Language Learning

Are you one of those people who consider language learning a hobby? I am. It doesn't mean that by thins language learning is all fun and easy for me, but I certainly like it. The process can be hard and you may feel like you just want to shut it all in a drawer and don't ever see it again for a while, but still, learning a new language is an exciting process.

I haven't really learned a new language since many, many years, but have been basically puffing up to shape those I know some of, namely English and French. Now I'd like to embark in a new adventure with German, another language I know a tiny bit about as I've been unsuccessfully trying to learn it by myself, and so far failed as I have proven to myself that self-learning in the early stages of a language acquiring isn't my thing. I've a very thin, small base for it, but I decided that it's about time to get on serious with German and really learn it - and make some new friends in the process. Now, that's all good and nice, but it's easier said than done. The sad truth about language learning is that it is quite an expensive thing to do, if you resource to someone else to teach you - be it privately or in groups - and if you attempt at doing it by yourself, you can trip into the same disheartening thing I did: most "learn by yourself" materials are quite incomplete and fail to explain you things in the detail you'll need to understand it better.

All goes well, slow and everything, and then comes a part where there's a jump and you are lost trying to figure out how to understand how and why you do this or that. It's very unnerving. Classes in this sense are much better, because you can ask the teacher at the break or after the class - maybe the next time befre class - to explain you exactly how this or that works.

The way you choose to learn a new language must always be such that suits you, but also a way that you can afford. However, whatever you do, my main advise is never to go for something blindly. Don't buy into learning by yourself and buying all sorts of "learn in your sleep" or any weird things like that. Don't fall neither for any sort of self-learning book that's sealed. Yes, many come sealed, and by experience I can tell you that those are mainly booklets full of phrases to pretend you know a language, when most of the time you don't understand half of what you are saying.

I'd personally recommend podcasts - Free Podcasts, to it - where you simply download, hook up to and learn. :-) They come with limitations, but they don't cost you a dime!

If you are into studying with a teacher, check the schools and the programs very well. I tend to be wary about places that take up years for you to reach an "advanced" level of language managing, specially because also by experience I know that the actual language management at those stages is medium-to-advanced. So ponder carefully the 200 € lesson per quarter that takes you up to 16 quarters to acquire that "advanced" level. Don't trust either the "Super-Intensive" classes where you are supposed to take a level each week. No matter how good with languages you are, you don't learn a whole level in a week.

Learning a language is like going to the gym to get a better body shape: you can go very often, but the results don't appear from one day to the next, and usually you have to wait at least a month to start seeing some results. Any other result in the shorter span is temporary.

It's possible also that you may work better with a combination of both assited and self learning, after all, even if you go to a class with a teacher and other students, you are supposed to do homework. All systems have their ups and their downs. Alone, you don't get bored and annoyed waiting for everybody to say a phrase, and getting to the point where you want to ditch the class because it's becoming terribly insufferable, BUT you get to know people, make new friends, practice with others, share and ask someone who can explain you everything you can't find a question for. Studying by yourself, allows you to advance at your own pace, study at any time it's convenient for you, and it's cheaper, BUT you are less able to practice with others, miss the chance to make more friends, and you questions are harder to solve because there's no one at hand to ask.

I'll go for a class now, if I can find one that suits me, and given that certain conditions in my near future allow me the time to join the class. If not... well, there's always the Podcast and scouting for new material to keep the little knowledge alive. Oh, and right now I've series in German and... Vienna around the corner!

Wish me luck!