Ask HN: Did you learn a language online? How fluent are you now?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15055715

by superasn • 9 years ago

13 13 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What worked and didn't work for you?

oblib2• 9 years ago

I learned Javascript and a bit of Python online, but I'd learned Perl years before that by reading the O`Reilly books.

What works for me is learning on a "need to know" basis. JS and Python are not so different than Perl, and most all languages have common traits and features so it comes down to learning syntax a lot of times.

I am not very fluent. I reference APIs and sample code, and head to Stackoverflow for answers a lot, but only when I need to and I don't hesitate when I need to because you can waste a lot of time doing that.

superasn3• 9 years ago

Haha I guess those are languages too, rather this being hacker news it's what comes to mind first. That's great advice by the way. I too started with perl and pretty much followed the same route. I wish learning real languages was equally easy as googling stack overflow and learning it in the process!

oblib2• 9 years ago

It honestly never occurred to me this was about "foreign languages". lol!!!

superasn3• 9 years ago

After playing Duolingo for almost 345 days straight and completing the course (english to french) I tried watching a french TV channel today and i couldn't even understand one single sentence.

I feel that while I have learnt a few basic words it's very difficult to get any fluency using such an app.

I guess the best way to learn a new language is to directly immerse yourself into the environment but that's not possible for me. So I was wondering what other ways are there to learn a new language and what worked for you..

dynamicdox• 9 years ago

I have had the same experience as you. Duolingo in particular I think provides a false sense of progress, as it can be somewhat of a guessing game that is pretty easy. What I have found the best is to use a flash cards type app, creating different categories: verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. after all, a lot of learning a language is memorization. Supplementing this with watching tv with subtitles has proven to be pretty effective for me, but of course as you say, nothing is better than being in a place and speaking the language every day.

auxbuss• 9 years ago

After Duolingo, I've been using clozemaster (for Spanish). I paid the USD 40 pa for the audio version. I type responses rather than answer via multiple choice. It's a lot more challenging than Duolingo, and I've learned a _lot_ more vocab.

I don't think language is about memorization so much as it becoming part of your zombie mode, as the learning folks like to call it. Kind of a innate understanding.

Other sites I've used:

* yabla [1] for listening comprehension

* lang-8 [2] for writing

newsinslowspanish [3] do a free podcast of the first 10-15 minutes of each of their shows. Reading Spanish news' sites helps; most have additional videos these days. I read EuroNews in Spanish. They also have an app.

Of course, there's tons of stuff on YouTube.

[0] https://www.clozemaster.com/ [1] https://www.yabla.com/ [2] http://lang-8.com/ [3] https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/

Denzel2• 9 years ago

Hmm, I wonder if there's a disparity between Duolingo's en->french versus en->spanish. Both my mother and I are on the Spanish track. I don't know how far along my mother is, but I'm only about 25-30% of the way through the lessons (still on present tense). And I'm nowhere near dedicated to practicing everyday. Maybe once every few days for 2-3 hours.

However, I can atest that Duolingo provided me with a quantum leap in understanding, writing, and speaking, that all my years in grade 1-12 Spanish classes never did.

I'll definitely agree that Duolingo isn't the end-all-be-all, you'd do best to supplement.

But my girlfriend is a native bilingual speaker (Spanish and English); my barber only speaks Spanish; and I'm able to converse with them to the point where they understand what I'm saying, and sometimes provide feedback on how I can improve.

I'll give a quick example, when saying "cada" (every) my girlfriend wasn't able to completely understand what I was saying because I wasn't putting enough emphasis on the 'd' so to her native ear it was too close to sounding like "cara" (face). I've since improved that.

Nonetheless I understand far more than I speak. I can listen to Spanish speakers and intuit the gist of what they're saying even when they use tenses I'm not familiar with yet. Mainly because I have a grasp on pronouns, determiners, adjectives, etc. A lot of the things Duolingo helped me with.

Back to the supplementation. You need to supplement.

My mother and I have started reading middle-school level books in Spanish, we always keep a Spanish-to-English dictionary close by (eventually we'll move to a full Spanish dictionary), we watch children shows in Spanish, and we've signed up for a class at our local library where you spend half your time helping a Spanish speaker that's learning English and vice versa.

