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I'm not a huge fan of the sales-talky, motivational speaker tone that Benny uses. [Also what I don't like about Tim Ferris]. That being said, I think the basic

I'm not a huge fan of the sales-talky, motivational speaker tone that Benny uses. [Also what I don't like about Tim Ferris]. That being said, I think the basic message of, "the way to learn a new language is to speak it as much as humanly possible", is important enough that it deserves to be repeated despite it being pretty obvious. I spent eight months studying French for a few hours every Saturday morning in a class and a few hours a week doing homework, I felt like I was making good progress in the class but without actually being able to usefully speak French. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had a language learning experience like this. The thing is - I could (kind of) use two past tenses and one future tense while still stumbling over basic introductions and asking for directions. This doesn't make any sense from a utility point of view. So I hired a succession of French teachers on Skype to have the same basic conversations with - the kind of basic transactional or quick introduction "speed dating" type conversations that I'd actually be likely to have with native speakers on a frequent basis. Surprise, surprise, my French abilities got better by leaps and bounds. It cost less than I was paying for the classes as well. I now think that organised group classes are a waste of money for adult learners. I can find native language French teachers that do classes on Skype for less than £10 / hour, which is about the price of group classes with 6-10 people in them. Spending an hour which is 45 mins me talking and 15 minutes of corrections has done more for my spoken French than an hour of group classes where I actually have maybe 5 minutes cumulatively to speak. Yeah, sometimes it is a little boring spending an hour having conversations about hotel bookings and flight reservations, but I can actually do those things pretty confidently after practicing them for two hours.

sudont 13y ago
Where did you find the people online? I've looked at http://www.italki.com/ http://www.italki.com/, but not much else.
- Mvandenbergh 13y ago
  I mostly use italki, a lot of teachers advertise on gumtree in the UK for face-to-face lessons and will also do Skype lessons.
  - sudont 13y ago
    Ah, thank you! I'll definitely be signing up there, then. I'm not in the UK, and our version (craigslist) doesn't really have the userbase for language lessons, but I might try posting a want ad.
    - stewbrew 13y ago
      A language learning site that greets me in computer-translated German "Werden Sie fließend in jeder Sprache" makes me hesitate. Am I supposed to turn into fluid?
tommo123 13y ago
I moved to Rome and got a job at a small Italian company with just a handful of other people. I'd never studied Italian before (but French and Latin, yes) and just simply turning up and having to struggle through reading and writing emails in Italian, talking to people in Italian, even terribly broken and incorrect Italian, has done for me in 6 months what would have taken about 8 years of non-intensive study. My grammar isn't great but that's for lack of actively studying it, I'm too busy. Even still, I self-correct all the time and my conversational and comprehension skills are comparatively through the roof. There really is no substitute for immersion and practice. The more familiar with something you become, the more you start to recognise patterns and where your own styles fall down -- you start to notice that others use certain prepositions in a context where you'd use a different one, and you check and self-correct. All the time you're getting better and more comfortable with the whole process; listening, speaking, pronunciation, stringing more and more complex sentences together. It's a holistic process and there is simply no substitute for jumping in the deep end, and the more organic and 'real' it can be, the better. A stale classroom a few times a week is almost doing you a disservice by making you think you're studying -- you might be better off saving your time until you can commit yourself to it properly (for e.g. reading a newspaper every day, speaking for an hour every day with a native speaker, reading and writing in forums/IRC in that language).
- V-2 13y ago
  Personally I found watching films with subtitles (the original subtitles, I mean - same stuff they're saying on the screen, like a version for hearing-impaired people) very helpful in learning
- simonebrunozzi 13y ago
  I'm sure you enjoy Rome. Beautiful city. I am from Italy, but I live in San Francisco.
ctolsen 13y ago
There is no better teacher than to actually go out and speak the language, so I'm not surprised you got good results one-on-one. Similarly, but probably with less efficiency, I'd like to recommend Michel Thomas' language tapes. They focus entirely on conversation and active use of the language. One thing we should shy away from is the marketing message of "learning like children", like Rosetta Stone is doing. It is fairly well documented that adults can learn languages at least close to as well as children [0][1], but adults learn differently. Here's something you can do as an adult which a child lacks the prerequisite hooks to do: - English words ending in -ible or -able – possible, table, comfortable, probable – have the same meaning in French. They're pronounced differently (ending sounds like -sibl or -abl in French, not -səbl̩ or -eɪbəl) - Same with -ent and -ant: important, different, etc. Usually adds an -e when writing. (pronounced with -ɑ̃ not -ənt) - Also words ending in -ary: Military, necessary. Change the ending to -aire when writing. (pr. -ɛʁ not -ɛɹi) - Lastly, -ence + -ance: Difference, importance. (pr. -ɑ̃s not -əns) Congratulations, you now know well over 1000 words in French. 0: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html 1: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201309/how-early-second-language http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201309/ho...
- drtse4 13y ago
  +1 for Michel Thomas audio courses.
- poissonpie 13y ago
  Michel Thomas is excellent - I learned enough French from his course (having never learned any French before) to have some basic conversations with people I was staying with in France. Nothing groundbreaking or deep, but general basic chit chat about the weather, what to do, where to go, how to get there etc.

