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I've been slaving away most of the summer trying to learn French, so I thought I'd ask: what tools/products/methods have you used to learn non-native languages?

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I started with Rosetta Stone about two months ago; it's pretty expensive normally, but if you just sign up for emails you'll find it goes on sale fairly regularly for 50%-60% off, which places it in a reasonable price range. I'm about 3/5ths of the way through: it's a fairly long program, which is nice. They don't teach you any grammar outright, but build up vocabulary and syntax with situational pictures. The handy thing is that there are a variety of lessons, some audio-only, some speaking-only, some visual-only, some writing-only, etc., that help you remember things by giving you a variety of presentations and a variety of response formats.

I've recently begun working on a very basic reader, and I've got a couple children's books as well. Hopefully, by the time I've finished these and the entire Rosetta program, I'll be able to tackle some side-by-side translations without too much pain!

There's a somewhat on-topic thread here about what languages people speak from back in the day, but I figured this warranted a new topic.

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I wish I could give some good advice here, but all I can do is mention that I used Rosetta stone for about just under 2 levels to learn some basic German before moving to Germany. I was doing well on actually taking the course but once I moved my motivation fell off. I don't really do much actual interaction in German, just grocery shopping and going out to restaurants from time to time. My wife works in an English-speaking research institute and I'm mostly at home being domestic. I will say that that bit I did do helped me enough to get by.

Are you moving to or visiting France?

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Wha? Thanks to me?

I only ever took regular classes, and that all the way back in high school. I'm pretty sure that won't help you in any way.

I'm now remembering the absolute basic vocabulary of Spanish by practicing it with my daughter after she learns it in daycare. That, also, is not likely to help you.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

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No pressure to help me, I'm mostly just curious what methods other people use Since there is just so much out there!

I'm neither visiting nor moving to France (though I wouldn't mind doing the former, since I'm going through the work of learning the language): I'm a PhD student in English literature, and my program (like most) requires reading competency in a second language, French being the one that has the greatest impact on the period I study.

I remember you posting in the other thread, Josh, that you were hoping to raise your daughter with a second language: I take it the daycare is how you're doing that? How's that going?

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

I thought it was odd that your program requires a second language so I mentioned it to my wife, and she tells me it's actually common for grad programs to require a second language. Did they give you a list of languages that were relevant to your program? I mean it makes sense that you chose French, but was there a limit to what you could learn?

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Wha? Thanks to me?

Yeah, I can't speak for fields outside of the ones I deal with (history, philosophy, and of course literature), but I know it's a fairly standard requirement in those fields. It's expected that your language is relevant to your area of study, but since most people will end up working fairly exclusively in English and you can always make arguments for different languages based on what you're interested in doing, I don't think there are any hard-and-fast rules. It's one of the things you'd discuss with a faculty adviser.

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

Quote (Death Penalty @ 31st July 2014 01:19)

I remember you posting in the other thread, Josh, that you were hoping to raise your daughter with a second language: I take it the daycare is how you're doing that? How's that going?

It's too early to say, I think. Her daily reports first started mentioning Spanish about six months ago, but it's just been this week that I've actually seen her retain any of the words that they've taught her for more than an hour or two. I mean, we are talking about someone who hasn't yet turned three, and I'm no longer conversational in the language and my wife never was, so we have an uphill battle to rely on a toddler's brain at the moment.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

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