Trying to learn German...

[Maximus]

So I'm giving this foreign language malarkey a go, chose German for personal reasons, so please don't say not to bother and to learn Spanish instead. Just wanted some tips on the best methods, was thinking Rosetta Stone, but then saw the price, any other good language software?

What about classes, is that better than software?

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

So I'm giving this foreign language malarkey a go, chose German for personal reasons, so please don't say not to bother and to learn Spanish instead. Just wanted some tips on the best methods, was thinking Rosetta Stone, but then saw the price, any other good language software?

What about classes, is that better than software?

Guten Tag!

Actually, my German is very limited, but I have been meaning to learn more for a while now. And while I have not had time to use it myself, I've heard good things about livemocha.com. It's free, and the basic idea is that you hook up with someone in another country who wants to learn a language you can teach them and who can teach you the language you want to learn.

Not sure how effective it is, and I guess it depends a bit on who you find to be your "partner", but since it's free, I guess it's worth a try.

[Steve]

I've heard the Berlitz courses are very good, but I have no doubt they're going to be pricey as well. My father-in-law learned German through one of their courses. I have heard very good things about the Rosetta Stone too. I'm sure you get what you pay for.

[sfmarine]

I hear a lot of buzz on Rosetta Stone. It's pricey though. Good luck with it. Hopefully someone else can chime in because I'd like to get a software that is equivalent to RS.

[silversnake]

From what I know, learning a language properly is expensive and have yet to find a cheap method. I have heard a lot of good things about Rosetta stone.

As for classes, they are as good as the teacher is.

[proxpilot]

Originally Posted by fireman325

I've heard the Berlitz courses are very good, but I have no doubt they're going to be pricey as well. My father-in-law learned German through one of their courses. I have heard very good things about the Rosetta Stone too. I'm sure you get what you pay for.

this is what my aunt recommended me for German ^^^

[mikejet]

Rosetta Stone!

[toef]

Rosetta Stone is the go-to for most languages, but the problem is it's the same exact program for every language, and they just switch out the words.

The program/method works best for romance languages, which German isn't, so I'm not sure how good it'd be for you. (I started learning Mandarin a year ago, and RS was NOT the way to go for that.)

You can find a handful of free websites online that offer some intro lessons on German, and test the waters with those before investing in anything else.

I've used Pimsleur to learn Chinese, and found that to work really well. They're only audio lessons, but since I was only trying to learn to speak in Chinese, I wasn't too concerned with learning to read or write it (which alone is an insane amount of work).

The only issue is those are pretty costly too, but a local library might have some CDs to borrow (that's where I got the Chinese ones).

[Lord_Stewie]

You could do it yourself by buying some short stories in german, and a dictionary. All it takes memory at first and understanding the short stories. That's how I learned 5 different languages with 2 that are my foreign languages anyways. (But I had an advantage which made it easier: learning latin).

[Hammie]

I don't know how I did it but I passed German in High School with pretty much only knowing "... gleich um die Ecke."

[SleeperAgent]

I'll tell you this now, Rosetta Stone costs that much because it is worth it. Both the people I know that used it said it was cake.

[OrlandoEastwood]

I learned sink or swim style. My folks were military and they moved out to Germany in 2003, shortly before my 14th birthday. I was trying to get it all quick as soon as I got there.

[toef]

Originally Posted by TheSoviet

I'll tell you this now, Rosetta Stone costs that much because it is worth it. Both the people I know that used it said it was cake.

What languages did they learn though?

I had a friend who used it for French, another who used it for Greek, and I tried using it for Mandarin Chinese.

The guy who learned French did well with it. The guy who did Greek didn't like it, and I hated it for Chinese. That seems to follow the general idea that Rosetta Stone works well for romance languages, because of the way those languages are structured, but doesn't work well for others.

The other major flaw with Rosetta Stone is something they promote as a strength, which is that it teaches you a new language the same way you learned it as a kid. The flaw is the assumption that adults can learn a language the same way a kid does, and that's not true.

Max, I spoke with my friend who was learning French, and he mentioned the Michael Thomas CDs. MT mainly deals with the romance languages, but happened to do a German series as well, and they're not as expensive as Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur (which I mentioned before).

[SleeperAgent]

One was French and one was Italian. But the one who learned Italin knew spanish already and said that helped.

[Maximus]

So I asked my boss this morning, turns out work have a fund for this kind of stuff so they are buying Rosetta Stone German Level 1-3 for me.

[toef]

Originally Posted by TheSoviet

One was French and one was Italian. But the one who learned Italin knew spanish already and said that helped.

Yeah, I've grown up learning Spanish because I was forced to learn it in school, from first grade through junior year of high school, and want to brush up on it again, so I've wondered if I should try the Level 3 Rosetta Stone, since it apparently works well for those sorts of languages.

And then if that works out well, I've considered jumping into another romance language, since it should be easy to pick up fairly quickly... something like Italian. But I have no real practical use for foreign languages, other than Spanish.

The reason I learned Chinese was sort of as a challenge, since it's considered such a hard language. And I figured if I was going to invest the time, I might as well learn a language that a billion people speak, as opposed to something like Greek, which is cool, but isn't even in the top 50 languages, in terms of how widely spoken it is.

And since I know English and Spanish, if I added Chinese, I'd know the top 3 languages in the world, spoken by roughly 2 billion people combined.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

So I asked my boss this morning, turns out work have a fund for this kind of stuff so they are buying Rosetta Stone German Level 1-3 for me.

Good deal.

[Marquoz]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

So I asked my boss this morning, turns out work have a fund for this kind of stuff so they are buying Rosetta Stone German Level 1-3 for me.

Das ist zehr gut!

Hope you do well with it. I learned German in high school on a lark because well, uhm, it was that or Spanish. The cool thing about it was being able to watch Das Boot and understand it without subtitles.