Learning a second language as an adult

[SHARPIE]

Bit the bullet and have finally signed up for 15 weeks of Spanish classes. Went to the first one last night and really enjoyed it and came away feeling strong about making introductions and small talk about myself so hopefully that will continue!

Anyone else done similar and what was your experience like?

 

[Deleted member 1204]

I learned German as an adult (in fairness, I understand a lot more than I can speak). For me, the biggest thing was working on it consistently, just about every day.

 

[Spareoom]

Speak, speak, speak. Find people who are natives and talk to them as much as possible. Use it or lose it. I think as an adult, immersion is key. I've been learning Chinese for the last year and a half but I'm living in Taiwan so I have lots of opportunities where I'm forced to use what little I know. I can sit in as many Chinese lessons as I want, but if I'm not out actually using what I've learned in conversation, it doesn't stick.

 

[vesperholly]

I tried to learn some French on the Duolingo app before traveling to France, and nothing stuck. Maybe it's because I took Spanish for 8 years in school, so I'm used to a language where they pronounce all the parts of a word

I do think Spanish is a good language to start as an adult. Sentence construction is similar and conjugating verbs is more straightforward. Americans are exposed to a fair bit of Spanish vocab, too - not sure how it is in the UK. Classes will really help with conversation too. I was decent reading and writing French on Duolingo, but as soon as I had to listen and transcribe, or speak to the app, no bueno. Buena suerte!

 

[Erin]

I've tried using Duolingo as well. I have mixed feelings about it. It might be better for starting fresh with a language. I've been using it for French, which I took several years of in elementary school in high school and I find it to have way too much repetition of stuff I already know but not enough repetition for the odd thing that is new to me. I was able to test out of levels at first, but I'm finding that harder to do now, yet when I get to the actual lesson, there is very little that's new for me. But the good thing is that it does just give me an easy way to practice a little bit each day and to stay fresh. So that's something.

One site that I discovered just last week that may be helpful:
http://www.fluentin3months.com/home/

I didn't get a lot of time to look through it, but in the bit of time I spent poking around, there seemed to be some good tips (and of course, he's got this whole "system" which is probably more than you want). At some point, probably once I finish my masters degree, I really want to get serious about being able to speak French because it drives me crazy that I spent so many years learning it in school and I still feel completely useless at it. At that point, I'll delve deeper into the site.

 

[AxelAnnie]

I lived in Spain as an adult, and set out to learn Spanish as an adult. I became quite fluent. I lived in Mallorca, and learned Castillian....which is not used here in California. We went back to Mallorca a few years ago, exhausted after a long flight, sitting in a tiny cafe, a waiter asking what we wanted, and I opened my mouth and Spanish just came out. It was great.

 

[acraven]

I've taken a lot of language classes as an adult, albeit mostly decades ago. I found having a language lab extremely helpful. The current equivalent would be take-home tapes/DVDs or on-line practice tutorials, I guess. A single 3-hour weekly lesson, even supplemented by (written) homework, didn't produce as much progress as a 3-hour class in the same language with tapes I could take home and practice with. I also found that my brain was too fried to take a long class in the evening after work; I did better with Saturday morning classes.

I think Southpaw's idea of working with an online (Skype?) tutor is brilliant.

At some point, you really do need to take what you've learned out for a walk in the real world, though. Spanish is great because it's used in so any attractive tourist destinations.

Last summer I took two weeks of semi-private Italian classes at a small school in Orvieto, Italy. I had previously taken Italian classes back in the early 1980s and had forgotten pretty much everything. Ten days x 3 hours/day isn't a lot of class time, but it was helpful as I continued to travel around Italy. I was constantly aware of my (severe) limitations, but I realized how much Italian I did know when I went on to Germany and was back to a 50-word vocabulary.

For those who are retired or for other reasons have a lot of vacation time, I highly recommend taking an intense on-site language class at the beginning of a trip. It's very motivating to be surrounded by people who speak your target language. If it's a mixed-nationality class, though, you must be prepared to hear very, very little of your native language. This can be challenging when you have questions about grammar. Whatever the origin of your classmates (I was lucky, my fellow-student was Australian and our teacher spoke English quite well), you will certainly be using a textbook that is 100% written in the language being studied. I hadn't considered that ahead of time. There was no Italian-English glossary, no explanation of grammatical concepts, etc., just little pictures. As a person with an academic approach to languages (being much better at the written part than the oral part), I found the book far less useful than the many other language books I had used in the past. (Also, the blasted thing seemed to weigh 5 lb./2.5 kg., and I had to drag it around with me for the rest of my trip.) I'd take the class again in a heartbeat, though.

