I Learned French in 12 Months

http://www.runwes.com/2020/02/11/howilearnedfrench.html

by ingve • 6 years ago

748 312 6 years ago

runwes.com

spenrose• 6 years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/opinion/contributors/lear...

scottlocklin2• 6 years ago

Being a New York Times Columnist

The article (not the NYT one, which is just typical whiney urban cat lady trash) has a lot of the components of a marketing submarine. Particularly obviously as .... well, who is this person?

I do think apps are pretty helpful in stuffing vocab in the brain. Mixed bag though. Duolingo is shit for me; they don't have continental Portuguese (Memrise does). The rest of it rings true as well (I listen to Portuguese radio at home to work on my understanding when I'm not being a slug).

andrewzah2• 6 years ago

That NYT article is an example of someone basically failing at learning a language, to put it quite bluntly. Learning a language as an adult entails hard work for years and years.

Living in France will not teach you French, besides "survival French" and probably "minimal conversational French". Even having a French partner won't help at all, unless you both commit to speaking French (and then your partner is put into a weird position where they're your partner but have to constantly correct you)...

Acquiring Superior/Distinguished [0] level vocabulary basically entails dense vocabulary study, daily. And then putting it into practice with usage and recognition (i.e. reading French books). Anything else is far too slow.

When I try to tell a story in French, I sense that the listener wants to flee.

The hardest part of learning any language is just accepting that you're going to make mistakes. Maybe French people are more snobbish about French (I have no idea) but generally speaking... people understand that you're taking the time and effort to learn and speak their language.

s/French/<Your Desired Language>/g

I know people who have lived in Korea for 5, 8, 10 years and are frankly still terrible at it. Some of these people own businesses there! Having a bilingual Korean partner is probably the worst thing that I noticed, because you end up always speaking the language that's more convenient, i.e. English.

[0] https://www.languagetesting.com/actfl-proficiency-scale

jackschultz• 6 years ago

Whenever I read posts like this I'm much more impressed with the person's desire, motivation, determination, and strength to go an entire year focusing on one a single goal, not necessarily their learning ability.

So many people, me especially, go through spurts of wanting to learn something new or complete a project, reach a goal, and yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother?

I'll argue it's incredibly rare for people to set goals, work continuously towards them, and consider it a success more so than what they can now do.

hycaria• 6 years ago

He never touches on the why

melling• 6 years ago

Learning a second language is a goal for many people.

It’s pretty cool to learn a second language and travel. I learned Spanish and backpacked from Guatemala to Buenos Aires over 9 months. I spent the first 3 months learning Spanish in Guatemala.

sjf• 6 years ago

I feel like the number one motivating reason is having a significant other who has a different native language. This also makes it a lot easier to make progress because you basically have your own tutor who is also motivated to patiently listen to your struggles.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I considered including this but didn't want to ramble on longer than I already had. Plus, the story isn't really that interesting. Unlike what some commenters below suggested might be possible, I don't have a French-speaking significant other.

I started learning very casually sometime in November using the Duolingo mobile app. After a while I switched to the desktop version of Duolingo and felt myself making pretty good progress. I enjoyed learning French enough to keep at it, and after a couple months I got the idea to move to France after finishing up my master's program. That probably won't be the case anymore, but for most of 2019 I had the motivation to become fluent enough to do pretty well in case I ended up moving to France.

I don't have any French speakers among my non-acquaintance friends, and absolutely 0 French-speaking family. So, there has never been anyone in "real-life" for which I was motivated to learn French. However, wanting to move to a foreign country was definitely enough to motivate me for the better part of a year.

ngngngng3• 6 years ago

“I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”

- M. Russell Ballard

hrktb2• 6 years ago

How do you see this quote relative to your real life observation ?

I always wonder why people post out of context quotes without commentary, when arguably their interpretation is the most interesting part. I care a lot more about what you think than what that religious leader says.

kshacker• 6 years ago

I am a 50 year old dude. Used Java in 1998-2002, but more as a JSP writer than anything serious. Then none till 2016. Then job changed and now I was expected to know Java. Tried to learn in 2017. Did not work out. Tried to learn in 2018. Did not work out. Then I enrolled in a community college. My job changed again and now I was not expected to know java. But I spent the 6-9 months to complete the courses and came out with much better understanding.

Why did it not work in 2017 and 2018 despite motivation? Distractions. Some external, but mostly internal.

Why did it work in 2019 without motivation? Committed to put in that effort in a non-distracting environment. Well phones are everywhere to alert us, but the constant deadlines and exams keep you grounded.

I think we all have the same issues.And if you/we have a wandering personality (In 2020, we all do thanks to our devices and subscriptions), we need some external tools to keep keep us focussed.

Do find something similar. For myself, I am thinking of 3 months on, 3 months off kind of learning in a formal setting (need not be college) so as not to be overwhelmed.

Marsymars• 6 years ago

So many people, me especially, go through spurts of wanting to learn something new or complete a project, reach a goal, and yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother?

For this reason, I'm relatively reluctant to start new things unless I feel that I can actually commit to getting to the level of competency that I want.

tayo423• 6 years ago

yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother?

This has frequently been my problem. I think maybe I'll learn enough to know it's not relevant or helpful outside some curiosity.

Languages are really hard. As an American speaking English I really get no use from knowing another language. Over my life I've learned, Spanish, Hebrew, French and Japanese. Enough to make sentences, and I forgot them all and never used them except for a trip. Everyone in foreign countries speaks English anyway.

viseztrance• 6 years ago

Not everyone speaks English, far from it, but I totally understand the sentiment. In any case, even if you're visiting a place and you're awful at a language, it still means a LOT to the native speakers.

yorwba2• 6 years ago

Everyone in foreign countries speaks English anyway.

Maybe you'll find an interesting travel destination where that's not the case by sorting this list by percent English speakers, ascending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...

ternaryoperator• 6 years ago

Every classical musician who has learned to play his instrument well has done exactly this. Even more, he/she must continue exerting effort and dedication to maintain those hard-earned skills.

(I say classical here not to exclude others, but because this is the area I know first hand.)

Cheyana2• 6 years ago

Part of me is disappointed that there’s no link to the article in French. :(

dbancajas• 6 years ago

Isn't the intended audience of the article non-french speakers? So he writes it in a "universal" language so you could apply it on "how to learn <X> in 12 months" where X is your non-native tongue.

Cheyana2• 6 years ago

Yeah, and it is a very informative article. I just wanted to see him slingin’ that French. :)

ourmandave• 6 years ago

They went from a non-speaker (A0) to a B2.

According to CEFR link in article, a B2 level:

Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization.

Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.

Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

CEFR Estimated time required to academically learn B2 level French: 560-650 hours

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...

bsder• 6 years ago

Well, this seems to match up with the article. Roughly a year for a two hours every day.

loeg3• 6 years ago

For a frame of reference, I also started doing DuoLingo daily about 12 months ago and am still at ~A1 proficiency, as far as speaking or writing. I might be at A2 listening, or even B1 reading comprehension. I definitely spend less than two hours a day on it and don't converse with native speakers, which doesn't help.

9nGQluzmnq3M• 6 years ago

Duolingo is useful for memorizing vocab, but you'll never get anywhere near fluency with it. The possible space of interactions is just too limited.

raphaelj• 6 years ago

As a French native speaker, I'm a little bit surprised by the corrected text OP posted in her/his article (http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png).

Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all. Like using the work "crédits" is totally fine in this context. I can't get why they corrected some connectors like "à" or "pour", as the usage of these in the text seem at least as correct to me.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

Yeah basically half the "mistakes" in that text aren't even wrong. I mean perhaps some annoyingly pedant French teacher, grammarian or Académicien would find something to say about things like using à une salle de sport vs. dans une salle de sport but like 99.9% of French speakers wouldn't notice anything wrong.

bdg• 6 years ago

It's a typical side-effect of writing anything online. I've had this experience with nearly everything I've ever posted (also: a lot of great comments too). Whenever you want to share knowledge about X: out of the woodwork crawl out the little pests who have nothing to do except hold you to the highest level of scrutiny they can imagine, and they'll word it like they want to crucify you for the slightest infraction.

It doesn't mean anything except that there's a lot of people who are situationally deficit of social skills and anxiously trying to prove they're even smarter than the original poster.

My pet theory is that these jeklers want acceptance and a sense of community, but don't know how to do it.

swimfar• 6 years ago

I don't usually point out mistakes in non-native speakers' writing because I know most people will perceive it the way that you do. However, I always wish that people would correct me when I make a mistake in a foreign language. So part of me always wants to point things out to help people like me.

jodrellblank• 6 years ago

out of the woodwork crawl out the little pests who have nothing to do except hold you to the highest level of scrutiny they can imagine

You say, with derision and personal insults to those people who dared not meet your standards for perfect corrections and perfect judgement of feedback desirability.

rmwaite• 6 years ago

I don’t fundamentally disagree - but there is another way to look at it. Sometimes someone spends a huge amount of time learning something as deeply as possible, and they can be genuinely excited to share that knowledge. It’s hard to find a situation that isn’t stigmatized so the choice is to never try to share this knowledge (disappointing) or just decide to power through it, understanding that sometimes people will take offense or think less of you because of it.

ahpearce3• 6 years ago

I think in this case, the point of the website the OP posted their passage to is to receive highly critical feedback to ensure 100% accuracy and learn from mistakes. I doubt the person correcting them was doing so with the spirit you describe here. Also, word choice is a bit subjective and perhaps the disagreement with the other poster you're replying to is regional or something else.

user5994461• 6 years ago

Poor corrections indeed. Using "dans" is less correct than the original "a". It's like saying to register "inside" a gym in English. Not the greatest choice of word unless you're really trying to point out the location.

In fact, the only correct correction among all that red is to replace "gym" by "salle de sport". Not to be confused with "gymnasium", it's similar but not the same thing.

The 4th line is misusing the future tense. Should have been pointed out.

rq15• 6 years ago

No they’re equally correct. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-sinscrire-dans-à....

narag4• 6 years ago

Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all.

I know it sounds absurd, but maybe the corrections weren't made by native speakers.

GuiA• 6 years ago

From the article:

I initially preferred native French speakers, but after taking lessons with non-native speakers, I found that I couldn’t really tell the difference between natives and non-natives.

mytailorisrich6• 6 years ago

I'm also a native speaker (France's French if that makes a difference). "Crédits" was replaced by "bons", which means vouchers. In the context that would indeed be the likely correct option (and I never heard "crédits" used that way...)

