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Originally Posted by CAPTAIN CAVEMAN
the idea of being completely fluent/billingual, and learning more languages appeals very much to me... gonna keep taking french in college. i'd like to learn to understand/speak mandarin but the idea of learning the alphabet turns me off completely
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Learning Mandarin would be a massive commitment. One that I feel I could have made if I'd started a few years ago, but now probably couldn't make.
And yeah, there is the possibility of learning it on a spoken level rather than written which is much more feasible and still useful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 333
Hm, I guess what I'm really asking is do you practice orally outside the classroom? I found that when I did this a lot, I really got a feel for the foreign ways you move your tongue while learning a new language.
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I think that practice is necessary for listening skills. My high school Latin teacher who majored in French told me that he went to France and could only really converse properly with the locals after about a week of being there.
I don't think I've forgotten much French vocab since high school, but my listening skills have deteriorated... I can't be the only one who finds listening hard. Mind you, French isn't particularly phonetic and the speed/enunciation/elision can make it difficult to understand.