Post: #1

I am interested in hearing from members who are native English speakers who have learned Vietnamese, Thai, or Mandarin to advanced proficiency or fluency.
I am currently planning a longer term move to Asia, trying to decide between China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand. I have several goals/desires, but for the most part they could be accomplished in my comfort zone of Latin America (fitness, women, that sort of thing). So, I began to ask myself, what is new and different, what do I want to take away from these next few years of my life?
I realized that one of my primary goals is to get fluent in a completely different language from anything I have studied before.
I've always felt that living in a country without speaking the language is really setting yourself up for an experience that is not worthwhile.
I am not talking about tourist talk, or some BS Tim Ferriss fluent in 8 days !!1!1!!! thing.
So, for those of you who have learned one of these 2000hr+ languages, what was the journey like? What resources did you find most helpful? How did you stay motivated over the course of years?

Post: #2

I minored in/studied Mandarin in college for three years, in addition to an eight-week study abroad in Shanghai. I'd classify myself as intermediate/proficient, but still far from fluent.

If I could go back in time, I'd probably pick a different language. China is fun, but the opportunity cost was too great. Three years of intense study in a Romance language would've seen me fluent; three years of intense Chinese barely got me to proficiency. And if I had learned something like Spanish, it would have been easy to pick up Italian/Portuguese/etc afterwards.

Here's a great article detailing some of the difficulties you'll encounter if you decide to tackle Mandarin. The author might come off as a bit intense, but he's 100% on the mark.

If I had to make one suggestion, it would be to focus on speaking and listening and not to worry so much about memorizing all the characters. Learning the most common 1-2,000 will help get you through the minutiae of daily life, but after that your marginal benefit decreases drastically.

Post: #3

(12-08-2014 02:35 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  I minored in/studied Mandarin in college for three years, in addition to an eight-week study abroad in Shanghai. I'd classify myself as intermediate/proficient, but still far from fluent.

If I could go back in time, I'd probably pick a different language. China is fun, but the opportunity cost was too great. Three years of intense study in a Romance language would've seen me fluent; three years of intense Chinese barely got me to proficiency. And if I had learned something like Spanish, it would have been easy to pick up Italian/Portuguese/etc afterwards.

Here's a great article detailing some of the difficulties you'll encounter if you decide to tackle Mandarin. The author might come off as a bit intense, but he's 100% on the mark.

Damn. That's one of the most dismal essays I've ever read.

Post: #4

I speak Chinese pretty goddamn fluently. It took a few years of serious study while in China. 2 things: 1) if you self-study, you'll probably never get it down pat. And 2) there is absolutely no pay off for it.

Dabble if you're interested, but don't get caught in the time suck that is Mandarin. I would not have done it had I known it would not be worth it.

Post: #5

(12-08-2014 02:35 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  I minored in/studied Mandarin in college for three years, in addition to an eight-week study abroad in Shanghai. I'd classify myself as intermediate/proficient, but still far from fluent.

If I could go back in time, I'd probably pick a different language. China is fun, but the opportunity cost was too great. Three years of intense study in a Romance language would've seen me fluent; three years of intense Chinese barely got me to proficiency. And if I had learned something like Spanish, it would have been easy to pick up Italian/Portuguese/etc afterwards.

Here's a great article detailing some of the difficulties you'll encounter if you decide to tackle Mandarin. The author might come off as a bit intense, but he's 100% on the mark.

If I had to make one suggestion, it would be to focus on speaking and listening and not to worry so much about memorizing all the characters. Learning the most common 1-2,000 will help get you through the minutiae of daily life, but after that your marginal benefit decreases drastically.

Wow. I have read that article twice. +1 from me for something that is really forcing me to reconsider the reality of what I'm deciding here.
What I took away from that article is that I could very well spend two years of intense, in country effort, and not be anywhere close to fluent.
In the same amount of time I could become fully fluent in a romance language and say learn decent guitar.
Time is finite. I seek self improvement and fulfillment, but I'm not a martyr.
I am guessing that Vietnamese and Thai are less challenging. But are they reasonable enough to make it a semi sensible investment of time and mental energy?
According to Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:L...Speakers), Vietnamese and Thai and both in a Category 2 * rating of difficulty, requiring more than the 1100 classroom hours of other languages in that category (but they don't say how much, they just mark them with an asterisk *), while Mandarin is in the hardest Category 3 level, with 2200 classroom hours.