It's grammatically incorrect to write "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" and should indeed be "dans une salle de sport" and so it was warranted to correct that.

The other corrections are similarly warranted.

I'm a bit worried if you guys all think the original text was fine... ;)

clemParis• 6 years ago

Interesting points! Thanks. I didn't know "inscrire" is a transitive verb, so indeed "s'inscrire à" is grammatically incorrect. As often with french it raises the question of "does this rule make sense regarding usage". A quick google search for "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" shows a lot of results, even from people specializing in sport. And many native speakers were fooled by this rule.

As for the "crédit", the dictionnary definition seem to state it is correct (even though "bon" would be a bit better). https://larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/cr%c3%a9dit/20314... Crédit: Autorisation de dépenses accordée par les autorités qui établissent, votent ou règlent les budgets ; somme ainsi allouée : La bibliothèque dispose d'un crédit de dix mille euros.

_fj1c• 6 years ago

Also, the guy clearly makes the sentences in his head in English and then translate them. Everybody does it. It's just blatant. Fluency makes it go away.

Source: Am a quebecer (fr). I do it mostly when i speak English.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

No one would bat an eye if you used crédits instead of bons in that context, nor would anyone do so if they said s'inscrire à une salle de sport instead of s'inscrire dans une salle de sport. Maybe they're gramatically incorrect for an académicien, but no one but pedants really cares about what the Académie has to say.

pyrale• 6 years ago

Also a native speaker, "à une salle" is correct. The academy may disagree, but language is made by users, not a body of old farts chosen by politicians.

sacado2• 6 years ago

It's grammatically incorrect to write "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" and should indeed be "dans une salle de sport" and so it was warranted to correct that.

I'm not even sure. If you consider a "salle de sport" is an activity rather than a place, it becomes correct. You would say "s'inscire à la piscine" (for swimming-pool) for instance because "piscine" is considered an activity rather than a place, in this context.

ahpearce3• 6 years ago

Also, many people here are kind of missing the point. The OP posted that for the express purpose of receiving corrections and feedback. People are criticizing the corrector for performing the task that was requested of them — likely on a website dedicated to this practice of written correction...

torben-friis2• 6 years ago

For a while, I used to hang out in a subreddit for people who are learning Spanish to give advice (I'm a Spaniard).

You wouldn't believe the amount of times I was "corrected" with suggestions that were clearly, blatantly wrong if I didn't outright say that I was a native speaker.

I think it was mainly Americans from Spanish speaking immigrant families who were overconfident on their skills, but it was funny nonetheless.

inferiorhuman2• 6 years ago

How many of those were folks correcting you were Spanish? I wonder if the folks correcting you just learned a different dialect.

For those not familiar, American Spanish diverged significantly from "mainland" Spanish. Even then Mexican Spanish is quite distinct in its own "charming" way from nearly every other Spanish speaking American country. It's not just the vocabulary, even the verb tenses are used differently in different countries. Case in point, the only time I've heard vosotros used outside of school was in a La Polla Records song (ya ahora que?). Or looking for the baños in the Barcelona airport…. The differences are significant enough it's possible you're both right.

Whenever I've seen language discussed online lots of people come out of the woodwork defending their own niche regional variations. The comments section on Vanity Fair's Slang School series of youtube videos is a particularly obnoxious example. The videos themselves are great IMO. It's not always that bad though. I was trying to figure out how to differentiate between a banana and a plantain in Spanish (yay spanishdict forums) and I didn't realize just how many different ways there are to say banana/plantain. It's like Eskimos and snow.

rq15• 6 years ago

I hope you’re kidding. The initial text isn’t good, the corrections are maybe not perfect and some are more a matter of taste but definitely better than the original wordings. “y dédier du temps” is closer to the original formulation and equally good for instance.

I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue.

For someone who’s learning the best disservice is to not point their mistakes out.

And sorry it’s not being pedantic to ask people to be precise enough to not spend my time guessing what they maybe were thinking.

It’s already hard enough when well written.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue.

That doesn't make any sense. Maybe they're not good according to the normative institutions attempting to control the language, but that doesn't have any bearing on the ability of billions of people to communicate with their peers using their mother tongue. Just because an institution says a certain form is "incorrect" doesn't mean people are going to stop using it and make themselves understood with that form.

roel_v• 6 years ago

I co-supervised a British PhD student once who did his PhD at a Spanish university. Not only was he a native speaker, but he also wrote very clear - no passive sentences, clear structure in thinking and writing, very good. He had a paper reviewed by someone who only saw his university on that paper (blind review) and wrote 'paper could do with review by a native speaker'. Why? No idea. I knew who the reviewer was (small world) and he wasn't even a native speaker himself.

My theory: when you ask someone to correct language, and they know the author isn't a native speaker, they'll nitpick on things that native speakers wouldn't be corrected on; but the corrections will be much more about the idiosyncrasies of the corrector than the level of the author (when that author has reached a certain level of proficiency of course).

imtringued• 6 years ago

Honestly learning french was incredibly easy when I did it in school. I just was too lazy to actually put in the effort. To learn vocabulary all I did was write down the french word and based on that say the translated word and then do the opposite. That's it. It just stuck in my head. Then when I decided to use Anki I added 350 words it didn't even take me a week to learn them. It was so incredibly easy that I just did 150 words per day. I can't say the same about Asian languages. Those refuse to stick even at a moderate pace of 30 words per day.

burlesona• 6 years ago

I find the timeline believable but I’m impressed (and happy!) to see this worked with self-study. I lived abroad for a while and found I was able to pick up the local language pretty quickly because I was fully immersed in it, by 6 mo. I was comfortably conversational for day to day things. However, I would also caution for anyone wanting to learn a language at home, it’s a muscle and it does fade when you don’t use it. After a decade back in the states I’ve lost the majority of the language I learned since there’s no one around to use it with.

Brakenshire• 6 years ago

You could just watch French TV, films or podcasts, there's more access to that material now than there ever has been.

karatestomp• 6 years ago

It’s still much tougher to come by that one might think. For one thing, European networks don’t care about distributing their content outside of Europe, even in exchange for actual money. For another, a huge proportion of the content is dubbed from English, which isn’t ideal. Even pirating the stuff’s pretty hard, since there’s (apparently) little interest in it.

Japanese may be a pain in the ass to learn but it’s hard not to be jealous of the resources and media available to Japanese learners, as someone learning most any other language (though, in the US at least, Spanish media’s pretty easy to get ahold of)

_jal• 6 years ago

It isn't nearly as effective. I've done both - I was an exchange student to Germany, (Landed with 1 year of US highschool German, maybe 150 words.), and was thinking in German in about 10 months. (I was also 17/18 years old, which makes a huge difference.) For the last few months, I've been trying to get more functional than my "taqueria Spanish", and have shifted to listening/watching mostly Spanish-language media.

It helps, but is nowhere nearly as effective as not being able to escape it. In Germany, I remember going to bed exhausted with a headache quite a bit for a period of months, roughly the phase from when I was barely functional to when I was able to take part in class in non-stupid ways.

Watching TV for a couple hours is nothing like that.

gbrown2• 6 years ago

You should check out services like iTalki - it's very affordable to get conversation practice.

hombre_fatal4• 6 years ago

I think it's essential if you're serious about learning. For Spanish at least you can find people $4-$6 an hour which can fit into some seriously lean budgets. I think it's one of the best ways to spend an hour.

I currently chat with my teacher every morning on my bluetooth headphones while exercising in my backyard (of course, confirming first that this wouldn't annoy her). Most productive hour of my day, and I she likes the certainty of me committing to a daily time slot.

Cool way to build friendships too. In April I'm visiting her in Venezuela. Though I recommend using a service like https://www.conversationexchange.com/ for a more overt way to meet different people while practicing language.

38911BBF• 6 years ago

Nice article, but just a headsup: The website certificate of runwes.com is only valid for the following names: www.github.com, * .github.io, * .githubusercontent.com, * .github.com, github.com, github.io, githubusercontent.com.

Everyhing is alerts and warnings when clicking the link.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I have never configured a website like this so I wasn't aware of these problems. Any tips for fixing this?

yorwba2• 6 years ago

The problem is because you're using GitHub Pages to host your website on a custom domain. When someone accesses your website via HTTPS, they get a certificate that is only valid for GitHub domains. Of course the HN submission is an HTTP link, so the person you're replying to probably has their browser configured to use HTTPS everywhere.

You can fix this by enabling HTTPS in GitHub pages, so that a valid certificate is served. See GitHub's troubleshooting information: https://help.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-pages/...

knubie• 6 years ago

Very impressive progress. I think it speaks to the author's commitment and dedication, as adding 50 new cards per day is a lot. Most people will burn out pretty quickly at that rate. I recommend something like 10-20 per day. I'm also one of those people that say you should make your own cards from material you're immersing in. When going through a predefined list of words like that I think you're bound to end up learning a bunch of words that you'll never encounter (at least not for a long time), and a bunch of words that you'll have no idea how to use correctly.

I wrote an article[0] about my own method for language learning, focusing mainly on the spaced repetition aspect.

[0] https://mochi.cards/blog/using-spaced-repetition-to-learn-a-...

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. It was a lot, but seeing the number go down rapidly was a nice motivator. Keep in mind that these are just pre-made 1-word cards, so they're much faster than the full-sentence cards people suggest, which are likely more effective though also more time-consuming. Furthermore, French has an unexpectedly (for me) large number of cognates with English, so many of those words were freebies for me. If I was learning Mandarin, for example, 50 cards a day would require an absolutely enormous amount of effort, most of which would likely be wasted.

You are correct in that a decent chunk of the words are relatively useless, and I forgot many of them already after stopping Anki for a few months. There were also some words that I had no idea how to use, as you said. However, I did some extra looking-up of difficult words, and the deck included example sentences for many of the words. Also, I definitely claim that your method is more effective, but clearly this one at least worked well enough to do what I did.

ahpearce3• 6 years ago

There are frequency ordered decks I believe. Very useful. Top 2000 most frequently used, for example, is a good start.

dudul• 6 years ago

It reminds me a little of how I learnt English myself. Out of high school I was really bad and really wanted to change that. I switched all my video games to English, started watching 4 to 5 hours of TV shows/movies in English a day, reading books in English, etc etc. I definitely wasn't as intense as the author, but I think it worked pretty well considering that now I live in the US as a US citizen :)

dvduval• 6 years ago

I have achieved the same results in Chinese (HSK 5), but it took me 5 years. The resource I see that is missing is HelloTalk, with lots of opportunities to converse for free, and post your writing practice to receive corrections. Can also post your voice.

redis_mlc• 6 years ago

If you live in Canada or Quebec, it makes sense to learn French. Note that conversational French only uses half of the 14 or so verb tenses, and people expect you to use the correct grammar and gender.

