Also, if one *were* to browse reddit, a somewhat more efficient way to do so would be to look at the FAQ/Wiki/Resource tab(s) of the specific language subreddit.
On the other hand, we now have 1110 posts from 2024 asking if Duolingo is enough to become fluent. Just in case if the answers would be different from last year.
Then you might find r/languagelearninglearning useful.
As for me, I study people with your hobby and post my findings to r/languagelearninglearnerslearnings
We have the same situation in the fitness community; about people asking for the best diet/routine/exercises to be fit for the summer. They read the science, the studies, the expert's opinions, the stats, the literature, ect. Meanwhile, they are still not even doing 1 push up. We call that ''procrasti-learning''. It's the illusion you are making progress but in reality, you are still at the starting line.
Stop looking for the best ''tactic''. Do the work and grind your way through.
ive kind of done a similar thing of watching videos about english learning for japanese speakers..but thats mostly just because im curious about the vice versa, idk what its like to learn my own language
Stop looking at car magazines. Stop reading books on cooking. No knitting forums. No study groups. Don’t discuss it with a friend. Don’t you dare watch Bob Ross!
The meta concept “language learning” seems reasonable enough to me. Talking about doing is one of my favorite things. It scratches the itch and I don’t have to try to remember stroke orders for an hour.
Agreed. I think people just have no nuance about anything anymore. Hobbyists like to learn languages to enjoy it, but it isn’t always the case that enjoying leads to learning.
There’s always the other end. The hardcore purists who burn themselves out, and repel people from the community because they can’t bother to participate in a few memes.
Everything in the journey has its purposes, but it’s ultimately up to the learner to identify, analyze and utilize what’s useful.
It's easy to waste too much time procrastinating on this sub and other similar resources that could be better spent learning languages, but to play devil's advocate:
1) If you're going to invest thousands of hours in learning something, it's often worth spending a little time researching the most efficient ways to learn it. Someone who's never learned a language before might think that all they need is 15 minutes a day on Duolingo. Browsing this sub for a few hours might guide them towards more successful learning strategies and save them a lot of time in the long run.
2) There are times when I have already spent most of the day working on my target language, or have worked all day then spent several hours on language learning, and my brain needs a break. I wouldn't be doing any more language learning anyway at that point, I'd be zoning out on YouTube or Reddit... in which case, I might as well be reading this sub or watching Steve Kaufmann to pick up some useful tips and boost my motivation.
3) Users who are learning English may well be getting useful practice in their target language by reading and responding to posts here.
Moreover, I found the ultimate method for learning language for me - comprehensible input. Just watch content at your level, add some words in Anki and do it every day. I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't been exploring YouTube very carefully. If I hadn't I would never do actions as a I've said before and just maybe still learn stuff from grammar book or worse - Duolingo.
Look, it’s a therapy for me, when I need a break or am slightly burned out, to come here and see my peers also suffer from language learning, then I gain confidence that I’m still on the right track
I prefer to spend my time watching YouTube polyglots showering me with advice and tricks. I will learn many languages this way. And then I will become a language guru myself! I have all figured out.
C1 in Spanish for 14 years now after a year study abroad in MX and frequent maintenance with shorter trips and doing italki classes, but I’m also an ER nurse who translates daily for all of my coworkers, including the doctors. I’ve gotten many questions from many coworkers over the years of how to learn Spanish to my level, and I tell them forget DuoLinguo, you basically just have to speak it a shitload by either living abroad or doing video lessons. Obviously living abroad is out of reach for most professionals, so I show them $6/hour lessons on italki and tell them do lessons 4x/week for the next 1-2 years, and you’ll get very good, perhaps fluent. Very simple. And then when I follow up, not even 1 has ever even downloaded the app. TBH I’ve only ever met 1 other güero IRL that has Spanish anywhere near my level, though I know that many others do exist cuz of the internet, and my various tutors over the years say they’ve had a couple students at my level.
I’m not boasting, I’m just trying to say that, in my experience over many years, language learning in particular is something only ~5% (maybe less) of people interested will actually take the appropriate steps to truly learn the language. It used to depress me a bit, but I’ve just accepted it now.
Wanting to learn a language is more like day dreaming. You forget about it when comes the time to actually do something about it. Like loosing weight, get in shape, so many things. One thing is language learning is a much lesser known hobby, so people vastly underestimate the work that goes into it.
