I had to learn french a couple of years ago. And I had three months to do it. It was perfectly doable, but my method did cost a bit of money.
I did all the things described in the article, more or less.
This was my approach:
1. I had a 1h lesson with a private tutor over Skype (via italki.com) every single day. This was the part which cost me most money. But private tutors from italki is fairly cheap.
2. Listened to the news every day in easy french (RFI has a great short podcast).
3. I watched LOTR (the only one I had available where I could change language and subtitles to be the same) first with English audio and french subtitles, and then french audio and french subtitles and lastly only french audio no subtitles.
4. Listened to french kids books as audiobooks.
5. I read kids book in french.
6. I finished the 3 months with a week of immersive french course in France and then spent another week travelling France alone, committed to only speak french.
7. During this whole time I added 10 words per day into my Anki deck. I also added any other words that I learned along the way. This was quiet a lot of work.
8. During the three months I also went through the Duolingo French course.
After three months of hard work I passed the fluency test for french.
It took quiet a lot of time and quiet a lot of money. But it got the result I was after.
Ps.
My tutor also wrote a nice review for me on LinkedIn which I’m very proud of and look at every now and again:
“Xxx has learned French with my company. He became fluent in 3 months in has now reached a level close to B2 on the European Framework of Reference, starting from scratch. He has been an extremely hard-working and committed student, with classes every day at 6.30am.”
I would highly recommend RFI's podcast (Le Journal en Français Facile). At first, it's intimidating, and, despite the name, doesn't feel easy at all. They use simpler vocabulary, but still talk at full speed. You might need to listen to each episode a few times in a row, and read the transcript. And that's exactly what makes it such an effective tool. Struggling through it is part of training your brain to make sense of the sounds of the new language.
There are other options out there that try to be easy for learners by speaking very slowly. That's a trap. It's absolutely easier to understand, but you're learning to understand the wrong thing. The phonics of many languages undergo some subtle mutations when they are spoken slowly. This is especially true in French. So if you only listen to slow language that's over-pronounced to make it easier for learners to understand, you'll end up training your ear to understand the phonics of slow language that's over-pronounced for learners. Which isn't how actual people actually speak.
I think the most important part here is for those who learn a language and wish to maintain it. I failed here. Don't fail like I did.
Make sure, once you have learned a language, to turn part of your life into a world operating in that language. Choose something - news, movies, books, internet - just pick something. Do that thing only in your new language once you can.
Once that becomes a habit, what you have learned you will not forget. And you will get better over time as well as your brain painlessly absorbs and deeply programs in the target language.
Second most important part - It takes a lot of work and consistency. Say that with me - consistency. Show up every day. If you don't, you will fail. That's one of those terrible truths about learning, and it is especially true about learning a language.
> It takes a lot of work and consistency. Say that with me - consistency. Show up every day. If you don't, you will fail. That's one of those terrible truths about learning, and it is especially true about learning a language.
William Buckley was lost for more than 30 years among Australian aborigines. By the time he heard of whites in the vicinity, he was unable to speak to them, having forgotten how to produce English.
But, assuming you believe his memoirs, when they spoke to him, he regained his English within a day.
I started learning Japanese a while back, and studied slowly for a few years.
Then I fell off studying, but kept using it recreationally. I didn't pick 1 medium and insist on it because I have a wife that doesn't speak Japanese at all and that just doesn't work.
But I do still use it occasionally for games, anime (with English subs), manga, and sometimes live TV. It's pretty seldom, but it happens.
After a few years of that, I rejoined a Japanese meetup group locally for reading a Manga with them that's above my level. I'm realizing that I'm basically where I was when I stopped studying. I haven't really lost anything.
My point is that I don't think you need to be extreme to maintain. Just casual usage across different media is enough.
Almost a year ago I decided to start learning Russian so that I can talk with my girlfriend in her native language (the things we do for love )
Initially I tried the usual things like Duolingo, Babbel and some other apps. Out of those things the only one I found useful was Duolingo because it can get you started pretty quickly.
However, I got stuck after that. I couldn't see myself making any progress. Then I stumbled upon the Comprehensible Input theory and TPRS and since then I've been studying Russian using a method that loosely follows these. Here's what I do:
- I find short stories, news articles, social media posts etc online.
- I read those texts and mark down the new words as I learn them. I add those words in a flashcard app and I practice them using SRS. I use an app called Ulangi.
- I ask my girlfriend (a native speaker) to ask me short questions about the text and I have to answer in my target language.
