Learning languages as an adult?

[eurasiacan285]

A little informal poll:

How many people have contemplated trying to learn the language of one of one's parents *as an adult*? (particularly an Asian language)

Have you:

1) Thought about it?

2) Done it?

3) Never thought about it?

4) Started the process already?

In the interests of full disclosure I'm 38 and "half-Chinese" but only speak a few words of Mandarin, I've been thinking recently about taking 1-3 months and going to China and doing some kind of language program, or maybe a combination language/business program. Any advice or reports on personal experiences along these lines would be interesting (to me). ;D

[BeTheReds]

Just wondering if you only wanted hapa responses or can anyone reply. If it is the latter, we'll move to another forum.

My participation:
I have learned to speak Korean as an adult, after having a lot of exposure to it as a child, though it sounded like nonsense to me until about 20 years old.

[eurasiacan285]

No, not just hapa responses. (Is there a way to create polls at this website btw?) Thanks

[VV o n g B a]

listening to chinesepod as i write.

[Chooky]

I've been trying to teach myself Turkish for the past few months. I'm finding the going tough. There's a conversational program put out by Pimsleur which isn't bad, and I'm about to invest in the "Rosetta Stone" software which I'm told is good.

[popculturepooka]

Do I count as an "adult"?

I've heard Japanese all my life so if I wasn't fluent in it, I became fluent when I came to Japan.
I've been learning French, Spanish, and Mandarin on and off through the years.
I'm getting serious about Mandarin right now. I want to be able to speak fluently 5 languages by the time I'm 25.

[BeTheReds]

Moved, poll added...

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Contrary to popular belief, I've read that adults are actually more cognitively adept and prepared to learn languages than young children or babies. It's just that babies pick up languages much faster because it's that one language that they are always exposed to 24/7, and they don't have any previous knowledge or fluency in any other language. Most adults that try to learn languages expose themselves to the language for a maximum of an hour a day if even that, are half-assedly motivated, and do little to apply it and/or don't have sufficient opportunity to practice with native speakers. Exchanging a few phrases with the Japanese/French/German/Chinese guy/girl at work does little.

I've been able to learn Korean and brush up on my Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish with much success as an adult.

[LaiSteve66]

I have not made any serious attempt to learn a language since I was 15.

[eurasiacan285]

I've been trying to teach myself Turkish for the past few months. I'm finding the going tough. There's a conversational program put out by Pimsleur which isn't bad, and I'm about to invest in the "Rosetta Stone" software which I'm told is good.

Cool. I looked at some Pimsleur programs a while back, aren't they the ones they claim to be scientifically proven to work better? (as if they don't all say that).

But they do a lot of repetition, and real world conversations right? But you sound like you're not too satisfied with it, so you're looking at another product?

Do I count as an "adult"?

I've heard Japanese all my life so if I wasn't fluent in it, I became fluent when I came to Japan.
I've been learning French, Spanish, and Mandarin on and off through the years.
I'm getting serious about Mandarin right now. I want to be able to speak fluently 5 languages by the time I'm 25.

That's interesting. Did you feel that it was much easier for you to make the sounds of Japanese having heard the sounds of Japanese?

(I would like to learn Dutch [know a little bit], Chinese [know a few words] and Russian [know a little bit], after that maybe French [know some of the basics] and Spanish [know a few words]. But I'm not 25 anymore! [I am conversational in German though.])

Moved, poll added...

Thanks for creating the poll. Could you possibly reword the "successfully learned" choice though to something like "learned as much as i had planned to" or "met my goals for that language"? I don't want people to think that they can only tick that box if they became completely fluent.

Contrary to popular belief, I've read that adults are actually more cognitively adept and prepared to learn languages than young children or babies. It's just that babies pick up languages much faster because it's that one language that they are always exposed to 24/7, and they don't have any previous knowledge or fluency in any other language. Most adults that try to learn languages expose themselves to the language for a maximum of an hour a day if even that, are half-assedly motivated, and do little to apply it and/or don't have sufficient opportunity to practice with native speakers. Exchanging a few phrases with the Japanese/French/German/Chinese guy/girl at work does little.