If you plan to write French for a living, that will be tough for a non-native writer.

But if you live in the USA, Spanish is more useful and you'll have the opportunity to practise it.

Antoninus2• 6 years ago

Am I missing something? The author doesn't state where he/she lives.

Mikeb852• 6 years ago

French isn't that hard. Lots of words are the same as English, grammar is a bit different but once you 'get' it, it's way more consistent than English which makes it easier for the most part.

Antoninus2• 6 years ago

How long did it take before you were comfortable speaking french?

Mikeb852• 6 years ago

I learned it at school as a kid. Not long. But I've taught others, seen adults pick it up. Like most other skills, it just requires work and practice. Immerse yourself in it, want to learn and you will. Most people simply take an intro course, don't talk to anyone then complain it's hard.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

Couple remarks on the author's alleged "weaknesses":

Understand strongly accented speech. I understand essentially all the “standard” French without subtitles, but very little of the Quebecois.

Most European French speakers have trouble understanding Québecois as well, especially if it delves into slang, so I wouldn't fret much. High level (and written) speech should be ok though.

Understand very slang-heavy speech. I know a good chunk of argot but there are still plenty of informal vocab words and expressions I don’t know. Especially that damn verlan.

Again, seeing how most people over 35 don't understand any of that stuff either I wouldn't worry too much. Especially because this stuff evolves like crazy and new slang/verlan words keep popping up all the time. I'm in my late 20s and can already feel the divide in the slang I and friends in their early 20s use.

Write error free text. I can get the message across pretty well without relying on a dictionary, but I often phrase things a bit unnaturally and make minor grammatical errors.

Like I and another poster said, most of the mistakes aren't really mistakes. Only the most extraordinary pedant would object to these.

Quickly use less common verb tenses. While I know how to construct the past conditional and future perfect, I still can’t use them very fluidly. Recognize all the weird literary tenses. Imperfect subjunctive? Yuck.

Yeah no one uses these. In fact if you did attempt to use these in a normal conversation there's a good chance you wouldn't be understood. Even in writing, modern authors are more and more switching to present and past perfect. Even tenses like the future are getting increasingly uncommon, people instead use the present and rely on contextual clues or markers, like in German (" we'll meet tomorrow" -> "we meet tomorrow").

What I mean to say from all of this is that even native French speakers are not completely at ease with these pain points so it's no use worrying about them too much.

neplus• 6 years ago

Do you happen to be from Quebec? I'm Canadian by birth and have wanted recently to learn Quebecois French, but have struggled with finding practical resources (as everyone seems to agree most French resources and learning programs are going to give you a rather half-baked understanding of Quebecois French).

jefft255• 6 years ago

I’m Québécois. Honestly, I’m not aware of any Quebec-specific online resources. If you’re still living in Canada, there’s a good chance that you can get night classes at a University that would be taught by a Quebec expat. Otherwise, I wouldn’t agree that other resources will give you a half-baked understanding. It’s mostly a question of training your ear for the accent, which you can do by watching shows, for example. Differences in vocabulary are well-documented and easy to memorize (probably, as someone who’s done the reverse and learned the France equivalent).

mytailorisrich6• 6 years ago

The future perfect is very much used both orally and (especially) in writing and so is the past conditional.

The passé simple is almost never used orally these days, and in writing mostly only in literary texts.

I've noticed that the subjunctive is used less in writing since some change to 'simplify' (i.e. dumb down) the language.

Exotic forms of subjunctive (imperfect subjunctive, anyone?) are hardly used anymore even in contemporary literary texts.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

The future perfect is very much used both orally

The past conditional, maybe. The future, really? Do you actually say things like nous nous verrons demain or il l'aura fait avant in casual speech? Well I don't know if you do, but the vast majority of French speakers would say something like on se voit demain et il l'a probablement fait avant. Instead of using specific verb forms to convery meaning people instead rely on context and adverbial cues, as do the speakers of the dozens of languages that do not use the byzantine tense and mood system of the Romance languages (see: Japanese, Chinese, etc.) and are certainly not the worse for it.

I've noticed that the subjunctive is used less in writing since some change to 'simplify' (i.e. dumb down) the language.

You're aware that the argument you're making about the language getting "dumbed down" is literally millennia old, right?

dghughes• 6 years ago

I've always been interested in languages and over the years I've tried many.

Apps certainly help but I find nothing sticks. I can easily read words of the language in front of me. But I can't think of example sentences on my own.

For French I was amazed at how much of it is condensed. Like English some people jokingly may say "jeet" for "did you eat". In French there are a surprisingly large amount of examples like that.

wallflower• 6 years ago

Congratulations to the author! They achieved a level where having a conversation with them is not painful, for either side of the conversation.

For anyone who is bored of learning yet another programming language, learning a human language will challenge you and humble you and reward you if you keep going at it.

Just please give up on self-imposed deadlines, and as this article states, there is no magic bullet, no magic method to learning a language, despite what SEO-driven blogs and videos will tell you.

k__2• 6 years ago

Pretty good!

I tried to learn Spanish with DuoLingo only, and I couldn't motivate me to do the whole tree. I only did 1/3, but everything to level 5.

gramie• 6 years ago

I found DuoLingo interesting, but it didn't really help me to learn Spanish. I had a lot more success (I just came back from a trip to Panama where I had to interact with people who spoke little no no English) using https://www.languagetransfer.org (it also has courses for Greek, French, German, Arabic, Turkish, Italian and Swahili).

The courses are sets of MP3 tracks that are free to download, but if you find them useful, please donate!

k__2• 6 years ago

Thanks for the link. I'll look into that.

eximius• 6 years ago

I learned Toki Pona in a few hours. Highly recommend if you need a language 'win'.

OldFatCactus• 6 years ago

I've been using Babbel to learn Spanish. Anyone have suggestions for where to go after maxing resources like Babbel and Duolingo? I feel like I hit a wall somewhere and the next steps aren't so clear. Some of the steps the author used look helpful like changing phone language and heavy use of anki

HuShifang• 6 years ago

Lingvist [0] has been useful to me for vocab building post-Duolingo. The mobile apps are thoughtfully designed -- you can use text or speech input fairly easily -- and they're rolling out (for Spanish and French so far; I'd expect German will come soon, but Russian seems to be a ways off) the ability to generate domain-inspired personalized courses using sample text you input. I'm mainly practicing my German right now, so I haven't tested it much, but this might be very powerful in combination with Project Gutenberg texts, etc. I also appreciate that they have Spanish courses for both Latin America and Spain.

[0] https://lingvist.com/

jonathanjaeger• 6 years ago

Italki Italki Italki, nothing has been better for that. I use my flashcards I made on Quizlet, listen to videos/podcasts, re-practice Duolingo, etc., but 3-6 hours per week talking to native Speakers on Italki (or any equivalent service) will work wonders.

hombre_fatal4• 6 years ago

1) iTalki for a 1-on-1 hour with a teacher.

2) Start reading books.

3) Start listening to podcasts in Spanish that are geared towards beginners. Españolistos, Hoy Hablamos (https://www.hoyhablamos.com/), Español con Juan (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoHJ7PkM6T92LwgJgrnDhWA).

I think reading young adult books is one of the best bangs for the buck early on. Most people agree that they procrastinated it for too long because they thought it would be too hard, myself included.

Bonus) Play a MUD in Spanish. http://www.balzhur.org/ is the biggest one I know of with 10-25 people online. It's a 1-to-1 translation of Realms of Despair. Even if you are too bad at Spanish to interact with people, it's a fun interactive way to get used to common verbs. And you can go at your own slow pace, reading the description of each room.

iandanforth• 6 years ago

This is an awesome post. The one thing I wish it included was context around their lifestyle during this time period. How many hours a day did they devote? Were they working full time? If so doing what? What other responsibilities / life things got in the way.

It's one thing to imagine yourself doing this given six months of dedicated time (not that they claimed to have had this) and another to get a real sense of how one might fit this into one's life. Anyway, great, detailed article and an impressive accomplishment.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I don't work full time but I'm a master's student. I had a decent enough chunk of free time to dedicate to this without too many serious obligations. It's hard for me to estimate time per day, as there were some week-long periods where I did very minimal study when particularly busy, and other periods where I'd spend 20+ hours a week of solid effort on it. I think achieving this is probably outside the scope of someone who isn't extremely abnormally self-motivated and efficient and who has a family, long working hours, etc. That being said, I think most people can find the time to reach a moderate conversational level in a year without too much trouble, assuming they work efficiently.

no1youknowz• 6 years ago

Reminds me of this [0].

Ikenna learned (conversational?) French in 6 months. It's quite an inspiring video. After watching a few of his videos now, it definitely plays a part in continuing to motivate me learning Japanese.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8gno6Uzuo8

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. Indeed, I linked to this video in one of the sections. Starting off every few weeks or so I'd watch the video again to remind myself that this is possible and "keep my eyes on the prize." His level in the video isn't incredible or anything but definitely something to be proud of after 6 months of study. I can confirm such is possible because I was around his level after 6 months too, from what I can tell.

Denzel• 6 years ago

Just in case the author stops by HN: I want to echo the sentiment that this post was awesome, informative, and motivating. Thank you for posting, and please continue with your blog!

andrewzah2• 6 years ago

Started consistently covering 50 new words a day on Anki

For anyone here who has used anki, that's a huge number. This person is really dedicating their time at this point, because 50 new cards/day very quickly snowballs and you're doing 300+ reviews daily.

I did 20 reviews/day for ~6 months straight for Korean, and that took me 30-60 minutes, every day. Thinking about 50/day sounds utterly exhausting.

It's a good thing a french 5k deck exists also, as they saved a lot of time on not having to make cards manually. On average a word entry takes ~1-2 minutes (I have to query 3 dictionaries), so that comes down to only ~45 words per hour...

---

I firmly believe that learning languages in school, especially in the United States, is generally extremely inefficient.

This, so much this. Classes provide rigidity but having a tutor + finding people to talk with helps you out significantly more. I went to a language exchange that wasn't bad* where I was able to speak for 1 hour with 1 korean person, a teacher, who would point out my mistakes and write down words when I had to dip into English. My conversational ability improved dramatically after doing that for ~1 month.

