About learning new languages.

[Ateista]

Just curious to those of you that know more than one foreign language: I'm 36 now, and want to learn something other than just english, and was just curious if it's hard to pick up new languages at my age? (like i'm old or something)

[Deleted]

I can't attest to what it's like to learn at 36, though I'd imagine it would be at least slightly more difficult than had you been 14, 15 or 16 for example.

Do you have any languages in mind?

The glory of our hobby, assuming you're a gamer as well, is that we're only ever a keyboard and microphone away from people all over the world. That said, you can find sites that do language exchanges, not sure what you would call them exactly, but there are sites where you sign up what language you speak, what level you speak it and what languages you would like to learn. It's almost like a dating site for people wanting to learn languages lol.

If it's a difficult language like Mandarin or Arabic, I'd suggest moving to a country or area temporarily to immerse yourself in the language and be forced to speak it every day. You'll be surprised how much you pick up just by listening.
Another advantage would be the confidence you gain from speaking it daily and to native speakers. I personally speak Mandarin fluently(Or at least what people would consider fluent in a second language) and when learning it I found it so overwhelmingly embarrassing to speak it -- It's a tonal language, so you basically have to force yourself to sound 'Asian' to pronounce half of the stuff, so yeah, pretty bitter pill to swallow lol.

Another option, assuming because of your age you're settled, have a career and possibly a family, travelling or moving away for 1-12 months at a time is out of the question.
If that's the case then you can hope to find courses or tutors in your area that offer the language you're interested, sign up and ask the tutor what they would recommend as far as books and audio books to help you learn.

[Callous1970]

Get the Rosetta Stone software. I've used it and it is amazingly good and teaching you how to speak and read another language.

[Deleted]

How about French, Spanish or Portugese? I wouldn't recommend Dutch or German, apperantly they're a pain in the arse to learn.

[Deleted]

I don't recommend arabic, as every country speaks it a little bit differently

[Raphtheone]

I can't attest to what it's like to learn at 36, though I'd imagine it would be at least slightly more difficult than had you been 14, 15 or 16 for example.

At around 20 the brain thinks it has learned the languages it requires, and after that it's harder to pick up new languages. Picking up the little things, like dialects and pronunciations, are significantly harder, if not nearly impossible. If you go to a country and learn their language as an adult, they will always be able to hear you're not a native.

[Litoru]

I don't think you're ever too old to learn a language. My uncle started learning Chinese when he was around your age, which he started speaking fluently after a year abroad.
Basically, if there's a will, there's a way. Though since you only seem to know English, I guess you haven't study any other language before, which is why it might become difficult. But you can still do it.
I personally try to learn language as a child, you just need to forget your own grammar, and mimic. I'm studying my 8th language from next semester, in my 7th language.

Edit: I'm 24.

[MerinPally]

It'll be harder but stick at it and you'll be fine. As long as you don't stress yourself over how you want to say things you can't due to not knowing enough then you'll be ok, because when you're learning in school you don't know enough intelligent things to talk about so it was never an issue.

[tratra]

How about learning Java as a foreign language and use it for the best of gaming

[Deleted]

It is - imnsho - 95% a motivation thing. I was as a student intern for a while teaching Americans to learn German. We had lots of engineers from the car industry, also a few (edit: college/university) students with rich parents, so no morons, and most of those guys were pretty darn close to hopeless, they weren't motivated; often learning in groups of two or three and looking around saw other guys do badly as well. We also had an Entrepreneur in his 60s who basically had not heard a word of german his whole life. He was both from a grammar and a pronounciation standpoint the quickest and best learner I've ever witnessed - apart from children growing up exposed to a foreign language on a daily basis.

[lordjust]

Get the Rosetta Stone software. I've used it and it is amazingly good and teaching you how to speak and read another language.

In my opinion using software to learn a new language is only an option if the language you want to learn is similar to one you already know. For example languages like Chinese, Japanese or Russian are very hard to learn with software because they use different letters and especially Chinese is very tricky because every pen stroke can dramatically change what the symbol means. In addition in Chinese a lot of words sound almost the same and it's about when you make breaks when saying a word and other things.

My advice would be to go into a real course where a teacher teaches you the basics. After that you can use software or just read sites and watch movies/play games in that language to get better.

Also if you really want to master a language you have to move to that country and live there for a year or two to use that language non stop. As for how hard it is to learn a language at a later age. I think it really depends on how strong your will is.

