Learning A Language Online

LeicesterLad

Has anybody learnt a foreign language online successfully? Either by just bitting and bobbing, or by following a strict tutorial? I'm quite interested in learning a little Dutch...

Cleat Eastwood

I love the dutch - basically because they speak better english than what I do. I've been bobbing in and out of learning it for about a year. I got a dodgy copy of rosetta stone but it was an old version and when I upgraded my comp it wouldnt work. There are a few on youtube including 2 bizarre guys whos names I forget, I used to pop on here

http://www.elanguageschool.net/dutch

What helped though was that 2 months of rosetta stone - just picking up simple phrases kind of attuned the ear.

het paard loopt

alanp23

I am learning Italian at the moment. Half hour courses on CD that are perfect to do in the car.

Good luck with the Dutch though.

My son does a Dutch Exchange through his football team and we have hosted twice. When you hear the kids talking to each other, it sounded like a collective and constant clearing of throats.

LeicesterLad

Cleat Eastwood wrote:

I love the dutch - basically because they speak better english than what I do. I've been bobbing in and out of learning it for about a year. I got a dodgy copy of rosetta stone but it was an old version and when I upgraded my comp it wouldnt work. There are a few on youtube including 2 bizarre guys whos names I forget, I used to pop on here

http://www.elanguageschool.net/dutch

What helped though was that 2 months of rosetta stone - just picking up simple phrases kind of attuned the ear.

het paard loopt

Thanks for the Link Cleat, did come accross that one last night and it looked half decent. Was thinking about getting the Rosetta software but didn't want to go buying software/books etc only to find in a months time i'm crap at it and give it up. (did French and a bit of German at school, was crap at both).

Just thinking how nice it would be to understand the end of season Sporza review...

Pep

My wife teaches Japanese via Skype. It seems it works well.

capt_slog

I bought the Greek introductory course by Michel Thomas.

This was a two CD set starter and quite good. Enabled me to order food on hols in Corfu, and I built up a bit more vocab from the internet from various places.

As a 'method', I'd recommend the Michel Thomas stuff, but you have to concentrate, I found it impossible to do in the car.

rick_chasey

You have to be prepared to put in the hours, consistently, to learn a language.

MattC59

I started to learn Italian a few years ago from a couple of courses I had for my ipod. They were pretty good, and I'm sure I looked an idiot in the car repeating various phrases, but my reasons for regularly going to Italy stopped so, unfortunately I let it slip.

Totally agree with Ricks comment, if you don't put the time in, and use it regularly, you may find it slips rather easily.

I like the idea of something Skype based as Pep mentioned.

Good luck with Dutch though, it's a bit of a nightmare (I have Dutch friends).

rick_chasey

MattC59 wrote:

I started to learn Italian a few years ago from a couple of courses I had for my ipod. They were pretty good, and I'm sure I looked an idiot in the car repeating various phrases, but my reasons for regularly going to Italy stopped so, unfortunately I let it slip.

Totally agree with Ricks comment, if you don't put the time in, and use it regularly, you may find it slips rather easily.

I like the idea of something Skype based as Pep mentioned.

Good luck with Dutch though, it's a bit of a nightmare (I have Dutch friends).

Nederlands is niet moeilijk.

Behalve de 'g' en de verschil tussen 'ui' en 'ij' (engels mensen kunnen vaak de verschil niet horen) Nederlands klint vergelijkbaar met engels.

Oh, en Nederlands heeft een andere woordvolgorde. Als je aleenmaar frans als en andertaal heeft geleerd, dan kan dat ook moeilijk zijn...


S'been a while since I've written Dutch. Assume that's about right.

(even for me, I need to live in Holland for a week or so before I get properly fluent again)

MattC59

Rick Chasey wrote:

MattC59 wrote:

I started to learn Italian a few years ago from a couple of courses I had for my ipod. They were pretty good, and I'm sure I looked an idiot in the car repeating various phrases, but my reasons for regularly going to Italy stopped so, unfortunately I let it slip.

Totally agree with Ricks comment, if you don't put the time in, and use it regularly, you may find it slips rather easily.

I like the idea of something Skype based as Pep mentioned.

Good luck with Dutch though, it's a bit of a nightmare (I have Dutch friends).

Nederlands is niet moeilijk.

