Self-Study vs. Classes

'Sup /lang/.

Which is better when learning a foreign language? Self-Study or classes? Which do you prefer?

Classes, definitely. Unfortunately your choice of language and geographical location may mean there are none on.

Then again, I don't have the motivation to do things myself, maybe you do. But language classes are great for meeting cute young girls.

Japanese is the easiest learning language. Plus everyone has programs and learning material for it because of fucking poser Otaku Fans.

I learned/am learning Spanish with heavy self-study, and recently I have taken 2 classes. The classes helped alot, but I definately could have learned on my own still, because there are many Spanish speakers in my area, lots of Spanish everywhere, so I hear it alot and can practice alot. I learned Sign Language in a class, and I'd say it's definately better to do that; learning to sign from books/videos was nearly impossible for me, and I only had one deaf friend who I could learn from in person. So I'd day it depends on location/what's available to you/if you prefer to hear sound clips of pronunciation, or if you prefer to hear a teacher saying it.

Classes are a colossal failure.

Classes help a lot, especially with the speaking part.

Enjoy listening to your brain-dead classmates speak in horrible accents and despair when you find out they only learn 10 new words per day.

CLASSES

>>8
This man raises an excellent point.

I learned/am learning English with heavy self-study, and recently I have taken 2 classes. The classes helped a lot.
I definately could not have learned on my own, because there are few English speakers in my area.
So I have to find a place I can practice a lot, and I actually did.

You can learn reading and listening by yourself, but when it comes to speaking, it is nearly impossible.
Real speakers ask you unexpected questions, and that makes you find out your week points, what you have to go over again.

I learned Spanish in a class, and I'd say it's definately better to do that.
Learning verb reflections from books/DVDs alone was nearly impossible for me.
Besides, I had no Spanish speaking friend from whom I could learn in person.

So I'd say it depends on location, what's available to you, whether you can motivate yourself.
Self-study should be best prioritized on a daily basis while classes complete what you are missing.

>>10
Where are you from? Where I live you learn 90% of the English from television and video games and stuff.

I'm from Tokyo, Japan. And you?
Situation is nearly the same.
Where I live, you learn English from conversation schools which are super expensive, but I chose free stuff such as DVDs and CDs from a huge library, or TV programs.

Try learning Chinese from scratch with DVDs, CDs, and TV programmes. :P

Or Japanese, haha.

Classes give the guidance to the language as it's actually used, and it can help a lot, especially in the beginning.

I have been teaching myself Chinese for about 1 year and 2 months now. I can speak it pretty much fluently. I tried to take a Chinese class, they go WAY to fucking god damn slow. They suck at teaching and it's because fucking americans can't comprehend anything except spanish or wait a second. americans can't comprehend SHIT. They can't even speak their native fucking language correctly. Just look at the average sentence typed by an american, can't even spell anything correctly.
 Now for teachinig yourself, it's definitely better if you can handle it and want to progress faster, yes learning in a class helps you learn the accent and shit, but wtf. You don't need some bitch ass person to give you grades and shit to make you motivated to study. Study on your own and motivate yourself if you want to actually learn the fucking language. Find a friend on the internet chat room at www.icq.com they have basically every language and someone in there will be willing to teach you the language you want to learn for free. No need to pay $300 dollars or what ever the fuck you guys waste on classes.
 And for those Poser Fucking Japanese Poser Otaku fans. I'M SO SICK OF YOU, YOU'RE FUCKING RETARDS...POSERS.....YOU'LL NEVER BE JAPANESE. NEVER!!!!!  YOU'RE JUST A FUCKING AMERICAN WHO LIKE ANIME, NOTHING ELSE. STOP TRYING TO MAKE YOURSELF A JAPANESE PERSON, IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO BE JAPANESE YOU'D BE POLITE, RESPECT YOUR PARENTS, DO YOUR OWN LAUNDRY, CLEAN YOUR FLOORS EVERYDAY, DON'T LITTER, RAPE SOMEONE(it's like saying hello), AND STUDY YOUR ASS OFF AND GET INTO A GOOD COLLEGE AND BECOME A DOCTOR OR SOMETHING. WTF I SERIOUSLY HATE, FUCKING NOT ONLY HATE, I DESPISE YOU FUCKING POSER OTAKU FAGS SOOOO MUCH.
 I seriously hope that each one of you kills yourself and slowing burns yourself in public starting from your feet down.

