I'm using pimsleur and it's not too bad about half the price of rosetta the first 10 lessons cost me 20$ and it's about 20$ to download the advanced lessons 2 at a time for a total of 20
Learn a foreign language - what's the best way?
- Thread starter SteelCity
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Check out "TellMeMore". I have used their French and German programs and they are very good. Much depends on your learning style, background in the language and previous language learning experience. For some a standard textbook and audio disks, others an immersion computer system, some do best in a formal classroom, others a private tutor. Italy has some great schools for foreigners in many cities that can be combined with a trip and allow true immersion. A friend of mine did that in Chile with Spanish and it worked great!!
Get an Italian girlfriend. My Russian is muy bueno since I married a Russian lady
A little off topic, but.....For any parents of young children:
The best time for acquisition of a second language is during the first 5 years of life. They are little sponges and will pick it up with little effort. If you can get them in a bilingual preschool or immerse them in another language in any other way, it is well worth it.
It will also make it immensely easier for them to pick up a third or fourth language in high school or college should they desire.
No advice here for adults, I have a hard enough time with the only language I know. But I think it's a tremendous advantage in this day and age to be multilingual. A great gift to your kids.
The best time for acquisition of a second language is during the first 5 years of life. They are little sponges and will pick it up with little effort. If you can get them in a bilingual preschool or immerse them in another language in any other way, it is well worth it.
It will also make it immensely easier for them to pick up a third or fourth language in high school or college should they desire.
No advice here for adults, I have a hard enough time with the only language I know. But I think it's a tremendous advantage in this day and age to be multilingual. A great gift to your kids.
This is a great idea. As an adult learner, I have found that recognizing the written word as it's spoken has been a big help to me. Now, to find some Italian films with Italian subtitles. And after that, some Roman films with Latin subtitles... ;-)
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Rosetta Stone is great for building vocabulary and even learning grammar, but I think you should start out with a conversational program like Pimsleur. Rosetta Stone teaches you a lot of words, but without knowing some sentence constructions, you'll have no idea what to do with them. When I started learning Danish with Rosetta Stone, I could describe somebody's appearance before I could ask them if they spoke English. The hardest part of language learning is developing listening comprehension (and, depending on the language, pronunciation). In my experience, watching movies in the target language with subtitles (in that language), and listening to audio books with the text in front of you, are good ways to pick up the speech patterns of the language.