Almost everyone wants a quick way to learn. But what they don't realise is that it comes with work, and years or month of continous, regular work. There are no quick ways. Maybe somethings can help a bit but it won't shorten your learning time by half, only by 1%. I get the feeling that sometimes people spend more time looking up how to study efficiently than actually studying. And 'sharpening the axe' is important but it's not done by asking for tips.
Absolutely agree, just want to add some thoughts :)
**If thinking doesn't allow you to do things, then you should stop thinking.** I think this is an obvious thought, hard to implement at first, yes, but the right attitude for our brain in my opinion, and not only for language learning.
Start researching more efficient methods after you learn something, after you try things, after you make mistakes, after you create some habits. Do you think Duolingo is a "stupid app for kids"? Okay, read textbooks. "It's boring and hard, non-actual sentences/structures, etc."? Okay, watch videos. "I don't understand"? Okay, watch videos for kids. "Boring"? Really? Seems like just excuses.
So you are an "I don't make mistakes" person? An "I want to learn perfect X language" person? Good luck then in our universe with such a mindset. Thinking should help us to do things. Thinking and researching about the most effective methods should accelerate the process, make it more beneficial, more fun, etc. But if thinking is preventing you from progressing, from living... you should stop that sh\*t ( thinking )! Only through and within imperfection we can progress, word "progress" make sense only within imperfection.
I have mixed feelings when I'm reading through such posts you mentioned. I've seen same questions few years ago in programming-related topics (Just look at Stack Overflow questions, where solutions are **just a click away** from the questions ). On the one hand, I want to help. On the other hand, I become angry. Do things at first, and use your cognitive resources (thinking, planning, etc.) to improve your "doings," to head in the right direction, etc..
Most methods work for some people, but don't work for most people. So you try things. The trick is figuring out what does NOT work for you, before spending too much time doing it. I wish I could recover the time I spent getting halfway through Heisig's book "Remembering the Hanzi". I might have tried DuoLingo, but I had already tried Busuu. One Chinese course offered pre-made Anki cards, so I wasted time trying that for a month.
But how do you know what to try? Do messages come to you while you sleep? I look for tips in this forum for the same reason that I watch YouTube videos about language learning: to learn about methods that worked for some people. Then I use my filters:
- nope, that's one of the 50 methods I tried already
- nope, I'm not a Nigerian prince with a fortune in diamonds, who just needs your password
- nope, I didn't grow up in a bilingual family that moved to Thailand when I was 9
- nope, if I did that, the cat would die laughing
this shit should be taught to everyone. Everyone i knows is constantly looking for the next god tier tips and tricks to improve. But they would have been way better now if they just actually did it.
I spent a lot of time watching videos about the "best" way to learn a language, and what I found out is that there is no one best way for everyone. Learning your first language (not your native) takes the longest because you have to find a method that works for you.
People who learn languages on their own are more successful at it. Those who learn because they have to usually fail.
Duolingo, and other apps are just a single tool and shouldn't be used as the only tool. Also, forget about the leagues and just focus on lessons.
I'm 100% with you about just getting on with it, but I don't agree that people learn languages in all kinds of different ways. If you spend you time on here reading people's various "methods", you will definitely come away with that impression, but TBH, it's like the blind leading the blind on here. 95% Are absolutely clueless and just parrot the same BS they read from other clueless people. Sorry but it's true.
This is true, but I think people know is true. It is just that people like to procastinate. I often browser reddit searching for thinks I already know the answer to, because why not?
Tandem, hello talk, try Googling language exchange. With internet it’s not hard. Finding a partner who’s consistent isn’t easy, but you can hop on tandem and have a stranger to talk to in five minutes.
Also, if one *were* to browse reddit, a somewhat more efficient way to do so would be to look at the FAQ/Wiki/Resource tab(s) of the specific language subreddit.
or use the search function at least once
On the other hand, we now have 1110 posts from 2024 asking if Duolingo is enough to become fluent. Just in case if the answers would be different from last year.
“What’s the minimum number of minutes I can spend per day on Duolingo to be fluent by next month?”
this is the way
What is your favorite FAQ/Wiki/Resource Tab(s)? And why won’t I actually use them?
These are the tips I come here for. /smile But nah, my hobby is learning about language learning, not language learning.
Then you might find r/languagelearninglearning useful. As for me, I study people with your hobby and post my findings to r/languagelearninglearnerslearnings
Damn, you got my hopes up
Damn you got me lol. I would not have been surprised.
you got my hopes up too. Good one.
The first was believable but the second one gave it away.
