The Best Way to Learn a Foreign Language

[sonysmith]

[FONT=&quot]Hello, [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Today I want to ask you about a simple question that had been turning in my mind, and I do really want to know your opinion.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The question is: What is the best way to learn a foreign language –case of the English language- ? In other words if someone wants really to master the language is reading or speaking sufficient for him or not?!!! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For me as a learner I like to: read English books, listen to an English speaker and watch English documentaries. So is this sufficient for learning a foreign language ?!! [/FONT]

 

[ColinEssex]

[FONT=&quot]Hello, [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Today I want to ask you about a simple question that had been turning in my mind, and I do really want to know your opinion.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The question is: What is the best way to learn a foreign language –case of the English language- ? In other words if someone wants really to master the language is reading or speaking sufficient for him or not?!!! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For me as a learner I like to: read English books, listen to an English speaker and watch English documentaries. So is this sufficient for learning a foreign language ?!! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]inso.us[/FONT]

Your English seems very good, so obviously you are not American. Another good way to learn is to live and work in the country.

Col

 

[sonysmith]

ya Thanks for Your nice Reply...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Reading is good. Start with young reader material and work your way up to more adult fare. That will give you a sense of the written word.

Perhaps rent a few DVD movies intended for family viewing to include small children. For example, some of the old Disney classics. They will avoid complex and contradictory language uses.

Work your way up through general family viewing to stuff with PG13 ratings. When you get to R rated stuff, that will include lots of slang, colloquialisms, and the like. I'm suggesting rentals for all of those because if you come across an odd turn of phrase, you can look it up on the Internet and then go back to that part of the movie using scene selection to get the flow of the language for that phrase.

I've found that speakers of English as a second language have the greatest problem with alternate words for the same concept. We are talking about euphemisms here, plus idioms and double-entendres.

You might also wish to visit a library. Try to find old copies of a magazine called "Maledicta" - which was dedicated to presenting linguistic oddities and interesting linguistic comparisons between cultures.

Case in point: Maledicta once published an article given 117 ways to express the concept of having expelled gas from one's anus. In common language in English (very common), this is a fart. But even in English, there are literally dozens of ways to say this without using the pithy four-letter words. Some examples - all of them applying either to the verb or the noun ...

barking spiders
stepping on a frog
cutting the cheese (reference to smell)
passing gas
poot - often used as a child's nickname, particularly an infant
toot
rip; also "ripped your pants with that one"
"Thought I heard a moose"
let one out
one-cheek sneak
silent-but-deadly
quiet little ooze-out
ass whistle
fog horn
whoopee cushion without the cushion

You get the idea. It will be the colorful euphemisms that tell you a lot about a language. Once you understand the euphemisms, you will speak, read, and hear like a native. Probably better in some cases.

 

[Thales750]

Your English seems very good, so obviously you are not American. Another good way to learn is to live and work in the country.

Col

That's very interesting Col, it seems to me you're folks have been doing a real number on the language in the last few decades.

Are ya'll not teaching the Queens English in your schools lately?

 

[Thales750]

[FONT=&quot]Hello, [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Today I want to ask you about a simple question that had been turning in my mind, and I do really want to know your opinion.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The question is: What is the best way to learn a foreign language –case of the English language- ? In other words if someone wants really to master the language is reading or speaking sufficient for him or not?!!! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For me as a learner I like to: read English books, listen to an English speaker and watch English documentaries. So is this sufficient for learning a foreign language ?!! [/FONT]

Rosetta Stone of course.

 

[ColinEssex]

rip; also "ripped your pants with that one"

Be aware that the word "pants" means "an item of underwear" in the UK and a pair of trousers in the USA. See how the Americans have ruined our language?

As Doc is American, his first language is not the Queen's English, I suggest you try to get hold of UK published books and DVD's so as not to fall into those awful Americanisms that blight our language. Unless you plan on living in the USA of course, but that would not necessarily be a good plan. If you use Americanisms in the UK you will look rather stupid.

Josie - "Ya'll" is just lazy slang - not something to teach someone who wants to progress in English.

Col

 

[Brianwarnock]

Col how could you miss this

it seems to me you're folks have been

you're is an abreviation of you are, quite nonsensical in that phrase, it should be your.

Brian

 

[Rabbie]

From personal experience I can vouch for the technique known as "Horizontal Berlitz". Just find yourself a partner who is fluent in the language you want to learn.

Improved my swedish no end when I met the lady who is now my wife

 

[Brianwarnock]

Rabbie is correct I have a young relation who failed his gcse French but was speaking pretty fluent Chinese in no time as he had to get past the girls grandmother to date her. (The girl that is not the grandmother )
Nothing beats 1 to 1 tuition and a real need.

Brian

 

[Thales750]

Col how could you miss this



you're is an abreviation of you are, quite nonsensical in that phrase, it should be your.

Brian

I shall refrain from posting, until my morning coffee.

 

[Brianwarnock]

I shall refrain from posting, until my morning coffee.

LOL , Col can't use that excuse for missing it.

Brian

 

[ColinEssex]

I admit, I did miss it.

Oh, and if the person wants to learn correct English in the UK, then don't live north of the M4 corridor.

Bri - I heard the song "Sorrow" by The Merseybeats on the radio today, is the singer really singing "With your long blonde her and your eyes of blue"? Can you not say hair correctly in Liverpool?

Col

 

[ColinEssex]

From personal experience I can vouch for the technique known as "Horizontal Berlitz". Just find yourself a partner who is fluent in the language you want to learn.

Improved my swedish no end when I met the lady who is now my wife

I dated a German girl in the 60's when I had a flat in London, she lived opposite me in Hampstead - she was the full European foreigner, hairy armpits, spoke no English, brunette, stunning looking. Ahhh, memories. . . . . . .

Phew!!! need to lie down now, where's my GTN spray?

Col

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Be aware that the word "pants" means "an item of underwear" in the UK and a pair of trousers in the USA. See how the Americans have ruined our language?

Actually, "ripped your pants" and "ripped your panties" BOTH appear in American English for that particular euphemism. And as far as the Queen's English, I'm not THAT far off in my syntax or understanding of the "east of the big pond" variety of the language. If anything will ruin our language, it is the young folk who use text-speak because of the 160-character limit on messages. Or is that 140 characters? I don't have texting on my phone so I'm not sure.

 

[Thales750]

I knew a Japanese woman once. I don't recall learning a single Nipponese word.

But, as an American once said, “Ignorance is Bliss”. So why be wise?

 

[Brianwarnock]

I admit, I did miss it.

Oh, and if the person wants to learn correct English in the UK, then don't live north of the M4 corridor.

Bri - I heard the song "Sorrow" by The Merseybeats on the radio today, is the singer really singing "With your long blonde her and your eyes of blue"? Can you not say hair correctly in Liverpool?

Col

Hey it was her hair
or maybe they meant she was a tall fair skinned bit of stuff.

Brian

BTW The problem with living South of the M4 corridor is that nobody will talk to you.

 

[Brianwarnock]

But, as an American once said, “Ignorance is Bliss”.

Is that why the majority of Americans are happy.


Brian

 

[Thales750]

Is that why the majority of Americans are happy.


Brian

And why not?

 

[ChipperT]

Interesting that the entire world uses "English" as a near universal language - and it is American English in the majority of instances. So it appears when Britian lost the war, they also lost the language. Too bad.