Language Learning Thread

Thanks mate

Learning French. Read l'étranger without too many problems. La chute is hard. Candide was too hard. Been working on it 12-18 months.

I agree with everything you said. I already know Spanish and focus entirely on Greek. Tried German but will probably pick up some other time. (Add Arabic joke in here)

I see Duolingo for dabbling in things and seeing how you like them. By the end you have a couple hundred word vocab(if practiced enough) and a nice feel for the language. But to reach real competence you need to bump up your vocab and grammar knowledge.

The day streak is really rewarding for autists like me who are compulsive about stuff like that. I always make time no matter how busy/tired I am. Every little bit counts.

Currently learning Spanish. I have family from Spain and friends from Spain/Mexico so luckily I know many that are fluent so that I can converse with and learn from them. Although, I'm using memrise instead of Duolingo. Is Duolingo better? I enjoy memrise.

How is Greek? I am learning French right now, but I think Greek is way more fun, but I know it is not as useful. Only problem is, I am already 5 months into intensively studying French, so I do not want to switch to Greek unless it is really worth it.

It really feels nice being able to read a different set of letters. It feels so alien at first but once you get the hang of it its super comfy.
Its a hell of alot easier than Ancient Greek and I would absolutely suggest Modern Greek before going into Older Greeks if you want to actually reach competence in any of them.
No great value in Modern Greek lit as far as I know but I do plan on reading the New Testament and Iliad in Greek soon.
It isn't very different from Romance languages, once you get the hang of the letters you realize there are alot of common roots from your previous language knowledge (Scientific English/Latin/oddly Spanish)

How about the grammar and overall difficulty? Even Modern Greek is probably significantly more difficult than French? I already know the Greek alphabet inside and out btw.

I've been working on French for about a year and a half in and outside the classroom. I'll go to France too this summer to aid in immersion.
I've also been dabbling in Norwegian for about a year just for its fun structure.
Also I just started Vietnamese with a lot of help from a friend who speaks it fluently. It's really nice to see how a language that is neither Germanic nor Romance does things.

>do the majority of my studying by watching let's play videos on youtube with a dictionary

Eventually I'll have to move on to more intensive study methods for Veeky Forums purposes, but for crossing that gap to conversational level with minimal ego depletion I would definitely recommend studying something that you can have fun with rather than a textbook or program.

Why not montreal? It would be much cheaper (unless you are not a burger) and generally speaking the english spoken in montreal is much better than in France.

Burger here. I know people in France who I'm staying with, I don't know the Canadian dialect as well and I'd like more immersion with less English (though the people I'm staying with speak amazing English)

You could talk to qt girls on the internet as well, th victory condition is a picture of their asshole.

Any recommendations for someone who wants to learn Akkadian? Textbooks, sites, etc?

why would you learn the language of failed economy

I've been studying italian for a while, now. I'm fluent enough that i picked sanskrit up, and been copying verses of the bhagavad gita in my notebook. Tried to do the french and german duolingo trees at the same time, but gave up. I always post my method on other threads, but here goes: write down the six grammatical persons of the language in a column, and next to it, columns of verbs conjugated for each person, with the different tenses and modes (conditional, subjuntive, etc), this is for vocab mostly; practice what you learn with duolingo, and after that, marathon of anime dubbed in the language you want (i watch anime, but whatever works for you. I just recommend cartoons because it's easier to make out what you hear than in live action movies)

Phonics -> Vocabulary (~1000 words) -> Grammar

In that order.

Use flash cards. Make your own decks. Use pictures instead of translations. Include audio files for every word you want to learn. After you have a vocabulary of around 1000 most common words, prepositions, and pronouns, open up a grammar textbook, and start studying.

Congradulations, you'll be conversational in 6 months.

Modern Greek is easy comparatively to Latin and Ancient Greek. Only have to worry about Nominative, Accusative, Genitive cases for modern Greek.
Understanding cases is a one time thing for Latin/Greek/German/etc. Once you get it, applying it to other languages isn't hard but its a medium/large jump from no cases in Modern English/French/Spanish.

I don't know French but treating it as Spanish, it is more difficult to remember Greek words especially the bloody random accents. Knowing Latin makes everything easier. It is easy to to translate from Greek to English but I have massive trouble going from English to Greek is the point I'm at in my study.

