Language Learning
Oh, fellow non-mono-linguists. I need your help.
I hate 'studying' a language. It makes me sick. Tedious grammar combined with rote memorization of useless vocabulary all presented by a teacher who hasn't been abroad in the last 20 years. I'm still surprised that I passed my English classes.
Of course, when grammar is ignored - called 'natural learning' - and the teacher is a sexy brunette, the class is full. Full of horny adolescent boys all having one thing in mind. No, its not learning Spanish (maybe some French, but that's another story). But they all used their non-existent language skills to get her attention. Again, how I passed the class I don't know.
Or, lets go with completely ignoring school and its system and learn the language simply by being in the country. Wait, there was something like being able to read. And no, age four I wasn't able to read in any language. Great, the words I learned then, I speak without an accent. Since then my Polish became infused with a horrible German and English accent. Its really an either or thing - strange I know. Conversations in Polish are ..., well I have no problem whatsoever to understand conversations.
Oh, my dear Russian. I was ready to learn it. I promised myself nobody could kill my love for the Russian language. How naive of me - I met her, the devil of languages. Don't get me wrong, she was by far the best language teacher ever. She could explain you even the tinniest detail in the language, tell you the pronunciation of the rarest word, and better, she could make you write Cyrillic in less then a month (no, languages was not the focus of this university). And she also could kill any love for the language.
How did I still manage to be able to communicate in three out of four languages (9 years of Spanish, my hatred for this languages hasn't yet diminished)?
Immersion, the only technique which ever really worked for me. Read it, speak it, hear it, talk it. There is no other way around, I believe.
English, Polish and Russian - all three worked this way. But because of this I need your help,
Angliccky i Polcki ya magu ychitcya Bene (Mama iz Polce), no Rycckiy trudno uchitcya zdec. Poetamu ya vac cprashubayu, vi znaete ceuti v internete gde ya magu download audioknigi ili filmi? I yesli tak, kakie audioknigi ili filmi kharoshie? Kakie bam panravitcya? Audiokniga u menya tolka Kashtanka, Rucckie DVD: Nozhnoi Dozor i Dzebnoi Dozor. Kak bidite, mne vco ravno kakou Genre, tolko parusskie nada bit.
Cpacubo za pomug.
Thinking back how I learned English, and Polish and Russian it was always be being surrounded by the language. I would look in the grammar books, don't get me wrong, but it never was to 'study'. Only to understand some aspect of the language which confused me. In fact, I still try to learn a language this way. But if not living in the country, immersion becomes much harder. Hence, my request for some Dolby Surround.
How does any of you learn a language? How do they teach it in other countries?
I hate 'studying' a language. It makes me sick. Tedious grammar combined with rote memorization of useless vocabulary all presented by a teacher who hasn't been abroad in the last 20 years. I'm still surprised that I passed my English classes.
Of course, when grammar is ignored - called 'natural learning' - and the teacher is a sexy brunette, the class is full. Full of horny adolescent boys all having one thing in mind. No, its not learning Spanish (maybe some French, but that's another story). But they all used their non-existent language skills to get her attention. Again, how I passed the class I don't know.
Or, lets go with completely ignoring school and its system and learn the language simply by being in the country. Wait, there was something like being able to read. And no, age four I wasn't able to read in any language. Great, the words I learned then, I speak without an accent. Since then my Polish became infused with a horrible German and English accent. Its really an either or thing - strange I know. Conversations in Polish are ..., well I have no problem whatsoever to understand conversations.
Oh, my dear Russian. I was ready to learn it. I promised myself nobody could kill my love for the Russian language. How naive of me - I met her, the devil of languages. Don't get me wrong, she was by far the best language teacher ever. She could explain you even the tinniest detail in the language, tell you the pronunciation of the rarest word, and better, she could make you write Cyrillic in less then a month (no, languages was not the focus of this university). And she also could kill any love for the language.
How did I still manage to be able to communicate in three out of four languages (9 years of Spanish, my hatred for this languages hasn't yet diminished)?
Immersion, the only technique which ever really worked for me. Read it, speak it, hear it, talk it. There is no other way around, I believe.
English, Polish and Russian - all three worked this way. But because of this I need your help,
Angliccky i Polcki ya magu ychitcya Bene (Mama iz Polce), no Rycckiy trudno uchitcya zdec. Poetamu ya vac cprashubayu, vi znaete ceuti v internete gde ya magu download audioknigi ili filmi? I yesli tak, kakie audioknigi ili filmi kharoshie? Kakie bam panravitcya? Audiokniga u menya tolka Kashtanka, Rucckie DVD: Nozhnoi Dozor i Dzebnoi Dozor. Kak bidite, mne vco ravno kakou Genre, tolko parusskie nada bit.
Cpacubo za pomug.
Thinking back how I learned English, and Polish and Russian it was always be being surrounded by the language. I would look in the grammar books, don't get me wrong, but it never was to 'study'. Only to understand some aspect of the language which confused me. In fact, I still try to learn a language this way. But if not living in the country, immersion becomes much harder. Hence, my request for some Dolby Surround.
How does any of you learn a language? How do they teach it in other countries?