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Language Learning Software

Z Y G G Y

Bluelighter
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Title says it all. Language not important, but I'm mostly interested in Spanish.

I'm looking for a good Language Learning Software or any suggestions on how to easily learn a foreign language.

Thanks.
 
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I assume you're asking for recommendations?

I found Rosetta Stone to be absolutely useless. I have no idea why anyone would pay hundreds of dollars for this piece of crap.

The Pimsleur audiobooks, on the other hand, have been a godsend as far as conversational learning is concerned. Besides, I think Pimsleur is the only one that offers things like Ojibwe or Eastern-Armenian, which would be difficult to find even in real-life schools.
 
I assume you're asking for recommendations?

I found Rosetta Stone to be absolutely useless. I have no idea why anyone would pay hundreds of dollars for this piece of crap.

The Pimsleur audiobooks, on the other hand, have been a godsend as far as conversational learning is concerned. Besides, I think Pimsleur is the only one that offers things like Ojibwe or Eastern-Armenian, which would be difficult to find even in real-life schools.

I was just thinking about purchasing Rosetta Stone, because I want to give another shot at learning Spanish and someone recommended Pimsleur
 
I have not used Rosetta Stone, but I have heard from several people (now Jammy included) that it's both very expensive and not all that effective.

Language classes were actually an Achillies Heel for me in school. I don't exactly know why, but I found it to be very difficult to learn in the way presented in a classroom. I took a few years of German and a few of Japanese, and now as an adult, I couldn't even hold a basic conversation in either, nor read a newspaper.

However, my little sister is actually very, very good at learning languages. She speaks 5 fluently (and can, as a consequence, figure out a few similar ones to those 5). She's one of the people who hates Rosetta Stone with a passion. She teaches herself, and has it down to an artform.

Just this past year, I've set out a goal of mine (which is completely unrelated to anything else in my life other than to prove a point) to prove that I acutally could be bilingual. Because ya, I don't feel like I'm not intelligent, but I do feel like I've never been given the right chance to succeed at this. So right now I'm in the process of learning Russian. It's been about two months, and already I am able to handle it much better than I ever could with German or Japanese.

School textbooks tend to be pretty horrible. You know, the ones with the little fictional characters, their houses and lives, and such. You learn words for different types of food, crazy bathroom appliances, government buildings, etc. But there are more mature books out there, geared toward adults, which kind of cut the cutesiness and really teach you the grammar of the language properly.

So I'd suggest that if you really want to learn a second language, try this approach:

1) Try and make a list of 1000 words that you'd say you most commonly use in English. Also, look up on Wikipedia (and they have lists for most languages) the most popular 1000 words in that language. These are the vocabulary lists that you SHOULD be using. Not the stuff school textbooks throw at you.

2) Try and get a book like I described above (I know Penguin, as a publisher, makes some decent ones) which really focus on the grammar of the language. Without a solid understanding of the general rules, then you'll try and superimpose English ones onto the language, and only confuse yourelf more later.

3) Find popular music written in that language. Listen to it a lot, and learn the translations. This will help you get a feel for the pronunciation of words, be an easy way to learn even more vocabulary, and arguably most importantly allow you to see how words and phrases are used socially, as opposed to how characters talk to each other in textbooks.

These are just a few ideas, but they were suggested to me by my sister, again who is good at this thing, and they seem to have been working really well for me.
 
I assume you're asking for recommendations?

.

Thank you. I forgot about this thread.

I got Rosetta Stone. I'm trying to get into a more advanced level of Spanish and RS is just kind of annoying.

I gotta look into Pimsleur, the only one I have is the one that you can listen to in your car.

Any other recommendations will be very appreciated.
 
I paid a Mexican lady $20 a day to teach me Spanish, and it worked. Id show up at her house after she fed like 8 kids, and we'd go somewhere quiet where she'd pronounce how words are said. I don't know, screw that expansive software!
 
As I've said before on BL, I have a BA in Linguistics and am currently working on an MA. I have never used any of those learning softwares, but I spoke to a few of my professors about Rosetta Stone. Apparently it IS very effective for a lot of people --- the Peace Corp sent it out to my friends to learn the language most spoken where they would be stationed.

