advanced self study

StormWarrior

If you have to teach yourself a language because you can't find/afford a teacher, and you've just completed linguaphone or whichever course you did, does anyone know of any advanced teach-yourself courses? I've scoured the whole internet but can't find any. The language I'm interested in is Swedish.

Collumbo

Crikey... Have you actually finished Linguaphone?! if you know everything between the covers of the text book and can understand everything on a linguaphone course, you're ready for whatever their equivalent of Shakespeare is! Linguaphone is probably one of the best courses in my opinion... if you know EVERYTHING in it, there isn't much wrong with what you know. I reckon if I can get to chapter 6 or 7 of any linguaphone, you're ready to throw yourself into a conversation.... If you finish it, you should be able to teach.

StormWarrior

I don't think that linguaphone is totally comprehensive. I would have liked to go to university in sweden to study philosophy, but linguaphone didn't get my swedish good enough for that. Now I want to move there permanently and become a teacher but linguaphone hasn't got me up to that standard either. I want to be just as fluent in swedish as I am in english and I don't think linguaphone is quite up to that.

pickarooney

You just have to move to Sweden now then. Any other learning method will only advance you by tiny amounts at this stage. Move there and get any kind of a job where you're forced to speak it all the time. While you'll never be as fluent as in your native language, six months should get you close enough to be able to follow a lecture without raising your hand every twenty seconds.

StormWarrior

Yeah I have 2 years to go of my current degree course but after that I think I may try and move to Stockholm to do a Swedish as a foreign language degree.

Froot

StormWarrior wrote:

I want to be just as fluent in swedish as I am in english and I don't think linguaphone is quite up to that.

I fail to see any realism here. A teach yourself language course is not going to make you completely fluent in a language. Moreover it is not going to make you equally as fluent as your native language seeing as you have been, most likely, speaking English your entire life and live in an English language culture etc.

At best I would do a course and then spend time in a country where they natively speak the language I wish to learn. In your case Sweden.

Also languages that people are taught professionally, like french in school etc, are not the same as being around people who speak the language natively. It is a completely different experience and language in my opinion.

StormWarrior wrote:

If you have to teach yourself a language because you can't find/afford a teacher, and you've just completed linguaphone or whichever course you did, does anyone know of any advanced teach-yourself courses? I've scoured the whole internet but can't find any. The language I'm interested in is Swedish.

According to what I have read the Rosetta Stone programs are good.

Check out the website and do some research.

I hope it helps.