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I'm not currently learning anything really (at least it's not active / goal-based learning) but I learned German, English and Swedish at school (plus the first two later at the university). I've also taken some elementary courses on Latin and Mandarin, as well as learned Old and Middle English as part of my studies. At one point I tried to learn some Scottish Gaelic on my own, mostly using online materials. It was fun, but like you said, it was pretty hard to keep up the motivation without teaching and scheduled classes. Taught courses have always worked best for me, at least in the initial stages. But you say you already have the basics, so here are some tips and tricks! I think the best way to keep up motivation is to find authentic materials in the language, something that you enjoy: reading (books, magazines, blogs and other online texts), listening to music, watching TV or movies, getting a pen pal... anything that exposes you to the language but is fun so that it doesn't feel like studying. The difficult thing, however, is to find something that suits your current skill level so that it's both challenging and easy enough to keep you motivated. o For example, I believe there is a pony forum for Spanish speaking people, at least there used to be one years ago! I joined a lot of online communities in my teens when I was just developing my English skills, and I think it was really useful. It's authentic communication, and who cares if you make some mistakes as long as people can understand you. That way you also learn a lot of colloquial expressions that you might not learn in a more formal setting, as well as commonly used phrases.o Look up some films in Spanish (Pedro Almodóvar, maybe? I loved Volver!) and see if you can add Spanish subtitles so that you can both listen to and read the lines at the same time. If your skills aren't quite up to that yet, children's movies are great! I'm sure you can find dubbed versions of Disney films, for example - being familiar with the story helps so much, because you can focus all your energy on the structures and new vocabulary without having to worry about missing something important. This works with books too: when I wanted to brush up my German and Swedish, I read Harry Potter. Both translations were available at my local library.o If you use Facebook, change the language to Spanish from your settings. You'll figure out soon enough what everything means. Wikipedia is also a great resource - I use it, for example, to look up unfamiliar names of flora and fauna, as you can search in any language and simply click the links to see what it's called in other languages. Wiktionary is a nice tool as well, especially if you have to check how a certain word is inflected.o If you like cooking, find recipes in Spanish - again, there's an authentic need for knowledge and it's an easy genre with relatively formulaic language and plenty of vocabulary likely familiar to you already. The rest you can look up in a dictionary / google. Generally I advise against stopping to look up every new word when learning to read in a foreign language; it's important to learn to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context, or simply ignore them if not vital for the meaning of the whole text. But with recipes it's pretty crucial that you understand everything. Luckily they are typically short so it doesn't take that much time!Sorry for the wall o' text, as you may guess I'm pretty passionate about languages! I hope this helps! Luckily you're learning a language that has a lot of speakers so it shouldn't be too difficult to find different materials. Best of luck!
You can see if you have access to electronic databases with your library. The library I work for offers free access to Mango and Universal Class with a valid library card. We also have a number of CD and DVD courses of various languages available for checkout. If your library doesn't have materials in the language you want, you can always ask if they will do an Interlibrary Loan where they borrow the material from a different library for you. I know we've sent and borrowed stuff from all over the world that way.
I need to learn foreign languages, especially ones like German and French in order for me to be able to go to grad school for my degree (musicology), so I'm actually trying right now. I enrolled in an online French class. I didn't want to do online, but then I also didn't want to go through the hassle of getting to a campus, so... At least it being a class will keep me motivated. However, I'm thinking of supplementing it with an app or something that I can easily bring with me to work for breaks. (my textbook, laptop, etc. will not fit in my work locker, so that's all a no-go!)
