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onomatopoeia

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Since it's the new term and new academic year, at least as far as Bristol Adult learning service is concerned, anyone going to be learning a new language this year? Or any other evening classes?

I'm returning for my second year studying Italian, although thanks to some sort of admin muck up we aren't continuing from where we left off but going back a term. Not to worry, I probably need the extra practice!
 
there's probably a fair number of learning resourses in italian its knowing where/what to look for - i'm learning polish - repitition is the key so i'm told..:)
 
I'm constantly learning Spanish. I've attained a high level, but there's always more to it. It's like an onion. You peel a layer away, and there's another below!
I would like to study Valencian, not because there's a need, but it just interests me. Time is the problem though.
 
I want to take Greek classes locally but nobody seems to teach it! I speak a little but with a Cretan accent, since that's where I've learned it all so far!
 
I find as I get older it becomes more difficult. At school all those decades ago I could gabble away in three or four languages. I'm trying to relearn French for skiing purposes, and I'm also trying, with the emphasis on trying, to learn Irish Gaeilge. It's 'kin difficult even without early onset senility. I reckon I'll have the national anthem done by the time England play in Dublin next February :D
 
Good to know there are a few others :)

One thing that learning a foreign language reinforces is how little grammar beyond the basics I (and I think most British people) know. In the first lesson last year our teacher said chiamarsi is a reflexive verb as if we would know what she was talking about. Entire class looks at her with blank expressions. 'Verb' we know, reflexive though?
 
Learning Italian is a good excuse to watch Inspector Montalbano if nothing else :)

Reflexive verbs are where the subject and object are the same. The spanish add se on the end so you go from I wash to I wash myself. The French have it but we tend to stick a 'myself' or 'himself' etc on the end to make it so rather than altering the verb itself.

lavar to wash (non-reflexive)

lavarse
to wash oneself (reflexive)

Looks like the Italians add si on the end.

Learning French and Spanish at school taught me loads more grammar than I ever learned in English!
 
srichards said:
Learning Italian is a good excuse to watch Inspector Montalbano if nothing else :)
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No excuse needed, Saturday at 9pm is usually BBC4 time here. Also, I want his house by the beach!

srichards said:
Learning French and Spanish at school taught me loads more grammar than I ever learned in English!
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Likewise, although French and German in my case, so I discovered cases pretty early on in German. Had never heard of nominative, accusative etc. until then.
 
onomatopoeia said:
No excuse needed, Saturday at 9pm is usually BBC4 time here. Also, I want his house by the beach!
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Ditto :)

I tried learning German. I still have the Deutche Direkt book. I lasted about 2 weeks before deciding it wasn't for me.

I intend having a crack at Welsh next.
 
Reflexive verbs I can live with. It's the subjunctive that I always have to think about!
 
I keep thinking that I'd like to learn more French as I love going there on holiday. I've considered getting a teach-yourself type CD to make use of my commuting time - but this would probably only teach/remind me of the basics whereas its conversation that I need help with (when the person you're speaking to doesn't reply with the textbook response and you start to panic!)
 
TopBanana said:
I keep thinking that I'd like to learn more French as I love going there on holiday. I've considered getting a teach-yourself type CD to make use of my commuting time - but this would probably only teach/remind me of the basics whereas its conversation that I need help with (when the person you're speaking to doesn't reply with the textbook response and you start to panic!)
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I found one of the CD courses invaluable when I first started learning. It helped me immensely with the understanding of sentence structure and verb conjugation.
 
I did French to GCSE (about 10years ago) so I'm guessing a CD would get me back to that level but not much further, that about right? It would probably help with vocabulary too.
 
TopBanana said:
I did French to GCSE (about 10years ago) so I'm guessing a CD would get me back to that level but not much further, that about right? It would probably help with vocabulary too.
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I don't know what level it would take you to. I used it in conjunction with podcasts, then classes, then the most invaluable thing of all: talking with the locals. What I do know is that the CDs helped me a lot understand how the language works and how it is structured. It didn't help at all with conversational Spanish because a) the trainer had a very strong Hungarian accent, and b) he was actually teaching Latin American Spanish!
But as one of a set of tools, I think a good CD course is invaluable.
 
I had a go with Rosetta Stone.

It's really not much more than a very expensive set of computerised flash cards. I'd rather spend the money on evening classes or even one on one tuition.
 
srichards said:
Learning French and Spanish at school taught me loads more grammar than I ever learned in English!
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OMG and me too. I look back and cringe at the level of "English Language" we were taught. My girls are going through the Spanish school system and had a far higher grasp of grammar rules when they left primary school than I did when I had finished my education :lol:
 
onomatopoeia said:
Since it's the new term and new academic year, at least as far as Bristol Adult learning service is concerned, anyone going to be learning a new language this year? Or any other evening classes?

I'm returning for my second year studying Italian, although thanks to some sort of admin muck up we aren't continuing from where we left off but going back a term. Not to worry, I probably need the extra practice!
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How are the studies going?
 