 

[Oreo]

I love this topic.

I'm currently going through the Pimsleur French course to refresh some old skills and am on level 5. It's obscenely expensive if you buy it, but you can find it at a large library without too much trouble. I downloaded the CDs onto my hard drive in the library and then loaded my iPod with the lessons (each is 1/2 hour). You need to do the full course--not the short course. For common languages like French and Spanish, they have 5 levels. The emphasis is on you speaking the language--not listening--which is what I needed. I always do the lessons while I'm out for my hour walk every day, so I cover two tasks in one.

I think Pimsleur works best if you've already had some studies in the language. Taking classes at the local community college works up to a point, but you're spending a lot of time listening to some pretty terrible accents, and when it comes down to it, you're actually only speaking maybe less than ten minutes--if that. Classes do provide structure and discipline, however. Interestingly, in the book Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners, those language-philes who speak several languages pretty much say to avoid classrooms.

This is a great website and forum about learning languages as an adult http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp

In an ideal world, the best way to learn is go to the country--preferably somewhere where you can't default into English--and just immerse yourself in the language, but you've got to have resources to do that.

Skype is a fantastic place to do an intercambio in Spanish. Buena suerte!

 

[genevieve]

I also love this topic!

I took 8 years of French through elementary & high school and college. Lost a LOT of it by the time I actually went to France in 2011 - could still get the gist of written French but all hope was lost for conversation. I came back and signed up for Duolingo and a French meetup group.

I think Duolingo works great, with some limitations. Coming back to a language that I used to know was fairly easy with Duolingo - but the key was taking notes to restore/improve vocabulary while also attending conversation groups regularly.

I later decided to add Spanish, with no previous study (although some extreme basics thanks to Sesame Street and Love & Rockets comics). This was a little harder at first, because the format of Duolingo doesn't really teach. But it gave me basics and vocabulary and I researched grammar when I had a question. I also liked going back and forth between Spanish and French lessons - Spanish is a more forgiving language (it seems to mostly care if you can be understood rather than getting caught up on fussy rules), so fun to learn - but I just know and intuitively understand so much more French. Of course, the biggest advance I made in Spanish was when I went to Nicaragua, where English is not widely spoken. I was too chicken to speak the language (and didn't have to because my GF does), but being exposed to mostly Spanish-only conversations helped me tremendously. What Oreo says is true - immersion will get you up to speed quicker than anything else.

I'm still too shy to go to a Spanish conversation group although I did get to use some of it in Barcelona at the GPF. I like doing the lessons but know I need to start speaking it in order to progress.

My recent endeavor is learning Portuguese, which is a bitch because it looks like Spanish but the accent is really, really hard for me. My brain has no frame of reference to connect the letters I'm seeing with the sounds I'm hearing

 

[Skittl1321]

My husband used duolingo as a jumping off point to learn Spanish - but he used a ton if ither resources too; read lots of classic novels, changed our netflix to be in Spanish, Spanish music in the car. He can read write and listen at a pretty high level now. His speaking is okay, but that is the flaw of teaching yourself. He was well understood on our last trips to Ecuador and Spain though.

He's now also done French and is getting good at reading and writing that but not so much on oral skills: we don't watch tv in French or listen to music. Oddly, his cousin is married to a French girl so he could probably have a native speaker to practice with, but he won't.

So duolingo isn't bad, but you've got to do way more work than just that app.

Me? I suck at languages. I tried Spanish, but didn't get very far.

 

[Vash01]

I started learning Russian using Pimsleur tapes (about 30 of them) about 15 years ago. I used to listen to them while driving to and from work. I studied the alphabet from books (without referring to the tapes). When I visited Russia, it came in handy. I also bought many books on Russian language and grammar, but didn't have the discipline to study them regularly. So about 18 months ago I registered for Russian 101 at a local community college, and it made a huge difference. I loved having a structure, homeworks, and exams. In the class I learned the basics from a real Russian (from Siberia) teacher who would give us instant feedback. Studying grammar was the key. It made sense of what I had learned before. I felt motivated to go further, so now I am taking Russian 102 at the same college and same teacher.

In the meantime I discovered that there is a Russian center in the city I live in. I have been there a couple of times, and starting today I will be going there every Friday to learn Russian from another Russian teacher. Last Friday I was challenged because when one of my classmates and I went there, we were 'tested' by the teacher to determine what level we were at. We had to speak only Russian in our conversations that evening. My classmate K did much better than I did. We are both very excited about the opportunity to have weekly lessons where we would be forced to speak Russian. In addition, the Russian center offers the opportunity to go to their parties (I missed several of those after my first visit there) and practice speaking and understanding Russian.