I've been able to learn Korean and brush up on my Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish with much success as an adult.

Yeah I agree about adults being able to learn too. While it may not be as easy, I think an adult's mind has strengths a child's doesn't, plus the ability to discipline oneself to study regularly, work on one's weaknesses, and so on.

Plus there's no substitute for going to the country in my experience, it just reinforces everything (and maybe even normalizes it in some weird way).

[Chooky]

Cool. I looked at some Pimsleur programs a while back, aren't they the ones they claim to be scientifically proven to work better? (as if they don't all say that).

But they do a lot of repetition, and real world conversations right? But you sound like you're not too satisfied with it, so you're looking at another product?


Actually, I recommend Pimsleur pretty highly as a supplement to other more formal programs. The only problem I had with Pimsleur is that the Turkish program is only available up to Level 1. By contrast, more popular languages like French, Italian (Mandarin too I think) etc go up to level 5 or 6, which is understandable. Each level provides you with about 16 hours of conversation practice.

The Rosetta Stone software I mentioned is also highly touted (by the manufacturers of course!) as a popular method amongst overseas consular staff, but I've also had friends tell me that it was very helpful. It's fairly expensive though.

[AngryABCGirl]

I've been trying to learn Cantonese, not my parent's language, off and on for years. I can understand most everyday stuff pretty well, but I'm pretty lost in a news report and can't really speak it. It just sounds like fucked up Mandarin.

I would like to learn Taiwanese, but I think I'd have to move back to Taiwan to do that, and I'd only do that if a US firm posted me there.

I learned Spanish to a near fluent level in high school, and then I let it die. I can still read the news, but am at a loss in speaking it.

I'd like to speak five languages fluently in my lifetime, most likely will be English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Spanish at where I'm going. I'm not that interested in other languages to be honest.

[Sunflare]

Walking down the street today in my neighborhood ( I live close to the Chinatown in my area ) I was greeted out of the clear blue by a cute little two year old girl, saying hi in Mandarin Chinese. I responsed by baby talking to her back in Chinese with what little I know about the language. Her mom was really cool, she was nothing but smiles and was not uncomfortble at all by a total stranger talking to her baby in shitty Mandarin Chinese. That made my day so much that I was moved to finally post on this subject.

I've been learning Mandarin Chinese for over a year now. It's tough because I don't get as much exposure to the language as I would like to. This is not my native language, my dad spoke Cantonese, my mom's native language is English and most of my pals these days are Hispanic, Indian or black. But I am persistant and will continue to try to get better at it. Damn it it's in my blood. So I feel it's out a sense of duty that learn Mandarin and eventually Cantonese if I can.

I'm not exactly gifted when it comes to liguistic ability as most who posted here already. I envy you guys.

I pondered about learning Portugese after I'm out of college in a few years, settled in my career eventually as a nurse, so I can make that trip to Brazil and find that knockout Brazilian hottie wife of my wildest dreams .... ( I'll admit I'm a sucker for South American chicks... )

Props to eurasiancan285. Its about time someone created a thead about learning new languages as an adult.

[popculturepooka]

That's interesting. Did you feel that it was much easier for you to make the sounds of Japanese having heard the sounds of Japanese?

(I would like to learn Dutch [know a little bit], Chinese [know a few words] and Russian [know a little bit], after that maybe French [know some of the basics] and Spanish [know a few words]. But I'm not 25 anymore! [I am conversational in German though.])



Oh, most definetly. I knew Japanese before, but it was mostly just the hearing portion. I'd just respond to my parents in English when they'd speak in Japanese.

I have a aunt who successfully learned french and italian when she was 43-44. It's never too late!

[AngryABCGirl]

So any tips to learn languages efficiently on your own?

