Learning foreign languages

[Bendy]

I did French at school like everybody else, and on a recent trip realised that while I remember a bit, I'd struggle to order dinner, let alone have a conversation with anyone.

Has anyone got any recommendations of good ways to learn basic conversational languages? There's a lot of 'teach yourself' courses out there, anyone tried them? I always had success with computer-based stuff for just learning words but it doesn't mean I can string a sentence together.

To make life harder, I'm kinda looking to be able to handle the very basics in French, Spanish and German with about 18 months to learn.

[JonB]

The Nintendo DS has a few language games that help you learn a language, could be worth a shot.
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[Clanger]

Find someone who speaks these languages, and visit them and ask them to do nothing but speak in one of them, ask you questions etc.

Get them to engage in conversation, and write down key phrases, write down the true sentence, and write next to it how it's said phonetically.
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[hellkat]

I used to find that watching tv programmes in Italian kept my level of Italian reasonably non-rusty (providing it wasnt just hysterical gameshows) - I used to try to listen to the news, which makes it easier to pick up what they are saying, as often its stuff that is global so you know some of the words already.

I used to occasionally pick up a copy of Corriere Della Sera to try and improve my Italian reading as well.

Other thing to do is spend time where native speakers hang out, I suppose it might be easier to do this right in the middle of London, but it is one way of picking bits of odd language. I used to sit outside the Italian Embassy and listen to people talking, or hang out in the Italian Tourist Office in my lunch hour, and just stand and read brochures whilst the office staff were on the phone jabbering away interesting what you learn when you're learning a new language
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[MarJay]

Which language would you like to learn? The key is to immerse yourself in the language and speak it as much as you can. Learning as they teach you in school doesn't work as well as actually just doing it IMO.

I go to Belgium a lot and I've picked up more french just being there for a few weeks than I ever did at school. And the majority of the people I speak to actually speak dutch!

Although, Dutch is quite hard and I didn't pick very much of that up!

I've also been going to Germany, and I did more German at school than I did french, and I can pretty much hold my own in conversation now. And most people there speak to me in English!
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[Annabella]

I would heartily recommend an extended holiday in the country which speaks the language you wish to learn. Personally, I learnt far more Russian (and useful Russian, none of this "I like to play hockey and my dad is an engineer... ah, look it's raining" bollocks) staying over there than I did in five years' of lessons.

Kind of rules out Latin though
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[The Shaggy D.A.]

Just speak in English, but at twice the volume. Foreigners are known to understand this, although they may pretend not to.

DOUBLE EGG AND CHIPS!!!
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[hellkat]

[Clanger]

[steppen22]

I speak a little French, Spanish and Italian. I intend to teach myself Russian next year.

I'd recommend Michel Thomas, actually (check mininova.com for downloads). He's one of the best tutors and if you follow his methods you should be speaking basic SENTENCES within weeks.

Don't think, though, that you can learn a language without hard work - don't waste your time with "learn French while you drive - without any effort at all!" cds. Don't think that you can learn a language during the commercial break of your fav tv show. You can't.

The secret, really, to learning any language is TO LEARN THE FUCKING GRAMMAR. Why? Becuase knowing the grammar enables you to make an educated guess at the words you need. The active vocabulary for european languages is very small - about 600 words. Think about that. Day in, day out, for your entire life, you've been only using about 600 English words for all of your needs. Now if you learn say, 600 French words - and YOU KNOW HOW TO PUT THESE IN GRAMMATICAL CONTEXT - you'll be able communicate to quite a high standard. But if you know 10,000 French words, but have no understanding of grammar, you'll be the equivelent of a speaking clock.

The good thing to bear in mind is YOU ALREADY KNOW 100's of Spanish, German, etc words. How come? 'Cos European languages have the same roots - all you need to know is the different pronunciations.
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[The Shaggy D.A.]

This is a good post from Tim Ferris, author of "The 4 hour work week" :-

https://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/11/07/how-to-learn-but-not-master-any-language-in-1-hour-plus-a-favor/
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[Moonie]

My grandad was a translator for the army for years, he speaks all sorts, and he said the reason I wasn't learning as fast as I should have been at school is that I only spent 3 hours a week max in Spanish lessons. I always wanted to learn Russian for some reason, I started learning a couple of weeks ago, and because I'm spending at least an hour a day on it I'm picking it up so much faster than I did anything at school.

Obviously you might not have time for that, but make it as regular as you can.

Also, as soon as you can do a fair bit (sounds like you already can) try to think of absolutely everything you do in french, it just helps you form sentences and remember vocabulary more readily.
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[petko17]

I speak Slovakian ( my first language), Czech ( bit similar to Slovak), Polish, Russian, Spanish and English.
I can say english is the easiest one, because you can find it everywhere. Im rubbish at grammer but i can understand what poeple saying and if i dont want to i can make an excause that i dont understand, lot of times it helpt me from troubles An usually people understand me....not always
With english and spanish the best is playing games, watching movies, even if yo dont understand the word, still read the books etc, try to learn in the same time from dictionary, i just open dictionary and i will learn the whole page, all the words etc. If you will have an idea that some words exist and then you will find it in your book ( where are you learning from) it will be much easier to remember. I also speak german but not very well.
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[MarJay]

[baby_gal]

Michel Thomas is pretty good, I have the Spanish one and on amazon theres people selling Spanish, Italian, French and German Foundation courses for less than half the retail price.

He teaches you the grammar of how words are made so even if you dont know the word you can make a fairly accurate guess at it. You do have to dedicate some time to it though and give it your concentration otherwise like all other language courses it just won't work.
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[hellkat]

[bazza]

[instigator]

[karen_moomin]

For the last year I have been learning German. I had no previous experience as did not do it at school. I have been learning via college one evening per week, Michele Thomas CD's and lots of practice (I work for a German company so practice my written skills daily, and get to go to Germany regulary).

I can HIGHLY recommend Michele Thomas as others have, he helps you with sentence structure and I've learnt a great deal from him. It's more than just normal learning common phrases, he actually teaches you how to think, so you can put basic sentences together.

I have found the hardest thing actually having the confidence to speak German when I'm over there. I enjoy writing it and learning it, but when faced with a situation I shit myself. I can tell people that I only speak a little German and to speak slowly, but if you don't know the words they are saying to you, you're pretty stuck. The best conversations I've had have been with non-english speaking people, so you have to muddle your way through. There's no cheating!

I intend to be fluent in 5 years, but it's much, much harder than I realised!!

Wo ein Will ist, ist auch ein Weg!

Good luck!!

PS. Also something which is really helpful, is start watching foreign DVDs with subtitles.