* Most language exchanges are shit. Because they're unstructured. People randomly filter in/out and a lot of people are shy or aren't sure what to do. It often devolves into a) "Any korean questions??" or just general conversation. Great for making friends, terrible for seriously practicing Korean.

---

As much as Duolingo likes to tell you this, 5 minutes a day of fumbling around with the mobile app isn’t going to make you fluent.

I get why duolingo does this. At the same time, I hate them for advertising themselves as "the world's best way to learn <Language>". Not only is this not true, their Japanese and Korean courses were (still are?) notoriously terrible compared to their Spanish and French courses. Not that a language can be learned from 1 resource, anyways.

---

On the other hand, since I spent so many hours just casually talking with people, I got pretty good at having generic conversations.

This is where I got after ~12-15 months as well. I can quite easily converse about basic things like me, my hobbies, work, etc for hours but as soon as the conversation delves into a niche like politics or just more advanced discussion, I falter pretty hard. Also describing things beyond a basic level is rough: "I like this, that" vs "The mood of the film was twisted but exhilarating".

---

What I find interesting here is how far one can progress in only 12 months with a language like Spanish or French (with a mother tongue of English). For Korean, I wasn't even remotely close to understanding things like news articles at 12 months of study. I'm still not, because that vocabulary is quite advanced and not really used in regular conversations that much.

The simple truth for learning a language is as the author here mentioned: consistent and diligent studying, with humility. There is no shortcut, no one app that does it all. You just have to study, and be able to honestly evaluate yourself and your mistakes. (Recording yourself speaking the language greatly helps here).

neom• 6 years ago

How's your Korean now? Any other tips for Korean? I spent 4 months in Korea and really want to learn the language, but it seems impossibly difficult. 감사합니다 :(

banana_maker• 6 years ago

Well, the good news is that its not impossibly difficult! Just very difficult. ;-) As the Koreans say, 화이팅! (Fighting!)

Korean isn't that different from other languages, really. It's difficult for English speakers because there aren't really any commonalities besides random loanwords. And it uses the SOV (subject object verb) pattern instead of SVO. Hangeul was designed to be easy to learn, so unlike Japanese, you'll always be able to read/pronounce any Korean text... even if you don't know what it means.

In some ways Korean is actually easier than, say, German (der/die/das tables, anyone?). The only thing I would say is make sure you focus on good pronunciation. Korean is very particular about mouth shapes and tongue positions. Many Americans especially come off with an accent because they neglect to put their tongue in the right spot. TalkToMeInKorean has a video course for ~$10, highly worth it.

Also, do not romanize! Only use 한글. For example, ㄱ is NOT g/k, it's simply ㄱ. Those are only meant as reference points for brand new learners. Romanizations will only impede your progress for pronunciation.

---

I would say I'm intermediate in speaking, high intermediate in writing/reading, low intermediate in listening. That is to say, I can converse in Korean somewhat easily for a few hours as long as the topics are relatively basic. Like my occupation, hobbies, what I like, and so on. Listening is still very difficult for "real" conversations, because of dialects, abbreviations/contractions, slang, etc. I can listen to textbook conversations and drama dialogues much more easily. I pretty much only text my friends in Korean.

---

There are 3 major players for korean learning resources right now, and a few smaller ones:

1) Go!Billy Korean. This guy is really good at korean and IMO is the best at explaining things in a clear manner. He has a youtube channel [0] as well as a website [1] with free PDFs of his lessons. He does a livestream every sunday, but he takes those ~2h videos and condenses them into shorter videos as well. He also has a textbook series which many people like.

2) HowToStudyKorean.com. This is mainly what I used when I started. This guy (over)explains sometimes but there is an incredible amount of material here. The only issue is the lesson order is kinda wack sometimes. I followed it linearly, but I read ahead if I wanted to learn that specific grammar point. I.e. how to say "because", etc.

3) TalkToMeInKorean.com. They have a youtube channel [2] and publish books. I have spent like $130+ on their books so feel free to ask a question about a particular one. The Beginner/Intermediate Korean Conversations books are really good.

Aside from these main resources, I recommend the Korean Grammar In Use textbooks. The beginner one has a good selection of grammar points. However, the main resources I mentioned pretty much cover the same beginner grammar points for free, so this book isn't strictly necessary. IMO the advanced one is worth it.

Other youtube channels I like: Dingo Story [11] has drama clips, around 10-15 minutes. WBKT Yujin [12] does lessons and listening practice, around intermediate+ level.

Apps: ignore duolingo/lingodeer, they have issues with spacing and teaching formality levels. Sejong Beginner Grammar (세종 문법 초급) is good, it has audio as well [3]. It supports android & ios.

---

Dictionaries: endic.naver.com and krdict.korean.go.kr are the main dictionaries. krdict is better but a bit slower.

There's also a hanja dictinoary at hanja.dict.naver.com, but as a beginner do not start studying that stuff. It'll only complicate things. Once you're at least intermediate or so, howtostudykorean also has a hanja course [17].

---

Vocab: use Anki [4]. Anki is a spaced repetition flashcards app. The pc/mac/android apps are free, the ios app is $20, which supports the developer. I cannot recommend anki enough for brute-forcing vocab acquisition. I have written about anki here [5] [6], but the manual [7] is also good.

Evita's Korean Deck [8] has almost 6k words, sorted by usage. I highly recommend using this deck, at least for the first ~5-6 months of study. The main issue with this deck is it starts to put multiple definitions on one card, which is a no-no for spaced repetition. There is also a grammar deck with sentences+audio [9], which may be of use once you study a bit more.

At some point you'll want to start maintaining your own deck, inputting vocabulary that you discover from Korean tv shows, books, webtoons, etc.

---

Native Media: there are plenty of korean dramas. These are recommended because the actors usually focus on clear pronunciation and standard language. There are a lot of comedy/variety shows like Running Man (런닝맨), Knowing Bros. (아는 형님), New Journey to the West (신서유기). Even if you can't follow along much, you can still watch them and write down words you see. I bet you probably know this but Korean tv shows put text on the screen about once per second, so its a good way to pick up random vocab words.

Webtoons [10] are also great, once you are around high intermediate / advanced. Webtoon authors frequently use nonstandard language, dialects, or make mistakes so I don't recommend it for beginners.

---

Practice: Hello Talk [13] is pretty good for finding people to talk to. However the real selling point is facebook-like posts: You can post longer stuff and Koreans can correct it! My Korean friends literally never correct my Korean (it gets awkward) so I have to use this to practice longer writing.

Just be mindful that some people do try to date on there. As a guy I don't really face that but some of my friends have to block people.

Tandem [14] also exists but I haven't tried it.

---

Tutoring: Many people recommend tutors from italki [15]. I'm going to try it soon. My friend has a tutor that types up transcripts of their conversations and points out errors, etc. I feel that at some point, you need a personal tutor to help you fix personal issues that you may not notice.

---

Language exchanges: They're not that good for actually practicing Korean, as most of them are not structured. So people just show up and just end up having conversations in English.

They are good for making korean friends, though. Just be mindful to communicate that you want to practice Korean specifically, and that might mean you guys swap from English (30 mins) to Korean (30 mins), etc.

I just text all my korean friends in Korean unless they specifically ask to split. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For Seoul specifically, there is a GREAT exchange near 이대역 called MingleCup [16]. This one is highly structured, and you can get 1-on-1 with a korean teacher for 1 hour! The tradeoff is after that hour, you speak English with different rotating groups of people. (The koreans are coming there to learn English, after all). Its a super fun way to meet people and make friends.

---

This is all I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to email me with further questions. I'm also part of the Let's Learn Korean! discord: https://discord.gg/e3H9Pde

There are a lot of knowledgeable students and native speakers there, and its where I got most of these resources from.

I'm also working on a website that compiles all these resources + a grammar search tool into a one stop shop.

---

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/GoBillyKorean

[1] https://gobillykorean.com/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/user/talktomeinkorean

[3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.org.kingse...

[4] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ (Be careful, there is a copycat at https://www.ankiapp.com/ which is NOT the same).

[5] https://andrewzah.com/posts/things-to-avoid-with-anki/

[6] https://andrewzah.com/posts/better-anki-usage-guide-2019/

[7] https://apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.html

[8] https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/4066961604

[9] https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3614346923

[10] https://comic.naver.com/index.nhn

[11] https://www.youtube.com/user/moncastwebdong

[12] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-SYbQJvveakVdU36w2kIcg

[13] https://www.hellotalk.com/

[14] https://www.tandem.net/

[15] https://www.italki.com/

[16] http://minglecup.com

[17] https://www.howtostudykorean.com/hanja-unit-1-lessons-1-20/

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. You are right, that was a lot of cards, but doing it in French is several times easier and faster than doing it in English due to the massive number of cognates and near-identical alphabet. The 5k deck was also, as you say, a massive time saver, if not less effective than making your own deck.

tacomplain• 6 years ago

I learned french in 3 months aprox. while living in France. Ive arrived there without much knowledge of the language. First weeks I was feeling like an alien. Then I started to understand but couldn't speak. Then I started to use translate and dictionary to build some phrases beforehand to be able to be polite and ask the questions I wanted. After 3 months something clicked during a talk I was watching, I not only began to understand without having to think but was able to ask questions to the French guy on my side about the talk (it was about a ML algorithm). I am a native speaker of a Latin language (Portuguese).

rgovostes• 6 years ago

I've been reading similar anecdotes lately trying to gauge whether I could reach B1 in a Romance language in a few months of study.

What I've found is a lot of pessimism about how well Duolingo teaches you a language, with many arguing it's a waste of time altogether.

I'm surprised that could be the case though. They have data from millions of language learners processing through their lessons, and looking at their making-of blog (https://making.duolingo.com), the product seems data-driven. They do A/B testing to see the efficacy of new features they roll out. Aside from that, they combine reading, writing, speaking, and listening exercises, and have made some innovative features like chat bots. One language tree includes a few thousand words.

If anything, I would expect Duolingo to be vastly more effective than other methods.

gibolt• 6 years ago

Their A/B testing probably isn't testing education efficacy, but retention and actions that lead to payment/miscellaneous business goals.

abecedarius4• 6 years ago

Ironically, as a user I'd use it more if it were more effective and less grind-grind-grind. But I suppose you're probably right. An efficient, effective learning process feels more challenging and frustrating, which must drive a lot of people away. It must be a solvable problem, though.

gbrown2• 6 years ago

I feel like Duolingo is a good "in": something to give you enough of a foothold in a language to start learning in other ways. The barrier to entry is nonexistent, but it does become hard to progress past a certain point.

