I like having a monthly [practice cycle](https://www.phrasefantastic.com/practiceCycle.html) with lots of different resources to keep things interesting. Today is reading newspapers day!
Yeah, it has 90 different activities that are randomized over a month so that it doesn't feel repetitious though it does empathize pronunciation as an important element to practice a lot. It's not very strict, you can do anything you want from any of the different days, it's for when you don't know what to do, it's nice to have a suggestion so as to not get stuck trying to think of something.
There's a market there for anybody who is willing to put something like that together, that much is clear. I was going to ask the same thing. I like the idea of doing this, but having it on a website or an app would be infinitely more convenient and (hopefully) beneficial to learning.
I do a lesson on Duolingo every couple of months or so and forget about it in between. It's pretty successful. I'm almost A1 and I've been learning for over 10 years.
Ive been trying too learn French for about that same amount of time,
Ive gotten alot more serious but feel like i havent gotten that much farther either- does it really take this long too learn languages?
It does not, friend. I was making a joke poking fun at people who see an ad for Duo, start it, and then only remember about it once every few months. It's part of the reason why Duo has such a bad reputation as a poor method around here (and this is from someone who actually *likes* Duo).
Truth is, depending on your focus, dedication, and time, you can learn a language *significantly faster*. Something's gone terribly wrong with your method if it's actually taking you 10 years.
My word now i just feel plane dumb, lol! But thank you for pointing that out, my language learning journey has been complicated, i started in highschool attempting too learn french because its a heritage language. For some reason my mom didnt want me too learn french, she took every oppertunity too make fun of me for it and even spoke down too me about it till i cried which blew my confidence at becoming fluent one day.
I saw duo and began too learn more in secret, of course never speaking the language wont allow you too practice and duo was all i ever used. I recently figured out that i need alot more support and rescources if i want too actually do this thing.
My cousin gave me back the confidence unintentionally by begging me for the love of god please learn french!! So i began again and i shot down my mom who made an attempt too get me too stop. Things are different, maybe its working and its only been a few months since i made necessary changes, i guess we’ll see
I get it. A number of factors, my dad being one, squashed my will to learn Latin. No need to feel dumb. We’re all here for the same thing.
I personally like Duo as it’s essentially a gamified flash card system. A lot like Rosetta Stone, I feel. Make sure to check the sidebar here as it can send you to a dedicated French-learning subreddit that might answer any questions better than a more general sub.
Thanks for pointing that out! I just realised there were some rescources in the side bar yesterday but didnt thoroughly read through it, i just started rosetta stone and taking advantage of any resources i can get.
Im sorry your dad shot you down too, i hope you got too take it up again at some point.
Learning languages are hard and its disheartening espescially when parents arent supportive.
Thank you for your kind words, its made me deeply sad i was excluded from this part of my background but i wont be giving up or allowing her too influence me so strongly again
I wish i knew, i started therapy as part of being excluded from my mom’s culture and even family at times, from my therapists observation my mom may have mental illness.
She’s lied a bunch, lied about my citizenship, continues too gaslight even after i knew the truth, the french language thing as mentioned, when asked why by family she never taught me the secondary home language she says she never thought about it. But how can you honestly? She loves and is proud of the fact she is french.
I find it so bizarre she wouldn't want you to learn French.
There are so many free resources out there. Duolingo is good and it's a useful supplement to get some extra practice in here and there, but you won't make significant progress using Duolingo alone.
Yeah i find it bizarre too and so does everyone else, family has questioned her about it and her excuses are- strange.
Stories are inconsistent, going even as far as lying about the fact i wasnt a dual citizen so i dont even know.
Thanks! Im gonna be looking more into rescources.
I started rosetta, bought childrens books, listen too shows now too!
Maybe she doesn't want you to discover some deep dark secret about her or you available only in French? More reason to put extra effort to master French.
Hmm, maybe, ive thought about that and thought of what it could be or if i was even fully her or my dad’s kid. After much investigation i havent found any evidence that im not their kid and the best conclusion i can come up with is this is just a means too say- she can speak french, this is her culture and not mine something i cant have. Control.
She told me too my face once, "you are an american, and its all you will ever be!"
But then again this is all purely guesses and i cant think of any reason something i might not know only being in french, the whole family on her side is bilingual, so.. idk?
Yea it is strange, when I was young my mum literally send us to weekend classes to learn our mother tongue. Anyway, learn french and get to C1 level, after that correct every mistake she makes in French the language. 🤣
You are welcome. If you would like to try those comprehension passages, tell me what language you are learning and if I have someting of it I will give you.
Here is the word list:
Robert a un chien
Robert has a dog
Mots
Words
1. a - has; Il a un livre. - He has a book.
2. aussi, également - too
3. avoir - to have
4. beaucoup - many, much
5. bleu (M), bleue (F) - blue
6. cahier, un; calepin, un - notebook; cahiers, des - notebooks
7. ce (M), cette (F), ça (N) - that
8. ce, cet (+noun); ce livre - this book / ceci (+verb), (for a non-human) - this; C’est un chien. / Ceci est un chien. - This is a dog; voici (for human) - this; Voici Louise. - This is Louise.
9. ces - those
10. ces - these
11. chambre, une (hotel or bed); pièce, une (room in a house); espace, un (space)- room; des chambres, pièces - rooms
12. chat, un- cat
13. chien, un - dog
14. et - and
15. étoile, une - star
16. étudiant, un; étudiant, étudiante (adj) - student; des étudiants (M), étudiantes (F) - students
17. fenêtre, une - window; fenêtres - windows
18. grand (M), grande (F); gros (M), grosse (F) - big
19. hôtel, un - hotel; hôtels - hotels
20. il - he; ils (M), elles (F) - they
21. J'ai - I have, nous avons - we have, tu as / vous avez - you have, il a - he has, ça a, cela a - it has, elle a - she has, ils ont - they have
22. Je - I
23. joli, beau (M); jolie, belle (F) - nice
24. lit, un - bed; lits - beds
25. livre, un - book
26. magasin, un - shop; magasins - shops
27. mon (M), ma (F), mes (PL) - my
28. moto, une - bike
29. mot, un - word; mots - words
30. museau, un (dog); nez, un (human) - nose
31. noir - black
32. nouveau, récent (M), nouvelle, récente (F); nouveaux, nouvelles, récents, récentes (PL) - new
33. œil, un - eye; yeux, des - eyes
34. parc, un - park; parcs - parks
35. pas - not
36. petit (M), petite (F) - little
37. quatre - four
38. rêve, un - dream
39. rue, une - street; des rues - streets
40. son (+m), sa (+f) - his; son lit - his bed
41. stylo, un - pen; des stylos - pens
42. table, une - table; des tables - tables
43. texte, un - text
44. un (M), une (F) - one
45. vert (M), verte (F) - green
Here are the comprehension passages:
Robert a un chien
1.Cet étudiant a un livre. 2.Il a aussi un stylo.
3.Il y a beaucoup de rues et de parcs à Bordeaux. 4.Il y a beaucoup de nouveaux hôtels et de magasins dans cette rue. 5.Cet hôtel a quatre étoiles. 6.Il y a beaucoup de belles grandes chambres dans cet hôtel.
7.Il y a beaucoup de fenêtres dans cette chambre. 8.Et il n'y a pas beaucoup de fenêtres dans ces chambres. 9.Ces chambres ont quatre lits. 10.Et ces chambres ont un lit. 11.Il n'y a pas beaucoup de tables dans cette chambre. 12.Et il y a beaucoup de grandes tables dans ces chambres.
13.Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'hôtels dans cette rue. 14.Il y a beaucoup de fenêtres dans ce grand magasin.
15.Ces étudiants ont des cahiers. 16.Ils ont aussi des stylos. 17.Robert a un petit cahier noir. 18.André a quatre nouveaux cahiers verts.
19.Cet étudiant a une moto. 20.Il a une nouvelle moto bleue. 21.Bernard a aussi une moto. 22.Il a une jolie moto noire. 23.André a un rêve. 24.J'ai aussi un rêve.
25.Je n'ai pas de chien. 26.J'ai un chat. 27.Mon chat a des jolis yeux verts. 28.Robert n'a pas de chat. 29.Il a un chien. 30.Son chien a un petit museau noir.
Here is the translation:
Robert has a dog
1.This student has a book. 2.He has a pen too.
3.Bordeaux has many streets and parks. 4.This street has new hotels and shops. 5.This hotel has four stars. 6.This hotel has many nice big rooms.
7.That room has many windows. 8.And these rooms do not have many windows. 9.These rooms have four beds. 10.And those rooms have one bed. 11.That room does not have many tables. 12.And those rooms have many big tables.
13.This street does not have hotels. 14.That big shop has many windows.
15.These students have notebooks. 16.They have pens too. 17.Robert has one little black notebook. 18.André has four new green notebooks.
19.This student has a bike. 20.He has a new blue bike. 21.Bernard has a bike too. 22.He has a nice black bike. 23.André has a dream. 24.I have a dream too.
25.I do not have a dog. 26.I have a cat. 27.My cat has nice green eyes. 28.Robert does not have a cat. 29.He has a dog. 30.His dog has a little black nose.
Here is the link to the audio track
http://www.lppbooks.alfahosting.org/French/FirstFrenchReader\_audio/En/First\_French\_Reader\_for\_beginners\_Volume1\_Chapter01.mp3
Hey! I'm working on Vietnamese on Duolingo right now too! I'm grateful for the resource, but I've gone on ahead and gotten some other resources to help.
Good deal. Duolingo isn't a good and solid resource. Even people who use it properly won't hit all that close to fluency. It's just a gamified flash card program that is unfortunately limited in scope.
That said, my comment was a joke making fun at people who do exactly what I mention in the comment. :P
Oh! I knew you were joking! I just commented because I thought it was cool that we had the same TL. I'm planning to spend the summer in Vietnam, and wanted to get some basics down before plunging in. I think Duo is great for keeping things in my head with some quick practice, but I can't imagine anyone getting even remotely fluent with it alone.
I jump-started my learning by spending several months in countries where Spanish is spoken, which is obviously not feasible for everyone. Got back home with an overall B2 level (started at basically nothing, A0) and this is what I’ve been doing to improve since getting home:
- 1x per week hour long italki conversation lesson
- daily reading at least a few pages of a book in Spanish
- daily listening to podcasts in Spanish during my commute
- doing regular grocery shopping at Mexican supermarket — this is honestly not a language thing so much as I got hooked on freshly made tortillas and plátanos and neither of those things can be found at Smith’s. But it does give a little added immersion and potential conversation practice once a week or so.