- Once I feel comfortable with that text I repeat the process with the next one.
And it works (at least for me). I grew my vocabulary immensely, I can acquire grammar rules naturally (like I did with my native language) and I get to actually speak the language from day 1. As an added bonus I get to learn a lot about the culture of my target language.
However, translating and saving words in my vocabulary became tedious so I decided to automate this whole process. So I started building a tool for me. I, then, realized that this might be useful for others so I made it public. You can use it for free at Talkabl.com
On mobile, I just tested the default French lesson. Right now, the 'dictionary' seems to be displayed dependent on where the last appearance of the word in the text. This means that if I select a word in the first paragraph but the word also appears in the last paragraph, I have to scroll to the bottom to see its definition (and add it to 'my list'). (ex: 'protestaires' in the default FR lesson) The column, in mobile view, gets bumped to the bottom.
I don't think you have to go as far as a modal window - something as simple as 'position:fixed' would let it pop on top of the text (though right now, the dictionary box doesn't have a defined independent class and is not contained). It's probably best for the large-screen view as well: you don't want your text body to be moving around while reading.
But seriously, this is one of the simplest, smartest and most extensible language learning tools I've come across. Thank you for sharing it.
edit//
It's a FF/Webkit quirk, but because the parent element (.bx--content) has 'transform' property applied to it, it will prevent the child div from actually responding to 'position:fixed'.
Very interesting. It is great that one can export it to Anki too. Does it handle incremental exports properly? For example, I export the vocabulary today with 10 words and import it to Anki. Then I add 5 more words and export the whole set again. If I import it into Anki, will Anki remember my history with the old words?
That looks great! Definitely warrants its own submission in my opinion.
What do you have to do in order to support extra languages? Perhaps ensure font support if loading from web, and the dictionary comes from Wiktionary so you do need to know what language it is, but other than that should 'just work', anything else?
I picked French and clicked the "Listen to the lesson" button. But what I got was my computer speaking French words as though they were English. Even my French accent, almost fifty years after failing my high school French exams, is better.
:-)
Can anyone tell me how to make it speak French French instead of Franglais? Apart from that it looks interesting.
- Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life.
- Decide to do something about it.
- Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea.
- Always actively speak the language when in native company.
- Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts.
- Read childrens' books and written press.
- Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier.
That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian.
Right now is probably the best time in history to learn a language. The sheer amount of resources available to you via the internet compared to the year 2000 is exponentially greater.
The volume of content in your target language available on youtube alone is enough to last you a lifetime. Not to mention all the channels specifically catered to teaching the language. Then the online tutoring marketplaces - you can be directly connected to a tutor from a country that speaks your language natively and remotely schedule 1:1 lessons at your convenience via video conferencing software. Plus the availability of language partner sites to practice if you're on a budget.
The biggest problem in my opinion is people struggling with self directed learning, more than anything. A college level course is likely going to be objectively worse than self directed study with targeted goals, but many people dont have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve in their target language other than a vague sense of fluency, myself included. If your language goal is to become fluent in a language, that's a goal with no defined end in sight.
>The volume of content in your target language available on youtube alone is enough to last you a lifetime.
Not if your target language is danish. Danish YouTube somehow never evolved beyond clickbaity reaction videos and Minecraft letsplays. There are good danish YouTubers[1][2], but they present their material in english. Your best bet for danish content that won't cause acute brain rot, is probably music and film clips, or VPN'ing your way to the danish state broadcaster www.dr.dk. It's like BBC, but with more rødgrød.
> The biggest problem in my opinion is people struggling with self directed learning, more than anything.
> many people dont have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve in their target language other than a vague sense of fluency
> If your language goal is to become fluent in a language, that's a goal with no defined end in sight
This is why I like tests that 'proof' the level (e.g. CEFR, HSK, NLPT, and so on)
It does not make anyone better and does not really proof that one can converse in the language, but for me as a learner it is a nice goal to have. I can study by myself and know what I am learning for (the test for the next level)
Fluency just comes with it imo and needs immersion and practise anyway. Practise would mean application of the things learnt before
My understanding is that these methods work well, when the learner has already reached at least a basic level of fluency in the target foreign language. But what about those just beginning the journey as well as those who have already started and still are moving toward that basic level goal? I assume that traditional approaches (textbooks, courses, sprinkled with some live conversations with native speakers and watching some movies/TV) remain the right ones. If so, I'm curious about what, if any, might be the optimal strategy for achieving that goal, in other words, what is the approximately optimal ratio between efforts using relevant methods (say, 50% textbook, 30% course X, 10% live conversations, 10% watching movies) and whether such strategy's ratio depends on specifics of the target language (say, Spanish vs. Chinese).
