# Learning a foreign language through a foreign language



## Jansen

I am trying to learn Italian on a shoestring budget. That is, by myself, using only Internet and whatever resources I am able to get hold of for free. Finding learning material has not been that hard, but the problem is that it’s more or less all in English. Being Norwegian myself, English is a foreign language to me, and even if I feel I understand it fairly well, I’m still a bit concerned about learning one foreign language by way of another. 
 
I’m not really worried about learning the vocabulary, but I’m concerned that it will be a problem when it comes to learning grammar and building correct sentences. 
 
Does anyone here have any experience with this? Will this approach make it a lot harder to learn Italian, and is there anything I should pay special attention to?


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## panjabigator

It may cause you to jump through some extra hoops, but it is plausible and in some cases better, depending on the language.  I have been wanting to learn Portuguese, but through a Spanish medium since I know Spanish already.  Using English would just add another hoop to jump through.  Similarly, I would suggest to speakers of North Indian languages to learn another Indian language through their own and not through English, but that is because they are related.


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## natasha2000

If your English is good enough, I don't think you'll have any problem.
And according to how you wrote your question, I am sure you won't have any problem.


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## Procy0n

Yeah, I agree with natasha2000. And for free materials, I'd suggest a visit to your local library. It's a good starting point, at least. Reading school books isn't necessarily fun, but they teach you the basics. After that, it should be easy to go further with materials from the Internet. IMHO, you should of course jump to reading Italian literature as soon as you understand anything of it!

And well, knowing the grammatical vocabulary in English helps a lot anyways. There's a lot of material about different languages in Internet, in English, as you have noticed. Discussing with other people (possibly from all over the world, like here) is also easier when you have a common language.

Personally, I love reading other languages in English or German (Finnish is my native language). That way I learn more of those languages too. So, double effect.  Good luck with your studies!


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Actually, I've found learning one foreign language by way of another to be a useful way to learn them, and i have worked on any number of languages in that way.  It helps you improve your skill in the language you already know while learning another language through it.  

What's more, as you already realize, since you speak English you have a wider variety of material to work from.  Personally, I've used Chinese material to learn Japanese, Russian material to learn Chinese and Arabic, and Spanish material to work on South American Indian languages.  In the latter, you don't have much choice; there really is very little material available in anything except Spanish.

The amount of really excellent material to learn foreign languages that is printed in Russian is a tribute to the academic standards that the Soviets pursued, at least in some areas, and almost makes it worth learning Russian just so you can use them!  I've run across excellent grammars for Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Ancient Egyptian, all at very reasonable prices.


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## Insider

On one hand, I don't think that learning two or more languages in one time would be a greatproblem. But, on the ither hand, you can get in little troubles. As for me, a person should one on good or it will be better if (s)he knows on very good level one foreign languages. Then she could easily start to work hard on the other. Sometimes, studying two languages on one time could make a great progress, for example, while learning English and Spanish. These languages, in some way, have a quite huge similarities in vocabulary - it can be very helpful.

But there is also another point. If you're trying to study in the same time Chinese and Czeck, I don't believe it could be very possitive for your knowledge progress.

Right now, I'm I attemp to study German and Spanish. And it's hard because you must make the influence on one of them - these languages are not very har, but, of course, they aren't easy, but you don't have possibility to make one language to be more influenced.


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## karuna

I learned Spanish via English and currently I am learning Japanese in this way also. Some explanations meant for English native speakers are really ponderous, like explaining the importance of genders in Spanish when Latvian has exactly the same gender system. But overall I had no problems with grammar or lexicon.

The only thing which may be misleading when learning via English is pronunciation. For example, the Spanish r is not English r but how close it is to Latvian r? Or is *ñ* the same as palatalized Latvian ņ? If you are following the English guide which gives the word _ca*ny*on _as an example you may get the wrong idea_._


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## karuna

Thomas F. O'Gara said:
			
		

> The amount of really excellent material to learn foreign languages that is printed in Russian is a tribute to the academic standards that the Soviets pursued, at least in some areas, and almost makes it worth learning Russian just so you can use them!  I've run across excellent grammars for Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Ancient Egyptian, all at very reasonable prices.



Thank you for this suggestion. I am looking for a good Japanese grammar textbook. But this stuff is not available from Amazon.com. Do you know any good on-line bookshops where I could find such books?