>>14
Lemme translate.

Nam lobortis metus vel ipsum. Proin urna orci, rutrum id, tincidunt at, rutrum non, ligula. Nulla massa est, interdum at, consequat sed, consectetuer id, sapien. Duis mauris turpis, porttitor non, semper non, elementum ut, erat. Donec cursus ligula sit amet diam. In volutpat pretium sem. Curabitur eu est. Nunc neque justo, sagittis quis, suscipit sit amet, sagittis at, diam. Proin a est. Nam nec magna. Suspendisse dui sem, suscipit sit amet, porttitor nec, sodales ac, nulla. Aliquam nonummy lorem sed neque aliquam hendrerit. Ut quis felis. Phasellus risus sem, ultrices non, consequat vel, egestas eu, tellus. Nullam tincidunt quam non odio. Aenean enim. Nam tincidunt hendrerit dolor.
 Donec iaculis. Nullam venenatis urna nec mi. Proin facilisis lorem ut orci. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Mauris elit nisl, sodales eget, consectetuer sed, euismod eu, quam. Donec nec mi. Suspendisse scelerisque urna. Pellentesque id dui. Donec libero. Etiam at metus ac tellus mattis fermentum. Ut condimentum interdum nunc. Donec vitae felis. Aenean facilisis pharetra eros. Praesent elit urna, aliquam nec, malesuada et, cursus at, ipsum. Nunc porta lorem nec nibh. Etiam ut augue.
 Nunc interdum interdum pede curabitur ut sapien vel ipsum varius consequat. NUNC SODALES TORTOR A PURUS. LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET, CONSECTETUER ADIPISCING ELIT. QUISQUE AT AUGUE A FELIS NONUMMY FRINGILLA. SED CONVALLIS METUS ID MASSA. SUSPENDISSE BIBENDUM, ERAT ET DICTUM PORTA, ENIM SAPIEN ELEIFEND SEM, AC SEMPER FELIS TURPIS VEL LOREM. VIVAMUS CONSECTETUER TURPIS VEL LIBERO. MORBI UT TORTOR. AENEAN MATTIS LACUS ID NEQUE. AENEAN ENIM TORTOR, BLANDIT A, DICTUM EGET, FERMENTUM A, ENIM. IN SODALES, TELLUS ET ALIQUAM LACINIA, MASSA LECTUS RHONCUS LEO, EGET FERMENTUM FELIS NULLA IN ORCI. UT ULTRICES, AUGUE AC TINCIDUNT ULTRICIES, MI ODIO HENDRERIT METUS, EGET CURSUS ELIT ELIT NEC IPSUM. SED NISI URNA, VESTIBULUM VITAE, INTERDUM AC, SAGITTIS UT, NISL.
 In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Curabitur adipiscing lectus in tellus scelerisque rutrum. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Thank you for translating >>14 into Latin, clearly useful to us all.

Schooling is something that stands in the way of Education.

Wow..

That guy sure hates Otakus.. His Asian girl friend must have left him for one or something.

Oh my good golly gosh, Im an American, and I havent failed to spell a single word wrong.

Except "Im" is not a word, rather it is a contraction and represents two words - I and am. The letter a is thus omitted and in its place there lies an apostrophe like so:

I'm.

Hey, you forgot one more to point out.
"havent" is not a word, rather it is a contraction and represents two words - have and not. The letter "o" is thus omitted and in its place there lies an apostrophe so:

havent -> haven't

"Now for teachinig yourself,"

I see a misspelled word.

i first learned english in highschool but i only became really fluent when I started visiting english chatrooms (that was 10 years ago and chatrooms still were new and exciting). right now i'm learning Japanese and have mastered it to the point where I can read a manga, for example, however I cannot speak for shit. gotta find some japanese chatrooms.

Thats not misspelling a word, thats just failing at grammar.

I like putting apostrophes in whenever I can.  I wish I could add more.  Aw, fuck, none yet...
It's a strange thing I can't, won't, shan't, and mustn't do!

Having experienced both classes and self-study, I must say that self-study is by far the best and fastest alternative, unless you have some sort of disability/no discipline. Classes are slow and tedious, and the fact that many people never read and then are asked to say something in class slows them down even more.

