[kjerzyk]

Alternative: watch native content. Start with easy short content, build up to vlogs, series, movies.

The idea of 'convenient 10 minutes a day' will get you nowhere. People who seriously want to learn a language know it takes 1-2-3 hours of daily immersion. The only way '10 minutes a day' would work is if you lived in a country, were surrounded by the language and only counted 10 minutes you spend reviewing a grammar book.

What all those tools want are users who pay regularly. So if they taught you a language well you'd be gone in a year or two. Duolingo can is great at teaching you a language if you then had to use that language in Duolingo.

[comfypotato]

Are you joking? Starting to learn a language by watching native content? Get out of here with your bullshit. And fuck you for implying I don’t actually want to learn a language on a thread defending a language learning app.

Getting to the point that you can consume media and actually learn a language is the hard part. That’s where Duolingo excels. Obviously fluency takes additional work.

Duolingo’s lessons for foreign alphabets are perfect examples. Some are better than others, but they all teach you how to read the script in a fun and time-manageable way. This aspect of Duolingo is free, fun, and it works.

I’ve made multiple attempts to learn languages with foreign alphabets before, and they’ve failed because of the logistics of studying the basics. Practicing and consuming content once you can function in the language is different, and it requires a different kind of motivation. I’ve never struggled with picking up additional vocab or grammar once the initial hurdles were overcome.

[kjerzyk]

First of - rude. Why would you post something like this on a comment that was actually trying to share some tips with you? I kind of want to ignore it now and say 'well good luck then' but at the same time I want to ignore it and actually give you some advice.

That's how I started with language learning. There are channels that are dedicated to native content that's easy to understand. For example: Dreaming Spanish. You listen to content in you target language and learn sentence structure and vocabulary.

You asked 'is there alternative to Duolingo' and I gave you one. In return I got abuse. Not sure this was worth it.

[watwut]

> People who seriously want to learn a language know it takes 1-2-3 hours of daily immersion.

That is considerable amount of effort that will definitely get you far. However, I know many people who did learned foreign language and the amount of concentrated effort you write about would be unusual for them. Sure, it took years, but no, full hour of daily immersion on regular would be exceptional.

[Tainnor]

It really depends on the language, Japanese takes much longer than Spanish for English speakers for example.

And yeah, you don't need to invest several hours each day - that's unrealistic for most people. But I also think you get nowhere by doing just 10 minutes a day, even if you do it every day for years. You need to set aside time for conscious learning, e.g. on weekends. Then you could e.g. do the 10 minutes a day during the weeks for reviewing vocab, or reading short texts, or whatever.

I don't think you can do it without the occasional "crunch time".

(There's also the fact, of course, that the better you get at your target language the less will consuming content feel like a chore to you and so you can tolerate more of it, and even enjoy it.)

[kjerzyk]

It is a lot of time. But at some point, when you start understanding more, something as simple as watching 20 minutes of The Simpsons in language you're learning instead of English is an immersion. You listen to a podcast or a radio and when you feel like watching random YouTube videos you do it in that language. All of this adds up.

I'm currently averaging 1.5h of video/audio a day and sure, some days it feels like a lot - work is busy, I have to go to the office, gym, and all.

But I'm trying to cross the line of 'I can understand without having to focus really hard' as quickly as I can because then immersion is so much easier. TV, books, podcasts - what I do on a daily basis will all count towards my immersion.