Recently, I decided to pick up a new language, and I'm actually quite amazed by the tools available on the market now, many sites where you can hire tutors or find language partners. However, I found the fiat way a bit overwhelming. Because learning a language isn't something you pay for and then it magically happens.
My learning Method
Immerse myself in that target language environment as much as possible, from movies, music, TV shows, etc. Even small things, like setting your phone language to the target language, joining events, or finding ways to talk to people who speak that language; However, the best way I found is actually dating someone who speaks the language that you are learning. 😂
Then keep practicing it day by day, it takes patience and time! It took me about ten years to reach this level where I think, read, speak, and write all in English ( counting from the day I started learning it in school, which was taught really badly). I don't like the current environment where influencers claim that they speak 8-9 languages; maybe some do, but I doubt it. Also, being able to speak a language is really different from actually being fluent or even mastering it.
I'm curious how do stackers learn a new language?
I have no immediately pressing need to learn a new language, so my approach has been highly inefficient.
For a long time, I would randomly select a Duolingo language to work on everyday. It’s led to an interesting state where I can sort of read in quite a few languages but am hopelessly trying to speak or write.
This is me to this day! Every time it’s time to speak Spanish I freeze.
I can ask where a great many things are, but I would not be able to understand the answers.
I never really enjoy using Duolingo, it's quite boring for me. 👀
I've been trying to learn a 2nd language for years!
Currently I'm vibing with shat chippy tea and ask it the headlines of today in all the major newspapers, and then break each one down, where I learn new words and add to my vocabulary
But I get the feeling that AI is trained on English as a premier language and others get bolted on
Because it understands all the colloquialisms in English but struggles with the same in secondary languages
😂😂😂
def! the current AI is pretty bad at some languages.
I try to read light native speaker fiction as soon as possible. Even if all I can read is "the" and "said" etc, it still forces me to drill those words over and over again in a meaningful context.
Interesting, starting straight from fiction? Isn't it quite frustrating to have so many unfamiliar words. 🤔
I actually find it satisfying to be able to pick out "my name is" from the wall of text. My thought process is that because one book contains the building blocks for thousands of conversations, I can simplify learning the language into following a single story, with the aid of a dictionary. I do the same with TV shows (with native subtitles to look up words, not movies since there's less dialogue in those), then I use one-on-one conversations for practice and feedback.
This makes my end goal, conversing, the easiest part of my routine, since the vocabulary and grammar requirements are far fewer and more within my control.
I think grammar is a bit overrated in language learning, I tend not to pay too much attention to it at first. Natives can understand what you mean anyway. And with fluent speaking practice, you can get the feel for it (the way kids naturally learn). That's why I really don't like how most schools teach languages, which tend to focus too much on grammar and words that have so little real-world use.
Yeah, fiat problem for sure. It's teacher-oriented instruction. It's easier to grade fill-in-the-blanks than to cultivate a natural open-ended environment. And it allows every student a method for obtaining a passing grade through rote memorization regardless of actual fluency or understanding.
I tried this a few years ago. Hurt my brain after a page or so... after a chapter or two, I stopped and gave away the books
@remindme in 5 hours
👀
I've learned my fair share of languages, at different levels of proficiency, mostly because of necessity.
I'm native in 2, fluent in another one. I learned 3 more by living in a foreign country, speaking those languages, where I can use them to communicate with colleagues or friends, but where I would benefit a lot from learning them for a few more years to reach C level (I'm probably around a B2 level for them). I finally have small bits of knowledge in others that I learned at school as a kid, but I mostly forgot it.
Two of the ones that I learned by living extensively in the other country, when over 30, I approached them mostly as follows:
The third one that I learned while in another country: I was much younger (18 years old), and I was living in a host family where English was not an option. With the level of brain plasticity at that age, the constant exposure at a local school, learning happened quite naturally. Also, tech tools were much more limited at the time, so I could not apply the approach I outlined above efficiently.