Also a tip to learning any language: Say everything out loud.

TL;DR: Self-study if you're not a complete retard.

>>12
I'm from The Netherlands. It's great that you got so far in the same way. I didn't knew it was possible because Japanese and English are so different, whereas Dutch and English are somewhat similar.
>>13
Yeah, it seems hard to me too. But >>12 is a native Japanese speaker and claims to have English learned that way. I think you can learn pretty much everything (not only languages) if you are able to educate yourself. If I would ever take a language course it would be either to learn it as fast as possible or to force discipline and make sure I won't get sloppy with studying.

I learned English and Japanese the same way.

I have done both self-study and classroom study. I honestly feel better in class. It's more convenient for monitoring vocal mistakes and it has a backbone of discipline. Its hard to do self-study if you know there are other things that need to get done or basically, a busy person. Once you step foot in the class, you have to slow down and go with the program. This way, you are forced to be more focused( for those that need it).

>>28
I found that there are some things that can only be learned in class, from a native teacher. But self-study proved to be more efficient for me.

Self-study is great as you can pace yourself however you want. A lot of language classes either go too slow or too fast. Classes are essential.

Also, I don't believe anyone can learn Chinese in 1 a year by themself, unless they hole themselves up in a room for a year and devote all their time to it (oh and you're Einstein). And even then, you'll fucking have no clue how to pronounce half the shit – there's all that tone/pitch stuff you've gotta figure out. Not to mention Chinese has no standard written form.

>>30
You do realize all of the issues you mentioned can be resolved by getting an internet connection, right?

>>30
You're not trolling us, are you?

>>32
He said "and devote all their time to it", not "and collect lots of porn"

>>30
>Not to mention Chinese has no standard written form.

What?

>>33
As >>34 noted.

>>34
It doesn't. The Chinese is still trying to resolve its problems with the language. Someone in west China will spell something, and it will be right, but someone else can spell it in east China, and it will be right also. It's how English was 600 years ago.

>>36
They haven't had that problem since the 50s. Now you either spell as they do in Beijing or wrong.

Learned German through classes, Spanish through classes, and Old English through self-study. Self study, I must say is better-paced and a good personal way to learn a language. Make sure to find someone who speaks it or look up the orthography for the language though. Pronunciation is key.

i'm learning chinese in college, the tone is so important, you have to hear it to say the word correctly. Like the word ma, it can mean mother, hemp, horse or scold depending on what tone you say it in.

>>39
That's the first thing they teach you so you are obviously a newfag at Chinese.

>>38
who the fuck speaks old english?

>>38
does

Get classes if at all possible. It's hard on your own. Self-study is only good for getting a background. As soon as you try to have a major conversation, you will fall apart. Classes or a trip to a country speaking the language are the only real options for doing it properly.

>>37

Since even earlier than that, actually.  The Cultural revolution had a bigger crackdown on written reform (although that created problems in its own right, but we won't go there), but the language has been effectively standardised since the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE), with crackdowns every few hundred years or so in order to keep the standard.  How else do you think they managed to rule such a large empire for so long?  Pro tip: It wasn't with spoken Chinese.

>>15

WHY HASN'T ANYONE NOTICED THIS ISN'T FUCKING PROPER LATIN?!?

THIS IS JUST GOBBLEDEGOOK THAT PRINTERS FILL UP PAGES WITH BEFORE CONTENT IS ADDED...

>>45
OMG, somebody will finally understand the message, too?! :)

Whether class-study or not, all studying is self-study by its nature.
Even the bestest teachers or materials or methods bring about nothing if you can't pull up your socks.

We have a saying in our language,

"Dil dile değmeden dil öğrenilmez"

You can't learn a tongue(language) if tongues don't touch each other first

go and get a foreign girlfriend.

Classes : most efficient
Self-learning : most pleasant

I like self-learning best, but if you have no desire or belief in yourself, you'll get nowhere no matter what you use.

class: learning
self: masturbation

Do schools really have to teach English?
I don't think so.
It's a waste of time.

Personally, I will never probably use English in my work, neither in my free time.
I can read Japanese newspapers and magazines.
I can learn all about other countries by reading in my native language, not English.
I don't have to watch the news in English in order to understand what is happening in the world.

