Thread: Learning a foreign language

Hello,
I used this way once, it was very useful. The native speaker lived in the same city as me. So we used to meet at bars and talk in one language for a while and they we switched to the other one. It was a good experience.

yes, I did same thing with a German guy, and we also met at bars and taught each other. It was fun and very very useful, and free!

I think it's an excellent way to practice, but maybe not such a good way to learn the basics. It's amazing how many native speakers have no idea why they say what they say, and so they can't explain it. And even if they can explain it, there's more to teaching than explaining. There's no substitute for a trained teacher.

But, for practice, these sorts of exchanges have been very helpful to me, and also lots of fun.

I think translators and language teachers have this in common: Lots of people think they can do translating or teaching without training, but trained translators and trained teachers know that this is not true.

Originally Posted by anapurma

I have heard that one of many ways of learning the 2nd language is to find a person who is a native of this language and is interested in learning your native language. Then - just talk/mail/chat with her/him using skype or any other communicator.

Have you ever try to find such a person in the Internet and then exchange your language skills with her/him?

Yeah, Skype is a nice tool for language learning. There are lots of translation plugins can help you learn foreigne languages by chatting with ease.
http://www.chat-translator.com

It´s a good way to practice, but never disregard the help of some good grammar books as a back-up!