I used to run a language learning blog with more useful, language-specific tidbits, but sharing it would probably doxx me. I'll have to see if I can recycle some of it and render it authorless by putting it through an LLM.
YMMV... my experience has been really bad in that respect. I always ended up speaking English and/or my partner didn't like to be my personal tutor...
all good tips!!
This is my experience too! start with essential words with basic grammar, then pick up more words along the way, and keep speaking.
This. I secretly think many stackers are good at something, but they're too shy to share it or afraid it might dox themselves.
Watch TV. Not for the shows but for the ads. They're repetitive, tend to enunciate really well, and you usually know exactly what they're trying to tell you anyway.
😂😂😂
Disregard all the "learning by getting a feel for the language" bullshit
just learn the hard facts. At least for these basics. It takes you incredibly far for very little work. Avoiding it is just such an incomprehensibly stupid modern trend.
A boyfriend/girlfriend that you have to speak to in the target language is the absolute best.
After that - serious, intense watching of a TV series (a friend of mine used "The Big Bang Theory"), including pausing it to practice pronounciation, etc. I know a number of people who've learned that way.
Also I have another friend who spoke English pretty well, who learned it by obsessively playing an online shooter game, in which you spoke into your headset, and everything was in English. Truly remarkable how fast it went.
It all goes back to how kids naturally learn a language! Through constant exposure and use.
You don't.
it's a mess. I don't like it, anymore; fascinating for weird, odd, cool language quirks happens more and more rarely. The improvement in my shitty local Nordic language is glacial -- pun freakin' intended
Everything takes time, maybe you need a Nordic partner. 😂😂😂
How to learn a foreign language:
I've done this twice in my life and it works, well except for the spouse, only did that once and we still speak that language at home.
learn any new language by jesticulating & drawing while making some sounds - body language & symbology are more descriptive than the tongue-mouth motions & associated squiggles; if unsure what sound to make - u can rarely go wrong with "uh/um/uh;"
You're definitely hitting on something important here, and there is a term for it: input based learning. It's the way we all learned our first language, and deviating from this is part of the reason why people think learning a language is impossible outside of a "critical period". That is, the way our brains are wired to acquire a language is not the method most people in academic environments use to learn their second.
This is the method Langiri is built on. Lots of input, but with an "adjusted to your level" angle, rather than diving right in to far too difficult "produced for native speakers" content.
Most of them are talking about something different than what you or I think of as "speaking" a language. Many of those influencers just want to sound like they can speak the language well enough to get by in some pre-defined situations. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, if you travel often it can be more useful to be able to order food in a way that is easy for the waiter to understand next week than it is to be able to have an ad-hoc conversation about general topics next year.
One other thing, language anxiety. I "knew" Spanish for a long time in the classroom sense (memorized sets of rules and words) and I always felt "performance anxiety" when trying to speak, like I was building toward a passing or failing grade with each syllable. After a lot of Dreaming Spanish I could get some work done at the house in Spanish, because it now felt like a fun game rather than like I was being graded.
Speaking too early can be a detriment for another reason too. You end up guessing, and those guesses stick. Michel Thomas emphasized this in his courses, that it's okay to guess vocabulary, but nothing else.
Any early speaking really should be done in the presence of a native speaker who is not only able, but also willing to correct those mistakes before they become internalized as bad habits you have to break later. If you wait you will be able to hear your own mistakes. That's the self-correction piece, and you don't have it yet if you start speaking before you've started to really internalize what "sounds right".
When this works (and is a practical option), it works spectacularly because you get a ton of input that is catered to you. If they try to be nice and switch into your language, or they just want to practice it with you, it undermines the effect. Done right it can be the ultimate form of cross-talk, which is a strongly encouraged step while learning via ALG - you speak your language, they speak theirs, you both get tons of level appropriate input in your target language, and nobody is forcing either of you to produce the new language before you're ready.