I am spending too much time procrastinating. I have found that the only way to stop myself doing this is to fill all my time with meaningful, useful tasks. So I've decided to learn a language. I'm leaning towards Spanish, but if anyone wants to plug their own particular favourite I'm listening. Basically, if anyone knows a good book for an absolute beginner not in a language class to learn from, I'd be very grateful for a recommendation.
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
Spanish is a very good language to learn. The way I have found that's fun (I took 2 years of high school Spanish but I think this would work for absolute beginners as well) is to buy kids' books in Spanish (the ones without translation are the best) and read them.
1) The pictures help you figure out what is being said.
2) They're available at all levels from absolute beginners on up.
3) You can take your time reading and pondering. Spoken Spanish is very hard for the beginner to follow (either on TV or in conversation) because it goes by so quickly. While I was pondering the meaning of one phrase, the speaker would already be two sentences ahead of me.
4) Many of the stories are already familiar, making it even easier to guess the meaning.
5) This is how you learned to read and write English, basically. It's the easiest most intuitive way to learn.
6) Something about the process of reading and thinking about what's being said and trying to guess and suddenly understanding makes it all stay in your mind much much better than just memorizing lists of vocabulary, grammar rules, etc.
You need to hear the language spoken as well. What would be ideal would be for someone to read to you. The same books over and over until you have them memorized. Interspersed with you reading them on your own.
My personal favorite in my library is La Verdadera Historia de los Tres Cerditos por S. Lobo. (The true story of the three little pigs, as told by the wolf.) It rocks.
[ November 11, 2003, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
Posted by Zevlag (Member # 1405) on :
I here am like Daniel, wasting to much time doing meaningless stuff, or doing meaningful stuff on my computer. I need to wean myself from spending so much bloody time on my computer. I began learning Mandarin Chinese a year ago for one semester. I would like to continue. Basically I need to start from scratch again. What good resources are there for doing this? I would like to learn both speaking and reading.
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