Post: #6

(12-08-2014 06:31 PM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  What I took away from that article is that I could very well spend two years of intense, in country effort, and not be anywhere close to fluent.

In the same amount of time I could become fully fluent in a romance language and say learn decent guitar. Time is finite. I seek self improvement and fulfillment, but I'm not a martyr.

I am guessing that Vietnamese and Thai are less challenging. But are they reasonable enough to make it a semi sensible investment of time and mental energy?

It really depends on your desire to learn. Could you see yourself living in China long enough to benefit from the immersion? Do you like their culture, their food, their women? Will you be motivated by something other than simply a desire for a change of pace? If not, it will be hard to maintain the work and effort needed to master the language.

However, there's no need to think in terms of two-year investments. Assuming you have the freedom to do so, why not sign up for a beginner's Mandarin class at a university in, say, Shanghai? You could get a feel for the country/culture while test-driving the language. If you hate it after 90 days, you could hop on over to Thailand or Vietnam and try the same process there. Think of it as lifestyle prototyping-you can simply dip a toe into the water, instead of diving straight in.

Post: #7

(12-08-2014 05:43 PM)clever alias Wrote:  I speak Chinese pretty goddamn fluently. It took a few years of serious study while in China. 2 things: 1) if you self-study, you'll probably never get it down pat. And 2) there is absolutely no pay off for it.

Dabble if you're interested, but don't get caught in the time suck that is Mandarin. I would not have done it had I known it would not be worth it.

This is not true. The OP is emphasizing his question regarding the languages being Tonal. VolandoVengo, I assume you are a Spanish native speaker, like me?

I managed to master all of Mandarin's pronunciation and existing sounds without being even in China/Taiwan. How? By self-study in my home country, a place where there is no Mandarin environment. Just because there isn't one, doesn't mean you can't gain considerable proficiency in it.

So, how did I do it?

• Pay close attention to what sounds exist in the language. Since there are initial sounds combined with final sounds, this makes for a limited array of combinations.
• Understand the difference for each tone (5 tones) in the language, applied to every final sound available.
• Listen to all the sounds carefully and understand what your mouth and tongue needs to do in order to produce the same sound.
  

Was I fluent back then? No of course not. But you could be sure that every word you asked me to pronounce I would pronounce it correctly. It is just a matter of paying attention, use your ear and your mouth.

Now being in Taiwan makes everything more easier. People constantly comment on how I barely have any accent at all.

When it comes to understanding the speaking aspect of a language, you can be methodical. Pay attention to how it sounds, and emulate it. Do this over and over again.

My 2 cents.

Also, if you are interested in Mandarin check out the Chinese/Mandarin Language Thread.

Post: #8

I've lived in Thailand 15 months total without making language learning a top priority. I'm borderline conversational, I can tease girls and have low-level conversations. If you gave me another 6 and I actively tried to learn as much as possible I could be fully conversational in it. The tones are definitely the biggest obstacle, I hate them, still occasionally mix them up even with some easy words.. I also still haven't completely gotten the alphabet down, which is making things harder.

If you're just starting out I recommend studying the alphabet right from the beginning. It will help give you a better understanding of the sounds.

I've always been good at learning languages but terrible at pronouncing new sounds. When I started learning Spanish it took hours of practice just to be able to roll my r's. It's embarrassing.

Post: #9

(12-08-2014 08:53 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  

(12-08-2014 05:43 PM)clever alias Wrote:  I speak Chinese pretty goddamn fluently. It took a few years of serious study while in China. 2 things: 1) if you self-study, you'll probably never get it down pat. And 2) there is absolutely no pay off for it.

Dabble if you're interested, but don't get caught in the time suck that is Mandarin. I would not have done it had I known it would not be worth it.

This is not true. The OP is emphasizing his question regarding the languages being Tonal. VolandoVengo, I assume you are a Spanish native speaker, like me?

I managed to master all of Mandarin's pronunciation and existing sounds without being even in China/Taiwan. How? By self-study in my home country, a place where there is no Mandarin environment. Just because there isn't one, doesn't mean you can't gain considerable proficiency in it.

So, how did I do it?

• Pay close attention to what sounds exist in the language. Since there are initial sounds combined with final sounds, this makes for a limited array of combinations.
• Understand the difference for each tone (5 tones) in the language, applied to every final sound available.
• Listen to all the sounds carefully and understand what your mouth and tongue needs to do in order to produce the same sound.
  

