[scotian]

(04-16-2012 08:11 PM)20Nation Wrote:  

I want to be close to native fluent in spanish and portugese. I'm conversational in spanish now, but I have some work to do til I'm completely fluent, after that I'm moving to brazil to work on portugese. I don't want to learn more languages simply because languages are massive things. And to master more than a few, takes a lot of upkeep throughout your life.

I'm on the same page, I don't know how those guys expect to conquer multiple languages, French was hard enough for me (and I still have a lot to learn). I'm just going to focus on my Spanish for the next few years, I'd like to learn Portuguese eventually (especially for future work opportunities) but languages are indeed massive undertakings, focusing on becoming fluent on one at a time is enough work and headache for me.

[Saladin]

(04-16-2012 02:05 PM)NuMbEr7 Wrote:  

DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T use Rosetta Stone, over hyped.
If you want to learn a language fast, you've gotta immerse yourself in that language which means you have to do as many things as you would do with your native language except in the language you want to learn i.e. listen to music, watch tv in the language, and most importantly SPEAK as much as you can

Dude the pronunciations are fucking hard. I just spent 15 minutes of massive frustration trying to say "du".

I need to get a speech therapist or something, my slight Indian accent is killing my ability to pronounce stuff in Spanish.

Now I know why my buddy said I had the worst french pronunciation ever.

[R Smoov]

Taking a basic french class in college now. The way they teach and test me pisses me off a bit.

I might just stick to learning Spanish again.

[Keyser Söze]

(04-16-2012 08:39 PM)urbannomad Wrote:  

Is it worth paying money for Rosetta Stone?

No, go to torrent.

It's a multi step process though (not hard at all), because you need to create or image a disk to use the .iso file, and you need to separately download the RS application and the relevant language you wish to learn.

[Keyser Söze]

(04-16-2012 10:39 PM)scotian Wrote:  

(04-16-2012 08:11 PM)20Nation Wrote:  

I want to be close to native fluent in spanish and portugese. I'm conversational in spanish now, but I have some work to do til I'm completely fluent, after that I'm moving to brazil to work on portugese. I don't want to learn more languages simply because languages are massive things. And to master more than a few, takes a lot of upkeep throughout your life.

I'm on the same page, I don't know how those guys expect to conquer multiple languages, French was hard enough for me (and I still have a lot to learn). I'm just going to focus on my Spanish for the next few years, I'd like to learn Portuguese eventually (especially for future work opportunities) but languages are indeed massive undertakings, focusing on becoming fluent on one at a time is enough work and headache for me.

I understand where you are coming from. For some people they just enjoy learning, some people have a specific cultural interest, other people are just retarded and waste a few months learning broken Mandarin when it takes at least a couple years of intense effort to get fluent.
A relevant point that Time Ferriss made is that most Western people of reasonable intelligence can master a romance language to 95% in 6 months or less of study and immersion, but that the remaining few percantage points can take many years.
I will probably never be as fluent in another language as I am in Spanish, as I formally studied literature and have lived in various Spanish speaking countries for about 5 years.

I'm really on the fence now about whether or not it makes sense for me to spend a massive amount of time learning Russian when I just don't want to live there. I have never been to eastern Europe or Russia, but my mental image is of a depressing place and culture, bad weather, etc.

It may come down to either French or Italian.

[Keyser Söze]

(04-15-2012 10:34 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Im currently learning Mandarin Chinese to become Trilingual. After that, I might opt for Italian or Portuguese, most likely Italian.


Can I ask why do you hate China and never want to go back?

1. Pollution.
2. Pollution.
3. Uncomfortable feeling of being in a military dictatorship where if something were to go wrong I can't just automatically buy my way out like in Latin America.

[mofo]

Learn

[Sargon of Akkad]

Currently, I speak decent Mandarin (i.e. I can spend a day conversing in the language without any considerable difficulty), but I'd like to become more fluent in the language.

I've been learning Japanese for several months, and I'd like to become conversational in that language.

Someday, I also want to take up Korean (I can only read Hangeul, but I no next to nothing about the language).

I'd also like to become conversational in one of the Romance languages I had in school: either Spanish or French (but not Latin).

[urbannomad]

(04-17-2012 08:18 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

(04-16-2012 08:39 PM)urbannomad Wrote:  

Is it worth paying money for Rosetta Stone?

No, go to torrent.

It's a multi step process though (not hard at all), because you need to create or image a disk to use the .iso file, and you need to separately download the RS application and the relevant language you wish to learn.

Thanks.....

[20Nation]

(04-17-2012 11:12 AM)urbannomad Wrote:  

(04-17-2012 08:18 AM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

(04-16-2012 08:39 PM)urbannomad Wrote:  

Is it worth paying money for Rosetta Stone?

No, go to torrent.

It's a multi step process though (not hard at all), because you need to create or image a disk to use the .iso file, and you need to separately download the RS application and the relevant language you wish to learn.

Thanks.....

I tried it for spanish for a while. I only lasted a week. It's ridiculously boring and repetitive. It doesn't teach you the reason behind the rules, it just shows you pictures and shows words. If you learn the best like that then go for it, but I like to understand the reason behind rules.

I started making headway on languages when I did things that are fun, like watching movies with subtitles, so I'd be enjoying the movie while reading the subtitles and seeing what i could understand and learn. Listening to music is fun, use google translate. And you can read ebooks in the language you want using babylon. When you don't know a word you just have to click on it, and it will show you the meaning. These are the fun ways to learn a language, and this is how I improved my spanish very fast. It was because studying was fun.

[OSL]

This is a good thread.

I want to reach fluency in the languages I already speak and add Portuguese and Thai to the mix.

[FretDancer]

Jesus, that looks horrible. Is that Shanghai? What about other places and provinces? Beijing? Guangdong?

[Keyser Söze]

(04-17-2012 10:10 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Jesus, that looks horrible. Is that Shanghai? What about other places and provinces? Beijing? Guangdong?

Big cities, of which there are dozens and dozens, are uniformly awful. I was shocked, as I had previously lived in both LA and Mexico City, and China was much much much worse by orders of magnitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

Bejing 1 day after rain vs. Bejing normally

[Sargon of Akkad]

(04-17-2012 10:21 PM)Keyser Söze Wrote:  

(04-17-2012 10:10 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  

Jesus, that looks horrible. Is that Shanghai? What about other places and provinces? Beijing? Guangdong?

Big cities, of which there are dozens and dozens, are uniformly awful. I was shocked, as I had previously lived in both LA and Mexico City, and China was much much much worse by orders of magnitude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

Bejing 1 day after rain vs. Bejing normally

I remember living on the eleventh floor in an appartment in Haidian District, Beijing. It took me about two weeks to realize that there were mountains in the background when looking out from the balcony...