The sites will help, but nothing is as good as actually being SURROUNDED by the language for hours and hours and hours at a time in stores, parks, theaters, and work, and school.

Go to Skype Forums and find someone with which to talk everyday though a microphone. That the closest as you'll ever get.

I've been learning Spanish for seven months, and have begun to casually dabble in French.

I hope to become very fluent in both of them. Before last year, I knew nothing of either.

>>5653
I've been actively learning a minimum of 2 languages for the past 3 years. It started off as French and Gaelic, then French and German for a while. Then came a point, where I was basically learning 5 languages at the same time. I was learning French, German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic all at once. Arabic didn't last long, and Russian was dropped a few months after (but man I miss it). Spanish a year later. Now I'm just learning French and German, and I'm in my 2nd year of university for both of them.

I think I was born with a knack for languages naturally, but after going through that period of being OBSESSED with languages and studying so many at once, I feel that my language learning skills have improved even more.

I speak, read and write French really well and I speak German at a really average level. My German in theory should be a LOT better, since my course is very intensive, but I've been lazy and putting no effort into it. Although I find when I do put effort into it I really quickly, so I'm not that worried about my exams. It's the same when I travel to a country I don't know the lingo, I think I learn how to adapt and communicate quick.

I probably sound like a cocky dickhead but meh.

>>5658

Why did you learn Finnish? Did you find the agglutinative grammar difficult to grasp?

>>5659
Did not, it came naturally. I used efficient materials.
I learned it because it seemed interesting and at the time I had way too much free time.

>>5660
Why would you waste your time learning Finnish? Don't give me any rubbish about finding Finland "interesting" or anything like that because as someone who lived in Finland for the majority of my life, I can tell you it's exactly like Sweden but socially 20-30 years in the past.

Congratulations on learning one of the most useless and difficult languages in the world you could ever learn.

>>5660
What materials did you use? What advice would you give to someone who wants to learn finnish?

>>5663
Dude, I don't care about the usefulness of a language. I already speak English. In Brazil at least, it suffices.
I know a Frenchie who knows English and Serbian (a "useless language") because of his parents and today he works in a multinational and has a great career.
While this other Brazilian friend of mine who went to Germany three years ago and became fluent in German hasn't done anything useful with his life ever since, even though he's fluent in a "useful" language.

I do plan on visiting Finland one day but that doesn't mean I want to live there.

>>5664
Look for the post 1013706 (ctrl+F) I made in this thread http://northpole.fi/fl/913879-2/
An advice would be patience and will.

start thinking in english

>>5596

well, i'll try, but that seems somewhat (too) hard. any more tips?

Why do you need to?
You can do all the reading and online communication you need to.
You have no reason to try to have a more native accent.
If you're planning on moving to an English-speaking country, you'll start to sound better after just a few weeks being there, there's no need to worry about it now.

If you plan on working with native English speakers, and speaking English to them, just use your free EU education rights and take a semester in the UK or Ireland.

Well, what kind of fuckups did you make? Grammatical? Conceptual? Idiomatic? Really, you need to practice with a native speaker and just soak in some unscripted dialogue. I had that issue with needing to translate from German to English at first, but by my third year I was able to think in German. I used to turn any rhythmic activity into a verbal repetition exercise to reinforce correct habits. Weightlifting and fitness training was great for my foreign language skills. I reckon composing music would have been too. Hey, there you go, try composing music in English. Singing uses a different part of your brain than the part used by speaking. Maybe you'll have a breakthrough! If it works, not only will your English improve, but you may find a way around your stagefright? Also, don't forget the importance of the... pause... in public speaking. Worked for Bill Shatner, eh?

I couldn't speak either, but I realised what was the problem when I was drunk. You are overthinking, just talk and don't this what words to use, just use first what is in your mind. helped me.

Make concrete goals for yourself. For example, decide to learn 3 new words a day. And each day after, add on the old words, until the old words enter into your long term memory.

Another thing that helped me, ALWAYS go English to Spanish when doing any sort of studying. It will be more difficult, but you will actually learn it this way. On the same key, make up sentences in English that use whichever concept you're currently working on. Then, translate into Spanish.

Best of luck!

>>5639

>ALWAYS go English to Spanish when doing any sort of studying

what do you mean by this? thanks

>>5641

Say you want to learn the word 'wall.'
You should right down wall, and then think of the Spanish word, la pared. As opposed to quizzing yourself based on the Spanish word, which only requires that you recall the word, not fully retrieve it form your memory. Do this until you no longer need to look the word up.

Converse with native speakers and force them to correct you. You may have to actually sit there and bug them to correct you because 9 times out of 10, to be polite, they wont.

Case in point, a few of my co-workers are native Spanish speakers, so I talk to them about whatever the hell is on my mind but only in Spanish, and I tend to fuck up my verb conjugations all the time. After a few months of prodding I finally got my co-workers to correct me if I say, for example, necesitas (you need), when I really mean necesito (I need).

But trust me, the constant usage of your regular conversational Spanish will help it stick better. And when they talk to you in Spanish they'll use words/phrases you won't be familiar with. Always ask them what it means, get every meaning out of it you can, ask them to go over the ways you conjugate that word if it's a verb (at least I do that, helps me remember how to use it in the future), ect.

Practice practice practice. Only listening to it (such as watching tv/movies) will help but it won't help as much as actually using it every day.

Use quizlet or another flashcard site for vocab.

Mandarin is completely unrelated to the European languages, so you would not mix the words up, at least. It is extremely difficult.

Spanish is not easy either, despite what everyone says. Sure, it's easy to be able to figure out what stuff means. But to speak ti fluently, and to understand it in all situations, is MUCH harder than that. There are over 20 Spanish-speaking countries, each with one or more different accents/dialects (the line between these two concepts is fuzzy).

