Job Discussion Forums

[vre]

Maybe your schedule is too tight or you're too lazy or can't afford lessons etc...

How do you improve your skills in the language of the country you live in (if different to L1)?

Any useful and practical suggestions?

[lozwich]

Well, that all depends on how much of the local language you have...

When I first moved overseas, I only spoke a little Spanish, but it has been greatly improved by making friends who speak little or no English. That way, I've been forced to find ways to communicate (hand signals, weird faces, etc etc), and my fluency has improved greatly. But, I have friends here who speak almost no Spanish, and for them its a lot more difficult.

I also have learned a bit of Basque just by hanging out with friends who speak both Spanish and Basque. I don't know much, but its funny the things you can pick up in conversation. The other night at a concert I learned the Basque word for applause!

Apart from that, I read everything (toothpaste tubes, cereal boxes) to learn new words. I've found that classes help with the grammar a lot, but actually being in a country and needing to shop, go to the doctor and so on really helps with the vocab..

Have a good day,
Lozwich.

[dyak]

Flash cards!

English on one side, language of choice on the other. Whip them out on trains, buses etc. You can easily learn 10 words, phrases, verbs, structures in a day - 10 days = 100 words. Ch-ching! I can't get enough of them, and your friends will help you out if you become too Berlitz.

[zaneth]

Too Berlitz? I should probably understand this but I don't. Can you fill me in?

I would say make some time for lessons, work less, become less lazy, or something. Get some lessons. I tried for the longest time to learn without lessons. My lessons are sporadic even now, but I realize how much they helped me get over certain humps, and how helpful they were. Even the stupid fill in the blank exercises.

Other than that, a friend gave me a tip recently. He said if you make a mistake people will often correct it, just to themselves. They say it to themselves just to kind of fix it in their own heads. He recommended catching what they say and sort of filing it away in your head without interrupting the flow of conversation or even acknowledging that a correction was made.

[Glenski]

[zaneth]

I concede your point, but the trick works for Russian as well, which doesn't use Roman.

Isn't kanjii technically not an alphabet? As in, isn't there a technical meaning for "alphabetic" meaning the character set (script) represents sounds? Isn't korean 'alphabetic' (characters connected to sounds) but Chinese (and Japanese) is ideographic? That's why there are so many of them?

Help me out here.

[moonraven]

I spoke almost no Spanish when I moved to Mexico. I needed not only to speak (I was living in a small village with no English speakers), but to read and write in the language, given that I had two theater projects in progress about the life of Emiliano Zapata--who was born in the village where I was living.

Fortunately, I made friends rapidly with folks who were willing to help out with research as well as checking to see if my work that I was painstakingly translating into Spanish at least made sense (they didn't speak English but were well-versed in their own language). Making those translations helped me to expand my vocabulary. I was also reading daily in Spanish--it took me 6 months to achieve my goal of reading one book a day.

During the 11 years I have beenliving full time in Latin America I have become bilingual--and Spanish has become my primary language--I read, write and teach classes in Spanish.

You don't need lessons if you are motivated, have decent social skills and have a certain facility for languages.

[Guy Courchesne]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[vre]

WOW!!! And I'm struggling with Turkish! I would never be able to fathom Japanese or Chinese.

Thanks for the information though, it was very interesting to learn something new about another language system.

[zaneth]

Interesting. I'd heard of the different character sets. I grew up Pacific Rim. But I didn't realize they were mixed, or why a language would need different sorts of characters. Thanks.

[some waygug-in]

Interesting reading about Japanese.

Korean is quite easy to read (as in pronounce the syllables) but quite difficult to make any sense of what you are reading.

I like the idea of flash cards. I should have done it by now, but I always seem to find something else to do when I have a free half hour or so.

I've found that a phrase book can be quite helpful, as well as an on-line study program, but these still require me to take the time to study.

One guy told me he spent his days off walking around with an electronic dictionary, plugging in all the new words he found on the street signs. He learned quite a bit that way.

