Language learning has pretty much nothing to do with intelligence. The stupidest people in the world still manage to speak their native language with a startling proficiency.

IMO, the best way to learn a language is to first get huge amounts of input. Don't bother with media aimed at children unless you want to read/watch it - just jump straight into the things you already enjoy. I re-learned most of the Spanish I had forgotten by reading Harry Potter. I forgot all but the most basic grammar. I basically new the present tense, which didn't do much good because Harry Potter is totally in the preterite, and the basic sentence structure. I knew less than 2,000 words. It was painstaking, but it was way more fun that drudging through shitty textbooks again.

I would probably recommend Harry Potter or something similar(translated from English, written with relatively simple vocab...Twilight would also be really good for this...heh...) to start with. Get a list of the 1,000 most common words in your target language, pound them into your head with word lists or flash cards, just *read* some basic grammar(those stupid pocket grammar books are good for this) to get an *idea* of how the language is structured(don't do exercises, don't stress over something you don't get, just look over it while you're learning your words and that's it), and then jump into a book.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/29/15258/287 <-------- This guy was probably the most influential for me. He strikes the perfect balance between input and "structured" study to come after massive input.
http://www.antimoon.com
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com (antimoon with audio and epic self-promotion)
http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com

That's really solid advice Rezu. You put it in much better words than I.

日本語が少しわかります。

Thanks for this, Rezu.

Good link, thanks.

I have difficulty in keeping up with practising my Latin...I do a few days worth and then stop for several weeks. lol

I do agree with what he says about forgetting and relearning though. I'm going to Rom in October for a few days and would like to be able to read some of the inscriptions by myself, so I better start at it again. I've found a list of several hundred common words so I'll and try and learn those off by heart.

@taloden: with your Latin, are you reading any real texts yet or are you still going through the basic grammar?

おまえの母ちゃんは精液便所だね。

Can you tell me if that's correct?

Meany!

Yeah, Adam, that was nasty! In any case, how would you know that his mom's a jism-toilet? I thought you said you were a virgin.

Oh, I wasn't saying that about his mom. It was just an example sentence.

Sure, sure, Adam, whatever, dog And you called him omae too!

This is the translation I got:

FONE: "Japanese is recognized a little."

Adam's response: "Don't you think? your mother is the semen toilet."

I was just browsing the Japanese internet and copied-and-pasted a random sentence. I didn't even know what it meant.

You san say omae to your kids or wife, but not to an equal or someone above. It can be said in a "nice" way. In a western country speaking like that to your wife might be considered anti-feminist though, but since western countries have no equivalent expression people here don't have to reflect over it.

I'm starting French. And I'm damn well going to stick to it this time. The doubts I have that give me trouble with Spanish don't exist in French so it will make it easier in that respect, and, to be honest, I picked Spanish back up with the intention of learning French down the road. I don't know why I feel the need to justify this, though. It's been driving me crazy all week.

Anyways, my perspective on language learning has changed from the advice I gave above. Although I still believe in assloads of input, I think it would ultimately be more efficient to start with an introductory source to learn both basic vocabulary and grammar at once and then move onto input and reading Harry Potter. I may not have known much Spanish but I knew enough, and it came back rather quickly, so it was much easier to start off by reading alone then. Not to mention the fact that Spanish is almost completely phonetic, which makes it tremendously easier to start than French is.

So my plan is thus: Assimil New French with Ease done in 20 days. Why 20? Well, August 20th is my birthday. That's when I'll get money again and be able to buy either books or an e-book reader so I can read French affordably. During the wait for shipping I'll go over the entire Assimil passive wave as many times as possible and do some vocabulary. During all of this I will be putting all of the sentences from Assimil into Anki and reviewing them as needed, both passively and actively WHILE listening to as much French audio as possible, watching French dubs and French in Action at least 10 hours a day, ideally.

I need to get to as high a level as possible in one month because I start school at the end of August and will not have nearly as much time. If I can be at the point where I can read, even painfully slowly, and listen with a decent amount of comprehension, it will be easy enough to keep up study. I really don't think that will be so terribly hard as I can read a startling amount of French already from English and Spanish.