I watched several Russian movies and I listen to Russian songs every day. The songs help me expand the vocabulary. For the movies I had to depend on the subtitles but on second viewing I would catch more words.

I found reading and writing Russian much easier than speaking. That's where the struggle as an adult comes in, I think. I have improved my vocabulary beyond what's taught in the class, but when I am put in a situation to converse in Russian, I forget most of those words and the grammar. I am not comfortable speaking Russian right now because I am used to using grammar tables and dictionary. Our teacher keeps telling us to memorize the grammar because we can't carry our grammar tables with us. I hope to make big improvements by conversing with Russians at the Russian center.

The best way to learn a language is to go live in that country, but right now I can't do that. I am hoping that in the future I will have that opportunity, and may be by that time I will be fluent in Russian. At least that is my hope.

I am also interested in learning German and Polish. I learned a little German on my own and from tapes but I am pretty much at point zero in it. At some point I will take German 101 at a college. I see that it helps to have a structure. I find it very difficult to learn a language on my own. I wish I had learned these languages when I was a child, but better late than never.

 

[orbitz]

I tried the Spanish Duolingo for about two months last year. I then went on vacation and didn't pick it back up again when I came back. I though Duolingo was fun for what it was, but I doubt I would've been able to learn real conversations using it though.

 

[maatTheViking]

I tried taking evening classes in Chinese and French both.

My main issues was that it was simply too slow, and that you need to have someone to practice with.

They used High School beginners textbooks for French, where one lesson is meant to be covered in a 45 min lesson, and usually you have 2 lessons a week where the second lesson is doing exercises and so forth. We did one chapter in 2 or 3 weeks, only weekly. It meant that I got bored, and that instead of going through everything, and then repeating, repeating, repeating, we just went through things very, very slowly.

For Chinese, it was simply to hard to do anything other than an intensive study, and you don't have a lot of ways to practice in a place like Denmark. I am also much more self-conscious, even if I was to try again here in the US (with a bunch of Chinese-American friends, including Mandarin speakers and readers/writers) I am too worried about saying something really odd, way more than a European language, where I at least feel some of the words are related.

I think it also depends on how good your 'ear' is for it. I forget stuff, and I don't have a good memory for spoken stuff. I can read quite a bit of simple German (I had German in school), but not speak much. Understand some if people speak very, very slowly.

Some people have a much better ear for it.


I think if the classes have a format that works with you, then it is great. It is great fun to be able to speak different languages.

Having someone to practice with can make all the difference though!

I have thought of looking into duolingo for Spanish, esp as mini-viking will learn it in school.

 

[genevieve]

I tried the Spanish Duolingo for about two months last year. I then went on vacation and didn't pick it back up again when I came back. I though Duolingo was fun for what it was, but I doubt I would've been able to learn real conversations using it though.

When I went to Nicaragua, I felt fully prepared to comment on who was eating apples. Sadly, I only saw one apple during the whole trip!

 

[Deleted member 221]

Speak, speak, speak!

I say this as someone who can read and understand multiple foreign languages, but can't speak any worth a damn.

Committing to one language helps, too. I took both Latin and French in high school; Latin in college; Italian in my 20s; Spanish in my 30s. Now I try to speak one, and words from the other three come out of my mouth. My brain seems to have a spot for an English word, and a spot for a foreign word.

I thought I was finally going to commit to Spanish, having lived in a country where half the population will speak Spanish in my lifetime, but now that I'm in Europe and reclaiming my Italian roots, I'm tempted to switch back to Italian. I'm my own worst enemy sometimes.

 

[SHARPIE]

I tried the Spanish Duolingo for about two months last year. I then went on vacation and didn't pick it back up again when I came back. I though Duolingo was fun for what it was, but I doubt I would've been able to learn real conversations using it though.

I know, I started on duo lingo today after having it recommended to me last night. I'm not sure "the elephant drinks water" will be totally helpful for my trip to Madrid in April.

Thanks for the tips! Hub is coming along with me as well. So the intention is to practice at home!

 

[hoptoad]

Committing to one language helps, too. I took both Latin and French in high school; Latin in college; Italian in my 20s; Spanish in my 30s. Now I try to speak one, and words from the other three come out of my mouth. My brain seems to have a spot for an English word, and a spot for a foreign word.

THIS. My brain works like this too.

 

[Deleted member 221]

I know, I started on duo lingo today after having it recommended to me last night. I'm not sure "the elephant drinks water" will be totally helpful for my trip to Madrid in April.

