Learning a language late in life?

[Noxia]

I wanted to learn Portuguese so I could talk more with my partners family but it seems hard to find EU Portuguese as most courses teach Brazilian. Not sure how big the difference is.

 

[Woden]

I wanted to learn Portuguese so I could talk more with my partners family but it seems hard to find EU Portuguese as most courses teach Brazilian. Not sure how big the difference is.

I've found that. My wife has to keep correcting me.

 

[Efour]

I wanted to learn Portuguese so I could talk more with my partners family but it seems hard to find EU Portuguese as most courses teach Brazilian. Not sure how big the difference is.

Quite different from what I've been told.
Portuguese gf? Nicccce

 

[Noxia]

I've found that. My wife has to keep correcting me.

It's hard enough to learn a new language anyway, more so when you have to unlearn and change bits as you get corrected.

Quite different from what I've been told.
Portuguese gf? Nicccce

Went there in October. I remember her mum tapping me on the shoulder and saying what sounded to me like "fish", but more like feesh) whilst giving me the thumbs up.
I simply shook my head and said no, anyway to cut a long story short, I told my gf to tell her mum I don't like fish when the word actually means like how we say "cool", in which she was referring to the boat we were about to get.

 

[Matthew.M]

I’ve tried on and off to learn a few languages as my other half speaks a few so I’ve got plenty of opportunity to practice at home.

I just wanted to mention Babbel (website and phone app) as no one has covered this yet. I’ve used a few apps including Duolingo and as mentioned the Duolingo app is far less useful than the website as it doesn’t explain all the rules/provide the notes. The website is good but as I prefer to spend my time on my phone I use Babbel – it isn’t free (although if you ask me it’s very cheap and they frequently have offers if you let your subscription expire) but the app doesn’t skip the rule based teaching and I also find the lessons more structured.

My Dad has been using Babbel for the last 18months to learn Spanish and can now hold conversations with the locals when he’s on holiday – I was very impressed!

 

[jas72]

There certainly is masculine and feminine in Italian, though i can understand how people say Japanese is easiest of all to get basics and prob among harder to master.

You will encounter some form of masculine and feminine or at least something as complicated in any major language in the form of words changing depending on who uses them, what tense the use of them is, how many people it refers to as well as masculine feminine and syntax differences.

I would not describe it complicated but that English word logic does not apply. The biggest speed bump to make it the difference between knowing what everything means and thinking in that language, which will just click one day. It is the difference between simply translating as you talk and being fluent.

I learned English second when i was very young and Italian first, i would not say other languages are more complicated just that English is simplified by comparison. Most native English speakers wont understand because we don't experience it as fluent speakers of English but the purpose of the alternatives to the same word is to avoid misunderstanding similar phrases.

If you look at all the different ways to say the same thing but under different contexts, you can see how it may avoid misunderstanding (such as who/what/how many your referring to for example as you refer to a group of people differently to a singular when applying certain words). It sounds stupid because we get on just fine but its a bit like when someone speaks broken English and though you can sort of gather what they are getting at, but it doesn't quite make sense straight away in your head because bits of the sentence is missing to make the articulation 'smooth'.

Biggest tips i can give for the learning curve:

1.Speak as much as you can
2.Dont be afraid of sounding stupid or be embarrassed of your accent
3. over-pronounce rather than under-pronounce if you struggle
4. Ask people to annoyingly interrupt and correct you

5. Don't go to Paris they are real snobs and will refuse to understand you no matter how well you can speak.

 

[Junglist]

People have always been lovely to me in Paris.

 

[geekman]

5. Don't go to Paris they are real snobs and will refuse to understand you no matter how well you can speak.

I hear that a lot, can only assume you're going to a different Paris to me as I've never had any problems, even when I spoke very little French.

OP, if you're planning on learning a language that will be useful for you, I'd advise against anything Scandinavian as a huge amount of people in those countries speak good English, and you'd hardly use it. A friend of mine speaks decent Swedish but whenever he's over there people start speaking to him in English as soon as they hear his accent.

I'd say French / Italian / Spanish are more useful, or even Mandarin / Russian / Arabic if you're feeling brave, but how well you learn will depend on how talented you are. I got a good degree in French at uni but I was simply nowhere near as good as a lot of my classmates, despite putting in the same amount of work. My girlfriend speaks Arabic, English and French fluently (you'd never guess she wasn't English unless she told you), and one of my close friends speaks French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, English and Arabic all fluently. Neither of them have had any particularly advanced education, they just had a talent for language learning and a genuine interest in linguistics.

If you're an untalented moron like me, then immersion is the only way to really get good at a language (or so I've found anyway). I learnt more in the last 7 months of living in France than I did in 3 years of uni, despite the fact I only speak it outside of work.