Learning a new language...please help

Coincidentally, we're about to buy the ol' Rosetta Stone package for Spanish so we'll see how that goes.  I get a discount from my company, so I think we're going to get the initial package and then see if that works for us.

I also took Spanish in High School...I retained a lot of it, surprisingly enough.  Another suggestion is to watch  (if you have Univision, Galavision, etc.) a lot of Spanish language television, and maybe even better if it's something you've seen before because you'll have an idea of what's going on.  If you can't visit Mexico, South America, or Spain (or hang out at the local Home Depot parking lot--hey yo!), watching the TV shows regularly is a good way to "immerse" yourself.

Immersion, immersion, immersion.

Even fake immersion. My father getting me a subscription for Time by mistake when I was ten, and English speaking satellite channels did more for my English than years and years of lessons.

Boycott Rosetta Stone. I was a manager for them for 4 years,until last week.

They went public with stock a while back and the company has been treading water ever since. They demoted people, closed some stores, changed commission structure (suddenly I was making $400.-$800. less a month. Many people jumped ship at that point), they replaced the CEO, and now they're in the process of closing HALF of  their retail stores, putting hundreds out of work. I got 2 weeks notice (no severance pay 'because we gave you 2 weeks notice')

Don't support a company who treats their faithful employees like this!

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevehauk 

Boycott Rosetta Stone. I was a manager for them for 4 years,until last week.

They went public with stock a while back and the company has been treading water ever since. They demoted people, closed some stores, changed commission structure (suddenly I was making $400.-$800. less a month. Many people jumped ship at that point), they replaced the CEO, and now they're in the process of closing HALF of  their retail stores, putting hundreds out of work. I got 2 weeks notice (no severance pay 'because we gave you 2 weeks notice')

Don't support a company who treats their faithful employees like this!

Pimsleur all the way!! It works, truly! 

Other advice: gorge yourself on foreign language music and cinema. Go over it periodically as you learn, and don't rely on subtitles... one of the most fun aspects of learning a language is how the world gradually opens itself up to you. 

Watch every Spanish film you can get your hands on. Regardless if it's up your alley or not. I watch Brazilian soap operas, and believe me, it's not for the story lines or production values (although they are admittedly surprisingly compelling and well-done). 

You're not doing this for fun, you're doing it to learn. Keep consuming as much as your can. Picking and choosing only limits. 

Slightly tangential but the learning from TV and so on part is interesting.  I've been getting into Russian lately and thinking that the immersion technique might help speed things up.  But I've kinda started to think this only really works when going between the romance and germanic groups, since they share a certain amount of syntax.  English, say, is relatively easy (relatively) to pick up as a second language 'cause you get your nouns and some syntax and you're on your way.  Going from English to one of the Salvic languages and you can't do this as easily because unless you really grasp all the cases you're going to be talking complete gibberish.

It could just be I'm an idiot, however.  It does seem from trying it a little that some languages glom on to others a little easier than going the other direction.  Maybe some multi-linguists have some opinion on this.

I went from Greek to English mostly via immersion. I wouldn't worry about changing language group. Just forget about ever getting a convincing accent without coaching.