Thread: Tell me about good ways to self-teach a foreign language.

Definfetly grab yourself a self help book. Also, look into some audio tapes, they'll get you accustomed to the sounds of the new language. I did this with Spanish when I was already decent in speaking it and it improved my skills. It's one thing to learn grammar from a book though, yes, you should do that to begin, and if you have any contacts at all who speak the language, ask them to come study with you...they'll correct you with the begginer stuff and will study the basics with you. Don't stress yourself out, because it's quite easy to get frustrated at an older age, but you'll get it. As some others already stated, it is a great idea to immerse yourself in the language and related culture. You'd be surprised how quickly and well you pick up the local tounge...I went to Costa Rica for only 3 weeks and improved my speaking skill by probably 40-50%...I can now get around though I haven't practiced in a while...

There's many ways, above all, don't get frustrated, enjoy it.

Er, from my experience, trying to teach yourself a language is like trying to cook without a recipe. I took spanish in grade 9 and 10, got straight As, then went to another school for grade 11 which didn't offer spanish in a class. My alternative was spanish through distance education, which was basically me reading from a textbook and writing down answers. I did not learn one thing; on the tests I never got anything higher than a very low B.

So now I'm back at my old school for grade 12, and am currently in spanish 11 and once again I'm at a high A. I found it's nearly impossible to learn by yourself without the help of a teacher or nearby influence. You can only read so much, and even then the information doesn't stick like it would if someone was telling you how or why.

My advice, pay for classes!

Flash Cards, are extremely effective.

Repetition will leave a subliminal imprint... you'll learn so fast