[deez nuts]

I've been trying to learn Cantonese, not my parent's language, off and on for years. I can understand most everyday stuff pretty well, but I'm pretty lost in a news report and can't really speak it. It just sounds like fucked up Mandarin.

I would like to learn Taiwanese, but I think I'd have to move back to Taiwan to do that, and I'd only do that if a US firm posted me there.


I can interact conversationally in Cantonese pretty fluently now. Never had the intention to learn Cantonese, I just picked it up over the years from dealing with Cantonese people. The big boost for me in terms of learning Cantonese is when colleagues would ask me to translate because there are a million Spanish translators at a hospital but only a handful of Chinese translators. Not knowing that I am only fluent in Mandarin, I get stuck with a purely Cantonese speaker with at best rudimentary Mandarin. So over the years, I made an effort to make it work, picked up intricacies of the Cantonese language and voila. My mom was surprised at how good my Cantonese is now.

My Taiwanese still very rudimentary at best based on what I retained during my years in Taiwan.

My ears are actually starting to pick up bits and pieces of Fukinese and understanding it due to the amount of Fukes here.

[AngryABCGirl]

I can interact conversationally in Cantonese pretty fluently now. Never had the intention to learn Cantonese, I just picked it up over the years from dealing with Cantonese people. The big boost for me in terms of learning Cantonese is when colleagues would ask me to translate because there are a million Spanish translators at a hospital but only a handful of Chinese translators. Not knowing that I am only fluent in Mandarin, I get stuck with a purely Cantonese speaker with at best rudimentary Mandarin. So over the years, I made an effort to make it work, picked up intricacies of the Cantonese language and voila. My mom was surprised at how good my Cantonese is now.

My Taiwanese still very rudimentary at best based on what I retained during my years in Taiwan.

My ears are actually starting to pick up bits and pieces of Fukinese and understanding it due to the amount of Fukes here.

That's really good, I'm wondering if I hit a phase where I'm too old to learn to pronounce new words effectively. It wasn't nearly as difficult to learn Spanish as a teenager- although it must have helped I heard a lot of Spanish growing up and may just inadvertently absorbed the sounds.

I lived with fobs from HK as housemates so I picked up quite a bit from them and their annoying TV shows, and even dated a Cantonese guy, but I just can't get it to come out right vocally. People tell me I sound like those mainlanders that just arrived in HK. I'm too wrapped up in academic tasks still and considering getting CPA to be studying languages, but it's actually pretty important to be to learn Cantonese since I want to be working in HK as a banker sometime before I hit my late-twenties and will be living in Norcal soon where Cantonese is more lingua franca amongst Chinese people here. I hope once I jump through these last hoops I can take sometime to learn it, maybe even a hire a tutor that will be more patient than my friends who are sick of me butchering their language.

My Taiwanese blows, and I keep mixing it up with Cantonese now. My minimal motivation for it is to figuring out wtf my relatives are saying about me and to travel to beaches in South Taiwan with more ease and buying cheaper vegetables on the street. Unless I work in Taiwan again, which is highly likely, I doubt I'll learn it.

Spanish I know I can pick up again watching univision and reading papers.

[deez nuts]

That's really good, I'm wondering if I hit a phase where I'm too old to learn to pronounce new words effectively. It wasn't nearly as difficult to learn Spanish as a teenager- although it must have helped I heard a lot of Spanish growing up and may just inadvertently absorbed the sounds.


I don't think you're too old. I think it just requires more innovative ways to learn with the fact that situations might dictate it and force you to learn as a source of motivation to compensate for the reduction in gray matter density as we age.

[AngryABCGirl]

I don't think you're too old. I think it just requires more innovative ways to learn with the fact that situations might dictate it and force you to learn as a source of motivation to compensate for the reduction in gray matter density as we age.

