Learning a 2nd language as an adult?

[Narz]

Anyone done this? I'm 37 and want to learn Spanish. Any tips?

Cheers.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I learned functional Spanish (i.e., enough Spanish to get into trouble; usually enough to get out) in my twenties and somewhat functional Korean and Lao (i.e., enough to get into trouble; not always enough to get out) in my thirties. It ain't easy. The main thing is to have enough communication partners - people you actually want to talk to/listen to - and an environment where you can really immerse yourself in the language.

Everybody knows that kids are the quickest learners of languages, but I find they also make excellent teachers. The 6-year-old set has plenty of patience for inane conversation, use less complicated vocab/syntax, and their diction is usually clearer. I learned a lot by babysitting my Guatemalan/Korean/Lao friends' kids.

Similarly, chances are you learned as much of your native language around the kitchen table listening to the family babble on as anywhere else. If you can find a similar situation where you can let other people's daily routines flow over and around you it really helps to pick things up, largely by osmosis.

None of this lets you off the hook for beating yourself over the head with vocab and grammar, but I found them to be essential for moving the language from a collection of memorized (left-brained) details to a functional whole integrated into my (right-brained) language centers.

 

[NovaKart]

Yeah you can. I learned functional Kurdish. I spend a lot of time socializing with Kurdish people who don't speak English although I have a bad habit of tuning out and thinking of other things rather than joining the conversation.

With Spanish it's much easier because it's a very popular language and you have a large number of resources you can use to learn it, not like with Kurdish or Lao.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I learned a bit of Mandarin in my late twenties and it went reasonably well, but I have already forgotten a lot after not using it for a couple of years.
I would recommend taking a proper class. When you try to learn by yourself you're far more likely to botch the pronounciation and end up with a really thick accent.
Spanish is common enough to immerse yourself in Spanish media. As soon as you have a basic understanding you should start watching Spanish movies or TV.

 

[sophie]

It's possible. It's even very simple. But it's not easy. It requires consistent and focused practice: 1-2 hours every day, even after you've achieved "fluency". Don't pursue it unless you're absolutely motivated and committed to seeing it through to success, or you're going to end up disappointed.

 

[EgonSpengler]

After studying French for 3 years in college, when I went to France, I discovered I had not been well-served by learning in a classroom, among other people who had American accents (all but one of my teachers was American, and while many of my classmates were foreigners, obviously none were French). I could say some things well enough to be understood, but I wouldn't have understood a native French speaker screaming "fire" in a smoke-filled room unless they slowed down and enunciated.

 

[Mise]

I've had good experiences with Duolingo. I can more-or-less read Portuguese now, after completing the Duolingo course on it. I spent about 30 minutes a day for maybe 6 months before I got to a point where I could read most Portuguese articles without too much frustration.

I also used the HelloTalk app, which allows you to chat with people around the world in different languages, with the goal of helping each other learn each others' language. That was really useful to get more fluent at writing Portuguese.

However, my speaking and listening is terrible. I can't watch Portuguese TV, and I can't hold a conversation at all. You absolutely 100% need to be talking to people, in real time, in person, in order to become anything close to fluent. I can read it and sort of write it in real time, but my conversational skills are abysmal. You need to talk to people!

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

It's a lot easier than it used to be, and there are tons of collaborative resources to help you. The biggest thing is consistent study. It is better to do it 20 minutes a day every day than an hour every 3 days. I've had a lot of success with Teach Yourself, which was recommended to me by a linguist dude who can speak 7 languages. Make sure you just try to consume media with natural speakers of it. Listen to music and movies in Spanish. Find someone on a language learning site who will correct your writing. And be consistent about studying.

Honestly, I don't think learning a language is that hard in adulthood, unless you're choosing a very hard language. But Spanish is mostly pretty simple outside verb conjugation and you can probably impress yourself with the progress you make as long as you work on it every day.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I've had good experiences with Duolingo. I can more-or-less read Portuguese now, after completing the Duolingo course on it. I spent about 30 minutes a day for maybe 6 months before I got to a point where I could read most Portuguese articles without too much frustration.

I also used the HelloTalk app, which allows you to chat with people around the world in different languages, with the goal of helping each other learn each others' language. That was really useful to get more fluent at writing Portuguese.

However, my speaking and listening is terrible. I can't watch Portuguese TV, and I can't hold a conversation at all. You absolutely 100% need to be talking to people, in real time, in person, in order to become anything close to fluent. I can read it and sort of write it in real time, but my conversational skills are abysmal. You need to talk to people!