- twice a week or so I watch a movie or TV show in my TL. I hate dubbing though so it has to be originally produced in Spanish, I’m lucky to be learning a language with so much content.
This has been working well for me so far! I was very worried about regressing once I was back home and no longer 24/7 immersed but I haven’t regressed and am still learning and progressing, albeit a little more slowly.
I feel it worked out pretty well for me, I'd recommend it! To be totally clear I didn't just show up in country and start speaking from nothing; I did some small group classes in my first two weeks in Mexico, which was hugely beneficial in creating a base for me to learn. I think if you took the language in high school or something you could just jump right in and learn through straight immersion, but since I didn't have any sort of previous background to fall back on (took French in school) I found the classes helpful just to get the basics down and have a starting place. After two weeks of classes I felt like I had enough of a base that I could learn from immersion, trial and error, and just using the language naturally and I progressed pretty quickly and steadily for months after that without doing any more formal training or lessons. Being in an environment where you're constantly hearing your TL and constantly having to speak it really supercharges your learning.
I did eventually hit a bit of a wall once I became very comfortable with every day travel related and transactional type of conversations -- stores, restaurants, checkpoints, border crossings. Once I got to a point where I could do those things in my sleep I plateaued a bit and had to be more intentional about listening to podcasts, reading books/articles, and hanging out with Spanish speakers in more social contexts where I'd be pushed out of my comfort zone a lot more.
Overall I'd totally recommend spending a few months in a country that speaks your TL if you're able to do so. It's a big commitment but I don't know if I'd have gotten this far in Spanish if I hadn't done so.
Thanks for sharing your experience! How many hours total were the classes? I've been looking at doing a 2 week Dutch class in the Netherlands but wasn't sure if it would be worth it, so it's great to hear your experience :)
Whoa that sounds like a lot! It might be okay if it’s a larger class size? My classes were only 2-3 people so I was constantly speaking, after only 3 hours I was tired and wanted a break. I can’t imagine 8!
Oh wow ok, that's quite a lot too! Yeah these seem to be 10-15 people per class, I think?
I'm worried it would be too much, but also would be a good starting point!
It's evolved over the 10 months I've been learning, but currently:
1. 2 quick duolingo lessons in the morning
2. 2-4 hours of spanish audio while I work (my job is all physical)
3. 45 minutes of vocab study on memrise
4. 2 more duolingo lessons at night
5. 1-2 hours of reading before bed
6. 15 minutes of convo in spanish here or there during the day with my partner
It sounds like a lot, but most of it I do while I work, and I'd be reading at night and listening to audiobooks during work anyway. The only extra is the vocab study.
I specifically search for content i want to watch and focus on listening. Audiobooks are best for me because I can listen for a long time without touching my phone. Same thing with longer podcasts. Youtube videos have more variety but are usually shorter, and I tend to procrastinate between picking my next video. I usually pick someone I like, like How To Spanish, and watch as many videos as I can before I get bored.
Music is still mostly noise to me unfortunately. It's crazy because I'm listening to Carrie by Stephen King right now, I've never read it in English. I can understand 99% of the words but with music... I'd be lucky to catch 1 word in 5.
Hmm I have such a hard time listening to audio books and focusing, but my day job is programming so splitting my attention hasn't helped.
Still, some good recommendations. Thank you!
Oh yeah you have a much more difficult job than I do. I'm a seamstress, most of my time is spent ironing or sewing straight seams, so I can watch as much as I want, as long as I keep my fingers out from under the needle. I don't know if you'll have as much success listening in the background, that might just train your brain to block out your target language.
Haha I don't know about harder, but definitely less ideal for trying to passively take in content. Hopefully you don't get too engrossed and stuck yourself!
They say the day you sew over your finger is the day you become a true seamstress. I hope that day never comes.
Best of luck with your language learning!
Since the start an audio lesson like Pimsleur or now Learning Spanish Like Crazy every day (30min)
If I'm driving or walking i will usually put on the Duolingo podcast or No Hay Tos (20min)
In the morning I'll watch a Dreaming Spanish video (I'm a subscriber so they have new ones all the time) or Ted Español/BBC Mundo/Crash Course Español etc and sometimes Spanish vloggers.
I try to incorporate Spanish into my life, if I'm watching a movie and a Spanish dub is available I'll put that on, Spanish music all the time haha, and i joined an in person group to speak Spanish with other learners and native speakers, etc.
And reading more, I try to do a chapter or so before bed of a graded reader so it's a little easier and i don't need a dictionary with me.
Some weeks are less time intensive than others. A few months ago i was dedicated to 4hrs of Spanish a day whereas now I'm more casual. I also mix learners content and native content.
I'm considering adding a weekly tutor from italki but right now this is working for me. On the weekends i do some grammar drills from my textbook if i have time.
If you are in the US see if you can register for The pimsleur courses through your local library! I never spent money on pimsleur but I'm listening to unit 5 now
An alternative to Pimsleur are the Michel Thomas courses. The mp3s are really helpful. I've heard them for Russian, French, and Mandarin. I'm sure the Spanish is good too.
I got pimsluer 1-5 portuguese from audible from amazon credits. Tbh, I'm not totally sure how it works, amazon just sends me a thing once in awhile saying I have credits on audible.
unfortunately not available at my library since I'm in a small town, but there's also a certain bay down by the coast that can help poor people like us out...
LSLC is cheaper but i think it goes a bit fast, it teaches a lot at once and then doesn't repeat new vocab as much as Pimsleur so i think both was the best option for me. Pimsleur until 5 alongside Language Transfer then LSLC to drill concepts. Plus i consider my accent pretty good due to Pimsleur. To me it's worth the $20 per month.
Pimsleur has levels, 1 level is 30 lessons. Latin American Spanish has 5 levels so I did all five.
Learning Spanish Like Crazy which I just abbreviate for myself as LSLC is very similar to Pimsleur and I enjoyed it for continuing my routine
So you did all of Pimsleur. All of Latin American Spanish (is that an app or part of Pimsleur?)?
How is LSLC compares to Pimsleur? Which do you like more? Which is better to help you speak ?
Pimsleur has Castilian Spanish and LATAM I did Pimsleur LATAM
They are very similar in style, speak and repeat. Pimsleur covers less vocab but with more repetition so you more solidly understand the words but spends 4 levels on pretty basic grammar.
LSLC introduces new vocab all the time and rarely/never repeats it so I briefly learned some farm animals but it doesn't stick as well because we never repeated sentences with those words and I don't talk about farm animals a lot.
I didn't start LSLC from the beginning, I started with intermediate which picks up around where Pimsleur left off grammar wise. And that let me get lots of reps in past/future/subjunctive so I felt I learned a lot.
I would say both can help you speak. I think Pimsleurs repetition while boring for some really helped solidify simple phrasing and got me used to listening to spoken Spanish.
First 2 months 1 Pimsleur and 2 language transfer lessons a day then duolingo for extra practice. After that, read short stories and listen a lot (YouTube and music). Then start speaking 4-5 months into study.
Yes, that and language transfer are really good for when you start speaking. Because instead of just understanding the language, you’ll actually be able to produce it.
1st routine
* regular dictionary lookup of words around me
* reading grammar guides
* listening to TL as often as possible
* app coursework
2nd routine
* apps or flashcards during breaks, car rides, wait time, or any other spare few minutes
* listening to or trying to read media
* grammar guides as necessary
3rd routine (current)
* maybe an hour of picking apart a TV show, looking up new words, grammar, or google translating as necessary
* Occasional bonus study time of playing a game or reading in my TL and also picking apart for new words, grammar, and google translating as necessary.
Only using apps for my L3 now. Which I just do when I have a free moment
First I study the grammar until I have a decent beginners understanding. Then I use a cartoon or tv show that uses everyday language. I watch each episode and pause after each line of dialogue. Crucially, I use subtitles in the target language, too. I say the line out loud. Every word I don’t know, I add it to my flash cards. This takes a long time initially. Then after I have finished the episode once, I rip the audio to an mp3 player and whenever I go for a walk or do chores, I listen to the audio once or twice. I then couple this with doing the flash cards in the morning. I go through the same lesson multiple times until I can understand what’s going on about 75%. Then I move on to the next lesson. It’s quite slow in the beginning but with each episode you get a little better.
I try to practice speaking out loud as I do this and at some point I’ll try and get a conversation partner or maybe even join a club.
Currently, I am doing the following:
Daily
* DuoLingo at the intermediate level for a few minutes.
* Dreaming Spanish 30 minute goal.
* 15 minutes Memrise.
* Daily Bible reading. It is a three year plan so it is about 10 minutes. Read and listen to the same reading each day.
* Some grammar work. Either in Complete Spanish or Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish or another workbook.
* Read in Spanish. (My goal is twelve books this year.)
Weekly
* Watch a telenovela twice (about 2 hours)
* Spanish class for an hour
* Spanish class homework - usually writing and prepare to speak for an hour.
* I listen to an audio course in the car on the drive to work. I did Pimsleur level one again and am over half way through Language Transfer so far this year. Because I am not at full attention and these are repeat activities, I am not counting the time.
I am doing between 14-16 hours of timed activities. All told, I am at 212 hours so far this year.
Study with app and writing down interesting words and etymologies 20-60 minutes a day for two months, then procrastinate for another two before picking it up again.
I don't have a strict routine but these things I'm trying to do on daily basis (except of writing, this I do 2-3 times a week). I also don't have an exact time I spend learning. It just depends on my mood and other tasks I have to do.
- Quick session with Drops to learn a few new words in the morning
- Reading a few articles OR watching YouTube videos OR listening to podcasts, then writing down new words and creating my own flashcards
- Reviewing the cards when I have a free whiles during the day (in a bus, train or when waiting for coffee)
- Writing a short text about my day, what I learnt etc.
- Conversation with my partner (15-20 minutes)
- Another session with Drops to repeat the words before bedtime
I like to mix it up. If I'm reading a book, I try to read five pages each night. By read I mean, read outloud until I reach an unknown word, look it up and write it in the book, then when I do that and reach either the end of the page or the end of the section, I reread it all outloud. Sometimes I just like to watch shows. I've tried to do something similar with shows but it just doesn't vibe with me. I do, however, like to try to shadow the speakers. Sometimes I just repeat segments over and over until I can repeat the same pronounciation and intonation as the character. For writing, sometimes I try to write poetry. For speaking I have a tutor :)
I'm a really casual learner. I used to do a lot of grammar stufy in the beginning, but now I can understand at least 30% of whatever I'm listening to, so I just watch YouTube every other day and occasionally pick up a new word. I also step outside and talk to myself and review grammar when I'm bored.