I think it might be easier of Cantonese was a totally foreign language, like say Korean. My Cantonese might not even be that bad (as in I don't have problems speaking what I can, no stopping and stuttering) just that my mandarin accent is so strong. It might take more years repitition than say, Spanish, for that reason.

[deez nuts]

I think it might be easier of Cantonese was a totally foreign language, like say Korean. My Cantonese might not even be that bad (as in I don't have problems speaking what I can, no stopping and stuttering) just that my mandarin accent is so strong. It might take more years repitition than say, Spanish, for that reason.

Well if Mandarin was your first language aspects of Mandarin will be carried over when you speak Cantonese. I really don't think there's any way around it.

You just have to force yourself to incorporate it whenever you can. My dad learned Cantonese when we first came to the USA because the only job he could get at the moment was selling produce in Chinatown and knowing Cantonese was a must.

[Broomer]

Wife speaks Mandarin and I'm Canto, so we're working on each other's language.
Ka.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Never been particularly interested in learning the languages of my ancestors. I don't see any point to learning German or Tagalog, and my Hakka and Bahasa Melayu are as good as they're gonna get unless I go back to Malaysia (which seems increasingly unlikely). In contrast, though, I've learned a bunch of other languages as an "adult" (or at least starting at an age beyond the traditional teenage cutoff when all the developmental linguists say it's impossible to learn to speak a new language without an accent).

Plus there's no substitute for going to the country in my experience, it just reinforces everything (and maybe even normalizes it in some weird way).
Dunno --- I really feel I went to Japan way too early in my Japanese learning "career" (I'd just finished a second-year university course by the time I arrived). I would have got a lot more out of it if I had waited until my Japanese was good enough to actually make friends with normal locals instead of language leeches who just wanted to talk in their crappy English all the time. Ironically, my Japanese has made a lot more progress while I've been in Hong Kong --- mainly cuz I can hang out with all the Japanese exchange students/interns whose English and Chinese aren't good enough to make friends with normal locals instead of language leeches who just want to talk in their crappy Japanese all the time.

Actually, I recommend Pimsleur pretty highly as a supplement to other more formal programs. The only problem I had with Pimsleur is that the Turkish program is only available up to Level 1. By contrast, more popular languages like French, Italian (Mandarin too I think) etc go up to level 5 or 6, which is understandable. Each level provides you with about 16 hours of conversation practice.
Yeah, I started studying Russian in March through Pimsleur tapes and taking a class (1.5 hours once per week) --- The combination approach works a lot better for me too --- I can listen to Pimsleur on my mp3 player every day even if I don't have time to read the textbook for my course. The best thing when learning a language is just to do SOME kind of review every single day, and pressing "play" on the ipod while you do laundry is a lot easier than sitting down at a desk w/computer with the whole internet to distract you.

Of interest to YW members learning heritage languages, Pimsleur has Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese courses with 30 lessons (Level I); the Japanese and Mandarin courses have 90 lessons (Level III).

http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/

BTW the highest level for any Pimsleur course is III (a total of 90 half-hour lessons). You're lucky that Turkish at least goes to 30 lessons, some of the less popular languages only have "Quick Starter" courses that stop after 8 or 10 lessons. Actually Pimsleur's selection of languages is pretty odd ... they have a 30-lesson course for Ojibwe (55,000 speakers) but none at all for Hungarian (15 million speakers), let alone any number of Asian languages with a hundred to a thousand times as many speakers.

People tell me I sound like those mainlanders that just arrived in HK.
HKers think everyone without a blatant Tagalog or English accent sounds like a mainlander.

[Chooky]

BTW the highest level for any Pimsleur course is III (a total of 90 half-hour lessons). You're lucky that Turkish at least goes to 30 lessons, some of the less popular languages only have "Quick Starter" courses that stop after 8 or 10 lessons. Actually Pimsleur's selection of languages is pretty odd ... they have a 30-lesson course for Ojibwe (55,000 speakers) but none at all for Hungarian (15 million speakers), let alone any number of Asian languages with a hundred to a thousand times as many speakers.