Just think of what else I could have studied instead of English.
I wish I had spent more time on studying history so that I could understand my country better.
Nobody speaks well of Japanese if they have a glib of tongue but knows nothing about Japanese culture.
Yet, large number of Japanese are still learning English.
For what reason?

You can't fucking learn a language from classes, they're too slow and you'll forget too much shit by the time you would get fluent from all that studying.

Self-study is far more effective. There's definitely some flaws in it, and it requires godly discipline which most people these days don't have, but other than that, it's vastly superior.

>>53
Class+self study is the best.

i'm in fucking pig disgusting china right now and i hate it.  guess what, china is gay.  i'm leaving this summer.  I'm going to Nippon.  I fucking studied chinese so hard, god dman it it damn god.  now it's all pointless because china doesn't have a rei ayanami and all the food her si fucking pig disgusting and i hate it goddamnit.

faggot gay

i'm in fucking pig disgusting china right now and i hate it.  guess what, china is gay.  i'm leaving this summer.  I'm going to Nippon.  I fucking studied chinese so hard, god dman it it damn god.  now it's all pointless because china doesn't have a rei ayanami and all the food her si fucking pig disgusting and i hate it goddamnit.

faggot gay

is rosetta stone any good for self-study purposes?

Rosetta stone is good, I try to do a lesson in it every day.
The best thing you can do is to talk to native speakers.  Usually, they won't try to burn you or anything if you make a mistake.

If you're learning Japanese, go to Little Tokyo, if you're learning Chinese, go to San Gabriel.

YOu also have to have some sort of motivation.  Yes, wanting to understand anime is a motivation, despite being amazingly shallow and pointless.

'sup /lang/.
My classmate makes the same silly grammatical mistakes but is it ok to point that out?
They say no matter how I'm careful not to hurt his feelings,
to tell "your Japanese is incorrect" is equal to "you're ugly", "you stink". Is it true?
I must take the advice but still I don't get it.

>>59
You are only hurting them in the long run, when they actually try it out on natives and gets laughed out of the country. DO IT, FAGGOT

>>17
Listen to this man.
Compared to serious self-study, you don't learn shit by attending classes. I didn't learn English by attending the crappy classes my school forces me to visit. Most of my classmates depend on those classes for learning the language - and can't even watch a fukken movie in English, despite ten years of "studying". And everyone's accent is still so extreme, it hurts.
Get yourself some good material for getting started with the basics (books and software), and as soon as you start understanding the language to some degree, immerse yourself in an environment filled with it (computer games, websites, news, movies etc.).
To practice actually expressing yourself in the language, message boards are very useful. Especially anonymous ones, where you won't be stigmatized as "the foreigner whose posts are hard to understand and will be ignored", but rather start anew with every post you write until you blend in completely. Talking to a friend who is a native speaker works even better of course, but I'm guessing most 4channers are fairly unsociable and don't make friends too easily.

>>59
depends how many he's making. i make loads of mistakes in my german, so when people stop me at each one it is impossible to speak to them, but i make very few in my gaelic, so being stopped is productive and doesn't spoil the flow of the conversation.
if he is making the same mistakes over and over, and not loads of them, it is worth pointing them out, otherwise you'll just damage his motivation and he won't want to carry on, thus never getting past those mistakes. maybe point out the real howlers, but otherwise let him learn on his own for a little.

With the internet today, the arguments of "Not being able to get the proper vocal experiences" are moot. There is so much shit online for learning almost every language it is even funny to say that anymore.

Self study all the way.

I left school with a D in Spanish.

I've been studying Japanese for a few months, self-taught, and can so far flick through a manga (with furigana, of course) and get the general gist, and identify about 200 kanji prett fast. All of that came from the internet. Tae Kim + Jim Breen and a handy DS dictionary is basically all I need to learn it. And this guy I know who's studying it at school for almost 2 years knows less than me.

Now I really really want to learn Spanish and perhaps French too. I've picked up Spanish again, and can probably say that I've learned more useful phrases, words, etc in about 6 months than I did at school. For me, I didn't pay huge attention every single lesson, at least with self-teaching, you can do it whenever you want, and, more importantly, with the right motivation and the perfect pace.

