Herein lies the problem. It seems to me that language learning as an adult requires a degree of shamelessness. You would serve yourself well in numerous ways by learning how to do something silly in public, laugh at yourself and then continue on with your head held high in supreme confidence. It's a hard trick to learn.

I did it by studying performance art in graduate school: we would do stupid things in public, and people actually would get paid to criticize us. After that mispronouncing moindre didn't bother me much.

Anyhow I suppose there are other ways to learn shamelessness. It's worth learning though. Language learning isn't the only payoff. People seem to respond really well to shameless behaviour executed with confidence.

MarkJ is right - learning a language as an adult requires you to be thick-skinned on many levels. You'll have to start psyche-ing yourself into understanding that most people here won't laugh at you when you try to speak the language when you're not local.

I used to have this huge problem as well...until one day, I just got so fed up of feeling like an idiot when I know what to say (basic stuff, that is) and just said it anyway. I found that people were even more helpful and sweet to a certain degree...and no one has laughed...yet.

As for the rest (no money, small town and such), you could start like reading, listening and watching more German/French-based media. Most people start out better in reading than they are in conversing and listening. Over time, with enough practice, you'll get better at all three.

If you have some cash to spare, check out some grammar/comprehension/vocab books and give yourself some home-schooled-styled tuition. Alternatively, there are plenty of websites online.

In my case, HB and I decided that I'd make faster progress if I went to a language school instead - the downsize to doing things at home is that you can get distracted with plenty of other things.

Oh, the whole speaking to the BF thing only works if your BF is the patient type. My HB isn't exactly patient either and I'd rather PAY someone to teach me than to put up with him shouting and going "You know what it means, just think" (Urm, duh, if I know, would I ask?) for free.

In any case, good luck!

Learning a language is a gradual process, or was for me at least. I was living here over a year before I started learning German and it was many more months before I started becoming proficient.

In all the time that I have been here I have not once been laughed at by a single German speaking person because of the many grammatical errors I make and incorrect words I sometimes use and still do. When I started my current job my Swiss manager complimented me because I can speak better High German than she can.

Think about it - assuming your first language is English - do you laugh at people without English as their first language when they try to speak English?

My advice is find a friends who can speak English and german. You can learn from them. Try to read 20 min newspaper at home. Follow a german class in EB school. It is not much expensive. A semester cost around CHF 350 . If you are jobless RAV pay your school fees. But I'm talking about Zuerich EB school.

This is how it goes....

I say please speak german with me
He says something in German
I don't understand
He just says it louder
I still don't understand
He shouts
I cry
We revert tpo English

He isn't really the patient teaching type [/quote]


COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND - my fella and I have a similiar thing going on! The problem is, he refuses to speak more slowly for me, so that often all I can hear is something like ächhhhhüüü sscchhöö sschhgghhh... My saviour is his daughter, who's 7 and enjoys teaching me.

I can recommend a downloadable German course. What I like about this course, is that they explain the grammar very well, which is my biggest problem and there's plenty of practice with speaking it and listening too. I found it at www.rocket-german.co.uk.

I'm learning French at home for free by using the BBC language website, which is an excellent resource: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/, and by signing up to a few free French podcasts - I assume that there are just as many podcasts available for other languages too, just do a Google search to find out.

Bon chance!

My son is like this, when i tell him i didn't hear what he said, he shouts it louder and louder till i shout i am not deaf.....i just didn't hear you the first time or didn't understand you....

Talk to your partner tell him how much you want to learn and ask him to help you by talking slowly and clearly and if his english is so good then my translating so you understand.....

Just ask hi to use the daily things like, what would you like for dinner or what is for dinner....how was your day....so you get use to hearing these words and then move on to the next step....

good luck

My girlfriend and I have always spoken English together and still do now, to her benefit and my disadvantage. In fact, all Swiss people I know that speak English always speak English with me even when at work where we should really be speaking German so that the other employees can follow what we are talking about.

I just try and speak as much German as possible with others who don't speak English is all. It's worked out pretty well so far.

This is definitely a really good strategy and has helped me no end. I need to see written words to understand how to begin to pronounce them and to understand what I'm hearing. To his credit, my fella has lent me all sorts of books to read in German. I really good one for me was a German translation of "Der Kleine Hobbit" - this is great fun! There are German expressions in it like "Donner Wetter!" and "Liebe Gott in Himmel!". Don't know if the Swiss ever use these. And it's so long, that by the time I got to the end, I was reaching for the dictionary far less!

And it's really rude too. I wouldn't really recommend saying that to a Swiss person.

For me language immersion worked really well - I only watched German TV, read German books and newspapers and then tried my German out on anyone who would listen. I took some courses as well when I had time and did a lot of home study.

Well I was thinking it would cause him, her boyfriend (not a "Swiss person") to laugh and stop shouting at her - knowing something a little "off" has usually caused my Swiss husband to crack up - you know, lighten the shouting/crying situation with a little levity - not to be rude.