I do daily 30-60 minute conversations with native Brazilian speakers on Italki. That can add up in price quickly, but I would recommend at least 1-2 lessons per week to start after getting the basics down on something like Duolingo/Rosetta Stone. It was a world of difference between year 1 only using Duolingo/YouTube etc. and actually having Brazilian teachers correct my grammar, pronunciation, and add vocabulary for very context-specific situations that came up in conversations. Not to mention slang, idioms, etc.
- Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life.
- Decide to do something about it.
- Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea.
- Always actively speak the language when in native company.
- Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts.
- Read childrens' books and written press.
- Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier.
That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian.
A lot of very productive learners and teachers are advocating for learning through all-talk, all-target language, in-person language exchange sessions, and complimenting that with pleasure reading in the target language. So 0% textbook, and if a course, a course that as closely as possible imitates a group conversation.
So 100% live conversation, with a rising percentage of reading material after achieving some small degree of fluency.
I know it's not a great suggestion during the time of covid. I wonder if the online language exchange apps provide for different forms of interaction? The ability to show a picture or flip through a magazine or picture-book simultaneously with mouse pointer visibility on both sides would be nice.
Don't forget all Eutopean countires have freely available public broadcasting (similar to NPR or BBC) whose websites have news articles, radio and TV. Usually the news is all free but sometimes you need a VPN for other stuff (if you're ethically oksy with that.) The more casual input you get,the faster it will go.
Also a fun thing to to is read the Bible in multiple languages since it is translated into nearly everything and has free high quality audiobooksnfor everything but this can sometimes teach you arcane grammar and useless vocab but I find it useful anyway since you get side by sife comparison and can read along and have a massive corpus which probably infpunced the modern culture a lot. Try reading a language you just learned next to the next one you're learning, skipping your mother tongue.
I’m not sure how it is in the US, but in the UK we don’t even get taught the grammar of English. No one knows grammatical terms, like preposition, person, the name of tenses, the subjunctive, or even simple ones like verbs, adjective, adverbs and nouns.
When you don’t even know formally how your own language is structured, it is very difficult to learn another language.
For example, my mother (native French-speaker) gives private French lessons. She finds that instead of saying “ok today we’re going to learn about the subjunctive mood, the root is the third person plural of the indicative mood of the verb with the following endings”, she spends most of her time having to explain what those terms mean.
I realise that there may be other ways that are less formal to learn languages, but at the end of the day, grammars follow rules, and if you don’t even understand the rule book in your own language you’re already at a huge disadvantage in my opinion.
All these online articles claiming “don’t worry about grammar, that will come later” are missing out on what I think is the most important tool in language learning.
Someone I follow on Twitter has found a very good sweet spot for improving her second/nth language: she follows online courses in her field (art and design) in her target language.
In her case, the target language is Spanish, so she does courses from Domestika: https://www.domestika.org/
I can speak a couple of languages that I don't use very often, I personally just make sure I watch a movie/tv show/the news (the news is the least helpful tbh) in those languages once or twice a week. The article suggests Netflix, but if you're not dealing with one of the more common languages, I've found that a lot of countries have their own streaming services you can use.
Another approach that can be interesting for advanced learners, i.e. you have taken classes for a couple of years[+] and are living in the target language country:
If you've enjoyed a non-fiction book in English, for example, pick up the equivalent translation in your target language. It lets you compare and contrast; and the experience can also be richer.
This definitely requires good discipline, but it is rewarding :-)
I heard that people used to use the Bible for this purpose. I pulled this trick with The Hobbit.
Be wary though, not all translations are created equal, there might be errors or divergences.
I remember the Russian version translated "I will go so far as to send you on this adventure" incorrectly as "I went all this way because of you" or some such. (And a number of other blunders of this sort.)
Also one of the Stephenson's Baroque Cycle books had "men-of-war" translated to Czech as literally "warriors".
