How Easily Do You Learn Foreign Languages?

[Batman]

I’ve dabbled in several foreign languages, but I’m most proficient in Spanish and Chinese. I consider myself fluent in the first and passable in the second.

I actually think learning L2s and beyond are quite easy, as long as I devote myself to the task and practice all the four core skills every day. The romance languages are quite easy to learn, and if you can master the verbs, the rest of the grammar is quite simple. Chinese is very different from the romance languages. There are virtually no cognates and the grammar can be quite foreign to Latin-based language speakers. The most difficult aspects of Mandarin are the pronunciation and reading and writing. The Chinese Hanzi system is nothing like the Latin alphabet and requires many years of study to become proficient. The pronunciation is quite unique, as Chinese is a tonal language, meaning every syllable has a specific intonation. However, while a lot of students complain about the tones, I find them quite enjoyable. I’ve been told I have excellent Chinese pronunciation, and I think as long as one practices, it’s possible to become proficient with native accents.

Anyways, I can learn foreign languages relatively easy as long as I devote a lot of time to the learning process. Even difficult languages like Chinese.

There’s quite a bit of controversy as to the best way to learn a foreign language. Many swear by the strict grammar based teaching and the same goes for strict immersion teaching. Personally, I think the best method is to combine the two. It’s sad to say, but statistically, foreign language teachers in the United States are sub-par when it comes to teaching. This is the reason why so many students fail to gain a sufficient level of proficiency with the language. If one is lucky however, like I was, and you have a good teacher who has studied linguistic acquisition, you’ll succeed as long as you study hard and practice daily.

 

[EeveeChan]

Hmmm. I guess it really depends how often I use it outside of school. I'm currently in my 3rd year of Spanish & doing pretty well actually. It's just that I dont know anyone who speaks fluid spanish other than my spanish teacher, so sometimes I forget verbs you cant normally conjurgate (did I spell that right?) For example, Gustar (it means "to like") isnt a normal verb, so you have to use me,te,se...umm i forget the rest of it, instead of yo,tu etc. But the minute I walk into the classroom, I'll remember it.

 

[zellinkda]

learning a language... it really depends on what language it is. If I really have a desire to learn the language, it may be a little easier for me, however, seeing as I don't have an abundance of time as I used to, it's not always an easy thing to do. languages are highly complex, from spanish to...oh I don't know, dutch or something. ( can't think of a really difficult language )

 

[Wolf Sage]

I can speak English surprisingly well - well enough to be understood by most people. My mom says that by the time I turned two years old, I had already had a large vocabulary. I am not that great at speaking anything aside from English, though; maybe a bit of Spanish...