My favorite from Duolingo was, "yo soy un pinguino." Good to know that I can tell people I'm a penguin.

 

[genevieve]

And I just don't know that un crangrejo is going to come una manzana.

But what do I know? Maybe crabs love apples!

 

[Prancer]

Speak, speak, speak. Find people who are natives and talk to them as much as possible. Use it or lose it.

So true. Four years of Spanish and I can barely ask where the restroom is, although I can swear like a Spanish sailor.

My brain seems to have a spot for an English word, and a spot for a foreign word.

IIRC from neurolinguistics, that's actually likely to be true.

 

[allezfred]

I love learning languages! The trick is to put yourself in situations where you have to speak it and don't get down on yourself if you make mistakes. I always try and remind myself of how long it takes a child to learn to speak. Listening and understanding comes first and speaking last.

 

[Erin]

Committing to one language helps, too. I took both Latin and French in high school; Latin in college; Italian in my 20s; Spanish in my 30s. Now I try to speak one, and words from the other three come out of my mouth. My brain seems to have a spot for an English word, and a spot for a foreign word.

This! In addition to years of French in school, I took a short Spanish course in my early 20s and a community ed German class a couple years ago, plus I picked up a tiny bit of Italian on my trips there. I have the same problem with my brain getting confused, so I also made the decision last year to go all in on one language. Spanish might be the most useful but I have the biggest head start on French by far, so I've decided that French is it.

 

[gkelly]

I studied French in school starting from 5th grade and it came pretty easily to me. I wouldn't say I was ever fluent in the language because I was never in a position where I was forced to speak (and listen to) it on a regular basis, but I'm comfortable enough to get by or to read without a dictionary and more or less understand what's being said. I'd love to put myself in a position where I do need to speak French, but I just don't have the time or money for significant travel.

In 9th grade I browsed through a Russian textbook from the library and memorized the sentence "Tam za mostom sto os" (there are a hundred wasps behind the bridge). Yeah, that'll come in handy! Who would ever bother to count the wasps?

Then the next year I started Russian classes, through the rest of high school and later one semester when I was in grad school. I remember the basics but I couldn't carry out a conversation or read without a dictionary. Because of the different alphabet, I still read Russian letter by letter rather than seeing whole words at a time. Part of that may be because there isn't as much variation in the shapes of the printed letters as there is in the roman alphabet.

I'd also be interested to improve my Russian to a usable level, but again I'm not sure where I would start.

As a younger adult I've read some beginning textbooks in other languages but didn't put in enough practice time to get the equivalent of a first year class. Maybe I know as much German or Spanish as someone who took one year in high school and didn't study much.

For Latin or Anglo-Saxon, there wouldn't be much opportunity to practice by conversing.

 

[Deleted member 1204]

Duolingo

Sooooo many apples.

 

[maatTheViking]

A little off topic, mini viking (and baby viking) is bilingual. He speaks English (American) in school, and Danish at home. When he pretend plays with himself, he usually prefers English, but not always.
We have started to be more tough on asking him to speak Danish, and correct words he speaks in English in his Danish sentences (as opposed to just letting him communicate, now 5 he has reached the level where he is fully understandable to non-caregiving adults).

I have noticed though, that it is HARD when words don't exist in 2 languages, or he is asked to talk about something in one language he usually doesn't talk about that stuff in. Example, someone asked him about our trip to Vietnam (where we met up with my SIL, her family, and my MIL & FIL), the best was 'seeing Mr. Viking's mom and dad'. Danish has a specific word for maternal and paternal grandparents (momdad, mommom & daddad, dadmom literally) along with a generic term. My MIL and FIL does not like the generic term as much as the specific one, so we don't use it. Mini viking clearly has trouble transforming 'daddad and dadmom' into 'grandmom and grandpa' in English. We don't usually talk about grandparents in English, and of course he thought of his paternal grandparents specifically.

It is very interesting how the developing brain deals with this sort of thing too. I must say I am impressed, he can count to 100 in 2 languages, and 10 in a 3rd (a little Spanish they do at preschool). ah, to have a young brain!

 

[hollygrove]

Went to Turkey, loved it, came home and signed up for Turkish at the community college.

Four semesters and innumerable discussion groups later, it's the best idea I could have had in retirement. The learning curve took two years because Turkish has case endings, agglutinations, vowel harmony, and a completely different vocabulary and word order from English. It was nothing like high school French, but that was what made it worth doing. I'm still not so good with listening skills, but at some point the instruction really kicked in and sentences just came to me. I believe I worked harder on the textbook and drills than the younger people in class did, but I learned from my classmates to relax and just launch myself into conversations. High school French was about getting everything right. Turkish class is about getting ideas into words and listening to what others are saying.

