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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask you how you learned a language and why?

46 replies

AntiqueSinger · 17/06/2018 16:41

Posting here for traffic and ideas really. I would like to learn a new language because I am in a bit of a rut and want to try something new and open up my world a bit. Children getting ready to go off to uni soon and I'll have more time. Also I think learning a language is a good skill in general (for social/travel reasons, and I believe some research suggests it may help fight cognitive decline, (and mine is definitely declining lol) and I also read being decent in a second language is going to be more important post-brexit, job wise. But I have no idea about where to start, or which language is feasible to become reasonably fluent in.

I started learning French in school 20+ years ago and got on well with it but was very ill at school had a lot of time off (severe Asthma) and was switched to Spanish which I just didn't take to. I've had a lot of muslim friends over the years and am fascinated by the middle east and fancy Arabic but lol everyone says it is the hardest language ever. I have also briefly in college had six weeks of German and have flirted with the idea of trying that. Apparently German will be one of top wanted languages PostB.

My memory is like a sieve and at my age I'm wondering how possible it is to learn a language well, without relocating, since its supposed to be better and easier when you're younger, so I would be especially interested in hearing from anyone who learned a language later in life.

A friend learned Yuroba and Spanish through her partners. She said she would never have learned either through any other method.

Please tell me your stories of how you acquired a foreign language. Was it through a lover? Friend? Work? Travel? Complete relocation? And some tips. Anyone had good results with any of the language apps? Rosetta Stone etc? Gold stars for anyone who is trilingual. Feel free to boast awayGrin

OP posts:
blitzen · 17/06/2018 17:57

I'd love to learn British Sign Language.

aaahhhBump · 17/06/2018 18:04

I'm trying to learn French. Have been working through doulingo.

My neighbour speaks 5 languages and used to teach at a language school. They suggested reading a series of books while listening In the language you are learning.

I'm going to read the Harry potter series while listening to the audio books in French.

DH is not a HP fan so is going to try it with the Dan Brown books.

ForalltheSaints · 17/06/2018 18:08

Met the DP and decided to learn their mother tongue so I could not be left out of conversations etc when visiting their country. Decided the only way was to have an intensive language course at a university in their country- was a bit strange as I was a lot older than the others on the course.

areyoubeingserviced · 17/06/2018 18:08

My dh is Spanish and ‘forced’ him to speak to me in Spanish.
My dc are all fluent and attend evening classes
I am fascinated by the French language and attend evening classes, watch YouTube videos. I am fairly fluent.
I am pretty good at picking up languages and know bits of different languages including Punjabi and Igbo which is a Nigerian dialect which I picked up at university as my flat mates were from different countries and I made them speak to me in their native language.

juneau · 18/06/2018 09:37

OpenLearn (free courses) via the Open University are pretty good if you want to get started from your computer at home OU language courses

hellokittymania · 18/06/2018 10:05

OK, I just learned my ninth for language, Greek, over the past year. I didn't even mean to learn it, I was afraid of the dentist and I had to get through many appointments. The dentist is Greek. Say no more. I am now a member of the Greek Blind Union, and since there are hardly any videos on visual impairment or disability in Greek on YouTube, I've been making them myself. A good way to use my Greek.

I would love to learn Arabic, if I could get my hands on some braille. Or on a very very good audio course. A few years ago, I had an Arabic braille book, but absolutely no English to go with it and I couldn't figure it out. I was teaching two Blind girls, one from the rock and one from Algeria, I was teaching them English, and they weren't very far along with their English, so we struggled with not being able to understand each other, and because I cannot actually read Arabic print, not even large print, I couldn't use online resources.

I speak German, I learned it in high school along with French and Spanish. I grew up in Florida, so had access to lots of Spanish speakers, Spanish TV, etc. My mother is friends, but friends is actually not my favorite language. It still is not one of my best. With German, I loved it, thankfully I had a German speaking neighbor.

