What's the best way to learn another language?

[Sivodna]

Besides actually going to the country and immersing oneself in it.

I'm nearly 23, and I accept that I will not be able the language with 100% fluency. I'm ok with that. I have always wanted to learn Russian, and so, I'm going to set out a plan to learn it through audio programs and books. I estimate to achieve conversational competency may take many years.

I already know a bit. I dated a Russian girl for a year or so, and I picked up some of it, and I also spent a few months on and off studying the grammar and learning new phrases.

The question is, where should I go from here? I'm making progress, but very incrementally. I feel I may be wasting time, because I could speed this up tenfold if I actually lived in Russia or some Russian-speaking area (that's not exactly an option right now...)

[sirkinm]

After looking into many different programs, including the much-hyped Rosetta Stone, I have to say that Pimsleur is the best by far, in my opinion. They will give you a good basis in the langauge and make you feel confident about the way you speak.

[luck27]

go to meetup.com the have language meetup groups, I don't know in which state you reside in, but there a meetup groups in most major cities. Hopefully this info is helpful to you or another person that maybe reading this looking for a way to learn another language.

[jwh335]

I'm nearly 23, and I accept that I will not be able the language with 100% fluency.

Age doesn't keep you from fluency. It just takes work.

[rocksupreme]

Definitely surround yourself with as much Russian as possible. Do you have satellite TV? Find the Russian channels and watch only them. I really mean only. You must force yourself.

Delete all the music from your iTunes (or archive it on a separate drive somewhere...) and download Russian music. Listen to it all the time. Buy books and comics in Russian (comics are extremely underrated for language study). Watch Russian movies - the classics and more modern ones. Search for Russian newspapers or find an online news site in Russian.

Most importantly, you have to find people to speak Russian with often. Look around your community. You may find a church service in Russian (even if you are not into religion, it can be a great way to become part of some community events and make friends - a lot of expatriates go to these churches for the social aspect rather than the religious, so don't worry about that). Find where Russian people eat and shop (ethnic food stores) around your town. Look at Craigslist for services and meet-ups aimed at Russians.

The key is to use as much Russian as possible as often as possible. Make it non-optional (i.e. don't allow yourself days where you just want to use English and take it easy). Write a journal in Russian everyday.

Seriously, there are a thousand things you can do to mimic immersion. Set up the systems and habits you need to put yourself on autopilot to make Russian your primary input/output. If you can do this, it will take you significantly less time to achieve reasonable fluency.

[vilbara]

There are 4 different aspects of learning a language:

• reading (and understanding);
• listening (and understanding);
• speaking;
• writing.

I find the first one is easiest and the last one is the most difficult. For Russian you may switch the first two as you have to learn new alphabet.

If you want to master writing, you need to study language very seriously for very long time.

If you want to master speaking, there is no better substitute as putting yourself into environment where you are forced to speak the language.

If you want to understand when other people speak, listen to radio, TV, movies. At the beginning you will understand nothing. Then you will start to recognize where one word ends and other begins. Then you will start to hear different words. At some point you will realize that you understand everything they tell.

For reading - read. Learn words and read. Learning grammar doesn't matter much for reading.

Of course you need at least some basics to be able to start with any of them.

[rocksupreme]

Originally Posted by vilbara

There are 4 different aspects of learning a language:

• reading (and understanding);
• listening (and understanding);
• speaking;
• writing.

I find the first one is easiest and the last one is the most difficult. For Russian you may switch the first two as you have to learn new alphabet.

I wouldn't say this is true for all languages. The four basic competencies are accurate, of course, but some languages are going to be more or less difficult to master specific aspects of.

For example, learning to read and write Russian characters will take significantly less time than learning Japanese kanji. Cyrillic letters are phonetic and there are less than 100 character to learn, including numerals and upper/lower cases. With that, you can read, even if you don't understand the meaning. Once you can read them, it should be fairly easy to learn to write them. You can easily master writing these characters before you master speaking or listening.

[vilbara]

@rocksupreme

By "writing" I meant expressing what you want in real written sentences.

You are right, difficulty of mastering different aspects varies from language to language.