I’ve been learning French mostly through Duolingo although my true first experience with French was with Les Miserables. I fell in love with the musical so much that I picked up the meaning of my first French words this way. Duolingo is useful but it’s talen a long time to feel like I’m actually learning what the words mean. I’ve also made a friend that is fluent in French and we write some sentences in French in our messages. I have to use Google translate to understand what she is writing to me but it helps me learn new words. Ponyfan
I taught myself Japanese from scratch. I also did French and German at school and then Spanish for A Level. I should warn you that Spanish and French have a lot in common...if you had issues with French, you might or might not have challenges with Spanish. To clarify, when you say college, do you means sixth form/vocational college or do you mean university? Because the depth of resource material available probably differs between those two. The term 'college' is widely used in the US for university, but you're in England, right? So I wanted to clarify whether that's what you mean.Either way though there may be language classes or a language club you can join and it would be good to find out.Language wise I love French, and I did it from year 7 to my first year of university. But what is really important with language learning is to have an affinity with the wider use of the language too. The culture. You need to immerse yourself in things that don't feel like you're working or studying. Films. TV. Music/songs. Of course, you can't learn a complete language without doing any work, but little things like listening to the language for a bit each day (even if you don't understand) helps your brain to acclimatise and improves your listening abilities too. (My A Level French teacher taught me that!)Ultimately really learning a language takes time. IF you go to Spain a lot, try to find ways in which to use the bits you learn and talk to people there when you visit. There are lots of ways to learn a language, even here in the UK where honestly, language learning options are only really good in big cities (I did not grow up in one of those >.>) so self-study becomes important. But you have to have a certain amount of discipline to keep going.I learned my kanji by writing them out over and over on the train back and forth from work. I'm a research student now in mediaeval Japanese stuff and I have to read old and modern Japanese for my work - but it all began with those small steps ten years ago. It is a long process, but when you reach that point where you realise you are hearing the language and not needing to think about what it means, it's a great feeling.Good luck ;D
Speaking exams are horrible. I think the only thing that sorted out my hesitation with speaking Japanese was when I was there fir 3 months and had to use it- at the airport, the municipal office, at the university and to communicate with the family friends who helped me get around (they had learned English a long time ago when they lived in the uk but had mostly forgotten it) . I kind of had to use it and that made me realise I was capable.But I still dread being at a conference and having to answer a question on my research in Japanese in front of a whole room. Hasn't happened yet...Still, probably the more you use it the more confident you will be. Doing my A level in French, we had a weekly meeting with a language assistant from France which was all about conversation and which really helped my confidence speaking in french. Finding someone you can do that with and who won't laugh at mistakes would probably help a lot.
No "new" languages yet but I do try to use Duolingo at least once a week to try and keep my Spanish knowledge from disappearing... though they really could use some work on creating lessons on verb conjugation and proper accents/spelling as that is where I really struggle, too!
An online course definetly sounds like a better option than the hastle of finding a campus and travelling. I was actually thinking about using an app too if I do begin to study another language.Good luck with your studies, I wish you the best!
Quote from: Ponyfan on September 18, 2018, 06:57:49 PMI’ve been learning French mostly through Duolingo although my true first experience with French was with Les Miserables. I fell in love with the musical so much that I picked up the meaning of my first French words this way. Duolingo is useful but it’s talen a long time to feel like I’m actually learning what the words mean. I’ve also made a friend that is fluent in French and we write some sentences in French in our messages. I have to use Google translate to understand what she is writing to me but it helps me learn new words. PonyfanI used to have a Duolingo account myself I wonder if I can still remember my username...? That's awesome how you began to study a different language due to a love for a musical, I've never seen Les Miserables...Its on my movie watch list, I absolutely love musicals I think I only really did the basics on Duolingo as I could never motivate myself to do more, its totally worth another try, I actually have a friend myself whos learning Spanish and has been for a few years now, Ill have to have a talk to him maybe we could talk to each other in Spanish when I get the hang of it haha
Quote from: Ponyfan on September 18, 2018, 06:57:49 PMI’ve been learning French mostly through Duolingo although my true first experience with French was with Les Miserables. I fell in love with the musical so much that I picked up the meaning of my first French words this way. Duolingo is useful but it’s talen a long time to feel like I’m actually learning what the words mean. I’ve also made a friend that is fluent in French and we write some sentences in French in our messages. I have to use Google translate to understand what she is writing to me but it helps me learn new words. PonyfanAs a long-time Les Miserables fan, I'm actually curious about this. Although the setting of the musical is France, I never really caught any French from it aside from titles like monsieur, baroness, etc.I guess, there must be some things I've missed. The musical is such second nature to me my brain has probably glossed over French terms aside from the obvious ones above. lolActually, when I got to those titles in French class I knew exactly what they meant and didn't have to learn them. I suppose I have Les Miserables to think for that one!
@Ponyfan are you watching miraculous ladybug in French?