You're right, the highest level is III. Ooops!!

Pimsleurs language selection is odd and I do feel lucky that there was a 30 lesson program for Turkish, especially since there aren't that many Turkish language books out there to support the teaching of it. There doesn't seem to be much demand to learn Turkish.

[AngryABCGirl]

So what do you think of pimsleur, say versus rosetta stone?

[AliBabaIncorporated]

So what do you think of pimsleur, say versus rosetta stone?
Pimsleur's good as long as you're aware of the weaknesses it'll leave you with, mainly in grammar --- their "teach through English" way of telling you how to remember patterns/word order in the foreign language by prompting you with the literal English translation is really irritating to me, and often those translations are imputing English grammatical properties to those words which plain old don't exist in the foreign language (e.g. telling you a Russian word with a certain declension means "THE x" as opposed to "x" when Russian doesn't even have definite articles).

That said, aside from the obvious advantage that you can listen to it wherever you go instead of just at your computer, there's a more subtle advantage you get if you use it in combination with another more text-based learning method: you'll be learning words by hearing them (mapping foreign sounds to meaning), then later as you learn to read and write from your textbook, the words themselves will already be familiar to you. When I describe it, it doesn't seem like that big of a difference, but it's a hell of a lot less painful than having your first exposure to new words be seeing their printed form in a textbook (and having to map the foreign letters both into sound and into meaning at the same time).

[Chooky]

So what do you think of pimsleur, say versus rosetta stone?

Pimsleur is good as a supplementary program. It provides a framework that allows you to hear and practice basic tenses, sentence stucture (which may be radically different if you are learning a non-Indo-European language), and pronunciation. It's a learn through repetition system that can give you very basic conversational skills fairly quickly. But, it does need to be supplemented with more formal programs to expand vocabulary and teach grammar.

I'm about to buy my first Rosetta Stone software so I don't really know how good it will be. It's selling point is it's intuitive full-immersion concept which is supposed to get you to think in the language you are trying to learn. We'll see!

[eurasiacan285]

Ok so to piggyback on my own question does anyone here have any direct personal experience with http://www.chinastudyabroad.org/?

They have a program which looks pretty interesting to me (in Qingdao), and the website seems comprehensive and up-to-date (unlike some others). It's also based in the U.S., which is reassuring for me, and the prices seem reasonable.

[AngryABCGirl]

I've been listening to these while I've been driving: http://www.kingstone.com.tw/Book/images/Product/20180/2018020322918/2018020322918b.jpg
http://www.kingstone.com.tw/book/book_page.asp?LID=se008&kmcode=2018020322918&Actid=tornado

Says Cantonese phrases in Cantonese and then repeats them in Mandarin. I realized why I don't like audiobooks and such, I can't concentrate on driving as much, but good use of time in the car.

[unemployable]

My parents aren't Japanese but I learned Japanese and am still learning it.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

They have a program which looks pretty interesting to me (in Qingdao), and the website seems comprehensive and up-to-date (unlike some others). It's also based in the U.S., which is reassuring for me, and the prices seem reasonable.
For China, US$10,080 (http://www.chinastudyabroad.org/qingdao/qingdaouniv_fees.htm) is quite unreasonable; it's almost more than what you'd pay in Hong Kong (e.g. CUHK (http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clc/)). Qingdao University itself charges RMB14,000/academic year for tuition (http://www.international.qdu.edu.cn/lxqdfybz.aspx) for foreigners enrolling as language students and RMB900/month for dorms (http://www.international.qdu.edu.cn/lxqdzfsq.aspx); total per year ~US$3,320. The only extra benefit that company seems to offer is international health insurance; unless you have known health issues AND their insurance would actually pay for dealing with them, you'd be better off getting catastrophic illness/evacuation coverage only and paying cash at private hospitals for any of your other needs (dental checkups, minor bouts of hepatitis, etc.).

