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Ruben O.
May 22, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:voice chat in english
Asalmalkam Kya hal hai? Mera nama Parveen hai.
Hello, how are you? My name is PArveen and would like to learn to speak Urdu. At the moment I know a bit but I would love to become a fluent speaker. In exchange I can teach you English.
I also wish to learn to speak Spanish, so come on people please help me.
Hope to hear you guys soon
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Language pair: Urdu; Spanish
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Parveen B.
May 22, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: January 1, 2012
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Re:Re:Grüß dich!
Ich bin nicht ein goldmember! Entschuldigungen. Bist du?
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Language pair: English; German
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Kevin
May 21, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: May 21, 2005
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Grüß dich! (2)
Ich bin nicht ein gold-member. Ich brauche Deutsch hilfen! Ich kann Englisch hilfen. Hilfen mir Bitte!
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Language pair: English; German
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Kevin
May 15, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Grüß dich!
I live in the USA. I would like to learn German. I'm barely intermediate. I would be happy to help with your English.
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Language pair: English; German
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Kevin
May 15, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: May 21, 2005
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farsi
ich habe gerade angefangen persisch zu lernen.wer kann mir helfen oder tipps geben vielleicht über gute homepages usw.
wenn meine hilfe gebraucht wird kann ich bei türkisch natürlich jedem helfen.
gruß.ibo.......
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Language pair: Persian (Farsi, Dari, Hazaragi); All
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ibo m.
May 12, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: May 28, 2005
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Michael M.
May 9, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Language learning method: Part V of V
But I'll tell you the resources I use most often in my studying of Spanish:
1) Formal lessons: I've been fortunate to be able to find some wonderful free on-line courses that give wonderful information on dialogues, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and so on. Everything I need to put into my brain in the way of knowledge.
2) Good dictionaries: I have a number of resources I use to help me learn unfamiliar words or to find words I don't know how to say. I have a couple on-line as well as several paper dictionaries. These include dictionaries bilingual dictionaries, dictionaries of the Spanish language, and dictionaries that cover street slang and idioms.
3) MLE: This site helps me get into contact with people I can correspond with in the language I'm trying to learn, and who can give me a native speaker's feedback on how I'm doing.
4) DVD movies on my DVD player. I'm always looking for movies I would like to see that I can play back either with Spanish Audio, with Spanish subtitles, or, preferably, both. This can, of course, be done with movies in Cantonese as well, but you have to know where to buy movies that can be played in Cantonese. Even with a VCR, there are movies you can buy that play Cantonese audio or Chinese subtitles.
5) Books (novels and such) in Spanish. I have a variety of different kinds of books in Spanish. I started with some of my most beloved children's books my parents read me when I was a twerp. I worked my way up through the Harry Potter books to things like Shakespeare's plays and the Poem of El Cid. I read Spanish books translated from the English as well as books originally written in Spanish. I take advantage of books I find in Spanish that I am familiar with in English, as this also makes the more challenging material more accessible to me while I'm developing my skill. Now I'm to the point where I'm not afraid to pick up anything written in Spanish. All I need is a good dictionary, and I’m good to go.
My biggest weakness is that I don't get nearly enough face-to-face practice communicating orally in Spanish. It will always be physically difficult for me to converse in Spanish until I get the opportunity to really practice and develop the neural pathways in my brain to carry out those skills. I'm working on it. In the mean time, the DVD's, Spanish VHS, the Spanish radio station, anything I can do on the Internet is all effort well spent. We just do the best we can with what we've got to work with.
I'm hoping I may have answered some useful questions here, whether or not they are questions you will have thought to ask. Please let me know if I can offer any further help.
Have fun!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 11, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Language learning method: Part IV of V
You will want to control the quantity of material that you're working with at any given time. Four lines of dialogue, perhaps, three to five new vocabulary words. One grammar rule. You'll develop a sense of how much you can comfortably work with in one session, and how quickly you are able to absorb new material at various quantities. Obviously, the more you study, the more you'll learn, at the lower end of the spectrum. But once you cross the capacity of your mind to work with new material, that will drop off really sharply. Suddenly you'll find that the more words you add, the less you retain. It's not hard at all to study so much in a session that you don't learn anything at all. Keep your volume down low where you can see fairly consistent progress most of the time. Of course you'll have bad days where it feels like the lights are on and nobody's home, and you wonder why you even bother. But those should be the exception and not the rule.
Your familiarity with the material, too, will have a huge impact on how much you can put into a lesson. You can handle a whole lot more in a review study than you can when all of the material is brand new. This is something you'll get a feel for as you go.
I have been spending most of my time studying Spanish, which is among the more popular languages to study, and has tons of support available. I have been finding amazing resources on the net to help me improve my Spanish. Cantonese is not so easy to work with. It's not even as widely spoken as Mandarin, and I have great difficulties finding good resources for Mandarin on-line. Mostly, I get the best support out of the textbooks I used when I studied Mandarin in College. The best suggestion I can offer is search ye the web and see what you can find. I've never studied Cantonese, so I know nothing. Perhaps there will be others on MLE who have some knowledge there.
Continued: See Part V of V
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 11, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Language learning method: Part III of V
I just measure my fluency in terms of how often the words I don't know in what I'm reading interfere with my ability to get the point of the reading. A lot of words I can work around—figuring them out from the context, or getting enough information around them, that I'm not concerned about what they mean exactly. I might notice, for example, that a strange word seems to be the name of the color, and decided that I really don't care what color it is—it may not be important to the reading.
The actual practical experience with the reading, writing, speaking, and listening must be the foundation of your study. After all, that is, I assume, your purpose in learning the language—developing the ability to communicate orally and in writing (people often skip the reading and writing, or just the writing, if those skills aren't important to them. It makes sense to me). But all of the grammar drills and vocabulary work in the world will be of no help to you at all if you don't practice putting those vocabulary words into grammatically correct sentences (or taking them out of them, if you're listening or reading). It's like reading a book on how to ride a bike and expecting to be able to ride the bike. It just won't happen until you get through the practice and laying down those new neural pathways in your brain.
There's a lot of controversy in education these days about whether grammar drills even accomplish anything useful for students who want to write well (and I would imagine the same would apply to learning to speak well). There are a number of very smart people writing very well-researched articles that argue that teaching grammar is a complete waste of time. I've read a few of these, but I've never been convinced. Mostly because I find that having a sound knowledge of grammar really helps me. I think it's because of the incredible synthesizing abilities of the brain. It can pull information together and make the most incredible intuitive connections. For example, are you aware that nobody has ever been able to program a computer to tell the difference between a cat and a Chihuahua? They look too similar, and there is no way to specifically identify the visual characteristics that differentiate the two. Yet for the human brain, this is a very simple task—a "no-brainer". We don't even think about it. It seems so obvious to us. Still, we can't identify the process that makes this so simple.
I think there is something similar going on with the grammar. Knowing the rules and practicing their application supports and reinforces (in my humble opinion) the learning process that occurs through practice. I may be full of baloney, but that's my opinion, for what it's worth.
Continued: See Part IV of V
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
April 11, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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