Language Is A Funny Thing

My wife and I like traveling and living in different places. Thanks to the internet, we can run a business from anywhere in the world. Well, almost.

If you want to travel or live in different places, you need to be able to communicate in the native language of that area. English may be widely spoken but not everyone speaks it as well as you would expect.

To communicate is not just being able to speak but to read and hopefully write in a foreign language. Trust me, you don't know what you are missing out unless you communicate in a foreign language at a respectable level. Don't get me wrong, you don't have to master a language. You just have to be able to communicate at a level where you can easily and comfortably converse with the people around you. It makes everything less stressful.

Don't a worry about what some articles say about kids pick up languages faster than adults. I think I wrote something about some studies supporting that statement a while back. However, new studies have shown that adults can pickup languages just as fast and maybe even faster.

The trick to this is the attitude and the method of learning.

Our Methods
My wife and I use a simple albeit unconventional method to learning a new language that works for us. When we wanted to learn Spanish, we started by watching Spanish foreign language DVDs with English subtitles. This enables us to familiarize ourselves with the language and accents used and the subtitles helps us to understand the context although we have no idea what the actual meanings of the words are. You could say this practice preps us for the upcoming learning process proper. 

As I may have mentioned in other posts, we also use language learning software to help us get started on the actual learning of words and phrases. Software has come along way since the earliest language learning software which I used in the mid 90s.

We sometimes take beginner language classes especially we have trouble finding a native speaker to practice with.

Since learning languages isn't a new thing to us, we are already mentally prepared. We already know how to learn new languages. Just like kids, after hearing something long enough, you would be able to grasp the meaning of it and the next process is to repeat it. Although kids usually repeat things they don't understand. Oddly enough, these words are usually consists of 4 letters and they are the ones you prefer kids not repeat.

When Portuguese Isn't Portuguese
The largest population of native Portuguese speakers is actually in Brazil, not Portugal. The funny thing is those in Portugal can understand Brazilian Portuguese but it does not work vice versa.

There's an interesting explanation to this. You see, Brazil is famous for its many soap opera series. And Portugal is a major importer of Brazilian soap operas. So many in Portugal have become accustomed to Brazilian Portuguese.

It much easier with other languages like English or Spanish where the accents are the tricky parts. 



So before you go ahead and learn a language, do a little homework first before you sign up for any lessons or purchase any language learning material.