Language and culture are inseparable. I have been lucky to have access to young Turkish people here at a local university, usually wives of grad students, who are game to join Turkish-English discussion groups. Better than "game to join" -- I think the young women actually miss the networks of aunts and older female relatives they left behind. Three years ago I spent most of my time in these groups just staring while others spoke, and I wondered if this language thing would ever work for me. Today I came home from a Turkish tea & chitchat session about politics and religion. When I began taking classes, I absolutely NEVER would have imagined that I'd reach the point where I could follow most of this sort of discussion and even join in.

There are endless Internet resources now for learning a language, finding good materials, watching films, etc. They all help. I have Turkish friends on Facebook now, and I try to post everything in two languages, which in itself is a good exercise in thinking about culture.

That said, I can't imagine diving into Arabic or Farsi at this point in life without previous training or life experiences to help me through. Bravo to those who can handle a new alphabet, a new language, and right->left reading/writing skills in their mature years. That's not me.

 

[sk8pics]

I took Spanish in high school for 4 years and had a passable command of the language. But then I forgot a lot since I didn't use it. In grad school I took German to satisfy the language requirement and liked it enough that I started taking classes in my "spare" time. So basically had 4 years of college German. But I did not really learn it until I was living and working in Germany. I found that I had a good grasp of the grammar but not much of a vocabulary. One of the grad students would sit with me a little while every day and translate words for me, and that helped my vocabulary. I also watched TV and would write down new words. That's something to try, if you can find Spanish language TV or films, once you get enough a vocabulary to start. I was very proud one evening when I was out with a German friend for dinner, and we spoke nothing but German all evening, and at the end of the evening the waitress asked me if I was from Holland. So she knew I was not a native speaker but couldn't place my accent, which I thought was very cool. It took me about 4 months of living there to be able to participate in conversations with two or more other people and to feel comfortable. So, practice, practice, practice. I was quite fluent in about 6 months, but I've forgotten quite a bit, though it comes back to me in a day or so when I go back to Germany.

 

[acraven]

Speak, speak, speak!

My brain seems to have a spot for an English word, and a spot for a foreign word.

I think there's something to this. Halfway through my two-week Italian course, I woke up one morning remembering part of a dream (which in itself was odd for me). In the dream I was having a conversation in Russian. I last studied Russian over 40 years ago, and I've visited a Russian-speaking country precisely one time, in 1972. That was a peculiar experience.

<snipping very encouraging comments about having conquered Turkish>

That said, I can't imagine diving into Arabic or Farsi at this point in life without previous training or life experiences to help me through. Bravo to those who can handle a new alphabet, a new language, and right->left reading/writing skills in their mature years. That's not me.

Having dealt with both Russian and modern Greek, I think you'd have very little difficulty with a change of alphabet*, but I'm unsure about reading and writing right-to-left. And I myself am terrified by any language with tones--which I believe includes Arabic as well as Chinese.

* I say this partly because I find it easier to deal with Slavic languages written in Cyrillic than those written in our alphabet with a sprinkling of diacritical marks and what looks to me like very strange spelling. Bulgarian and Serbian "make sense" to me; Croatian and especially Polish, not so much. Last summer I was disappointed to observe the extent to which our alphabet is displacing Cyrillic on signs in Serbia. Forty years ago, there was a pretty clear difference between Serbian (Cyrillic alphabet) and Croatian (our alphabet). (Sorry for the ethno-centric "our alphabet"; I don't know the correct technical term.)

 

[Spun Silver]

I had a lot of HS Spanish that I never ever used, even when living in NYC for almost 30 years. I move to NJ, volunteer as a court-appointed special advocate, buy a fixer-upper house, and find myself having to resurrect my Spanish in order to communicate with my client and various workers, all immigrants. My Spanish is more fluent now than it ever was when I was actually whizzing through courses in it. That's not saying a lot, btw, but the main thing is, I am not afraid to throw myself into a conversation now. The same thing happened when I traveled in France (outside Paris, everyone seems to speak English there) and French-speaking Africa as an adult. When you have to use it, you do, and when you do, you learn by leaps and bounds. So I would agree on putting the emphasis on conversation. Go to Spain!

 

[SHARPIE]

Thanks again, speaking is the main! I never learnt Spanish at school but did really well with French and Welsh ... Still understand most things but can't really speak them well now!