sudont 13y ago

Where did you find the people online? I've looked at http://www.italki.com/ http://www.italki.com/, but not much else.

Mvandenbergh 13y ago
I mostly use italki, a lot of teachers advertise on gumtree in the UK for face-to-face lessons and will also do Skype lessons.
- sudont 13y ago
  Ah, thank you! I'll definitely be signing up there, then. I'm not in the UK, and our version (craigslist) doesn't really have the userbase for language lessons, but I might try posting a want ad.
  - stewbrew 13y ago
    A language learning site that greets me in computer-translated German "Werden Sie fließend in jeder Sprache" makes me hesitate. Am I supposed to turn into fluid?

tommo123 13y ago

I moved to Rome and got a job at a small Italian company with just a handful of other people. I'd never studied Italian before (but French and Latin, yes) and just simply turning up and having to struggle through reading and writing emails in Italian, talking to people in Italian, even terribly broken and incorrect Italian, has done for me in 6 months what would have taken about 8 years of non-intensive study. My grammar isn't great but that's for lack of actively studying it, I'm too busy. Even still, I self-correct all the time and my conversational and comprehension skills are comparatively through the roof. There really is no substitute for immersion and practice. The more familiar with something you become, the more you start to recognise patterns and where your own styles fall down -- you start to notice that others use certain prepositions in a context where you'd use a different one, and you check and self-correct. All the time you're getting better and more comfortable with the whole process; listening, speaking, pronunciation, stringing more and more complex sentences together. It's a holistic process and there is simply no substitute for jumping in the deep end, and the more organic and 'real' it can be, the better. A stale classroom a few times a week is almost doing you a disservice by making you think you're studying -- you might be better off saving your time until you can commit yourself to it properly (for e.g. reading a newspaper every day, speaking for an hour every day with a native speaker, reading and writing in forums/IRC in that language).

V-2 13y ago
Personally I found watching films with subtitles (the original subtitles, I mean - same stuff they're saying on the screen, like a version for hearing-impaired people) very helpful in learning
simonebrunozzi 13y ago
I'm sure you enjoy Rome. Beautiful city. I am from Italy, but I live in San Francisco.

ctolsen 13y ago

There is no better teacher than to actually go out and speak the language, so I'm not surprised you got good results one-on-one. Similarly, but probably with less efficiency, I'd like to recommend Michel Thomas' language tapes. They focus entirely on conversation and active use of the language. One thing we should shy away from is the marketing message of "learning like children", like Rosetta Stone is doing. It is fairly well documented that adults can learn languages at least close to as well as children [0][1], but adults learn differently. Here's something you can do as an adult which a child lacks the prerequisite hooks to do: - English words ending in -ible or -able – possible, table, comfortable, probable – have the same meaning in French. They're pronounced differently (ending sounds like -sibl or -abl in French, not -səbl̩ or -eɪbəl) - Same with -ent and -ant: important, different, etc. Usually adds an -e when writing. (pronounced with -ɑ̃ not -ənt) - Also words ending in -ary: Military, necessary. Change the ending to -aire when writing. (pr. -ɛʁ not -ɛɹi) - Lastly, -ence + -ance: Difference, importance. (pr. -ɑ̃s not -əns) Congratulations, you now know well over 1000 words in French. 0: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/myths.html 1: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201309/how-early-second-language http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201309/ho...

drtse4 13y ago
+1 for Michel Thomas audio courses.
poissonpie 13y ago
Michel Thomas is excellent - I learned enough French from his course (having never learned any French before) to have some basic conversations with people I was staying with in France. Nothing groundbreaking or deep, but general basic chit chat about the weather, what to do, where to go, how to get there etc.