Resources

Sup /lang/,

Is there like a general consensus for resources that are good for learning a language? I've been interested in foreign language for a few years and have come across a huge amount of textbooks, programs, websites, etc.

For example, I have heard that stuff like Rosetta Stone is bad, and stuff like Pimsleur's is pretty good.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many would disagree with you regarding Pimsleur's as well. Pimsleur doesn't tend to teach you enough about the language for the amount of time you invest in it - the only thing it's good for is getting the sounds and (sometimes) the accent right.

There's usually certain programs and methods that are recommended for certain languages. For example, the AJATT method (alljapaneseallthetime.com) is pretty effective for Japanese and people generally agree that the method described (or a variation of it) is usually the best for learning Japanese.

On the other hand, such methods do not quite lend themselves to languages like German and French - at least not immediately. I learnt these two the hard way but I'll leave it to the others to recommend better methods for Euro languages.

Thanks for the reply.

Well I am fairly new at this, so I wouldn't know which is better, haha.

I remember looking into AJATT, and it did look pretty good. I'll give it another look.

Can anyone give me some insight into resources for the euro languages?

Michel Thomas (doesn't have too many languages though)
Pimsleur is okay if you can't get MT
Assimil
Teach Yourself
Colloquial
Berlitz
Anki (flashcard program)

Thanks, that's a pretty good list.

No problem

I'm also a fan of AJATT - not for learning Japanese, though, but surprisingly German. What I did is I completed the first two Pimsleur courses, listening to the tracks using Audacity. Every time I found a difficult phrase, I ripped it immediately to a folder as an mp3. At the end of each track I used these new files to create Anki flashcards. The Front contained the sentence transcribed in German (with the help of www.dict.cc) and the Back contained a vague English meaning (along with translations of difficult words) and the sound file.

I did this for the whole course, reviewing Anki in the morning and listening to a Pimsleur track and inputting the sentences in the night. After I finished Pimsleur I and II, I pretty much did what Khatzumoto on AJATT prescribed: get as much German media (particularly video and audio, but later on written materials are good too) as possible and input any sentences that I found interesting/particularly difficult into Anki. Was able to learn German to a higher level than a guy who did three years of German at a university in less than a year (I had about 8000 sentences at the end of the year).

Just sharing this for the guy who wanted to learn Euro languages ;)

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God damn thats nice. I'm gonna try that with Michel Thomas soon

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God damn is right. That's an awesome idea.

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God damn that's a good idea
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>>7
Are you a wizard? Thanks, mate, glad I looked through these older threads.