Each verb in Spanish has 40+ conjugated forms you have to learn, and this is a big effort.

Being bilingual/trilingual is a great asset, but it won't guarantee you a job or anything. It's great though, you really ought to do it!

I've heard that the Chinese are very interested in African labor markets, especially in Nigeria and Niger, diamonds are catching on in China and for other reasons they're investing heavily.

I don't know a lot of about China-Latin American relations, but I do know that Japan and Mexico are buddy buddies. Private schools in Mexico place a high emphasis on Japanese, almost as important to English. Same situation in Uruguay.

So if you want to go between 2 languages that aren't English, it's probably a better investment to try Chinese and something widespread in Africa like Huasa, Swahili or French; if you want to stick with Spanish, add Japanese.

I'm not saying there aren't Spanish-Mandarin jobs, just that the market is smaller.

>>5647

40+ per verb is a gross exaggeration. There are 16 formal tenses, then commands, past participles etc. Furthermore, most verbs are regular, meaning you only have to know the general rules.

Don't let the number of tenses intimidate you, but also don't try to jump into all of them at once.

>>5649

>40+ per verb is a gross exaggeration

http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation/haber

There are over sixty conjugations for that verb on that table, there. 40+ per verb is not a gross exaggeration.

>>5652
You don't use 40+ all the time anyway. Besides, learning conjugations is better when talking to a native speaker rather than learning it like multiplication tables. Even if you know 'em all you wouldn't even know when to use what with some of the tenses.

>>5633

this is true but pimsleur and michael thomas will have you feeling like you can speak some of the language pretty quickly compared to say, reading a textbook. also rosetta stone is shit. i used it for like 2 weeks for french before finding pimsleur. i learned more in a day of pimsleur than i did with 2 weeks of rosetta so i dropped using it.

>>5633
The idea is that you have an innate capacity to learn language and that there's a right way and a wrong way to exploit that capacity. I think that's more or less correct.

>>5634
>>5636
Ok, I must admit, those resources can help a lot, but definitely they are not magical ways to learn a language. They are especially useful for pronunciation and initial psychological immersion, but please, get a grammar too.

Thanks for the replies guys. I wasn't looking for a "quick mastery" just a good way to start getting the basics down. I did some Rosetta stone to warm up for my college German classes, so that's my primary way of learning for German is just through school.

But i'm also very interested in Russian, and I didn't know if Pimsleur would be the best way since it doesn't address Cyrillic at all. However, it seems everyone is agreeing Pimsleur is superior to Rosetta stone, at least in speaking. But do you guys think it's better for learning grammar and vocabulary too?

>>5644

no, definitely not. pimsleur doesn't directly address grammatical rules. they just say this is how you say "we are going on vacation." michael thomas, though, does a great job at explaining the basics of grammatical rules.

>>5478

I just like the way the letters look I guess, English letters are so boring in comparison to the Middle Eastern languages.
And there is already plenty of writing in (what looks like to my untrained eye) the same language around here, not that that makes it right, I'm just pointing it out.
Anyway this isn't the place for a moral discussion on street art ;)

New ideas:

Thai: ผงขาว
Korean: 헤로인
Japanese: ヘロイン
Hindi: हेरोइन
Hebrew: הרואין
Belorussian: гераін
Armenian: հերոին

Out of all of them I think Korean would work best as a stencil but I like the look of Hindi the most.

>>5489

>English letters are so boring in comparison to the Middle Eastern languages.

You mean the Latin alphabet looks boring compared to the Arabic alphabet?

You know you're only saying that because you've been exposed solely to the Latin alphabet since you were just a little one, don't you? Also Farsi is not a "middle eastern" language, it's related to English in the Indo-European family.

>And there is already plenty of writing in (what looks like to my untrained eye) the same language around here, not that that makes it right, I'm just pointing it out.

So you're trying to fit in with criminals?

>Anyway this isn't the place for a moral discussion on street art ;)
>graffiti
>art

Yeah but no. You are a criminal damaging another's property. Calling it "art" is one of the most empty statements you could make.

>>5491

You're right man, I've seen the light, I'll change my ways.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I'll head elsewhere.

filing

bump

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLm9_DBkOo

kinda old, Indonesian guy auditions for Indonesian idol singing Linkin Park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SYdY3wfLgw#t=0m20s

务必随手锁门

Basically, "Be sure to keep the door locked."

>>5632
Thanks man! Now I will remember to do that forever!

I'm not sure what the importance of telling people your race is. You could just say "Soy estadounidense".

Other than that, you could say "Soy Navajo".

Costa Ricans often have Native ancestry. You won't stand out much at all, from a purely visible perspective.

>>5624
I'm just used to it because I didn't' grow up on the rez and people are always asking what I prefer to be called and such (annoying) things.
Plus, given how few Americans haven't even seen a real Indian, I doubt anyone outside the US has.
Usually yeah I'd just say "American"... so Costa Ricans use Estadounidense instead of Americano? Gracias.

I didn't know that, I knew they had indiginos, but every Costa RIcan I've ever seen was white with red heair.

>>5625

You may have seen many very white Costa Ricans, but there are more Costa Ricans who are at least partly Native. They're definitely out there.

Many South and Central Americans prefer you say "estadounidense", because they consider "americano" to be a word that could refer to anyone from the Americas. They would say something like, "Soy latinamericano", and "americano" is part of that, you see.

Estadounidense specifiically means you are from the USA.

Educated Costa Ricans will likely have heard of the Navajo Nation. THey probably won't be able to tell you the history of that tribe or anything, or what part of America it is from, but they'll have some idea of what "Navajo" means, more than likely.

It's like how in the USA, we can all name a few tribes that are from present-day latin america, like the inca.

>>5625
I'll call you Emma Drankinchudge.