Languages

[Caomhaoin]

The beautiful thing about learning a Latin/Roman language is that its cousins, with the exception of Romanian, which is very tricky indeed, become more readily accessible, at least in some aspects. The Mrs speaks Galician as a first language, and it's easily understandable for any Spanish or Portuguese speaker.  I took up French from absolute zero in 2014, and I'm now getting ready for a C1, and that's from Duolingo, the Chris subtitle technique, Jacques Brel albums, Le Petit Nicolas, Camus and other simple, cheap or free resources. Consistency is the key. I have never taken a French class(a few language exchanges aside). Several of my students have French parents and some of them even contact me in their mother tongue now, which is a nice compliment.

As Pedro alludes to, once you have one cracked, you'll want others. My kid is half polish, and attends a Polish school here in Madrid so I've put enough together with a few books and apps to have a reasonable conversation, and as my posts suggest, I'm not a genius, so it's not beyond anyone, and Polish is challenging on paper.

Same with Russian/Serbian/Bulgarian, the former two I've been trying to get into. I learned the Cyrillic alphabet in about two hours. The grammar is a pain in the hole, but I think the alien letters give the impression that they are harder than they are, and the vocabulary crossover with Polish is enormous. Slightly tougher than German but not Korean or Arabic or something horrifically difficult like that.

[Pedrito]

Kev you're an animal for languages in fairness. I wouldn't even come close but it's great to hear that you could learn French only through Duolingo like that. I must add it to my list again. In fairness it helped me kick off big time with Portuguese, a language you'd come to dominate fairly rapidly I'd say. I'd wonder if Italian is similar? Consistency as you say is the way. Yoi need to be doing something every day.

[Pedrito]

Streaming services with foreign language tv shows that allow you to watch with subtitles in the native language are a proper godsend. Ten years ago, I used to spend hours trying to find French subtitles for French movies, etc., but now that I'm trying to improve my very limited Spanish in order to have any level of conversation with herself's folks, there's no shortage of shite to watch, online dictionary open in a tab, and off you go (once you have the basics down with some Duolingo or whatever type platform first).

The changes are amazing. You could literally teach yourself from free youtube classes and Netflix these dats.

[Blizzard Beast]

Im using Mango to learn French,its about 7 euro a month.
Duel lingo is ok but it very limited.
Michel Thomas is good also.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

My mum listens to Michel Thomas stuff, but he does rattle on a lot...in English moreover.

Since I've done a TEFL training course in my time, taken French courses for a few months in the Alliance Française in Dublin, and also had the experience of switching from an English speaking primary into a Gaelscoil secondary, I'm all, all, all, for the single language, full immersion approach if you're really serious about learning a given language. If you're in it mainly for pleasure, DuoLinguo, Assimil, etc., can be perfect, but real learning is without a safety net, and that's why it's what happens via TEFL and all the accredited "embassy" language schools like Alliance Française, Goethe Institute, etc. Again, for the most common languages, the streaming services are a godsend for creating the illusion of full immersion, with the advantage of being able to pause, look up a word, replay for pronunciation, watch shows a second time without the subtitles, etc. Seriously like, if you put your mind to it a bit, the resource those hours of transcripted dialogue provide is an absolute linguistic gold-mine; pronunciation, spelling, context, everything you need is right there.

[Blizzard Beast]

I did an Alliance  course a long time ago and there are pretty good in fairness.

[Caomhaoin]

Anyone planning on learning a new language for the new year? I'm going to the Goethe in the new year to get into the German. Or at least that's the plan...

Seems to be a huge demand for and supply of resources. I'm in it for pleasure alone, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone is motivated for other reasons, foreign Mrs, work abroad etc.

[Kunt 4 Life]

I downloaded the duolingu app back in October and doing a bit of German everyday. Not looking to be super fluent, just able to order food in a restraunt and shops without having to point and shout louder at things.

Only did French at school to GCSE and was shite at it. Got an E. Did Latin for the first three years of secondary school and was quite good at it. Didn't help me with the French though

[Born of Fire]

Anyone planning on learning a new language for the new year? I'm going to the Goethe in the new year to get into the German. Or at least that's the plan...

Seems to be a huge demand for and supply of resources. I'm in it for pleasure alone, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone is motivated for other reasons, foreign Mrs, work abroad etc.

I'm still struggling with the Spanish nevermind starting another one    I did dabble with a bit of Irish on Duolingo. I wouldn't be able to string a sentence together going by memory from school to save my life but I was surprised how much intermediate level stuff I could recall when it's on the screen in front of me

I did German in secondary. Like the Irish it's all fairly hazy now but it wasn't too bad of a language to learn. You can expand the vocabulary pretty quickly. The most confusing part is trying to get der, die, das right.

[Kunt 4 Life]

That business of remembering the gender of words is what lets me down big time. Although I imagine if on holiday and you said das pizza instead of die pizza they'd know what you're on about.

[Caomhaoin]

The gender in German seems totally random, but a German woman I met on holiday said there is a certain logic to it, like big masculiney things like BERG will take der. I wasn't convinced though.

[Kunt 4 Life]

Sometimes it's obvious father, son, dog, elephant are all masculine while mother cat, mouse are feminine.
Although sausage is femine as is pizza but Salad is masculine. Ive just learnt this through repetition and no doubt I'll forget if I leave it for a while.

I think bikini is masculine too.

[Makeshiftatomsmasher]

Currently learning German (first time) and French ( only did it from first to third year in secondary school, also over twenty years ago!) on Duolingo. Need to find a better approach.  I tend to blitz say two/three weeks of French, then two/three weeks of German. Then when I go back, it can be a bit tricky trying to remember everything.  Did about a week of Irish, but abandoned it. That language is not for me.

[Caomhaoin]

Duolingo is a terrific app, but it's best to augment it with other resources, it can only take you so far. Reading is key, and films in French with the french subtitles. Even reading the newspaper helps immensely. Clozemaster is a free app which I enjoy too.

I have a buddy in Belgium who sends me daft memes in French every so often too, good laugh

[Blackout]

I done well with Languages in school but never kept them up.  Are the apps good for learning a new language? Or would you still need to go to a class