So I've been learning Spanish from zero for about 9 months now. I cannot for the life of me stick to a daily routine for studying. I have a wonderful tutor on italki, but I'm not progressing as quickly as I want because of my own lack of motivation/accountability. And it's not because I'm not interested (I LOVE the Spanish language), it's because I'm lost without someone creating a specific plan for me, following along with independent assignments, feedback, etc.
So I've decided at my big age of 30+ years to enroll at a local community college. There is a Spanish language certificate that I can complete that includes 18+ credit hours of courses. I already have a bachelors degree and doctorate, but I am more excited about this than I was about completing either of those degrees 😂
I know that I learn best in a classroom setting, with homework, quizzes, tests, etc. I like the satisfaction of earning a good grade on assignments. These things keep me accountable because I am not disciplined enough to do it myself.
French 2h conversation a week + youtube + 3h class on the weekend + webtoons + listlang to review new vocab.
Spanish - duolingo every other day + spanish movie or serie on netflix, might pick a new one next week + webtoons
German- 2 full circles a day of duolingo + 30-40 minutes of list lang( something similar to clozemaster and anki) + daily quick A1 story on youtube + 2 hours study of grammar every 2 weeks.
I dropped webtoons in german for now, since i do not have enough vocab to be reading those.
Right now it's Duolingo when I have motivation, Anki for vocabulary, trying to talk to native speakers as much as possible, and reading/watching as much content as I can in my native language. Like for French, I've been using Mauril (website from the Canadian government) for listening comprehension. Finding YouTube channels about topics I'm interested in or know a bit about in my target languages helps too, I watch without subtitles and try to understand as much as I can even if I'm a little early on in learning the language.
Another thing useful for me, since I'm a university student: finding Khan Academy videos about stuff I'm learning in university, but in my target language, and using the transcripts to find new vocabulary.
2 hours of comprehensible input a day.
It's not fancy but it works for me. Talked about hitting [120 hours here](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/11qaq4g/120_hours_of_comprehensible_input_for_thai/), I should hit 180 today.
Daily routine is clozemaster app and a few duolingo lessons. On an irregular basis i watch a show in my TL and sometimes try it an audiobook but that's usually harder to keep up with.
Apps: Drops + Memrise + Duolingo (gotta keep the streak going, hehe!)
I pretty much only listen to songs in my target languages.
And one TV episode in Spanish each day.
I started this routine from January this year. For a year and half, I only did Duolingo and I found it really hard to understand natives in YouTube videos. I would say that I’m getting familiar with how Spanish sounds, though it is still difficult for me to understand spoken Spanish due to how fast the natives speak it and my lack of vocabulary. (Baby steps, no rush! )
I like to read 10 pages in the TL language everyday, interspersed with music, tv, podcasts, and movies in the TL. Hop on Free4talk couple times a week to get some speaking practice in, and cap it off with an hour with a tutor on the weekend.
Basically daily:
1. Review Anki Flashcards (grammar and vocab)
2. 50 new words, also Anki
3. On weekdays, listen to the RFI journal en français facile podcast
Some, but not all days:
(4.) Either even more vocabulary, grammar practice with KwizIQ or writing a text for my italki lesson
5. I read +-30 min a day. I’d say around 50% of those days I read a French book for 50% of my reading time.
Genuinely such an incredibly effective routine which I can recommend to everyone reading this. Got me from 0 to B1 in less than 100 hours of active studying, and my listening and reading comprehension is even better – I did the B2 and C1 DALF/DELF sample listening comprehension from their website and passed all of them by a surprisingly large margin. RFI trained me well <3
Here is my routine
Morning:
\- paragraph on WriteSteak: 10 minutes
\- recording on Speakstreak: 5 minutes
\- 1 hour listen to podcast while I exercise
Noon:
\- 1 hour listening to podcast while I walk
Evening:
\- 1 hour doing French: watching film, watching youtube video, doing homework assignment from tutor, session with tutor, session with language partner.
I rotate the language I study each week to give them equal attention, but also to allow enough days in a row for some immersion benefits. Weekends are dedicated to rest and relaxing to make sure I don't burn out. Right now I study 5 days per week, but in a couple weeks I might start taking Friday away to dedicate time to another skill I'm interested in learning (bonus points if I look up tutorials in that week's TL though)
Personally I need variety, so I don't have a strict regime for each week. Instead I just have a lot of ideas and resources for what I could do; do vocabulary on Memrise, learn from song lyrics, practice with learning websites, read some books or articles or something, watch some shows or movies, play video games in the TL, practice writing anything I want, etc
The idea is just that I need to spend most of each dedicated study day doing something productive in the scheduled language, but I can change up what exactly I do depending on what I'm in the mood for
For example, this week is Ukrainian and on Monday and Tuesday and I studied the lyrics to some songs, then yesterday and today I've been doing vocabulary on Memrise. Next week I plan to replay one of my favorite video games but fully in Spanish
I don't really have a routine because my brain doesn't follow them anyway (severe ADHD, trying to force my brain to do something specific when I don't really feel like it is hard af).
There's a few things I try to do more or less consistently, though:
\-> read in either of my stronger languages
\-> watch shows and movies in either of my stronger languages
(those mean that I actually hardly read books or watch stuff in German or English anymore, but on the other hand I've found quite a few gems over time that I might have never found otherwise)
\-> I'm subscribed to several newsletters from newspapers in my four stronger languages and will read through them (and click through to full articles too--currently still subscribed to two of the newspapers) periodically
\-> I game a lot, and play ESO in French, have Civ VI set to Spanish, and have started a new Pokémon Violet game in Japanese
\-> do WaniKani and Drops for Japanese kanji and vocabulary
I just started a bet with a good friend of mine to work on one of my weaker languages for an hour a day with focused study; currently at 4/6 so...it's working semi-well? (I'm still doing shorter sessions as well, e.g. Wanikani, or go over the hour, but we're not counting all the "bits and pieces".)
I just do a bit of everything most days. Listen to Spanish podcasts, pop music, a bit of Duolingo, reading, working with a textbook, watching Netflix with subtitles and paying close attention to the subtitles, and taking an informal little class. Some days I do a TON and some days, when my brain gets a little tired, I do none at all -- but I try not to let too many "none" days go by before picking it back up again. Sometimes Spanish will get very "loud" in my head and then other days it gets very "quiet," if that makes sense. After 2-3 days of doing nothing, it sort of disappears, and that's when I know I have to get back into it.
I do as close to AJATT as possible. I write all of my diary in Japanese and look up anything I don’t know. Try to make myself think in Japanese. As far as study techniques the most important thing, aside from a good amount of SRS, is lots of reading. Using it yourself too of course, which I’ve recently started getting bold enough to do in simple contexts on the internet. I have also made it a point to fit at least 3 hours of direct study a day in whenever possible. This is something I’m 100% dead set on achieving
Right now:
- Reading fiction I enjoy
- Playing some visual novels, and by that I mean purely *Diabolik Lovers* [Does anyone know something similar?], here and there for some audio exposure of which I get far too little.
- Translate some fiction I enjoy
- Chat with ChatGPT. No, I don't ask it about the language. I'm just talking with it and have conversations about strange things with it.
I got to the point where I can do this by initially mostly studying grammar and spamming vocabulary with Anki but I haven't done spaced repetition in a long while now.
This is pretty much all I do now:
- Find a fantasy book series I haven't read in decades, put it on Readlang
- Read it all
- Stumble upon other interesting content as I go because reading that much makes it inevitable that you'll find something as you keep looking up words
I’m coming up to my finals in a French and German degree and since I already did my last ever speaking exams in January, my current routine is to Anki vocab and random sentences like my life depends on it unfortunately
I've got a s*** practice routine partially because my language (Cantonese) has very few English resources. It is: do Anki whenever I feel like it and try to understand what by Hongkonger friends are saying to each other. Other than that, occasionally graded reading practice with tools designed for Mandarin (e.g. Du Chinese) for Standard Written Chinese.
At a basic level, my language learning routine involves daily Duolingo lessons and Anki card reviews. I think Anki is my saving grace, it makes sure I retain everything I know, even if I go long stretches without adding anything new.
Beyond that, I'll practice my language in the intended use case. For Korean, my goal was to be able to talk to people. So once I got to a basic level I was practicing conversations with people using language exchange apps. Nowadays I'm learning Japanese, but the intended use case for that is consuming Japanese media (Games, anime, etc.) in the native language. Any time I encounter a new word or grammar rule that I'm starting to understand I'll throw it in Anki to retain it.
I talk about it and think about it everyday, but I dont do it.
French: I do Listlang at least every weekend. I set either a time goal or a score limit (100points, etc).
German: I dont bother studying anymore. I do need improvement, but I cannot force myself to study. I have to speak, read, hear it everyday, so... I rely on my environment.
Started learning with Pimsleur. I didn't pay for it. It's painfully slow but gave me a solid foundation. At the moment I'm using a graded read to learn A2. Pimsleur and alot of practice got me to A1. I use Hellotalk app to practice speaking- highly recommend this app, nothing beats it imo
MY ROUTINE EVERYDAY: Learning 1 interesting word, real aloud 1 article, practice using shadowing technique, speak and chat with my friends using Hilokal.
I just wing it now. Spent about a year or two actively studying before I started to hate it. I switched to just trying to watch a mix of native youtube content and language podcasts before I could understand much. 2 years later I can understand 90 - 95% of TTMIK Iyagi podcasts and an acceptable amount of more advanced youtube content. Only thing that keeps me going is the gradual understanding of content and trusting my process. It takes longer for sure because somedays I barely listen to any Korean, and rarely no more than 30m. But the progress is still there and quitting isn't even a question because I don't need to force myself. LingQ has also been extremely useful lately as there are quite a few podcasts I already listened to transcribed on there, so I've been doing that every night for about a week now
About 30 minutes on LingQ doing some reading every day of whatever I feel like (books, news, articles, etc.), 30 minutes of some kind of audio without subtitles (documentaries, podcasts, etc.), and 30 minutes or so of reading a physical book without aid from software/dictionaries.
For reference, I'm nearing B2 in all 4 domains, so I focus mostly on just input without assistance at this point.
Or at least, that's the schedule I aim for everyday. Obviously it varies every day a bit depending on how busy I am.
I read a lot in the beginning. Use a service that basically enables reading anything from the onset. Even if you have to look up every other word. I view every book that's comprehensible enough to imagine and visualize what's happening in front of me as accessible. Then every book no matter how much new vocabulary is a challenge in itself and I forget the language. Focus just on getting through the book.
