OT: Learning a foreign language

[temery]

What is the best way to learn conversational French or Spanish?

 

[UConnSwag11]

What is the best way to learn conversational French or Spanish?

Other than being dropped off on the country there are tutors that can help. I know Rosetta Stone works well. Also, there are podcasts. I’ve been listening to an Italian podcast and it’s pretty good. You can watch movies with subtitles, shows, etc

 

[Fishy]

What is the best way to learn conversational French or Spanish?

Move to France. Or Spain.

Or download Duolingo on your iPad.

 

[Jaker]

^^^^^this

 

[WrenchFan69]

Duolingo and podcasts/YouTube is a good way to start. Study the language on paper and make sure to listen to it as much as you can. Once you're getting it, if you have Netflix it's great to put on a show in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. That way if you don't understand something they say you can read it and if you don't understand what you read you can pause it and look it up.

 

[8893]

Michel Thomas worked very well for me to learn enough conversational Italian to get around Italy for three weeks with my family. And it was necessary.

He did most major languages. It was a six CD set but I only used the first two discs and kept repeating them because they were all I needed.

He was the guy who taught the stars who needed to learn for movie roles.

 

[Samoo]

What is the best way to learn conversational French or Spanish?

All the people I know who learned the quickest have lived in a foreign country and started dating native language speakers with poor English. You just have to make sure they aren't trying to learn English from you at the same time, but don't go to Montreal or Quebec City to learn French.

 

[Leebo]

I've studied Japanese since 2013. I live in Japan. I use a combination of textbooks, apps, and just consuming native material. And I do have a Japanese girlfriend. It does make a difference in the opportunities to use the language.

Japanese has other issues that French and Spanish don't have for English speakers. I sometimes wonder what my ability level would be if I had chosen a language like those.

 

[MadDogRevival]

What is very helpful to me (Spanish) is to watch videos that have dual subtitles.
But I'd say a lot depends on your learning style - I have very little ability to hear words and separate them. I am good, however, at learning from written words. The dual subtitle allows me to match up what I'm hearing with the Spanish words being spoken, and also provides a translation, which saves time.

 

[MadDogRevival]

I sometimes wonder what my ability level would be if I had chosen a language like those.

I've heard that Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for a native English speaker to learn. Much respect.

 

[husky429]

Duolingo if you just want to travel a little and such

 

[Leebo]

True, it's different in many ways, but I do get thousands of loanwords for free. They really do love English loanwords in Japanese.

 

[temery]

but don't go to Montreal or Quebec City to learn French.

Why?

 

[UconnFanNVa]

I've learned minimal French without even trying because it is my wife's first language and she speaks it to our daughter half the time. When I'm in a French speaking country even if just got a week I feel like my French improves by a ton. So imo being around people that speak the language and practicing with them is a great way to learn.

 

[Kenny11]

Date foreign

 

[tzznandrew]

I'd get a book like

French for Reading or Spanish for Reading

and pair it with Assimil French or Assimil Spanish

And then, pretty quickly, you'll be able to supplement with newspapers (Le Monde or El Mundo) along with podcasts, etc. Duolingo is fun, but not particularly great. Same with Rosetta Stone. The Assimil series, if you use it, is quite good. But you really want to pair it with a lot of reading--newspapers or reading books in general--and listening.

 

[temery]

I'd get a book like

French for Reading or Spanish for Reading

and pair it with Assimil French or Assimil Spanish

And then, pretty quickly, you'll be able to supplement with newspapers (Le Monde or El Mundo) along with podcasts, etc. Duolingo is fun, but not particularly great. Same with Rosetta Stone. The Assimil series, if you use it, is quite good. But you really want to pair it with a lot of reading--newspapers or reading books in general--and listening.

I want to do it without having to read, and with as little effort as possible. Maybe I'll just watch Dora.

 

[Samoo]

Why?

Quebecois is 300 year old French from Normandy and the accent is all wrong. I learned my French in West Africa, which has its own issues, and the French French look at me with merciless pity when I randomly drop my articles

 

[husky99]

Hire a local to be your girlfriend for 9 months.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I'd get a book like

French for Reading or Spanish for Reading

and pair it with Assimil French or Assimil Spanish

And then, pretty quickly, you'll be able to supplement with newspapers (Le Monde or El Mundo) along with podcasts, etc. Duolingo is fun, but not particularly great. Same with Rosetta Stone. The Assimil series, if you use it, is quite good. But you really want to pair it with a lot of reading--newspapers or reading books in general--and listening.

Last word of your post is the key for the OP's "conversational" request.

Reading and writing only get you so far. Hearing the language spoke with the tempo, inflections, cadence and word combinations can only be done by listening and speaking.

 

[tzznandrew]

Last word of your post is the key for the OP's "conversational" request.

Reading and writing only get you so far. Hearing the language spoke with the tempo, inflections, cadence and word combinations can only be done by listening and speaking.

You get to conversational by having a wide vocabulary. Reading gets you a wider vocabulary.

My conversational Spanish is always at its peak when I spend time reading it.

But, if you look at the recommendations I gave, Assimil is all about speaking and hearing. That 20 minutes a night "listen, speak, read, repeat" work miracles. Much better than Rosette Stone, Duolingo, or anything...

 

[SubbaBub]

I want to do it without having to read, and with as little effort as possible. Maybe I'll just watch Dora.

The tinycards app is right up your alley. I like duolingo better that babble or rosetta but all of those are geared toward fluency and not so much conversational. They are best to get you to the point where you can read a newspaper. Gaining an ear for the language and mastering the inflections of the accent are much tougher. If this is for travel a phrase book along with key vocab words is best if you don't have a lot of time.

Focus on greetings, directions, please, thank you, sorry, welcome, and "I'm sorry, my ______ is poor. Do you speak English?

If you want to get fancy, learn the words you might see on a menu or say to a waiter. The best way to do this IMO is to find menus online from the country in question and use Google translate to figure out just what is being done to your chicken or fish.

Most everyone in the hospitality industry speaks some English, most better than some Americans.

 

[Travelman6]

duolingo will only take you so far and is chalk full of errors (once you use it enough I mean). I remember when I was practicing my French they would tell me I pronounced something wrong and my French gf at the time would respond "What? You pronounced that perfectly." This happened often so I would 100% not use it for speaking (and there is a way to turn that off too.) But to get the best results you really need to pay for a proper program or tutor or make friends with native speakers and just speak. The free ones are free for a reason, like duolingo.

Once you hit a decent level, I would even look into Achieve3000 (purchase for personal use, "homeschooling" I think, not for a school) as it basically sees where your reading level is and assigns you current news articles according to that (lexile). As you progress, the reading gets slightly more difficult allowing for lexile to increase which basically means you are capable of reading more complex texts. As far as I know it has English and Spanish but perhaps other languages are supported.

This is also awesome IXL Spanish | Online Spanish practice and you can sign up for a free 30 day trial. But I think you need to sign up as a teacher to get the trial version. But it is worth it.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

My sister took Spanish adult ed at Rockville Highs few years ago for the hell of it

 

[joober jones]

Rosetta Stone is a good way to go, but also taking in-person night classes can help. I've learned some more unusual languages (Estonian, Macedonian, some Urdu) where I didn't really have too many resources so I had to try to self-teach. It's successful to a point, until you try to start speaking it and realize you're emphasizing all the wrong syllables and don't understand any of the figurative language.