[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Learning a 2nd language (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/6/2006 7:04:20 PM EDT
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My company is in the process of expanding our language diversity. We have 3 people that speak spanish and English. Mind you, my co-workers have been around both languages all their life. I'm considering learning German(we have offices opening in Germany soon). Ideally, assuming I pick up the language as quickly as the average person in their 20s, how many years am I looking at of study before I'm actually useful as a German speaking person? Is it even worth the effort(considering possible career changes in a few years, which a 2nd language may have no use later on) |
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My daughter took two years of German in High school and thought she was good...until she went and lived in Germany for a year.......she didn't understand a thing, but she said after 2 months of total immersion....she was pretty much fluent. She spent another year in Austria as an exchange student in college, so she is really fluent now. I have been trying to learn german most of my life and can understand more than I can speak. My point is, when you learn a new language, it helps if you are around people that speak that language or you tend to lose it. I make it a point to try and speak German at any opportunity. .............good luck!....oder Viel Glück! 
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A HUGE part of second language acquisition is dependent on the learner's motivation. If you REALLY want to learn, really try, and immerse yourself as much as possible, you could find yourself quite conversational in a matter of months, and reasonably "fluent" in less than a year. Of course, this requires a lot of effort on your part, but it can be done. How are you planning to learn? Are you looking for self study, or will you take classes? Do you have opportunities for immersion where you live? (A German community organization, German TV, etc.) Another question to consider is why are you learning it? If it is to be able to speak in a job that you indicate you may leave soon, I would say that it is not going to be worth your time, unless you reallyyyy want to speak German anyway. Learning a second language as an adult requires time, energy, and discipline. If you are doing it to satisfy a temporary boss, I would consider strongly whether learning a different language may be ultimately more beneficial to you, or whether you really want to do it at all. This is what I do for a living. If I can be of any help, feel free to shoot me an IM. |
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If you take two semesters of college-level German (community college, maybe even distance learning/self-study), and then did some sort of immersion school (a few weeks of intensive German), you would probably be conversationally skilled; with practice, you would be fluent. The first two semesters teaches you the fundamentals of the structure of the language, especially how it differs from your native language. Beyond that, you hone your skills and learn the nuances of the language, including the less common rules and exceptions. I've had several years of German, and it's been about six years since my last class. I can read 'okay' at this point, though I can tell I need some fundamental review. Spoken German comes back to me reasonably well after a half hour or so of listening and trying to respond. If your industry has a technical jargon, consider buying a science/engineering (or other appropriate) translation dictionary, and study the jargon alongside the normal vocabulary. Jim |
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I started an intensive Russian language school on 15 June. We've now covered what would be a full year of Russian in less than 20 meetings. Classes are 7.5 hours a day with an additional 2-4 hours of studying at night, five days a week. It's a cast iron bitch, but I've gone from knowing no Russian at all to being able to communicate just about any simple concept with the aid of a dictionary. By the end of the 8 week program we're going to be reading short stories by Chekov. I'm not the brightest son of a bitch in the world when it comes to learning languages but I manage. It's just a hell of a lot of work. There's an intensive German program here, same deal. Check out the Summer Language Institute at virginia.edu/summer. |
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You chose the hard one ... the gramatical rules of German are more complex than latin based languages (Spanish, French, Italian). Whatever you choose, you REALLY need to be prepared to spend a few weeks/months/years in the country that speaks that language if you really want to become fluent. |
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To be honest I'd rather lean Japanese. I have more opportunity immersing my self in the language(Anime and Manga) but given my work schudele and the fact it rotates every 4 weeks taken classes is impossible(and self-teaching is just as impossible,I've tried and gotten no where) German is a 2nd choice language and would have some use to the company so I think they would work my shifts around my classes. I do have a slight intrest in learning German but no practical uses outside of the job. Spanish is a language I have no intrest in learning. |
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I speak french, english, spanish and latin. Well, in my opinion, the immersion advice is the best. What you might learn in school will be somewhat useful to write a letter and such but orally, you will be lost. Learning another language is tough and i wish you best of luck and NEVER give up. |
Don't worry about it. I felt exactly the same way when I started to learn Spanish. Pero ahora yo puedo hablarlo facilmente (lo siento, no puedo poner el acento sobre la "a" en facilmente  ). Just try your hardest and study a lot and you'll get it. When you're learning a foreign language, it really helps to have a community or group that speaks the language that you can go to. Just sitting there and absorbing everything that they're saying helps a lot, even if you don't understand it. Trying to talk to them in their language helps even more. In my adventures with languages, I've found that most people who speak another language are more than willing to answer any quick questions you have about grammar or vocabulary. I've found that it also helps to have a dictionary for that particular language handy whenever possible. I've been learning German on my own for a few weeks now using a few books and audio CDs. It's definitely harder to learn a language on your own than it is to go to a dedicated language class. Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut. 