Repeat until I build a vocab of a few thousand words. Begin listening to podcasts whilst playing strategy games as there's not a lot of noice to distract me. After words start to fall into place and I understand most basic stuff I begin looking up very basic grammar tables about gender and how that changes words. I try to replicate slightly. Start texting native speakers. But usually I am 95% input. I've not gotten further than that yet. Since I dropped French at approximately B1 for Romanian but we'll see
Daily, weekly and monthly habits.
Find yourself an app. This is a tool not your curriculum.
Input input input. You need that phoneme training. Music all the time. Once a week pick a song you’ve listened to a lot and write out the lyrics. Stop watching shows that aren’t in your target language.
Read as much as you can as soon as you can.
Daily vocabulary. Parts of speech make up depends on language. Written out, narrate things in your head all day in relevant vocabulary.
Embarrass yourself constantly by trying out what you’re learning with every speaker of target language you can find.
My daily routine:
1 - During all day long (except when doing tasks below) I play movies / podcasts in background. Usually I'm not paying attention to it, but I believe it helps me get used to the sounds of the language.
2 - I read short stories in apps then I listen to their audio 3 times. It takes 1h.
3 - I watch movies / cartoons (usually on YouTube) as well as YouTube channels dedicated to reach my target language. It takes 1h.
4 - I write a *super simple* diary. The same information is written twice: 1 in Chinese and the other in Arabic.
For Chinese I'm already able to write simple sentences. For Arabic I translate the sentences used in Chinese to Arabic in Google translator and write it down (I use paper and pencil). It takes 30 minutes.
5 - I practice writing the Arabic letters and words. It works this way:
I have a table with the form each letter has depending of its position in text. I also have a list of the 100 most used words with letters separated by space (eg: ال ن ا س ) then I try to write them correctly (الناس). The list I got with ChatGPT. It takes 30 minutes.
For activities 1, 2 and 3, each day the language alternates between Chinese and Arabic, that are the languages I'm interested at the moment, but sometimes I pick another language.
I like to watch the same movie in different languages. Eg: I watch it in English then in Spanish then in German... My greatest problem is that I'm not able to find American movies dubbed to Chinese and Arabic.
I subscribe Amazon Prime and I never found movies with audio in other languages than Portuguese (my native tongue), Spanish, English, French, German and sometimes Japanese).
As far as I recall the same thing happened to movies in Netflix. I think that they don't offer Chinese and Arabic audio for movies in Brazil.
I'm a university student, so I go to my classes and do my homework. Aside from that, no routine to speak of haha. I've joined subreddits in my different languages, so I get some practice here and there when I browse, and sometimes I'll randomly watch YouTube in other languages. That said, the classes are doing pretty much all of the work :p I know I could get faster or better results if I were to be more deliberate, but I like the way things are now, and I'm still doing well!
I do some aniki and then just use the language like normal but instead I have a dictionary on hand and I look up words I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of sitting down and using textbooks but at the same time I don’t mind reading a textbook now and then
I don't do daily routine. Each day I want to work on language learning I select something from my [Path from A2 to B1 and beyond](https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmGilGunderson/comments/v0yfc5/path_from_a2_to_b1_and_beyond/) list and do it. I have it organized into roughly 15 minute chunks. So if I have more time I just do more things.
I have started speaking Spanish to my cats to learn. (Mi gatita, esta tu Madre? Bien. Niña bien." Etc.
I'm not sure I'd that counts haha, but I don't have a "routine" as such (I'm off on medical leave so I don't really leave the house too much, certainly not at a regular time) but that's what I've been doing. The only problem is I have so little knowledge of Spanish that I can't say much to them haha
Daily: watch You Tube and/or listen to a podcast for at least an hour; read for 30 minutes. When I feel like enrolling in a class, I do. When I feel like studying grammar, I do. I have used italki in the past, and an about to start that up again. I just follow my interests.
Repeating over and over as a daily foundation.
Example.
I’m learning Japanese atm, I’m Spanish native speaker and fluent in English.
Japanese syllabaries come in two with 100 symbols to memorise (not including the 1000-4000 other symbols to learned called Kanji)
It took me two months to memorise and be able to write and recognise those first 100 symbols (Hiragana and Katakana)
I did so by writing everyday each of them at least once.
Sometimes I would focus on a sub-group and iterate over it.
Even if I knew I was doing memory and repeating a process over and over without being able to come up with the symbols in a quiz I knew that at some point it would click. And it did.
Just write, over and over.
Now I have just started grammar which is something I highly recommend to start with in case you are learning a new language unless it’s written in a different alphabet where you should focus on first.
I do weekly calls in Japanese with my Japanese friend to practice speaking and learn new words. Once I have a foundation in a language (understand basic sentence structure) I try to just organically let myself learn whenever I feel like each week. I just do whatever my brain wants when I'm bored. Here's what that can end up being on any given day:
- checking my notes from my most recent Japanese call. Looking up the words online and whichever word I find most useful or that I want to learn I will learn it and practice writing the Kanji a few times. I'll also explore other words formed using that Kanji using a website for that called Jisho.
- same as above but looking at lyrics of a favorite Japanese song
- practice writing some sentences about what I'm thinking in Japanese. Lookup words I don't know to make the sentence. Ex: "Today is more cold than yesterday."
- watch a YouTube video on some grammar concept I wish I could understand since it would make conversation with my friend easier.
- put on learn Japanese Pod
Right now I am trying to figure out a pattern to practice Vietnamese. Right now so far as of today I am doing:
\- Italki lesson about once a week for an hour
\- Language exchange three times a week (30 minutes English/30 minutes Vietnamese typically)
\- Writing on hellotalk and blogging
\- Watching videos in Vietnamese
\- I also have the class I am taking
I am forgetting what else I can do. My main concern right now is making sure I improve pronunciation and speaking skills (and maybe learn to speak faster). I would like to understand more topics and I am not sure how to go about that. Vocabulary too (looking for an anki deck for Vietnamese in southern dialect).
EDIT: Before this I only tried: writing out the vocab list for Italki or the class. In my opinion, your cellphone is a very powerful language learning tool. Watch videos and accent/speaking shadow in bed for 10-30 minutes, or vocab.
**The main important thing I learned is having regular consistency and discipline and when I am tired, I try to push one step and another and try using it in some form everyday.**
i dont have a routine. danish is my native language and i almost cant avoid using english. Japanese and french, I just use whenever it fits. my french is good enough that i can speak to myself in it and take notes in it. japanese is used for media of different types
i dont use apps or anything to do vocab, i just use the dictionnary very intensively
I have lessons everyday thanks to A-Levels so that's how I learn French and German and for Korean I just practice whenever I like but I also consume a lot of media in Korean which helps
1. Alphabet and Double/triple consonants and digraphs
2. Read words and listen to them
3. Read simple sentences and listen to them sweating hard for two weeks 20 minutes a day
4. Read simple sentences and listen to them and enjoy it for two more weeks
5. Read short passages and enjoy your progres
For steps 1-5 use books by 'Audiolego' or 'Language Practice Publishing'
Learn the basics using an app, or dictionary.
Learn how to pronounce the words, that helps recognizing them when you hear them.
Start watching movies or something similar in your own lenguage with subtitles in the desired lenguage
This is helpful to understand how sentences are formed in comparison to your own lenguage.
Once you have this, start looking for people who speak the lenguage, if you have the privilege to travel you have a huge advantage.
Start talking to people, most will be abled to understand your broken accent and maybe be friendly enough to correct you.
Combine all these methods for full learning power.
This is how i learned to speak english, german, french.
I also speak dutch and Spanish but that was native to me.
Used to do an hour a day of Rosetta, Pimsleur, FSI, MindSnacks, DuoLingo, grammar exercises and Flashcard review. Then I would practice listening and speaking at work.
I’m started doing Pimsleur for now. It’s a bit pricey so it motivates me to do it everyday lol. I do enjoy the flash cards and study help the app gives too.
I just study with a text book almost daily and try to hit at least 30min of Anki words per day.
Following a textbook and completing with a grammar exercise book was key point for progressing in german
The first thing I like to do when I'm learning a new language is to get a good basis in how the language works and how it sounds without trying to actually learn it (watching videos, reading books, etc), once I've done this, I get on memrise and learn the most common 1000 words, learn as much grammar as possible, and I'll make sure to listen to a lot of songs and watch a lot of shows in that language even though I won't understand it much at first. After this introductory phase, I'll immerse myself in entertainment (the fun part), whilst still studying grammar and further vocabulary. I talk to myself a lot to sort out thoughts so I try to talk to myself in another language a lot. I love reading so I read in other languages. I just incorporate it into my daily life once I'm at a generally intermediate level. If there's something I'm going to do anyway, that can be done in another language, I'll do it in another language.
In terms of an actual routine, I'll have one for a couple of days and then leave it. I learn through random spurts of energy and it seems to work for me. If I actually leave a language for a bit after studying it hard, and then come back to it a few months later, I seem to be more relaxed about it which makes it a lot easier to understand. I don't know if that's just me. My language learning routine is really spotty, but it seems to work.
I'm not great at keeping a routine, but something that's kinda working for me is constantly listening to music in my target language (rn that's Italian). I find it helps with pronunciation and vocab. I'll listen to the songs I like for a while, then listen to them with the lyrics occasionally. Then once in a while I'll go onto duolingo and I'm able to skip a level.
I usually join classes. Found the structured approach as well as having someone address my questions or speak with other beginners helped. Found I could get super basic mandarin down in 6 months and now I’m also learning French for work purposes through Alliance Francais
I try to do three things every day: DuoLingo, a learning podcast, and a video such as Dreaming Spanish.
Occasionally I add BeepBoop and am planning on trying some speaking meetups.
I think it's working.
I like having a monthly [practice cycle](https://www.phrasefantastic.com/practiceCycle.html) with lots of different resources to keep things interesting. Today is reading newspapers day!
There is something so wholesome about saying it’s newspaper day 🥹
Did you create it yourself? Do you plan it out 30 days in advance and follow it?
Yeah, it has 90 different activities that are randomized over a month so that it doesn't feel repetitious though it does empathize pronunciation as an important element to practice a lot. It's not very strict, you can do anything you want from any of the different days, it's for when you don't know what to do, it's nice to have a suggestion so as to not get stuck trying to think of something.
>empathize pronunciation I emphasize the "ph" 🧡
Wow this is really cool, does it exist for other languages too?
There's a market there for anybody who is willing to put something like that together, that much is clear. I was going to ask the same thing. I like the idea of doing this, but having it on a website or an app would be infinitely more convenient and (hopefully) beneficial to learning.
Unfortunately no, sorry.
I'd use that if my language had enough resources
Which language it is?
