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le-paul
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Location: dans la chambre
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 Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 5:22 pm Post subject: Learning foreign languages - any tips? |
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Does anyone have any tips to productively learn languages?
Im concerned that I'm wasting my time using certain techniques and was wondering if any one has anything they've tried and tested?
Ive heard it say that immersion helps. This is ok when Im doing Korean, but when I have my French or German week, all I can do is listen to the radio when Im at home/on the way to work and then watch movies at night.
What about learning lists (verbs or nouns for example)? What has worked for you?
Ive tried 'memory tricks' and they seem to work well (building short term memories based on association) but again, Im looking for other ways, especially for more complicated vocabulary.
And grammar? writing - speaking - rote memory?
Thanks |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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Get a speaking partner and a pen pal. Practice with both whenever you can, use the target language that you study in the lessons as much as you can and ask them to respond in the same language.
Study the phonemics of the language as well. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 3:59 am Post subject: Re: Learning foreign languages - any tips? |
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| le-paul wrote: |
Does anyone have any tips to productively learn languages?
Im concerned that I'm wasting my time using certain techniques and was wondering if any one has anything they've tried and tested?
Ive heard it say that immersion helps. This is ok when Im doing Korean, but when I have my French or German week, all I can do is listen to the radio when Im at home/on the way to work and then watch movies at night.
What about learning lists (verbs or nouns for example)? What has worked for you?
Ive tried 'memory tricks' and they seem to work well (building short term memories based on association) but again, Im looking for other ways, especially for more complicated vocabulary.
And grammar? writing - speaking - rote memory?
Thanks |
Here are 101 tips I came up with:
http://www.pagef30.com/2013/04/101-language-learning-tips-complete.html
Not all of them apply to every language and every student, of course. For French and German for you I'd recommend doing dictation (getting a notebook out, using Audacity or something and writing what you hear bit by bit) with something like Mission Europe if your French is better than your German, or l'affaire du coffret if your German is better than your French. Or do the same with Allemand sans peine or something where the language is German but the explanation is in French. If you like things that are more fun then maybe something like Das Wunder von Narnia, which is on YouTube at the moment. Lots of words like mucksmäuschenstill in there.
And an hour-long session on Italki doesn't hurt, of course. |
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fezmond
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 5:19 am Post subject: |
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http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html
The forum here has thousands of topics on every possible method and materials to use. Well worth a read.
I like Mithrates suggestion of Allemand sans peine. I used the original (French with ease) and found it a good course. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 01, 2014 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: Learning foreign languages - any tips? |
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That's quite the collection Mithridates! Thanks for putting that together.
I especially liked #9. #14 (very sneaky sir/madam, I'm definitely going to employ this) #16 Great tools!
I only got to ~25, I don't have time to look at them all at the moment but I'm definitely gonna read the rest over the weekend.
What's Italki? |
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jammo
Joined: 12 Dec 2008
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| Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 2:50 am Post subject: |
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what got me to intermediate level in Korean:
Memrise
Goldlists
TTMIK iyagi series/other audiobooks
Classes
Making mistakes frequently
*edit - yes, frequency lists are very useful |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 3:55 am Post subject: Re: Learning foreign languages - any tips? |
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| wanderkind wrote: |
That's quite the collection Mithridates! Thanks for putting that together.
I especially liked #9. #14 (very sneaky sir/madam, I'm definitely going to employ this) #16 Great tools!
I only got to ~25, I don't have time to look at them all at the moment but I'm definitely gonna read the rest over the weekend.
What's Italki? |
Italki is a site that brings language teachers and students together for online sessions usually using Skype. You create an account, search for a teacher that teaches the language you are learning, book them for a session, have it on Skype, and after you confirm it was done the teacher gets the money. The teachers all have their own rates and some are more professional than others, so you can go for a professional teacher or just a cheap tutor. It's usually best for languages that you don't have the chance to use where you are living. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Fri May 02, 2014 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| jammo wrote: |
what got me to intermediate level in Korean:
Memrise
Goldlists
TTMIK iyagi series/other audiobooks
Classes
Making mistakes frequently |
That last one is very good. There's a show by a guy who learned German to more or less fluency in a year and he's great at going over his mistakes:
http://fourththing.wordpress.com/the-lernen-to-talk-show/
http://fourththing.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/the-lernen-to-talk-show-episode-8/
| Quote: |
0:26 – Here I say the word “sprachen”, when I should have said “sprechen”. I promise it won’t happen again (except for the four or so times it happens again in the remainder of this video).
0:40 – I swore I’d have this figured out by now. In fact, moments before this was filmed I was practicing this line. But I still screwed it up. I should have said “sind”, and not “sein”.
0:52 – Wrong preposition here… you don’t “freuen für” things. You “freuen auf” them.
1:02 – I was very close on this one. Speaking in the past tense usually involves conjugating the verb “to be” or “to have”, then using the past participle of the actual verb you want to use, putting it at the end. Here I used “to have” when I should have used “to be”. Sein vs. haben. The struggle continues.
1:21 – If I say “I don’t know”, it’s usually a good sign that I tried to think of something to say and then gave up. In this case I was going to make a remark about how time seems to go faster as one gets older and then I thought better of it.