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I'm enrolled in German 202 for the fall semester. It's not terribly hard to learn (for me). The hardest part for me is the der/ die/ das thing and all the tenses. I'm pretty good at remembering vocab so that helps a lot. Also , make sure you do your damn homework, I slacked the last 2 semesters and did not so well in the class, yet scored over 85% averages on the tests. My instructor made homework 20% of our total grades for a reason, there is a noticable difference in abilty if you did the HW. I'm hoping to head to Germany next summer if money permits, so I can get pretty fluent with my German, I need a lot of help with grammar. Good luck with whatever you decide. ETA: I agree with NickN, it helps a lot to get into the language via music, TV, or Movies. For instance you can rent a bunch of german movies and watch it with the GERMAN subtitles on. Or buy some German music CDs. |
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I am fluent in German, but I have worked for a German company for 12 years. We have an on site German language instructor. It took me about three years to get pretty good. I also used the Rosetta Stone program to supplement my learning. The advantage that I had was to call my friends in Germany and actually use the language. I also made a deal with a few of my co-workers in Germany that were learning English. I would write all my emails in German and they wrote there emails in English. We would correct the emails and send them back to each other so we could see our errors. I believe the biggest problem when learning a foreign language is getting comfortable enough to use the language. People often learn to understand the language but they will not speak the language because they are afraid of not sounding correct. you just have to take the chance. I have been in a training class for a computer system the last 2 weeks. The guy teaching the class came over from Germany. He speaks English, and many times he stumbles over words, but he is brave enough to ask the question when he thinks he said something incorrectly. If he waited until his English was absolutely perfect to begin speaking, he would be sitting in his office Germany still speaking only German. Learning other languages opens more doors for you in your career. Go ahead and give it a shot....and as someone else mentioned...do you homework. |
This is very true. You have to just take the chance even if you might be wrong. I've said countless stupid things by mistake when I was still new to Spanish (once I said "Tengo hombre" when I meant to say "Tengo hambre"...  ) but making mistakes is how you learn. You've gotta try to speak the language whenever possible and hope that somebody will correct you if you say something wrong.
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You will never become really fluent without living the language. If you really want to learn you need to spend a year learning it and either get your company to send you to Germany or take a vacation there. At least 2 months. The longer the better. I've been learning French for almost 2 years and try to speak it with my wife as much as possible. I still am terrible at it. |
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I took four years of Deutsch in high school, but I don't really feel I got much out of it after the second year. The main thing that held me back was the language jargon itself.....the teacher always talking gobeldygook about making sure the "neuter past participle was inverted to account for the predicate adjective in the future past feminine tense" or some such confusing jargon. If I had known what the teacher was actually talking about half the time, it would've been easier. And while I'm at it, I must vent my frustration at the other languages of the world: why, why, WHY do you see it fit that your words must have genders? Who cares if a word is "masculine", "feminine," or "neutral"? What difference does it make? And why do we need so many different forms of the word "the" and such? It seems so stupidly pointless to me. |
Sorry but is your wife french? |
thats why I either plan on moving to south America for a few years or just going back home to CT. While I know CT isn't living the language exactly, it can get pretty close depending on where you are. The only problem though is that its a mixture of slightly different dialects (kinda how soda has diffent names in America depending on where you are) so things can get confusing. |
Bonjour petite lili, Non, ma femme est de maroc. A Tanger. |
Amelie |
One of my Spanish teachers warned me about that one.
