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> The cold truth about learning another language is that you will not learn much when you are not living in a community(country) that speaks that language. Pat
by Dewie 13y ago
> The cold truth about learning another language is that you will not learn much when you are not living in a community(country) that speaks that language.
Patently false, as evidenced by the countless numbers of second language English speakers who have never been to an English-speaking country for more than some vacations (if even that).
- tokenadult 13y agoAs the person whom you are quoting said in an earlier reply in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6303229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6303229 he chose the word "community" precisely to indicate that you don't have to live in an English-speaking country to learn good English (or a Chinese-speaking COUNTRY to learn Chinese, etc.). But massive "real-world" exposure to a language outside required school lessons helps immensely, as many research studies on language acquisition around the world have shown. English has the network advantage of being the "community" language of people who have no other common language, all over the world.
- Dewie 13y ago> But massive "real-world" exposure to a language outside required school lessons helps immensely, as many research studies on language acquisition around the world have shown. Maybe the primary take-away from those findings should be that learning languages in school sucks. I can still remember being assigned 20 words to mindlessly repeat until I memorized them.