I have learned Cantonese for over a year to be able to communicate with my girlfriend's family. As a native spanish speaker, this was task that seemed insurmountable at first given how little learning materials exist out there. The Internet is flooded with Mandarin learning materials, courses, books, and content yet Cantonese learners are far fewer. Went from not knowing how to say a simple greeting like 你好 (neih5 hou2) to knowing 2500 characters, speaking conversationally with her mom, and being able to write 500 word short stories. Here's what helped me get over the hurdle of lack of learning materials:
1. 1h lesson every Sunday with a professional Cantonese teacher from italki.com (native speaker from Hong Kong)
2. Focus on pattern recognition of character radicals, write with pen and paper 30 new vocab words per week. Starting on Monday, I would prepare the words of the week, focusing on utility. Then, I would write each word every morning 10-15 times. Thankfully, my memory would never forget a character after doing this approach.
3. Focus on listening and reading advanced content with an OCR translator handy, even if it was very uncomfortable, difficult, I would not stop until I 100% understood a paragraph down to its nuances
4. Keep a handy grammar book or resource cheat sheet, covering particular grammar edge cases
5. Conversation practice every day with my girlfriend, with the goal of pushing myself into uncomfortable territory by trying to express complex ideas and not just talk about the weather
6. Native speaking intonation practice every Saturday, focusing on all the different phonemes and listening to various native speakers pronounce sounds I had a hard time enunciating, such as the `ng` sound or `j` vs. `ch` in Cantonese. Cantonese has 6 tones in HK and 9 tones in the regional variants in Guangdong, so it's important to master them and understand all the nuances of their pitch differences.
7. Write, write, write. Attempt to gather thoughts first in my native tongue, then try my best to translate a paragraph using my Cantonese vocab so far and learn new words in the process.
It's worth noting this takes up the majority of my free time, essentially being my major "hobby" as I have a goal of fluency within the next few years.
It's a tough world out there for anyone learning a Chinese language that isn't Mandarin. Overall, I learned there _are_ indeed resources and people are more than willing to help. If anyone is learning Cantonese, please DM me and I'd be happy to share more information.
My hat's off to you for learning Cantonese, it's not easy both on the surface (more tones than Mandarin, traditional vs simplified characters), but also for the paucity of Canto-specific resources, as you point out.
Finally, it really is a dying language and I myself struggled with squaring the effort I was putting in with the perceived benefit I would get from it -- it was largely an attempt at filial piety, so that I could speak with my wife's grandparents and also demonstrate respect, but then they passed away. Nowadays I hear that Cantonese isn't even taught in schools in Hong Kong. The writing is on the wall for the language.
I was amazed that the local community college in my hometown had Cantonese for a long time (before finally giving up and shuttering it about 7 years ago).
Maybe I'm just old and stupid, but I don't feel like I am really learning a lot watching movies in a foreign language. I should probably try to do it more though.
I grew up in San Diego and took like four Spanish classes and even some in college. But never really learned verbal skills and did not use it since school.
I moved to Playas de Tijuana a few years ago to save money. For more than a year I made really minimal efforts to practice my Spanish though. It was not usually necessary since a lot of the people here speak okay English. I usually just take an Uber and it wasn't very important. And since my Spanish was horrible, often it felt counterproductive to try.
But the last several months I have been making a deliberate modest effort to practice. And I feel like I am slowly getting less hopeless.
But I would say if you are going for the immersion route and are lazy (practical?) like me, you might actually have to go somewhere kind of far (definitely not right next to the border) to find a place where you really need to use it a lot due to lack of English in the population. Here it is a little too easy to find people who are fluent in English.
Part of the challenge for me is that I didn't want to sound like an idiot. I decided to just accept that and now I pretend that verb tenses don't exist (I was pretty good at them in high school but that was like 25 years ago) and it makes it much easier. Lol.
The biggest helper that wasn’t mentioned is keeping or making new friends who are strong in your target language and weak in your strong tongue. That has helped me more than anything
I've found that the problem with this most of the time is that we end up just speaking English because it's less frustrating (simply because most people are better at it because of exposure) than trying to use each other's tongue.
For Spanish, I use the General English-Spanish dictionary for iOS from https://www.wordmagicsoft.com (they also have Android and desktop apps, apparently). It's fantastic: it lets you look up conjugated verbs and has full conjugation tables as well. I can generally read a fair amount without consulting the dictionary (I'm working my way through Hija de la fortuna by Isabel Allende right now), but every so often I need it, especially when I get into some area of unusual subject matter. Last month I read Federico García Lorca's Romancero Gitano which really gave the dictionary a workout. His use of language is so inventive I found myself looking up words I knew because I would be thinking "does that make sense?" an awful lot. I may have to read García Lorca annually just because it expanded my mind so much.
