How to learn a language?

[The_J]

Is it like that for everyone?
Questions to people who have successfully learned a language (not including those who grew up multilingual): do you ever think in your new languages?

I do, sometimes.
And I have to say that Owen is probably right (I don't know if it's a fact, but at least from my perception), but you will probably need some training to get at that point.
In school, translating everything back in your mind was normal. But when you have to do more, then you can't. It's ineffective, time-wise. You can't read a Tom Clancy (or whatever), if you translate every sentence. You might to at the beginning, but when you have enough practive with reading in another language, then the "transition" will begin (not consciously).
And then you get to a point, when you form a sentence in your mind, and you say "...oh...wait...I have no idea what this and this word exactly means." Happened to me. Looked them up, and thought "yeah, that's what I wanted to say".
But like said, that needs time and training, and just with school you'll probably not reach that point.

Dutchfire is right. At High school, I never spent much time learning German and often scored poor grades because school demands you to master German perfectly. Just ignore all those rules and just speak it. You will make loads of errors, but you likely won't have trouble understanding and be understood by German speakers.

That might be a bit exaggerated, but at least regarding everything related to genders you're right .

 

[GoodGame]

I'm currently learning Hebrew, but it's going very slowly because vowels typically aren't used in spelling and I can't read anything without them. I live in America now, so I can't surround myself with Hebrew speakers; but I don't think that just learning from a book will do anything for me. My brother can speak Hebrew- my parents spoke both Hebrew and English to him as a baby, but not me for some reason. Afterwards I plan on learning some European languages (which I assume will be easier because of the similarities). If someone on here is bilingual could I have some advice?

Try youtube...there's several immersion-type instructors who have short courses on youtube.

 

[Akka]

My advice to anyone trying to learn a new language : find something fun that you enjoy doing in this language. It's the best way to learn if you don't actually live in an area speaking it.
So find book, or video games, or TV series, or whatever in the language you aim to learn, then gets a book or internet classes or whatever that allows you to know the basics of the syntax/grammar, and just jump into it.
Spending one hour to translate a few lines in your book/game is fun. Doing the same in a homework book of exercises isn't. If you're doing something you enjoy at the same time, learning will be exciting instead of boring, and you'll learn much better and faster.

Is it like that for everyone?
Questions to people who have successfully learned a language (not including those who grew up multilingual): do you ever think in your new languages?

I'd say it's the defining difference between when you're trying to learn and when you have reached the statut of "fluent". I definitely "think" directly in english when I read or write it, while I had to first form a sentence in my native language and then translate it in english when I was at a lower level.

 

[gangleri2001]

You learn a language by putting it in your head by yourself. You just think (or try to) think in that language about the things you're interested in (in other words, you just learn your idiolect). Soon you'll master that language with a relative fluency that will allow you to dive into the depths of the language. I learned English, German and Mandarin Chinese using this method so I guess it works.

 

[holy king]

German is extremely hard. It's supposed to be the second closest to Dutch (my native language), but I found it harder than French and even Latin to learn (well, the only year I followed it...). Might have to do with the Akkusativ and Dativ and all those things, but for some reason I never had problem with that in Latin.

i think the dutch-german issue is a case of not close enough but actually too close .
because it's the same the other way round.

it's just hard to think in a language that is just slightly different from your mother tongue without reverting back to thinking in your mother tongue.

 

[Masada]

Btw, I met a girl in Israel who claimed she learned English by watching English movies with Hebrew subtitles. Have you ever done that?

Doable to a certain standard. A friend of mine learned English from watching TV and movies. His vocabulary suffered though.

 

[LamaGT]

Add me to the Russian natives group Anyway, currently I live in Italy and my speech is actually better than some of the Italians'. But anyway, that doesn't count since it was just due to full immersion, however, I've learned English in many ways:

-Games in English (useful for both vocabulary and speech)
-Movies in English (with subtitles)
-Other (school and such)

The key is immersion, you need to at least try to simulate it, basically you need to get exposed to real language.

 

[civver_764]

Immersion is the best method but if that's not possible you could always fake it(ie. only read Hebrew, only speak Hebrew, only watch Hebrew videos). The internet has an insane amount of resources.

 

[Tee Kay]

Immersion immersion immersion practice practice practice immersion immersion immersion

Best way is to just move to Israel.

 

[sophie]

Is it like that for everyone?
Questions to people who have successfully learned a language (not including those who grew up multilingual): do you ever think in your new languages?

Yes, I do think in my acquired languages occasionally. There are also certain phrases and expressions where I tend to slip into one language over another, and other cases where I'll know the phrase in, say spanish, but have forgotten the phrase in English. Kind of weird.

Also dreaming in an acquired language is really awesome.