Learning Languages..

[RK1]

A few months here should do you fine...

That does sound great! Thank you.
I do not consider my self shy and I don't think I'll have a problem regarding speaking up. Worst case scenario is that they'll laugh a bit and ask me to explain in a different way. I'm sure stuff like that wont be a problem.

I'm American. I did a orientation semester in Italy this past spring, and I've never studied Italian formally. I was there for four months and it was the first non-English speaking country I've ever been to...

I'm hoping to be able to make friends with my Spanish after two months! That would be awesome.
Thanks for sharing your experience and for your reply and good luck in Italy to you.
Also, I'm sure I'll be nervous before meeting the family etc as well, but it'll be alright!

[nathaliew817]

Yay nog een Nederlands sprekende :D!

En nog eentje bij!

REALLY appreciate the input thus far guys, definitely why I asked here

I'm still 'in the process' of learning Spanish though and have quite a ways to go. Has anybody ever doubled up on learning languages before? or is it usually best to try and nail down one fairly well before moving to another? I'm almost thinking that if I go with Italian I might mix a few things up (as some things intertwine with Spanish).

Hey Dmash, I learned Russian and Polish at the same time. On one side it helps, because there are some similarities, but at another side, it's confusing because of the different alphabet and pronunciation.

Why wouldn't you learn Spanish and Italian and German?
Just try the other ones, if it doesn't suit you, switch.

The thing is, the more languages you know, the faster you'll learn a new language or recognize stuff in other languages.
I speak Dutch, English, French, German and Polish. And a little bit of Russian and Spanish.

This gives me a lot of reference points.
So I understand Italian, South African, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek, Norwegian etc... basically a lot of European and American languages in the same family.

So when you're learning German, think about how it branches out further:
Dutch
Swedish
Afrikaans
Danish
Norwegian
Icelandic
...
AND English
so German will probably be easier for you to learn due to reference points

And Italian:
French
Portuguese
Romanian
Catalan
...
and Spanish, so there's your reference language



PS: this is the most beautiful poem in German, by Goethe

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.