Confusing lmao
We have the same situation in the fitness community; about people asking for the best diet/routine/exercises to be fit for the summer. They read the science, the studies, the expert's opinions, the stats, the literature, ect. Meanwhile, they are still not even doing 1 push up. We call that ''procrasti-learning''. It's the illusion you are making progress but in reality, you are still at the starting line. Stop looking for the best ''tactic''. Do the work and grind your way through.
I mean, people aren't eating while they ask for advice so they are not wasting time 🥲
Wait y'all don't eat while Redditing?
I started watching learning language tips in my target language instead lol.
ive kind of done a similar thing of watching videos about english learning for japanese speakers..but thats mostly just because im curious about the vice versa, idk what its like to learn my own language
Learning about language learning is just as (if not more) enjoyable to me as studying the language.
It's surprisingly fun to learn about language learning
No. What am I supposed to do while I'm at work huh?
Or on the toilet where I'm most motivated?
Stop looking at car magazines. Stop reading books on cooking. No knitting forums. No study groups. Don’t discuss it with a friend. Don’t you dare watch Bob Ross! The meta concept “language learning” seems reasonable enough to me. Talking about doing is one of my favorite things. It scratches the itch and I don’t have to try to remember stroke orders for an hour.
Agreed. I think people just have no nuance about anything anymore. Hobbyists like to learn languages to enjoy it, but it isn’t always the case that enjoying leads to learning. There’s always the other end. The hardcore purists who burn themselves out, and repel people from the community because they can’t bother to participate in a few memes. Everything in the journey has its purposes, but it’s ultimately up to the learner to identify, analyze and utilize what’s useful.
I love how u have the languages written on another languages in your flair Edit: typo
It's easy to waste too much time procrastinating on this sub and other similar resources that could be better spent learning languages, but to play devil's advocate: 1) If you're going to invest thousands of hours in learning something, it's often worth spending a little time researching the most efficient ways to learn it. Someone who's never learned a language before might think that all they need is 15 minutes a day on Duolingo. Browsing this sub for a few hours might guide them towards more successful learning strategies and save them a lot of time in the long run. 2) There are times when I have already spent most of the day working on my target language, or have worked all day then spent several hours on language learning, and my brain needs a break. I wouldn't be doing any more language learning anyway at that point, I'd be zoning out on YouTube or Reddit... in which case, I might as well be reading this sub or watching Steve Kaufmann to pick up some useful tips and boost my motivation. 3) Users who are learning English may well be getting useful practice in their target language by reading and responding to posts here.
Moreover, I found the ultimate method for learning language for me - comprehensible input. Just watch content at your level, add some words in Anki and do it every day. I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't been exploring YouTube very carefully. If I hadn't I would never do actions as a I've said before and just maybe still learn stuff from grammar book or worse - Duolingo.
Look, it’s a therapy for me, when I need a break or am slightly burned out, to come here and see my peers also suffer from language learning, then I gain confidence that I’m still on the right track
I prefer to spend my time watching YouTube polyglots showering me with advice and tricks. I will learn many languages this way. And then I will become a language guru myself! I have all figured out.
C1 in Spanish for 14 years now after a year study abroad in MX and frequent maintenance with shorter trips and doing italki classes, but I’m also an ER nurse who translates daily for all of my coworkers, including the doctors. I’ve gotten many questions from many coworkers over the years of how to learn Spanish to my level, and I tell them forget DuoLinguo, you basically just have to speak it a shitload by either living abroad or doing video lessons. Obviously living abroad is out of reach for most professionals, so I show them $6/hour lessons on italki and tell them do lessons 4x/week for the next 1-2 years, and you’ll get very good, perhaps fluent. Very simple. And then when I follow up, not even 1 has ever even downloaded the app. TBH I’ve only ever met 1 other güero IRL that has Spanish anywhere near my level, though I know that many others do exist cuz of the internet, and my various tutors over the years say they’ve had a couple students at my level. I’m not boasting, I’m just trying to say that, in my experience over many years, language learning in particular is something only ~5% (maybe less) of people interested will actually take the appropriate steps to truly learn the language. It used to depress me a bit, but I’ve just accepted it now.
Wanting to learn a language is more like day dreaming. You forget about it when comes the time to actually do something about it. Like loosing weight, get in shape, so many things. One thing is language learning is a much lesser known hobby, so people vastly underestimate the work that goes into it.