Was I fluent back then? No of course not. But you could be sure that every word you asked me to pronounce I would pronounce it correctly. It is just a matter of paying attention, use your ear and your mouth.

Now being in Taiwan makes everything more easier. People constantly comment on how I barely have any accent at all.

When it comes to understanding the speaking aspect of a language, you can be methodical. Pay attention to how it sounds, and emulate it. Do this over and over again.

My 2 cents.

Also, if you are interested in Mandarin check out the Chinese/Mandarin Language Thread.

Not to sound like an ass, but to me, the odds are much much higher that your Chinese is not as good as you think it is as opposed to you hit every tone and get perfect pronunciation. I studied at a C-9 school in China with students from the best schools in Asia, and after 3 years of study, my teacher could still point out errors in nearly every sentence.

Odds that any foreigner speaks Chinese perfectly: very close to 0
Odds that Chinese people don't point out the mistakes because they think "meh, good enough": very close to 100

Post: #10

(12-08-2014 09:21 PM)clever alias Wrote:  Odds that any foreigner speaks Chinese perfectly: very close to 0
Odds that Chinese people don't point out the mistakes because they think "meh, good enough": very close to 100

This is pretty true. Most Chinese people are too polite to tell you outright that your mandarin sucks ass. They will just blow smoke that you speak pretty good or are amazed you speak it at all. The only white foreigner I can think of off the top of my head that speaks it pretty well is that guy Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica podcast. He'll say some things occassionaly and his mandarin is very good.

The vast majority of foreign mandarin speakers who learned it late in life have messed up pronunciation though.

Post: #11

(12-08-2014 09:21 PM)clever alias Wrote:  Not to sound like an ass, but to me, the odds are much much higher that your Chinese is not as good as you think it is as opposed to you hit every tone and get perfect pronunciation. I studied at a C-9 school in China with students from the best schools in Asia, and after 3 years of study, my teacher could still point out errors in nearly every sentence.

Odds that any foreigner speaks Chinese perfectly: very close to 0
Odds that Chinese people don't point out the mistakes because they think "meh, good enough": very close to 100

Whether you are 100% perfect really does not matter at all though, except for semantic debates like this or academic situations. What matters is operational fluency. If you can communicate fluently and effortlessly in most daily situations, with taxi drivers, girls, etc. then it really doesn't matter if you get the odd word or grammar structure wrong. And as far as pronunciation goes, Fret already touched on it, there's a limited amount of sounds and if you bombard yourself with enough native speaking content (TV, Radio, language exchange partners, etc) for a while you will start to develop a sense for what sounds right and wrong in the language, both phonetically as well as syntactically. Most people overdo it on the active speaking part when they start out, because "woo I can speak Chinese", developing messy habits that are difficult to get rid of later. But really what you need to do as a beginner in the first few months is mostly shut up and listen. See also here.

What also I tend to see here in Taiwan regarding foreigners speaking Chinese is that generally the best speakers are often people that already learned a second language before and who are not native English speakers.

In any case the difficulty of learning Chinese up to a decently comfortable, intermediate level is vastly exaggerated. I went from near-zero to roughly HSK 4 level in 10 months and I'm a pretty lazy person - you could probably do that in 3-6 if you really wanted to. Fluency in 2 years is perfectly possible but you need to put in the work and you need to put in the work in the right places. So to correct clever alias, if you self-study wrong, you'll never get it down pat. Learning how to learn is a whole science in itself. Another issue is that Chinese classes around the world but especially the ones for foreigners in China/Taiwan overemphasize writing and reading, leading to hordes of students who could handwrite an essay on Chinese politics after 2 years, but who couldn't even hold a simple conversation on the street.

Edit: Also before I forget, you NEED to have some interest in the language itself, or in learning languages, or in the media/culture associated with the language. If you expect some magical "pay off" at the end where girls will jump on your dick for your Chinese ability...that's just setting yourself up for disappointment.

Post: #12

I studied Thai for 6 months intensively at a private language school. I also put in a lot of hours of study and practice beyond what was required to learn the new vocabulary and complete the homework, as well as going out most nights practicing speaking with girls and Thai friends. I got good very quickly and could game girls entirely in Thai after about 4 months. Most people would assume that I was fluent when they heard me speak, but I wasn't close to being able to understand newspaper articles completely, or understand the news (I would be able to follow the story, but a lot of the details and nuance would be lost on me.

