Comments on: How to practise a foreign language for free without travelling

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Ciao Federico! Anche a me piace “meetup”. C’è ne uno “meetup” per parlare l’italiano nella mia città e ci vado qualche volta.

Grazie per l’offerta di parlare con me in italiano! Se vuoi, puoi
vedere il mio profilo su Lang-8 per sapere il mio livello nella lingua:
http://lang-8.com/annette

You can also feel free to send me a message through that site, if you like.

Grazie!

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Ciao Federico! Anche a me piace “meetup”. C’è ne uno “meetup” per parlare l’italiano nella mia città e ci vado qualche volta.

Grazie per l’offerta di parlare con me in italiano! Se vuoi, puoi
vedere il mio profilo su Lang-8 per sapere il mio livello nella lingua:
http://lang-8.com/annette

You can also feel free to send me a message through that site, if you like.

Grazie!

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Ciao Federico! Anche a me piace “meetup”. C’è ne uno “meetup” per parlare l’italiano nella mia città e ci vado qualche volta.

Grazie per l’offerta di parlare con me in italiano! Se vuoi, puoi
vedere il mio profilo su Lang-8 per sapere il mio livello nella lingua:
http://lang-8.com/annette

You can also feel free to send me a message through that site, if you like.

Grazie!

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:30:00 +0000

Ciao Federico! Anche a me piace “meetup”. C’è ne uno “meetup” per parlare l’italiano nella mia città e ci vado qualche volta.

Grazie per l’offerta di parlare con me in italiano! Se vuoi, puoi
vedere il mio profilo su Lang-8 per sapere il mio livello nella lingua:
http://lang-8.com/annette

You can also feel free to send me a message through that site, if you like.

Grazie!

By: Federico Amicucci

Federico Amicucci — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:58:00 +0000

Hi!
If you want to speak Italian with me I’m available!

I’ve found a lot of English guys with Meetup!
Good trick!
Thank you Benny!

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:33:00 +0000

Doesn’t surprise me – I also lived in India and saw some reactions to Hindi in non-Hindi regions. Right now I’m in the Philippines and outside of Tagalog (the official language of the country) regions, people barely even speak it, even if they understand it fully.

There are assholes everywhere. Shrug them off and continue as before

By: Fabin1453

Fabin1453 — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:49:00 +0000

try http://www.mumeye.com to meet different language people it will be useful to meet someone who you dont know and you can communicate in real time

By: GlobalButterfly

GlobalButterfly — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:16:26 +0000

So inspiring! I can attest that Meetup groups are quite helpful in learning languages. And there is nothing better than CSing.

By: Alysia Raine

Alysia Raine — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 04:35:57 +0000

Benny, I know that this is an 'older' article of yours, but I must really thank you for this one in particular. This article is so helpful to me because I want to learn German fluently without having to actually travel there and live there (I actually would love to live in Germany, I just don't have the money to do it). In the past couple days I've been using (http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/Default.asp) and (http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/) and made more than 8 contacts with people from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. I actually just had my first conversation with one of my contacts on Skype (half the time we spoke English and half the time we spoke German) and it was really exciting! Thanks again for writing this article!

By: Language Hacking with Digital Nomad Benny the Irish Polyglot | Thrilling Heroics

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:19:36 +0000

[...] How to practice a foreign language for free without traveling [...]

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:00:05 +0000

Thanks for the comment and the follow up e-mail So glad to see you are meeting like-minded individuals. There are language learners everywhere

By: rippedelastic

rippedelastic — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:38:38 +0000

Cool, thanks for the reply! That DOES make me feel more confident, seeing as I got a B at ordinary level too I'll be trawling through the internet for the resources available then, and see how much I can learn out of that (and the irish house idea) without having to take a formalised course; something that never worked for me, besides me not wanting to spend 1000 euro aswell :S And yeh, I really look forward to your post about Gaelige when you get around to it, it'd be really useful!
Thanks again!

By: Annette

Annette — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:30:40 +0000

Benny, this post was so helpful! Thanks so much for posting the meetup.com link. I checked it out and I found a group near me for practicing Italian! Yay!

