I've always wanted to learn other languages.
It just looks so incredibly cool in a James Bond movie when he whips out a short conversation in, Arabic or Spanish. I want to be that cool. Learning the language is just a way to greater coolness. Also some friends of mine speak Spanish with each other I would pay a lot (of money, not time, more about this later) to be able to listen in and understand their conversations 🤔
Come to think of it, I did learn a language next to my mother tongue. I'm writing in that language to you now. You see, I'm native Dutch speaker, and I consider myself fluent-ish in English.
So here is the deal: I want to learn a whole new way of talking, called Spanish, to steal a line from "Cards Against Humanity." I've already tried about one full year of Duo-lingo. I think I even payed for it, just to buy streak-unfreezers, or whatever it was called. Anyways, I now now a bunch of words, but since I never get to practice I still don't really know how to have an actual conversation, how to form my own sentences on the fly…
Recently I found an app on my phone. I must have installed it myself once-upon-a-time, but I install lots of app out of curiosity and promptly forget what they are good for. So anyways, I found this app on my phone called Language Transfer. I have followed the first few lessons, and I quickly realised that I can't do this while ironing or vacuuming. I really need to be focussed to learn.
On HN I found a reference to another similar looking method to learn new languages, called "The Michel Thomas Method." I've not tried this one out yet, but maybe I will.
The thing with learning a new language, any language, is that it takes an awful lot of time. I've only really learned English by accident. Whenever a classmate gave me a CD with a DIVX movie but with no subtitles on it, I would have to watch that movie in the original dubbing. I've learned English by watching movies, pausing and replaying sentences that I didn't fully understand and looking of the difficult words.
Maybe I should just watch some telenovelas in their original Spanish to really learn this language too?