Behalve de 'g' en de verschil tussen 'ui' en 'ij' (engels mensen kunnen vaak de verschil niet horen) Nederlands klint vergelijkbaar met engels.

Oh, en Nederlands heeft een andere woordvolgorde. Als je aleenmaar frans als en andertaal heeft geleerd, dan kan dat ook moeilijk zijn...


S'been a while since I've written Dutch. Assume that's about right.

(even for me, I need to live in Holland for a week or so before I get properly fluent again)

You're just showing off now

rick_chasey

Yeah, I am

It's a North European language right? So it's not going to be THAT far removed from English. The main difference at beginner level between say, learning French, is that France has a more comparable word order to English.

Dutch is a bit more Germanic so has a different word order. The most obvious being in the perfect past (think that's what it's called - not a linguist) the verb comes at the very end of the sentence.

John had at the grotty restaurant an amazing juicy smoking hot beefy burger with chips and mayo eaten.

That kinda idea.

MattC59

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah, I am

It's a North European language right? So it's not going to be THAT far removed from English. The main difference at beginner level between say, learning French, is that France has a more comparable word order to English.

Dutch is a bit more Germanic so has a different word order. The most obvious being in the perfect past (think that's what it's called - not a linguist) the verb comes at the very end of the sentence.

John had at the grotty restaurant an amazing juicy smoking hot beefy burger with chips and mayo eaten.

That kinda idea.

Verry Germanic sentence structure. I used to be good at German (I can still understand it, but don't' use it enough to speak it well now) maybe I should have a crack at Dutch. (or maybe not )

turn_left

Currently trying to learn Swahili and found online resources very helpful.

But, well for me anyway, the key really has been to talk in Swahili as much as possible. I learnt more Swahili at a two week intensive study course where we were speaking for around 4 hours a day, then in about 6 months of private study on my own. Made lots of mistakes but our teachers very patiently correct us and it was great (if knackering).

But having a solid base of vocab, grammer etc really helped things.

I would suggest finding a source of audio combined with a good work book/set of exercises.
Mix up your practice by practicing sounds, pronunciation, basic listening, conversations, reading comprehension etc.
Build up your vocab by trying to learn 10-20 new words a day via flash cards etc (when you have time).

And find a way to start having conversations with people, once you've gone past basic greetings.

Other learners can be good for practice but combine it with a good teacher who can encourage, as well as correct. Many people give lessons via skype etc so you don't necessarily need to travel to learn.

And others have said, you need to practice regularly (and I personally think, speak regularly) to really grasp a language.

Pross

Learning a foreign language? Are you mad? The whole point of being British is surely to assume that all those Johnny Foreigners speak English and, if not, resort to talking louder and more slowly until they do?

jc4lab

...

term1te

I think Dutch is a cross between German and bronchitis. If you can remember any German it should be easier to learn Dutch. A Dutch guy used the office next to mine for a while, and I could get the gist of his conversations from middling German.

rick_chasey

Term1te wrote:

I think Dutch is a cross between German and bronchitis. If you can remember any German it should be easier to learn Dutch. A Dutch guy used the office next to mine for a while, and I could get the gist of his conversations from middling German.

Pfft.

Hope you didn't say that to him!

MattC59

Pross wrote:

Learning a foreign language? Are you mad? The whole point of being British is surely to assume that all those Johnny Foreigners speak English and, if not, resort to talking louder and more slowly until they do?

thegreatdivide

I'm seeing a Dutch girl at the moment and I have loads of Dutch friends. They speak Klingon.

term1te

Rick Chasey wrote:

Term1te wrote:

I think Dutch is a cross between German and bronchitis. If you can remember any German it should be easier to learn Dutch. A Dutch guy used the office next to mine for a while, and I could get the gist of his conversations from middling German.

Pfft.

Hope you didn't say that to him!

You want to try Schwiizertüütsch, now there's a language that should be cured with a big dose of antibiotics.

Slack

Surely the only Dutch words one needs to learn are: 'how much' and 'slower'

nevman

My brother-in-law works for a Dutch company and was sent over for a team building exercise three months ago.It involved building sandcastles on a beach.Within five minutes he managed to cut a finger off-he`s now famous in Holland and they are fluent in Anglo-Saxon.