[Faenskap]

It's not impossible, but rather than saying "oh chinese is popular, I should learn it", find a language you want to learn, almost fall in love with it

I've been to Greece several times, and I only know a few words, but lately I've taken a certain interest in Bulgarian though I've never been there, but I still think it's a wonderful language. I also play with a Bulgarian which ofc makes it more fun and easier. Just try to take one word at a time. Bulgarian also uses Cyrillic, but I don't think thats too much of a problem. For more Cyrillic fun, I play on a Russian server from time to time (but I don't understand too much, in fact, very little).

Bleh, I dunno. I think a burning interest is more important than anything.

обичам български

[Terahertz]

How about French, Spanish or Portugese? I wouldn't recommend Dutch or German, apperantly they're a pain in the arse to learn.

I agree with dutch and german. I'm dutch and had to learn german in school but I sucked balls at it. Although german does seem easier than dutch. For some reason spansih and french seem the same to me...

[StayTuned]

I can speak four languages now. I learned English through school, German because I grew up there, Croatian since my parents taught me it and Dutch since I study in the Netherlands.

Picking up languages feels quite easy and natural for me as long as I can actively engage in the language. I had terrible English skills in High School because everything was centered about reading from a book and most of the time, classes were in German. I had no way to listen to English, etc. Everything changed when we got internet at home that as fast enough to stream stuff. I picked up on English extremely fast after watching movies on English. I had to work on my grammar before I went to the Netherlands to attend university, though. Albeit good, my English writing skills were far from university level.

When I studied Dutch, it took me about two years to become a fluent speaker by only investing about 1 hour of work per week. I wasn't really good at writing, though.

So if it doesn't bother you that you won't be fluent in writing, you can bring a language to understanding/speaking level within mere months, regardless of your age.

As English is your native language, I would recommend Spanish, French or Italian. Don't bother with German, it's fucked up. My parents couldn't handle it after 25 years of living there and my GF still struggles with der, die and das after 7 years. (no, she's not 7 years old, she just moved here 7 years ago, silly)

[kronpas]

Just curious to those of you that know more than one foreign language: I'm 36 now, and want to learn something other than just english, and was just curious if it's hard to pick up new languages at my age? (like i'm old or something)

Im 29, and im studying Japanese by myself ATM (since I cant find time to attend language classes anw). English isnt my mother tongue, so you are definitely be able to do it.

In fact, you can start learning a new language at anytime given sufficient determination - the effort you are going to spend on the YEARS learning a new language is staggering. Most people drop it halfway lol.

P/s: dont aim for true fluency. If you are not going to live in a country where that language is spoken, you are not going to reach native-like level however you try.

[luc54]

In my opinion using software to learn a new language is only an option if the language you want to learn is similar to one you already know. For example languages like Chinese, Japanese or Russian are very hard to learn with software because they use different letters and especially Chinese is very tricky because every pen stroke can dramatically change what the symbol means. In addition in Chinese a lot of words sound almost the same and it's about when you make breaks when saying a word and other things. - -

Actually using software and so to learn these languages deffinetely help. While russian does use different writing system, but they still use alphabet which can be rather easily used through software/website as long as you repeat it many many times. Japanese has 2 syllabries as well which can be learned through repetition along with the chinese characters used by the east Asian languages.

As for OP, just as others pointed pick up language that intrests you, since motivation is key in learning new languages. I don't know how hard it is to learn later, but you never know before you have tried. Don't give up and remember to practise by listening to music, reading etc.

[Nehezbegar]

If You live in UK or in Chicago, learn polish

[Ateista]

thanks for the responses everyone! very insightful and helpful. much preciated!

to answer a few of the questions; i plan on taking german, japanese and spanish. i start my japanese course come the spring semester (january 18th). the others will come at a later time.

also, sorry for the late response. my attention was drawn from mmo-champ when a queue had finally popped on a realm reborn. on top of that, i had totally forgotten that i posted this thread... i fail.

[vindicatorx]

thanks for the responses everyone! very insightful and helpful. much preciated!

to answer a few of the questions; i plan on taking german, japanese and spanish. i start my japanese course come the spring semester (january 18th). the others will come at a later time.

I have been watching a lot of anime recently and wanted to pick up intro to Japanese but apparently it's only offered in the Fall and since this is my last semester I guess I am SOL on that one.

[Ateista]

At around 20 the brain thinks it has learned the languages it requires, and after that it's harder to pick up new languages. Picking up the little things, like dialects and pronunciations, are significantly harder, if not nearly impossible. If you go to a country and learn their language as an adult, they will always be able to hear you're not a native.

i had heard this somewhere before, but wanted some feed back from the foreign posters on here. this is a bit disheartening, but won't drive away from learning a new language.

i'm comfortable with the career i have, but having multiple language just looks so much better on a resume.