self-teaching a language

[jarrod]

a couple weeks ago i started a self-study of scottish gaelic. fortunately there are a lot of free web resources out there aimed at the beginner, because there aren't a lot of gaelic teachers around. so far i'm in just far enough in to understand what a heavy task i've undertaken, but i love it & don't plan on stopping.

has anyone else tried to or succeeded in self-teaching a language? what challenges did you run into? any advice for me?

thanks,

jf

 

[Todd]

There's a great book by Barry Farber on that subject...

http://language.bin.org/FXM/farber.htm

 

[jarrod]

thanks! looks like an interesting book & similar to the approach that i'm using now. i will add that to my list.

jf

 

[MJS]

a couple weeks ago i started a self-study of scottish gaelic. fortunately there are a lot of free web resources out there aimed at the beginner, because there aren't a lot of gaelic teachers around. so far i'm in just far enough in to understand what a heavy task i've undertaken, but i love it & don't plan on stopping.

has anyone else tried to or succeeded in self-teaching a language? what challenges did you run into? any advice for me?

thanks,

jf

I took some basic French and Spanish when I was in high school. A few of my family members know some Italian. I used to work with a few guys that spoke Spanish. Out of everything, I remember no French. The Spanish and Italian is what stuck with me the most. Can I carry on a conversation with someone? No.

Self teaching is like learning the martial arts from a book....you're going to pick up a few things, but the overall quality isn't going to be that good IMHO. I've heard good things about this. I was in a local mall with my wife a few months ago. There were a few kids manning a booth, selling this program. Its pretty expensive, but he spent some time with me showing me how it worked. It is self teaching and I'm sure you'd pick up more with this program vs. a book, due to the fact that the program corrects what you're saying, if its wrong. If I pick up a book and try to say something, I'm not going to have any idea if I'm saying it right. With this program, it will tell you.

Of course, having someone to converse with is a big help. Just like any language, if you're around it alot, the better chance of actually picking up the words. My wifes cousin married a guy who was born in Mexico. They have 2 kids. All of them can carry on a convo. in the native language.

Good luck in your adventure.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

MJS points you in a good direction with Rosetta Stone. Many, many people have found it useful to get up to a rudimentary level quickly.

Learning a language on your own is probably not impossible if you have the right characteristics for it. Still it is probably fraught with lots and lots of difficulties and may be in the end the standard of speaking you will acquire will not be that great.

All of my friends that speak Japanese self taught themselves for awhile but the ones who eventually succeeded in speaking the language fluently were the ones who went to school for it!

Good luck!

 

[Sukerkin]

Brian is utterly right when he points out that in the long run we all need a teacher. My learning of Japanese has stalled for the very reason that I don't have a teacher at present . Also, having someone to practise with is very important. It's motivating for one thing and you also can help each other climb over any 'rocks in the road'.

Aside: My Japanese language guide, Hitomi, found that real life got too busy for her to carry on the 'distance learning' experiment that was Japancast, so I lost my 'window' on useage and pronuciation help. Hopefully, it'll be back up and running soon.

 

[MBuzzy]

Rosetta stone is great, but especially in a language without a similar character system, it isn't enough.

You need dictionaries, grammar books, and most importantly - NATIVE SPEAKERS to ever successfully learn a language correctly. I learned a good deal of Korean, went to Korea and learned that most of it was "proper Korean" and most people just don't talk that way.

 

[Sukerkin]

Such a good point there too, Craig.

Hitomi, as you can probably guess from her name, is a woman and she spends quite a bit of time when teaching explaining that the way she says something in one social context differs from another. Even more importantly, she strongly emphasises that what she says in a given circumstance, we (her male students) must never say ... unless we want to give totally the wrong idea :lol:.

 

[MJS]

Rosetta stone is great, but especially in a language without a similar character system, it isn't enough.

You need dictionaries, grammar books, and most importantly - NATIVE SPEAKERS to ever successfully learn a language correctly. I learned a good deal of Korean, went to Korea and learned that most of it was "proper Korean" and most people just don't talk that way.

Oh how true this is!!! That job that I mentioned in my post...all of the guys were from PR. There was one guy from Columbia. Could he converse with them? Sure could. I was talking with him one day..in English..lol..and he was explaining the difference in the words. Due to the slang, some of the things they would say, would mean something different to him. He was speaking what was, as you said, 'proper Spanish'.

 

[hpulley]

I started out self teaching myself Japanese with my father's old "Teach Yourself Japanese" (aptly named, huh?) by Dunn and Yanada (1958). This worked fairly well but was in romaji so of course I couldn't actually read anything. Then I started learning the characters by reading my favorite manga in Japanese instead of the English translation. The English translations lag by a year or more so even as a person who originally had to look up every single character as I read, I could get through that in a few weeks. You need a very good dictionary for this and of course the fact that I already had the grammar down fairly well from "Teach Yourself Japanese" helped though 1958 formal language and what you find in manga are of course quite different.

I read and write Japanese at work on my computer every day since over two years ago when the company I work for decided to expand to the Japanese market and that was the real breakthrough for me, getting exposure to it 8 hours a day at work plus in my spare time at home. I also get to speak it sometimes with the members of the Tokyo office though their English is pretty good so we only resort to Japanese when needed to make sure they understand me completely.

I went on some discussion groups and joined mixi and other Japanese social sites, plus Paltalk and Skype to actually talk with native speakers which was a real help. Writing a 'blog' in Japanese many times a week was great and many on mixi will help you with your Japanese while I help others with their English but I haven't used it much lately. I haven't used Skype as much lately either as I haven't had time, sadly.

