[NA] ¿ Anyone learn a second language as an adult?

eman1200 said:
I'm still tryins to learns english

las cucarachas entran pero no puedan salir

bendejo

mas cocaína señor? si. si por favor.
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If that lasts more than 4 hours, see a doctor
 
eman1200 said:
I'm still tryins to learns english

las cucarachas entran pero no puedan salir

bendejo

mas cocaína señor? si. si por favor.
Click to expand...
Siempre hay que separar las drogas.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
English as we can understand it was a result of Norman knights seducing Anglo-Saxon barmaids :) (I'm exaggerating a bit).
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Fun fact, the legal world is full of redundant phrases. Cease and desist. Last will and testament. Things like that where the two words mean the same thing. This came about because of the need to communicate the concepts in both languages.

 
So what I did just figure out is that I speak more Spanish than the folks here do English and they seem pretty appreciative. One very nice waiter sat down and listen to me ask my question as best I could and he managed to point me in the direction of an establishment he felt would make me muy feliz

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SixPapaCharlie said:
So what I did just figure out is that I speak more Spanish than the folks here do English and they seem pretty appreciative. One very nice waiter sat down and listen to me ask my question as best I could and he managed to point me in the direction of an establishment he felt would make me muy feliz

View attachment 148817
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Oh, you want this for practical reasons? Is the “I Can Eat Glass Project” still a live website? I found it back in the early days of the web… the guy had this theory that being barely able to ask where the bathroom is will brand you a tourist and you’ll get the commensurate level of respect from the locals, but saying “I can eat glass, it does not hurt me” will identify you as an insane local, which comes with a much higher level of respect. So he translated that phrase into every language. Spanish. Esperanto. Klingon. Dozens of others.
 
I managed to eek out the following sentence without referencing anything but my 25-year-old college Spanish courses

Centinero hablas ingles? No?
Me Espanol ES muy Mal perro yo tango un pregunta sobre cerveza.

He sat down and that's when I said Sabes India pale ale?

No.


Me gusta la cerveza India Pale Ale. Conoces lugar cerca donde pueda encontrar una caminando?


He just smiled and stood up and motion for me to follow him and then pointed at a local microbrewery across the street.

Sierra Madre Brewing.

We fist bumped I think gave him a large tip and said "beer is the universal language my friend" and he just shook his head cuz he had no idea what that meant because English is not.

Then I immediately reached out to Rich wellner and sent him a screenshot of my bill with my tip amount to ask if it was a good enough tip because I don't understand pesos and this was his response....

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I took French in highschool but picked up a little Spanish later in life. The worst was when I pointed to a cat (gato) and called it a cake (gateau).

Some time after that, I drove an Italian car. Reading the manual wasn't very difficult.
 
Ed Haywood said:
In Germany, I was looking for a military shooting range, referred to as a schiessebahn. I asked a local, "wo ist der scheissebahn," which means something else.
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Boy howdy, does it.
 
iamtheari said:
Oh, you want this for practical reasons? Is the “I Can Eat Glass Project” still a live website? I found it back in the early days of the web… the guy had this theory that being barely able to ask where the bathroom is will brand you a tourist and you’ll get the commensurate level of respect from the locals, but saying “I can eat glass, it does not hurt me” will identify you as an insane local, which comes with a much higher level of respect. So he translated that phrase into every language. Spanish. Esperanto. Klingon. Dozens of others.
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I see a couple of problems with trying to pass as a Klingon local.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Then I immediately reached out to Rich wellner and sent him a screenshot of my bill with my tip amount to ask if it was a good enough tip because I don't understand pesos and this was his response....
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I called Eren. She's also pretty upset about the whole chili's thing and is thinking about just moving to a new house before you get back. Something about needing to make a clean break...

asicer said:
I took French in highschool but picked up a little Spanish later in life. The worst was when I pointed to a cat (gato) and called it a cake (gateau).
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My mom does that all the time when she visits us in Mexico. She tries to respond in Spanish, but her brain just switches to the only other language that she knows a few hundred words in, French. If I had a peso for every time she said, "merci", I'd have... Well, still not very much given the value of the peso, but it would be something!
 
"Sí! I mean, oui!" -- Sgt. Deux-Deux
 
eman1200 said:
I'm still tryins to learns english

las cucarachas entran pero no puedan salir

bendejo

mas cocaína señor? si. si por favor.
Click to expand...
Funny thing is "bendejo" is actually the Puerto Rican word for the Mexican "pendejo" which means oaf. I didn't learn a lot of Spanish but I went to high school in Puerto Rico. I don't actually know the proper Castilian Spanish terms for genitalia. I only know the Puerto Rican slang words. Bicho and Chocha. I belive Chocha is actually used by Mexicans. But not Bicho.

As far as adult learned languages, I probably know Vietnamese the best. Better than Spanish. Not quite fluent but I can tell a cab where to go, and actually order what I want at a restaurant.
 
