Want to learn a new language

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Patty

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I want to learn Portuguese since my parents speak it and I don't so I can practise with them. Ultimately though I don't want to learn it from my parents but rather a program / book / tutor. Any suggestions?
 
It took me 3-4 months to teach myself to speak German fluently. After 3 months I had to give 30min long speeches in German to a group of people - not perfect, but sufficiently conversational.

I could never ever ever learn it from a book though. Here's what happened:

I lived in Germany for a year, upon my arrival I could say "ja", "nein" and "huh?". I've never taken German classes at school or anything. The first 3 weeks were the worst, not knowing up from down. Basically what I did was read as much newspaper as I could, watched as much TV as I could and started identifying recurring words despite not understanding the meaning of the paragraph.

Next I started saying 1 sentence over and over in conversation, then with my newly learnt words I added to that sentence and eventually it became paragraphs. Always asking people to correct me.

The difference is, with a tutor or in school you learn the language for 1hr a day max, after that you switch back to your old life. To learn the language, you have to experience the language. Something I found very useful was watching movies or programmes...there you would HEAR a word AND associate it with an action on screen. Cooking shows are ideal because it teaches you simple words for cutlery and crockery. Then watch home-makeover shows to learn about house items, or simple medical shows where they talk about the body parts.

These will give you the fundamentals you need for everyday usage. Also do yourself a favour and write your new words down! Put a tick mark next to it only when you can spell the word and know its meaning off heart, but every day read through all the words you wrote down and ticked off to refresh yourself.

Lastly - imagine yourself in a tourist scenario...i.e. asking for direction or describing directions or ordering food or paying for something and talking to the cashier. Now focus on learning the right words to use in sentences.

Again - you can't just "study" it for an hour a day. You'll bore, frustrate and confuse yourself if you're a simpleton like me. Read out loud so you can pronounce words, but also honestly try to get movies in that language so you learn the CORRECT way to pronounce a word, not the way you think it should sound.

My first book I read in German was The Hobbit, and I even watched Lord of the rings and Harry Potter in German. (Also "hey man, wo ist mein auto?" *dude where's my car - which was rather odd I'll admit)

As a start - get out your favourite dvd's of movies with dialogue you are already familiar with, then switch on subtitles and read them as you hear the dialogue and see the actions. It's always good to watch movies you already know, so you can anticipate the words and thereby identify them. Afterwards, switch to movies you've never seen.

Good luck and have fun!
 
The black guy said:
You know that learning an African language like Xhosa is much more useful right?
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Xhosa is understood in the Eastern Cape and surrounding areas...not even all black tribes in our own country understand its many dialects. I work in the Transkei on a daily basis and I get along with government just fine without knowing Xhosa. So I'm not sure where the usefulness comes in.

Portuguese on the other hand is spoken OFFICIALLY in the following AFRICAN countries:

• Angola
• Guinea-Bissau
• Mozambique
• Cape Verde
• Sao Tome and Principe

As well as the following countries abroad:

• Brazil
• East Timor
• Portugal

Not to mention that Spanish speaking folks will be able to communicate with a Portuguese speaking person on a basic level, thereby allowing communication throughout South and Central America and pretty much every Spanish colony around the world, including many African countries i.e. the DRC.

Perhaps it would be more useful for you to learn Portuguese as well. Now kindly go troll somewhere else.
 
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Voicy said:
Xhosa is understood in the Eastern Cape and surrounding areas...not even all black tribes in our own country understand its many dialects. I work in the Transkei on a daily basis and I get along with government just fine without knowing Xhosa. So I'm not sure where the usefulness comes in.

Portuguese on the other hand is spoken OFFICIALLY in the following AFRICAN countries:

• Angola
• Guinea-Bissau
• Mozambique
• Cape Verde
• Sao Tome and Principe

As well as the following countries abroad:

• Brazil
• East Timor
• Portugal

Not to mention that Spanish speaking folks will be able to communicate with a Portuguese speaking person on a basic level, thereby allowing communication throughout South and Central America and pretty much every Spanish colony around the world, including many African countries i.e. the DRC.

Perhaps it would be more useful for you to learn Portuguese as well. Now kindly go troll somewhere else.
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Brilliant! Portugese is a better choice especially for patty.
 
Patty said:
I want to learn Portuguese since my parents speak it and I don't so I can practise with them. Ultimately though I don't want to learn it from my parents but rather a program / book / tutor. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Lol, reminds me of this,
[video=youtube;Cb38sv5sGH8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb38sv5sGH8[/video]
 
Patty said:
I want to learn Portuguese since my parents speak it and I don't so I can practise with them. Ultimately though I don't want to learn it from my parents but rather a program / book / tutor. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Your parents speaking Portuguese is huge advantage, but from a purely practical point of view Spanish would be a better choice.

In my experience you need human interaction to have any real chance at learning a language. Books etc a bit useless for it.
 
Patty said:
I want to learn Portuguese since my parents speak it and I don't so I can practise with them. Ultimately though I don't want to learn it from my parents but rather a program / book / tutor. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

can't go wrong with pimsleur. i wouls really recommend their programs.

http://www.pimsleur.com/List-of-Languages


Dr. Paul Pimsleur

Dr. Paul Pimsleur (d. 1976) devoted his life to language teaching and testing and was one of the world's leading experts in applied linguistics. He was fluent in French, good in German, and had a working knowledge of Italian, Russian, Modern Greek, and Mandarin Chinese. After obtaining his Ph.D. in French and a Masters in Psychology from Columbia University, he taught French Phonetics and Linguistics at UCLA. He later became Professor of Romance Languages and Language Education, and Director of The Listening Center (a state-wide language lab) at Ohio State University; Professor of Education and Romance Languages at the State University of New York at Albany; and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He did research on the psychology of language learning and in 1969 was Section Head of Psychology of Second Language Learning at the International Congress of Applied Linguistics.

Dr. Pimsleur was a member of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and a founding member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

His many books and articles revolutionized theories of language learning and teaching. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed a new method (The Pimsleur Method) that is based on two key principles: the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory training that he called "Graduated Interval Recall." This Method has been applied to the many levels and languages of the "Pimsleur Programs."

For further information about what makes Pimsleur courses so unique, see the Pimsleur User's Guide.
Click to expand...
 
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copacetic said:
I bet you love anime.
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I DO! thats one of the main reasons. I think japanese is so cool and I would love to understand them.
I pick up a few words from watching anime.
HavocXphere said:
Your parents speaking Portuguese is huge advantage, but from a purely practical point of view Spanish would be a better choice.

In my experience you need human interaction to have any real chance at learning a language. Books etc a bit useless for it.
Click to expand...
it also helps if your passionate about it
 
Thanks for the advice! Xhosa definitely not on my list. No offence but I want to learn an international language that will actually be useful on my CV or just in general.
 
Me thinks I've just found a lekker private school to learn Japanese.

Anyone else perhaps interested?
It helps the price down per term if you register for two people instead of one; ie: R630 instead of R990 per person then.

Cape Town Nihongo Kai

Just hope I can find classes that fit around my work shifts :)
 
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