FOREIGN LANGUAGE THREAD!

[MissLady333]

Does anyone have any tips on how to learn a foreign language easily? I'm not bad a learning vocabulary (though any extra tips on how to make that fun would be great ) but the grammer/word ordering always mess me up. What makes it easier for you to learn this? I can't afford to get any of those self-help cds right now. I've been going on Youtube, listening to music, and doing flashcards.

Is there any way I can make this into a game or make it more hands-on? I'm a kinesthetic learner so when I can actually move and make games with what I'm learning about then I learn it faster.

Thanks!

[Luna]

さて、こんにちは。私は本当に日本� �きで、私はそれを学習の過程にいる� ��それはとても興味深いです。

Hum, unfortunately my Japanese isn't good enough to keep up with you Shiro... However if you would be so nice as to write everything in Kana I'll try to understand that!
I'm really happy to see that I can still read Kana! Though I need the dictionary to understand everything and I can't really write in Japanese except for a few really basic words.

Seeing that I can still read Kana makes me want to study Japanese again but I really don't have the time at the moment... I'm refreshing my German, which is a lot more useful for me in Switzerland than Japanese. Well, we have "Polymanga" that is taking place in 2 or 3 weeks and if I can come out with a few words in Japanese that could still be nice!

[Shiro_Mayonaka]

Does anyone have any tips on how to learn a foreign language easily? I'm not bad a learning vocabulary (though any extra tips on how to make that fun would be great ) but the grammer/word ordering always mess me up. What makes it easier for you to learn this? I can't afford to get any of those self-help cds right now. I've been going on Youtube, listening to music, and doing flashcards.

Is there any way I can make this into a game or make it more hands-on? I'm a kinesthetic learner so when I can actually move and make games with what I'm learning about then I learn it faster.

Thanks!

One way to do it is to "act like a baby", which means you learn simple and go complex like you did as you grew up and learned your mother tongue. What I do is I pretend that it's not a seperate language, but another branch of vocabulary full of synonyms and antonyms.

Sometimes, if you learn one language, you could easily learn another if they're in the same branch. For example, having English as a first language already gives you access to German, or learning Spanish as a second language gives you access to Italian or French. If you look closely at these comparrisons, you'll see similar words and maybe even sentence structure.

[MissLady333]

Hey guys I have a quick question:

Okay so I've been studying my new language and I am having a blast learning it!

What's really cool was last night I had a dream where I spoke it at certain times (woohoo extra practice! ) But the one thing that confused me was Georg popped up into my dream and just randomly said frogen. When I heard it it sounded like "Fr-ooh-gen" Think Flugel in German just with a "r" instead of an 'l' and '-gen' instead of '-gel.' However in my dream I ended up thinking he said "Frog-gen" (think English "frog"). I remember asking him if it meant "frog" and he just looked at me and said, "uh yeah sure." I looked it up later and that is not the word for frog (he lied! ).
This is the first time I've ever dreamed in another language so maybe it was my brain just making stuff up?

Does this word mean anything in any language? I tried looking it up but I hace no idea how to spell it.

[Luna]

Well, I have really bizarre dreams sometimes, too. And I've also dreamt in English, German, Japanese, probably Italian... (my native language is French).

I found this http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frugem don't know if it helps?

May I ask what language you are learning?

[MissLady333]

Well, I have really bizarre dreams sometimes, too. And I've also dreamt in English, German, Japanese, probably Italian... (my native language is French).

I found this http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frugem don't know if it helps?

May I ask what language you are learning?

"Fruit?" That's the magical word that I've been trying to hunt down?
Wow, that's pretty neat that it was a real word. Thanks Luna!
How in the world did you find that?

Oh, I'm learning German.
Well trying to anyway

[Luna]

So "Fruit" is the magic word? Seems like you are dreaming in Latin then! Though it's not the exact same word as it is a "m" and not "n" at the end.

I googled "frugen" and some variants but I was not sure about the pronounciation so I wasn't sure how to write it, and found nothing. Then I tried googling it again but writing it slowly in the search box and it suggested "frugem". Actually there is a Swiss business called "Frugem" and guess what they sell? Fruits and Vegetables!

Have you ever learned Latin? One of my best friend learned it at school and from what she told me it is really not easy.

So you are learning German? Excellent idea! How is it going?

[MissLady333]

Haha yeah I guess it is. My grandmother had a few dreams not too long ago that showed something great happening to me....so maybe I'm going to be "fruitful" in something?

No I've never learned hard-core latin. I do enjoy english though so when I was 15 I went through this obsessive spell where I learned as many latin prefixes, suffixes, and root words as possible. It did help when I had absolutely no clue what a word meant.