If you are at the point of reading a book (upper intermediate) you chould probably be using a normal Spanish dictionary with the definitions in Spanish.
> As a result I can now speak vastly better than I could 12 months ago,
All the things he lists are consuming the language though (reading/listening), not speaking it. Which is a great start, don't get me wrong, but having to find the correct words and form a sentence is something else than understanding one.
Of course the methods listed should be effective regardless of the language as they simulate immersion, but it will not be so "painless" the further away you move from the European language families which share many similarities.
Are the any professional linguists in this thread?
Reason I ask is I have become very interested in the origin of languages over the last year or so (partially because of Covid). I've been learning German and French for a while now and I find the most difficult parts of learning these languages to be the grammar. I'd like to find a hierarchy of grammar for related languages, and see if there are some patterns that filter down through the child languages. I have a Latin textbook (probably need to dust that off), and am very interested in how these languages (Romance and Germanic) are all stitched together.
One suggestion I didn’t see in here was video games! I switch my Switch to a second language to play Animal Crossing. I’ve found it to be a fun and intuitive way to pick up a little more colloquial language and vocabulary. I’ve had similar good luck with other text-heavy games like the Sims.
Plus, the short format makes it relatively painless, even when your reading comprehension is a little slow. Novels and news were always a slog to me, but a few lines of text feels more manageable. (And less daunting if you have to grab the dictionary.)
You may also consider playing MMO games like WoW. While I never learned English properly, WoW is what allowed me overcome my language barrier and helped me to start communicating with people. Unfortunately I still didn't invest time to properly learn all the grammar, but it was enough for my practical needs.
[+] [-] surfsvammel|5 years ago|reply
I did all the things described in the article, more or less. This was my approach:
1. I had a 1h lesson with a private tutor over Skype (via italki.com) every single day. This was the part which cost me most money. But private tutors from italki is fairly cheap.
2. Listened to the news every day in easy french (RFI has a great short podcast).
3. I watched LOTR (the only one I had available where I could change language and subtitles to be the same) first with English audio and french subtitles, and then french audio and french subtitles and lastly only french audio no subtitles.
4. Listened to french kids books as audiobooks.
5. I read kids book in french.
6. I finished the 3 months with a week of immersive french course in France and then spent another week travelling France alone, committed to only speak french.
7. During this whole time I added 10 words per day into my Anki deck. I also added any other words that I learned along the way. This was quiet a lot of work.
8. During the three months I also went through the Duolingo French course.
After three months of hard work I passed the fluency test for french.
It took quiet a lot of time and quiet a lot of money. But it got the result I was after.
Ps. My tutor also wrote a nice review for me on LinkedIn which I’m very proud of and look at every now and again: “Xxx has learned French with my company. He became fluent in 3 months in has now reached a level close to B2 on the European Framework of Reference, starting from scratch. He has been an extremely hard-working and committed student, with classes every day at 6.30am.”
[+] [-] mumblemumble|5 years ago|reply
I would highly recommend RFI's podcast (Le Journal en Français Facile). At first, it's intimidating, and, despite the name, doesn't feel easy at all. They use simpler vocabulary, but still talk at full speed. You might need to listen to each episode a few times in a row, and read the transcript. And that's exactly what makes it such an effective tool. Struggling through it is part of training your brain to make sense of the sounds of the new language.
There are other options out there that try to be easy for learners by speaking very slowly. That's a trap. It's absolutely easier to understand, but you're learning to understand the wrong thing. The phonics of many languages undergo some subtle mutations when they are spoken slowly. This is especially true in French. So if you only listen to slow language that's over-pronounced to make it easier for learners to understand, you'll end up training your ear to understand the phonics of slow language that's over-pronounced for learners. Which isn't how actual people actually speak.
[+] [-] philshem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] speedgoose|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TsomArp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SV_BubbleTime|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yangikan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stanrivers|5 years ago|reply
Make sure, once you have learned a language, to turn part of your life into a world operating in that language. Choose something - news, movies, books, internet - just pick something. Do that thing only in your new language once you can.
Once that becomes a habit, what you have learned you will not forget. And you will get better over time as well as your brain painlessly absorbs and deeply programs in the target language.
Second most important part - It takes a lot of work and consistency. Say that with me - consistency. Show up every day. If you don't, you will fail. That's one of those terrible truths about learning, and it is especially true about learning a language.