I lived in Italy for three years, that's where my Italian really came along since I was planning on attending the interpreters university interest today and I needed a high school diploma in Italy. I spent One year at an Italian high school and I only had Italian friends.

I lived for many years in central Vietnam, so that's how I learned Vietnamese. I couldn't read it though, until only a few years ago when I could access large print on my iPad, iPhone whatever. There also is a YouTube channel with audiobooks in Vietnamese and the audio library for the blind is free and online in Vietnam.

The key is to keep practicing, when you're in the shower, having dinner, use the language as much as he can. As much as you can. There is so much material available on YouTube in terms of television shows, films, news, start out with kids tv if you need to. That's what I did with Greek. Also, look for interesting apps in the language does he want, I have a Greek crossword puzzle app and in the beginning, I also had a Greek fairytale app that used to read the books aloud. If you have a special interest in cooking, gardening, whatever, look for blogs and things in the language you want. You might not be able to understand everything, but little by little you will get better. It takes a lot of work to get good at something, but it's definitely worth it

NotUmbongoUnchained · 18/06/2018 10:09

Sorry I missed your post! Japanese, English, Mandarin, Russian, French and conversational German.

hellokittymania · 18/06/2018 10:14

Unchained, I think language number 10 may either be Russian or Japanese, or Turkish. There are plenty of Russians and Japanese in Vietnam, so I can go there to learn it with them. Southern Vietnam especially has a lot of Russians. The signs are in Russian not English, and a lot of the shop sellers speak Russian.

NotUmbongoUnchained · 18/06/2018 10:16

Russian is the hardest language I’ve learnt. In fact, if my husband wasn’t Russian and didn’t just talk at me in Russian all the time I would never have mastered it.

hellokittymania · 18/06/2018 10:22

Unchained, are you as good as speaking with reading? I tried to learn it a few years ago, but that backwards eat that also makes the SH sound if I remember correctly or S sound sound Didn't go over very well with my low vision. To sounds, but that letter looks exactly the same to me.

veggiethrower · 18/06/2018 10:31

Learned German using books including lots and lots of grammar workbooks and also moved to Germany.
I'm now learning Russian in a class and it's great. It helps to be with others and we chivvy each other along. I enjoy the social aspect of it as much as the learning.
Have a look at your local adult education centres and see what they are offering.

HungerOfThePine · 18/06/2018 10:37

I found the coffee break Spanish podcast was great they at are top of their game, they do other separate languages starting with coffee break(insert language) all free 20min long and it really helped. You listen to the teacher and learn along with their student with a range of accent and vocab tests along the way.
I started learning Spanish yrs ago but not on a serious level but did listen to the podcasts again and again for about a year I haven't completed their last series as its just that little bit too high a level for me but it was valuable.

I used Spanish comfortably on my trip to Spain last year which I was surprised with but it was a great confidence builder.

Memrise app is a good learning app without feeling like too much of a game like duo lingo imo.

As pp said, italki is great for language partners and finding a reasonably priced tutor, which iv started doing recently again and plan to keep up until August.

Also you can add a language to your phone keyboard in settings which you can easily switch on the keypad at anytime but recently I installed swift key onto my phone where it is intuitive and automatically switches languages based on what you are typing and suggest auto corrects/words along the way which is great as with the standard one you accidently send unintelligible texts to people sometimes without realising.

I have a friend who's native language is Romanian but grew up in Spain so fluent in Spanish and then fluent in French and English and he uses swiftkey for all those languages.

Will be going to a very non English speaking Spanish town in August to live with a Spanish teacher so will have the immersion experience even if for a short time.

Mostly go with what you will think you will enjoy the most and just do it, I have picked up titbits of other languages via netflix and my love of foreign productions.

I'd quite like to learn Turkish one day and probably and probably Italian as its close enough to Spanish to learn and probably won't be too hard once I've got to a high level.

HungerOfThePine · 18/06/2018 10:40

Sorry massive posts from meBlush.

Kindle books are also great for learning with short stories in your chosen language you can get them on your phone despite not being an amazon product.