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## moirag

Jansen said:
			
		

> I am trying to learn Italian on a shoestring budget. That is, by myself, using only Internet and whatever resources I am able to get hold of for free. Finding learning material has not been that hard, but the problem is that it’s more or less all in English. Being Norwegian myself, English is a foreign language to me, and even if I feel I understand it fairly well, I’m still a bit concerned about learning one foreign language by way of another.
> 
> I’m not really worried about learning the vocabulary, but I’m concerned that it will be a problem when it comes to learning grammar and building correct sentences.
> 
> Does anyone here have any experience with this? Will this approach make it a lot harder to learn Italian, and is there anything I should pay special attention to?


I agree with the others. You seem to have a very good level of English, and won't encounter difficulties until a much higher level, if ever. I learnt Swedish and Italian while living in Germany - so many of the explanations ( I was in classes) were in German - and I didn't even think of it, since German was my language of shopping/work/doctor's etc. What I think IS important is the opportunity to hear/speak to natives - but that doesn't depend on where you live - unless you live in Italy!


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## panjabigator

karuna said:
			
		

> Thank you for this suggestion. I am looking for a good Japanese grammar textbook. But this stuff is not available from Amazon.com. Do you know any good on-line bookshops where I could find such books?



Look on Japanese sites under literature.  They are bound to have some.


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## CrazyIvan

I would like to offer a different perspective,regarding grammers.

While I learnt Spanish by myself through English, I found some trouble to feel 'being percise.' Saying that means I roughly have the ideas of Spanish grammers, such as tense, condition, and gender. But how does it apply to a sentence? I always have this problem when I trired to built a sentence on my own.

After one year class in College, taught by teachers speaking in Mandrine, the 'insecure' feeling has been removed.

I do not know if that is a problem of wrong materials( maybe the english book I chose is not good enough.) But I think probably is my english is not good enough...


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## natasha2000

Crazy Ivan, I don't think trhat the problem was in your English. I think, or the book was wrong, or your classes on Mandarine were just a continuation in your studing Spanish. If the same rules had been explained to you in English, you would have understood them equally. I am positive on this.

PS: Besides, as I understood, you used English through books, and Mandarine with live teachers. I personally, prefer teacher to books. A teacher always explains better than a book /for me/. And if you don't understand something, you always can ask them. But you cannot ask the book.


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## mimiparis

I am french native but learning italian through english, and it's precisely a good way  to learn them. I think that my english is far to be bad but still lot of things to improve. from the point where your english is at least operational it is a good thing. When I am stuck for a translation or whatsoever I just go back from french to english and finally italian!!!
Good luck
mimi


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## natasha2000

Well if it is transaltion in question, then I cannot agree. Usually it comes out like a mess.

But in order to explain rules, language other than your native language is ok, too.


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## Lugubert

Isn't Italian taught anywhere in Norway on a gymnasium level (for you ohters: high school)? Ask around; for them it must be in Norwegian. The problem might still be that for tiny markets like the Scandinavian countries, any material in our languages will be much more expensive than what you can find in English.

There may be some difficulties, especially if sounds are explained for people with English mother tongue. On the other hand, you will get a number of laughs when they explain things that are obvious to us.

Anyway, correct Italian sentences will be OK regardless of which language you used to build them. And, like hinted already, it will be useful to have learned the grammar in English when you start learning your next language using English material.


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## CrazyIvan

How close those two languages related may be a key issue here.

While some languages have closer relationship, some are not. Take Chinese and English as example. Definition of words can be different so there are some common misuse/abuses for some words. I remember my first time going abroad, I find some difficulty to express myself while I was using wrong vacabularies.

Now I actually understand why my senior high school English teacher insisted to ask us to buy a English-English dictionary rather than a Chinese-English one.


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## zena168

I’ve tried to learn Japanese through English first and realized that it really doesn’t require deep vocabularies to understand the translations. If they’re translating they won’t use sophisticated words that can be ambiguous or confusing to people. Whenever the concept was kind of fuzzy I resort to the second language I know for a second opinion. But that’s on rare occasions. Sometimes a concept exists in another culture that has the right word for it. So I use both to enhance my learning and it’s been swell.


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## xarruc

I would like to know about people’s experience in learning a new language via a third language and how it compares with learning a language through your first language.
 