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|5 years ago|reply
William Buckley was lost for more than 30 years among Australian aborigines. By the time he heard of whites in the vicinity, he was unable to speak to them, having forgotten how to produce English.
But, assuming you believe his memoirs, when they spoke to him, he regained his English within a day.
[+] [-] wccrawford|5 years ago|reply
Then I fell off studying, but kept using it recreationally. I didn't pick 1 medium and insist on it because I have a wife that doesn't speak Japanese at all and that just doesn't work.
But I do still use it occasionally for games, anime (with English subs), manga, and sometimes live TV. It's pretty seldom, but it happens.
After a few years of that, I rejoined a Japanese meetup group locally for reading a Manga with them that's above my level. I'm realizing that I'm basically where I was when I stopped studying. I haven't really lost anything.
My point is that I don't think you need to be extreme to maintain. Just casual usage across different media is enough.
[+] [-] giorgosera|5 years ago|reply
Initially I tried the usual things like Duolingo, Babbel and some other apps. Out of those things the only one I found useful was Duolingo because it can get you started pretty quickly.
However, I got stuck after that. I couldn't see myself making any progress. Then I stumbled upon the Comprehensible Input theory and TPRS and since then I've been studying Russian using a method that loosely follows these. Here's what I do:
- I find short stories, news articles, social media posts etc online. - I read those texts and mark down the new words as I learn them. I add those words in a flashcard app and I practice them using SRS. I use an app called Ulangi. - I ask my girlfriend (a native speaker) to ask me short questions about the text and I have to answer in my target language. - Once I feel comfortable with that text I repeat the process with the next one.
And it works (at least for me). I grew my vocabulary immensely, I can acquire grammar rules naturally (like I did with my native language) and I get to actually speak the language from day 1. As an added bonus I get to learn a lot about the culture of my target language.
However, translating and saving words in my vocabulary became tedious so I decided to automate this whole process. So I started building a tool for me. I, then, realized that this might be useful for others so I made it public. You can use it for free at Talkabl.com
[+] [-] interestica|5 years ago|reply
On mobile, I just tested the default French lesson. Right now, the 'dictionary' seems to be displayed dependent on where the last appearance of the word in the text. This means that if I select a word in the first paragraph but the word also appears in the last paragraph, I have to scroll to the bottom to see its definition (and add it to 'my list'). (ex: 'protestaires' in the default FR lesson) The column, in mobile view, gets bumped to the bottom.
I don't think you have to go as far as a modal window - something as simple as 'position:fixed' would let it pop on top of the text (though right now, the dictionary box doesn't have a defined independent class and is not contained). It's probably best for the large-screen view as well: you don't want your text body to be moving around while reading.
But seriously, this is one of the simplest, smartest and most extensible language learning tools I've come across. Thank you for sharing it.
edit// It's a FF/Webkit quirk, but because the parent element (.bx--content) has 'transform' property applied to it, it will prevent the child div from actually responding to 'position:fixed'.
[+] [-] yangikan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|5 years ago|reply
What do you have to do in order to support extra languages? Perhaps ensure font support if loading from web, and the dictionary comes from Wiktionary so you do need to know what language it is, but other than that should 'just work', anything else?
[+] [-] kwhitefoot|5 years ago|reply
I picked French and clicked the "Listen to the lesson" button. But what I got was my computer speaking French words as though they were English. Even my French accent, almost fifty years after failing my high school French exams, is better.
:-)
Can anyone tell me how to make it speak French French instead of Franglais? Apart from that it looks interesting.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] markvdb|5 years ago|reply
- Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life.
- Decide to do something about it.
- Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea.
- Always actively speak the language when in native company.
- Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts.
- Read childrens' books and written press.
- Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier.
That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
[+] [-] nullsense|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rorykoehler|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LordAtlas|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vortegne|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stone-monkey|5 years ago|reply
The volume of content in your target language available on youtube alone is enough to last you a lifetime. Not to mention all the channels specifically catered to teaching the language. Then the online tutoring marketplaces - you can be directly connected to a tutor from a country that speaks your language natively and remotely schedule 1:1 lessons at your convenience via video conferencing software. Plus the availability of language partner sites to practice if you're on a budget.
The biggest problem in my opinion is people struggling with self directed learning, more than anything. A college level course is likely going to be objectively worse than self directed study with targeted goals, but many people dont have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve in their target language other than a vague sense of fluency, myself included. If your language goal is to become fluent in a language, that's a goal with no defined end in sight.
[+] [-] woile|5 years ago|reply
*if you are an English speaker.