Modern Greece is a pathetic broken nation. At this point their entire national identity revolves around the current economic crisis(based on the news and forums I translate). They don't hate the Turks and don't care about reclaiming their homeland. A bunch of Turkish rape babies and refugees-in-transit is all that is left in the husk of a former cultural monolith.
But the history is still in the written word.

Duolingo is such a waste of fucking time, just learn 10 - 20 words (or more) a day, practice the grammar by writing and participating in online discussion and read books, it's all you need to learn any language.

t. extremely fluent in 4 languages and currently learning Japanese.

I'm studying Mandarin, preparing for HSK3. I think I could study languages with other scripts at the same time and I'm thinking about picking up Arabic and Spanish.

It's intended to be used as a supplement, not a sole means by which you learn a complete language. If one were to use only Duolingo, it would get you to A1, maybe A2, at the very best.

I used it to pace myself, and to see what I needed to study next. A module or two per week would get you by; I also immersed myself quite a bit with additional reading and listening. After finishing the French tree, I could read L'étranger, with minimal dictionary usage, within the year of my starting French. Le Petit Prince I read within two months of starting, and I found that Duolingo actually taught me much of the vocabulary found within it.

I see far too many people shitting on Duolingo when it doesn't really pretend to be anything more than a game.

Doing Japanese at the moment, I've dedicated my last month entirely to grammar rules as I find switching between listening, vocabulary very distracting. Once I solidify my grammar, get a general framework of the language, I will be piecing together other parts.

Once I reach N3 level (hopefully by the end of next year) I plan on doing either language school or working holiday over there to for full immersion and test for N2. Once I reach N2, I'll have finished my bsc. So I'll teach English for a bit before moving on to another language/country.

I hope to be completely fluent in 4 languages by the time I reach 25 -- currently I'm fluent in 2 and around N4 level in Japanese (self taught for 2 years).

>Just learn 10-20 words a day
>Duolingo is shit
What do you think Duolingo is used for?

This is how I've been learning to read Russian. It gets easier.

Learning Russian for just over a year now. Can read news blogs and sites/childrens books with essentially no difficulty. Have been trying to read real literature for a bit now on readlang and its quite hard. The required vocabulary is frankly immense, and I guess it doesn't help that I skipped from childrens books to Gogol.

>and can't speak it for shit.

So what's the point?

books my dude.

Also when you can read and listen speaking will come fairly quickly if you ever need to speak it regularly.

Trying to learn German, doing it through extra shit in college. Got it as my paper today and I fucked it up

post how to get better in languages ITT :)

want to learn german (currently using duolingo)

>duolingo
Don't.

>Also when you can read and listen speaking will come fairly quickly

It's quite the opposite my dude.

When compared to not knowing anything of the language at all?

Don't be dense.

>Duolingo
The Japanese course was supposed to unlock today, but fucking nothing so far

You can access it anyway. There's a reddit thread on how to do it on /r/duolingo.

I warn you though, it's a crap course and extremely substandard for duolingo

I'm learning Spanish and French on Duolingo but put French on pause because I was starting to mix everything up. I finished the Spanish course but am still trying to keep everything gold and am watching telenovelas without any subtitles and am starting to understand the begins and endings of sentences, but the middles of longer sentences just sound like random Mexican noises. Also I practice reading the Spanish news paper El País out loud so I can work on my accent.

> I plan on doing either language school or working holiday over there to for full immersion and test for N2.

Just a warning: it's difficult to get "full immersion" in Japan, unless you are outside of any major city and are in a small company where everyone's English is shit. A lot of Japanese coworkers won't waste their time trying to talk to you in Japanese unless you're already highly proficient, and will insist on speaking in English, regardless of how good (or not good) their own English is. I worked for about 9 months at a big Japanese company in Tokyo, and had passed N3 prior to going; I didn't get any immersion, and scarcely used Japanese at work except when talking to security and some of the clerical staff. I actually used Japanese more outside of work, like talking to city hall officials, shopping, doctor's office, etc. I have friends who are or were doing JET or other English-teaching jobs, and those who aren't in small countryside towns say they haven't seen much improvement in their abilities over 1.5-2 years.