>>64
Haha, I'm learning Spanish and Japanese right now as well. Where do you get your furigana-covered stuff?
I watch anime with Spanish subtitles by the way, mostly from frozen-layer.com and elrincondelmanga.com.

That seems like a good idea, using Spanish subs, seeing how my listening skills are nowhere near good enough for movies/tv/music. Furigana covered stuff is easy to find. I guess I'm pretty lucky, I live near London where there are a few big Japanese bookstores, and they get the weekly manga-zines and have a good library of past and current manga, most of which has furigana anyway. Basically, look for raws of Jump stuff, and that will doubtlessly all have furigana.

How well do you know either language, 65?

>>66
My Spanish is good enough  to watch a normal tv show and get all of it, save for maybe one or two words every 10 minutes. It does still require lots of effort though, and when I'm tired, I barely understand half of what I hear.
When reading a somewhat more sophisticated book (reading cien años de soledad right now, oarsome so far) I still have to look up about 1 word per page. No problems with grammar.
I've also been posting some stuff here and there on 1492chan, and it seems I can pretty much blend in, as long as I don't write a fucken essay.
Also, I started out with a crappy school-Spanish too. I wasn't even able to read a news article without looking up every third word. Took me about a year of practice/self-study to get where I'm now.

I only started learning Japanese roughly a month ago, the first 2 weeks being devoted exclusively to kana. I know maybe 100 Kanji and some very basic grammar.

>>67
Hm, good to hear. There's every chance I may get to spend some of this and next year living in Spain actually, so that would be great for learning it, I'm assuming that you live in an area that is sort of peppered with Spanish, on TV, people etc?

That's pretty fast going speed with the ol' nihongo, too.

I'm assuming that you live in an area that is sort of peppered with Spanish, on TV, people etc?
As a citizen of the internet, of course :D
I do know a few Spaniards and South-Americans, but their German is far better than my Spanish, so we usually speak that, except if we don't want the people around us to understand what we're saying. But it's nice to have someone whom you can ask about pronunciation etc.
That's pretty fast going speed with the ol' nihongo, too.
Why, thanks. I've had lots of spare time this and last month, you know.

>>69
I feel like such a fail browsing this board already; I only know English, born and bred in namesake's country. Wooo. And at school the language was just fail. We STARTED learning BASIC BASIC French when we were about 8 I guess, and it just got annoying after a while, but I took up Spanish for high school...and just didn't pay attention. It's odd that only now at 19 I really really want to learn these languages and regret not having the real opportunity to do it earlier. I don't mind self-teaching myself either, that's pretty much what i've done with japanese so far and that's only been about 4 months in between college work. If that encompasses learning a whole new grammar structure and writing system, then picking up the latin languages again should prove less of a hurdle.

>>70
picking up the latin languages again should prove less of a hurdle.
And while it of course consumes time, it'll also make learning Japanese much easier. Because when you learn a language, you don't just get better at speaking that language, but also generally at learning a language.
Same with script. I don't know about you, but I remember spending several hours just trying to get the "あ" right. Now, learning 3-5 Kanji per day in much less time isn't a problem. (I don't learn all the readings, though)
By the way, my English went from complete fail to being actually useful when a few years ago, I picked up, and played the shit out of, the English version of Morrowind. Right now, I'm thinking about torrenting the Spanish version of Oblivion. I've tried Pokemon for Japanese, but sadly, it's kana-only (I was hoping for kanji+furigana).

Ah of course, I guess video games are a great way to encounter some nice everyday language, Spanish and Japanese. Probably not Japanese just yet, but I got through a trial (with a dictionary for a few words) on Phoenix Wright on my DS in Spanish and that really boosted my confidence. As for learning the script for Japanese I guess I had a sort of head start. When I was a little younger I was even more of a loser than I am now and I was completely obsessed with writing scripts. So I effectively learned Korean hangul, katakana/hiragana, hebrew and some arabic just because I liked the idea of writing with a different system. All in all that took me just over a year when I was about 11.

Some Japanese games do have hiragana, sort of, like Taiko No Tatsujin for the DS, which has hiragana in brackets after certain kanji (as the screen is too small for furigana). It can get a little annoying, though. I also got the first Harry Potter book in Spanish, to see what of that I could get through. It turns out it wasn't very much, but I hobbled through the first 20 or so pages with a dictionary and the English version of the book.

