How do you teach yourself a language?

How do you teach yourself a language? Or a better question what do technique or method do you use to teach yourself a different tongue then your native one?

The reason I ask is I'm interested in pursing a language on my own.    

I agree with Zagros...Next option is to have someone helping you with it. A gf maybe 

My uncle however learned to speak proper french by his own initiative...It is a rare case though.

Originally posted by hugoestr Here is my method: Find a book that you feel comfortable with to work through. Use flashcard for vocabulary. This is very useful, and the best way of learning it in my experience. I have thousands of Latin flashcard from when I was learning it. And vocabulary is probably the most challenging part of learning a foreign language. You can also put in flashcards those grammar points that you can't remember well. After that, practice. If you are learning a dead language, do a lot of translations. If you are learning a modern language, find a forum where people speak in that language and practice. Another think to consider is to get from the library a pimsleur audio method. Those are fun.

Thanks I especailly like the flashcard idea, Also I've been having a difficult time finding a history forum in another language besides English.

What language were you forced to learn?  That's really interesting! 

I do like hugoestr's ideas.... similar to what I do.  Although I've never really 'taught' myself a language (so to say), I've studied a lot.  It's really good if you can find a translation of a book that you have already read, this way your knowledge of the book and passages will help you to figure out what you don't know yet.  For example I have a Dutch copy of the Lord of the Rings that I read now and then.  Between studying the basic grammar and reading a few passages at a time, I can pretty much open to any paragraph and know just what's going on.  It also helps having a broad knowledge of other related languages to help piece together the puzzle. 

As far as I'm concerned, you need to study the grammar first to get an idea of what the various lexical categories (nouns, verbs, etc) look like in that language, so that even if you don't know what the word means you could be like, well, looks like a verb, preterite (class VI strong ), etc.  I think it's really hard to study a dead language on your own if you haven't been taught one yet.  I'm taking Gothic, and am now finding it much easier to work my way through some of the Old Saxon Heliand because I'm more familiar with Germanic declension systems and verbs now.  But if those grammatical features pose no problems for you, then forward! 

My method would be the one which I use when assimilating any knowledge.

I seek to impregnate my subconstient, not the constient. For that I'm visualy surfing over a printed or screen document, more exactly I'm simply turning over the pages of a book or puting a pdf (actualy two concomitent, in two pdf reader programs, Acrobat and Foxit) on the authomatic scrolling at high speed, from beginning to end, than viceversa and so on.

In this way it takes much time to get to some operative capabilities but you get a feeling of the matter (so something which is not generated with intellectual effort) and a dexterity which is both useful and pleasant.



Edited by Menumorut - 23-Feb-2008 at 23:57