STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Lilykind · Hermes

learning new languages...best approach?

cc · Marc Jacobs

I think it depends on how you learn best and how good your language skills are. I'm terrible with foreign languages, especially conversation, and because it's really a struggle I get frustrated too easily to commit to learning on my own. I'm also more motivated to work on a language when I have set deadlines, like weekly homework assignments, and when I'm paying for a class.

A few years ago I took Italian classes and I'm going to start up again in the fall. I didn't think it was at all difficult to do it while working full time. If you look into Continuing Ed programs at local colleges or at language schools you should find classes that are geared towards people who aren't full time students - classes will be at night or on weekends once or twice a week, etc. Finding a place for French should be easy. I'm pretty sure Alliance Francaise has a branch in LA. My coworker has been taking classes at the NY chapter for a year and he really likes it.

relrel · Marc Jacobs

Here's my take on it-

The French you could probably learn reasonably well from the CD's, but never be fluent unless you were in a class where you were forced to speak only French. The two Chinese will be incredibly difficult learning from a CD because of the different tones in the language, I think that you can only get a reall good experience learning how to (what's the word?) speak the tones without being with an actual teacher. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if Japanese uses tones or not, but if it does, I would say the same applies.

The Spanish is probably best with a CD because you are only brushing up.

The Thai- how much do you remember? Perhaps make friends with the waitress at your favorite Thai place so you can hang out with her and chat?

I would probably attempt the Spanish or French first because they might be the easiest and it would be the fastest way to get your brain back into language-learning mode. Reward yourself with Mandarin or Cantonese classes later, but you might need to take classes more than once a week. I actually was an almost-Asian studies major in college but couldn't fit the lang requirements in because Mandarin was everyday for two hours! Not gonna work on a working student's schedule.

Oh- one more thing, I've heard that Cantonese is better to learn because most Chinese immigrants to the United States speak Cantonese only; that Mandarin is a waste of time unless you will be actually spending time in Northern China. Not sure how true that is, but that's what we were told way back in my undergrad days.

bumblebee · Coach

i'm taking a japanese class right now, and i love it. it's an evening class, and it's at a little expatriate-japanese community school (as opposed to a night-school junior college setting). i like that because it is low-pressure and a lot more of the culture is a part of the classes. you could google "japan society" and see if there is one in LA--i would bet that there is, somewhere in little tokyo in downtown. they would be able to refer you to some different options. i think japanese would be really hard to learn from tapes. though it isn't tonal like chinese, there are three separate alphabets of characters, so it's pretty complicated.

are you interested in learning to read and write, or more just conversational? one of the character sets in japanese (kanji) was originally borrowed from cantonese, so if you are going to learn both languages, you will kill two birds with one stone!

as for the french, there is an alliance francaise in LA (i think it's on Robertson, or it used to be anyway). they offer classes, speaking practice groups, cultural events--all kinds of stuff. i'd start there for sure.

halleybird · Hermes

At work, we've been inundated with language-theory stuff, and the research seems to say that immersion is the best way to learn. Your brain learns language in this order: listening-speaking-reading-writing, so a program that teaches you in that order is most effective. The foreign-language dept. at our school uses complete immersion, and the kids are conversational in Spanish or French after the first year. It's pretty awesome. So I'd look into classes that are conversational or immersion/real-world based rather than the way I was taught (verb-conjugation, vocab memorization, etc.)

Farrah · Marc Jacobs

I have heard amazing things about Rosetta Stone. The State Dept uses it to train their employees that have no exp in a language and in 6 months they are fluent. I am going to do it to learn Spanish and Italian.

scarlett · Marc Jacobs

The only foreign language I know is French, and for a time I was fluent in it. I can still navigate a French-speaking country or city and have a conversation with someone, but I'm not as good as I was back when I studied and did my semester abroad. That said, the way I got fluent was through immersion, or as close to immersion as it was possible. For a while I had one-on-one lessons with a friend's mother who's French, and then my teacher in school was insanely demanding. It was a pain but it paid off.

So if I was looking to learn another foreign language, I would take a class that met regularly, and also spend some time listening to music and watching movies in that language, and even attempting to read books in it too. For French, I read Asterix and Obelix to start (French cartoon characters) and then moved up to a young adult level book that wasn't too overwhelming, although I did need my dictionary on hand! It'll all about practice, practice, practice.

jacks435 · Kenneth Cole

I noticed this thread and had to comment... Lilykind, I am starting French classes next week! I already speak Spanish, and like you, I have ambitious goals to be trilingual (or more) in a certain number of years.

I'm a little intimidated, but my plan is to attend weekly classes, rent as many DVDs as I can, and try to listen to French as much as possible (while commuting, etc.) -- like Scarlett said.

So basically, I don't have any new advice to offer... but just had to comment on the coincidence! Good luck with your language process, whichever way you choose.