Yeah, and your linguistic choices are limited to ~20 languages. That was my point. Its just such a naive way to view language learning, not to mention ignores the fact that you can't learn as effectively or likely, at all, without more money.

ETA: You can get an idea of the complications in learning a language just with basic pronunciation by reading some of the wiki articles on linguistics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_consonant) You could possibly learn to sound out the letters and foreign sounds through a laborious combination of internet radio with trial and error. But the amount of time that would take versus learning conventionally would be exponential. In addition a lack of correct pronunciation in many languages render muddled speech.

loliver also doesn't understand that some major languages don't use letters like us Engrish folks do. GLHF with a chinese newspaper and dictionary.

What are we learning a language for anyway? So we can speak it when we manage to afford a holiday once every five years?

Also it's a pretty limited subset of people are going to be happy spending any significant part of their free 100hrs/week learning a language... by themselves... through horribly suboptimal learning methods... for the rest of their life. Completely terrible suggestion.

Other ideas for free hobbies?

I know Spanish, French, German, and Italian. I learned French in high school, German on Rosetta Stone, and Spanish and Italian through the method I have suggested. I have been to France, Quebec, Spain, Berlin, and Rome and was understood by natives, so I'd say it's an all right method.

Personally I enjoy learning languages for the hell of it.

You don't HAVE to learn a language. There was a whole ****ing list. Pick the ones you enjoy, jesus christ people.

Even if I find a mutual exchange where I work on a language for 30m in exchange for tutoring someone for 30m. Taking the bus to do this burns up 30% of my daily entertainment budget. Perhaps I can just walk 50 blocks in lieu of taking the bus, this would serve the dual purpose of exercise and learning a language.

Yes, that does matter. The public library system in Seattle/the surrounding area is excellent.

Curious, but what area are you from, Henry?

So you learned a bunch of extremely simple languages in the same linguistic group that use the same alphabet... Wow.

And you used your method after having mastered (allegedly) three other languages in that group before. Wow.

PS: I've been to all of those places. I spoke to English to everyone sans a few people. One was a lady operating a subway booth in Montreal. I kept saying 2 while holding up three fingers. It was awesome.

Then do something else. You don't have to learn a language.

Yes. walk.

Okay. I just want to be clear that you're admitting that you don't have the money to learn a language. Not that its possible or anything.

I plan to swim when I go to Hawaii as well next year. Gonna save beaucoup monies. Just need to save a few months entertainment budget to afford a raft to bring the wife and kids.

I know you want to be super wealthy from trading ES and do whatever you want but you missed the OP question. It wasn't about what would be so great about being a millionaire and having lots of spending money it was "is it possibly feasible." How much fun it would be is up for debate.

original poster
The question wasn't what sum of money would give you full financial freedom and give you so much action you would have pussy coming out of your pockets. It was is it possible to live off.

um, no? just because european languages are "easy" doesn't mean they're not languages, and I've learned them, so obviously it doesn't take much money to learn a language.

and when did this become about my finances?

now you're just trying to be an *******.

Nah, $1m gives plenty of cushion to benefit from the edge before you run into any ROR issues.

You're trying to use your anecdotal proof to learn the easiest possible languages given your circumstances. Its quite asinine.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but lol either way.

and what exactly do you believe my circumstances to be, since you've brought it up?

threads officially derailed. time to close.

As Thremp already posted it is possible to live off $0. I have a friend who actually does and he does very well for himself. Between girls buying him stuff and him just dinning and dashing he actually lives a rather grand life. Based on the posting I'm certain he lives a much more "baller" life than a lot of people in this topic and he does it on $0.

No one is saying you can't sustain yourself on $30k a year. I think if the goal is just substance you can do it for even less. The question was can you live comfortably. I think part of comfortably requires that you not have to be watching every single cent you spend. If you need to pack your own water or coffee because spending the $1.25 is going to blow the budget then you can't classify that as comfortable.

You're just a wanton consumer IMO. Imagine having the gall to want to learn a language without being forced to walk 50+ blocks.

Agreed. That said, you can usually arrange some sort of tutoring for free services on Craigslist. You teach them English, they teach you XYZ. Buy some basic textbooks and go from there. Random native speakers aren't necessarily great teachers, but you can get pretty good feedback while you learn via the book and good help with pronunciation, etc, that way. I'd say $50 for 6-12mo of daily usage is effectively "free" as far as the textbook goes. Not sure why we're buying $6 newspapers instead of a $0.50/day textbook... Most can be bought used for less.

Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but you can backpack a lot of places for under $30/day (under $90 is pretty much everywhere outside London). 20-somethings like to do that. You'd end up compounding the majority of your returns during that period also if you go the cheap route. Do it for a decade and you've got a $200K house from the compounding. Makes budgeting all the easier down the road. Definitely something to do with your time, too.

If we can keep the thread focused on budgeting and value buying fundamentals, etc, the thread could still be quite useful.

I thought we agreed though, that you could live a lifestyle where you don't have to pinch pennies and watch everything you spend (and you can certainly buy some coffee or water) on $30K - $40K a year. Move to Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Orlando, or a whole host of other large cities. Rent an apartment downtown that will be $1000 (including cable, internet, and utilities). Don't own a car. Allow $500 for food and $500 for miscellaneous. This leaves $1000 every month for entertainment.

This is hardly a lifestyle where one can't spend money on random bottles of water, cups of coffee, or power bars. It's hardly a lifestyle where one can't enjoy themselves with friends. It's hardly a lifestyle where one can't meet women, date, and have sex. It's also obviously not a lifestyle of extravagance, and I would much rather live like you Henry. Dropping a few hundred dollars one night at a comedy club and nice dinner. Owning a vacation home in Europe. Going out with friends whenever you feel like it, buying them drinks, and what not. That's why I'm trying to get an education, get a job, and work my ass off to try and earn myself a high income. I'm just saying, living off $30K - $40K a year is hardly a "tough life" and still affords the ability to go out, have an active social life, date, and make random purchases like coffee, water, chips, etc.

YOURE the one who brought up that scenario, not me. My method includes no walking, just sitting on your ass.

You only buy one newspaper and learn every word in it...so it would be $6/n where n=number of months it takes you to figure everything out.

DDNK,

I made that comment about traveling to meet someone for tutoring. Could you explain where sans SE asia you can backpack for under $30 a day? I've spent many moons backpacking and your budget is lol.

In the next year or two the extend and pretend commercial loans will face foreclosure. Good income properties may be available for 10% cap rates on existing income. You may be able to get a $1 million loan so you can buy a $2 million property. Lets say its a small strip center with 10 units and 5 are vacant. You buy on existing cash flow so initially you have $135,000 per year income (10% on your million and 3.5% on the spread of your loan). If you can lease up the other spaces over time as the economy improves and rents rise with inflation it is not inconcievable that income could double over a 5 year period. If you pull that off I would say you could live a nice life off $1million.

Sick hypothetical, in about 43 years trees will evolve to the point where they start growing hundred dollar bills as leaves so that people will always water them over their evolutionarily less sophisticated counterparts so you'll be infinitely rich.

Was talking primarily about SE/S Asia there. I would imagine Africa to be similarly cheap, but who wants to backpack through the Congo?

Although, going through organizations like WWOOF you could "backpack" for similar amounts in more developed countries, I'd imagine. Not sure if that breaks the "no work" rule since you're not really getting paid normally, just free housing and food

Would we consider working for food/housing but not pay acceptable here?