I Learned French in 12 Months

Re:I Learned French in 12 Months by sidmitra on Sunday February 16, 2020 @10:15PM (#22345312)

> difference between intermediate and advanced is the ability to move from discussing only facts to making a coherent argument.

This is a brilliant point and never thought about it this way. I've spoken spanish for 5 years but i've always felt some things lacking when i've tried to make an coherent argument about politics for eg. One more thing i'd like to add is 'humor'. If you can make jokes or be sarcastic to natives in their language, then you've definitely crossed another barrier.

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Re:I Learned French in 12 Months by jacquesm on Monday February 17, 2020 @04:00AM (#22346425)

I learned Polish mostly by telling jokes and having people tell jokes to me. Fortunately both Polish and Dutch have a near endless repertoire of them. Many jokes rely on language skills in order to be funny you have to at least get to the point where it can be explained to you. And of course, the immediate pay-off is that you'll hear a funny joke which is good for short term motivation.

Beyond that humor is very much cultural and learning a language through humor immediately exposes you to the culture in a way that talking about current events would not.

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Re:I Learned French in 12 Months by oblio on Monday February 17, 2020 @04:47AM (#22346570)

And you definitely need to cross that barrier if your goal is to integrate in a community, for good. Otherwise you'll always be an outsider.

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