The school emphasised pronunciation strongly and did a lot of work, particularly beyond the first couple of months, on not only getting the tone sounds correct, but also on getting the vowels and consonants to sound exactly as they should (there are certain positions that your tongue should be in when producing the sounds). This along with the fact that I was constantly speaking Thai socially, meant that I'd often be mistaken for a Thai when on the telephone.

For those interested, I studied at a school called TLA in Phaya Thai. They use a modified syllabus that was originally developed to teach missionaries to speak Thai. There are several other schools, such as Union, that also teach the same syllabus, and I've met students from these schools and they all speak pretty well considering how little time they've studied for.

The best speaker I know studied for a year on Chulalongkorn University's course (he now works in translation and is capable of reading to a very high standard, including academic journals). However, Chula's course is about 4 times as expensive (although it comes with the added benefit of being on campus with all the fine students).

Post: #13

(12-08-2014 05:43 PM)clever alias Wrote:  I speak Chinese pretty goddamn fluently. It took a few years of serious study while in China. 2 things: 1) if you self-study, you'll probably never get it down pat. And 2) there is absolutely no pay off for it.

Dabble if you're interested, but don't get caught in the time suck that is Mandarin. I would not have done it had I known it would not be worth it.

Im not sure I would say self-study has absolutely no pay off, but it is very low if done before good practice with native speakers of Chinese, preferably in China.

Im at 10 years in China, 9 in NE China where the accent is supposed to "better". Without being with a Chinese person and getting feedback about what is wrong, its impossible for the average learner to really understand if something is wrong, and why. It took me months to really understand the "u" sound in 绿，女 etc. And then be able to do it reasonably, without difficulty takes a lot of practice that must be with a native speaker who can critique it.

Tones would be another example that really needs feedback. So many people who think they speak Chinese well simply don't. Chinese people understanding what is said doesnt mean that the Chinese is good. Thats a pretty low bar. Lots of hicks from the countryside barely speak anything close to Mandarin, but others understand them. I wouldnt want to sound like that, personally.

Get in country, find a good, educated tutor, work with them a few days a week, record yourself, practice.

Post: #14

Forgot to mention that with girls it really helped a lot, especially being able to hold my own in their groups. It would also pique girls interest when they heard you speak with friends, or ordering in bars, resulting in getting opened or approach invitations. Also makes it far easier to befriend Thai men, bar-staff, etc. who would then make introductions for you.

Post: #15

Find the country first, THEN learn the language. I am pretty fluent in Thai and it took me about 1 year of living there to master it (44 letters, 22 vowels) although it's a tonal language. I would say, don't worry too much about "is it rising or falling tone for that word?", just focus on speaking and the tone will come naturally. I don't know the tones of most Thai words, but I get understood when I speak.

Learn with real methods. "Fluent in 8 days" and things like that don't work. Get a book with Audio CDs for the base, and for the rest, go in the field and talk.

I am not a native English speaker; I am a French speaker, but I consider myself "native" in English, as I master the language perfectly.

Post: #16

Plenty of westerners learn conversational Thai and Mandarin without too much trouble.

(Note *conversational*, not necessarily writing. Thai writing is okay, Mandarin is obviously a long hard road)

For Mandarin, go through the Michel Thomas course to nail the tones. It's got rave reviews for that purpose.

Vietnamese however... is a different beast. I've heard from a few people who got Thai or Mandarin without too much trouble that Vietnamese just kicks their ass.
There is one tone that goes up-down-up-break-up. Imagine that for one syllable. Then imagine trying to distinguish it in real-time speech from falling-rising or rising tone...*shudder*.

Also all the language materials are northern vietnamese. Which sounds very different from southern.

You might put in 6 months and *think* you've got it ... just to find out you're speaking some pseudo-language that your girlfriend has to mentally translate back to real Vietnamese in her head. No one else can understand you.



Here's an article comparing Mandarin and Vietnamese from a western speaker of Mandarin who had to go learn Vietnamese when posted there:
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/...vietnamese

Post: #17

(12-08-2014 02:35 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  1) If I could go back in time, I'd probably pick a different language. China is fun, but the opportunity cost was too great.

2) Here's a great article detailing some of the difficulties you'll encounter if you decide to tackle Mandarin. The author might come off as a bit intense, but he's 100% on the mark.