>>72
Yeah, and I'd say RPGs are the best genre for learning. They have both lots of text and keep you addicted for long periods of time. And when you point with the mouse at, say, a broom and the word for "broom" flashes up, that helps a lot.
There are also kanji learning games for Japanese children, but from what I've seen so far (I've played Doraemon The Kanji Study Boy or something like that, for gbc) they're of no use for me other than maybe for stroke-order. They naturally assume the player to know the words, just not the symbols. And aren't all that fun either.

>>73
The kanji learning games really aren't best suited to foreigners learning kanji, as a pretty good hook of the language anyway is required often to get through to learning about stroke order etc. Also watching subbed stuff in English is good, it's a bit like using stabilisers, albeit if you're cycling at 2 years old. Because you can slowly stop looking at the text and get the general gistof structure etc., only having to look down every now and then for some vocabulary you might not know.

On the subject of actual self-study, how do you tend to go about it? Are there routines you have, or is it more casual and whimsical? I find I can honestly only 'study' for no more than about 2 hours before I start to get either annoyed or tired/bored.  I suppose that that is one of the joys about self-study, as it really is suited perfectly to your mood and current motivation. Can anyone reccomend some good self-study methods too, especially for Spanish?

>>74
Watching stuff with subs in your language is good for learning pronunciation, not much else. If it were any different, everyone in /a/ would be fluent in Japanese. If you want to learn something, use subs in the same language as the audio is in.

>>75
Not even for pronunciation, unless you're aware of male/female pronunciation distinctions and capable of recognising dialects.

>>74
Try to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible. If something can be done using Spanish instead of English, do it that way. Play vidya gaemz in Spanish, later on use the Spanish wikipedia (unless the article sucks too hard), animu (Mexican dubs are usually way better and closer to the original than the English ones), news (bbcmundo.com), everything. And before you use a dictionary, try figuring out what the word means on your own, from context.
And don't worry if you don't understand every single word, if you get the gist of what's happening, it's fine. You'll understand more and more with time.

Classes. Just because your teachers sucked, doesn't mean they all do.

>>14
SPOILERS READ AT YOUR OWN RISK








You suck at chinese and your accent is horrible, classes with a good professor and a dedicated study-abroad trip could have fixed this, but instead you are bragging on the internet about how great your language skills are and how "OMG STUPIDDDS" everyone else is.

Generally, self-study.
But for languages that aren't as widely spoken as English, Japanese, German, French etc., there might simply not be enough stuff out there to efficiently teach it yourself. So in that case, classes, if they are offered in your area.

when i learnt gaelic i needed classes, when i did german i didn't.

In my opinion it depends on the time you wish to spend and how burned up are you on the subject.

If you don't have a die-hard interest in the subject or you're just plain slow. A class will work best for you. Since it will take the subject at a leisure pace.

If you're someone who has learned several languages prior and you basically know how to learn fast, classes will bore you to hell and back because of the turtle-like paste.

As an example, it took me roughly 3-4 days until I got myself to a point where I could easily read a newspaper with just a dictionary in Swedish. My friend went to classes, it took him 3 months to do the same thing.

Self-study is how I learned English. I consider myself to be a fluent speaker in it and I reached this point far faster doing it via self-study then I would have if I went to learn it in a class. Not to mention the accent of pure awesomeness I developed. English was also my 5th language that I became fluent in, I wouldn't have the time to waste if I was doing it in a class.


In short,

From personal experience. I could say, that any language is best learned via self-study, especially if you have someone to speak to in the language you're learning. But that only applies to the people who have a maniacal or a die-hard interest in the subject.

>>82
How many words did you have to look up in the dictionary though?

What would you reccomend as good study techniques then? I can only speak English fluently but recently I've been sort of self-teaching myself Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Italian, using various sources, but all of them ones used in the classroom anyway. Are there any other methods exclusive to slef-study that you would reccomend, or did you just read that Swedish grammar book REALLY fast?

>>83

Not as much as you would think. I know a few germanic languages prior and I could figure out 75-90% of the words from either the context or the similarities with words from various other languages on the first few times, then I just memorized the words.

