Learning a new language?

[Breton monkey]

i've learnt french from scratch. moved here with no language skills, i struggled at first, but after a year living with my french girlfriend i now speak fluently

[Tom D]

there's loads of apps on android, not sure about sewdish tho. go into your menu and look for the "market" ikon if its there, its a kind of app finder.

[morten]

Anyone learnt a new language from scratch??

 

How did you do it?

 

Any tips or advise?

 

Im taking evening classes, but struggle to concentrate as soon as it goes slightly over my head (often) then im lost for the rest of the class.

Reading books, i can do a maximum of 2 pages before concentration is gone (this applies to any books-dyslexia kicking in).

 

Any hints or tips appreciated

 

I think the biggest barrier for you is that most swedes speak English (and don't mind doing it, unlike most Frenchman). You your best bet is to start off by asking those around you (personal and work relations) to speak Swedish to you, even if you reply in English. That way you'll concentrate on the language and discover that you understand more and more (the "passive vocabulary). Ask about the words you don't understand and have them translated.

 

Then later, you can start off speaking more swedish yourself. Start off by speaking the common daily phrases. And ask those near you to tell you what you just said, would sound like in Swedish. That way you'll quickly learn important nouns and verbs, this building up your so called "active vocabulary".

 

Good luck!

 

PS: My native language is Danish, but I also speak English, Swedish/Norweigian, German, Mandarin Chinese and a little Russian. And if I concentrate a little, that ballast actually means understand Dutch/Belgian too.

[odd_bird]

Interesting . . ive lived here 11 months, started taking classes start of the year, the classes and books seem to teach correct grammer first, perhaps thats something to change, thanks:thumbup1:

I had been learning English for 8 years back home and getting pretty good results too..It was until when I arrived to the UK and couldn't understand the damn thing you people were saying, I have then realized that learning all that grammar was complete waste of time.. It's like learning how to fell a tree from the textbooks and claiming your CS's for it.

I might have forgotten fair bit of grammar but that's what you get for mixing with propa English

[BenR]

Hi mate, this may not apply/be relevant to your situation but..

 

I spent 4 months in Spain on my gap year. The only time I learnt any spanish was by finding people that were interested in learning English, but had as little knowledge of my language as I had of theirs.

 

We would sit down have a pint and just work on vocab. Teaching each other how to say things in our own language. Eventually building up to sentences.

 

The thing with this is you need someone that can't speak English. By the sounds of it a lot of Swedes speak English and so, like Rich mentioned, they respond to you in English thinking they are helping. Jump in at the deep end, try to speak as little English as possible. Maybe find some real hick Swedes to groundy for you that don't know any English!!! Goodluck!

[morten]

... Maybe find some real hick Swedes to groundy for you that don't know any English!!!

 

You wouldn't want hick Swedes as your groundsmen. TRUST ME!

[Lee Winger]

mi no comprende?

[TRADITIONAL LOGGERS]

PS: My native language is Danish, but I also speak English, Swedish/Norweigian, German, Mandarin Chinese and a little Russian.

 

The problem is most foreign people like to practice good English so will respond in English. Reading the news on the www helps but can be confused with different dialects. (Nynorsk/Bokmal)

 

Perhaps we should be all learning Cantonese also due to the world economic climate.

[josharb87]

Cheers for the replys, keep any advise comming!

 

Ian, how did you learn when you were here?

 

Morten, thats crazy, do you ever mix the languages together by mistake?

 

Where are you from oddbird? how did you learn once you were in the uk?

 

The most french i learnt was when travelling to monaco through the alps, where no one spke english, but like traditional logger and rich have said, everyone here wants to speak english too much

[morten]

Morten, thats crazy, do you ever mix the languages together by mistake?

 

No, I never mix languages (unintentionally), but a funny thing is that back in 1987, when I'd been living in England for about a year (without family, so I only spoke English), I discovered that my dreams and thoughts started to be English language, too.