Haha the German is going well. I've been making flashcards of various words and sayings. I carry them around with me in my purse. If I'm in between classes, having dinner, at a stoplight, or just straight up bored I'll pull them out and start running through them. Actually I've gotten to the point where I literally have a test, paper, or chapter readings all in one week for school that I literally "have fun" by taking breaks and learning German. German is my "treat" for doing homework/studying apparently.

I've been using BBC's "German Steps" which have been the best way for me to learn so far.
Currently I know how to say:

Freund, Freudin, Tschuss (I don't get why people have such a hard time pronouncing that word), Sehr Gut, Sind Sie...?, Guten Tag (and all of the other Guten Greetings), Ankunft, Wilkommen, Bis Bald, Angenehm, Auch, Flughafen, Ich bin..., Ehering, Das is...., Freut Mich, Arzt, Ich arbeite..., Lehrer, Beruf, ich studiere, Ihr/Ihr/Ihr (in different ways), Kollege, Sohn, Tochter, Wie geht's?, Frau, Mann, Gut, Was sind Sie von Beruf?, und Polizist.

Then I'll study Bill's lyrics and pull sentences that I could use if I wanted to like:
Ich will nicht storn.
Ich bin an deiner seite.
Ich bin da wenn du willst.
Du bist nicht alleine.
etc.

For me the hardest thing is learning how they (or anyone with a different language) puts words together. Meaning I might say, "I think that kitten is cute" but they'll say it in literal translation, "I think cute that kitten" or something like that. I'll just sit there annoyed because I'm thinking "How does this make sense to them?!" Oh that and having to learn what's feminine or masculine--it's very difficult for me. Here it's like "the" works for everything. Everywhere else "the" could be three different words. I guess I just don't see the need for assigning genders to things that aren't alive....unless of course your like me and decide that your car is a girl (based on the car's horn) and named it Kitty. Then of course the car IS a girl (by my definition) and should be addressed as such.

[MissLady333]

Oh! And I have another question and I know it's going to sound absolutely ridiculous but what do you call your language arts classes? Over here we call our Reading/Spelling/Grammer classes just "English."

In other countries is it likewise? I mean, you said you're a native speaker of French so do they call it French class? Or is it called something different?

I've always wondered that. *shrug*

Also how high in subjects do other countries go for high school? For me, our high school learned:
Math--Algerbra (1 and 2), Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus
Science--Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, Anatomy, and Physics (<--fun class, that was ; ).
Languages offered--Japanese (1 year), Spanish (4 years), French (4 years), and Latin (1 year).
Arts--music, choir, jazz band, marching band, and our Art classes went up to 5 classes (Basic to Porfolio Prep. Did them all! WOOT!)
Electives--Home Ec. Business, computer classes (had to do 3 years of that), Agriculture, Health, Physical Ed. Woodworking, Tech. Ed. Dance, etc.
Social Studies--World History 1 and 2, Government (US), World Religions, and...something else can't remember

And what time does everyone get out? Are you allowed to leave the school (for breaks, lunch, etc)?

Haha sorry for all of the silly questions but I love learning about other countries and their cultures.

[Luna]

Oh Gosh, I was answering you but it took me too long!

Ok, so here is my answer to your first post (not-edited), and then I'll reply to your other questions! And don't worry, I don't find it ridiculous or anything. I love learning about other countries and cultures too!

Studying German as a "treat", that's not really common

I wasn't really too fond of it at school, and I had 8 years of it... but then I changed my mind and I think it is actually a beautiful language. I'm trying to refresh my knowledge now as I have really seldom used it since I finished high school and I've forgotten a lot. But I'm happy because I see it's coming back easily, meaning it's still there somewhere in my head

I don't know that BBC's "German Steps", I'll go have a look. I need to find grammar exercises.

Maybe we can share some tips? I think it's always more fun to learn something with someone else

Is Tschüss difficult to pronounce for English native speakers? For French native speakers German is quite easy to pronounce except for the "ch" (as in "mich"), as we don't have that sound in French, but we learned that on our first lessons. All the teachers I had hated it when we pronounced it like we would in French, meaning as the "sh" in English, so we learned really quick to say it right.

Translating lyrics is always good to learn a language! Just, if I dare give you some advice, be careful with the lyrics on Youtube because I've seen some mistakes... For exemple I think it is "Ich will nicht stören" and not "storn". I've seen small mistakes like this in a lot of their songs.
Now, I love that song, "An deiner Seite"/"By Your Side"