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Home > Ciao Café > Member Advice > Member Advice on Education & Careers > Member Advice on Learning a Language
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User Reviews

for Member Advice on Learning a Language

Rating Summary based on 19 reviews

  • 5 Stars
    		18
  • 4 Stars
    		0
  • 3 Stars
    		0
  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Star
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  • 12 of 12 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of jenny573

    jenny573

    1 Star Callan method not for me 20/10/2007
    User doesn't recommend the product

    Advantages Advantages I don't know

    Disadvantages Disadvantages lot's of them described in the review

    I'm Slovak, so I'm not a native speaker of English. Now I speak several foreign languages and I'll briefly explain how I learnt them. As I'm Slovak my mother language is Slovak. I was born in the time of communism in our country that time called Czechoslovakia, so I speak also Czech. During my school years we had to learn Russian, because our country was a big friend with Russia. Then I started to learn German during my secondary school and a little of Italian. Finally during my study at the University I decided to speak also English. I found English very important for me, because it was ... more
  • 12 of 12 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of kaledrina

    kaledrina

    5 Stars Language Learning for Dummies/Intelligent People 08/08/2007
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Impressive, stimulating, useful

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Hard at times

    In my opinion learning a language is one of the most entertaining and worthwhile things someone can do. Even if you think you're useless at learning, or even if you think you're great, I hope this guide will help you decide on a language and get you on a course to fluency. --WHY LEARN A LANGUAGE?-- Well, why not? It's probably the most useful hobby you can have. Apart from being a great addition to a CV, it's a real talking point. If there's anything that impresses strangers more than being able to ride a unicycle (sigh, one day), it's being able to reel off some French poetry, or a Hebrew ... more
  • 46 of 46 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of cladach29

    cladach29

    5 Stars A bheil sibh airson ionnsachadh Gàidhlig? 04/11/2006
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Makes great literature accessible, logical phonology, can now pronounce Scottish place names

    Disadvantages Disadvantages Hard language to learn, limited usefulness as everyday language

    When was the last time you described something as "smashing?" or took a slug from a bottle of drink, or bought a pair of brogues, or twigged to the meaning of something new? Well without realising it, you've been using words from the Scot's Gaelic (Gàidhlig) language which have been incorporated into English. For example, the word "smashing" comes from the Gaelic " is math sin", meaning "that's good". Gàidhlig is now spoken by fewer than 60,000 native speakers who mostly live in the north west of Scotland or Glasgow. Yet, it doesn't have to be this way: Gàidhlig is not impossible to learn and ... more
  • 10 of 10 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of LukeyBoy

    LukeyBoy

    5 Stars They Just get Easier As You go On 08/10/2006
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Communication Skills, The more you do the easier it gets!

    Disadvantages Disadvantages None

    I have just been appointed as Head of the Modern languages Department at the school I have been teaching French, German and Spanish at for the past two years, and I have got to this position through hard work! I learnt French since Primary School and as I progressed through to the GCSE standard I gained the GCSE and went through to A level, with assistance from teachers I gained an A. But, for German and Spanish I taught myself, and it was much easier than I anticipated. Languages like Spanish and French are very useful to have at a conversational level, let alone my standard, being fluent. To ... more
  • 54 of 54 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of denella

    Level 8 denella

    Member since 28/08/2006

    Reviews written: 359

    5 Stars Broaden your horizon 08/10/2006
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages You can communicate with many more people.

    Disadvantages Disadvantages It often takes longer than you expect to reach fluency.

    English may be considered as the international language, but we travel abroad so frequently and so many Brits are moving to sunnier parts of Europe that language learning would seem to be increasingly important. It doesn't help that it is no longer compulsory for secondary school pupils to study a foreign language for GCSE; many of them don't find languages easy and are glad to drop them at the first opportunity. Paradoxically, language learning in primary schools is now much more common and will soon become compulsory. This could make quite a difference, as the younger a child starts to learn ... more
  • 51 of 51 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of lora44

    Level 6 lora44

    Member since 25/03/2005

    Reviews written: 96

    5 Stars ♥ Calling all potential linguists!! ♥ 30/03/2005
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Read on my friend!

    Disadvantages Disadvantages There aren't any!!

    You can't deny the importance of languages - they impact our lives on a daily basis. And despite many preconceptions they're an incredibly useful and worthwhile thing to learn. So how does one best go about learning a language? Well as somewhat of a language enthusiast I hope to be able to help with this casse-tête - of course there's no set answer - it's going to be different for everyone, but I can at least share my experiences of learning languages with you. First off, a bit of background. I'm 18 years old and consider myself to be fluent in one language - English, my mother tongue. I've ... more
  • 42 of 42 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of thingywhatsit

    thingywhatsit

    5 Stars SPEAK AND SHARE. 24/07/2004
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages helps you to integrate in a new country

    Disadvantages Disadvantages French must have been invented by a male. There is no logic.

    When I first came to France to live, I had O'level and A'Level French although I had never used it other than in class. I had this preconceived idea that I would never have to use it, although I enjoyed learning languages and seemed to have a reasonable grasp of the rules. SO YOU WANT TO LEARN FRENCH ? WHERE WOULD YOU START ? One of the most important things for a person who wants to learn a foreign language is to know that the teacher of the language has not only a grip of classic language, but also has an everyday ability to communicate it to people of that race. This may sound a little odd ... more
  • 30 of 30 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of anthmack

    anthmack

    5 Stars A little introduction to arabic for everyone.. 15/05/2004
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages See review

    Disadvantages Disadvantages See review

    * Initial Note* I have been in the United Arab Emirates for a while now, well 5 years, and have picked up a little bit of arabic on the way.. I will start with a little bit of an introduction, in to what formed the arabic language in the United Arab Emirates (-the country that Dubai is in) The "original" arabic comes from Yemen. Now a lot of th e gulf countries speak this, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and even Iraq. The thing is with the United Arab Emirates, especially Dubai, that it has such a diverse culture here, with people from all corners of the globe, predominantly from ... more
  • 31 of 31 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of Schmutzie

    Schmutzie

    5 Stars How to learn a language 18/09/2002
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages Communication, Added enjoyment, A new skill

    Disadvantages Disadvantages None.

    Scorpio2 is quite right in all he says about learning another language. The problem is how best to go about it. My hobby is learning languages. I speak five with a good degree of fluency, and three more adequately. I have tried just about every system going. I have also taught French and Spanish at evening classes. It may sound strange, but evening classes I do not really recommend. The class tends to travel at a speed which only suits the average student, so the slow ones will be left behind, and the quick ones will be bored. There are certain ways of compensating for this, but none is very ... more
  • 116 of 116 Ciao users found the following review helpful
    Picture of djohan

    Level 7 djohan

    Member since 01/08/2001

    Reviews written: 137

    5 Stars A Long Story 07/10/2001
    User recommends the product

    Advantages Advantages -

    Disadvantages Disadvantages -

    The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower. [Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941), U.S. author, columnist. The Worst Years of Our Lives,“Language Barrier” (1991; first published 1989).] A LONG DILLEMA Do parents need to teach or ask their children to learn a foreign language? It has been a dilemma in parents’ forums formally and ... more
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