Whats the best way to teach someone a foriegn language?

I’d also be curious about tips for teaching adults.

Write the Spanish word for everything you see on a sticky note. Put those sticky notes on the objects so that every time you see an object, you see the Spanish word also.

LiveMocha is a good website for adults to learn a foreign language.

I say also teach them to think in Spanish – teach them the literal translations and to start thinking in English that way. When I learned Spanish it was really confusing to try to translate from proper English grammar to proper Spanish grammar without knowing how Spanish grammar should sound in English. For example, “Yo tengo hambre” = I have hunger = I’m hungry. “Yo no entiendo” = I no understand = I don’t understand.

I have taught French to 7 and 8 year olds. The method I used forbad any English. So I spoke very simple French, waved my arms around, acted, and used props. At seven, a child is still brave and not self-conscious; stick with speaking and understanding. They are harder skills than reading and writing.

I also taught ESL to a Russian woman my age. Same deal…only simple English. With her, we kept a notebook in which I drew pictures and used simple subtitles. “This is a boat on the lake.”

yeah, from what I heard the more you can emerse a kid that young in the language the better. Maybe a really basic explanation of basic concepts might help a little, but the more you speak it the better at that age. Adults I don’t think do so well because the strict rules of what ever language they already know is hard to break from, but once they do learning becomes easier.

Listening and repetition. Seeing, writing and hearing the same phrases, and putting them to practical use is key!

Get their bank account. Buy two plane tickets to the origin of the language. Get a nice hotel. Go out every day and talk to people with the student in question, especially the waiters in very, very good restaurants. Have a divine time. Little by little, relinquish coaching and other language supervision; make the student go out and buy the correct number and type of croissants and bring them back to you while you lounge about in bed. Soon the student must be able to negotiate a contract for his or her services so that more money will come in. Require the student to hand over half the money to you. Enjoy.

Total immersion while the student is with you is what works. If the child has to make some effort in figuring out what you mean, they’ll retain what they’re learning.

at that young of an age I wouldn’t translate everything to english. Teach them what it is in spanish they probably already know the english meanings for things places and actions…

I moved to Quito when I was 9 and didn’t speak any spanish really. Total immersion even went to school in all spanish, learned in less then 3 months complete fluid spanish and no american accent.

Because only a few things where translated into english for me, I actually think and dream in spanish still as well as english.

As we grow up we want that translation and need it to make sense where someone younger will absorb very quickly.

Just my two cents

Granted a year later when I came back to america took me a little time to get my english vocab back heh.