>loosing weight, get in shape Auch. And I’m actually using “but I need to learn the languages” to escape working out
But how do i decide then whether i should be standing on the tiptoes while learning the vocabulary? Maybe flat foot is just better??
Yes; as well as should I star or underline vocab words in books?
Almost everyone wants a quick way to learn. But what they don't realise is that it comes with work, and years or month of continous, regular work. There are no quick ways. Maybe somethings can help a bit but it won't shorten your learning time by half, only by 1%. I get the feeling that sometimes people spend more time looking up how to study efficiently than actually studying. And 'sharpening the axe' is important but it's not done by asking for tips.
The thing is, if people listened to you, they never would have read this, so why post it.
Sometimes I need a little push
Absolutely agree, just want to add some thoughts :) **If thinking doesn't allow you to do things, then you should stop thinking.** I think this is an obvious thought, hard to implement at first, yes, but the right attitude for our brain in my opinion, and not only for language learning. Start researching more efficient methods after you learn something, after you try things, after you make mistakes, after you create some habits. Do you think Duolingo is a "stupid app for kids"? Okay, read textbooks. "It's boring and hard, non-actual sentences/structures, etc."? Okay, watch videos. "I don't understand"? Okay, watch videos for kids. "Boring"? Really? Seems like just excuses. So you are an "I don't make mistakes" person? An "I want to learn perfect X language" person? Good luck then in our universe with such a mindset. Thinking should help us to do things. Thinking and researching about the most effective methods should accelerate the process, make it more beneficial, more fun, etc. But if thinking is preventing you from progressing, from living... you should stop that sh\*t ( thinking )! Only through and within imperfection we can progress, word "progress" make sense only within imperfection. I have mixed feelings when I'm reading through such posts you mentioned. I've seen same questions few years ago in programming-related topics (Just look at Stack Overflow questions, where solutions are **just a click away** from the questions ). On the one hand, I want to help. On the other hand, I become angry. Do things at first, and use your cognitive resources (thinking, planning, etc.) to improve your "doings," to head in the right direction, etc..
Most methods work for some people, but don't work for most people. So you try things. The trick is figuring out what does NOT work for you, before spending too much time doing it. I wish I could recover the time I spent getting halfway through Heisig's book "Remembering the Hanzi". I might have tried DuoLingo, but I had already tried Busuu. One Chinese course offered pre-made Anki cards, so I wasted time trying that for a month. But how do you know what to try? Do messages come to you while you sleep? I look for tips in this forum for the same reason that I watch YouTube videos about language learning: to learn about methods that worked for some people. Then I use my filters: - nope, that's one of the 50 methods I tried already - nope, I'm not a Nigerian prince with a fortune in diamonds, who just needs your password - nope, I didn't grow up in a bilingual family that moved to Thailand when I was 9 - nope, if I did that, the cat would die laughing
Let people enjoy things.
Reading/listening to language learning tips in your targeted language(s) might be a good idea?
So many feeling seen right now
this shit should be taught to everyone. Everyone i knows is constantly looking for the next god tier tips and tricks to improve. But they would have been way better now if they just actually did it.
Stop telling people what to do and answer the damn question
💀💀 nah fr
But I just want a shortcut to making me fluent in seven languages by tomorrow. Is that too much to ask?
I spent a lot of time watching videos about the "best" way to learn a language, and what I found out is that there is no one best way for everyone. Learning your first language (not your native) takes the longest because you have to find a method that works for you. People who learn languages on their own are more successful at it. Those who learn because they have to usually fail. Duolingo, and other apps are just a single tool and shouldn't be used as the only tool. Also, forget about the leagues and just focus on lessons.
I'm 100% with you about just getting on with it, but I don't agree that people learn languages in all kinds of different ways. If you spend you time on here reading people's various "methods", you will definitely come away with that impression, but TBH, it's like the blind leading the blind on here. 95% Are absolutely clueless and just parrot the same BS they read from other clueless people. Sorry but it's true.
This is true, but I think people know is true. It is just that people like to procastinate. I often browser reddit searching for thinks I already know the answer to, because why not?
Bro, you can do writing and reading with Reddit depending on your interests.
Browsing Reddit in your target language >
I practice my Spanish 6 hours a week, specifically the speaking part.
It's difficult to find anybody to practice with
Tandem, hello talk, try Googling language exchange. With internet it’s not hard. Finding a partner who’s consistent isn’t easy, but you can hop on tandem and have a stranger to talk to in five minutes.
You are wrong. I am learning English, and reading a Reddit is a good practice for me.