[NuclearGorilla]

Firstly, I absolutely agree with the advice for doing your best to set up an immersion environment--you say you think it would go 10 times faster if you were in Russia? Don't give yourself that excuse. It's a trap, which will lead to diverting responsibility for your studies to circumstance, rather than to yourself, where it belongs. All Japanese All the Time has a lot of good advice on how to set up your own immersion environment, among other things (which you can feel free to try or ignore).

Specifically regarding Russian, I've heard nothing but good things about the Princeton Russian course which is available for free online. Can't say I've looked at it, though. Give it a look though, if you like, as it contains a lot of material.

[Sivodna]

Thank you for the excellent replies

[TerryHill695]

Hey Sivodna, I managed to learn a lot of Japanese by doing a program that uses a process called mental photography - which literally teaches you how to access your natural photographic memory to implant information from books into your long term memory. So by 'photographing' English to Japanese translation dictionaries and books about learning Japanese, I was able to pick up the language very quickly.

Here is a link to the website: Zox Pro | Photographic Memory | Speed Reading | Brain Power

Make sure you keep an open mind when you go to this website because the course is so amazing that a lot of people dismiss it as nonsense (simply because it is outside their paradigm of reality...). I can verify it is real though and it really does work.

Best regards

Here is a video on You Tube as well: YouTube - Finally Revealed! Zox Pro Online Genius Learning System...

[RT Wolf]

Look up "language" at Tim Ferriss' blog.

[lemuria]

Foreign languages!!! (Sorry, so far in my life, I only meet people who hate learning languages)

Well... try to learn it EVERYDAY! that's right, I think you need to spend like 40-60 minutes everyday. And make sure you review what you've learned (Believe me, reviewing is important.)

About products... well, I really don't have the money to buy much products... Rosetta Stone is not that good. Berlitz, well, I only have the budget to buy the German audio course and it does help a bit.
Pimsleur is a must have if you want to reach fluency, I don't know if they have Russian, I only have the Japanese version.
Only tried 3 products... wtf... I'm ashamed of myself...

Textbooks (needed to learn grammar). Dictionary (D'uh). You might also want to try make yourself some flash cards (you do know what flash cards are, right? Honestly, this is like the most neglected learning material when learning languages!). And, get some articles or newspapers or children books in Russian (I don't see any problem with this, it's the age of the internets)

Also, if you stumble upon something hard in the textbook, don't try to neglect it. Don't try to skip it. Sure they are hard...
No, don't even try to learn languages by remembering song lyrics. Just want to point out because I've tried it.

Since you try to learn Russia, you need to immerse yourself in the language. You need to see Russian, read Russian, learn Russian culture and you can even dream in Russian (I've had it before ). Immersion is like the best learning strategy out there, you get to have fun learning new cultures on the side.
Have I tried it before? Well, I did find myself in an awkward situation. I was surrounded by Chinese and I really have no idea how to speak Chinese. My parents put me there. Now, yes, I'm able to speak Chinese fluently, and I know a lot about their cultures, I even learn to say some offensive words (I don't recommend you use it though)
So, if you can live in Russia... my god... I don't guarantee tenfold progress... but it'll be much better because you'll be living 80% Russian and 20% (insert your nationality). Yes, you need to immerse in their culture.
If you're too patriotic or too proud of your culture that you don't want to let go of those. Sorry to say but you'll have a hard time learning fluency (I don't think it will be fun either)

If you don't have the money, like me. Try to google "FSI".

Don't be seduced into thinking that you can reach fluency in 7 days or less. No, it's long, it's hard, it require self discipline that's for sure. But I still think it's fun to learn foreign languages. I have no idea why, I know that I'll be pulling my hair trying to grasp the grammar (latin is so...), trying to improve my pronounciation (Darn you, Arabic!!)...

And it's better reading aloud 10 times than to read silently 50 times.

I think I'll stop here. This is a long reply... and very chaotic. I just type whatever I have in my head.
Sorry, it's just that, I love languages and I thought not many people appreciate it...

Thank you for reading, I derive great pleasure if this post help you

[mysticmadness]

The best way is to start thinking in that language. It will work wonders.

[brodyh]

Another hint is to change your web browser's default preferred language. Most browsers will let you choose which language you prefer to view websites in... and many websites will send you pages in the language you prefer rather than English. Unfortunately I haven't seen an easy way to do this in Safari.

[Gazi]

Originally Posted by rocksupreme

Definitely surround yourself with as much Russian as possible. Do you have satellite TV? Find the Russian channels and watch only them. I really mean only. You must force yourself.

