Does anyone have any ideas when it comes to learning languages?
I have been trying to learn english, which we had at school, so I got some help there __{{emoticon}}__

Anyway, the last few years, I have been looking and trying to learn some basic german.
Anyway, I never seem to find the time, to just sit and work with it, which I believe is my biggest problem.

So I am looking for different ways people have used to learn?

I have used michel thomas cd's in the truck, which has helped me a lot, but it won't get me to where I need to be.

I have the foreign service institute course, which should be good, but I have the time problem again... I relly have to sit down and work with it.

All I want to do, is be able to talk to a german speaker, and understand/be understood, and write basic stuff well enough.

So..... do you guys have any comments? Other than move to Germany?

Listen to radio broadcasts/tv in German, maybe on-line German tv stations.
The BBC has a learning English section, maybe the German equivalent has one too?

IMO as much contact with the language as possible is the most important.

My tex/mex spanish (I can curse pretty good) I learned from the barrio and
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url was:"http://www.rosettastone.com/demo"
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Hmm, dw.de has some things...

I agree that I need to be exposed to the language as much as possible,
but I wonder if I don't need a bit more of the basics, before I get to the point where I can learn (somewhat efficiently) from (for example) radio?

I guess tv would be better, as I can see what they talk about?

I am going to look at the r/s demo later... It might be useful enough to get me going.

Thanks for your comments!

When i was 30+ years old, and i decided to learn English.
I started by reading books, one page a day, translating all and everything with a dictionary.
That was good, but exhausting, and i learned a lot words i would never need.

So i decided to buy myself audio-books (very cheap). They usually came with text. That was a bit better.

Then i bought myself a TV and a DVD player, and watched all films from the library, in English with German subtitles (Later i replaced German subtitles by English subtitles).

Then i got a PC, and when i switched to Gnu/LInux, after 3 months, i decided to install in English. That helped a lot
(otoh i mainly know PC related words, and some of them i barely know in German. Very strange)
You can easily switch the system language on an already installed system (back and forth, day in, day out).

If you like make thread in the German section of the antix forum. I will try to answer easy. If that works well check out the German forums (debian, siduction, aptosid, ubuntu, etc. You can't speak worse German than most of them do... probably no one will recognize at all).

In diesem Sinne: Tschüss

I did a bit of reading on the German debian forum... And I think I get most of it.
I like model trains too, so I guess I should find some more german forums, and just read...and read...and....

I am still not able to write a good sentence, but I think I will get there after a while.
I guess understanding some text is a good first step!

Thanks again people!

rust collector wrote:I have used michel thomas cd's in the truck, which has helped me a lot, but it won't get me to where I need to be.

I've been using audio cds (Pimsleur) to learn Japanese. I repeat each one over and over. In addition I have other tools such as dictionaries and flash cards. I use each audio lesson as an inroad into learning how to read and write as well. In fact, it is much easier for me to grasp the spoken language when I also learn how to read and write the words involved. This directly contradicts the Pimsleur method. Oh well.

I think there is a web site that allows you to learn from a native speaker and you teach someone else your own language in exchange. I plan to do this eventually but I want to complete many more audio lessons first.

My theory is that consistent exposure is what helps the language naturally sink in. Perhaps I'm a slow learner but I feel like I've gotten a lot out of repeating cds until I can master both the vocabulary and the accent. There is often some"homework" invloved when I start a new cd and I figure out the spelling of all the new words.

I felt I had to tailor my self-teaching in a way that is optimal for me. You may have to tailor things differently for yourself because I think we each learn best in different ways. I am much more visual than aural which is why reading and writing helps me learn the spoken language and may be why I need to repeat the cds a lot. It is a real challenge for me which is what keeps it interesting. Find out what works best for you.

I think I agree with everything you said!
Just have to adjust things to"my way", I suppose.

How do you like the pimsleur set? Do you think it would cover most of the basic needs one would have, if you did it as it should? I mean, is there enough words??
I have heard good things, but as you say, people(on the language forums I have been reading) seem to like to have something written to do at the"same" time.

Thanks for your comments people!
I will just keep trying...Something has to stick in my brain.

rust collector wrote:How do you like the pimsleur set? Do you think it would cover most of the basic needs one would have, if you did it as it should? I mean, is there enough words??

I really like the Pimsleur set. I think it was designed intelligently. They have two different native speakers saying basically the same sentences which helps because they have different accents. They will often have words you might confuse in the same lesson which IMO helps avoid confusion. I also like the way they gradually ramp up the complexity. It was well thought out. I got a good deal on the first 16 lessons. I've gone through the first 8. You can now download lessons from their site in mp3 format which is a better deal than the cds price-wise. There are a total of 60 Japanese lessons available each about 1/2 hour long.

I think you would need to do a lot of work outside the lessons to really get the most out of it. I certainly had to. I also think you hit on the weak spot: they are short on vocabulary but that is completely a function of the limited time. There is a trade-off between learning a smaller vocabulary well and learning a larger vocabulary poorly. Pimsleur took the approach of learning a smaller vocabulary well which I think is the right choice. I've seen a couple of accounts of Westerners living in Japan who used the Pimsleur lessons and were happy with the choice of material that Pimsleur made. They didn't mention Pimsluer by name but I could tell because they were talking about the phrases that I was currently learning.

IMO even after completing all 30 hours of Pimsleur lessons, I will still need to do more work in order to be able to communicate well. The real question is: are those 30 hours (or for me, more like 300 hours) worth it? For me, they are well worth it. I also bought a textbook but I only did one chapter out of it. I made much more progress with the audio lessons because I could fit them into my schedule. I do hope to circle back and eventually work through the textbook as well, specifically to enlarge my vocabulary. I'm not focused so much on where I will be when I'm"done". I'm much more interested in making good use of my time now.

My biggest complaint is that it is very expensive, although of all the language materials I've bought, I got the most bang for my buck with the Pimsleur lessons (but this might partly be because I'm a slow learner). Most language learning materials are expensive which is a real shame. The world would be a much better place if more people were fluent in mulitple languages. I hope someday there will be great Free and Open language learning materials available. It is crazy that they don't exist now. There is some free stuff available but the quality is very uneven.

I think the first Pimsleur lesson in most languages is free so you can get an idea of what they are like. I was lucky enough to find a transcript someone made of the lessons I'm learning which really made things a lot easier for me. Pimsleur tries to get these taken down because it violates their approach to learning. I'm lost without a transcript and I was making my own when I finally found one I could download. I need to see the words before I am able to really hear them. This might have been less of an issue if I was learning a European language.