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WTF? I thought we were living in America! Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a political rant or discussion, but living here in the United Southwest, it definately pays to be bilingual, especially when it comes to Spanish, and I see a lot of employers looking for people that know how to read, write, and speak in Spanish.

I took several classes in high school, but that was way too long ago, and the only thing I remember is saying shit like, "Me llamo es Maico," or other very, very basic shit like that. I think it would work out to my advantage, not only in work sector, but everywhere else if I learned how to speak Spanish again.

So, have you guys ever had great success learning a different language? And how did you go about doing it? All these magazines I've been reading lately always seem to have ads for that Rosetta Stone system that says they will guarantee you learning the language of your choice, but the whole system costs almost $500 and I think it's just a computer program that teaches you how to speak the language only.

What I'd really like is to take a beginner class and learn the language again with an instructor or someone there to help out and answer questions. How do you find a class like this? Maybe they even have free classes like a lot of the charity and community classes that offer free English classes. Hopefully it won't cost too much or take too long like once a week classes. I'd like to be able to write and read in Spanish as well, and not just speaking it.

I'm fairly certain that's wrong, actually. You don't need the "es" when stating your name, just "Me llamo Maico." Go 2.5 years of middle school Spanish!

Anyway, I learned German in high school and am continuing it in college. I picked it because it's fairly easy and a lot more fun to learn than Spanish or French, and I don't really give a damn about the need for Spanish in the US job market these days. I gave Spanish a shot and found it immensely boring, so while it wasn't all that difficult to learn I feel much more comfortable with German since I enjoy speaking it.

I pretty much just remember that Family Guy Episode where the Mexican worker explains it, and then the sentence explaining his english explanation. Good times.

Okay fine, I admit it. That's the only reason I still remember that grammatical rule too. I just thought I'd claim my few Spanish classes were worth something. :(

I tried learning Japanese during my anime days. Didn't work. I think you'll learn a language faster if you use it in a daily basis, and not just in phrases.

I don't understand someone learning a whole new language if they're not going to use it. Unless they're really interested with the language, then that could be an exception.

Well, I find language learning to be an enjoyable experience. I could care less if I use the language I'm learning on a daily basis. I just like to know things for the sake of knowing them. It's much like anything else that you do that has no inherent meaning in it. It's entertaining, and when you actually do get to say "OH! I understand that" or when you get a chance to say something useful to a native speaker during your travels, that's a really delightful experience.
Probably the best way to learn a language is to simply immerse yourself in it. Start listening to music, watching movies, and reading books. I've found Rosetta Stone to be rather useful as well. I took French in high school and I'm continuing it in college, and I just recently started learning some Spanish. Rosetta Stone is a good touch-up program for me for both of those languages. My next project is to read a novel in French which should be coming in the mail sometime this week. Anyway, best of luck to you.

"Me llamo Maico" translates to "I call myself Maico." It's a literal reflexive verb, which we do not use in English often.

I know Spanish decently well. I took five years of it, so I hope I would have some knowledge of it. I can read it without too many problems and will only need to consult a dictionary when I run into tricky words. Speaking is a bit harder, because I tend to get tenses confused. Keep in mind, I haven't taken Spanish in three years, since my junior year in high school.

My ability to hold it is because a fair number of my friends are Spanish majors and they like to speak Spanish on occasion. I'd like to believe that keeps it fresh in my mind.

I understand the market for bilingual employees but I can't help but be frustrated at the fact that my marketability goes down because I don't speak two languages. I know it goes without saying, but STILL. I was too lazy to learn spanish in school and I sure as hell am paying for it now.

In Canada, if you know both French and English, then you get paid way more. If you know french, aren't a fucktard and apply to a government job, you generally are assured the position, because French speaking people are in high demand. I never got around to learning French. I've never really liked the language. Not very interesting in my opinion. I have a working knowledge from what I learned in elementary school. So I can somewhat figure out what a french sign says.