DmitryOlshansky• 6 years ago

I misread it as 12 minutes, and got really alert for a moment imagining some spooky mind-altering procedures.

Damned age of velocity.

bucket2015• 6 years ago

11/18: Started going through the French Duolingo tree
3/19: Reached the end of the Duolingo tree (level 1 in all skills, but most were level 3+)

This is pretty impressive. I've started French Duolingo around the same time and have been doing 30 min per day every day; 14 months later I'm about 1/2-way down.

This must have taken ~3h/day of Duolingo.

abecedarius4• 6 years ago

I went through the early parts of French Duolingo pretty intensively, but gave it up around the end of level 1, because it seems far too grindy -- not a good use of time. The part I did was good for bootstrapping to the point where you can start profiting from more real-life sources like the Harry Potter books.

ip26• 6 years ago

How do you make the jump and apply the real life sources? A dictionary and a lot of free time? Two copies one in each language? Kindle French?

tom_mellior• 6 years ago

AFAIR I finished the French Duolingo tree in something like four months as well. I did practice every day with some dedication (preparing for a move to France), but I don't think it was more than an hour per day on average. I did have experience learning other (non-Romance) languages before, and I think that helps.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. 3h/day is definitely more than I did, though on some days (not that many) I spent 3+ hours grinding away. One thing to note is that over the last year they've added a ton of new material, so the tree is significantly longer now, which in hindsight is a bit misleading (although you can't grind as many levels now, so it somewhat cancels out.)

DiogenesKynikos• 6 years ago

As this article shows, it is perfectly possible to learn a language to a decent level (B2) in a year by studying at home. This is especially true if the language you're learning is closely related to your native language (e.g., English and French). You just have to consistently put in the time (probably an hour a day, at a minimum) and use a good mix of resources: a good textbook, flashcards (e.g., Anki), Italki (personal tutoring over video chat), radio, and some easy reading (childrens' books are great).

If you can go to a country where the language is spoken and are able to spend all of your time working on the language, you can learn to B2 level in much less than a year. I would say you should be able to achieve B2 level in a relatively easy (because close to English) language like French in less than 6 months.

jason0597• 6 years ago

Started consistently covering 50 new words a day on Anki

That's a lot! I could never do that... I'm learning Japanese, and I could never imagine myself doing more than 10 words a day.

Hamuko• 6 years ago

I'm doing Japanese vocab on Anki and I have it set to the default 20 words per day. I'd say it's still pretty doable, although I do have relearn every day.

laurieg2• 6 years ago

The author definitely benefits from French and English being related languages. Remembering that "interesting" is "intéressant" takes a lot less effort than remembering it is "おもしろい".

I studied Japanese full time for a year and would probably average something like 20 word a day but even that was pushing it. I advise people to aim for 3-5 words a day and be consistent. Adding huge amounts of words very quickly and then giving up on reviewing them is all too common.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. You're absolutely correct. Make that deck 5000 non-cognate words and 50 words a day quickly becomes unsustainable. Not to mention the alphabet(s) required for a language like Japanese. French is a language I think any decently well-read person (so as to recognize many of the cognates) can learn vocabulary in surprisingly quickly, considering how much of English vocabulary is derived from French.

pzumk• 6 years ago

Interesting! Just today I thought about learning french or spanish with Duolingo. I started with spanish because it seems to be easier to learn. The article was really inspiring tbh, now I really want to stick to it for a year or so.

dgudkov• 6 years ago

I learnt French (stopped just shy of B2) in 1.5 years. My learning pace was intensive (4-6 hours/week), but not as much as the author's. So I find the author's statement credible.

My advise to those who want to learn French - after getting the grammar basics, start practicing spoken French as soon as possible. I found two French teachers online and skyped with them 2-3 hours a week. Initially with a bit of English, then entirely in French. Also, a huge help was having a French TV channel always on. I listened to TV5Monde.

simlevesque2• 6 years ago

Yeah, speaking french is hard. You speek with the front of your mouth whereas english is more about the back of your mouth. Totally different muscles.

tmh88j• 6 years ago

Yeah, speaking french is hard. You speek with the front of your mouth whereas english is more about the back of your mouth.

Can you provide some examples of French words that are formed in the front of the mouth that you find difficult to pronounce? English is my native language and I don't speak French, but some of my coworkers do and they occasionally teach me words and phrases. I find it to be the opposite of what you've described in that the most difficult words for me are formed at the back of the tongue/mouth, particularly words containing "r" like "quarante-trois" (the number 43). I remember that word because I was out to lunch with one of my French speaking coworkers and I asked him how to pronounce my order number in French. We both had a good laugh as I struggled to say it without sounding like I was choking.

However, I studied Spanish from middle school through college, and I've noticed that English speakers tend to have difficulty with rolling their r's, which is done in the front of the mouth. Are there French words that have this type of pronunciation too? If so, I understand what you mean about the front of the mouth.

205guy• 6 years ago

The OP did a lot of work learning French, it’s always interesting to get a peek into someone’s process for something impressive and out of the ordinary. So thanks for the long and detailed write up.

I wanted to point out that the limitations that were encountered are normal. The OP learned 95% of what can be learned without living in the culture itself. Sure, you could learn all these extra details by chatting online, but it’s not until you need the vocabulary to get something from the French bureaucracy or to do your job that it all sinks in.

1. Don’t worry about Québécois, most French cannot understand it either. I once saw an interview on French public television that subtitled the French (Québécois) in French. To the French from France, it’s a very heavy and rustic accent, such as an Irish or Scottish brogue to an American English speaker. And it has its own local variations, such as between urban and countryside, with all its own idioms as well. The subtitled conversation was an old person in the country, young urban dwellers know to speak slower and clearer on purpose, unless they get familiar with slang and cussing.

2. Verlan is also just slang, interjections, and cussing, what the young and hip youth speak to be unintelligible on purpose. It also has overtones of poor, working-class, and immigrant identity, thus many layers and uses. Many words have made it into mainstream speech, though never into formal or newscaster speech. And when verlan words became mainstream, the original speakers just flipped the words again and kept on going (not sure if there have been 3 reversals yet). Like in any language, familiar speech can be a minefield: what’s used and appropriate depends on whether you are speaking to friends, homies, co-workers, managers, shop-keepers, bureaucrats, family, children, etc,

3. Phrasing just takes time and exposure to native speakers. All languages have these subtleties, such as gynmase <-> salle de sport and how they are used, so you can only learn them through exposure, not vocabulary decks. Plus the concepts are cultural as well, sometimes we don’t have the equivalent concept in American culture, and vice-versa, the concept you want to convey isn’t apparent in French culture (for example, membership gyms with weight rooms and such are relatively new in France). The salle de sport might be closest to a rec center or the Y, but both have slightly different cultural connotations in American English as well. This sample also shows how you are/were translating phrases and ideas from English. They sound vaguely off to a French speaker because they would approach the whole topic with different concepts and constructs. That level of expression cannot come until you live in the culture for years and interiorize it’s thought patterns.

4. Verb tenses have rules and everything, but they later just boil down to an extensive vocabulary: you just memorize the words for each case, in the sense that your brain just knows the words for each subject-verb combination. We do the same in English for a few remaining times we use complex tenses: would you have known, what could you have done, etc.

5. All languages blend and trim words, dontcha know? The French do have a tendency to speak quickly, and compress some of the extra wordiness of the language—so it happens even more than in English.

6. For complex or technical topics, again it’s just about learning extensive vocabulary and word combinations. French isn’t that difficult a language to learn (compared to others) but both English and French have some of the largest vocabularies meaning there is a huge mapping from one to the other. French also has centuries of cultural expression and academic publication, and has thus developed both a special style and vocabulary for many domains.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. Thanks for assuring me that these drawbacks aren't so bad! I did want to include these sort of limitations though so that people don't think I can do everything a native speaker can do. In particular, I wanted to avoid giving off the "I GOT FLUENT IN 12 MONTHS USING THIS SECRET TRICK!" vibe.

ghaff• 6 years ago

We do the same in English for a few remaining times we use complex tenses

Which we mostly try not to overuse because of the cognitive load it places on the listener. It's also the case that, as a native English speaker, I have no idea what any of the less common cases are even called and would have trouble explaining why they're structured the way they are. I just know the words to use for a given purpose.

shmat8• 6 years ago

I studied French from 7th-12th grade in an American High School. After that, I could not understand any French beyond "bonjour". I could not have a conversation in French. I could conjugate verbs and I could read some. Fast forward 45 years and I retired and decided to actually learn French. I followed a very, very similar method and after 9 months of self study took a 2 week intensive course in France where I was told I was at B2 level. Obviously I didn't start at A0 but when I first started with Duolingo, I remembered nothing. 45 years is a long gap. What he describes works. Even an old fart like me can get to B2 level with self study if they are motivated and use good resources. It's never been easier to learn a language with all the excellent resources available.

alexis_fr• 6 years ago

I studied French from 7th-12th grade

As a French, I’ve lived a few years in Australia. A lot of people there can only say “Bonjour” and keep a bitter memory of their lessons. It feels like learning German for the French people, also a difficult (albeit more regular) language. It is merely necessary for political cohesion but not at an individual level; As such German lessons are... not designed for the students. If I had to believe the lessons, there are only two topics that Germans talk about: The Wiedervereinigung (reunification) and the war. All their movies are black and white with yellow subtitles. That’s how I imagine the French language in the Australian culture ;) Something you gotta learn at school, like se hazing or something.

It really feels like we haven’t mastered teaching, as a civilization. Our teaching works for pupils who have an interest; but for the others, it’s like signing for a mortgage and hating the house from the day you move in.

In fact, a lot of Ozzies I’ve met told me they went to Paris and felt hated by parisians. This testimonial was so frequent (dozens of times) that I led my little survey. On Twitter and among friends, all French people love Australians, between surfing and Crocodile Dundee, we have good conversation starters ;) Some may dislike some British but I don’t think there are many, let alone many who would act it out on the street. I just think parisians behave like stressed people behave in very stressful cities. So, no, we don’t hate English-speaking people, and I’m sorry that my language is so hard and so required in your curriculum ;)

Good day everyone!

shmat8• 6 years ago

We certainly haven't mastered language teaching, at least at public schools. What I remember most is being tested on verb conjugations of irregular verbs. Worst possible way to learn a language.

schoen2• 6 years ago

If I had to believe the lessons, there are only two topics that Germans talk about: The Wiedervereinigung (reunification) and the war.