Annette

By: Mysterycheez

Mysterycheez — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:29:04 +0000

Since I don't have much opportunity to speak Italian right now, I do like to get a lot of input from videos and recordings but I think it's also important to try to speak, even if you don't have someone there to speak to. Currently I am working on Italian but I have been studying German for the last few years and for a long time I felt too shy to try to speak. I thought that at least if I listened to the language a lot it would help. This has some value but I learned that no matter how much you listen to the language and even if you understand, you won't automatically be able to get the words out when you need to, even if you know what you want to say! The foreign language has different sounds than you are used to in your native tongue and I actually find that unless I have been practicing saying the words, my mouth just won't cooperate! I really think there is some element of muscle memory involved. Also, saying the words, even if in the beginning all you do is repeat what you are hearing, will solidify structures in your mind.

You might be better than you think you are! This past summer as well as the year before, I was in Germany. I have had many people very amazed at my language ability and found this to really boost my confidence.

It's hard for some of us, but let's get speaking

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:19:29 +0000

Glad you liked my sneaky link
I think I'll have to write a post about getting over shyness to speak a language, since it is something that affects a lot of people, including myself in the initial stages.
Enjoy meetup!! In Paris there is also the “polyglot club”, a separate website/community that meets up regularly to practise languages. A bit of googling, facebook searching etc. will reveal them.
Thanks for the comment!!

By: Elthyra

Elthyra — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:24:53 +0000

Sneaky link to 'Parisians' made me laugh, I admit
Shyness is always a problem, especially here in Paris where as you have noticed people aren't really friendly. I love practicing languages with other non-native students, we have fun yelling silly insults at each other in Russian. I know most teachers use a the 'pure input' method a lot, talking to students only in the foreign language and only sometimes explaining grammar points. In my English class we sometimes have sessions with a native speaker to practice having conversations in English.
Great post, as always
*is off to check meetup.com*

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:54:18 +0000

Again another interesting and informative article. I've had a similiar experience in learning French with a Chilean friend of mine. I was never afraid to speak to him in French since we had the same level. Also, he was able to relate French to his native Spanish when we weren't sure about some vocabulary….very interesting

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:18:01 +0000

Hi Helen!! Thanks for your lovely comment!
Re: Spain… one of my biggest regrets is that I unfortunately never had an Erasmus year and all 4 years of my studies were just in UCD. I did however socialise with Erasmus, not just in Valencia, but across Europe Not sure what part is confusing in my posts about that story. I graduated in 2003 and moved to Spain with no Spanish and never having been there before. Tried to speak Spanish for 6 months and then finally started just speaking English as you would have read.
Re: Gaeilge… to make you feel even more confident about being able to speak Irish, know this: I took ORDINARY LEVEL (not Higher level) Irish for the Leaving Cert, and still only got a B. After learning a few European languages I thought it was high time I should learn my own, so I investigated the immersion possibility. It's a little bit of a vicious circle, with getting a job in the Gaeltacht needing you to already have Irish, so I saved up a grand and gave myself an entire 3-week intensive immersion at the courses offered by Oideas Gael, and of course applied the “Benny polyglot” method of speaking only in Irish, despite the low level I had. My motivation to improve was further pushed when it turned out that not only Americans and Brits, but JAPANESE people at the course were speaking Irish better than me when I arrived!! It kind of does come back to you and you jump up the levels each week very quickly, especially if you are motivated and hard working (for the first two weeks I skipped going to the pub with everyone so that I could study, but then the last week I was out every night practising over a fine pint of OJ!!)
I claim that fluency is achievable in 3 months starting from scratch, but even an Ordinary level B is far from starting from scratch, so there was no work involved in getting used to basic vocabulary, the sound of the language, grammar etc. and it was not that bad. 3 weeks was enough for me to get over the speaking barrier enough so that when I went back again the next summer I was confident enough to make that video and casually converse as Gaeilge! I still have plenty of work left to do, but I've made up for my school days
Irish is by far the hardest language to practise abroad that I speak, but I use the Internet and do meet up with Gaeilgoirí whenever possible. I tweet as Gaeilge regularly, read Irish blogs and watch TG4 over the Internet. I also have some stuff as Gaeilge with me as I travel.
Glad to hear you are liking the blog, don't forget to pass it on to other language lovers!! I'll eventually write about Irish when the time is right! You'll be glad to hear that I have a very silly video waiting to be edited about learning Irish (similar to the Italian one I made over the summer), but putting it together will have to wait for the moment.

