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Comment by danh | Hacker News Reader

I would start with number 4, and save the formal grammar study for (much) later.

IMHO, the far most important thing to do is to listen. I prefer podcasts, but anything (radio, films, TV, overheard conversations in bars) will do.

Understanding spoken language is also (again in my opinion) by far the most difficult part of learning a language. Especially in real life, and really noisy, situations, where you probably only hear half of the sounds people are making. The rest you will have to fill in yourself - which is sort of like solving crossword puzzles in real time.

This takes a lot of practice, and there's really no way around that.

Starting by studying all the rules of formal grammar is, I think, a bit like learning to play tennis by first studying the rule book a couple of years...

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Agreed, listening is fundamental. By listening, grammar rules can be picked-up easily and "naturally", it helps to develop an ear for the language and absorb its structure, something that will be also useful when you'll try to speak the new language.

I liked how the previous poster highlighted the need for a concise grammar, focusing too much on grammar rules can be fatal and a huge time waster. This was one of the mistakes i made while studying english, this and the on-off attitude, the lack of material and many other errors that now can be easy solved using the net. Things will go a lot differently with my 3rd language (japanese, that i'd like to use in the future to learn mandarin).

The main point that emerges from this great thread is basically that you must leverage the high amount of quality and cheap language-learning material that is now available. Try everything, discard what doesn't work, and as soon as you have defined a plan stick to it.

I agree with you. Learning to understand the spoken language is the most difficult aspect. Pimsleur helps with this. It gives you an early view through that window, so you can see what it's like to understand the spoken language, and prepares you for understanding the language in the wild.

I think the choice of whether to use a grammar or not depends on the student. If you're a beginning language learner, then it may be best to put it off. If you understand the concepts of declensions and conjugations (and the different tenses, moods, etc. typically encountered), then a grammar can be a quick way to get the lay of the land.

One of the first things I do is to learn the personal pronouns, articles, and conjunctions (short work). Then I'll look at "to be" and "to have" (at least for the Indo-European language family). That way, when I start listening, I've got some scaffolding upon which to start building my understanding. This is one of the few areas where learning a language as an adult has an advantage over the immersion of a child--you can use your cognitive capabilities to take a short cut.

The most important thing to do when learning a language is to practice the activity you intend to use the language for; it would be difficult to become a good speaker without spending a lot of time generating speech.

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