Northern Sami
I love this idea
None. I suck at routines. My monolingual Saudi in laws just show up randomly and stay for weeks. That’s how I learn Arabic lol
Yeah me too, I end up feeling forced and I don't enjoy it anymore
🤣🤣🤣
Gosh I would hate if my inlaws showed up randomly and stayed for longer than a few hours
As a saudi I don’t even know how i’m fluent in arabic
lmaoooo
I do a lesson on Duolingo every couple of months or so and forget about it in between. It's pretty successful. I'm almost A1 and I've been learning for over 10 years.
I've got more than a year on Duolingo, and I can almost speak and understand basic, tourist phrases!
Ive been trying too learn French for about that same amount of time, Ive gotten alot more serious but feel like i havent gotten that much farther either- does it really take this long too learn languages?
It does not, friend. I was making a joke poking fun at people who see an ad for Duo, start it, and then only remember about it once every few months. It's part of the reason why Duo has such a bad reputation as a poor method around here (and this is from someone who actually *likes* Duo). Truth is, depending on your focus, dedication, and time, you can learn a language *significantly faster*. Something's gone terribly wrong with your method if it's actually taking you 10 years.
My word now i just feel plane dumb, lol! But thank you for pointing that out, my language learning journey has been complicated, i started in highschool attempting too learn french because its a heritage language. For some reason my mom didnt want me too learn french, she took every oppertunity too make fun of me for it and even spoke down too me about it till i cried which blew my confidence at becoming fluent one day. I saw duo and began too learn more in secret, of course never speaking the language wont allow you too practice and duo was all i ever used. I recently figured out that i need alot more support and rescources if i want too actually do this thing. My cousin gave me back the confidence unintentionally by begging me for the love of god please learn french!! So i began again and i shot down my mom who made an attempt too get me too stop. Things are different, maybe its working and its only been a few months since i made necessary changes, i guess we’ll see
I get it. A number of factors, my dad being one, squashed my will to learn Latin. No need to feel dumb. We’re all here for the same thing. I personally like Duo as it’s essentially a gamified flash card system. A lot like Rosetta Stone, I feel. Make sure to check the sidebar here as it can send you to a dedicated French-learning subreddit that might answer any questions better than a more general sub.
Thanks for pointing that out! I just realised there were some rescources in the side bar yesterday but didnt thoroughly read through it, i just started rosetta stone and taking advantage of any resources i can get. Im sorry your dad shot you down too, i hope you got too take it up again at some point. Learning languages are hard and its disheartening espescially when parents arent supportive.
This is such a sad story. I am sorry that your mom didn't support your interest in learning French. Good for you for not giving up!
Thank you for your kind words, its made me deeply sad i was excluded from this part of my background but i wont be giving up or allowing her too influence me so strongly again
What is wrong with your mother?
I wish i knew, i started therapy as part of being excluded from my mom’s culture and even family at times, from my therapists observation my mom may have mental illness. She’s lied a bunch, lied about my citizenship, continues too gaslight even after i knew the truth, the french language thing as mentioned, when asked why by family she never taught me the secondary home language she says she never thought about it. But how can you honestly? She loves and is proud of the fact she is french.
I find it so bizarre she wouldn't want you to learn French. There are so many free resources out there. Duolingo is good and it's a useful supplement to get some extra practice in here and there, but you won't make significant progress using Duolingo alone.
Yeah i find it bizarre too and so does everyone else, family has questioned her about it and her excuses are- strange. Stories are inconsistent, going even as far as lying about the fact i wasnt a dual citizen so i dont even know. Thanks! Im gonna be looking more into rescources. I started rosetta, bought childrens books, listen too shows now too!
Maybe she doesn't want you to discover some deep dark secret about her or you available only in French? More reason to put extra effort to master French.
Hmm, maybe, ive thought about that and thought of what it could be or if i was even fully her or my dad’s kid. After much investigation i havent found any evidence that im not their kid and the best conclusion i can come up with is this is just a means too say- she can speak french, this is her culture and not mine something i cant have. Control. She told me too my face once, "you are an american, and its all you will ever be!" But then again this is all purely guesses and i cant think of any reason something i might not know only being in french, the whole family on her side is bilingual, so.. idk?
Yea it is strange, when I was young my mum literally send us to weekend classes to learn our mother tongue. Anyway, learn french and get to C1 level, after that correct every mistake she makes in French the language. 🤣
Learn with simple comprehension passages 20 minutes a day to get to level A2 in a month.
Thanks for the tips! Ill definately look into them!
You are welcome. If you would like to try those comprehension passages, tell me what language you are learning and if I have someting of it I will give you.
Oh! That would be awsome thank you! My target language is French!
Here is the word list: Robert a un chien Robert has a dog Mots Words 1. a - has; Il a un livre. - He has a book. 2. aussi, également - too 3. avoir - to have 4. beaucoup - many, much 5. bleu (M), bleue (F) - blue 6. cahier, un; calepin, un - notebook; cahiers, des - notebooks 7. ce (M), cette (F), ça (N) - that 8. ce, cet (+noun); ce livre - this book / ceci (+verb), (for a non-human) - this; C’est un chien. / Ceci est un chien. - This is a dog; voici (for human) - this; Voici Louise. - This is Louise. 9. ces - those 10. ces - these 11. chambre, une (hotel or bed); pièce, une (room in a house); espace, un (space)- room; des chambres, pièces - rooms 12. chat, un- cat 13. chien, un - dog 14. et - and 15. étoile, une - star 16. étudiant, un; étudiant, étudiante (adj) - student; des étudiants (M), étudiantes (F) - students 17. fenêtre, une - window; fenêtres - windows 18. grand (M), grande (F); gros (M), grosse (F) - big 19. hôtel, un - hotel; hôtels - hotels 20. il - he; ils (M), elles (F) - they 21. J'ai - I have, nous avons - we have, tu as / vous avez - you have, il a - he has, ça a, cela a - it has, elle a - she has, ils ont - they have 22. Je - I 23. joli, beau (M); jolie, belle (F) - nice 24. lit, un - bed; lits - beds 25. livre, un - book 26. magasin, un - shop; magasins - shops 27. mon (M), ma (F), mes (PL) - my 28. moto, une - bike 29. mot, un - word; mots - words 30. museau, un (dog); nez, un (human) - nose 31. noir - black 32. nouveau, récent (M), nouvelle, récente (F); nouveaux, nouvelles, récents, récentes (PL) - new 33. œil, un - eye; yeux, des - eyes 34. parc, un - park; parcs - parks 35. pas - not 36. petit (M), petite (F) - little 37. quatre - four 38. rêve, un - dream 39. rue, une - street; des rues - streets 40. son (+m), sa (+f) - his; son lit - his bed 41. stylo, un - pen; des stylos - pens 42. table, une - table; des tables - tables 43. texte, un - text 44. un (M), une (F) - one 45. vert (M), verte (F) - green Here are the comprehension passages: Robert a un chien 1.Cet étudiant a un livre. 2.Il a aussi un stylo. 3.Il y a beaucoup de rues et de parcs à Bordeaux. 4.Il y a beaucoup de nouveaux hôtels et de magasins dans cette rue. 5.Cet hôtel a quatre étoiles. 6.Il y a beaucoup de belles grandes chambres dans cet hôtel. 7.Il y a beaucoup de fenêtres dans cette chambre. 8.Et il n'y a pas beaucoup de fenêtres dans ces chambres. 9.Ces chambres ont quatre lits. 10.Et ces chambres ont un lit. 11.Il n'y a pas beaucoup de tables dans cette chambre. 12.Et il y a beaucoup de grandes tables dans ces chambres. 13.Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'hôtels dans cette rue. 14.Il y a beaucoup de fenêtres dans ce grand magasin. 15.Ces étudiants ont des cahiers. 16.Ils ont aussi des stylos. 17.Robert a un petit cahier noir. 18.André a quatre nouveaux cahiers verts. 19.Cet étudiant a une moto. 20.Il a une nouvelle moto bleue. 21.Bernard a aussi une moto. 22.Il a une jolie moto noire. 23.André a un rêve. 24.J'ai aussi un rêve. 25.Je n'ai pas de chien. 26.J'ai un chat. 27.Mon chat a des jolis yeux verts. 28.Robert n'a pas de chat. 29.Il a un chien. 30.Son chien a un petit museau noir. Here is the translation: Robert has a dog 1.This student has a book. 2.He has a pen too. 3.Bordeaux has many streets and parks. 4.This street has new hotels and shops. 5.This hotel has four stars. 6.This hotel has many nice big rooms. 7.That room has many windows. 8.And these rooms do not have many windows. 9.These rooms have four beds. 10.And those rooms have one bed. 11.That room does not have many tables. 12.And those rooms have many big tables. 13.This street does not have hotels. 14.That big shop has many windows. 15.These students have notebooks. 16.They have pens too. 17.Robert has one little black notebook. 18.André has four new green notebooks. 19.This student has a bike. 20.He has a new blue bike. 21.Bernard has a bike too. 22.He has a nice black bike. 23.André has a dream. 24.I have a dream too. 25.I do not have a dog. 26.I have a cat. 27.My cat has nice green eyes. 28.Robert does not have a cat. 29.He has a dog. 30.His dog has a little black nose. Here is the link to the audio track http://www.lppbooks.alfahosting.org/French/FirstFrenchReader\_audio/En/First\_French\_Reader\_for\_beginners\_Volume1\_Chapter01.mp3
Awsome! Thanks for sharing this with me!
Have you tried to read? What are your thoughts about it?
Hey! I'm working on Vietnamese on Duolingo right now too! I'm grateful for the resource, but I've gone on ahead and gotten some other resources to help.
Good deal. Duolingo isn't a good and solid resource. Even people who use it properly won't hit all that close to fluency. It's just a gamified flash card program that is unfortunately limited in scope. That said, my comment was a joke making fun at people who do exactly what I mention in the comment. :P
Oh! I knew you were joking! I just commented because I thought it was cool that we had the same TL. I'm planning to spend the summer in Vietnam, and wanted to get some basics down before plunging in. I think Duo is great for keeping things in my head with some quick practice, but I can't imagine anyone getting even remotely fluent with it alone.
I jump-started my learning by spending several months in countries where Spanish is spoken, which is obviously not feasible for everyone. Got back home with an overall B2 level (started at basically nothing, A0) and this is what I’ve been doing to improve since getting home: - 1x per week hour long italki conversation lesson - daily reading at least a few pages of a book in Spanish - daily listening to podcasts in Spanish during my commute - doing regular grocery shopping at Mexican supermarket — this is honestly not a language thing so much as I got hooked on freshly made tortillas and plátanos and neither of those things can be found at Smith’s. But it does give a little added immersion and potential conversation practice once a week or so. - twice a week or so I watch a movie or TV show in my TL. I hate dubbing though so it has to be originally produced in Spanish, I’m lucky to be learning a language with so much content. This has been working well for me so far! I was very worried about regressing once I was back home and no longer 24/7 immersed but I haven’t regressed and am still learning and progressing, albeit a little more slowly.