If you really want to improve your skills in a short time, do the language school; it may cost money, but it's a better investment of your time and effort.

The hardest part for me is connecting the new vocabulary with the thing, not the English translation.
Now it's like:
New word --> English word --> thing

What I want:
New word --> thing

Any tips?

You mean abstract concepts or real things like trees, cars etc?

Need to read more, listen more, communicate more.
It just comes with time. With more and more practice you'll find you're listening and not translating

>For you polyglots (duoglot english doesn't count) what tips/tricks/suggestions do you have?

>Staying with begginner material for too long
Duolinguo and begginer books are fine for dipping your toe in the language, but IMO you should drop them after 3-4 months into learning. People will say "B-but I'm not ready for A2/B1 yet!", and they will be right. You need to push your boundaries in order to advance. If you try and it seems hard or you feel lost, then the beginner book and your grammar will always be there. But you NEED to progress, and you can only do so by increasing difficulty.

>More than one language at a time
I would say 2 at most, and that's only if you are around C1 at one of them

>Waiting to get the "perfect material in order to start
There's no "best" method for learning as we all learn differently. For instance I have friends that swear by anki to improve their vocabulary, but I personally can't stand flashcards and I prefer to read with a dictionary. So try different approaches and you will eventually find the method that suits you best. Best of all, by the time you have found a good method/routine, you will hopefully already have a decent grasp of the language.

>Using only "learners" material
You must also consume media intended for natives. Not only it will show you how real people actually speak, but it is also a lot more interesting than books/movies/podcasts aimed at learners.

>Time, time, time, time
Language learning is all about time. You will need to spend several years of your life to master just about any language. It is easy to get discouraged, but you need to push through those moments when you feel you are making no progress.
People usually assume that I have a "gift" for languages. The truth is, I'm a slow learner. I grew up bilingual and then learned three other languages over a span of almost two decades. If you are willing to put in the time, the results will show no matter your innate capacity.

>Inmersion
If you are serious about mastering a language, a stay in the country is almost mandatory. If you are happy with a C1 level or so, you should find a tandem partner or join a class. Basically any face to face conversation is invaluable practice IMO. I do know a guy that has gotten crazy good at Spanish by self-learning, but even him acknowledges how much he improved once he could chat with me in Spanish.

This is all based on my subjective experience, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

That is completely normal. Give it some time, thinking in a foreign language is not something that happens overnight or that you can really "force". With more practice comes a gradual change in the way you use the language and think about it.

Isn't duolingo's Greek course modern Greek? If so, why would you do this?

I want to start learning latin, where do I begin?

Wheelock's

what a nice, constructive thread!!

I have no interest in learning a language but i support your endeavours

I personally just want to be able to sound out the greek words I see in my texts, since they tend to give a definition and a spelling, but not a pronunciation.

could you be more specific

I'm not OP but i suppose that learning modern Greek would serve to read modern authors such as Kazantzakis and Seferis (because it's not like Greece hasn't produced anything of literary value in the last 500 years) while it makes it easier to learn Ancient Greek due to the similarities of both languages.

The pronunciation of philosophical terms quoted in literature changed between ancient and modern Greek. Go ancient or go home.

Wheelock's Latin is a beginners grammar text book/work book.

how?

Words are total abstractions until you tie them to experiences. This is something that can't really be accomplished by simply studying. What I would do is make a flashcard deck where you add words as you come across them in the wild, and then also include a little reminder word that will trigger the memory of the initial time you encountered it. Say you were reading a book about bank robbers and one of the characters used the word "vault". Maybe include the title of the book or the name of the character who said it on your flashcard. Your brain will still go

Foreign word for "vault" --> Bank robbing book/bank robber's name --> the concept of vault

for a while, but the concept of bank robbery that will accompany the trigger word you use is much more closely related to the concept of vault than the arbitrary syllables/letters that make up the English word "Vault" that accidentally got associated with the word in your initial process of studying.

youtube.com/watch?v=uFOX6rM9nCM
Don't worry about it, not important or beneficial.

see Mostly about making Archaic Greek easier, the rich history of Greece does not fall under a single dialect. Reading Greek lettering like I read the Latin Alphabet was a major jump for me. I do plan to read modern Greek Lit and visit the country. If you have tried Ancient Greek you know how much of a slog it is.

