Foreign Languages

Online Resources

Books

Find yourself a dictionary that translates both to and from English. There are many, you'll need one.
If you aren't quite fluent in a language but plan to travel somewhere it's spoken anyway, get at least one phrasebook. There are many; pick one. It'll never be enough but it's better than nothing. Lonely Planet guides tend to be somewhat helpful.

Tips

Remember that there are very good reasons for learning a language. Number one is the enormous amount of doors it opens to you. It can improve your circumstances dramatically to have other people actually understand you. In the US, this doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize a lot of people have immigrated here and still can't speak English - and yes, they're contributing a heck of a lot to the country (good holy moly they work hard). And I don't like to travel without knowing as much of the place's language as possible. It's honestly not safe. Second reason? It can enrich your life by understanding the culture of another place instead of just having a surface glance at it. Yeah, there are things like online translation, but even when they get good, things like nuance, meaning, and the background behind words and phrases can add a lot of complication to what seems like just words. Language is about way more than just conveying meaning. It contains history, culture, philosophy, and an entire way of life. In a lot of cases it can contain even more information than that, such as fairy tales and legends referenced by just a couple of words, or even one word. Sometimes it takes linguists decades to even find such things. Yep, language has easter eggs.
If computers learn languages for you and you rely on automated translators, that sounds nice, right? Well, wrong. What's lost in translation is the entire history and culture and context of each and every word, phrase, sentence, poem, epic. An excellent example is actually the Bible. The original Bible (the Old Testament) is in Ancient Hebrew, which itself came from a mix of Aramaic and Akkadian. Modern Hebrew is a simplified language, and Biblical Hebrew is difficult even for native Hebrew speakers to decipher. So if you want to understand the sacred text much of the world relies on as "the truth," knock your own socks off by seeing how different it truly is in the original version. The original New Testament is in Greek, so you'd have to learn that, and discuss the vagaries of the language with someone from Greece, most likely a Greek Orthodox clergyperson. Another good example is Engrish and Chinglish. Often the translations are technically quite correct, but oh, the way it comes across. Have I made my point? (come to think of it, ever wonder if China and Japan make fun of native English speakers for botching their languages?)
Learning a new language is just as difficult as learning new stuff in math. Allow yourself just as much time to learn it and plan for it to take more effort than you expect. It is likely to take around three years per language to become fluent if you work consistently. If you ever wonder if it's really worth the effort, remember that translation jobs might just take off in the next ten years due to increased globalization. Also good luck getting around in any country without knowing the language.
Foreign languages must always be learned in tandem with a thorough education in the culture that language belongs to. Otherwise, you will run into such serious translation errors and misunderstandings that disasters and tragedies could become a matter of course. Don't repeat the colonialist's mistakes of arrogance. That's just asking for trouble.
Slap post-its or homemade labels on stuff around your house that label each item in the language you're learning
Speak in the language you're learning as much as you can, preferably 2 to 3 times a week. If you're able, try corresponding via writing or typing as well, again, 2 to 3 times a week. Also read it, yep, 2-3x/week. Once a week at minimum for all these should really help.
Generally speaking, paying a tutor for language lessons pays off. I believe you can find some at TakeLessons.com
Try to find as much to immerse you in the language as possible. The first step is learning to understand TV, cartoons, and children's or comic books from the place you're trying to learn the language of. Start with subtitles, but after a while turn them off. Listen to music in that language, look up the lyrics and translate them. By the time you're slowly reading books in that language, you're well on your way. It's when you're reading books in that language as if they were in English that you know you're gonna be fine.
Once you have the chops, start reading social media posts in the language you're learning. Download or install that language's keyboard, and respond.
Once you're almost to total fluency, switch your computer's language to the one you're trying to learn, and/or do the same with international websites you visit (i.e. Reddit, Wikipedia). This is incredibly annoying and frustrating, just warning you.
The easiest/hardest way to ensure you truly are fluent in a language is to set yourself loose in the country where that language is the norm and see how you manage. It's like being thrown in at the deep end. Expect to be kind of good at said language in around two years, provided you don't keep yourself in an English-speaking bubble.

Big Brain Time

Home