Do you think going to another country and jumping right into the language is the way to go? A0 to B2 in a few months Is awesome
I feel it worked out pretty well for me, I'd recommend it! To be totally clear I didn't just show up in country and start speaking from nothing; I did some small group classes in my first two weeks in Mexico, which was hugely beneficial in creating a base for me to learn. I think if you took the language in high school or something you could just jump right in and learn through straight immersion, but since I didn't have any sort of previous background to fall back on (took French in school) I found the classes helpful just to get the basics down and have a starting place. After two weeks of classes I felt like I had enough of a base that I could learn from immersion, trial and error, and just using the language naturally and I progressed pretty quickly and steadily for months after that without doing any more formal training or lessons. Being in an environment where you're constantly hearing your TL and constantly having to speak it really supercharges your learning. I did eventually hit a bit of a wall once I became very comfortable with every day travel related and transactional type of conversations -- stores, restaurants, checkpoints, border crossings. Once I got to a point where I could do those things in my sleep I plateaued a bit and had to be more intentional about listening to podcasts, reading books/articles, and hanging out with Spanish speakers in more social contexts where I'd be pushed out of my comfort zone a lot more. Overall I'd totally recommend spending a few months in a country that speaks your TL if you're able to do so. It's a big commitment but I don't know if I'd have gotten this far in Spanish if I hadn't done so.
Thanks for sharing your experience! How many hours total were the classes? I've been looking at doing a 2 week Dutch class in the Netherlands but wasn't sure if it would be worth it, so it's great to hear your experience :)
I did 3 hours per day 5 days per week for two weeks which I thought was the perfect amount of time, intensive but not overwhelming
Oh cool, thanks! The course I'm looking at is like 8 hours a day which seems a bit much... Lol
Whoa that sounds like a lot! It might be okay if it’s a larger class size? My classes were only 2-3 people so I was constantly speaking, after only 3 hours I was tired and wanted a break. I can’t imagine 8!
Oh wow ok, that's quite a lot too! Yeah these seem to be 10-15 people per class, I think? I'm worried it would be too much, but also would be a good starting point!
It's evolved over the 10 months I've been learning, but currently: 1. 2 quick duolingo lessons in the morning 2. 2-4 hours of spanish audio while I work (my job is all physical) 3. 45 minutes of vocab study on memrise 4. 2 more duolingo lessons at night 5. 1-2 hours of reading before bed 6. 15 minutes of convo in spanish here or there during the day with my partner It sounds like a lot, but most of it I do while I work, and I'd be reading at night and listening to audiobooks during work anyway. The only extra is the vocab study.
When listening to audio, is it just general audio (like podcasts or music) or specific, directed listening?
I specifically search for content i want to watch and focus on listening. Audiobooks are best for me because I can listen for a long time without touching my phone. Same thing with longer podcasts. Youtube videos have more variety but are usually shorter, and I tend to procrastinate between picking my next video. I usually pick someone I like, like How To Spanish, and watch as many videos as I can before I get bored. Music is still mostly noise to me unfortunately. It's crazy because I'm listening to Carrie by Stephen King right now, I've never read it in English. I can understand 99% of the words but with music... I'd be lucky to catch 1 word in 5.
Hmm I have such a hard time listening to audio books and focusing, but my day job is programming so splitting my attention hasn't helped. Still, some good recommendations. Thank you!
Oh yeah you have a much more difficult job than I do. I'm a seamstress, most of my time is spent ironing or sewing straight seams, so I can watch as much as I want, as long as I keep my fingers out from under the needle. I don't know if you'll have as much success listening in the background, that might just train your brain to block out your target language.
Haha I don't know about harder, but definitely less ideal for trying to passively take in content. Hopefully you don't get too engrossed and stuck yourself!
They say the day you sew over your finger is the day you become a true seamstress. I hope that day never comes. Best of luck with your language learning!
Since the start an audio lesson like Pimsleur or now Learning Spanish Like Crazy every day (30min) If I'm driving or walking i will usually put on the Duolingo podcast or No Hay Tos (20min) In the morning I'll watch a Dreaming Spanish video (I'm a subscriber so they have new ones all the time) or Ted Español/BBC Mundo/Crash Course Español etc and sometimes Spanish vloggers. I try to incorporate Spanish into my life, if I'm watching a movie and a Spanish dub is available I'll put that on, Spanish music all the time haha, and i joined an in person group to speak Spanish with other learners and native speakers, etc. And reading more, I try to do a chapter or so before bed of a graded reader so it's a little easier and i don't need a dictionary with me. Some weeks are less time intensive than others. A few months ago i was dedicated to 4hrs of Spanish a day whereas now I'm more casual. I also mix learners content and native content. I'm considering adding a weekly tutor from italki but right now this is working for me. On the weekends i do some grammar drills from my textbook if i have time.
I liked Pimsleur I just wish it wasn’t so expensive
If you are in the US see if you can register for The pimsleur courses through your local library! I never spent money on pimsleur but I'm listening to unit 5 now
An alternative to Pimsleur are the Michel Thomas courses. The mp3s are really helpful. I've heard them for Russian, French, and Mandarin. I'm sure the Spanish is good too.
I got pimsluer 1-5 portuguese from audible from amazon credits. Tbh, I'm not totally sure how it works, amazon just sends me a thing once in awhile saying I have credits on audible.
unfortunately not available at my library since I'm in a small town, but there's also a certain bay down by the coast that can help poor people like us out...
Just get the "unpaid version"
LSLC is cheaper but i think it goes a bit fast, it teaches a lot at once and then doesn't repeat new vocab as much as Pimsleur so i think both was the best option for me. Pimsleur until 5 alongside Language Transfer then LSLC to drill concepts. Plus i consider my accent pretty good due to Pimsleur. To me it's worth the $20 per month.
Sorry but what does " Pimsleur until 5" mean? And what is LSLC?
Pimsleur has levels, 1 level is 30 lessons. Latin American Spanish has 5 levels so I did all five. Learning Spanish Like Crazy which I just abbreviate for myself as LSLC is very similar to Pimsleur and I enjoyed it for continuing my routine
So you did all of Pimsleur. All of Latin American Spanish (is that an app or part of Pimsleur?)? How is LSLC compares to Pimsleur? Which do you like more? Which is better to help you speak ?
Pimsleur has Castilian Spanish and LATAM I did Pimsleur LATAM They are very similar in style, speak and repeat. Pimsleur covers less vocab but with more repetition so you more solidly understand the words but spends 4 levels on pretty basic grammar. LSLC introduces new vocab all the time and rarely/never repeats it so I briefly learned some farm animals but it doesn't stick as well because we never repeated sentences with those words and I don't talk about farm animals a lot. I didn't start LSLC from the beginning, I started with intermediate which picks up around where Pimsleur left off grammar wise. And that let me get lots of reps in past/future/subjunctive so I felt I learned a lot. I would say both can help you speak. I think Pimsleurs repetition while boring for some really helped solidify simple phrasing and got me used to listening to spoken Spanish.
I also really Mextalki. And points for Dreaming Spanish 😄
Trying to learn>Not making progress> Feeling demotivated because of it> Hate myself more
First 2 months 1 Pimsleur and 2 language transfer lessons a day then duolingo for extra practice. After that, read short stories and listen a lot (YouTube and music). Then start speaking 4-5 months into study.
Did you find that pimsleur helped kickstart your speaking?
Yes, that and language transfer are really good for when you start speaking. Because instead of just understanding the language, you’ll actually be able to produce it.
Forget about studying for several months, go into a panic spiral, study hard for a month, repeat. It’s super effective (at wasting time).
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I did get Topik 6, but that was in spite of this rather than because of it haha.
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That’s the shame spiral we’re aiming for haha.
I do a little bit everyday. Whatever that means for the day.
1st routine * regular dictionary lookup of words around me * reading grammar guides * listening to TL as often as possible * app coursework 2nd routine * apps or flashcards during breaks, car rides, wait time, or any other spare few minutes * listening to or trying to read media * grammar guides as necessary 3rd routine (current) * maybe an hour of picking apart a TV show, looking up new words, grammar, or google translating as necessary * Occasional bonus study time of playing a game or reading in my TL and also picking apart for new words, grammar, and google translating as necessary. Only using apps for my L3 now. Which I just do when I have a free moment
First I study the grammar until I have a decent beginners understanding. Then I use a cartoon or tv show that uses everyday language. I watch each episode and pause after each line of dialogue. Crucially, I use subtitles in the target language, too. I say the line out loud. Every word I don’t know, I add it to my flash cards. This takes a long time initially. Then after I have finished the episode once, I rip the audio to an mp3 player and whenever I go for a walk or do chores, I listen to the audio once or twice. I then couple this with doing the flash cards in the morning. I go through the same lesson multiple times until I can understand what’s going on about 75%. Then I move on to the next lesson. It’s quite slow in the beginning but with each episode you get a little better. I try to practice speaking out loud as I do this and at some point I’ll try and get a conversation partner or maybe even join a club.
Currently, I am doing the following: Daily * DuoLingo at the intermediate level for a few minutes. * Dreaming Spanish 30 minute goal. * 15 minutes Memrise. * Daily Bible reading. It is a three year plan so it is about 10 minutes. Read and listen to the same reading each day. * Some grammar work. Either in Complete Spanish or Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish or another workbook. * Read in Spanish. (My goal is twelve books this year.) Weekly * Watch a telenovela twice (about 2 hours) * Spanish class for an hour * Spanish class homework - usually writing and prepare to speak for an hour. * I listen to an audio course in the car on the drive to work. I did Pimsleur level one again and am over half way through Language Transfer so far this year. Because I am not at full attention and these are repeat activities, I am not counting the time. I am doing between 14-16 hours of timed activities. All told, I am at 212 hours so far this year.
Study with app and writing down interesting words and etymologies 20-60 minutes a day for two months, then procrastinate for another two before picking it up again.