What we've found, especially with the books, is that you begin to grasp things more contextually. It's hard to explain. But you rely less on direct translation back to English, and finally are able to just say "this makes sense in Spanish, I get it." You also run into how words and grammar are used in the real-world. Same with texting a native Spanish speaker, you'll pickup slang/informal speaking that much quicker.

Like you, I can't watch a news channel with full understanding right now. My brain is able to pick apart the words and understand the gist, but it gets lost in the details, and then by then the anchor has moved on. It's frustrating, yes, but you just have to keep doing it. You may have to rewind... you may have to pronounce what they're saying over and over again until it feels natural... you may have to look some things up, and that's all apart of learning.

The more you deliberately exercise at your limits, the quicker you'll develop your capacity.

superasn3• 9 years ago

Thanks for the insightful answer. You're lucky that your girlfriend and some other people around you speak Spanish and I'm sure that must be super helpful.

Also like you I'm also planning to watch some actual videos, starting at children's video too but without any help (e.g. no subs).. maybe i'll miss 90% of it, but i think when you have all these crutches you stop putting that effort or maybe you miss the "aha" moment that is crucial in learning such new things.

Nicholas_C• 9 years ago

Could you understand it if you turned on closed captioning and paused the TV to read them?

I primarily used Duolingo to learn Spanish. I think it's a great tool and starting point, but if that's all you use to learn you will have holes in your practical knowledge of the language. I think there are three factors that make the jump from Duolingo to real life hard:

1. Accent - In duolingo the speaker uses a relatively neutral accent. In real life speakers usually have a bit of an accent and do not speak perfectly.

2. Speed - In duolingo the speaker uses moderately paced speech, you have plenty of time to process what they are saying. In real life speech is faster and words blend together.

3. Vocabulary - In real life you may hear a word or a conjugation of a word that you've never heard before. You won't have time to process it and figure out what it means before they start on the next sentence. You may be stuck on the first sentence trying to guess the context of the unknown word while they say the second sentence, and by then you've missed both.

All three of these factors come together when listening to language outside of Duolingo and can make it frustrating. I'm still not great at Spanish but I did a few things to get past being a Duolingo Spanish speaker to become an actual Spanish speaker:

1. Immersed myself for a few weeks in a country that speaks only the language I was learning (I know you said this wasn't an option for you, but leaving it here for others.)

2. Read books and newspaper articles in the target language to get an idea of how actual sentence structures work. This can be tedious because there is a lot of unknown vocab but I think it's important.

3. Watched TV shows in the target language. This can be tedious as well. I generally put the closed captions in Spanish and read them along with listening to the words. If I'm feeling confident I take away the closed captioning. This can be tedious as well because you may not understand everything and end up going back to re-watch a scene.

4. Listened to music/radios/podcasts in my target language. 5. Used iTalki/WhatsApp/dating apps to practice conversation with native Spanish speakers

At the end of the day I would say the major key is to listen as much as possible to the real language spoken by native speakers, ideally in an informal manner so that it is closer to what you would hear on the street.

Mz• 9 years ago

My mother says her English became fluent from watching American TV. So, I will suggest you look for subtitled videos online in the target language.

There is a large difference between spoken and written. If you want to be able to converse in it, you need to develop an ear for it. I have an ear for German, which I never studied in school. I never developed an ear for French, though I studied it in both high school and college. I can make conversation in German. I can read and writes little French, but trying to verbally exchange pleasantries in French is hard.

Decide what your goal is. Realize that understanding is easier than replying, both verbally and in writing.

tomdre• 9 years ago

When I moved to France from Italy I didn't speak a single word of French. I spent 5 months on Duolingo (en->fr), hung out with French colleagues, read books and watch cartoons for kids (Asterix and Tin Tin are my favorite).

After 8 months I was able to speak fluently French. A strong advantage was that I already spoke a romance language.

server36• 9 years ago

If phone lines are considered online, then yes. I learned mostly from listening to conversations. The easiest is just to listen.

If you cannot be around native speakers, try phone calls. Making a phone call stops you from feeling ashamed, but helps you to practice (standard) sentences and listening. It helps that they usually have a specific context. Look up standard sentences for a topic (like hotels or restaurants) and just call. If the call gets awkward you can always hang up.

Ask HN: Did you learn a language online? How fluent are you now?

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