Anyway, good luck if you decide to go! My other advice would be to find some local friends through language exchange websites before you go and try to avoid the whole on-campus foreigner bubble; some sites that are popular in the mainland and have an English interface include:

http://www.tt4you.com
http://www.babbley.com/


Also these two are more international sites, but they have a decent number of mainland China members, and they're free (no fees for contacting members, unlike some other ripoff language exchange websites):

http://www.myhappyplanet.com/ (has member photos)
http://www.sharedtalk.com/

[eurasiacan285]

My parents aren't Japanese but I learned Japanese and am still learning it.

What is your background? Why did you choose Japanese then? (work, SO, manga, etc.)

[eurasiacan285]

Hey thanks a lot for the recommendations. I guess I was comparing the price to other study abroad programs, but not to the universities themselves because their websites aren't usually in English even when they have an English-language link.

(I was kind of assuming that something like an introductory business-language-culture program would be best put together by a Western [or non-Chinese] company, so that would be the way to do it--would you [or anyone else] agree or disagree with that? [and for what reasons] I sent Ocean U. an email asking if they offer such a program directly themselves, it'll be interesting to see if and how they respond.)

And good point too about the "foreigner bubble". I'm not sure I don't want at least access to something like that, but yes it's always more productive to know native students (but requires an effort).


For China, US$10,080 (http://www.chinastudyabroad.org/qingdao/qingdaouniv_fees.htm) is quite unreasonable; it's almost more than what you'd pay in Hong Kong (e.g. CUHK (http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/clc/)). Qingdao University itself charges RMB14,000/academic year for tuition (http://www.international.qdu.edu.cn/lxqdfybz.aspx) for foreigners enrolling as language students and RMB900/month for dorms (http://www.international.qdu.edu.cn/lxqdzfsq.aspx); total per year ~US$3,320. The only extra benefit that company seems to offer is international health insurance; unless you have known health issues AND their insurance would actually pay for dealing with them, you'd be better off getting catastrophic illness/evacuation coverage only and paying cash at private hospitals for any of your other needs (dental checkups, minor bouts of hepatitis, etc.).

Anyway, good luck if you decide to go! My other advice would be to find some local friends through language exchange websites before you go and try to avoid the whole on-campus foreigner bubble; some sites that are popular in the mainland and have an English interface include:

http://www.tt4you.com
http://www.babbley.com/


Also these two are more international sites, but they have a decent number of mainland China members, and they're free (no fees for contacting members, unlike some other ripoff language exchange websites):

http://www.myhappyplanet.com/ (has member photos)
http://www.sharedtalk.com/

[unemployable]

What is your background? Why did you choose Japanese then? (work, SO, manga, etc.)

I'm Asian American. I chose Japanese mainly for pleasure. My Japanese friends would show me manga, and all I could do was look at the pictures. When I started getting into anime I realized that Japanese people could tell good stories too, not just Hollywood. So I started learning Japanese and now I read manga.

I want to get better though, so that I can watch Japanese movies without subtitles and read Japanese books, the kind without pictures.

Before I learned Japanese, I was mad at Hollywood because of lack of good Asian representation. Now that I can understand Japanese, I don't care.

[J Honcanese]

I'm not sure if this applies to me because I learned my parents' language (Cantonese) while I was growing up. Although my dad's half-Shanghainese and that's a dialect I've never been able to learn (I've never heard my dad speak a word of it). Whenever I visit my grandparents in Canada I always hear them speaking to each other in Shanghainese, it sounds pretty interesting.

That said, I've never thought about picking up Shanghainese as an adult, and the same goes for Toisanese (Both my grandfathers were from there). I know a couple of key words and phrases at best. But I've considered picking up other languages if I get the chance - I learned two years of Italian a few years back and three years of French before that, but both kind of died out because I had no opportunities to practice them with native speakers.