The best way, in my opinion, is to get into the culture that speaks the language. Listen to music in said language, buy a children's book and a dictionary. Look around online, look up the different pronunciations...getting some form of grammar would be a good idea too. Learning foreign languages is very difficult for me, even in my field of study...I find these things help best...music is the only reason my German pronunciations are finally getting halfway decent.
 
^ I'm also working on an MA in Linguists!

I wanted to go to Mexico for a few months to learn through immersion but I'm married and partner is 100% against it.:(
 
Oh wow! That's awesome Zyggy, there aren't very many of us! I'm thinking at this point though, I may either go more into Psycholinguistics or ESL...I'm intended to do Sociolinguistics but I'm starting to get into the more scientific side of it, ever since I took a Child Language Acquisition class...Sorry to derail this, but if you wanna talk language geekiness PM me!

Immersion REALLY is the best way, and you know that too =/ The Peace Corp uses Rosetta Stone, I wanted to get a copy of the Turkish one from somewhere just to try it out...I've actually heard positive things about it.
 
^ I won't lie, I got my Rosetta stone from Thailand, where everything is copied. It basically included all the languages available. The price? $5 :D.

I found it completely useless.

It basically does the see-say-hear-learn thing, using pictures and sounds and mouse-clicking. It honestly doesn't feel like one is studying a language at all.

p_c, you ought to open a linguistics discussion thread, I'd like to discuss the subject. You're welcome to do so in Philosophy and Spirituality Forum if you'd like, as I know that all the mods of that forum (myself included) have some interest in linguistics :).

I have studied linguistics briefly in University. My weakness was definitely syntax, my stength was historic ethnolinguistics (which I now study as a hobby).
 
I also won't lie and admit that I didn't buy my Rosetta Stone, I have most of the languages and levels.

(I don't care if this thread is derailed into linguistic talk, as long as the mods don't care.)

I'm doing the Linguistics with a concentration in ESL but at this point I don't know if I wanna finish. I mean it's fascinating and stuff but I want to be a Social Worker. I just recently realized that it's what I want to do job wise.

I've learned so much in my linguistic classes. I just had a MA level English grammar class and it kicked my ass. It really gave me a different perspective on the English language. I have a much deeper understanding of sentence structure. It was hard as hell but it was one of the most satisfying and useful classes I've ever taken.

Psycholinguists was awesome too.

Believe it or not but knowing linguists comes in handy during social conversations. I seriously use the knowledge I gained in my MA program all the time when talking to people. I never thought that it would be this useful. It makes me look smart hehe %)

Even if I don't finish I know that my linguistics training will help me a lot in the future. Really strong English skills, grammar, writing etc will definitely give me the edge in my Social Work career. It was seriously the best choice I could have made for the time when I wasn't sure what my career will be.

But even if I continued with linguistics there are so many career options for those with MA or a PhD in linguistics. I was checking out gov't jobs, FBI, CIA and similar and they have many positions for people trained in linguistics.
 
I'm gonna make a thread in P&S about linguistics, any ideas about how I should name it?

Linguistics
Linguistics-all the linguistics geeks unite here
Linguistics (to be)mega thread
Linguistics (so far)mini thread

Seriously, BL is awesome. I can connect to my linguistics loving friends from all around the world. Life just can't get better than that!
 
Zyggy, whatever you name it I'll definitely be dropping by it...I'm sure there's tons of us on here. Yeah, Linguistics is useful in daily life, I'm still fascinated enough to want to do a Master's program, haha. But I'll save all this language babble until that thread opens up...

my vote is for anything involving Linguistics and geek in the title...I'm awful at naming things, but Linguistic discussions almost always fit under the category of geek, haha
 
I bought Rosetta Stone and I have been using it for a couple of months. I'm still on the first level, but find that I am learning far more than I did in high school, college or my private tutor. My partner also speaks fluent Spanish so this allows me ample time to practice.
 
I've been pretty depressed lately and just recently got better so I'm gonna be starting mu Spanish learning again. I just love learning. I'm not that smart or anything but I have a huge thirst for knowledge in any field. I want to know it all.

Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely be using them when learning. I'm no just gonna use Rosetta stone but will also try to read simple books and watch movies in Spanish.

I wish my partner spoke fluent Spanish, that would be so much easier. But we both speak the same languages, English and Polish.

If anyone has any tips or ideas on language learning, please come forward.
 
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