Let me explain: I am intending to learn Italian and will need to buy a dictionary. I am toying with the idea that, as I already speak Catalan fairly fluently, and as Catalan and Italian are very similar, that perhaps buying a Catalan-Italian dictionary may have advantages over an Italian-English dictionary.
 
The obvious drawbacks are that if I look up a word in Italian and don’t know the Catalan ‘answer’ then I will have to look it up into English, and that if I want to put a word into Italian I will need to think of it first in Catalan.
 
On the other hand, due to the similarity of the languages there will be fewer untranslatable terms, nuances will be better preserved, and the similarity of the words should help me remember them better.
 
Has anyone tried this and how did it work out?

Moderator Note:  This post and the succeeding one have been merged from a different thread on the same topic.


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## Cracker Jack

I would say that I am currently experiencing the same thing.  I am learning French and German in a country that doesn't speak either of both.  Among German, French, Spanish, Catalan and English, I understand the latter best.  Some of my professors in German and French are native speakers, who although they speak either Spanish and Cataln well, their vocabulary is limited in terms of names of plants and animals.

The other thing is that they assume that everybody understands English.  So what they do is explain the meaning in the language being studied and they would add ''in English...''  I am lucky that here in Barcelona, there are bilingual dictionaries French-English and German-English.  If I am in a library where it is impossible to get internet connection,  I make use of a français-espagnole dictionnaire or Deutsch-Spanisch Wörterbuch. 

However, at times it is cumbersome to do dual translation so I have to get an English-Spanish or English-Catalan dictionary.  Sometimes during the lecture, the professor tries to explain something in Spanish or Catalan and yet I do not get it.  I just take note of the word and after the class I go to the library or when I get home, I look it up in the dictionary and then everything will fall into place.

In response to your other question, the similarity of languages English-French-German and Catalan are very noticeable.  Spanish is a bit remote.
Sometimes, by means of phonetics in German, I am able to get the meaning in English.


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## Venezuelan_sweetie

xarruc said:


> I would like to know about people’s experience in learning a new language via a third language and how it compares with learning a language through your first language.
> 
> Let me explain: I am intending to learn Italian and will need to buy a dictionary. I am toying with the idea that, as I already speak Catalan fairly fluently, and as Catalan and Italian are very similar, that perhaps buying a Catalan-Italian dictionary may have advantages over an Italian-English dictionary.
> 
> The obvious drawbacks are that if I look up a word in Italian and don’t know the Catalan ‘answer’ then I will have to look it up into English, and that if I want to put a word into Italian I will need to think of it first in Catalan.
> 
> On the other hand, due to the similarity of the languages there will be fewer untranslatable terms, nuances will be better preserved, and the similarity of the words should help me remember them better.
> 
> Has anyone tried this and how did it work out?


 
I don't know if this would work for you, but here goes my 'grain of sand' 

I was born and raised in a Spanish-speaking country, but my passion has always been English.

I started learning French through my native language, since everyone said that the languages are quite similar.  Well...  that was a disaster!  So many times it happened that I was trying to say something in French, and I could only say the word in English or use the English grammar constructions.

I heard that's due to the brain's learning mechanisms (there was a looong and detailed explanation, I don't mean to bore you out with that), since every foreign language you learn as a grown-up gets 'filed' in a different area of the brain than your native language.

So then, funny as it might seem, I started learning French through English ("let's see if it works this way...") and, guess what!  It happened to be much easier to me.

On the other hand, I'm learning Italian through Spanish and I'm doing fine so far (I'm still on 'beginners', so it's not my final answer yet... )

Anyway...  I don't know if that means that you should learn Italian through Catalan, but if I were you, I'd give it a try...


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## Etcetera

I am a native speaker of Russian, and I am currently learning Piedmontese. Of course, there are no textbooks, dictionaries and so on available in Russian, so I have to make use of those written in English - there are several sites about Piedmontese, and they have English versions. 
I am good with it. If your knowledge of English is good, why should there be any troubles.
Besides, as I'm a philologist and have already spent several years learning English grammar, vocabulary, syntax in English, I find it really easier to study other languages in English, because I know the English terms better than their Russian equivalents.


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## panjabigator

I am currently learning Catalan and although I am not nearly fluent in Spanish, I know the language fairly well. I'd much rather learn it through Spanish than anything else.  English is a bummer sometimes...suprisingly there are more resources for English speakers than for Spanish speakers.


