building your vocabulary quickly, and for setting out some useful phrases, but it has its limitations.
We started with lessons two weeks after we got here, which we’re still doing. I thought I’d be fluent after a year! Ha!
Babbel is a good app once you have a bit of grounding, for instant recall. You will need that if you’re ever planning on speaking to people! I don’t really get on with the app, though.
Netflix with subtitles is good, and that works both ways! Archer with Dutch subtitles is often unintentionally hilarious.
What are you really knowledgeable about? Grab some magazines or books on the subject in your chosen language. Likewise your favourite books – see if there’s a translation and get stuck in. Tintin is excellent in this respect – it’s a comic and it’s been translated into pretty much every major language, so you can have the English and your target language next to each other, panel by panel.
There are definitely more things to try, but that’s a good starter for now! Good luck. It’s tough, but soooooo rewarding.

Move to Fife?

I impregnated a native speaker

Sleeping with a native speaker is by far the best route.

It’s not worked for me, 13 years and counting 🙂

Currently doing a mix of duolingo and watching the Killing. Don’t think i’ll ever master the pronunciation

3 Spanish girlfriends worked for me, obviously slight risk that last girlfriend could turn into first wife. As happened to me 20 something years ago 🙂

I know a bit of German. Read more than I understand and understand more than I can speak. Combination of two years evening classes at local uni, some youtube teachers like girls4teaching and learn German with Anja and reading German news sites and watching German films and series like Dark. I’ve done a bit of Duolingo but unless you find phrases like “the boys drink milk” or “the beetles have eaten the cheese” useful I wouldn’t recommend basing my learning on Duolingo.

Best advice I can give is if you just want to learn the language to communicate then get stuck in speaking it and don’t worry too much about the grammar. I once asked a German colleague if I spoke to her and got all my articles and cases wrong would she still be able to understand me and she said no problem.

You need to know your way of remembering information and use those courses or a program to learn a new language, which will allow you to memorize grammar and words faster and better.