Is anyone here bilingual?

Rot Box

Rot Box

Diesel and Dust
Supporting Member
Location
Smithfield Utah
Kind of random.... but I want to commit to learning a second language (Spanish Latin American) for a few different reasons and I'm looking for tips, recomendations and advice. Is anyone here bilingual? And more so how/why did you become bilingual? The Rosetta Stone software seems to get a lot of good reviews anyone have experience there? Thanks for any input

Andrew
 
i speak fluent Spanish and I'm conversational in English. :rofl:

I was a missionary, and we had 2 months of language training on campus, then I was shipped off to Mexico where nobody spoke English. No doubt being immersed in an environment where they only speak the native language was key to my learning. Whenever I had the option to speak spanish or English, it was a lot easier to just speak English since it required so little effort. Being forced to speak the language really makes you practice the hard parts.

Reading Spanish text helped me, talking with kids who spoke that language, and patience and lots of humility helped me learn. I know that my learning style would not suport online language learning, I need a live instructor and live people to interact with. Chatting with kids really helps because they're honest and they'll laugh at you when you say a word wrong. Plus they're patient.

I also learned that you don't need to have the most incredible vocabulary to communicate. It's almost like taboo. You can explain the concept without using the word.
 
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Also bilingual from a mission, but I went to Indiana. Now (as well as Alljeep) I'm a roofing contractor, so I speak a lot of spanish to my employees. I'm kind of like Steve. I like learning by interacting with people and asking what new things mean as I go, and then using them as much as I can so that they get engrained into my brain. I think that a computer based program is a good start to get some foundation and memorization, but after that you should try to surround yourself with some spanish speaking people to get a grasp on how to use the rules and vocabulary that you've memorized in real-life situations. Maybe we can have some RME'ers who speak spanish go wheeling and speak ONLY spanish the whole trip! That would be interesting!
 
I'm not bilingual. Three years of Russian in college allows me to understand and read, but talking... yeah. Not so good. And my French from way back in the day allows me to sing Le Marseilles. :D
BUT, my wife and I got Rosetta Stone for Mandarin Chinese for Christmas and so far so good. I like that it teaches you language not by saying, "This is an apple. In Mandarin apple is X" but rather showing you the apple and they having you practice the Mandarin word without ever giving you the English translation. Its not quite immersion, but I like it better than my Russian and French classes in the past.
 
I can sing Polish Catholic Hymns and I can read Latin too thanks to my Parochial education and the Carmelite sisters. I also took Spanish 1 for 3 years in HS and learned Jive growing up in Newark, NJ in the 70's.
 
My mission was in Thailand so of course I speak Thai and some Laotion. I kept a little black notebook that I wrote 5 words down each day and made myself use them during the day. I think being thrown in the middle of it is the quickest way but since that is not an option, I like what Stephen is saying. I had a deaf girl working for me for a month or so and I made it a point to try learn some sign. I am glad she could read lips.
 
I speak chinese, English is my second language, when i in school in taiwan, we did have to take english class, but never had to use it, until i came to states junior year in highschool. first few months i was mostly lost all the time, but then, i catch up after 3 month and still learning new words today and everyday. I think to live in a foreign place is best way to learn a new language and culture.
 
Awesome thanks everyone :cool:

I worked for a meat packing plant right out of high school. For 8-12hrs a day I was the only english speaking person on the production line of 9 people everyone else spoke spanish and most only knew a couple English words. One morning a guy got my attention and made a motion like he was driving a car, then shrugged his shoulders and wrote $1500 OBO on the table and pointed to the OBO shrugging his shoulders. I spent the better half of the morning trying to explain what OBO meant :D

I really liked those guy's. They gave me a nickname for the first month. My new lab coat had "Soy Joto" written on it in big letters which meant "the new guy"....... Thanks to a curious random office person I soon learned the was NOT what it meant :rofl::laughing::rofl:
 
hahaha

Do you work with any native spanish speakers at your current job? If so, people are usually more than willing to speak their native language with you, especially if you're trying to learn it.

I've got some guys here who speak Spanish as their native language and English as their second language. Whenever I see them, they talk to me in Spanish, and it helps me keep from getting TOO rusty.

How good have you gotten at spanish? One thing that helped me was reading it out loud. I learned how to pronounce the words correctly, even if I didn't know what they meant. Spanish is awesome that way: every word sounds exactly like it's spelled (unlike English.) Sometimes it's fun to watch movies you've seen a million times in Spanish with English subtitles.
 
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When I worked for JL Audio, I couldn't speak with a majority of my co-workers on the plant floor. Luckily, I didn't work on the plant floor.
 
i have heard that just learn one phrase "what is it?" in that language then you should be fine , just remember " what is it" in whatever language then you can learn from there..
 
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