According to my lessons, they also talk about Umweltschutz (environmental protection), especially Mülltrennung (garbage sorting).

dboreham• 6 years ago

Nobody should base their opinion of a country on the way service workers in that country's capital city treated them.

See Le Louvre, La Tour, Musee D'Orsay, Sainte Chapple, perhaps pop in to l'Orangerie, then get on a train and visit the real France and find real French people.

Actually Père Lachaise is pretty cool too: Fourier and Jim Morrison are buried there.

Al-Khwarizmi2• 6 years ago

For many years, I thought that most French people were arrogant douchebags that hated foreigners.

The reason was that I had only visited the center of Paris, and I really felt disdained there. I even developed the habit of opening conversation in Spanish (my native language) because then people would try English and we would communicate. When I opened conversation in English, they replied in French, I wouldn't understand and they didn't seem interested in communicating at all.

After going to other parts of the country like Nice, Avignon, Lille... and being involved professionally with French people, I had the chance to meet many excellent people and now have several awesome French friends.

Later on, I had the chance to revisit the center of Paris and it no longer felt that unwelcoming anymore (probably partly because I got the hang of the culture and at least some of the language, and partly because I had some more money to go to somewhat better hotels, etc., which can help). But for the first-time clueless foreign visitor, it can feel really hostile. I'm not at all surprised by the testimonials you mention.

thbr99• 6 years ago

a lot of Ozzies I’ve met told me they went to Paris and felt hated by parisians

It's the somewhat true in Québec too, but Québec isn't busy like Paris, so there must be something more to it.

The govt tries to force feed French to new Quebeckers who wants to settle in Québec. I am an expat in Québec. The attitude of Francophones and the Language Policing in Québec makes me not wanting to learn French at all even though it's the best opportunity to learn French. While I understand the reasons behind protecting French in Québec, I feel it can be done differently than by being rude and coercive. Ex: The pastagate in Québec.

mumblemumble3• 6 years ago

I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language. There are just so many reasons why.

Probably the most insurmountable one is that the pace at which the class can move is limited by the pace at which the least motivated student is going to learn.

But I also think that it's just a structurally bad environment for efficient language learning. Since everyone needs a chance to participate, you spend the vast majority of your time listening to other people who don't know the language any better than you do, so there's just not much to learn from them. Since you're working from a textbook, everyone has to read the same uncompelling least-common denominator materials, which, by virtue of being boring, are just as likely to sap as to sustain your motivation - and an unmotivated mind isn't going to absorb much.

I'm starting to feel that way about canned programs in general. I've been working on the kanji lately. At the start, a friend of mine told me he thought I was crazy to do all my own flashcards (though I am following the learning order from Remembering the Kanji) when I could just subscribe to WaniKani and have it all handed to me on a silver platter. A couple months later, he estimated I had learned more kanji over 2 months than he had in years. Just assembling your own materials admittedly involves a lot more up-front work and a steeper learning curve, but the process itself has a lot of mnemonic power.

shmat8• 6 years ago

That's one thing I disagree with in the original post. Like you, I created my own Anki deck and I'm convinced it's a better way to learn.

JCharante• 6 years ago

I'm convinced that a classroom is the worst possible environment for actually learning a 2nd language.

Surely classrooms are the worst environment for learning anything. Of course it's going to be easier to learn any subject if you have a dedicated teacher who makes sure that you understand the material before moving on and keeps you engages. However is it worse than anything? Classrooms usually end up giving you access to a teacher who you can ask questions to and receive a comprehensible response.

Just like in any subject if you actually don't take the effort to study from your own curriculum you're going to be relatively behind. If all someone does is attend their CS lectures and do the bare minimum on their homework assignments then they're effectively wasting their time as they'll be behind their peers who met with professors to collaborate on research projects or with peers to found a startup (in addition to side projects).

Classrooms for any subject are a bad environment because like you stated everyone else has a chance of participating. In addition the material is suited for the majority and isn't personalized. When I was learning about geometric functions in middle school no teacher ever related it to cosine similarity that can be used in NLP.

However 1-on-1 lessons are expensive, so aren't classroms a good enough compromise?

wyattpeak• 6 years ago

While I had the same experience as you in high school (and primary school language learning was altogether a farce), I found the experience very different in classes at university. I think the primary factor was that there were a negligible number of unmotivated students.

Listening to other people at my level didn't seem a particular detriment because teachers have to speak at roughly my level anyway. They made more mistakes, but the instructors corrected them, and the corrections were valuable since they were often the sorts of mistake I'd make myself. Textbooks are trite, but since their main competition in the internet age is materials put together by dedicated but ultimately pedagogically-unskilled amateurs, I think they're better than most alternative prepackaged materials.

What I will acknowledge is that private study through a flashcard deck is probably the best way to acquire vocab, but that was never my biggest challenge. My vocab has consistently been on the large end of other people I've learned with, just because memorisation suits my personality (and I suspect that's true of a lot of people here). That never, though, translated to being the best in class - ability to fluidly construct a sentence beats out perfect word choice every time. It's also very easy to pair with a taught class, since there's no downside to learning extra vocab on the side.

Classes move a bit slowly, but I think the rationale is valid: You're here for three years anyway, you're probably trying to get to around B2, so we'll train you up to B2 in three years.

I'm not going to argue that it's as good as a private tutor, but it was closer to second-best than worst in my experience.

Broken_Hippo• 6 years ago

I moved to Norway as an adult and took classes meant for adult learners. And honestly, there were things I might not have grasped otherwise. Of course, I was in class 15-18 hours a week, was surrounded by Norwegian to a point (English is used a lot: Norwenglish is a thing). I had speaking practice in a nursing home two days a week for some months. Our teacher was a native speaker.

It is honestly helpful to have other learners to practice with: They, in general, have the same knowledge base as you do. Workbooks give repetition, and is helpful with things like grammar and word placement. (I only used a workbook with the first 2 books in the first year). The textbooks had common-sense dialogs and things: These focused on everyday situations (small talk, apartments, speaking about one's background, basic job stuff, and so on). A lot of reading introduced these things or made sure to include information about culture or civics.

And honestly, if one only went to school, participated, and did the homework when we had it, one would learn some language. You were simply better off if you worked on it yourself. I'd certainly not have as much understanding of dialects or grammar trying to learn Norwegian on my own.

This was completely different than the classes most folks had back in the US, generally in high school. I got more instruction as an adult in a day than we usually would get in a week back in high school. I had native speakers teaching. The class was taught in the target language from the first day.

Not all class is the same, and some are very beneficial.

tmountain• 6 years ago

I've been hacking language learning for about five years, and I've spent ridiculous amounts of time trying and reading about different strategies. I've been to Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico to try immersion in different settings.

Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice.

That said, native speakers operate on a different level entirely. In my recent visit to Barcelona, I had no problems asking for directions, talking to the hotel staff and people in bars, chatting it up with friends in Spanish, etc. However, walking into a noisy / crowded restaurant where the language is going 100 miles an hour is a totally different scenario.

As much as I want to believe otherwise, I'm of the opinion that getting to a level of "automatic" response where you can fluidly handle any situation requires living in a country where the language is in your face all day every day--and even then it still takes real effort.

A friend of mine, who's a US ex-pat living in Madrid is of the same opinion. After three years living there, he still doesn't feel 100% confident; although, he admits that he has spent most of his social time around English speakers.

None of this is intended to discourage anyone at all. In fact, learning Spanish ranks as one of the best decisions I've ever made; however, I think it's important for folks to go in with realistic expectations, as there's big difference between functional competency--with a language and fluency with fluency being a "white whale".

shmat8• 6 years ago

I completely agree that there is a huge gap between B2 and that level you describe as automatic. I'm currently trying to bridge that gap, but I can't live in France so I think it will take me years. I know people who have done it without immersion, so I know it's possible. My solution is to "immerse" myself at home. I do 90% of my reading in French. 90% of the podcasts I listen to are in French. I watch French TV shows and YouTube channels. I listen to French whenever I'm driving, exercising, doing errands, cooking, cleaning, etc. I'm also spending 3 weeks a year in France. That's not full immersion but it helps. When I'm in France, I stay with French speaking hosts and do tours in French. I avoid English at all costs. It'll be interesting to see how far I can get.

lottin• 6 years ago

It's a highly effective method in my experience. Also don't forget the production side, you need to practice talking and writing too. You can talk to yourself if you have no one to talk to, it works just as well.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I definitely don't feel completely automatic in French, but when having casual conversation I can be fairly automatic if the subject matter isn't too demanding. I think you're absolutely right that without being immersed in French, you will struggle being automatic, especially in all those situations that you only encounter while being in person with actual French speakers.

I think getting C1/C2 certification doesn't really test for that kind of thing, but instead, to my knowledge, being able to communicate increasingly complex ideas in a relatively sterile environment. So, you probably could get fairly automatic when debating about economics or having general conversation or something abstract at home, but in France you probably won't be automatic until you spend a sufficient amount of time practicing all the little things in daily life. This is something I will struggle with to unless I immerse myself someday, but being able to say what you want generally is definitely good enough to at least survive at live decently well. Good luck, sounds like what you're doing is the best possible!

nexus20452• 6 years ago

Reminds me of a website called All Japanese All The Time, where a guy from America made his environment all Japanese while still in college in Utah (?). TV, kanji posters, Windows language settings, friends,...

cdavid• 6 years ago

It is possible to have what I think you mean by automatic response level without living in the country. I myself sucked at English until University: I hated learning it, I could not understand it spoken, and I could not read well a mildly complicated text written in it (say something written in the economist or NYT).

Today, except for pronunciation, I would consider myself fluent, though of course not native. While I do use English daily, I have never worked in an English-speaking country until well after I became fluent. The one thing that made it click was watching a lot of video content without subtitles

mumblemumble3• 6 years ago

My sense is that there are really two different registers you can shoot for. Past a certain level of proficiency, they're mostly divergent, if complementary, skills.

The first is whether you speak articulately about complex topics. This one is easy to do from home; reading books, listening to podcasts, and talking with language partners on iTalki will all help get you there.