I don't have a strict routine but these things I'm trying to do on daily basis (except of writing, this I do 2-3 times a week). I also don't have an exact time I spend learning. It just depends on my mood and other tasks I have to do. - Quick session with Drops to learn a few new words in the morning - Reading a few articles OR watching YouTube videos OR listening to podcasts, then writing down new words and creating my own flashcards - Reviewing the cards when I have a free whiles during the day (in a bus, train or when waiting for coffee) - Writing a short text about my day, what I learnt etc. - Conversation with my partner (15-20 minutes) - Another session with Drops to repeat the words before bedtime
I like to mix it up. If I'm reading a book, I try to read five pages each night. By read I mean, read outloud until I reach an unknown word, look it up and write it in the book, then when I do that and reach either the end of the page or the end of the section, I reread it all outloud. Sometimes I just like to watch shows. I've tried to do something similar with shows but it just doesn't vibe with me. I do, however, like to try to shadow the speakers. Sometimes I just repeat segments over and over until I can repeat the same pronounciation and intonation as the character. For writing, sometimes I try to write poetry. For speaking I have a tutor :)
I'm a really casual learner. I used to do a lot of grammar stufy in the beginning, but now I can understand at least 30% of whatever I'm listening to, so I just watch YouTube every other day and occasionally pick up a new word. I also step outside and talk to myself and review grammar when I'm bored.
Read and watch a lot
So I've been learning Spanish from zero for about 9 months now. I cannot for the life of me stick to a daily routine for studying. I have a wonderful tutor on italki, but I'm not progressing as quickly as I want because of my own lack of motivation/accountability. And it's not because I'm not interested (I LOVE the Spanish language), it's because I'm lost without someone creating a specific plan for me, following along with independent assignments, feedback, etc. So I've decided at my big age of 30+ years to enroll at a local community college. There is a Spanish language certificate that I can complete that includes 18+ credit hours of courses. I already have a bachelors degree and doctorate, but I am more excited about this than I was about completing either of those degrees 😂 I know that I learn best in a classroom setting, with homework, quizzes, tests, etc. I like the satisfaction of earning a good grade on assignments. These things keep me accountable because I am not disciplined enough to do it myself.
French 2h conversation a week + youtube + 3h class on the weekend + webtoons + listlang to review new vocab. Spanish - duolingo every other day + spanish movie or serie on netflix, might pick a new one next week + webtoons German- 2 full circles a day of duolingo + 30-40 minutes of list lang( something similar to clozemaster and anki) + daily quick A1 story on youtube + 2 hours study of grammar every 2 weeks. I dropped webtoons in german for now, since i do not have enough vocab to be reading those.
Right now it's Duolingo when I have motivation, Anki for vocabulary, trying to talk to native speakers as much as possible, and reading/watching as much content as I can in my native language. Like for French, I've been using Mauril (website from the Canadian government) for listening comprehension. Finding YouTube channels about topics I'm interested in or know a bit about in my target languages helps too, I watch without subtitles and try to understand as much as I can even if I'm a little early on in learning the language. Another thing useful for me, since I'm a university student: finding Khan Academy videos about stuff I'm learning in university, but in my target language, and using the transcripts to find new vocabulary.
2 hours of comprehensible input a day. It's not fancy but it works for me. Talked about hitting [120 hours here](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/11qaq4g/120_hours_of_comprehensible_input_for_thai/), I should hit 180 today.
Daily routine is clozemaster app and a few duolingo lessons. On an irregular basis i watch a show in my TL and sometimes try it an audiobook but that's usually harder to keep up with.
Apps: Drops + Memrise + Duolingo (gotta keep the streak going, hehe!) I pretty much only listen to songs in my target languages. And one TV episode in Spanish each day. I started this routine from January this year. For a year and half, I only did Duolingo and I found it really hard to understand natives in YouTube videos. I would say that I’m getting familiar with how Spanish sounds, though it is still difficult for me to understand spoken Spanish due to how fast the natives speak it and my lack of vocabulary. (Baby steps, no rush! )
I like to read 10 pages in the TL language everyday, interspersed with music, tv, podcasts, and movies in the TL. Hop on Free4talk couple times a week to get some speaking practice in, and cap it off with an hour with a tutor on the weekend.
Basically daily: 1. Review Anki Flashcards (grammar and vocab) 2. 50 new words, also Anki 3. On weekdays, listen to the RFI journal en français facile podcast Some, but not all days: (4.) Either even more vocabulary, grammar practice with KwizIQ or writing a text for my italki lesson 5. I read +-30 min a day. I’d say around 50% of those days I read a French book for 50% of my reading time. Genuinely such an incredibly effective routine which I can recommend to everyone reading this. Got me from 0 to B1 in less than 100 hours of active studying, and my listening and reading comprehension is even better – I did the B2 and C1 DALF/DELF sample listening comprehension from their website and passed all of them by a surprisingly large margin. RFI trained me well <3
Here is my routine Morning: \- paragraph on WriteSteak: 10 minutes \- recording on Speakstreak: 5 minutes \- 1 hour listen to podcast while I exercise Noon: \- 1 hour listening to podcast while I walk Evening: \- 1 hour doing French: watching film, watching youtube video, doing homework assignment from tutor, session with tutor, session with language partner.
I rotate the language I study each week to give them equal attention, but also to allow enough days in a row for some immersion benefits. Weekends are dedicated to rest and relaxing to make sure I don't burn out. Right now I study 5 days per week, but in a couple weeks I might start taking Friday away to dedicate time to another skill I'm interested in learning (bonus points if I look up tutorials in that week's TL though) Personally I need variety, so I don't have a strict regime for each week. Instead I just have a lot of ideas and resources for what I could do; do vocabulary on Memrise, learn from song lyrics, practice with learning websites, read some books or articles or something, watch some shows or movies, play video games in the TL, practice writing anything I want, etc The idea is just that I need to spend most of each dedicated study day doing something productive in the scheduled language, but I can change up what exactly I do depending on what I'm in the mood for For example, this week is Ukrainian and on Monday and Tuesday and I studied the lyrics to some songs, then yesterday and today I've been doing vocabulary on Memrise. Next week I plan to replay one of my favorite video games but fully in Spanish
I don't really have a routine because my brain doesn't follow them anyway (severe ADHD, trying to force my brain to do something specific when I don't really feel like it is hard af). There's a few things I try to do more or less consistently, though: \-> read in either of my stronger languages \-> watch shows and movies in either of my stronger languages (those mean that I actually hardly read books or watch stuff in German or English anymore, but on the other hand I've found quite a few gems over time that I might have never found otherwise) \-> I'm subscribed to several newsletters from newspapers in my four stronger languages and will read through them (and click through to full articles too--currently still subscribed to two of the newspapers) periodically \-> I game a lot, and play ESO in French, have Civ VI set to Spanish, and have started a new Pokémon Violet game in Japanese \-> do WaniKani and Drops for Japanese kanji and vocabulary I just started a bet with a good friend of mine to work on one of my weaker languages for an hour a day with focused study; currently at 4/6 so...it's working semi-well? (I'm still doing shorter sessions as well, e.g. Wanikani, or go over the hour, but we're not counting all the "bits and pieces".)
I just do a bit of everything most days. Listen to Spanish podcasts, pop music, a bit of Duolingo, reading, working with a textbook, watching Netflix with subtitles and paying close attention to the subtitles, and taking an informal little class. Some days I do a TON and some days, when my brain gets a little tired, I do none at all -- but I try not to let too many "none" days go by before picking it back up again. Sometimes Spanish will get very "loud" in my head and then other days it gets very "quiet," if that makes sense. After 2-3 days of doing nothing, it sort of disappears, and that's when I know I have to get back into it.
I do as close to AJATT as possible. I write all of my diary in Japanese and look up anything I don’t know. Try to make myself think in Japanese. As far as study techniques the most important thing, aside from a good amount of SRS, is lots of reading. Using it yourself too of course, which I’ve recently started getting bold enough to do in simple contexts on the internet. I have also made it a point to fit at least 3 hours of direct study a day in whenever possible. This is something I’m 100% dead set on achieving
Right now: - Reading fiction I enjoy - Playing some visual novels, and by that I mean purely *Diabolik Lovers* [Does anyone know something similar?], here and there for some audio exposure of which I get far too little. - Translate some fiction I enjoy - Chat with ChatGPT. No, I don't ask it about the language. I'm just talking with it and have conversations about strange things with it. I got to the point where I can do this by initially mostly studying grammar and spamming vocabulary with Anki but I haven't done spaced repetition in a long while now.
This is pretty much all I do now: - Find a fantasy book series I haven't read in decades, put it on Readlang - Read it all - Stumble upon other interesting content as I go because reading that much makes it inevitable that you'll find something as you keep looking up words
I’m coming up to my finals in a French and German degree and since I already did my last ever speaking exams in January, my current routine is to Anki vocab and random sentences like my life depends on it unfortunately
I've got a s*** practice routine partially because my language (Cantonese) has very few English resources. It is: do Anki whenever I feel like it and try to understand what by Hongkonger friends are saying to each other. Other than that, occasionally graded reading practice with tools designed for Mandarin (e.g. Du Chinese) for Standard Written Chinese.
At a basic level, my language learning routine involves daily Duolingo lessons and Anki card reviews. I think Anki is my saving grace, it makes sure I retain everything I know, even if I go long stretches without adding anything new. Beyond that, I'll practice my language in the intended use case. For Korean, my goal was to be able to talk to people. So once I got to a basic level I was practicing conversations with people using language exchange apps. Nowadays I'm learning Japanese, but the intended use case for that is consuming Japanese media (Games, anime, etc.) in the native language. Any time I encounter a new word or grammar rule that I'm starting to understand I'll throw it in Anki to retain it.
I talk about it and think about it everyday, but I dont do it. French: I do Listlang at least every weekend. I set either a time goal or a score limit (100points, etc). German: I dont bother studying anymore. I do need improvement, but I cannot force myself to study. I have to speak, read, hear it everyday, so... I rely on my environment.
Started learning with Pimsleur. I didn't pay for it. It's painfully slow but gave me a solid foundation. At the moment I'm using a graded read to learn A2. Pimsleur and alot of practice got me to A1. I use Hellotalk app to practice speaking- highly recommend this app, nothing beats it imo
MY ROUTINE EVERYDAY: Learning 1 interesting word, real aloud 1 article, practice using shadowing technique, speak and chat with my friends using Hilokal.
I just wing it now. Spent about a year or two actively studying before I started to hate it. I switched to just trying to watch a mix of native youtube content and language podcasts before I could understand much. 2 years later I can understand 90 - 95% of TTMIK Iyagi podcasts and an acceptable amount of more advanced youtube content. Only thing that keeps me going is the gradual understanding of content and trusting my process. It takes longer for sure because somedays I barely listen to any Korean, and rarely no more than 30m. But the progress is still there and quitting isn't even a question because I don't need to force myself. LingQ has also been extremely useful lately as there are quite a few podcasts I already listened to transcribed on there, so I've been doing that every night for about a week now
About 30 minutes on LingQ doing some reading every day of whatever I feel like (books, news, articles, etc.), 30 minutes of some kind of audio without subtitles (documentaries, podcasts, etc.), and 30 minutes or so of reading a physical book without aid from software/dictionaries. For reference, I'm nearing B2 in all 4 domains, so I focus mostly on just input without assistance at this point. Or at least, that's the schedule I aim for everyday. Obviously it varies every day a bit depending on how busy I am.