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## BlueWolf

xarruc said:


> Let me explain: I am intending to learn Italian and will need to buy a dictionary. I am toying with the idea that, as I already speak Catalan fairly fluently, and as Catalan and Italian are very similar, that perhaps buying a Catalan-Italian dictionary may have advantages over an Italian-English dictionary.



I dissuggest you it for a simple reason. I've noticed that when a word in the second language is similar to the one in the first language, dictionaries tend to be unprecise. For example, in an English-Italian dictionary I've seen as translation of "to pretend" "pretendere" too, that actually in Italian usually means an other thing. Immagine a dictionary where it happens in almost half of the words!


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## Chaska Ñawi

I learned Quechua via Spanish, and I still automatically translate it into Spanish unless I'm specifically translating for an anglophone.

Unfortunately, it isn't foolproof.  I used to host a radio program on global music, and remember one rather embarassing episode.  I started translating the lyrics of a Quechua song, and suddenly realized mid-stream that I was addressing my Ontario audience in Spanish instead of English.


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## UrsusMaximus

Hei,

Jej har lært Norsk i Nederland, (I learned Norwegian in the Netherlands, for the Nordically-challenged) in Dutch, and I don't think it was any harder than when I learned French, German and Spanish in my native England. And my two teachers, though not native-speakers of Norwegian, were simply very good at teaching languages. From your post, it looks like your English is great (better than my Norwegian, anyway) so you shouldn't have any major problems 

Good luck og hilsen fra StorBjørn!


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Karuna:

I apologize for my delay in getting back to you. Unfortunately, I don't know of any good sources of Russian books on the internet any more; the best one in the USA closed shop early this year.

You may want to check out this website, however, which has a great deal of material in Russian on foreign languages, including Japanese:

http://www.franklang.ru/

It has an amazing number of free downloads - Russian websites seem to have a lot of that sort of thing.  I'd suggest it to one of the moderators, but I really don't know where to direct it to.


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## PianoMan

I must say, it's quite an interesting feat to be able to learn one language through another.  With the languages I plan to learn, there are plenty of resources in English, so I'll probably have next to no experience there, but it works fairly well, making you reliant on a language you're not necessarily native to and helping that particular language seem less foreign as you learn a new one through it.


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## maxiogee

In Ireland there are few speakers of Irish.
Some parents (who may not both be Irish speakers - either native or acquired later) send their children to Irish-language schools - where everything is taught through Irish. This means that the children learn everything through what is to them 'a foreign language' - they don't have a full grasp of the language they are using to lean Maths, History, French, English, etc. - this nearly always rankles with the children.


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## Anatoli

My first language is Russian. I have been learning languages through English, I also covered a Japanese textbook in German and long time ago a Chinese textbook in French (the latter was tougher since my French was not as good).

English is now my preferred language to learn other languages because I live in Australia and I can get better books in English. Although I still use some Russian and German textbooks.


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## Riccardino

Next fall, I hope to be taking a Portuguese class geared to those already proficient in Spanish or Italian. It will mostly be focused on Portuguese-specific vocabulary and grammar, but basically my Italian would be turned into semi-proficient Portuguese in only a few months.

While I will be also taking Italian at the time (6th college semester), I have concerns that Portuguese might overwrite Italian, or at least I might be confused for a little bit until my brain compartmentalizes everything.

Is there anyway that that wouldn't occur? i.e. What would I need to do?


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## jefrir

I'm currently studying German and Russian in a French university. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's going OK. The only problem I find is the different languages mean that different things need explaining - I'll fairly often sit in my German class and think "But isn't that obvious?" while the teacher explains something that works the same way in English and German, but differently in French.
If you know a language well enough, go for it - you will probably improve both languages. Be careful if they are too similar though - grammar points may not be explained because it is assumed you already know them.


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## John-Paul

As a non-latin strictly Germanic speaker (En/Ger/Du), wouldn't it be easier to learn Latin first and then French?


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## palomnik

John-Paul:  I would have to say that it's not necessarily so, despite the generations of Latin teachers that insisted that learning Latin first helped with learning modern Romance languages; in fact, my impression is that the opposite is true, i.e., you're better off learning a Romance language before tackling Latin.  My impressions are based on the fact that I started learning French after I started Latin and I didn't see any real benefit, whereas I studied Old Slavonic after learning Russian, and Classical Chinese after modern Chinese, and in both case learning the older, more difficult idiom was easier with the modern language under my belt.