Otherwise you have to do an extra hop.
native -> English -> target
but I agree it's still the best time in history to learn a language.
[+] [-] encom|5 years ago|reply
Not if your target language is danish. Danish YouTube somehow never evolved beyond clickbaity reaction videos and Minecraft letsplays. There are good danish YouTubers[1][2], but they present their material in english. Your best bet for danish content that won't cause acute brain rot, is probably music and film clips, or VPN'ing your way to the danish state broadcaster www.dr.dk. It's like BBC, but with more rødgrød.
Such as (no affiliation): [1]https://www.youtube.com/user/brainiac75 [2]https://www.youtube.com/user/SirNetrom1
[+] [-] metters|5 years ago|reply
> many people dont have a clear goal of what they're trying to achieve in their target language other than a vague sense of fluency
> If your language goal is to become fluent in a language, that's a goal with no defined end in sight
This is why I like tests that 'proof' the level (e.g. CEFR, HSK, NLPT, and so on) It does not make anyone better and does not really proof that one can converse in the language, but for me as a learner it is a nice goal to have. I can study by myself and know what I am learning for (the test for the next level)
Fluency just comes with it imo and needs immersion and practise anyway. Practise would mean application of the things learnt before
[+] [-] ablekh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanjaeger|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markvdb|5 years ago|reply
- Go mad because you don't understand a word of what's happening around you for the first time in your life.
- Decide to do something about it.
- Take a three week university summer introductory course. Erasmus courses area great idea.
- Always actively speak the language when in native company.
- Pick up at least the basics from news broadcasts.
- Read childrens' books and written press.
- Study five common new words a day from my actual use (speaking, listening, reading) using a spaced repetition algorithm. The article mentions ankiweb. It's stellar. Picking from your own use tailors to your needs and interests. It also makes finding example phrases easier.
That worked rather well for me getting to CEFR[0] C1 in Latvian.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
[+] [-] pessimizer|5 years ago|reply
So 100% live conversation, with a rising percentage of reading material after achieving some small degree of fluency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Xj3rGu1T0
I know it's not a great suggestion during the time of covid. I wonder if the online language exchange apps provide for different forms of interaction? The ability to show a picture or flip through a magazine or picture-book simultaneously with mouse pointer visibility on both sides would be nice.
[+] [-] guerrilla|5 years ago|reply
Also a fun thing to to is read the Bible in multiple languages since it is translated into nearly everything and has free high quality audiobooksnfor everything but this can sometimes teach you arcane grammar and useless vocab but I find it useful anyway since you get side by sife comparison and can read along and have a massive corpus which probably infpunced the modern culture a lot. Try reading a language you just learned next to the next one you're learning, skipping your mother tongue.
[+] [-] mathieuh|5 years ago|reply
I’m not sure how it is in the US, but in the UK we don’t even get taught the grammar of English. No one knows grammatical terms, like preposition, person, the name of tenses, the subjunctive, or even simple ones like verbs, adjective, adverbs and nouns.
When you don’t even know formally how your own language is structured, it is very difficult to learn another language.
For example, my mother (native French-speaker) gives private French lessons. She finds that instead of saying “ok today we’re going to learn about the subjunctive mood, the root is the third person plural of the indicative mood of the verb with the following endings”, she spends most of her time having to explain what those terms mean.
I realise that there may be other ways that are less formal to learn languages, but at the end of the day, grammars follow rules, and if you don’t even understand the rule book in your own language you’re already at a huge disadvantage in my opinion.
All these online articles claiming “don’t worry about grammar, that will come later” are missing out on what I think is the most important tool in language learning.
[+] [-] candeira|5 years ago|reply
In her case, the target language is Spanish, so she does courses from Domestika: https://www.domestika.org/
[+] [-] AmericanChopper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kashyapc|5 years ago|reply
If you've enjoyed a non-fiction book in English, for example, pick up the equivalent translation in your target language. It lets you compare and contrast; and the experience can also be richer.
This definitely requires good discipline, but it is rewarding :-)
[+] using the reference "B2" or "C1" from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
[+] [-] eequah9L|5 years ago|reply
Be wary though, not all translations are created equal, there might be errors or divergences.
I remember the Russian version translated "I will go so far as to send you on this adventure" incorrectly as "I went all this way because of you" or some such. (And a number of other blunders of this sort.)
Also one of the Stephenson's Baroque Cycle books had "men-of-war" translated to Czech as literally "warriors".
