Immersion. Its the only way.

I did French all throughout school, but haven't spoken it regularly in about 7 years.

Hey BD! Welcome back! Too long away you have been! :thumb:

I'm quite decent at Korean. And Roxy is right, immersion is the key.

i sorta resent the fact that all the asians around here seem to be korean rather than chinese

I can converse in ASL, albeit clumsily. I learned a very small amount of pointed Hebrew, could never speak it but was slowly beginning to learn to read and write more confidently when that opportunity ended. I can still pick out letters and remember the very basic stuff but it's been a couple of years. I'd like to be fluent in as many languages as possible but it would make the most sense if I just aim for learning Spanish.

Fluent in English, trying to learn Spanish and speaking a crooked Portuguese.

The fastest progress I've had is obviously with the Portuguese, since very few people in this country speak English and you have to survive somehow. That makes you brain work extra hard. But I have to say I had the great fortune that my company was paying for private, one on one lessons with a teacher, which I had 2 times per week.

It's hard as hell but I am now very proud of the fact that I can understand most Portuguese and can communicate reasonably well.

I tried learning Spanish on my own (bought some books, read a lot of newspapers, my partner is Spanish and speaks to me half Spanish half English) and I am still not at the level where I would feel comfortable speaking it. The sole reasons being that I'm too embarrassed.

So I plan to find a Cervantes institute somewhere and SPEAK SPEAK SPEAK. And combine that with lessons in grammar. Too much grammar can be disheartening but as my teacher always says, repetition is the mother of learning and eventually, things will start seeping in without you noticing. But you DO have to do the work.

Learning a new language is NOT easy. Perseverance is the key.

Good luck. :)

i find cardboard with chinese writing on it at work and i cut it out and take it home with me. my coworkers know me well enough to expect this kind of behavior but i do get some strange looks from the people at the security checkpoint when they check my bag

Yeah, if I was working the security checkpoint I'd give you some strange looks too. Have you tried searching for immersion software such as Rosetta Stone? Check with SourceForge, you might be able to find something there. Better yet see if you can make a Chinese friend and then communicate with them via Skype, if they're willing to help you. The biggest thing you have to realize is that when you say "Chinese" there's a dozen different sub dialects. Same thing with Korean.

yea i torrented rosetta stone... didn't really get much from it tbh. i didn't get very far in it but yea

i also got pimsluer which basically just drills the same basic phrases in you... i make progress with that slowly but surely. but i really don't have the time to really 'immerse' myself

and i realize that there's more than one chinese language.. mandarin is the spoken language i'm working on.. but as for the symbols, they are used in more than just mandarin hence why i call them chinese