[Help] Learning Another Language

[Gwylan]

I'd agree, 50 odd days in for me and vocabulary is fine but I come unstuck if I try and strike up a conversation!

50 days isn't enough (unless you're spending about five or six hours every day on it) You need to have a vocabulary of at least 750 words (and probably higher) to strike up a basic conversation. I've reached that at just over six months, doing roughly 90 minutes a day. I'm going to spend a bit more time yet before I sign up for a Skype exchange and have a real conversation - I'm aiming for 1,000 words.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

50 days isn't enough (unless you're spending about five or six hours every day on it) You need to have a vocabulary of at least 750 words (and probably higher) to strike up a basic conversation. I've reached that at just over six months, doing roughly 90 minutes a day. I'm going to spend a bit more time yet before I sign up for a Skype exchange and have a real conversation - I'm aiming for 1,000 words.

Got you, no I'm only 20 mins a day, I'll crack on!

 

[Bakero]

Mrs Earle has been learning Spanish with Duolingo during lockdown from a base of her A Level Spanish. She has the 'paid for' course but didn't pay, but that's another story. It's doing a good job, but we have also concluded that she needs someone to talk Spanish with on Skype or similar. That's been suggested by others on here, but the question is how to find someone?

Pre-lockdown there was a weekly English/Spanish language exchange night at Olive Grove in Brighton- it seems to have moved online now.

https://www.meetup.com/brightonintercambio

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrightonSpanish/

 

[Gwylan]

Got you, no I'm only 20 mins a day, I'll crack on!

My sum was wrong: I'm learning two languages so you'll need three months (and I'm do about 75 minutes a day).

At 20 minutes a day, you'll need about nine months


To put it into context. When I started learning German, I had a two-hour lesson a week (plus about an hour's homework) for 36 weeks. After two years, I went to Germany for a residential course and stayed with a German couple who spoke no English. Even after all that studying, we couldn't converse at first but after a week there, I was chatting away. There's no substitute for immersing yourself in the language but I'd had more than 200 hours of study before I went there and that, by itself, wasn't enough.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

There are a few on here

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/skype-language-exchange/

Let us now how she gets on with them

I used a site called The Mixxer and was pretty disappointed with it as my teacher went missing after making initial contact - although that's something that could happen with any of them, I suppose.

I'd agree, 50 odd days in for me and vocabulary is fine but I come unstuck if I try and strike up a conversation!

Pre-lockdown there was a weekly English/Spanish language exchange night at Olive Grove in Brighton- it seems to have moved online now.

https://www.meetup.com/brightonintercambio

https://www.facebook.com/groups/BrightonSpanish/

Thanks to all of you. I'll pass it on to Mrs Earle. She has been going at it like a machine since lockdown and revised, learned and revised again a vocabulary of over 2,000 words. It's good to know how to say that the horse danced with the pig in Spanish, but something more typically conversational would make a difference now. I'm incredibly impressed with what she's done, but she wants more.

 

[Mexican Seagull]

Pillow talk

Having had to learn 2 languages from scratch, though living in the countries which certainly helps (Denmark & Mexico) - after being dreadful at languages at school (3 consecutive failures at O level French....), the best way by far is pillow talk....though that does have other consequences....

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Conversational Spanish version of NSC .... oh my word! Mainly based around ...... Calde, Bruno, Cerveza and la moncloa!

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Having had to learn 2 languages from scratch, though living in the countries which certainly helps (Denmark & Mexico) - after being dreadful at languages at school (3 consecutive failures at O level French....), the best way by far is pillow talk....though that does have other consequences....

Danish is easy peasy. You just take a giant spoon full of porridge, whack it in your gob and start speaking Swedish!

ÅÅAASSHHAA GERRR FAEEEGENBAAURRRGH