Re:Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, ...
by guitarbill on Sunday October 16, 2016 @02:48PM
(#12720240)
Context is king. Language is pretty verbose, most of the time you can understand the gist without understanding 100%. So at least you can make a start - that's the first step! It doesn't have to be perfect. Granted, the French can be gruff about it, but most cultures appreciate you trying to learn and will accommodate you a bit.
It could be the training material. I'm an auditory learner and the Michel Thomas courses work amazingly for me. I also ignore spelling until later, because I find conversations much more important and also pleasurable (so I'm more likely to stick with it). My English spelling was atrocious, I still rely on Chrome's spellchecker (actually, so do many of my English friends!).
Keep at it, everybody's different!
Re:Ask HN: To those who became fluent in a second language, ...
by Mikeb85 on Sunday October 16, 2016 @11:52AM
(#12719152)
Well half of those you can eliminate because they're grammatically incorrect or make no sense. (Je une = nonsense, unless you mean J'ai une whatever, but still, very different)
The others all have different pronunciations.
For example, did they say:
jeune
Jaune
john
je une
Je un
Joan
Je ont
Jean
Je ne
....
Perhaps it's just an unconscious bias on my part. Just for reference, I am fluent in at least two more languages apart from my mother tongue.