Putting El Mundo and Le Monde into my RSS reader was one of the best decisions I've ever made. However, if you're brand new to a language that isn't related to one you already speak, it's easier said than done.
Money CAN be an excuse, I'll admit. I was really swinging it when I purchased Colloquial Finnish. Nonetheless, I could stand to practice more of that study-your-ass-off thing.
I listened to cassettes while at an old job. I had to clean in the mornings, so I'd run a tape as I scurried about the dining room mopping floors and picking up trash.
In lieu of total immersion, I've heard from a couple reputable sources that falling totally butt-crazy in love with someone who barely speaks your native tongue (or doesn't speak it at all) is a hell of a motivation to learn their language.
Heinrich Schliemann of Troy fame was an INTENSE language learner. He traveled the world and made it a point to learn the local language wherever he was. What he did was constantly read aloud in his target language, regardless of whether he understood anything he said; studied daily for an hour at a time with a native speaker; kept diaries in the target language; wrote essays in the target language on subjects of interest to him, had them corrected by a teacher, then learning them by heart and drilling over the new information the next day. It obviously worked -- Schliemann learned Modern Greek in six weeks and then learned Ancient Greek in three months. English took him a whopping six months, during which time he memorized Ivanhoe, among other novels. Schliemann was kind of a maniac, though. This
( ... )
Comments 16
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Nonetheless, I could stand to practice more of that study-your-ass-off thing.
I listened to cassettes while at an old job. I had to clean in the mornings, so I'd run a tape as I scurried about the dining room mopping floors and picking up trash.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Heinrich Schliemann of Troy fame was an INTENSE language learner. He traveled the world and made it a point to learn the local language wherever he was. What he did was constantly read aloud in his target language, regardless of whether he understood anything he said; studied daily for an hour at a time with a native speaker; kept diaries in the target language; wrote essays in the target language on subjects of interest to him, had them corrected by a teacher, then learning them by heart and drilling over the new information the next day. It obviously worked -- Schliemann learned Modern Greek in six weeks and then learned Ancient Greek in three months. English took him a whopping six months, during which time he memorized Ivanhoe, among other novels. Schliemann was kind of a maniac, though. This ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment