A question on learning languages

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- Unechance
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A question on learning languages
OP - March 09, 2010, 03:23 PM

Mainly directed towards people who speak more than one language, or who are well traveled. I'm assuming that maybe 80% of you can speak a secondary language anyway.

I'm moving to Paris for 9 months next year and attending an intensive language course. In the 9 months I will complete roughly 1250 hours of French learning through the language school, and I am staying with a French host family.

My question is whether or not I can achieve fluency in those 9 months? I have two French friends, one said I should be fluent easily, the other said I will learn a lot but not be fluent. I know I will learn a lot because I'll be put in an environment where I have to use the language to survive and communicate with my family, the question is how much I can learn.

I do like languages and wanted to learn a second one ever since, on another forum, I found out I was apart of like 10% of people who only spoke English. I've been tossing up between French and German, I love both languages very much.

Many thanks.
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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #1 - March 09, 2010, 03:53 PM

You can, but you would need to be focused about it..

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #2 - March 09, 2010, 04:10 PM

Ffs, big help.

How many languages can you speak just out of curiosity?
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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #3 - March 09, 2010, 04:15 PM

2.5

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #4 - March 09, 2010, 04:16 PM

I think you'll learn a great deal, but not achieve fluency. Or maybe that depends on what does it mean to you to be 'fluent'.

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #5 - March 09, 2010, 06:25 PM

I think you'll achieve fluency easily in that time frame, whilst living there aswell as studying. That's a good amount of intensive exposure, I would be pretty confident of success if I had that chance.

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #6 - March 09, 2010, 07:14 PM

I doubt you'd be fluent in only 9 months.
I would say you could accomplish that only if you are already fluent in a language that is closely related to the one you're trying to learn.

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #7 - March 09, 2010, 07:16 PM

On a side note, it took me like 10+ years to learn some basic English skills
I suck at learning languages, but I am fascinated by them :|

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #8 - March 09, 2010, 07:24 PM

Well, that's the thing, I understand it takes years if you don't go to the country to immerse yourself but 9 months of living in France is quite different to sitting at home and trying to learn the language through a computer; you're never going to learn it like that. The question is how much I can learn through those 9 months, I heard 800 hours is required for semi-proficiency, so 1250 hours (excluding conversational talk with host family) should mean that I learn a bit, but I don't know to be honest...
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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #9 - March 09, 2010, 08:15 PM

To give a general idea:

To go on a mission I had 2 months of intense language study ~ 6 hours a day, the equivelent of the first 3 years of grammer study in an American university

~4 months I could understand a few words

~6 months I could get the general gist of what was said, but I was usually slow, could conversate in pretty simple terms.

~12 months I could get around, order and buy things, flirt, engage is semi complex conversations, watch TV and get a pretty good idea of what is going on....

It depends on your definition of fluency. Mine was being able to read, write, and understand cultural idioms and cultural artifacts and understand a wide range of subjects like medical, political, geographical terminalogy ( for instance in English, if someone said to be or not to be,that is the question, or a girl said aww 3 strikes you're out, or they are like Romeo and Juliet, you would know what I'm talking about)
That level of fluency is pretty hard to obtain.

If you mean fluency as in enough to get around pay your bills, and maybe get laid as long as the lady doesn't want to talk complex issues then maybe a year

So once again I'm left with the classic Irish man's dilemma, do I eat the potato or do I let it ferment so I can drink it later?
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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #10 - March 09, 2010, 08:34 PM

Depends on the person and the amount you learn. Sounds extremely intensive. I lived abroad for a year in Germany. I had a few lessons a week and worked at an English speaking firm, so needless to say I only learned conversational German at best, and that's skipping the grammar.

Word of warning: learning intensively fried my brain, to the point I was losing the ability to speak English clearly (!). At one point I was saying "How is your name?" to say "What's your name?" (due to the direct translation of "Wie ist dein name?").

However, I've known others who have done 4/5month intensive courses and become very proficient. So, it depends on the person I think. Good luck!

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Re: A question on learning languages
Reply #11 - March 10, 2010, 11:38 AM

I am a native French speaker and I can tell you right off the bat that its a very difficult language to master and that, german would be easier for an english speaker.

Having said that, you are going about it the right way and within 9 months you will probably have reached a kind of intermediate level where you can pretty much understand everything and you can make yourself understood. After that its up to you to keep it going and with hard work you can reach fluency in another 2-3 years (faster if you're young)

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