Recommend a self paced language course/app/software please?

Goodfella

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735
Has anyone here used any software etc to learn a language? (Spanish to be exact)..

Ive looked at Babbel, Rosetta Stone, Michel Thomas.

I’d like to be able to say more than “a bottle of wine please” :as001 (2):
 

Wanderer

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5,791
I tried with those but for me a good book on grammar and a vocabulary works.

Other than that total immersion....
 

Goodfella

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735
Thanks.

Im thinking of hitting it hard a couple of hours a day, five/ten minutes a day does not work for me at all..
 

tokyomb

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263
My wife has done quite well on the Duolingo app, learning Portuguese. It did involve picking up some less than useful vocabulary early on (Armadillo in Portuguese, anyone?) but now she has got to a good level of competence just using the app. However, that's more in the few minutes a day mode.
 

2b1ask1

Special case
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20,220
I'm using the free version of Duo to learn French at the moment, 33 days in. It is good, I'm still at a basic level and yes some words seem a little odd but they do cover the formulation of sentences. The thing is that you are forced to deal with the masculine, feminine and neuter variants of words with French so they occasionally choose obscure words to do that. It is available free so no buyers remorse!

Negative is the free version only tolerates 5 mistakes per day so if like me you have dyslexia or struggle to sort genders and plurals in English, you will likewise struggle when typed answers are required. This isn't very often but is a real stumbling point. It will ping you for just a single letter wrong or misplaced! You can always type the question into Google Translate but this doesn't always produce the answer Duo wants!

That being said, I feel I'm further on in a month with this than I ever got at school or in real life! essentially because it does force you to learn written/read language at the same pace as spoken. In life you can usually get by with a fairly minimal spoken language, especially when the written is not so different you couldn't take an educated guess which loo to use for example!

My plans for the upcoming adventure will require me to be able to communicate with a rural French man via VHF radio to get permission to navigate a canal tunnel etc.
 

Wanderer

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5,791
Trouble with these apps etc is they tend to teach you stock phrases. Then if you use it and the reply isn’t stock you are flummoxed.

First time in Moscow I asked for two beers then she replied with a load of Russian I couldn’t follow at all. I think it was ‘shall I take the bottle tops off’ cos I knew some Russian from grammar and vocabulary otherwise I’d have been nonplussed.

Working in Benelux my French has improved immensely- total immersion
 

Harry

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1,149
I’m using Duolingo - 203 days in and I paid £60-ish. I think it’s worth every penny. You can learn new languages and brush up on the old ones. It’s set up a bit like a game, so it’s fun, they encourage you to do a bit every day, you can follow friends on it etc. And it can get quite competitive with the league system, another motivation to stop you from getting out of the habit of a daily lesson. I was surprised how much I still knew from O level french and german.
 

Wanderer

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5,791
Give me the noun inflection tables every time, don't forget adjectives decline too. People think Russian is easy cos there are no articles, which actually makes it harder cos you have to use other linguistic tricks to imply 'the' and 'a'.

Look st this!

88331
 

Goodfella

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735
Thanks all.

I appreciate total immersion is by far the best but moving to Spain seems a bit extreme.

I think I’ll give Duolingo a go, lots of good reviews online as well.
 

CatmanV2

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48,539
Give me the noun inflection tables every time, don't forget adjectives decline too. People think Russian is easy cos there are no articles, which actually makes it harder cos you have to use other linguistic tricks to imply 'the' and 'a'.

Look st this!

View attachment 88331

Oh don't get me wrong it's not going to make you a native but it does explain declinations

C
 

midlifecrisis

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16,101
The best way I've found to learn another language is to go to a local adult college or more expensively get a private tutor. Books, tapes and all that jazz don't really teach you the nuances of the language.

When you get more confident Gumtree advertises language exchanges, whereby you teach a foreigner English and they teach you their language to a higher level.