2011年10月27日星期四

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It's no secret that learning a second language is important and useful. But there are a lot of problems that discourage many people to take that step - time consumption, stress, sometimes lack of satisfying initial results. And another big one: language classes are usually really expensive. cheap rosetta stone This makes some people go for self-learning methods which most times don't work as effectively as hoped.I've tried these self-learning methods such as Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone. I found them, besides expensive, not at all effective. I tried using such methods to learn German (I am a native Portuguese speaker) and was only frustrated after a few years.

Then I started trying to get this done through a different, very simple method: I started to rosetta stone language surf the web for exercises and explanations on the German language. This worked very well in the beginning. Instead of using just one website, I looked for instructions and exercises from several, and it worked very well for me. I also searched for Germans and German language learners using tools such as the Skype-me mode on Skype to find people to talk to and write to and practice a little bit with the help of free internet translators (such as freetranslation.com). At first I was a little self-conscious about talking in my kaputt German, cheap rosetta stone language but it helped me get used to using the language and I soon got over it.

After about one and a half years of learning I'd reached an intermediate level, twice as fast as I would have at a local Goethe Institut. This worked so well I decided to repeat the process with French and also got good results. Sometime later I got a scholarship from DAAD to study German in Berlin for a month based on my fully self-acquired knowledge of the German language, which means I not only saved money by doing this, cheap rosetta stone website  but actually virtually made money through this scholarship which as was awarded with.

The most important thing I learned from this was: although most people will tell you (as they did me) it is impossible to learn a language without the help of a teacher, this isn't true. I verified this for myself. The initial months of the self-learning process can be very frustrating, as you don't get to Rosetta Stone English us see many results at first and keep hearing these negative comments about how it's never going to work. I even had language teachers I knew as friends tell me it's impossible to learn a language by yourself.

Well, it's not. Especially with the Internet where you can get a bunch of free resources on language learning. Here are some tips I have for anyone who is willing to try this:

1 - Look for forums and websites with free exercises and explanations. Try to vary the subjects, keep a balance between grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing exercises.

2 - In order to practice speaking and writing, look for native speakers or Rosetta Stone Filipino sale other language learners. You can look for other learners in forums on the internet. Look for native speakers who are willing to talk to you, maybe in exchange of you helping them learn your own language (livemocha.com is very useful in this sense, though I personally don't like their method of teaching). Get them on MSN or Yahoo Messenger or Skype to practice your target language through writing at first then speaking. Use online dictionaries in the beginning to help you form complete sentences. Don't be afraid of making mistakes in grammar and vocabulary, just make it as understandable as possible, and eventually you'll get used to the language.

3 - Always look for audio resources to get used to the sound of the language. YouTube can also be very helpful for finding videos in other languages, some of them with subtitles.

4 - Don't get discouraged if the results don't show up at first. It does take a while to see the progress. Take your time, don't get frustrated, one day you just enter a website in the language which was totally unintelligible to you and think "hey, I actually understand what's written here!" It's harder to see the results when you don't have a teacher or tests to tell you or show you how much better you're getting, but eventually you do get there.

I eventually did decide it's useful to buy a bilingual method meant for a normal course to learn a foreign language, in addition to the free stuff you get on the internet. This guarantees a more linear process and keeps you from going crazy with bits and pieces of unorganized information you don't know in which order you should take. I'm doing this right now with Russian; I started to learn with a regular method because I couldn't find as much free material as I did for German and French and decided it works better. I also tried a few of these self-study methods before while trying to learn Russian, which also got me no results. The best thing to do if you can't work with just the free resources you get on the internet is to go ahead and buy a method meant for a course with more people, together with a teacher's book and the works and teach yourself in about the pace a normal course would. These methods are expensive, but usually still considerably cheaper than a Rosetta Stone package, for example. I don't know why methods which aren't meant for self-learning actually work better than the ones that are: but that's just the way it is. There might be exceptions, but that's what my experience has shown me so far. And anyway I did learn German and French without using any methods at all, using only free websites (see below).

There are indeed a few big disadvantages in learning a language by yourself: it's usually more http://sbn188.blogspot.com boring than learning it in a class with other people. And you do need to have some self-discipline as there's no one around to encourage you to study or make you a schedule. But I think that's a small price to pay, considering I've saved over 8.000 dollars by not taking regular language classes (according to the average prices in my city Belo Horizonte over as many years as it would take to reach the level of knowledge I did). I'm not against regular language classes; I eventually took them in German due to the scholarship and I learned most of my English inside a language school. But looking at how much money one can save, I'd say the self-learning option is at least worth a try for anyone.

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