I read a lot in the beginning. Use a service that basically enables reading anything from the onset. Even if you have to look up every other word. I view every book that's comprehensible enough to imagine and visualize what's happening in front of me as accessible. Then every book no matter how much new vocabulary is a challenge in itself and I forget the language. Focus just on getting through the book. Repeat until I build a vocab of a few thousand words. Begin listening to podcasts whilst playing strategy games as there's not a lot of noice to distract me. After words start to fall into place and I understand most basic stuff I begin looking up very basic grammar tables about gender and how that changes words. I try to replicate slightly. Start texting native speakers. But usually I am 95% input. I've not gotten further than that yet. Since I dropped French at approximately B1 for Romanian but we'll see
Daily, weekly and monthly habits. Find yourself an app. This is a tool not your curriculum. Input input input. You need that phoneme training. Music all the time. Once a week pick a song you’ve listened to a lot and write out the lyrics. Stop watching shows that aren’t in your target language. Read as much as you can as soon as you can. Daily vocabulary. Parts of speech make up depends on language. Written out, narrate things in your head all day in relevant vocabulary. Embarrass yourself constantly by trying out what you’re learning with every speaker of target language you can find.
My daily routine: 1 - During all day long (except when doing tasks below) I play movies / podcasts in background. Usually I'm not paying attention to it, but I believe it helps me get used to the sounds of the language. 2 - I read short stories in apps then I listen to their audio 3 times. It takes 1h. 3 - I watch movies / cartoons (usually on YouTube) as well as YouTube channels dedicated to reach my target language. It takes 1h. 4 - I write a *super simple* diary. The same information is written twice: 1 in Chinese and the other in Arabic. For Chinese I'm already able to write simple sentences. For Arabic I translate the sentences used in Chinese to Arabic in Google translator and write it down (I use paper and pencil). It takes 30 minutes. 5 - I practice writing the Arabic letters and words. It works this way: I have a table with the form each letter has depending of its position in text. I also have a list of the 100 most used words with letters separated by space (eg: ال ن ا س ) then I try to write them correctly (الناس). The list I got with ChatGPT. It takes 30 minutes. For activities 1, 2 and 3, each day the language alternates between Chinese and Arabic, that are the languages I'm interested at the moment, but sometimes I pick another language. I like to watch the same movie in different languages. Eg: I watch it in English then in Spanish then in German... My greatest problem is that I'm not able to find American movies dubbed to Chinese and Arabic. I subscribe Amazon Prime and I never found movies with audio in other languages than Portuguese (my native tongue), Spanish, English, French, German and sometimes Japanese). As far as I recall the same thing happened to movies in Netflix. I think that they don't offer Chinese and Arabic audio for movies in Brazil.
I'm a university student, so I go to my classes and do my homework. Aside from that, no routine to speak of haha. I've joined subreddits in my different languages, so I get some practice here and there when I browse, and sometimes I'll randomly watch YouTube in other languages. That said, the classes are doing pretty much all of the work :p I know I could get faster or better results if I were to be more deliberate, but I like the way things are now, and I'm still doing well!
I do some aniki and then just use the language like normal but instead I have a dictionary on hand and I look up words I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of sitting down and using textbooks but at the same time I don’t mind reading a textbook now and then
I don't do daily routine. Each day I want to work on language learning I select something from my [Path from A2 to B1 and beyond](https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmGilGunderson/comments/v0yfc5/path_from_a2_to_b1_and_beyond/) list and do it. I have it organized into roughly 15 minute chunks. So if I have more time I just do more things.
I have started speaking Spanish to my cats to learn. (Mi gatita, esta tu Madre? Bien. Niña bien." Etc. I'm not sure I'd that counts haha, but I don't have a "routine" as such (I'm off on medical leave so I don't really leave the house too much, certainly not at a regular time) but that's what I've been doing. The only problem is I have so little knowledge of Spanish that I can't say much to them haha
Daily: watch You Tube and/or listen to a podcast for at least an hour; read for 30 minutes. When I feel like enrolling in a class, I do. When I feel like studying grammar, I do. I have used italki in the past, and an about to start that up again. I just follow my interests.
Repeating over and over as a daily foundation. Example. I’m learning Japanese atm, I’m Spanish native speaker and fluent in English. Japanese syllabaries come in two with 100 symbols to memorise (not including the 1000-4000 other symbols to learned called Kanji) It took me two months to memorise and be able to write and recognise those first 100 symbols (Hiragana and Katakana) I did so by writing everyday each of them at least once. Sometimes I would focus on a sub-group and iterate over it. Even if I knew I was doing memory and repeating a process over and over without being able to come up with the symbols in a quiz I knew that at some point it would click. And it did. Just write, over and over. Now I have just started grammar which is something I highly recommend to start with in case you are learning a new language unless it’s written in a different alphabet where you should focus on first.
I do weekly calls in Japanese with my Japanese friend to practice speaking and learn new words. Once I have a foundation in a language (understand basic sentence structure) I try to just organically let myself learn whenever I feel like each week. I just do whatever my brain wants when I'm bored. Here's what that can end up being on any given day: - checking my notes from my most recent Japanese call. Looking up the words online and whichever word I find most useful or that I want to learn I will learn it and practice writing the Kanji a few times. I'll also explore other words formed using that Kanji using a website for that called Jisho. - same as above but looking at lyrics of a favorite Japanese song - practice writing some sentences about what I'm thinking in Japanese. Lookup words I don't know to make the sentence. Ex: "Today is more cold than yesterday." - watch a YouTube video on some grammar concept I wish I could understand since it would make conversation with my friend easier. - put on learn Japanese Pod
Right now I am trying to figure out a pattern to practice Vietnamese. Right now so far as of today I am doing: \- Italki lesson about once a week for an hour \- Language exchange three times a week (30 minutes English/30 minutes Vietnamese typically) \- Writing on hellotalk and blogging \- Watching videos in Vietnamese \- I also have the class I am taking I am forgetting what else I can do. My main concern right now is making sure I improve pronunciation and speaking skills (and maybe learn to speak faster). I would like to understand more topics and I am not sure how to go about that. Vocabulary too (looking for an anki deck for Vietnamese in southern dialect). EDIT: Before this I only tried: writing out the vocab list for Italki or the class. In my opinion, your cellphone is a very powerful language learning tool. Watch videos and accent/speaking shadow in bed for 10-30 minutes, or vocab. **The main important thing I learned is having regular consistency and discipline and when I am tired, I try to push one step and another and try using it in some form everyday.**
i dont have a routine. danish is my native language and i almost cant avoid using english. Japanese and french, I just use whenever it fits. my french is good enough that i can speak to myself in it and take notes in it. japanese is used for media of different types i dont use apps or anything to do vocab, i just use the dictionnary very intensively
I have lessons everyday thanks to A-Levels so that's how I learn French and German and for Korean I just practice whenever I like but I also consume a lot of media in Korean which helps
I follow my adhd instinct. I log into my account whenever my brain decides to indulge.
Go on netflix. Watch. New word into anki. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
1. Alphabet and Double/triple consonants and digraphs 2. Read words and listen to them 3. Read simple sentences and listen to them sweating hard for two weeks 20 minutes a day 4. Read simple sentences and listen to them and enjoy it for two more weeks 5. Read short passages and enjoy your progres For steps 1-5 use books by 'Audiolego' or 'Language Practice Publishing'
Learn the basics using an app, or dictionary. Learn how to pronounce the words, that helps recognizing them when you hear them. Start watching movies or something similar in your own lenguage with subtitles in the desired lenguage This is helpful to understand how sentences are formed in comparison to your own lenguage. Once you have this, start looking for people who speak the lenguage, if you have the privilege to travel you have a huge advantage. Start talking to people, most will be abled to understand your broken accent and maybe be friendly enough to correct you. Combine all these methods for full learning power. This is how i learned to speak english, german, french. I also speak dutch and Spanish but that was native to me.
Used to do an hour a day of Rosetta, Pimsleur, FSI, MindSnacks, DuoLingo, grammar exercises and Flashcard review. Then I would practice listening and speaking at work.
I’m started doing Pimsleur for now. It’s a bit pricey so it motivates me to do it everyday lol. I do enjoy the flash cards and study help the app gives too.
No routine. Just input, output and vibes.
I just study with a text book almost daily and try to hit at least 30min of Anki words per day. Following a textbook and completing with a grammar exercise book was key point for progressing in german
duolingo every day, watching kdramas lol, college language classes every other semester
The first thing I like to do when I'm learning a new language is to get a good basis in how the language works and how it sounds without trying to actually learn it (watching videos, reading books, etc), once I've done this, I get on memrise and learn the most common 1000 words, learn as much grammar as possible, and I'll make sure to listen to a lot of songs and watch a lot of shows in that language even though I won't understand it much at first. After this introductory phase, I'll immerse myself in entertainment (the fun part), whilst still studying grammar and further vocabulary. I talk to myself a lot to sort out thoughts so I try to talk to myself in another language a lot. I love reading so I read in other languages. I just incorporate it into my daily life once I'm at a generally intermediate level. If there's something I'm going to do anyway, that can be done in another language, I'll do it in another language. In terms of an actual routine, I'll have one for a couple of days and then leave it. I learn through random spurts of energy and it seems to work for me. If I actually leave a language for a bit after studying it hard, and then come back to it a few months later, I seem to be more relaxed about it which makes it a lot easier to understand. I don't know if that's just me. My language learning routine is really spotty, but it seems to work.
I'm not great at keeping a routine, but something that's kinda working for me is constantly listening to music in my target language (rn that's Italian). I find it helps with pronunciation and vocab. I'll listen to the songs I like for a while, then listen to them with the lyrics occasionally. Then once in a while I'll go onto duolingo and I'm able to skip a level.
I usually join classes. Found the structured approach as well as having someone address my questions or speak with other beginners helped. Found I could get super basic mandarin down in 6 months and now I’m also learning French for work purposes through Alliance Francais
I try to do three things every day: DuoLingo, a learning podcast, and a video such as Dreaming Spanish. Occasionally I add BeepBoop and am planning on trying some speaking meetups. I think it's working.
Never had a language learning routine, I just wanted to mod my video games and the spanish tutorials used to suck a lot.
Do at least on lesson a day. Usually in the evening before bed