What's a good way to learn to READ a foreign language quickly?

[Deep13]

I'm looking at qualifications for graduate school in history and most of the schools around here require students to be able to read (not necessarily write or speak) a language other than English. (So, by "foreign language" I mean one besides English.)

Now, I had some high school French, but that was 25 years ago. I would need a dictionary and a verb conjegation guide to really read it.

Any ideas?

[lunamagica]

1. I don't really have a formula, but I suggest to just do it.

I started Reading English at the most basic level, pre-school books and nursery rhymes and worked my way up, step by step. I was very motivated and practiced constantly with the dictionary by my side and progressed quickly. Now, I had lived in the US for several months so I had a good knowledge of the language to work on this method.

May be worth a try.

Good luck!

[Deep13]

3. Thanks. That sounds like the way to do it.

:D

[kentauros]

2. I just discovered this page today:

http://www.mylanguages.org/index.php

I was looking up something about Farsi and stumbled upon this page. It looks good and might be worth trying out :)

[July]

4. Google "reading French."

You will find all sorts of resources (books, online courses, etc.).

Because many grad schools have this second language requirement, they sometimes even offer short prep courses in reading a language.

I have a book on reading German that is quite good; I know you can find one for French.

Good luck.

[Heidi]

5. I learned to read basic German, Italian and French by reading the news, product labels, etc.,

in those languages and then checking my understanding against readily available English on the same topics.

[XemaSab]

8. I got a pretty good start on Spanish

by getting "Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosifal" and reading it against the English version. :)

[Kali]

6. same way you probably learned to read English

comic books. duh

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Find out what the test consists of

My department had an entrance requirement of French and German. The test consisted of the director of graduate studies (DGS) pulling books off his shelf and telling me to start on page one, reading aloud and translating.

However, when I had to learn to read Russian as well, the department was OK with my taking a summer course.

So your first order of business is to find out if the language requirement is an ENTRANCE requirement or a DEGREE requirement. If it's an entrance requirement, go to your nearest large bookstore and buy one of the French review workbooks that they sell in about a dozen varieties.

If it's a degree requirement, your university will probably accept a passing grade in a summer course.

Depending on what part of the world you specialize in, you may have to learn some other language in order to read primary materials.

My fellow students and I were of the opinion that French was the easiest language to pass a reading test in. Since so much of English scholarly vocabulary derives from Latin or French, we thought of scholarly French as "English with a lot of extra letters."

[Deep13]

9. See, that's what I'm wondering.

I gottah think that every grad student and his mom already knows French or Latin. I'm thinking they might prefer something with a non-Latin alphabet like Greek, Farsi or Japanese.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. It really depends on what you plan to specialize in

You're not going to get any brownie points for learning something exotic if you don't need it.

French is good if you're interested in European history, Latin and Greek for ancient history, Spanish for the history of the American west, etc.

[Deep13]

12. Those are good points.

I'll just ask the admissions dean.

[dimbear]

11. The best French ebook sites.............

http://www.ebooksgratuits.com/ebooks.php

http://www.livrespourtous.com/


The first rule of painlessly picking up a language? Read what you like. If you like detective stories, horror stories, romances, history, whatever, read that.

Plenty to choose from on these two excellent sites.

Upthread, the poster who suggested comics? Excellent suggestion, but not so easy to come by. They're great because you get the nonverbal clues with the words. Best in the whole world for that would be Tintin, if you can find him. Not so good: Asterix. Too much slang.

[Deep13]

13. Thanks for all the information.

It's very helpful.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Find an *elementary* textbook in a subject you already know.

i.e. find out what's the equivalent of, say, "Physics for Dummies" in the language you want to learn (assuming physics is your grad subject) and try to read through with as little reference to grammar texts as possible. Once you've looked up the most frequently occurring vocabulary, you can acquire the grammar/syntax the same way children do -- by use, repetition, and encountering the different cases in context. (I learned this approach late, could have saved me a lot of bleary-eyed study of "traditional" language texts ... also check out Barry Farber's "How to Learn Any Language" at Barnes & Noble. Very elementary approach, cheap book, and probably extra copies at your library.)

The downside is you can't discuss the weather or the news, only read the subject of your specialty. But you'll be able to pass the test sooner than if you follow the usual classroom or textbook approach.

If you want to read a foreign language in the sciences, try searching for, say "Scientific French" etc. in the library, Powell's, Amazon, etc. Adapt to your subject as needed; you will usually be able to find some book which presents a collection of articles of increasing difficulty which are at least close enough to the topic of interest to you to be useful -- much better than reading plays and conversations, which is the usual classroom approach.

[GoCubsGo]

15. Don't know how quick this is, but...

The BBC has a page where you can take foreign language courses: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

Some PBS stations have foreign language courses, but they tend to be on in the pre-dawn hours. South Carolina ETV has a French show. Georgia PBS has some Spanish-language programming. You might want to check your local network to see if they provide such programming. Be aware that they are sometimes on one of the sub-bands that don't necessarily show up if you get your TV via cable or satellite. I just have an antennae, and we have three PBS bands here, plus I get the three from Georgia on one of my sets.