T Bird said:
I’ve tried numerous times and given up. Russian once then French a couple times. I’ll give it another go one day when I have the time, and maybe if I get a chance to live somewhere where the language is spoken as immersion is the absolute best way to learn quickly.
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My daughter, who works at a wide variety of teaching gigs, decided to add Spanish to her collection awhile back. She opted for a total immersion program in Guatemala - which she found to be the most
affordable way to do it (including the travel). She says that it was a great experience, and is happy with the results.
 
cessna182b said:
My daughter, who works at a wide variety of teaching gigs, decided to add Spanish to her collection awhile back. She opted for a total immersion program in Guatemala - which she found to be the most
affordable way to do it (including the travel). She says that it was a great experience, and is happy with the results.
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This is the way
 
Ted said:
Oh, and if you get Duolingo let me know. I can friend you and then send you nudges to remind you to do your Duolingo.
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As if that owl and Falstaff the bear don’t knudge enough. Seriously, that owl is like a stalking ex-girlfriend who won’t leave you alone.
<—- just finished day 250 in my streak learning German
 
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Did Duolingo Spanish for about 2 years. Finally gave it up. Immersion might be the way for me but at my age, I don’t have the energy for that. I can sort of communicate badly on my annual trip to Puerto Vallarta but definitely not in any way close to what I would like to be.

OTOH, my brother was a semi spook for the USAF. He was sent to the language school in Monterey and spent a long time learning Russian. Still retains some level of fluency. He evidently had a better aptitude than me.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Another way (once you learn at least some basic words) is to find a book you really like, sonething you've read in English at least a few times, and read the Spanish version. It will force your brain to connect the two languages.
On the same note, watch a movie you like, but with Spanish dubs and English subtitles.
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I took Spanish in high school because I wanted to read Cervantes in the original Spanish.
"something you've read in English" - this is how I teach my upper division computer science students (who think Python is the only language...) Take a program you know really well - at least a couple hundred lines of code - then convert to the language you're trying to learn. No, you may not use any generative AI software. They quickly learn there are nuances not only in human languages but in computer languages, too.
 
iamtheari said:
Soy piloto de aerolinea. Necesito cerveza barata. Tengo dolares.
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Oddly enough, it's been decades since I studied Spanish, but I understood it immediately. of course knowing the speaker provided the context which contributed immensely to understanding.
 
When we were kids, we had a chihuahua named Chi Chi.

I was in my 30s when I found out what that meant.

I was traumatized in my 40s when I found out my mom, who named the dog, knew what it meant. :rofl:
 
murphey said:
Take a program you know really well - at least a couple hundred lines of code - then convert to the language you're trying to learn.
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My trick for learning a new computer language is to program the game Blackjack. It's not a complex algorithm, and it models very well in OOP. Plus you can use recursion to handle splits. The top level process is about 8 lines.

Initialize
Repeat
Deck.shuffle​
Player.bet​
Deck.deal(player, dealer)​
Player.play​
Dealer.play​
Player.result​
Until player.quit
 
Ed Haywood said:
The defense and Intel community found out there is a natural aptitude for learning languages, and not everyone has it. When we get screened for positions that require language training, we take a test called the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB). It is an hour of recorded gibberish to see if you can process sound patterns in real time.
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Obviously a native English speaking sample.
 
I’m still trying to learn whatever language my first and second wife speak
 
My kids started playing around with Duolingo a few years back. My youngest picked Dutch because it's random. I've seen her clicking through it lots of times over the years. I really don't know how much she's really picked up but I suspect it's more than she lets on. She claims to mostly do it to keep her days-in-a-row streak going.
So we're just back from a family trip, and we included time in Dutch-speaking Belgium as well as in Amsterdam. I asked her many times what a sign said, etc... but she never knew. I suspect that she might have to a small degree but just didn't want to let-on.

My 2nd flight instructor...from just past solo through instrument and beyond for a few years is Swedish. He and his girlfriend now wife taught me a few things. Right after that time, I moved away and took a different job with a Swedish company. I travelled over there several times for 1, 2, and 3 week trips. Had a few coworkers travel over here several times and we worked closely together sometimes for several weeks at a time. The guy I worked mostly with was Finnish, but he of course, spoke fluent Swedish and Norwegian. Back then, I was young and hungry to learn stuff, and I probably drove them nuts asking what's the Swedish word for this? or what does that mean?... Then when over there I immersed myself as much as I possibly could... watching Swedish TV in the hotels, reading Swedish menus, etc...
I never got anywhere near fluent but I surprised myself how much I learned.

So my theory is that emergence is the key. Being where English isn't an option, or if it is, do your best to skip the English menu in restaurants, etc...
 
Check out Language Transfer on YouTube. They have a Spanish course and it’s 100% free. But better than that, it’s apparently very effective and approaches the task in a completely different way.
 
I learned English, French, Portuguese and Latin (don't ask)... But really want to learn Spanish now. I did go to Spain a few years ago and Duolingo got me proficient enough to talk to people in Madrid.
Now, Mexican Spanish is a different matter...
 
I've never used any of the courses mentioned. Japanese and Korean with night courses in country and could order food, get hotel room, travel, etc., then finished Japanese in college (but don't remember much anymore - 50 years later). I took a summer intensive course in Japanese and by the time it was done I was dreaming in it. Vietnamese in Zi An 3 week course and using in country. One time I found an old ba who refused to hear my Vietnamese so I used Japanese on her and she understood it perfectly but didn't like that much. German a little from night courses and a lot from in-country and listening to YouTube German langauge shows, and I speak it some with my German wife. I can get around OK in street German but not in legal, religious or science. I've read novels in German. I have no idea if the various courses discussed here are of any use but obviously many have learned other ways. Constant exposure seems to be important.l Oh! I've tried several times to learn Morse Code and have a devil of a time with it.
 
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