When learning a new language. Get the alphabet down as the very first thing. Afterwards grammar and some more grammar with only the bare basics of vocabulary, so that you could form correct sentences / manipulate words. You can usually get this down in a good week or so.

Then I try to get my grammar to the intermediate-advanced speaker level and get used to it, once I do that, I'm pretty much finished. After that, get a good dictionary and a few nice novels, the first few books will read extremely slow, afterwards  your speed will increase in a rapid tempo and you will only need to look at the dictionary at rare times. This is also how I learned the vocabulary that I know, learning words by hard and reciting them is a stupid and a time wasteful way of learning. While reading a book you can remember the meaning of the word either by itself, if you read the word for enough times, or get the meaning from the context of the sentence.

Afterwards, I watch shows, listen to music, radio in the specific language. To get the hang of recognizing the words spoken.

Using this method I usually get to a fluent level of understanding the language in roughly 2-3 months, for speaking, the best thing to do would be to go that country and just... well speak the language.

By doing this, I can usually get fluent in a language in a time span of roughly 1 to 7months (depending on the languages and similarities between them), naturally, the more languages you know the faster will the process be for learning new ones. If you lets say 2 slavic languages, learning the third one shouldn't take more then 2months, if your fast, you can get the hang of them in a few weeks. Especially if you know some older languages.

For Italian / Spanish, I suggest you look up some Latin. If you get the hang of Latin, you basically have the blueprint for all of the languages in Europe in your head.

Can't recommend anything for Korean or Japanese tho, I was never extremely interested in what lies in the far east.

Don't mind the typos / fucked up grammar too much, I came back from a party just recently and simply put, I'm kind of wasted.

>>84
Haha thanks alot for the tips. I WAS going to look into latin, only, would it not be easier to just look at the languages themselves? About two generations ago in England latin was taught in schools as a means by which to 'better understand' modern European languages, but those kids, now as adults, claim for it to have been a complete waste of time...so...yeah...but saying that, I am interested in learning Latin (despite hurr morti etc) and it may well prove useful, as you say. And given that you seem to know quite a few languages I'll go with your advice thanks.

By the way, I do reccomend looking in to eastern languages, if not just because of how different they are to anything more European. Considering sentence structure, grammar and writing systems, they're quite fascinating, but, each to his own. However, whilst deciding which languages to learn I have been very conscious of maintaining a good variety, widespread, so to speak. In no way criticising you, because you seem to be very accomplished in learning and understanding languages, but are there languages you've learned that aren't so european?

PS Are there any good sources you can reccomend for learning Latin?

>>85
Not who you're talking to, but

http://www.textkit.com/
http://latinum.mypodcast.com/

Guy above said the sources. For others, google.

As for non-European languages I've learned: Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic.

I will most likely try to the far east languages, Chinese specifically, later on. But its not within my plans currently.

>>85 Same guy,

Yes, you can look the languages themselves, but learning Latin alongside will help you become more fluent in those languages.

Italian is more or less Latin-lite.

>>85
all the adults (and a few mainland european kids) who learnt latin in school know at least one other language - some of them know three or four, and all say that latin was a huge help

>>85
Here~

Christ. After looking into latin in the last few days..shit I feel like such an idiot for using English so much, when Latin's so much more bloody practical and less..bastardised really.
And it once again confirms my thoughts of Japanese being the most impractical language I've encountered enough to learn.

>>90
You know, I had a funny thought the other day. What do you think the world would be like if the US decided to adopt Latin as it's official language instead of English back in the revolutionary days? It was possible, they could have done so to distance themselves from the English, promote a language that all immigrants could use, and be a reference to the Roman republic days.

hah... well, >>91

in that case, English could be considered to be the new latin, then? Given only that it's the language spoken by the world's biggest empire and is a pretty popular/important language. Doooooomed

>>91

Americans would have butchered it and destroyed its beauty.

Same china did with its characters, seriously, simplified Chinese is ugly.

>>16
Yes in fact even more so since it's fake Latin.
>>20
Not only that but since he says he "hasn't failed" to spell a single word wrong I guess that means he knows he's misspelling.

sage since my contribution is off topic.

>>82
But if you're not serious about it, there's no point in even starting to learn a language. So I'd say it's always self-study > classes, really.

>>77

brb changing XP's default language.