1) If I had to do it all over again I would have gone to South America, but thats not how it works. =) I will go to S.America but at the moment I have a life and made good money, have a career in China. Chinese is a dangerous bitch goddess, because it seems like the learner is getting somewhere, when it fact they aren't.

2) See part one. Chinese is so incredibly hard. I know lots of people who majored in Chinese, have studied it here and still speak the language laughably badly. Id say thats more common than speaking it well. Its that hard.

The only people I know who speak the language well as foreigners, ie, I listen to them and it sounds really nice, like good Mandarin should, are foreign born Chinese. Their parents spoke it too them as children. I started when I was 23. Im 33 now. Bad idea all around.

BUT!!!! THis is changing. I know a lot of people here in my city who have been here 10 years with their children. So whitey is going to be speaking some suave Chinese this generation. In 10-20 years lots of kids who grew up in China will be speaking it well. Its just not something the mind can do well without either a Chinese speaking parent or growing up in country. I base that on all the examples Ive seen.

Post: #18

It's weird to see so may people asking questions along the lines of "I want to learn this language. How long does it take before I get to fluent?"

There's a whole world of stuff between that start and end point. The FSI 2000+ is just some abstract. Try and get to A1 (As in, you have enough language not to die by starving or exposure if left there for a couple of days.) If it takes you a thousand hours to get to A1, there's probably not a lot of point in trying to become fluent. If you get to A1 in a month, then you've probably got something.

If fluent is C1, most language learners never get to C1. Most people don't even know what fluency is in that regard. Most English as a Foreign Language speakers never get to C1, they just think they do because people understand them. C1, or fluent, is like being a graduate. If you're talking C2 (absolute fluency) most people don't get to that in their native language, let alone a foreign language.

People say in this thread "You might think yo're doing well but that's just Chinese people being polite." No shit. That's the same with every language on the planet. Think about it as an English speaker: How many foreign speakers have you bumped into that you haven't recognised they were foreign within ten seconds? Most Chinese speakers have huge issues with pronunciation in English, even professors and high level businessmen. Setting yourself the "no pronunciation mistakes" is an unfair standard.

If you can be understood in a variety of contexts without slowing the conversation down, you have a strong skill in that language. No if's and buts. Like I said at the start though, this is all running before you can stand upright.

Now onto Mandarin:

The pronunciation isn't the biggest issue. Pronunciation is never the biggest issue. Tones are simple, there are only four and a couple of rules for where they switch when followed by each other. The 'science' behind it is straightforward, it's only people who want to make it seem more difficult than it is that give the impression it's a hurdle.

The major problem with Mandarin is that it's a pain in the arse. It's a very logical language, but it will take you longer to do just about everything. That's the key difficulty. The writing system makes sense once you sort of know what's going on (look up radicals, learn those, then get Tuttle's guide to the first few hundred characters.) It's still going to take loads of memorising because it's so alien.

The pronunciation is the same as pronunciation in any other language, but it'll take longer because it's alien.

The grammar is the nicest part (really it's straightforward), but it'll still take you longer because it's completely different.

That's the key issue, aside from whether you actually want to learn it at all. The thing with Mandarin is that unlike say Spanish or French, as an English speaker you are going to pick up none of it by osmosis.

Post: #19

Don't bother.

If you're going to master another language please God learn Spanish or Russian, at least then you can quadruple your chances with hot girls in a tonne of countries.

I lived in China for 3 years with work, I learned intermediate Mandarin... but I wouldn't recommend someone else do so. As Isaac Jordan says, the opportunity cost is just too high.

Do you really want to spend 3+ years mastering Thai or Vietnamese? What fucking use is that?

Ok if you really must learn one of them pick Mandarin but dear, sweet God, go to Taiwan not mainland China.

And back to your original question (haha sorry) on actually learning the damn language.....

Focus on pronunciation from day one. Pronunciation and tones are key. You can learn 4x more quickly with shitty pronunciation but you will regret it.
There are those with hope and those without. Identify which one you are and if the latter just give up. I knew countless people who would never speak more than retarded, shitty chinese yet didn't realise it.

I studied on and off for about 2 years. I'd say if you have aggressive determination and some talent, then in under 2 years you can be fluent in this way:
-can have a relationship solely in the foreign language (with occasional difficulties)
-can flirt, joke, communicate, work out mostly what everyone everywhere is saying in normal day to day language
-have absolute confidence in your day to day life in the foreign language

but
-not be able to read a newspaper
-not be able to watch TV
-immediately be lost on technical discussions
-have no clue what natives are saying in their local dialects
-be unable to work in the language
-be unable to express sophisticated meanings and emotions (eg arguments with loved ones).