I get TV Japan and enjoy watching sumo and some of the dramas which really helped my listening skills. Listening is actually the hardest for me as I read and write it frequently and can mostly speak what I want to say using my limited vocabulary but when listening only knowing a small number of words without a dictionary is a real disadvantage. The drama are also good to learn the current vernacular because, as said above, most books will only teach you a polite level of speech which is good in stores and restaurants and business situations but not in casual conversation. Manga is good for teaching you rude things! I never knew there were so many impolite pronouns...

Even after all this I found I needed a teacher in some classes as well. It isn't much (2.5 hours per week) but having a real teacher in the same room with you to point out problems and suggest things is really good. Most of my Japanese Skype-friends are too polite and won't tell me when my Japanese is terrible. "Jouzu desu!" they say which means "Your Japanese is very good!" but they sometimes say that after you just say "Konnichiwa." Others are much more honest, "Zen zen wakarimasen!" which means I can't understand you at all but that isn't really helpful either. So my point is that a teacher paid to teach you isn't worried about being polite with you so they'll correct you properly.

With all that I do, watching TV Japan, reading manga, using Japanese computers, Skype and Japanese class (plus in my dojo of course they use Japanese names for most techniques) it has really come along. I don't think I could learn a language properly without this sort of immersion. Like someone above said, I also took French in school for years (Canada, two official languages) but I remember very little of it and only get to practice it when listening to political speeches. I think I remember more German from when I worked in an Austrian club as a dishwasher/busboy for years as a teenager though of course that was very brusque usage with the rest of the workers usually being drunk at the time!

Gaelic will be tough as there aren't many speakers of it left but you should get some friends in the UK on Skype to speak with if you can and there are schools around that teach Gaelic if you look hard.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Such a good point there too, Craig.

Hitomi, as you can probably guess from her name, is a woman and she spends quite a bit of time when teaching explaining that the way she says something in one social context differs from another. Even more importantly, she strongly emphasises that what she says in a given circumstance, we (her male students) must never say ... unless we want to give totally the wrong idea :lol:.

Ahhh yes you have to be very, very careful there.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Nintendo DS has language programs out.

Such as Chinese,Japanese,French,and Spanish.

From the reviews I hear they are not that bad may be worth checking out.

 

[jarrod]

thanks for all the input fellas...unfortunately rosetta stone doesn't offer scots gaelic (i can't afford rosetta anyway) & there are not a ton of native speakers around. at least not in kansas. my tentative plan has been to give myself the best foundation i can, then attend one of the intensive courses in canada.

i studied french in college for a year, but was discouraged by 1) my near total lack of personal interest in french culture, & 2) how stupid native speakers would try to make you feel when you messed up. i also took a semester of spanish in junior high, but really learned the most from a colombian dishwasher i used to work with. when i was in costa rica, i was really surprised by how much spanish i was able to pick up from that. it also helped a lot that your average costa rican speaks MUCH more slowly than a mexican.

currently i'm using a free online grammer program & free online instructional of common phrases. i definately need a dictonary & more in-depth grammer book. since there is a shortage of native speakers, i'm listening to native speakers on youtube every chance i get. i'm also ordering a cd or two from oi polloi, a punk band from scotland who sings mostly in gaelic.

thanks again for the input all,

jf

i'm very interested in scottish & gaelic culture, plus there is the fact that virtually every gaelic speaker also speaks english. this is good & bad of course; i can always revert to english to ask questions, but on the other hand gaelic is in danger of being fully replaced by english.

 

[hpulley]

I like Scottish culture (OK, mostly their whisky) but aside from the labels of said bottles I don't read much. If you can ever get to Islay they still have a fair amount of Gaelic speakers there and a Gaelic school as well. Nova Scotia is much close of course. Gáidhlig gu brátt!

 

[Sukerkin]

Above all, Jarrod don't give up, mate. Languages are cultural time-machines and hold the viewpoints of those that speak them. Let the language die and the culture goes with them.

That's what the English Crown tried to do to the Welsh not too many centuries ago and nearly succeeded.

As an aside, the best welcome I ever got in a Welsh pub was turning to a chap, who was badmouthing me in Welsh (for being an Englishman), thinking I didn't understand, and telling him "Shalffa bant" {very loosely translated as "**** off!"}. The people there were more pleased that I knew what was being said than they were offended at my 'bad' language.

 

[jarrod]

Above all, Jarrod don't give up, mate. Languages are cultural time-machines and hold the viewpoints of those that speak them. Let the language die and the culture goes with them.

That's what the English Crown tried to do to the Welsh not too many centuries ago and nearly succeeded.

As an aside, the best welcome I ever got in a Welsh pub was turning to a chap, who was badmouthing me in Welsh (for being an Englishman), thinking I didn't understand, and telling him "Shalffa bant" {very loosely translated as "**** off!"}. The people there were more pleased that I knew what was being said than they were offended at my 'bad' language.

that's a great story! i'm looking forward to learning how to curse in gaelic.

you're absolutely right about culture being held in the language. that is why i decided on gaelic, & why i failed/lost interest in other languages i've attempted. it always helps the person to learn a language; learning a near extinct language helps the culture as well. that may be a delusion, but it's a motivational delusion for me.

another thing that motivates me is my dissatisfaction with mainstream american culture. one of the bright sides of the information age is that individuals now have more freedom to construct their own culture. i'm hoping that co-opting this bit of gaelic culture will be give me something enriching from a western tradition.

i love the japanese martial arts i've trained for the techniques & principles, but the cultural trappings have always felt alien to me no matter how long i train. i've always had the feeling, real or imagined, that no matter how correctly i bow, sit in seiza, use japanese terminology, etc, that judo & jujitsu will never really be "mine". that's fine, since as i said i train for the technical content. but it doesn prevent me for connecting to a more enriching culture.

jf

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

Don't know if this helps:

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60322

But maybe Dale could help you out.