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[Grenseal]

Since I live in an area with a prominent Spanish speaking population, as well as for my own desire, I'm going to attempt to learn Spanish. In my first attempt, learning that other languages have gendered nouns kind of broke my brain.

If any native English speaker has learned another language, what advice would you give? What helps and what hurts?

Also any fun or interesting stories would be cool too.

 

[p_xavier]

English is my third language, people are nice when you try to speak their language. Just speak to natives. Never was fond of Duolingo or other apps.

 

[kevboard]

English is my second language, I do dabble in japanese from time to time, but not enough to properly speak it lol.

yeah, I bet learning a language with gendered nouns would be hard...
as a native german speaker I grew up with a heavily gendered language, and I can't even fathom how it must be to learn that as a second language lol.

but I guess, don't try to make sense of it... just use the words often enough until it becomes natural.
because I think in Spanish it's like in German, where all the genders for the nouns are basically random.
the only ones in german that are following a pattern are words that use the same suffix,
like -chen... which all are neuter... which leads to the weird reality that in german, the word for girl is not female, but neuter, because it's Mädchen... so it has the chen suffix.


so, like, good luck lol. you'll need it.

 

[LyricalShrike]

I learn to read languages pretty easily. It's a habit I picked up being educated in Catholic schools where latin was a thing. Formal learning is always helpful. A tutor or class with an instructor to bounce basic grammar topics. Speak or write as much as possible once you have a basic grasp of grammar. It helps to train your mind to decode rather than discard foreign input. Then just practice and refine based on whatever your goal is.

 

[jshackles]

Native English speaker here. Was fluent in Spanish growing up, but lost the ability to speak it when I was 16 due to brain trauma. Started learning Japanese 6 years ago, and it's been tons of fun. Been to Japan twice now, and being able to talk to the locals was the best.

Some things I wish I could have told myself six years ago:

• Skip duolingo, it's pointless.
• You can learn a new language at any age, but the older you are, the harder it'll be.
• Immersion helps, a lot. For example, my Spotify algorithm is so fooled at this point that I only get commercials in Japanese.
• Realistically you'll need to set aside at least a few hours a day to study. Like, with actual textbooks.
• Speaking with others in your new language will typically yield the best results - there are website online where you get paired up with someone who is a native speaker that's trying to learn your native language, and those sessions can be really fun and extremely valuable.

 

[pdk27]

Native English speaker - Got invited to a wedding Poland once, met a girl, got married, had a kid and now I speak Polish at an upper B2 level.

I started learning when our daughter was born. I got a massive boost because until my daughter went to school, my wife only spoke Polish with her and I only spoke English with her. So I was constantly hearing very simple words/phrases very frequently. My daughter was also watching kids shows in Polish and we had a lot of Polish children's books in the house. I did try things like Duolingo or Rosetta Stone but the stuff that actually stuck was the things I picked up in real life. I talked to myself a lot as well. Whenever I was doing something I would ask myself "Can I describe what I'm doing right now in Polish?" If I couldn't then when I got home I learned how to say it. By doing this you learn which words are most useful specifically for you to learn first. I focused more on taking in as much input as I could instead of studying grammar rules from a book. I still can't really tell you the grammar rules in Polish, at this point I just know it sounds right. I subscribed to a few Polish channels on my cable service and listened intently while my wife watched her shows. I listened to music in the car. I listened to learning material while I went for walks. Basically I created a little Polish world in my house.

After a number of years I finally started working with an online tutor to help get to the next level. I'm glad to say that I've never had a conversation with him in English. We travel to Poland every year to visit my wife's family. For the past 4-5 years, I switched and now I only speak Polish while I am there. At first my brain hurt and I was exhausted but like working a muscle on your body, I got use to it and now it is fun.

 

[kpopSuperstar]

Language app sucks, they make it into a chore.

 

[LyricalShrike]

Language app sucks, they make it into a chore.

Youve succinctly summed up my feelings on app learning. Bravo.

 

[p_xavier]

 

[Rentahamster]

Use it or lose it

 

[neo raider]

English is my second language
Stay away from the apps and try to watch content of the language you are trying to learn like youtube and tik tok
Speaking to natives help massively

 

[Agave]

I don't know. I've just read books in Spanish and suddenly I've spoken better in the language

 

[SirKicksalot]

For listening, speaking with good pronunciation and learning the conversational basics really fast, nothing beats the Pimsleur method. It sears language into your brain like that omelette du fromage Dexter episode.

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

I wish I knew more languages aswell, as experiencing media in their original language is always the superior choice.

Me and the missus have been playing with the thought of moving to northern Italy or northern France (yeah as a Norwegain I wouldn't survive too far south ). But I could never move to another country without learning their language. So I guess I'll come back to this thread to get some tips if we end up getting serious about uprooting.

 

[FMN]

Free Courses — Language Transfer

www.languagetransfer.org

Can't hurt to give Language Transfer's Complete Spanish a look. It's free and will give you a solid foundation to build from. It's 90 bite sized lessons that will take you around 12 hours total to complete.

I'd avoid anything that promises you'll be fluent after studying an hour a day for 30, 60, 90, etc days. They're just clickbait garbage and will set up unrealistic expectations.

 

[Dioica]

You're lucky, there must be thousands of Spanish language resources for you to draw on. And some pretty decent Spanish tv shows.

I've learned Vietnamese to high B1/low B2 level, and Arabic to A2 level. My suggestion is to learn the basics yourself with a good textbook (I love learning with books, but I'm weird). Then to get further than the basics you'll need to start practising with real people (I do online Vmese speaking practice with a teacher once a week for an hour, which is really not enough - my Vmese has deteriorated somewhat since I reduced this from twice weekly), reading graded readers and practising listening. I am sure there are tons of Spanish podcasts you can use to practise listening and pronunciation, and books of Spanish short stories for beginners.

I find the hardest part about learning a language is just staying motivated. It's easy to be keen at the start, but once you get into the endless ocean of B1/B2, progress can feel glacial. And as others said, duolingo sucks. Apps like anki are useful for reviewing vocabulary. Have a dedicated workbook for your language-learning.

 

[p_xavier]

Ej va varger su tuon car car yé trop lette.

This is old Norse. Translate.

 

[uncreativename]

Italian was actually my first language, but I lost most of it when I entered pre-school, and now it's all garbled up with memories of French classes. If you ask me to speak Italian you'll probably end up with a bunch of words in both languages plus with English sentence structure.

My plan is when I'm done reading Twenty Years After by Dumas to look up the original French online and slowly reread it a chapter here a chapter there, with the English translation, a dictionary, and a notebook at my side. I really like this book, so it shouldn't be a chore. Then after that I wanna look up the lyrics in these French operas I've been listening to and not understanding a word of.

And then at some point I wanna do something similar for Italian. Maybe I can reread The Name of the Rose in English and Italian .

 

[Baemono]

English is my third language, can understand up to 7, can speak 5, including japanese.

I did Duolingo a lot, before removing comments from users (very helpful) and their shift to AI. Now it's terrible

 

[GymWolf]

I just "learned" english from watching everything in english with subs and traveling around, not ideal but it worked for me.

 

[Trunx81]

Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Just talk, OP. It doesn't matter if it's right. In fact, most people love it when you try to speak their language, even if you don't get it on the first try. (Except for the French. Don't ever talk to a French person. Just don't do it.)