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[Grenseal]

Since I live in an area with a prominent Spanish speaking population, as well as for my own desire, I'm going to attempt to learn Spanish. In my first attempt, learning that other languages have gendered nouns kind of broke my brain.

If any native English speaker has learned another language, what advice would you give? What helps and what hurts?

Also any fun or interesting stories would be cool too.

 

[p_xavier]

English is my third language, people are nice when you try to speak their language. Just speak to natives. Never was fond of Duolingo or other apps.

 

[kevboard]

English is my second language, I do dabble in japanese from time to time, but not enough to properly speak it lol.

yeah, I bet learning a language with gendered nouns would be hard...
as a native german speaker I grew up with a heavily gendered language, and I can't even fathom how it must be to learn that as a second language lol.

but I guess, don't try to make sense of it... just use the words often enough until it becomes natural.
because I think in Spanish it's like in German, where all the genders for the nouns are basically random.
the only ones in german that are following a pattern are words that use the same suffix,
like -chen... which all are neuter... which leads to the weird reality that in german, the word for girl is not female, but neuter, because it's Mädchen... so it has the chen suffix.


so, like, good luck lol. you'll need it.

 

[LyricalShrike]

I learn to read languages pretty easily. It's a habit I picked up being educated in Catholic schools where latin was a thing. Formal learning is always helpful. A tutor or class with an instructor to bounce basic grammar topics. Speak or write as much as possible once you have a basic grasp of grammar. It helps to train your mind to decode rather than discard foreign input. Then just practice and refine based on whatever your goal is.

 

[jshackles]

Native English speaker here. Was fluent in Spanish growing up, but lost the ability to speak it when I was 16 due to brain trauma. Started learning Japanese 6 years ago, and it's been tons of fun. Been to Japan twice now, and being able to talk to the locals was the best.

Some things I wish I could have told myself six years ago:

• Skip duolingo, it's pointless.
• You can learn a new language at any age, but the older you are, the harder it'll be.
• Immersion helps, a lot. For example, my Spotify algorithm is so fooled at this point that I only get commercials in Japanese.
• Realistically you'll need to set aside at least a few hours a day to study. Like, with actual textbooks.
• Speaking with others in your new language will typically yield the best results - there are website online where you get paired up with someone who is a native speaker that's trying to learn your native language, and those sessions can be really fun and extremely valuable.