Delete all the music from your iTunes (or archive it on a separate drive somewhere...) and download Russian music. Listen to it all the time. Buy books and comics in Russian (comics are extremely underrated for language study). Watch Russian movies - the classics and more modern ones. Search for Russian newspapers or find an online news site in Russian.

Most importantly, you have to find people to speak Russian with often. Look around your community. You may find a church service in Russian (even if you are not into religion, it can be a great way to become part of some community events and make friends - a lot of expatriates go to these churches for the social aspect rather than the religious, so don't worry about that). Find where Russian people eat and shop (ethnic food stores) around your town. Look at Craigslist for services and meet-ups aimed at Russians.

The key is to use as much Russian as possible as often as possible. Make it non-optional (i.e. don't allow yourself days where you just want to use English and take it easy). Write a journal in Russian everyday.

Seriously, there are a thousand things you can do to mimic immersion. Set up the systems and habits you need to put yourself on autopilot to make Russian your primary input/output. If you can do this, it will take you significantly less time to achieve reasonable fluency.

Good advice, it reminds me of Albert Einstein's quote "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

[rocksupreme]

Originally Posted by Gazi

Good advice, it reminds me of Albert Einstein's quote "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

I like that one too. Consistency is definitely a major key to success (with anything really, but especially with language).

[crescive]

I'm trying to learn a language too, namely Spanish from Spain. I've studied abroad there for 6 months so, of course, the immersion helped me tremendously. I'm going back to visit in May and have new found motivation to learn as much as I can before then so I can engage in conversations with people. I am still a bit nervous about my ability to carry a good, deep, intimate conversation. I think a good idea would be to make a script of the daily dialogue I have with people and then translate that to Spanish. Then practice this dialogue. I'm most interested in making friends and getting to know people therefore it's best for me to learn the vocabulary I need to accomplish this than to learn anything that might not be of use to me. I found out by learning and memorizing as many commonly used phrases and the dynamics of the language's dialogue to be tremendously effective.

[Apollo]

I am learning Spanish at the moment and can recommend the Pimsleur audio course...really good repitition based learning, also for a little more personal kind of course I can also recommend Michel Thomas learn spanish...I am finding Pimsleur easier to use personally however.

Either way a good audio course has taught me far more than 3 months of evening classes!

[Sivodna]

Thanks for the great replies. I download Pimsleur, on the recommendation here, and I have to say it's excellent. Far better than going through boring grammatical dissections of a language in a textbook (I don't give a damn about imperfective verbs and the dative case!)

To TerryHill, who linked me to the youtube link, I admit, I am very suspicious. The guy flicking through the book like that and absorbing it into his mind? Hmmm

Rocksupreme and Lemuria's posts are really good - thanks.

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

Look up "language" at Tim Ferriss' blog.

Very interesting, I'll check that out in detail later. I had a skim through it.



спасибо! (Thank you)

[sirkinm]

Originally Posted by Sivodna

Thanks for the great replies. I download Pimsleur, on the recommendation here, and I have to say it's excellent. Far better than going through boring grammatical dissections of a language in a textbook (I don't give a damn about imperfective verbs and the dative case!)

Yeah, I can't emphasize enough how superior Pimsleur is to every other language learning tool I've encountered. Besides immersion, it seems to be the best there is (though I'd be open to any other products).

[Apollo]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

Yeah, I can't emphasize enough how superior Pimsleur is to every other language learning tool I've encountered. Besides immersion, it seems to be the best there is (though I'd be open to any other products).

Yep, i've already recommended it but I have been listening to more pimsluer and it is WAY above anything else i've tried, In 1 day I am able to understand and enter at least one spanish conversation, because of how effective it is its having the side effect of keeping my motivation to learn very high because I KNOW i'm getting results!

Defo keep at it with the Pimsleur, and I wish you good luck with your learning!

[Adarius100]

The best way to learn a new language would probably be being around speakers of the particular language you wish to learn. This may not be possible, so you could take a course in that language. You could also teach yourself a few new words each day and review them all every day. You could try practicing with someone who knows the language to get the correct grammar, accent, tone, etc. You could also buy or borrow books and tapes of the language. Practice the things you've learned by reading, writing, speaking, and listening to that language.

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