Pony Talk > Off Topic
Anyone learning a new language?
StrawberrySundance:
Totally random question but is anyone currently learning a new language? If so, what language and how? (school, college, university, friends, family, apps?)
I want to learn Spanish as I travel to Spain a lot with my family, I know some of the basics but I want to expand on that but I'm just not motivated especially with work placements 9-5 and college 9-5 wednesday and thursday :work:
So how do you keep yourself motivated? Anyone got any advice?
Griffin:
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. :D 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. :lol: 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. :D 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! :biggrin: 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!
StrawberrySundance:
--- Quote from: Griffin on September 18, 2018, 01:02:19 PM ---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. :D 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. :lol: 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. :D 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! :biggrin: 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!
--- End quote ---
Wow! Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it :good:
Back in school I learnt German for 8 months until we got told we couldn't do it anymore and we had to learn French instead, I quite enjoyed German but with French I just wasn't good so I didn't choose it as a GCSE, I would of loved it if we had a selection of languages rather than just one language.
You seem to have learnt a range of languages, that's awesome! I was actually interested in Latin at one point, but I didn't have time for it due to exams :(
I may have to look into my college and see if they have any courses for next year or even after hours, I think being taught it by someone would definitely be the best as I know I'm being taught correctly and theres no 'I'll do it tomorrow' or 'Maybe later'. Luckily I get Fridays off for studying so I may be able to learn then along with my course.
Ill have a search for that forum or even consider finding a pen pal, it'd be something new and interesting to me and will hopefully keep me motivated, there maybe even a Spanish speaker on here? I'll definitely take a look at Pedro Almodóvar too, I like a movie now and then. I like animated movies a lot so Disney is definitely a go to and I'll have a little shop around amazon or ebay for some books, hopefully the library down the road from me will have some in Spanish. Cooking is one of my hobbies too so using a cookbook in a different language will be a challenge! :hope: ,hopefully I wont burn anything :lookround: I might take a look into some new Spanish dishes too, as we tend to cook lots of meals from around the world in my house haha.
Once again thank you so much for your advice, theres no need to apologise for so much text, it has really helped me! :good: I honestly can't thank you enough :lol:
Pokeyonekenobie:
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.
StrawberrySundance:
--- Quote from: Pokeyonekenobie on September 18, 2018, 02:20:57 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
Thank you! I'll make sure to ask when I pop down :) There's also another library within the city centre so I'll check there too! :biggrin:
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