1:36 – I seem to have fused the masculine article “der” and the neutral article “das” into a new and innovative masceutral article, “ders”. It turns out the correct article is “der”. |
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le-paul
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Location: dans la chambre
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 2:46 am Post subject: |
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some great links and tips there, thanks very much. I hope others see this stuff and get motivated too.
'Here are 101 tips I came up with:
http://www.pagef30.com/2013/04/101-language-learning-tips-complete.html
And an hour-long session on Italki doesn't hurt, of course.
That's quite the collection Mithridates! Thanks for putting that together.'
Plus one!
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat May 03, 2014 10:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Text-heavy RPG video games. I've played through Korean versions of Final Fantasy 4/5/6 and Disgaea 4, and I'm currently playing through the Korean translation of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The games are fun in themselves, you get tons of reading & vocabulary practice in a fairly comfortable format, and the combat/exploration elements of the game break up the study a bit so that it's not too intensive. Baldur's Gate in particular is proving to be a real gem, the quest descriptions and interactive dialogues force you to think carefully about what you just read. I'm also loving the 하오체 they used in the translation, it's so much nicer than the 해요체 you hear in every day conversation. Being able to play these games on the phone you carry around with you anyway is also a big plus. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Text-heavy RPG video games. I've played through Korean versions of Final Fantasy 4/5/6 and Disgaea 4, and I'm currently playing through the Korean translation of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The games are fun in themselves, you get tons of reading & vocabulary practice in a fairly comfortable format, and the combat/exploration elements of the game break up the study a bit so that it's not too intensive. Baldur's Gate in particular is proving to be a real gem, the quest descriptions and interactive dialogues force you to think carefully about what you just read. I'm also loving the 하오체 they used in the translation, it's so much nicer than the 해요체 you hear in every day conversation. Being able to play these games on the phone you carry around with you anyway is also a big plus. |
Oh, em, gee. Thanks for
A) Reminding me Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is a thing (I was stoked when I heard about it but when it didn't come out on the promised date it slipped my mind).
B) That brilliant idea.
What did getting the Korean version require? Was it an in-game setting, or a language pack? A totally different version of the game? |
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le-paul
Joined: 07 Apr 2009
Location: dans la chambre
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| Text-heavy RPG video games. I've played through Korean versions of Final Fantasy 4/5/6 and Disgaea 4, and I'm currently playing through the Korean translation of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The games are fun in themselves, you get tons of reading & vocabulary practice in a fairly comfortable format, and the combat/exploration elements of the game break up the study a bit so that it's not too intensive. Baldur's Gate in particular is proving to be a real gem, the quest descriptions and interactive dialogues force you to think carefully about what you just read. I'm also loving the 하오체 they used in the translation, it's so much nicer than the 해요체 you hear in every day conversation. Being able to play these games on the phone you carry around with you anyway is also a big plus. |
Actually, thats a pretty good idea. I played a game in german once (warcraft) and picked up an amount of vocabulary by osmosis - I just had to ask someone what these words were that I could recount.
The problem is though, is the amount of time spent playing them to get any benefit, is difficult to justify (ie large guilt trip) in terms of being constructive or language learning vs study. How I got around that was by playing the radio in a foreign language loudly instead of the games audio.  |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| wanderkind wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| Text-heavy RPG video games. I've played through Korean versions of Final Fantasy 4/5/6 and Disgaea 4, and I'm currently playing through the Korean translation of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. The games are fun in themselves, you get tons of reading & vocabulary practice in a fairly comfortable format, and the combat/exploration elements of the game break up the study a bit so that it's not too intensive. Baldur's Gate in particular is proving to be a real gem, the quest descriptions and interactive dialogues force you to think carefully about what you just read. I'm also loving the 하오체 they used in the translation, it's so much nicer than the 해요체 you hear in every day conversation. Being able to play these games on the phone you carry around with you anyway is also a big plus. |
Oh, em, gee. Thanks for
A) Reminding me Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is a thing (I was stoked when I heard about it but when it didn't come out on the promised date it slipped my mind).
B) That brilliant idea.
What did getting the Korean version require? Was it an in-game setting, or a language pack? A totally different version of the game? |
On my phone, it is an in game setting which one can toggle. A large number of languages are included, including Korean, Chinese, and most popular European languages. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| le-paul wrote: |
Actually, thats a pretty good idea. I played a game in german once (warcraft) and picked up an amount of vocabulary by osmosis - I just had to ask someone what these words were that I could recount.
The problem is though, is the amount of time spent playing them to get any benefit, is difficult to justify (ie large guilt trip) in terms of being constructive or language learning vs study. How I got around that was by playing the radio in a foreign language loudly instead of the games audio. |
Well, Baldur's Gate in particular involves a huge amount of reading, and it's probably actually better language practice than outright reading a book, since on top of all that reading you're going to be inputing dialogue answers as well. Some of the conversations almost feel like you're taking a language test, except that it's fun instead of stressful. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2014 6:54 pm Post subject: Re: Learning foreign languages - any tips? |
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Is there a trick to Wordle processing Korean input successfully? I just get a bunch of white squares. If Wordle can't hack it, does anyone know an analogous site to make frequency lists in Korean?
Edit: I poked around a little, seems like there's a lot of similar fare out there, but most don't care for Hangeul.
http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html Seems to work pretty well, requires updated Silverlight and Java. |
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