Post: #20

Vietnamese is just an ugly transliteration (romanization) of some Asian language, using "tong" and "dûong" written in letters instead of symbols. Looks like somebody designed the language, but forgot to create an alphabet after. Unfinished project, kinda.

Post: #21

A lot of people don't develop fluency in Mandarin taking a formal course because of the time suck of learning to write characters. Don't bother - just learn to recognize a couple hundred.

Make sure you drill tones before you really start learning sentences and vocabulary - it's much harder to correct tones further down the line. Probably should get a tutor for this.

Then progress through basic vocabulary, introductory sentences, etc....

Post: #22

Lots of interesting comments here.
I'm a native English speaker, but I speak Spanish fluently at a university/near native level. My Portuguese is not as good, but just about fluent.
Based on El Chinito's post, I came upon the twitter of Jeremy Goldcorn. He tweeted comments about censorship and an awful photo of pollution from his office window.
I have only been to China once...short 8 day trip to Shanghai and Nanjing. I had previously lived in Mexico City and other places reputed to have pollution, but Shanghai to me was pretty shocking. At first I thought it was a foggy day...no WAY could pollution be that bad I thought.
It weighs heavily on me thinking about moving there. I would imagine several years of breathing in that air would do long term damage to your health, sort of like smoking a couple packs of unfiltered cigs a day.
Vietnam and Thailand seem more livable. More conducive to long term living followed by periodic extended returns. *Note*, I have never been to either.
Plus slightly lower on the language difficulty scale.
Learning Russian was on my mind as an option, but I ruled it out due to a negative impression of weather and the quality of life.


https://twitter.com/goldkorn/status/5349...08/photo/1

Post: #23

Alright, I am gonna chime in once more. And to prove my point I have recorded myself reading a small fragment of a book I am currently reading titled 船夫和猴子 (The Ferryman and the Monkey)

Chinese Text:

Quote:"怎麼找法呢？你說." 姊姊跳起身，手尖指著弟弟．"爸爸沒有名，沒有姓，沒有墓碑，怎麼找法？"

(pronouncing 姊姊 as jie3jie here)

English Translation (taken directly from the book):

Quote:"How am I supposed to look for him?" The sister jumped up and pointed at her brother. "Father had no name, and there is no tombstone on his grave."

You can hear my recording here. This recording will only be available for a few hours.

Now I am not fluent by any means, and I don't claim to have perfect pronunciation 100% of the time. So what am I trying to achieve here? I am trying to pronounce every word the way they are supposed to be pronounced, while at the same time not speaking like a robot. I try to picture myself actually reading to somebody. Did I manage to do it? You be the judge, I am always open for constructive criticism.

So having said this, I want to say that:

Fluency and Pronunciation are two different and separate aspects of speaking and learning languages. You can have on one hand somebody that speaks completely fluently, but with bad pronunciation and accent. Why does he speak fluently? Because he is capable of organizing his thoughts in his brain using the language and actually conveying them while speaking. He is capable of constructing the necessary grammar structures to convey his desired message.

On the other side you can have somebody that is not fluent at all, hell maybe he only knows a handful of nouns, verbs, adjectives and grammar forms, yet he has perfect pronunciation. Why? Because for some reason he has managed to correctly emulate the correct sound associated to each word and produce it correctly with his mouth, even though what he can say is very limited.

Now, when you combine these two types, you get an ability that is on a whole different level. True fluency, in my opinion.

I also want to add that even if a foreign speaker is at this level, there will always remain a "foreigner accent" no matter what. This is might be because our native languages make our voices different, or maybe genetics, or maybe environment, or maybe all of these. This is why sometimes you can recognize a foreign voice even if this person has perfect pronunciation.

This is why, as I said on my previous post. It is possible to make huge progress regarding pronunciation even if you are not in the actual language environment.

So many people here saying how it is not worth it, etc. These are mediocre comments but I will keep my opinions to myself. I just want to say that, only you know if it is worth it or not, and how much it's worth.

Post: #24

Why not Bahasa? It's supposed to be one of the easiest non-Indo-European languages to learn and spoken in Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.

Same region of the world, very rapid development.

Post: #25

As far as I'm concerned, if you're not speaking at a professional level, then you're just another Tim Budong.