Ricardodaforce said:
How are the studies going?
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Still going, course ends for this academic year in June. With a single two hour lesson each week progress is not rapid, but we should be learning how to conjugate the present perfect (passato prossimo in Italian) next week which will make conversation a bit easier - at the moment only knowing the present conjugation is rather limiting.
 
I am using Rosetta Stone to learn Irish (Gaelic).

Midway through Level 2.

My son was coaching and playing cricket at one of the Dublin clubs in the 2011 season. It was an end of season gift to him which he lobbed my way.

Looking to tour the west and nort east coast of Ireland this summer and that will include the Gaelic speaking areas.

I think I will make a complete Jeremy Clarkson (covk) of myself!

Steve
 
Started on a German Improvers Class about 4-5 weeks ago in Chiswick. Did some basic courses a few years ago, my OH is german so I thought to get my brain wired for further education I'd embark on a course.

Thoroughly enjoying it.
 
Last year me and a couple of friends decided to do British Sign Language level 1. Really good fun and I've used it a number of times outside of the class. I'd recommend it over a foreign language personally since you're more likely to be able to use it in day to day life.
 
Just started my third year of study, third different teacher. It's not getting any easier!
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Would you feel confident mixing it with the locals on holiday?
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For basic stuff yes, provided they spoke slowly. I can't follow full speed sentences. Still a lot of holes in my vocabularly as well.
 
onomatopoeia said:
For basic stuff yes, provided they spoke slowly. I can't follow full speed sentences. Still a lot of holes in my vocabularly as well.
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Other than the classes do you have exposure to more Italian? Maybe listening to half hour of news (via the internet) might help in that respect. I'm impressed that you're keeping it up!
 
If I start something I generally finish it, even if it takes a long time ... It's moderately amazing that the course is in it's third year, we're just scraping along at the minimum number for the service to keep it running.

I have a satellite dish pointed at Eutelsat Hotbird 13E, so get all the RAI channels, which mostly show American or UK stuff dubbed into Italian (saw Doc Martin a few weeks ago). The news tends to be the easiest to follow as the presenters generally enunciate well, but without some help (e.g. subtitles, even Italian subtitles help a lot) it's often a struggle to follow
 
srichards said:
Ditto :)

I tried learning German. I still have the Deutche Direkt book. I lasted about 2 weeks before deciding it wasn't for me.

I intend having a crack at Welsh next.
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Piece of cake, everything is spelt phonetically, and if you get into difficulty just spell an english word phonetically and pronounce it so and you'll be understood. Adding -io to the end of anything instantly makes it Welsh. Especially so up here, down south is a bit weird though, they can't even spell panad properly!
 
When I was trying to learn German, I had a friend send me copies of Asterix in German to help with things a bit. On the first page of the first comic I learnt that the German for Garden Gnome is 'Gartenzwerg'. You can see how much this approach helped :-)

Anthony.
 
onomatopoeia said:
If I start something I generally finish it, even if it takes a long time ... It's moderately amazing that the course is in it's third year, we're just scraping along at the minimum number for the service to keep it running.

I have a satellite dish pointed at Eutelsat Hotbird 13E, so get all the RAI channels, which mostly show American or UK stuff dubbed into Italian (saw Doc Martin a few weeks ago). The news tends to be the easiest to follow as the presenters generally enunciate well, but without some help (e.g. subtitles, even Italian subtitles help a lot) it's often a struggle to follow
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Keep at it! Once you have it licked the other Romance languages will be pretty easy for you.
 
Still studying, class down to four people now. Next (academic) year the teacher can't take us in the evenings, which since we all have jobs is the only suitable time, so we may be a bit stuck.
 
Saturdays? That's the other time for working people.

I wonder if anyone has tried conducting a small language class via skype or other video conferencing?
 
I signed up for Skype lessons from the Catholic University in L'viv as I'm trying to learn Ukrainian !

I really struggled with it - the set up sounded right but in practice ??

My lessons appeared the morning of the lesson [ which was 1pm UK] ad I was expected to be conversant with the content.

Problem was of course getting hold of a decent dictionary and organising a Ukrainian Keyboard for my Computer ! No allowance was made for that , and no recommendation for the dictionary .
 
Fourth year starting on Wednesday, the four of us that are still sticking with it approached our teacher from two years ago directly and have arranged lessons privately rather than hoping the council adult learning service gets reaches the minimum number to run their course (which would have been with yet another new teacher, the fourth for me in four years). Obviously it's more expensive that way, but for the guarantee that we'll actually get lessons and with a teacher we know that we like, we're all happy.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Fourth year starting on Wednesday, the four of us that are still sticking with it approached our teacher from two years ago directly and have arranged lessons privately rather than hoping the council adult learning service gets reaches the minimum number to run their course (which would have been with yet another new teacher, the fourth for me in four years). Obviously it's more expensive that way, but for the guarantee that we'll actually get lessons and with a teacher we know that we like, we're all happy.
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Well done for sticking at it.
 
I was in Italy for a few days holiday in June. Almost everyone I spoke Italian to replied to me in English!
 
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