As well as audible for the same stories.

BillywigSting · 18/06/2018 10:45

I learned Spanish by starting with duolingo then by talking a relative exclusively in Spanish. She's Irish originally but has lived in a Spanish speaking country most of her adult life and is fully fluent in a few languages. She's going to help me with Irish soon (I already have a smattering but not anywhere near conversational, tbh I don't have a great deal of hope for that one because it's insanely difficult

NotUmbongoUnchained · 18/06/2018 11:37

@hellokittymania at first I was better at reading than speaking, it took me a long time to get my mouth to make those sounds. But now my speaking is much better as I don’t ever really need to read it. I just talk to DH in it because he doesn’t really have any family and misses chatting in it.

Storm4star · 18/06/2018 11:44

I stayed in Tokyo for four months and went for intensive classes. It was tough but so much fun. Obviously I'm not fluent after 4 months but I was amazed at how much I did learn. Being able to go out and practice in the country was definitely helpful. If you can hear the language spoken around you it really helps to consolidate what you're learning. A 4 month trip might not be practical for you but if your children are going off to uni soon even 2-4 weeks in your target language/country can give you a good foundation and then you can continue to build on it back home.

AntiqueSinger · 18/06/2018 13:24

Definitely will check out the OU. And thanksUnchained for the cool idea regarding swiftkey.

Umbongo Japanese, Mandarin and Russian! Lol I can barely say the three of them sequentially without getting my tongue twisted. Impressed!

HelloKitty seriously. You make me feel like I haven't lived. Double StarStar It is interesting how the different relationships people form result in entirely new ways of communicating.

It's all very interesting. I am not so well travelled or connected, something I'm working on changing, so it is great reading other peoples stories. And it has been really helpful. I have more suggestions than I know what to do with! Definitely feel inspired to start tackling the Arabic albeit gently.

Has anyone learned more than one at the same time?

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FormerlyPickingOakum · 18/06/2018 14:10

I learnt my fourth language as an adult and am still learning it. It's been a good ten years or so of very regular work and use, and I'm still about a B2 on the common framework.

And I'm no stranger to foreign languages. I speak two fluently and worked as an ESOL teacher.

I learnt it because it's DH's mother tongue and we went out to live in his home country for a few years when first married.

It's a language that has very few resources for foreigner learning, so I'm always on the look out. I've even got a Netflix account set up in the target language so I can access audio and subtitles in the language. I can just about understand 75% of some cartoons for younger children. I also have the ability to talk to and check vocab with my Mil.

What I would say, in the first instance, is to read Fluent Forever, by Gabriel Wyner. The book looks at what we know, through research, about language learning.

Then I'd say to do a Michel Thomas in your chosen language. After that, get yourself on a proper course with a teacher who has a good grasp of English grammar and can explain grammatical concepts in your chosen language to you.

Just to add ... with something like Harry Potter, translations can often jump an age range. In my fourth language, the vocabulary used is more catered towards teenagers (because a lot of the objects and ideas Rowling writes about aren't common in that culture). And even then it's tricky for someone learning the language because, as a rule, you don't learn vocabulary for a magical and fantastic context. It took my an hour or more to read one page of Harry Potter in my fourth language and I had to constantly refer to a dictionary.

dingdongdigeridoo · 18/06/2018 14:28

Following with interest. I’ve wanted to learn Spanish for a while. Some family members will be moving over there soon, so I’ll be spending a lot of time in the country, and would love to be able to have basic conversations. Will check out the Duolingo app. Just worried that it has been so long since I’ve tried to speak another language - 15 years since GCSE French - that it’s going to be impossible!

AntiqueSinger · 18/06/2018 15:27

This was my worry too dingdong as I am past 40 now and have an illness that impairs my memory sometimes but I feel I can go for it now and the advice on this thread has helped me put my concerns to restSmile

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AntiqueSinger · 18/06/2018 15:29

So go for it!Smile

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