Well I was working my way through Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin but sadly I was actually finding some of the texts mid-way through the book a bit tough going, so I then changed to the online Cambridge Latin Course (I used these books many years ago at school when doing GCSE Latin) which is much more gradual, but imo better. It basically keeps the grammar relatively simple, but means I can practice the simple stuff over and over whilst picking up lots of vocabulary, so when I go back to the Teach Yourself book hopefully I'll be better. Most Latin language books go too fast for my liking...even the Teach Yourself one does surprisingly.

I have tried reading some 'real' Latin before many years ago...I think it was Caesar and although I did manage to translate most of what I read, I didn't really have a good grasp of the grammar at the time. Obviously I will need to start on some proper Latin soon. Not sure what writers are easiest to being with.

Cambridge Latin Course link for anyone who's interested.

If I were you, I'd definitely stick with the Cambridge course and forget Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin. The main problem with Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin is that it focuses primarily on medieval ecclesiastical Latin. If you have any interest at all in classical times, you really should be learning proper classical Latin. Since ecclesiastical Latin is basically a simplified form of the classical language, moving from classical Latin to ecclesiastical Latin is much easier than vice versa.

Also, I think that it's important to start reading real Latin as soon as possible. The easiest writer to begin with is Julius Caesar. He writes very plain and simple sentences, and avoids more complex structures such as you'd find in Cicero, Livy, or Tacitus. If you have any interest at all in Julius Caesar and his writings about his campaigns in Gaul and Britain he's the ideal author to begin with. Based on other posts of yours that I've read, I actually think you might find his Bella Gallica an interesting text to read, since he gives quite interesting descriptions of the culture and customs of the ancient inhabitants, primarily Celtic, of the Western part of the Roman Empire.

Since it has often been used as a beginner's text, you should be able to find Caesar's Latin text with a commentary aimed at beginner's at Amazon or the like. Online, you might want to check out textkit.com. There you can download numerous Latin readers designed for beginners. Also, you might find the Perseus Project interesting: it's the mecca of online classical studies and has free online access to countless Latin texts and commentaries on Latin texts.

If you get stuck in any piece of real Latin, send me a PM. I'll be more than happy to help you get a better feel for how real Latin works. Have fun!

I think although the Teach Yourself book's storyline is set in the early Middle Ages, the Latin used is classical, but I do agree with what you say about sticking to the classical Latin.



Thanks, I'll take a look at those sites. Are you fluent in reading Latin? If so how long did it take you to learn?

I would place myself as an advanced learner of Latin. There are some texts that I've read so often that I can read them fluently, but in other texts, devoted to subjects whose vocabulary I don't yet know (the words used in a treatise on military tactics will be different from those used in a book devoted to philosophical speculation, for example) I trip up against unfamiliar vocabulary. I've studied Latin since my late teens, but I've never given it the intensive study that I've given to Greek to make myself truly fluent.

What about you? How much of the grammar have managed to acquire? Also, why are you interested in learning Latin? Are there any particualr authors you're interested in reading?

Well I'm fairly confident with how to use the basic grammar of nouns and verbs and I recognise most regular verb endings for active present, imperfect, perfect and future and a fair number of the noun endings for 1st, 2nd and 3rd declension, though I still sometimes have to recite the endings to myself to remember which apply to genetive, date, ablative etc.

I'm not sure why I want to learn...I don't have any particular author I especially want to read at the moment. I'd love to be able to read Latin inscriptions eventually, but I think really my wanting to learn is because its an interesting challenge for me and gives me a skill not many other people have.

Back last year I found this guy on Youtube who's a polyglot and is fluent in dozens of languages, mostly germanic. His videos really inspired me to try and learn a few languages, so I tried a bit of Anglo Saxon which was fun but quite difficult and then I picked up on Latin which I'd previously studied at high school. So although I can't say exactly why I want to learn, I just had this sudden desire to try. lol

I'm impressed you managed to become fluent in greek Saigyo. The greeks say classic greek is even more complex but I'm guessing you know that too (or that in particular).

Coptic (Sahidic dialect).

@Neilwebratz: why Coptic? Are you a student of ancient Egyptian Christianity?

Sorry I just ran off and never returned to this thread (better late than never). I've always been interested in the ancient Egyptian language, and Coptic — being directly descended from the language of the hieroglyphs — is useful to every student of ancient Egyptian (every Egyptologist worth their salt knows it). It's just a language I've always been fascinated by, and Coptic represents its final development (spoken in Egypt up through about the 7th century A.D.).

Coptic? Is that what they are speaking over the police radio?

No just kidding. Hahaha...