|
 |
Advice for a newbie? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| TheRealDan Newbie United States Joined 4756 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Studies: Hindi | Message 1 of 5 11 May 2011 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
|
Hi.
I just joined this site. I'm a 58-year-old male, living in Texas. I guess according to the rules I'm not strictly a beginner, but feel like I am. I took 2 years of French WAY back in high school, but would not claim to know much French. I also tried taking a Japanese class about 20+ years ago, but that was pretty unsuccessful due to no exposure to it outside of the once a week class. Now, hopefully not too late, I'm serious about learning some foreign languages. Like most things I go hog wild and so I'm looking for advice. I really want to learn the following languages, roughly in this priority: Hindi Spanish Japanese French Mandarin Italian Icelandic I currently have the Pimsleur courses for Hindi 1 Japanese 1-2 Mandarin 1-3 Italian 1-3 Spanish 1-3 and I've downloaded numerous apps for my iphone/ipad As for other exposure to any of these, I work with several Hindi and Mandarin speakers and my son plays baseball once a week in a Mexican league. I also watch a lot of foreign movies. I'm currently working my way through Hindi 1 and making good progress. My question is how should I proceed? Should I reach a certain level in Hindi before tackling any other languages? Can I mix learning multiple languages at the same time, if so, how? I'm sure the likelihood of becoming fluent in ANY of these is pretty small at this point, but I would love to reach at least conversational level in them and be able to watch foreign movies without subtitles, or at least not have to totally depend on the subtitles. Any suggestions, encouragement, etc. greatly appreciated. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| stesani Newbie United States Joined 4760 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English | Message 2 of 5 11 May 2011 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
|
The following recommendations are based on many different peoples' anecdotes and my
own. I don't suggest you follow them strictly but rather, design your own "learning strategy". For Japanese, in roughly the following order: - learn hiragana - learn katakana - learn kanji (some resources: 2001 Kanji Odyssey, Remembering the Kanji vol. 1, A Guide to Reading and Writing Japanese Characters, Let's Learn Kanji!) - get an SRS (Anki, Mnemosyne, Supermemo) - download a Core2k/Core6k vocabulary deck and study them - do Tae Kim's Grammar (guidetojapanese.org) - listen to some tapes My regiment is currently doing the RtK1 and doing grammar on the side (Japanese the Manga Way is another useful resource). Also look for NHK's Japan, My Love podcasts. They're very helpful. For Spanish: - get a grammar/workbook (I use The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice: Mastering Spanish Grammar for Confident Communication and Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Spanish Grammar) and a dictionary - listen to podcasts (Notes in Spanish is particularly helpful) - read newspapers/articles in Spanish - use Anki and look for Ts Spanish deck or make your own 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aru-aru Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6266 days ago 244 posts - 331 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, English, Russian | Message 4 of 5 12 May 2011 at 9:31am | IP Logged |
|
So, you seem to be someone who likes the all-audio approach. That's not bad at all!
For Hindi, there is a good audio course (a really good and interesting one, I very much recommend it), called Teach Yourself Hindi Conversation, you can get it inexpensive from Audible.com (download the free booklet). There is a similar product, Speak Hindi With Confidence which is basically a shortened version of the previous book, plus an extra CD, much less good than the first two CDs, just dialogues. I'd still get the "Conversation" version. There is also a Pimsleur Urdu course (also 30 lessons). I do not know how different/similar it is to the Hindi version, but if you like the Pimsleur approach, you might consider getting the Urdu version as well (as to the spoken language, in Bollywood films both Hindi and Urdu are used, learning some specifically Urdu phrases can come in handy anyhow). When you're done with those, Elementary Hindi by Richard Delacy and Teach Yourself Hindi are both good books. After Pimsleur and TY Hindi Conversation you should be able to move through those books much faster. Learn the basics of grammar, get some vocabulary into your head, and from there - Bollywood films (there will be no Hindi subtitles!). Nice online courses: A Door into Hindi Hindi Urdu Flagship Textbooks Hindi Urdu Flagship Glossaries (Kind of made for TY Hindi) Mandarin... Well, Pimsleur is not a bad course, but I'd recommend you to find a TRANSCRIPT (there are a few around). Mandarin sounds can get very weird for an English speaker, without a phonetic transcript in pinyin you run a high risk of learning to speak with very very wrong sounds. Do not make this mistake. For all-audio Mandarin, you can try Michel Thomas Mandarin courses, this program (unlike Pimsleur) explains tones (not all the weird sounds, though). There are many other audio based courses, like Vocabulearn, Learn in Your Car, Instant Immersion, Earworms to name a few, but those are mainly audio phrasebooks. For learning bits and pieces while you drive - maybe, otherwise - get a good book. Stay away from Teach Yourself, Colloquial and stuff like that. Assimil, on the other hand, is a good course. Rest of your textbooks - order cheap, good ones from China (there are many threads about that). New Practical Chinese Reader, Integrated Chinese (this one's not from China, but good one), Conversational Chinese, Chinese Made Easier - these are just some books I am familiar with and can recommend. Dictionaries - TUTTLE publishes great ones for beginners, with loads of examples (see sample pages on Amazon). For some people learning a few languages at the same time works, for some (me included, unfortunately) it doesn't. I mean, I can learn the passive bits - vocab, grammar, reading, understanding, but with speaking, it's a disaster. Sentences come out with mixed grammar and vocabulary. Only solution is to get kind of speaking in one language, before attempting next. You should try and see does it work for you, or not. Other languages, I do not know enough to make recommendations. What I can say is, if you work with the language on regular basis, I think you'll be watching Hindi films in a year or two. Mandarin will take much, much more time to get anywhere close to watching a film. Good luck! Edited by aru-aru on 12 May 2011 at 9:50am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5820 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 5 12 May 2011 at 10:02am | IP Logged |
|
If learning multiple languages, I recommend "staggering". IE. study multiple languages at once, but don't start on multiple languages at the same time.
As a rough guide, if you're using Pimsleur, don't start level 1 of your second foreign language until you've reached level 2 in your first. I would suggest that your next language should be Spanish or Italian, because you'll find either relatively easy compared to the other languages in you list, but that you leave the other one until a while later as they are similar enough to confuse you if you study them too close together. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