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## PhilFrEn

HI here ,

I am also learning a language by myself (German), with a book I have bought (in French), but also on Internet on free websites. because I can not so badly handle English, I don't choose only French website, but English one which are explaning German grammar rules, vocabulary etc.

When a doubt is in the place, I switch on my mothertongue.

Gruß,
Phil.


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## Benjy

One thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the fact that you tend to know the "mechanismes" of your second language (L2) better than those of your native (L1) because in order to learn L2 you have to assimilate loads of grammar and phonetics which you never consider for L1. While I was living in France I decided to have a crack at Hebrew, and purchased texts in both English and French. I noticed that especially when phonetics was involved I found it much easier to undertand the French stuff than the English. It helped of course that I know all the IPA for French (because I had to), which I can't say is true for English (which I didn't have to).


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## PhilFrEn

It is true that I know much better the German grammar than the grammar of my mothertomgue French. As you said it is a logical way, you have in mind your language but you forget the rules, the mechanism. So that learning a language via another that you have also learned might be maybe more efficient .
Well seen .


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## Venezuelan_sweetie

Benjy said:


> One thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is the fact that you tend to know the "mechanismes" of your second language (L2) better than those of your native (L1) because in order to learn L2 you have to assimilate loads of grammar and phonetics which you never consider for L1. While I was living in France I decided to have a crack at Hebrew, and purchased texts in both English and French. I noticed that especially when phonetics was involved I found it much easier to undertand the French stuff than the English. It helped of course that I know all the IPA for French (because I had to), which I can't say is true for English (which I didn't have to).


 
I totally agree with you! There's something especially funny that happens to me: I am able to stand up in front of a class and explain grammar rules of three different languages (English, French and even basic Italian), but when my native English/French/Italian speaker friends ask me some heavy grammar rules of my native Spanish, I go blank...

However, the question is, does knowing all that grammar actually add up to your accuracy, or does it hold you back on the fluency respect? I say it because I can speak Spanish and English with perfect fluency (I learned both through the natural approach), but my French is not yet fluent -although I could give you a nice talk about its grammar rules...

What do you think, guys?


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## PhilFrEn

I have this problem while learning German. I know grammar rules that my native girlfriend is not able to figure out, because for her they are "obvious" now after more than 20 years of practice.

Anyway, I can't speak fluently because of a lack of vocabulary for instance. Furtherthemore, I get trouble to speak as well as I write. It is obvious that when you write you see better your mistakes clearer, but while speaking you have to think much more and as soon as the mistake is made you can't erase it.

But I am sure of one thing, grammar is very important while learning a language, I mean of course you should know rules, otherwise you can't even make a sentence. But it has taken me a lot of time to assimilate the German grammar, so that now I feel good while reading or trying to understand natives  (even if I lack of vocabulary )


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## Venezuelan_sweetie

Yeah, I know what you mean, PhilFrEn. It was the same to me with a French friend of mine, who is not only a native speaker, but also happens to be a French teacher!

I pretty much feel like I am becoming a philosopher in the language, since I could talk and talk about the rules, the shape, the intonation, the structure, and some other stuff related to the beautiful French language, but I must do it in Spanish or English, since my fluency in French is practically unexistant.

It is nice to know I am not alone in this phenomenon...  Has anybody else been through something similar, while learning a language?


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## panjabigator

While you guys are at it, how about suggesting some of these resources that you have used...

What worked and what didn't.


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## PhilFrEn

I have the feeling that I am regular enought to learn by myself.

I've made an attempt last year to learn Japanese, with these "learn in 100 lessons" books. It has worked quite well !!! I was really able after fews weeks of daily-learning to say sentences, and write in katakana/hiragana and some kanjis.

Unfortunately my motivation has been a little been slowed down because of my studies (I was taking time to learn Japanese during an internhip of 5 months, during which I had no exams and so on). Now I have forgotten everything but I look forward to learn and activate again my knowledge.

So for Japanese it was: 100 lessons method + a sotware for beginner where you get basic words (fruits, transports, how to find the closest bank and so on).

For German, I rely on such books one more time. It is really efficient. But this time, I am immersed in the language and hear it everyday, so that I can't forget it!!! Online web sites are also quite good, but I can't find as efficient as my book .


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## panjabigator

I want to learn German, perhaps through Spanish


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