The second is informal, everyday communication. This one's definitely a struggle. Not only is it hard to pick up on your own, but I'm pretty sure that, even if you've spent some time in a region that speaks the language, there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave. TV, especially sitcoms, helps, but only a little. There's just not a whole lot of overlap between the things people actually chatter about all day, and the things that make for interesting entertainment.

viraptor• 6 years ago

there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave

That applies even to your original language. ~15 years after moving away, talking to family and friends at home feels... awkward. I can still do it easily, but honestly, sometimes I wish I could use English, even if that's not perfect either.

It's so much easier with friends who also moved out. We can switch to a more comfortable language for each thought or even mid sentence if you prefer a specific word choice.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. From my experience I completely agree with you. When I started out I figured B2 meant X% of competence in these two fields, but now I feel like especially towards the end I became increasingly more competent in the former relative to the latter. I think even getting a C2 certificate would just mean another year or two of solidifying grammar, amassing a huge vocabulary, a lot of reading, and some hundreds of hours of practice discussing such abstract topics. Not easy by any means, but relatively straightforward.

On the other hand, the latter probably can't be done at home. While it isn't necessary to be very, very strong in French, without that immersion experience I think you'll never feel "at home" among francophones until you put in the necessary hours into hanging out in French.

Despite this, having the latter is certainly very useful and allows you to get your point across in the vast majority of situations, so if it's the best you can do, it's still worth it if you really want to learn the language.

Ma8ee• 6 years ago

Oh gosh! That reminds me of my childhood. I spent most of my time at home reading without many friends. I would win discussions with my teachers about science, philosophy and economics, but I always seemed like a fool when I tried to talk to my peers.

hombre_fatal4• 6 years ago

Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice.

Though that's why it's hard. Just like eating healthy and exercise isn't hard, just requires dedication, yet notice how few people have a particularly good looking body.

The opportunity cost of learning a language is also immense. I've spent an incredible amount of time listening to and reading Spanish. It just isn't for everybody. It has to be something that makes you happy.

abnry2• 6 years ago

I am of the opinion that many people who want to learn a language don't have any real reason to learn a second language other than to say they know two languages.

Unless you have extended family or somehow became smitten with a foreign country, I am almost certain this is the case. So any attempts are really halfhearted and very little progress is made because the commitment is so large.

This is why, if I ever get around to learning a second language, it will be Esperanto. It takes an order of magnitude of less time to learn and gives you the accomplishment of knowing another language. (Plus uniformity in language is cool.)

monster_group3• 6 years ago

100% agree on the opportunity cost. I taught myself Sanskrit to the level that I now teach two batches of students at different proficiency levels. I really wanted to learn it and I did it. I spent a lot of time to get to this level. Now I am learning to play guitar. I am finding it even more difficult than learning Sanskrit and everyday I find myself questioning the opportunity cost. Do I really want to play guitar that bad that I spend 1-2 hours every day practicing after coming home from my full time job? Instead of that if I practiced 1-2 hours of Leetcode everyday I could get a significant pay raise. Am I crazy to be spending time on something that is almost guaranteed to have a negative ROI - I ask myself everyday.

tsukurimashou• 6 years ago

I think the best way to learn a language is to move to a country that speaks that language. You'll learn without realizing it, because you HAVE TO learn in order to be able to communicate with others.

WheelsAtLarge• 6 years ago

> getting to a level of "automatic" response where you can fluidly handle any situation requires living in a country where the language is in your face all day every day--and even then it still takes real effort.

I can tell you from personal experience that it's most important that you speak the language. Get yourself in conversations where you are forced to speak and listen to the language. There's a big advantage to recall words when you need them and to try to understand what the other person is telling you. The stress of the situation will burn the words into your memory. Ultimately you will have no choice but to learn it. Also, even fluent speakers will lose fluency if you don't practice so there's no such thing as being fluent for life without using the language regularly.

The biggest disservice you can do to a person that's trying to learn a new language is to translate for them in their native language. It helps at the moment but long term it's harder for them to learn the new language.

nmfisher• 6 years ago

Totally agree.

I believe there's a difference between "competence" (I know how to say X) and "fluidity" (I can say X as easily as breathing).

You can learn the first on your own. Takes a lot of effort, sure, but it's doable.

I don't think you can learn fluidity outside of actually living in a country. You need to be bombarded daily with questions that you're forced to respond to. Even then, some people just don't make the effort, which is why you get people who have lived in a foreign country for decades and their language skills haven't improved.

My first three months in China were worth more than the preceding three years of self-study.

laurieg2• 6 years ago

This is definitely true. I usually describe it as "language knowledge" vs "fluency" in my classes.

You can learn fluidity on your own, but it takes the right kind of practice. It's easy to think of learning a language as "study". You go through books learning words, phrases, verb endings etc. Most exercises in textbooks only care about you getting the right answer, not how quickly you do it.

Compare this to learning a musical instrument. There is some study needed, but realtime practice is the bulk of what you do. If you need 30 seconds to work out the next chord in a song then you can't play the piano. The gold standard is practicing with a metronome. The areas where you can't keep up are the areas where you need to practice.

I'm quite surprised that this idea of realtime practice is still so uncommon even though everyone has a smartphone nowadays. In the past, Pimsleur language courses put an emphasis on being able to answer in the language you are studying more or less straightaway.

monster_group3• 6 years ago

> However, walking into a noisy / crowded restaurant where the language is going 100 miles an hour is a totally different scenario.

I honestly don't get how people talk in noisy bars and restaurants. I struggle even in English. One almost has to shout in the other person's ear. If it's that close I am thinking more about how my breath smells after having a few drinks rather than topic of discussion - lol.

shmat8• 6 years ago

I read a study that said that in your native language you only need to hear 1/3 - 1/2 of the syllables and your brain will automatically fill in the rest, which is why you can understand conversations in a noisy environment. In a foreign language, unless you've achieved a very high level, you need to hear everything so noisy environments are a problem.

rajlego2• 6 years ago

I really like this site [1] because it shows you just how big the gap between native and non-native speakers is. Non-native speakers generally know around 10,000 words while adult native speakers tend to know upwards of 20,000 words. I think the reason that getting to real native level fluency is extremely hard is that they have thousands more hours of input than you do and it's very hard to make up for that in real situations other than reading/watching lots and lots of Spanish content.

[1] http://testyourvocab.com/

rimliu• 6 years ago

That page made me feel good about myself: English is my fourth language, and it estimates my vocabulary to be at 23200 words.

kosievdmerwe• 6 years ago

The number of words you have to know to learn a language properly is why it's a daunting proposition to me and why I've stuck with the two I grew up with.

There are 8760 hours in a year. Even if you somehow managed to learn a word an hour, that's still multiple years to get to 20-40k words.

I think we take for granted how many years it takes for kids to learn a language to adult level when we say "kids have an easy time learning languages". It may be easy in that it doesn't require as much conscious study as adults do, but it isn't quick either. Granted mental maturation messes up the time lines, but I think it's hard to argue that it doesn't still take many years.

So depending on what motivates you the time commitment needed at a minimum can be heartening (I'm taking years because there's lots to learn) or disheartening (This is a multi-year endeavor that I'll have to focus on when I could be doing something else).

EDIT: Though reading up on what B2 is, it is a much less daunting proposition, but even C2 doesn't sound like native speaker level, just able to communicate effectively level.

nexus20452• 6 years ago

As a native Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin since I was 5, you think I'd have some advantage (which I do - vocabulary is largely similar), but I still struggle greatly with communication the more informal it is. Learning from language teachers is almost similar as reading travel phrasebooks - those situations are too forced and not realistic enough. Most communication involves lots of jokes and nuances where the topic isn't even clearly defined, unlike business settings.

fcatalan• 6 years ago

If you just care about understanding most of the written language this can be done a bit faster in a very similar way: A few years ago I started watching Danish TV shows and went through a few months of "Danish obsession".

-I started Duolingo Danish, only 15-20 minutes every day, just unlocking stuff, not completing evey level. I never completed it all, but there's not much left.

-Then I followed a couple major Danish newspapers on Twitter. This is good because it is just incorporated in my couple daily sweeps through my timeline, provides a little "cultural immersion" and the translate button is sitting right there to help with those couple of words you didn't already know.

-The Twitter thing also works well to give a sense of progress: After a while you find you don't have much trouble with the tweets themselves and start clicking on some links to get a harder challenge with the articles themselves.

-When you can make out what most of the press articles say, you can start trying with some fiction: In my case I chose ebook Danish translations of the Millenium novel series, for no particular reason (just more Nordic noir). I had not read them previously.

I read them using my phone and set up the reader to provide Google translation by selecting words or sentences. I found out I could in fact enjoy the novel and had to use the "dictionary" less and less as I went on. I read the two first novels and the average speed was about half of English or my native Spanish.

- Since my Danish reading was by now quite effortless, for an aditional challenge I tried the third novel in the original Swedish. This was viable and still fun, but certainly more belabored.

All this took about 3-4 months.

So now I can read Danish, Norwegian and Swedish newspapers but I can't really understand the spoken language. (In fact spoken Danish is notoriously difficult to understand). I can catch the drift of conversation, recognise words and phrases but not really understand or speak myself. I can surprise Danes by greeting them and exchanging some smalltalk, but not really keep up a conversation. But hey... it was all pretty much effortless, so RoI is great.

Nowadays I'm doing the same with Russian. It goes slower because I'm not as obsessed and stop from time to time, but I can understand tweets from Komsomolskaya Pravda pretty well by now.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I heavily concentrated on speaking, but you're absolutely right that without that you can get quite far surprisingly quickly if you only care about reading. I mean, look at the millions of language students that can read complex texts in their foreign languages but can't spend 30 seconds discussing their day.

mrfusion• 6 years ago

In my opinion he’d have done even better throwing away anki and watching way more kid shows. Languages aren’t supposed to be memorized. If you’re communicating with it, it just sticks in your brain.

When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

throwaway4196810• 6 years ago

The way you learn as an adult is very different from the way you learn as a child. There's nothing compelling about kid shows. I don't know what drives your efforts to learn a language but, mine are about having access to interesting media, literature, conversations, etc. Speaking like a 4 year old only gets you so far.

And if you want to do it, and do it quickly, you've got to do your Anki reps. Acquire lots and lots of vocabulary so you get through the boring part and start enjoying the use of the language.

moufestaphio• 6 years ago

I completely disagree. Many language learning tasks are just memorization. English spelling or grammar for example. There aren't rules, you just have to memorize it.

It just sticks in your brain

yeah, that's how I feel with flashcards/anki. After doing it a bunch, it's just there in your brain.