I lived with fobs from HK as housemates so I picked up quite a bit from them and their annoying TV shows, and even dated a Cantonese guy, but I just can't get it to come out right vocally. People tell me I sound like those mainlanders that just arrived in HK. I'm too wrapped up in academic tasks still and considering getting CPA to be studying languages, but it's actually pretty important to be to learn Cantonese since I want to be working in HK as a banker sometime before I hit my late-twenties and will be living in Norcal soon where Cantonese is more lingua franca amongst Chinese people here. I hope once I jump through these last hoops I can take sometime to learn it, maybe even a hire a tutor that will be more patient than my friends who are sick of me butchering their language.

This is what I hate about HK. If you're Chinese and you don't speak Cantonese PERFECTLY, or in that particular way, then you get judged for it. I often get told that I speak Cantonese like an ABC or even a white dude (aka gwailo). It's incredibly frustrating, because even though I've spoken it properly since I was 12, I still can't get the tones right. It seems dang near impossible to change things because that's just the way I've learned to speak it.

I think your fobby HK friends should at least appreciate the fact that you're actually putting in the effort to learn Cantonese, I know I would if I knew you in person. One thing that's on your side is your fluency in Mandarin. The vast majority of HKers can't speak proper Mandarin for their lives and it comes out all horrible sounding with a heavy Canto accent. Even if you weren't all that fluent in Canto you'd probably have a very good chance of landing a job in HK, because you have a valuable asset that most HKers just don't have - good Mandarin (for Mainland China) and good English (for the rest of the world).


I pondered about learning Portugese after I'm out of college in a few years, settled in my career eventually as a nurse, so I can make that trip to Brazil and find that knockout Brazilian hottie wife of my wildest dreams .... ( I'll admit I'm a sucker for South American chicks... )

You know, you probably won't have to go all the way to Brazil to find your dream Brazilian girl. I've found that Brazilians have a habit of moving all over the world - I've even met a few over here in England! Speaking of which, my current love interest is one of them. :redface:

[kimpossible]

Some Brazilians are ethnically or ancestrally Portuguese and hold passports for both governments. So, while they're culturally Brazilian they can move around Europe a bit more freely.

Crystal Clear> There's a ton of Japanese/other intermarriage in Brazil. If your thing is mixed girls you'll be hitting the jackpot.

[Sunflare]

I pondered about learning Portugese after I'm out of college in a few years, settled in my career eventually as a nurse, so I can make that trip to Brazil and find that knockout Brazilian hottie wife of my wildest dreams .... ( I'll admit I'm a sucker for South American chicks... You know, you probably won't have to go all the way to Brazil to find your dream Brazilian girl. I've found that Brazilians have a habit of moving all over the world - I've even met a few over here in England! Speaking of which, my current love interest is one of them. :redface:

Really? You're girl is from Brazil ? Cool.

I'm more that willing to learn Portuguese and travel all the way to Brazil if I had too, just to find the right lady. I mean they many of the Brazilian girls there have a totally set of values as compared to American girls.

My roomate from a couple of years ago (an Afro-American dude ) went to Brazil with his pals twice and rented an apartment out there. He said the ladies treated him like a king. Many girls just approach you out of nowhere, all smiles and and just talk to you, trying to get to know you, they are very sweet and outgoing. They are not hookers mind you these are just everyday locals. They are not cold like the American girls.

He said it is so different from the United States in that they don't look at your skin color at all, all they care about is that you are sucessful in life. It's hard to explain, but Brazil is like heaven itself compared to the U.S. and the girls really know how to treat a man without the backtalk and drama that American girls give you.

I think that is what I find so appealing about Brazillian girls (aside from the fact that they are thr international standard of beauty as far as I'm concerned ) and why I consider them wife material.

Crystal Clear> There's a ton of Japanese/other intermarriage in Brazil. If your thing is mixed girls you'll be hitting the jackpot.

My heart rate started beat rapidly in exitcement as I heard this. I had no idea there are that much hot Japanese hapa chicks in Brazil.