If your at a sufficient level that you can talk to locals, that is probably the best thing you can do. Ask them a lot of questions.

What does 'kibun' mean? How do you say "dangerous" in Korean?

etc.

[guest of Japan]

GambatteBBB, nicely done!

For learning Japanese Kanji, try flashcards. Their is very little reason to actually learn to write kanji by hand, so it's probably not worth the bother. If you can read them, you can type them.

Japanese is very very frustrating.

[dajiang]

Yeah, can be done!

Everyone learns differently of course, so what worked for me might not work for you.
The following I wrote earlier on the China off-topic bit.
Anyway, here it is again:

I reckon the tones are best ignored when you're just starting to learn Chinese. I don't think you need a school or private tutor, because if you set your own goals (as teachers ourselves we can set out a learning plan).

If you know another foreigner who speaks Chinese that's very useful.
You can ask this person to help you out with some basic language/expressions, and he/she can explain it in ways you understand, in contrast with most Chinese teachers I've met. Most Chinese teachers insist you learn the tones first, which is boring, useless and frustrating.

First start with the 'tool-language' to go out in Chinese society and learn by speaking on the streets. (words that you might use in most sentences, key verbs and pronouns, prepositions etc.)
and set sentences like:
'What does this mean?'
'How do I say this in Chinese?'
'What does this word mean?' etc.

Get a small notebook that fits in your inside pocket, and always carry it around you with a pen. Then, put up papers in your living room, above the bed, washing basin, etc. to memorise the vocab.

For nouns obviously food and bargaining language is great to start with.
Then slowly but surely more vocab will automatically follow.

Try to figure out what most basic conversations are about, and learn the vocab, as many adjectives as possible (like nice, crazy, smelly, busy, drunk, etc.)
Then, you'll want to learn more like how to make superlatives and comparatives (like smellier and the smelliest.)

After a few weeks when you know this vocab, you can have basic conversations and after some time you'll notice your listening skills improve (could take a month to 2 months) as your brains get used to the sounds and rhythm of the language. This is when you start noticing tones as well, and you can try to put them in. (now Chinese teachers might be useful as you're already acquainted with some vocab)

I've read somewhere that as long as the first and last word of a sentence have the right tone, the rest doesnt matter as much. I agree with that. Sure 'zou' means lots of things, but in the context most people by far will know which one you mean.

Of course the biggest problem for most foreigners is that they cant distinguish between some sounds, like for instance 'zou' and 'zhou'. Which could be a problem when you're looking for someone (zhao) and instead say something else (cao = a bad word).

Anyway, learn the vocab you think you'll use the most, make a sentence by putting those words together, say them as fluent as you can, put '-ah' at the end of a sentence, and people will think you speak great chinese.
(zenmeyang ah? keyi le ba!)

The most important thing in any language is vocabulary. After that there's grammar and what not, but as long as you know the words, you CAN always say stuff people will understand. The details and usage will become obvious with time as you use the language.

Oh and one more thing. At first when you can speak, but not understand what people reply, just pretend that you understand. easy enough. you can judge by some key words, the tone of his voice, and body language what this person is trying to say.

I think a phrasebook is great to start off with. LP mandarin phrasebook is excellent and just have a little booklet on you on which you can write new vocab that you come across.
Biggest thing to remember is to remind yourself that Chinese is NOT difficult and that you CAN speak a language. Most people I know close themselves off by saying "oh I cant speak Chinese it's too hard."

As for wether or not it's good for teachers to speak Chinese, definitely, but not in class. The good thing is that you know what it's like to learn a language (if you havent already) but also you can use it for jokes, and to follow their smalltalk in and outside of the classroom.
I found it earns you much respect from the students and anyone else.

All the best,
Dajiang

[matthews_world]

Watch TV.

Learn the alphabet, pronunciation, reading and writing! Once over that hurdle, your part of the way there.

Listen to children when they talk, you can certainly pick up phrases that are simple and easy to understand.