Learning a language

[Zirax]

This was on the list last year but I never got around to it due to moving around with work. Essentially the sector head owes me a few favours at the moment. Technical stuff I can look at remotely and learn, however when it comes to stuff like this, I learn best in a classroom environment.

I am looking at say a one week 9 - 5 course as an initial kick up the butt. Now this is where I get rather lost, is there such thing as a recommended adult learning college/place resource list? The going rate for courses seems to be £250, but that seems too cheap.

Now you are gonna ask what language...... hmmm. One of my holiday spots I'm looking to head to the far East in the future, maybe european... i'm not sure.

[A Place of Light]

If I could semi-hijack this thread too as I'd love any information/advice on learning cantonese.

[LeperousDust]

For Europe, French Spanish German in that order for elegance. For usefullness English (haha), Stereotypically German (Although i'm unsure as to how much business use this gets now days), French/Spanish (tie). I could be wrong but thats how i see it, my flatmate is doing both French and Spanish at uni because he is obviously a headcase!

[Rich_L]

As a European language from scratch I'd probably learn Spanish, for the main reasons that all Germans seem to speak decent English, so you can just speak English to them, plus Spanish opens up the whole of South America and you could probably get away with understanding French/Italian with a decent knowledge of Spanish regardless.

Personally I have a soft spot for French because when growing up I went there loads, did exchanges and did it at GCSE so I can understand it and pick it up pretty quickly when exposed to it, speaking is a bit ropey though but that comes back too, its a nice language as well IMHO

Keep thinking I should get an audio language thingy to listen to on the way to work and back every day, would make that time a bit more productive!

[Mondo]

Originally Posted by A Place of Light

If I could semi-hijack this thread too as I'd love any information/advice on learning cantonese.

Cantonese is actually harder to learn than Mandarin for Westerners, due to the pronouncation being harder/blunt and the regions that speaks it uses traditional written Chinese as opposed to simplified.

If you wanna practice, gimme a shout

[A Place of Light]

Originally Posted by Mondo

Cantonese is actually harder to learn than Mandarin for Westerners, due to the pronouncation being harder/blunt and the regions that speaks it uses traditional written Chinese as opposed to simplified.

If you wanna practice, gimme a shout

I chose cantonese over mandarin as I thought it'd have more practical use. I study chinese martial arts and as some of the terms are chinese words it makes a naturally curious person such as myself want to know a lot more. As you sound like you know a whole lot more on this subject than I do could you tell me if I'm going to be wasting my time and money if I buy an interective dvd/cd program? I realise that at some point I will have to do the classroom thing, but it'd be great if I could pickup basic vocabulary and grammar via some software first.

[Mondo]

I can't tell you what it's like in class, or doing it DIY with tape since I learned it when i was growing up in Hong Kong. I could tell you if you are pronouning the words right or not and some conversation practice if you like.

[Pickers]

Pheebs has learned some mandarin.. could speak to her too if you decide to go down that route, or how to go about doing it.