How to learn a language based on my style of learning?
I'm very interested in learning multiple languages. English is my native. I have hopes of learning a combination of these languages: Spanish, German, Italian, French, Hebrew, Russian, and Arabic. I have hopes of getting either a PhD or M.A. In Linguistics. But these Iphone apps are just not doing anything for me. I want a way to immerse myself in the language, but I have little money available and can't travel anywhere. I'm going to be a sophomore in high school this fall. I'm a pretty intelligent person and have great memory, so memorization is not the case. I need to find some kind of program or method to learn these languages, but my motivation is faltering. I can easily do something if I can get into it, but I just need to find some program that gets me very involved. I could see if I could pull out the money for Rosetta Stone, but I can't afford to buy it for all 8 languages.
Added (1). Besides taking a Spanish and maybe a German class in school, I had hopes of learning the rest with either a program or something outside of school.
Added (2). Yes I do know what linguistics is. And obviously I'm only a sophomore in high school, so I have plenty of time to think about what I want to do.
Well it's going to be expensive no matter which way you decide to learn these languages. Not all high schools offer Italian, Russian, Hebrew or Arabic. In fact most just offer French, Spanish and German. French, Spanish, Italian are all derived from Latin so they're love languages which means they're closely related in the way they sound and read. German, Hebrew, Russian and Arabic are all based on symbols and are considered to be the oldest languages. I commend you for trying to learn every single one fluently, but that's going to be a lot of school = lots of money. I'm not saying it can't be done… Many people I know can speak 4-5 different languages pretty fluently. At some point, you ARE going to have to travel abroad and interact with the people of other countries whose native languages are these. That's just simply part of the college program and curriculum. And of course iPhone apps aren't going to help you - you need LEGIT training and teaching. You can't learn anything from an app on a smartphone because it only includes 2 types of learning: visual and audio.
Are you sure you know what linguistics is? A degree in linguistics doesn't involve speaking multiple languages. A friend of mine with a Ph.D. In linguistics speaks only English.
I'm a modern language prof and I speak four languages, but my knowledge of linguistics is minimal.
"Everyone will agree that linguistics is concerned with the lexical and grammatical categories of individual languages, with differences between one type of language and another, and with historical relations within families of languages."
(Peter Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2005)
Recommend the Kindle and Amazon store. Anthropology with linquistics is the right major unless you want to learn Sanscrit and teach English as a Second Language ( as I did as an M.A. Student ). There are some great aps on the Kindle, and books like "Hebrew in a Month) (for two bucks!) OR German, Russian, Spanish, French, Japanese… And BTW Transparent Language beats the heck out of Rosetta Stone.
123teachme is on the internet for Spanish - after a few months… A little fast for a starter. Best to go with Synergy by Santamaria. (On web)
You are embarking on a great adventure! Never make it "work", don't allow anxiety or discouragement. Enjoy!
You have not mentioned what your "style of learning" is. Maybe you could take an online quiz to determine it?
Based on your list I recommend you learn Esperanto (created by a jew who liked russian, and spoke french and german) first. It's the easiest by far. See wikipedia Propaedeutic_value_of_esperanto
After that, take a few languages *simultaneously*
Don't waste your money on Rosetta Stone. There are better and cheaper (even free) resources on the internet. Bbc.co.uk/languages has a good reputation.
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