Very good contribution thank you.

bump

thanks for the link, this guy's channel is very insightful

Holy shit if you use duolingo to learn a language you are 100% retarded. It will actually probably do more harm than good.

You want to be helpful and recommend something better?

Mfw want to learn ASL because I like the feeling of talking through primitive hand motions
There's just something so natural about it

In my opinion, the effectiveness of duolingo and other language websites seem dubious. Casually learning languages isn't going to make anything stick. If you want to he fluent in a language you have to actively study it and not do a couple vocab quizzes on your lunch break.

I've been learning french since last august and since I've made a lot of progress, I thought it'd be a good idea to do a language immersion course with my uni in Paris this summer.
Holy shit is it hard. I can't understand a casual exchange at the grocery store yet. Everything's so fast, people start talking to me and I start stuttering out "Je suis dessolé, mais je parle seulement un peu de français" and they're already shouting over me by dessolé. I'm in an intermediate course with a really nice professor that's going well, but everyone else on the program is some private school kid who's been learning from a french tutor and traveling the world since they were six. Professors talk to me and I pick up two or three words and respond based on what I think they're saying, but I really have no idea. I'm here until june 30th so I'm really hoping I can see some improvement by then but holy shit, I feel like I'm drowning.

Don't worry lad, you are making progress just by hearing and trying to articulate your thoughts in french. I know it can feel overwhelming but try to focus on the good. You are not there to understand everything but to improve your French and to have a great time

Learning Russian and have precisely 0 interest in ever going to Russia, only reading. Over time my interest in reading has only increased, but I've wanted less and less to go anywhere near that god forsaken hole of a country.

Learning the language has given me access to various resources from which I've learned about Russia as a country, and I don't think I've ever seen a faster descent to 3rd world from 1st world. It's deeply depressing, and honestly I can't fathom why anyone would want to touch that steaming pile of shit that passes for a country with a 10 foot pole.

Good books though.

Thank you user. It's just very stressful. I can parce written french fairly well, I just can't process anything fast enough to keep up in a conversation. I didn't realize how easy my professors made things in the classes I've taken in burgerland.

Chill out hillary, I guess its a scary place if ur a pussy

You're doing it wrong m8. French ppl are the worst when is about their language.

Nah man, I don't mean politically. I mean literally an irredeemable shithole on the brink of economic collapse, I feel very bad for them.

Lingvist>>>>>>Duolingo

Seriously, that shit is amazing for vocabulary, in 15 days I could read basic german stuff easily.

>tfw duolingo makes you pronounce the words into the mic and you sound like brad pitt in inglorious basterds attempting italian

Just don't use that feature then? Duo isn't the best for pronunciation.

Duolingo is a bad meme. Take the time to find, or make better resources.

I want to learn a second language, but I have no idea which one to learn.

What is the culture that interests you the most outside of the anglosphere?

Duolingo and things like it are good introductions to languages but yeah, the only way to learn a language is to just hear, read, and speak it all the time with people who are fluent in it. It's like learning an instrument where you have to accept that you suck and just constantly try to improve.

Idk. I like a few Swedish movies. Islamic culture is kinda interesting too. Also, Italy seems like a cool place. I like the way Russian sounds.

Spanish would probably be the best choice for me since it's the most likely to come up since I live in the South in the U.S., but Idk if it's really something that appeals to me.

Hey OP, how did you go learning the Greek alphabet? I really struggle with it.

Yeah it was a big jump for me too. I had practiced enough to associate the sounds with the letters when I started Duolingo's course. What made a massive difference was actually typing in Greek. I am a fast english typer(long time committing internet faggotry) and now I can type quite quickly in Greek too. It has made it so I unconsciously associate the Greek letters with the English keyboard letters. (Switch between keyboards by shortcuts obvi) This might not work very well if you have to look at your keyboard when typing in your native language.

I'd suggest picking up the coarse on Duolingo, you can do the practices without a timer at first and then as you get more comfortable you can challenge yourself with the timer and that really pushes you to learn. This is why I like it so much, it is regardless of Modern or Ancient, I can read comfortably now without having to think about the letters which was a truly pleasant realization.

