DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Learning a language

DuoLingo is another solid language app, and it's free. I have gone through their Spanish, Italian, and French classes. Unfortunately, when you stop, a lot of what was learned disappears, I can remember quite a bit, but not enough to actively communicate anymore.

My wife and son have been using DuoLingo for well over a year. My wife, probably more like two years. She is actually getting somewhere with Spanish. She would still struggle in conversation but is pretty good at understanding (read: decoding in a fairly quick timeframe).

I have no interest to be fluent... but I would like to have a basic understanding and not be lost. Especially since I have some bucket list entries that takes me to farmland in southern Mexico. Pimsleur seems like it would be right up my alley.

Maybe I'll give it a try.

¿Habla Espanol?

Have to check to see if Pimsleur has Thai. I too would like to speak it, converse with it, also no tests for me, just want to talk to the wife’s family sometime.

M buddy has lived in Bangkok for somewhere around 6years or so. He teaches English as a second language. He himself spoke no Thai when he arrived. Sadly he still speaks almost no Thai to this day. His classes are taught in English. He hangs out with other expats from other English speaking countries. Add in that most transactional business with the city can be done in English as Thai people, especially the younger generations, speak English. So getting groceries, or ordering food, or seeking healthcare, etc can all be done easily without knowing a word.
I give him a hard time about it… the not learning the language thing. He’s got this amazing immersive opportunity to become fluent in such a cool language and he’s not rising to the challenge. SLACKER HIPPY!!

He’s contemplating coming back to the states for a few years before returning back to Thailand to retire.
It’s a beautiful country and the spoken language is pretty. There’s a song like quality to its cadence and intonation.

I’d love to learn it.

Goodluck if you give it a go.

Hablo espanol un poquito también.

I've done Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur. I found Pimsleur to be much more effective.

I was learning for trips we had planned, and found Rosetta would teach me words for very long, most I forgot by the time they got to phrases.

Pimsleur went straight to common phrases, which stuck with me much longer, and I was less likely to space out during lessons.

Being in South Florida there is a lot of Latino's, and several Spanish speaking folks at work. While they speak great English, they often speak Spanish between each other, and I can catch some of it, but they speak it so fast that often the words blend together and I can't differentiate enough to do more than catch the premise of the conversation, but not details.