What Tricks Helped YOU Learn a New Language?

A former coworker learned English almost exclusively by watching the TV show, Family Guy. (Needless to say, he’s not the most tactful speaker now, but hey—it got the job done!) Others swear that you have to completely immerse yourself in the foreign place/culture if you really want to learn the language. Curious to know what helped you hone your fluency in another language?

Despite Having a Spanish-Speaking Family, I’m One of Those “Dumb (Unilingual) Americans”

You’ve probably heard the joke:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
And what do you call someone who speaks only one language? American.

Yeeup. Until about a year ago, I was one of those single-language idiots ... and I’m perfectly fine making fun of myself for it.

Despite the majority of my family on my mom’s side speaking Spanish, I wasn’t taught the language growing up. My mom wanted to teach my sister and me when we were little, but she didn’t feel comfortable conjugating verbs. She thought it would be better for us to learn proper Spanish later in life if we wanted to speak it. Wish she would have taught us a little more than basic vocabulary like “llaves” (keys) and “zapatos” (shoes) though. Lol

After Meeting @Shenanigator, We Decided to Learn Spanish Together

Now, it’s been a little over a year that we’ve been doing daily, 30-minute Spanish lessons through Pimsleur. We’re feeling comfortable enough to watch movies in Spanish to reinforce what we’re learning in our lessons.

(source)

And I can kinda write that paragraph in Spanish now…

A hora, desde hace un año y un poco más hemos estado practicar lección de Español de Pimsleur todos los días. Estamos (feeling) sufficiente cómodo a veremos películas (to reinforce) que aprendemos en nuestro lecciones.

Hopefully that’s at least partially correct. ;)

What Tricks Helped YOU Learn a New Language?

My high school Spanish teacher said the best way to learn the language was by watching dubbed Disney movies. I’m sure there are other creative methods out there.