>Tfw people bashing duolingo
Its for baby's first attempt at learning the language. If I wanted to learn Spanish I wouldn't suggest it but for Greek it is a massive help (It does not teach Grammar well, find out about Gender, Cases, Declensions, etc beforehand to understand whats going on).

Is it realistic for someone with a lisp (i pronounce 'mass' kinda like 'maff', and i have difficulties with the letter 'r' some times) to learn german? What are some languages which someone with a lisp wont have that much difficulty with?

Pls no bully

Started learning French pretty recently, about 2 weeks ago.

Enjoying it so far but I can't for the fucking life of me pronounce the r sound correctly. Like in a few words I can make my mouth and throat do something that almost gets there, but some words (like "arbre" for example) just seem fucking impossble. And even the words I can somewhat pronounce the r in properly, I seem to only do it properly like one tenth of the time.

German. I've been out of class for a while and I'm a bit rusty, which is unfortunate because I'm going to Germany in just over a week

> (It does not teach Grammar well, find out about Gender, Cases, Declensions, etc beforehand to understand whats going on)
The problem with me is that I don't understand grammatical concepts in English. When my various German resources talk about "indefinite verbs" or "word clauses" I have no idea what they mean.

>people bashing duolingo

It's deserving solely for the fact that it's a meme at this point and there are better apps that serve the same purpose, namely lingvist.

Name some more user. The general consensus is that Duolingo is better than most other apps

Thanks for the heads up user. I will probably need to delay the trip and save up more money for the language school but if what you're saying is right, it will be worth it.

Solid strategy, but how loud are you reading aloud? Unless you're literally screaming then this won't be that effective. Close your door in your room and make sure your'e home alone and honestly wail as loud as you can as you read through the text. You should be screaming, NEMO QUI PLORANDA NON EST STULTUS EST. ET CETERA. The louder you read aloud the more the synapses in your brain will fire off.

anki, memrise, and lingvist provided better retention of vocab I find and gives you far less useless vocab. The only advantage of duo is having some more versitle methods of learning (drop down from list, translate sentence) but not enough to make it worth my while when I'm fucking learning vocab at lightning speed in comparison.

Seriously try all 3 and see if one works better for you. In my experience lingvist > memrise > anki > duolingo

Then why waste your time with a stupid game, when you could play actual vidya in the language you desire to learn?
Duolingo is used for the gamification of language learning while completely failing at actually teaching the language. It is only used by retards that will never end up proficient in any language, because they don't care about learning the language for the sake of understanding the language/culture/works, instead only care about "knowing" a language as a tool to stroke their own dick either before colleagues or for self esteem.

If you use Duolingo for vocabulary, what's the point? You can just pick up a book or even go on youtube and watch a movie or tv show in that language and pick out the vocabulary you don't understand and learn it naturally, but I guess this won't give you any "XP" or "Levels" that you can show off with.

I don't think it matters, there are people with lisps all over the world isn't there?

I'm going through wheelock's latin too. Cheers

I've been studying Japanese for about 3 years. I can read YA stuff without referencing a dictionary too much. I mostly started learning Japanese so I can play video games without feeling like I'm wasting my time; no real plans to read Japanese literature.

Chinese as a cognitive language, Latin as a basis.

My Spanish is so-so, but I am looking to improve.

What's the best strategy? I just want to be able to read the Latin, so will it harm me if I'm learning Chinese and Latin at the same time?

I studied German all through school. I keep it up by listening to news/podcats and reading occasionally.

I started Italian with duolingo, worked through a grammar book, and now try to read simpler books.

I also did a bunch of other duolingo courses just for fun because I like the platform. I like being able to use it in short, five minute chunks throughout my day. I finished Esperanto, Norwegian, French and Spanish. Haven't actually pursued these further, since Italian is my main focus.

What do you guys think of lingq? At the risk of sounding like a shill, i think its pretty good and much better than duolingo or memrise. Its like duolingo but with full sentences instead of words, and it has anki built into it too. I didnt try it exyensively because the free version is very handicapped but i think it is a great system