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As an adult second-language learner, my advice is not to even bother learning a second language unless you have to, or would love to. You can get proficient qui

As an adult second-language learner, my advice is not to even bother learning a second language unless you have to, or would love to. You can get proficient quickly, but much of the language's beauty will lie in the subtleties which will take decades of effort to learn. And there's the accent, which you'll never lose. The best time to learn a language is between 0 and 10 y.o.

zwieback 4y ago
I'm German and have lived in the US for the past 30 years, still have traces of an accent. I don't care, though, having a Germlish accent in Spanish wouldn't stop me from chatting up all the Spanish speakers around me.
sureglymop 4y ago
I would disagree. You might already know a language that is very similar to another language because they stem from the same proto-language. Then it won't be that hard to learn. And many times the more you know it will help you with other languages. If you know French and English you'll probably have a pleasant time learning Spanish. You can get the subtleties by interacting with locals, and with the internet you can do that online. There are apps for language exchange and you literally choose a location and start to chat and talk with people from there and you'll also get cultural aspects. It's just important to immerse yourself. But I think it's incredibly rewarding to learn a language for the sheer amount of new content you get to consume, be it books, television, music, etc. You get to explore a whole new territory of things and culture which is amazing at any age. I guess whether the accent matters is a personal thing, personally I don't mind an accent. I'm not trying to imitate a local and change my whole identity, I'm trying to understand and be able to communicate.
- FredPret 4y ago
  OK, so then you fall into the love it category. For people who already know English and aren't super into linguistics like you, the answer to "should I learn to speak x" is no.
allarm 4y ago
re: accent The funny thing is that I spent some time working on my English accent, and it wasn't that hard. Grammar and common phrases are two difficult things that I still haven't mastered. The combination of these two factors causes me to sometimes get funny looks when people assume I'm probably a native speaker because I sound so similar, but make weird mistakes when I speak. Now that I learn a third language (German), I put more effort into grammar and vocabulary but don’t really care about the accent. I’m not a native, deal with it.

zwieback 4y ago

I'm German and have lived in the US for the past 30 years, still have traces of an accent. I don't care, though, having a Germlish accent in Spanish wouldn't stop me from chatting up all the Spanish speakers around me.

sureglymop 4y ago

I would disagree. You might already know a language that is very similar to another language because they stem from the same proto-language. Then it won't be that hard to learn. And many times the more you know it will help you with other languages. If you know French and English you'll probably have a pleasant time learning Spanish. You can get the subtleties by interacting with locals, and with the internet you can do that online. There are apps for language exchange and you literally choose a location and start to chat and talk with people from there and you'll also get cultural aspects. It's just important to immerse yourself. But I think it's incredibly rewarding to learn a language for the sheer amount of new content you get to consume, be it books, television, music, etc. You get to explore a whole new territory of things and culture which is amazing at any age. I guess whether the accent matters is a personal thing, personally I don't mind an accent. I'm not trying to imitate a local and change my whole identity, I'm trying to understand and be able to communicate.

FredPret 4y ago
OK, so then you fall into the love it category. For people who already know English and aren't super into linguistics like you, the answer to "should I learn to speak x" is no.

allarm 4y ago

re: accent The funny thing is that I spent some time working on my English accent, and it wasn't that hard. Grammar and common phrases are two difficult things that I still haven't mastered. The combination of these two factors causes me to sometimes get funny looks when people assume I'm probably a native speaker because I sound so similar, but make weird mistakes when I speak. Now that I learn a third language (German), I put more effort into grammar and vocabulary but don’t really care about the accent. I’m not a native, deal with it.