I tried learning Spanish in Junior High School and High School and I ended up with C's and D's in those classes. The teacher I had for Junior High was a huge bitch and the people in that class were annoying. High School wasn't so great. Blegh, I hated those classes... Now here's a really sad story:

I went to this Japanese school every Saturday for the past 10 years and after I quit going there, I still couldn't read or write or speak that damn language! Now here's the sad part; I am Japanese. I can read and write hiraganas ok and kind of struggle reading and writing katakanas, but kanjis are a whole different story. I don't know why I couldn't learn Japanese. My sisters did great in that Japanese school and I think my brother did decent, but I just didn't do so good in it. Maybe it's the fact that the way the teachers teach it make it seem really boring and uninteresting. Or maybe it's the fact that I didn't want to go to some school every Saturday morning. I don't really know. I just hated going there and I didn't really get along with most of the teachers or students there. Maybe if I went back again, things could be different...

I can kind of pick up bits and pieces of words when my parents are speaking Japanese, but speaking to them in Japanese or listening to some total stranger in Japanese is pretty much impossible for me.

I really don't understand why so many people forget everything they learned in high school Spanish; I only took 3 years of Spanish (stupid middle-to-high-school transition counselor...thought I needed P.E. more than foreign language and art :><:) and I can read it more or less fluently, half-ass understand native speakers and half-half-ass speak it. I would credit the teachers, except a lot of my classmates forgot it as soon as they graduated. Then again, I'm a complete language nerd. I listen to a lot of things in languages I don't understand, mostly German/Norwegian/Japanese. Maybe the general interest is what helps me retain better.

At least in California/Texas, it's super easy to build up Spanish by virtue of everything being more or less bilingual. My dad and I usually had nothing to watch on the weekends, so we would watch the Spanish channel (music shows like Caliente and Control). I listen to a little bit of Mexican pop/rap...not that much, and probably whatever is ridiculously mainstream. But one of my favorite things is to pick up those free Spanish-language newspapers that they have outside of places, and read them. Reading newspapers in any language is a great way to build up useful vocabulary, because the news utilizes the words used most in everyday communication.

I took a latin course once (plan on taking more, just for the enjoyment). I like learning new languages, luckily it's fairly easy for me. I've taken some french classes in elementary and high school, but not nearly enough or were they much in depth to have gotten me anywhere. I plan on teaching myself the majority of it, and will take a french university course when I go back. It's not a language I really want to learn, but it's really worth knowing if you're in Canada.

Disregarding the ultimate power of chance (as in, opportunities to learn languages as a child), I think learning a language takes the following steps.

1) Recognizing that the target language is actually a spoken language in the world. This happens by either spending time with native speakers or by a shocking experience (being thrown into the culture). Study the basics...and only the basics...for at least a year. Little by little until your brain gets used to the strange, funny sounds it hears.

2) A buildup of enthusiasm. Learning a language is no simple task. Expect to spend hours studying and hours forgetting what you studied. Expect to spend 5 years or more studying your language to total fluency. Along the way you will suffer defeat (days where you don't feel you have any grasp of it), but more importantly you will gain small victories that accumulate over time into a final product. Strive for spoken power, and slow but accurate speech...if you can say it, chances are, you can understand it being said to you. We learn to speak before we learn to read.

3) After you learn the basics, emerge yourself in the world of your target language. If you don't have fun doing this, then you've chosen the wrong language.


It's friggen difficult...but it's so worth it.

Maybe because they are completly and utterly useless?

Face it, unless you find someone to practice or find a job that needs it, or in some cases, have an actual interest in that particular language, no one's gonna remember gramatical rules that they weren't exactly paying attention on the first place, and most people continue to not pay attention after HS, so it's only logical they forget about it.

Same deal about geology if you get a degree in medicine.

I dunno, I took a few years of high school Spanish and I remember enough to get me through a basic conversation. Unfortunately they didn't stress the speaking aspect of the Spanish language much; we focused mainly on reading/writing. So I can read Spanish alot better than speak it.

Which doesn't really do me any good. How often do I need to read a label in Spanish that doesn't have and English translation already on it?

Same here. One of the French teachers at my high school taught that as an elective, only it was pre-first period so my class would start at 7 am. I signed up for a semester of it when I was in college too but I dropped it to make room for one of my art classes that I needed for my graphic design certification and never really kept up with it. I still want to go back and take the class just for the fuck of it. I'd like to learn the language if only to say, "Yeah... I speak a dead language. AND what?"

I guess that's the first time that I'm hearing German is easy. Other statements are always the same, saying how difficult the grammar is. Anyway, if you like it, keep it up!

My first foreign language was... English! What a surprise, huh? But soon I give a try on Japanese. Without any course by the way. I want to take the first steps in speed I like and then visit one.