Oh man. I gotta hurry up , GTFO of school and start making plans to go visit Brazil looking for that little sweetheart to marry. Soon.

[J Honcanese]

Some Brazilians are ethnically or ancestrally Portuguese and hold passports for both governments. So, while they're culturally Brazilian they can move around Europe a bit more freely.That makes a lot of sense. I think Portugal is generally more free about giving citizenship to people living outside the country - prior to Macau's handover to China (in 1999), everyone who was born there before 1979 was automatically granted Portuguese citizenship, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Crystal Clear - Brazil is like one of the biggest melting pots on Earth; IR marriages have been going on there for ages now and there's even an official classification for people of mixed ancestry. I think the term is "Pardo" - it constitutes more than 40% of Brazil's population.

[Sunflare]

Crystal Clear - Brazil is like one of the biggest melting pots on Earth; IR marriages have been going on there for ages now and there's even an official classification for people of mixed ancestry. I think the term is "Pardo" - it constitutes more than 40% of Brazil's population.

I'm definitely going to to Brazil one day, and then try to learn the language if I like what I see. Don't be suprised if I never come back .....

[SunWuKong]

This is what I hate about HK. If you're Chinese and you don't speak Cantonese PERFECTLY, or in that particular way, then you get judged for it.

don't take it to heart, they don't think less of you because of it. hell, some girls even find that cute.

[AngryABCGirl]

don't take it to heart, they don't think less of you because of it. hell, some girls even find that cute.

Or they think you're a mainlander. And that's as adorable as kittens.

[mrcfo]

So any tips to learn languages efficiently on your own?

Nothing beats learning a language independently by immersing yourselfm in filthy TV soapies/entertainment and magazines. This was probably how I learnt Cantonese coming from a Teo Chew background.

Basically I knew next to no Chinese at 15...I had attended maybe one full year of Saturday Chinese school...but that bore me to tears and all I did was play basketball. All of the sudden when I got to know more Honkies and started to get interested in the whole getting back to the roots stage, I just had this interest in learning Cantonese (which was the dominant dialect at the time here...)

Some things I did:

* Watched a shitload of TVB drama (mum and sis use to watch it but I was never interested) and movies.
* Mix and speak Cantonese with friends (especially the HK and Chinese girls).
* Attempt to write letters with my grandad (who was overseas).
* Kareoke (this catalysed everything...)

I guess on a side note, I also had to overcome the "shame" of being illiterate in my ancestoral language. This was also a catalyst for me to learn it. I would say I can read between 80-90% of a "Cantonese/HK" article and speak it reasonably well with an English accent (sorry, too many years speaking Anglais), can't get rid of it.

Don't underestimate the importance of media and entertainment, but ultimately it's the whole interest thing, if you're into it, you'll just naturally pick it up. I did French for 4 freggin years but because it was taught in such a routinal and boring method, I lost interest. The material was pretty much based on rote learning and the movies were boring as hell.

Ditto for Vietnamese, since their entertainment content is so boring and with the lack of catchy kareoke tunes and boring drama, I just gave up. Had Vietnamese/Vietnam had the equivalents of TVB/HK Cinema and somewhat of a pop culture/industry, things would have been different.

[deez nuts]

Five hours each way in the car with Rosetta Stone Mandarin audio CD makes long road trips the fun. The audio CD is actually pretty good though I don't know how good it is in terms of someone trying to learn and absorb the language. It did get on my nerves listening to it for about 10 hours though.

[eurasiacan285]

(snipped)
I guess on a side note, I also had to overcome the "shame" of being illiterate in my ancestoral language. This was also a catalyst for me to learn it. I would say I can read between 80-90% of a "Cantonese/HK" article and speak it reasonably well with an English accent (sorry, too many years speaking Anglais), can't get rid of it.(snipped)

I have a little bit of this too—I feel like I should be able to speak my parents' languages fluently without expending any effort as an adult, as if language ability were transmitted genetically somehow.