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So your woman is from Marocco. I took French in High School, I wish I would have studied more. I was interested in women. |
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Hello from the Defense Language Institute. Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head. I hope to have something more to offer in a few hours. People keep saying 'immersion, practice, listening, etc'. They're right. Keep doing it, even if it's only for a short period per day. Even 20 minutes EVERY DAY helps a great deal. This isn't easy. Different languages are more and less difficult for someone who thinks/speaks English to pick up. Take some solace in the fact that you already know English, which is reputed to be the hardest to learn. Try not to be too discouraged. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Get out and try using the language. Work on study habits -- many people just don't know how to learn. If you've been successful in school, take stock of what worked, and what didn't. Some people are visual learners [flash cards, reading, etc], some are auditory [listening to things helps more than reading], some are kinesthetic [write things out and then you'll remember them, etc]. It is often difficult to figure out how to learn well without some trial & error. YMMV. |
french movies are weird in general... |
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I really want to learn German, but I also want to learn Czech bad. I have a few teaching tools for German, but have never been able to actually learn how the sentences are formed and so on. Does Rosetta Stone teach you the parts of conjugating verbs and other basics needed to be able to form correct sentences? Or is it best to take a class or two? How does emersion work anyhow? I don't understand how you can just listen to a language and pick it up? ETA: Rosetta doesn't have a Czech package
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I've always heard it was very difficult, especially when so many words can have different meanings, different spellings, and have characteristics that don't always make sense. |
What makes English difficult is the fact that it combines the grammar rules of many languages into one package. Diffirent words, roots and sentences go through a different flexion and demand different sentence-structure depending on their origins; some follow latin grammar, some french, some german. One can not simply learn a simple set of grammar rules and apply those rules to every sentence and word, because the rules in English are not always the same. This same problem occurs in phonemes. Have you noticed that the letter "a" is pronounced completely differently in the words "atom" and "car"? Think about how difficult something like that is for a foreigner to learn. So what makes English difficult is the grammar, and the inconsistency of it. On the other hand, most of the sounds used in the English language are rather simple and easy to produce, so that isn't a huge problem. I am currently trying to struggle my way through Chinese. Learning a new language takes time, effort and dedication. That is all. |
Ah, tonal paradise. [sic] Apostrophe, thank you. I was raised on English, and have spent very little time in primarily non-english environments. It is difficult for me to see things from the outside. |
Or words like lead and lead  This is interesting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language_learning_and_teaching |
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Try The Rosetta Stone program. It is unique in it's teaching method as it uses cultural definitions rather than english to x translations. The immersion is more progressive and natural These programs are used at West Point, NASA, and the State Department Here is the link I have several of their language programs which I have yet to sit down and start them..... 
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| I speak really good Portuguese and decent Spanish...I will say this, you can try whatever program or method you want, but there is absolutely no substitute for tons and tons of pratice. All the time. Out loud, in your head, etc. There really is no "easy way" (IMO)....it simply takes a lot of effort to become proficient. |
Based on comments from someone I know who is a Thai, the spoken language is tonal (ie: the meaning of words can change based on how you pronounce them). There are other asian languages that are also tonal. Written Thai doesn't use punctuation either. |
Yeah - my wife is currently using one of their programs to try to pick up the basics of Danish. Poor woman.
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It took me 3 years of High School Spanish to achieve more-or-less conversational level... and 1 year of High School German (along with talking about it... a LOT... with my half-German father and my brother who was fluent for a bit, but forgot most of it) to achieve more-or-less conversational level. I want to learn Icelandic, but learning straight from a book's no good for me and there's no good classes around me. I could live in Reykjavik for a while and try to immersion-learn, but everybody there'd speak English to me, because they all speak English in Iceland. German is a great language, and it's pretty easy, too. Just remember, ü is like "ee" with your lips rounded, and ä is like the vowel in "bay." More or less. |
I just ran through their online arabic demo. Very cool. It shows you the written, speaks it, and you have to determine what is being said by trial and error. It runs you through a quick identification, then throws you a few curves. I like it. Might have to get that. |