It's a good approach overall though.
[+] [-] lengjai|5 years ago|reply
1. 1h lesson every Sunday with a professional Cantonese teacher from italki.com (native speaker from Hong Kong) 2. Focus on pattern recognition of character radicals, write with pen and paper 30 new vocab words per week. Starting on Monday, I would prepare the words of the week, focusing on utility. Then, I would write each word every morning 10-15 times. Thankfully, my memory would never forget a character after doing this approach. 3. Focus on listening and reading advanced content with an OCR translator handy, even if it was very uncomfortable, difficult, I would not stop until I 100% understood a paragraph down to its nuances 4. Keep a handy grammar book or resource cheat sheet, covering particular grammar edge cases 5. Conversation practice every day with my girlfriend, with the goal of pushing myself into uncomfortable territory by trying to express complex ideas and not just talk about the weather 6. Native speaking intonation practice every Saturday, focusing on all the different phonemes and listening to various native speakers pronounce sounds I had a hard time enunciating, such as the `ng` sound or `j` vs. `ch` in Cantonese. Cantonese has 6 tones in HK and 9 tones in the regional variants in Guangdong, so it's important to master them and understand all the nuances of their pitch differences. 7. Write, write, write. Attempt to gather thoughts first in my native tongue, then try my best to translate a paragraph using my Cantonese vocab so far and learn new words in the process.
It's worth noting this takes up the majority of my free time, essentially being my major "hobby" as I have a goal of fluency within the next few years.
It's a tough world out there for anyone learning a Chinese language that isn't Mandarin. Overall, I learned there _are_ indeed resources and people are more than willing to help. If anyone is learning Cantonese, please DM me and I'd be happy to share more information.
[+] [-] philsnow|5 years ago|reply
Finally, it really is a dying language and I myself struggled with squaring the effort I was putting in with the perceived benefit I would get from it -- it was largely an attempt at filial piety, so that I could speak with my wife's grandparents and also demonstrate respect, but then they passed away. Nowadays I hear that Cantonese isn't even taught in schools in Hong Kong. The writing is on the wall for the language.
I was amazed that the local community college in my hometown had Cantonese for a long time (before finally giving up and shuttering it about 7 years ago).
http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/ is a great resource for anybody learning Cantonese.
[+] [-] ilaksh|5 years ago|reply
I grew up in San Diego and took like four Spanish classes and even some in college. But never really learned verbal skills and did not use it since school.
I moved to Playas de Tijuana a few years ago to save money. For more than a year I made really minimal efforts to practice my Spanish though. It was not usually necessary since a lot of the people here speak okay English. I usually just take an Uber and it wasn't very important. And since my Spanish was horrible, often it felt counterproductive to try.
But the last several months I have been making a deliberate modest effort to practice. And I feel like I am slowly getting less hopeless.
But I would say if you are going for the immersion route and are lazy (practical?) like me, you might actually have to go somewhere kind of far (definitely not right next to the border) to find a place where you really need to use it a lot due to lack of English in the population. Here it is a little too easy to find people who are fluent in English.
Part of the challenge for me is that I didn't want to sound like an idiot. I decided to just accept that and now I pretend that verb tenses don't exist (I was pretty good at them in high school but that was like 25 years ago) and it makes it much easier. Lol.
[+] [-] 082349872349872|5 years ago|reply
Fosh wowk gutegow natim. Im gut kowltim.
Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNuGjqjyQo
[+] [-] werber|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seszett|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rimliu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dhosek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jobigoud|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matsemann|5 years ago|reply
All the things he lists are consuming the language though (reading/listening), not speaking it. Which is a great start, don't get me wrong, but having to find the correct words and form a sentence is something else than understanding one.
[+] [-] mellowdream|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remarkEon|5 years ago|reply
Reason I ask is I have become very interested in the origin of languages over the last year or so (partially because of Covid). I've been learning German and French for a while now and I find the most difficult parts of learning these languages to be the grammar. I'd like to find a hierarchy of grammar for related languages, and see if there are some patterns that filter down through the child languages. I have a Latin textbook (probably need to dust that off), and am very interested in how these languages (Romance and Germanic) are all stitched together.
[+] [-] adyer07|5 years ago|reply
Plus, the short format makes it relatively painless, even when your reading comprehension is a little slow. Novels and news were always a slog to me, but a few lines of text feels more manageable. (And less daunting if you have to grab the dictionary.)
[+] [-] vbezhenar|5 years ago|reply