I've been using Duolingo to learn French and have had essentially the same experience. I'm ok at reading and writing but utterly fail at speaking and listening. I've started listening to YouTube videos of native speakers, breaking down the video bit by bit with subtitles to get used to how it is spoken in real situations but it is a slow process. I find native speakers combine words, have varying pronunciation, and use slang all of which isn't taught by an app.

 

[sophie]

I've used Duolingo for quite awhile and hit high levels on a several of the language courses they offer. While I have a number of problems with it and the way it operates, I'd say the program is, on the whole, a net good, so long as you aren't using it as your sole interaction with the language. It's a useful tool to get you to practice the language every day, but that practice should be supplemented with regular reading, speaking, and listening to the language from other sources. Don't use it as a crutch and say, "well I'm using Duolingo, that's good enough so I'll achieve fluency eventually."

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Anyone done this? I'm 37 and want to learn Spanish. Any tips?

Cheers.

Games, movies (with studied language subs), phone's interface, Wikipedia, language exchange sites and services such as Interpals. Constant use of decent dictionaries (two or three, no online translators).

I witnessed this worked on a few people around their 30s.

There's no much difference between a child and an adult, except that the adult would give up and cry much faster than the child. At this age you are more serious and aware than you were twenty years ago.

You absolutely need to use the studied language in things which are fun to you or needed in your work + you need to get some new knowledge through that language.

When you learn theory (grammar, etc), paper is better than screen.

 

[Narz]

Thanks for the advice all!

 

[warpus]

Anyone done this? I'm 37 and want to learn Spanish. Any tips?

I was at one point trying to learn Spanish, so that future trips to central and South America would be easier.. Partially inspired by my dad, who has been learning Spanish over the last couple years, he visits Cuba almost every year with my mom, and if it's not Cuba it's usually Mexico or the Dominican Republic, etc. He claims to be fluent now, and seems to understand almost anything that's in Spanish, so while I've never heard him in a conversation with somebody else in Spanish, I think his system seemed to work. Mind you my Dad learned two languages in school (English and Russian), and then learned German in his late 20s. Was fluent in all 4 languages at one point, so he has some experience learning foreign languages

His system was.. damn, I can't remember the name of this at all.. But it was a 60-lesson set, and each lesson was just a guy talking. You listen to the guy (or girl or whoever) and engage and repeat when appropriate. My dad put it on during the ride to work and eventually just set it to shuffle and would listen to/engage with a random lesson every day.

I did three lessons of this and it seemed very promising.. but then I stopped and crashed out of the course. You basically repeat a bunch of stuff and different versions of it, even before you know what it means. It gets more involved as the lesson goes on, and each lesson uses past things you've been saying but adds something to it... or pulls in new concepts using then familiar ways. Maybe the rest of the lessons are different, but that's the pattern in saw in the first 3 anyway. My dad was the one to convince me to try this system, he said it worked really well for him. I can't vouch for it one way or the other myself, but it might be worth a try (if I could only remember the name.. if it comes to me I'll come back here and let you know)

Honestly I learned Spanish the best when I was in Peru. I was with a friend but neither of us spoke Spanish, and he assumed that I would be doing all the "interaction with the locals" part of the trip because I was a seasoned traveller and this was his first big trip. Yeah well it's just as hard trying to talk to someone who doesn't speak any English when you don't know any Spanish, whether you're a seasoned traveller or not... But what it did was force me to figure out what stuff means and remember it.. So now I can probably get by in a restaurant-setting.. although I can't form any sentences (at all), I can look at a menu in a restaurant and say "that's beef, that's chicken, that's beer, this place is closed tomorrow, and the bathroom is that way". That's not really useful advice, or advice really, but I mean, if it's possible to just lose yourself in a culture where everybody speaks Spanish and not many people speak English, go for it, you will probably learn Spanish along the way.

 

[aldon47]

Its very doable. Currently I am attempting to learn Italian, been working on it since Christmas 2016, so only a few months now. Its slow going and has its share of setbacks but its true what most people say, you just have to stick with it. I use the program Fluenz (and play around a bit with Duolingo on the phone) and its be a very enjoyable experience. I cant count to ten or name all the months of the year in Italian but I can order pretty well at a restaurant or find my way around if need be. I feel its more on the practical side and encouraging things to come natural instead of just memorizing a few phrases. Thats just been my experience though. And thats just a few lessons in. Immersing yourself in the language is the best thing you can do. Like others have said, watching TV, changing your phone's language, etc all help a bit.