By: rippedelastic

rippedelastic — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:56:32 +0000

Hi Benny!
I'm an Erasmus student in Spain right now, also from Ireland (although not UCD Also I'm in Granada for the year, not Valencia like you were) and similarly getting to grips with what I hope is my first language of many! Very luckily I discovered your blog quite randomly within the first month of getting here. You'll be pleased to know I have given up English, even with my English housemate entirely (however not for phonecalls from home and whilst using facebook unfortunately ). And of course every few days of disilusionment and despair that I experience here in Spain, related to how I think I'm not learning anything, are interspersed by days of HUGE optimism, thinking I can understand about 90% of what the lecturer says But it's early days yet, and I do hope to come out of it fluent. I was a bit confused by your first post about your background and then this one, both describing when you became fluent in Spanish. Was it because of your erasmus, or during another period in Spain after you left UCD?

Anyway, the real point of my post is; when I get back to Ireland, I intend to go full force into learning Irish. Like 95% of Irish secondary school leavers, I have promptly forgotten the language I was forced to learn for 12 years. And despite the general sentiment of anti-learning Irish and Irish only being a language for purists, quite gung-ho nationalists and very old folk living in the darkest depths of rural Gaelige-speaking Ireland (as of course I'm sure you're aware of!), I want to learn it again. Fluently this time, and through the sense of my own enjoyment and ambition to learn what's supposed to be my true mother tongue. I have always wanted to learn Irish, and found that that was something I just couldn't do in secondary and primary school, in that particuarly way it was taught. Perhaps if I knew of the Benny Polyglot method of learning languages things would have been different

Now, I should just say now I have NO intention of getting you to give opinions on the fairly awkward and exasperatingly endless arguement surrounding a nation's inability (and refusal) to speak it's own language, despite it being in the national cirriculum, don't worry! All I want to know is how YOU did it? Seeing Irish as one of your languages, and seeing the videoblog of yours where you went to the Donegal for Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish week for anyone reading this unfamiliar with Irish), I assume you tackled learning it the same way you tackled the others; through complete immersion for so many months (unless you actually went to a gaelscoil or kept up diligently practicing Irish since you left secondary school, in which case you need only reply to this comment with that and save yourself reading the rest!) When I ever bring up the subject amongst friends, it's the same lament that I have from everyone; I WISH I could learn it but I don't know where or how… (or simply “I hate Irish and I never want to hear/speak it again, regrettably). Perhaps then you have the answer as to how I can learn again!

If you did take your usual immersion route to learn Irish at the level you have now, where did you go, where everyone speaks irish? How long were you there for? I haven't been able to find any record of your adventure learning Irish like I have for your other languages.

I'm already making plans next year to start learning though; when I finish my erasmus and get back to college in Ireland, I want to start an Irish house; have only Irish as our medium of communication in the house, except of course when the typical English-speaking guest pays a visit, and when we have to go to our lectures through English. I have found enthusiastic volunteers as housemates, one with Irish as their native language. It'll be like another Erasmus! So I do know exactly the kind of frustrating beginnings I'd be up for with understanding the housemates, adhering to the Benny Polyglot method naturally like I've been doing here in Spain

But besides doing that, do you have any advice as to what else I could do, perhaps based on what you did? Do you have any idea where there is media available in Irish? Books, films, things like that? Or did you spend three solid months in a house in Ireland watching TG4?

Many thanks, and I LOVE the blog, needless to say!
Helen

By: Balint

Balint — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:04:44 +0000

I'm using the input method to get perfect, contemporary and understandable input – it has nothing to do with shyness. Going out and starting a conversation with (almost) totally strangers can be hard, I admit that, but not when you try it with the right person!

That's why I try to “filter” my new “friends” in the given languages. It takes time, but if I don't have any interest in the person, why bother? The language itself won't give a common ground in the long run. I have to be interested IN the person, in his/her life, way of living. Why bother if not? After all, as Benny put it too, one learns a language to meet new AND interesting people which he/she shares ideas and has common way of thinking.

If you meet the right person, you won't feel embarrassed, what is more, you have a motivation to know more about the person! And from that point, you don't learn the language, but you are making friends – a solid language knowledge just the “byproduct”.

I've already made some friends through meetup.com and other sites (internet does help a lot to find people! ), and they are not only language partners but rather friends. So I think, this helps a lot.