Learning new languages

[Eibro]

This is slightly off topic; i'm not talking about  programming languages, rather, natural languages.
has anyone successfully taught themselves another language (English, German, French, etc.) via books, tapes, internet? Which method did you use? Which works best? Any useful web resources?
Reason why i'm asking is, i'm considering learning German in my spare time, however I don't know how effective teaching yourself a natural language is. I've seen custom software at work to teach yourself secondary languages, but I don't want to spend $75.00 if there's other (better) ways.

Thanks in advance.
[If this is too off-topic, i'm sorry]

[mavrick_kr]

I learnt French and English naturally, I lived in Quebec until I was six, then I moved to Vernon(which is in British Columbia). Lived there for a year or two, by that time I was speaking english. I would rather much like to learn korean which I'm actually trying to do. Found a site which gave me good classes, but I wont mention its url because it's advertisment. :p

[Raven]

Personally, if you're gonna study a new language, I recommend just taking a course at your school, or perhaps a local college. Nothing really beats having a teacher, as he or she will know exactly in what order to learn things, and how to learn them. I've never tried any software for learning languages, but I highly doubt they're anywhere near as effective. I took two years of German in high school (I had PHENOMENAL teachers) and was able to grasp the basics of the language without too much difficulty. If you'd like to learn from a website, I recommend www.quickdic.de to kind of learn some words. Also, an okay approach might be to use Systran's free translator (www.systransoft.com), and translate various basic sentence fragments, and trying to grasp the language from there. But it'll probably be extremely difficult, because you need to learn conjugations as such (most foreign languages don't work like English; you have various sentence structures and word orders). Personally, I think the best way to learn a foreign language is to just take a class.

[drivehappy]

I learnt French and English naturally, I lived in Quebec until I was six, then I moved to Vernon(which is in British Columbia). Lived there for a year or two, by that time I was speaking english. I would rather much like to learn korean which I'm actually trying to do. Found a site which gave me good classes, but I wont mention its url because it's advertisment. :p

We travel through Vernon each summer to our house on Shuswap Lake. I've taken 2 1/2 years of German in High School and didn't learn too much. I think it's much easier to be around it all the time.

[Eibro]

I've had more than 5 years of french in school, but when you don't care about something enough you can just bullshit your way through and end up with nothing at the end.

[UserLoser]

i want two larn who two speek inglis

[CrAz3D]

Tu est bete Userloser.  Je suis bete, mon francais est tres mal.  

[DeviL]

This is slightly off topic; i'm not talking about  programming languages, rather, natural languages.
has anyone successfully taught themselves another language (English, German, French, etc.) via books, tapes, internet? Which method did you use? Which works best? Any useful web resources?
Reason why i'm asking is, i'm considering learning German in my spare time, however I don't know how effective teaching yourself a natural language is. I've seen custom software at work to teach yourself secondary languages, but I don't want to spend $75.00 if there's other (better) ways.

Thanks in advance.
[If this is too off-topic, i'm sorry]

LOL

I taught myself Portuguese, because of my roots, i visited there(Portugal) and decided to get to know the language/culture.
Anyways...the methods i thought were more effective were using books, and taking a class at a local school that was offering courses on weekends. I tried finding help on the internet, that plan failed. I'm not saying you won't be able to successfully find the information you need on the internet to fulfill your craving for a new language, i just didn't have the hands-on feeling of learning with books and having that teacher beside you, helping you understand what's between the lines.
But then again, you did mention it was for your spare time, so whether or not you want to take more time for a class, is up to you.