I was wondering if anyone has ever tried any of those audio CD's that are on the market?

Rosetta stone, pimsleur?

Any suggestions appreciated as always.

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I really don't know about the various systems, but it seems that the old fashioned "immersion" system seems to have the best long term results. While repetition and memorization have benefits, its a long recognized part of learning that unless you actually use whatever lesson you're subjected to, within 72 hours, you're likely not to retain up to 50-60% of that lesson.

yeah i learned french by learning the grammar and then reading short stories and novels. So much better than the tapes. The tapes will allow you to take a vaction to that country and be able to function and not look like an idiot. also helps to get know people who speak the language you are trying to learn.

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Absolutely. At the beginning of my 8th grade, I spoke virtually no English even though I had been learning it for years. Then I was immersed in a school where everything was taught in English and everyone spoke English. 3 months later I was fluent.

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Several years ago, I paid $$$ for a full set (like 21 cd's) from Pimsleur for Vietnamese ahead of a 3-week vacation to that wonderful country.

Almost useless as a screen door on a submarine. The CD's are NORTH Vietnamese - which shares suprisingly little with SOUTH Vietnam (which is where I went).

Vietnamese as a language was once symbol-based like Chinese, Japanese or Korean. In the 17th century, written Vietnamese was converted to the current Romanized version in use today. The problem with the conversion is that it didn't follow traditional Roman/latin pronounciation rules. The discs even go so far as to warn you not to attempt to read Vietnamese while learning Vietnamese. For example, D's are pronounced like Z's (sometimes) TR is pronounced CH (Nha Trang, a beautiful seaside city is pronounced Nya Chang). The lanuage uses every diacritcal mark known to mankind to "aid" you in pronounciation.

I did find on the internet once-upon-a-time a dated (from the 60's / 70's) a state department document that taught conversational Vietnamese for the south. Learned more from that document than I did from 21 cd's.

I think for latin-based languages it would be no problem. You can bolster your language skills by reading the printed word once you get a good basis in the language from the audio.

Not so with Vietnamese.

I spent years running language training programs, went to grad school in the area and speak 5 languages well enough to write this forum in any of them. So here's my 2 cents, because I hate fake claims for language schools as much as the CL claims for 50 mpg W126 vehicles!

As children, humans are mental sponges that pick all this up super fast and integrate mental concepts from any other human language.

Once you hit puberty, your brain literally changes due to chemical changes and it's harder to learn like you did as a kid.

HOWEVER, by the time you reach puberty, you have a basic logic system created by your initial language experience.

This means:

1. Young Kids (under 12-13) learn no matter where they go unless they are forbidden to learn through lack of contact/isolation. Which is why Arab girls learn slower than boys, less contact outside the home.

2. Older people learn faster if someone gives them a guide that shows relationships that compare/contrast with the things they already know.

Examples:

Dr. Robert Di Pietro's books from Georgetown and Univ of Chicago teach you how to develop a native-like accent in a foreign language, the same way that speech therapists work with adult victims of stroke. They help them "re-learn" the old ways, based on what they still know.

I used to use something similar to teach the Russian alphabet in an hour:

- "these are the letters that are EXACTLY the same"
- "these are the letters that are SOMETIMES the same"
- "these are the NEW letters to learn"

All based on adults' frame of reference with the English alphabet.


As an adult, the best way to learn a language well is to start with the Dartmouth-Rassias method of training, which mixes lots of immersion practice with explanations that treat people as adults when they explain things. This method is used by

The Defense Language Institute (DoD)
The Foreign Service Institute (DoS)
Middlebury College (OGAs)
Harvard

and of course, Dartmouth!


Programs like Rosetta Stone will only give you a few phrases.

The only other one that's worth it to the average person would be The Encyclopedia Britannica's now discontinued program, which you can sometimes find used. It's pretty good.

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Yup, my own experience agrees with what you said. I spent the early part of my life in Japan. I didn't even go to school there, but me and my brother both spoke fluent Japanese just from watching TV and interacting with local kids on the playground. This sponge effect however works both ways, i.e. learning and forgetting. Within a year of leaving Japan, we only remembered a few words. I had a similar experience with the Indonesian language. I also took German classes in high school, but because I was never immersed in a German-speaking environment, I never learned it well and soon after arriving in the US I forgot most of my German.

As to my English, I started learned it properly right around puberty (about 13), so it was almost hard, especially with my accent. I still had a strong accent when I was 18 and first arrived in the US, and I have since corrected it to the point that most Americans can't tell that I'm not native here, but it hasn't been easy and occasionally a foreign-accented word still slips out of my mouth and my cover gets blown.

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Past MB's: '96 E300D, '83 240D, '82 300D, '87 300D, '87 420SEL

two and a half years of German in high school.. I wish my college offered it so I could continue but maybe later in life I'll get more in depth and such.. I know enough to have a conversation with a 5 year old German and get around the cities