When learning to ride a bike You don’t memorize when to move your legs.

I mean, isn't that exactly what muscle memory is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_memory

Onawa• 6 years ago

I'm just curious if you have used the cartoon method to learn a second language and how effective was it?

boring_twenties• 6 years ago

Uh huh. And I taught myself C++ in 21 days.

risos• 6 years ago

no immersion

I see this somewhat frequently among some parts of the online language community. For some reason people seem to think that you're not immersing in a language unless you're in a country where that language is frequently used. They somehow equate being immersed in a language with physically being in a country where that language is frequently used.

Don't get me wrong, being in a country is a great way to immerse yourself in a language, but it is by no means a requirement.

In terms of exposure to content in the language you're learning, what's the difference between someone who is living in a country where they see that language on TV, in the newspapers, hear it on the radio, and speak it with native speakers, versus someone who watches content in that language on youtube, reads articles/newspapers online in that language, talks online with people who speak that language, but lives somewhere where they don't speak it? Not much.

Setting up a "local immersion environment" requires putting effort into finding native resources and trying to reduce your exposure towards your native language. It's certainly more effort than being in a country where you can't help but be surrounded by your target language, but it's definitely not impossible.

The idea that listening to music, listening to podcasts, watching youtube videos and reading articles in your target language is not immersion is silly, since this is what native speakers living in their country experience on a daily basis. Environment is everything, not location.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. I see your point but I still prefer to say I wasn't "immersed" because I think actually living among native speakers and using the language carries an enormous advantage over what I did, a sort of "pseudo-immersion." This pseudo-immersion isn't 100% equivalent to typical immersion, but as you say, captures at least a significant part of it. Trying to imitate the immersion environment is the best I could do, and clearly is enough to get to a pretty decent level.

Regarding differences between this pseudo-immersion and "true immersion", I think there are a ton of things that I never picked up that I would receive had I lived in the country, which is a big reason why I still make this distinction. For example, I haven't shopped at a French grocery store and asked for help, and while I could do so, I'd probably use some uncommon wording. Or, for example, IIRC French people say "I'm having X" in restaurants instead of "I would like X", as all the online resources tell you to do, but I would have never picked up on this if I hadn't read it in a random article once. This sort of expression-mimicking you get from interacting daily with native speakers is, I imagine, hugely important in actually becoming natural in a native environment and is completely lacking with what I did.

I've never been to a French hospital, or complained about cigarette butts on the sidewalk, or explained how I stepped in dog poop on my way to work this morning, or told anyone how sweaty I became after rushing to catch the train. I could say all these things, but they'd all be new situations and there would be unnatural wording and a distinct lack of common expressions and idioms in my speech. Theoretically, I could watch enough movies or read enough books to catch a decent chunk of this, but in my immersion method I read 1 book and 0 movies or tv shows, (aside from a kid's cartoon for a bit.) This doesn't even include the massive amount of slang and idioms that are only said among very informal friends that I've never used with my Italki teachers. Perhaps including a lot more media in my method would be significantly more "immersive", but in any case I think the distinction is warranted. That being said, immersing yourself as much as possible, even at home, is definitely a very useful and effective way to learn a language.

leke• 6 years ago

This person has a lot of will power, and I think that is the secret here. I'm pretty weak on will power, which is why I'm not yet B2 level in Finnish after nearly 20 years living in Finland.

commondandy• 6 years ago

If you enjoyed this post, you will also like this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22344602

bretthopper2• 6 years ago

There's a lot of meta discussion about learning languages but I'd like to thank the author for two great tips in particular:

* using the desktop version of Duolingo

* the shared Ankiweb decks for <x> most common words in <x> language

I've been slowly learning Spanish via a few short classes and intermittently using Duolingo on my phone.

I'm not even sure I knew a non-mobile version of Duolingo existed until now and it's so much better. Even though I knew that turning off the work bank was better for learning I didn't do it because typing on my phone sucks.

And I had never used Anki before but earlier today I downloaded it and a top 5000 Spanish word deck and already went through my first lesson.

Even these two small things will help me a lot so thank you.

wes135017• 6 years ago

Author here. Don't quote me on this, but I think something like 90% of Duolingo users are mobile. Mobile is more "fun" and good for casual users who want to do 5 minutes everyday to feel like they're making progress. I imagine Duolingo's business model leads to it heavily promoting the mobile platform, but thankfully the desktop version is quite good too.

I didn't like the Anki UI at first but I got used to it quickly. My Anki pace of 50 new cards a day was very aggressive, but this was largely possible due to the massive number of cognates between English and French. I imagine the same will hold for you in Spanish, though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent. I think Anki is wonderful for acquiring vocab though, so keep at it and you should do quite well! Also consider making your own Anki deck or using sentences instead of words. While this 5000 word deck was good enough to get to B2 for me, those methods are very likely more effective for long-term retention of more obscure words, although of course they are far more time-consuming.

bretthopper2• 6 years ago

I don't doubt the 90%. You can tell they don't care really care about desktop so it doesn't have the heart system.

Yeah I'll eventually build my own Anki deck. I'm spending a month in Mexico right now so that's definitely helping too :)

BTBurke5• 6 years ago

I don't believe there is a shortcut for "hacking" languages. I'm a diplomat, and currently learning my fourth language to the C1+ level.

When we learn languages, it's a full time job. It was 9 months to learn Mandarin to a B1, 6 months to a C1+ in Spanish, and I'm currently at a B1 in Estonian after 5 months.

There are several things I think are crucial after years of full time study (note: this assumes you're going for professional fluency, not just touring around the country where interactions are largely scripted and predictable):

* There is no substitute for production - you must speak the language with a native speaker (not an app) and talk about topics that are relevant to the kind of scenarios you anticipate. We spend the first several months discussing current events in target language - at first scripted, then later free form. This builds vocabulary and helps fluency. This is quickly expanded to discussing current events in depth and participating in mock debates.

* Give mini presentations - target 3-5 minutes of talking about a relevant topic with little prep time. The difference between intermediate and advanced is the ability to move from discussing only facts to making a coherent argument. Native speakers will often not be able to follow your train of thought without learning to connect cause and effect using structures appropriate for your language.

* Interview native speakers - prepare 2-3 questions about a particular topic and check your comprehension by translating their answers to English. This obviously helps build your comprehension, but also helps to learn to "automate" comprehension while you are thinking about something else. If you can take notes in English while a native speaker is talking at normal speed (and achieving 90%+ accuracy), it will make it easier for you to participate in normal speed conversations.

* Read target language news - this is critical for expanding vocabulary and learning colocations - knowing what verbs are used in particular contexts (e.g., do they say "I talked with X" or "I talked to X". Do they say country X shot, launched, or threw a rocket?)

Bottom line - language learning is not just about the number of hours you put in. The quality and type of practice you do matters a lot. You aren't going to be fluent via Duolingo alone. You need to put in the time using structured practice with native speakers to really learn anything.

billfruit• 6 years ago

Very good inputs, but these may not help with languages like Latin which aren't actively spoken or used in present day communication.

schoen2• 6 years ago

There are some great spoken Latin programs out there. See https://latin.org/ and https://www.paideiainstitute.org/, for example.

mantap• 6 years ago

Before learning a language it's essential to enumerate your goals and determine not just the level of fluency that you desire but what part of the language you wish to learn. A diplomat is going to need to learn a different vocabulary and register to someone who is e.g. a chef. A diplomat or businessperson is going to need to speak formally and correctly, whereas others might find it more useful to learn slang terms and the informal register.

raindropm• 6 years ago

Same as with learning anything I guess. Deliberate learning (or specify what part you want to learn) is much more effective than learning broadly without any aim or specific goals in mind.

sidmitra• 6 years ago

difference between intermediate and advanced is the ability to move from discussing only facts to making a coherent argument.

This is a brilliant point and never thought about it this way. I've spoken spanish for 5 years but i've always felt some things lacking when i've tried to make an coherent argument about politics for eg. One more thing i'd like to add is 'humor'. If you can make jokes or be sarcastic to natives in their language, then you've definitely crossed another barrier.

jacquesm3• 6 years ago

I learned Polish mostly by telling jokes and having people tell jokes to me. Fortunately both Polish and Dutch have a near endless repertoire of them. Many jokes rely on language skills in order to be funny you have to at least get to the point where it can be explained to you. And of course, the immediate pay-off is that you'll hear a funny joke which is good for short term motivation.

Beyond that humor is very much cultural and learning a language through humor immediately exposes you to the culture in a way that talking about current events would not.

oblio3• 6 years ago

And you definitely need to cross that barrier if your goal is to integrate in a community, for good. Otherwise you'll always be an outsider.

koenigdavidmj• 6 years ago

Can you write a bit about how you found HN? It’s a source of slight fascination when non-tech people stumble into this world.

asperous• 6 years ago

In case he doesn't reply, based on the profile in his bio looks like he has a degree in E.E. and used to manage technology projects for the government.

BTBurke5• 6 years ago

I was an engineer, served in the military, and programming is now a hobby.

Not all diplomats are political science or economics majors. Policy touches so many sectors that it's useful to have people with backgrounds in many areas.

It's not uncommon to have prior software engineers, teachers, etc in the foreign service.

rajlego2• 6 years ago

Have you heard of Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis? [1] There are a couple of parts to it but it essentially says that linguistic competence (a fancy way to say your innate knowledge of a language) only increases when you take in input. If you talk all day that doesn't really make you any better (since you don't learn anything new) unless you use a process like deliberate feedback to be corrected. Personally I think it's much more useful to thus focus on reading/listening to start and then later move on to speaking/writing. I learned Spanish through normal school and while I can speak fast the fact that I haven't had much real input really shows since I'm generally just translating English -> spanish and I don't know if I'm using grammar right since I haven't heard it enough.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis

thedirt01155• 6 years ago

What of the folks who have watched countless hours of anime, but still can't speak Japanese? Input alone is not enough, at least not for adults wanting to become fluent from what I've seen.

bayesian_horse• 6 years ago

"Output" only reviews information. Useful, but not sufficient.

animalnewbie• 6 years ago

I've seen computational biologists , mechanical engineers , non-programmjng entrepreneurs but what does a diplomat do on HN?

sfgweilr4f• 6 years ago

Tech news with hacker directed filtering.

orthoxerox• 6 years ago

Why can't a diplomat have a tech-related hobby? Most people outside tech have hobbies that are unrelated to their daily job.

wtmt• 6 years ago

It could be someone who was in tech or was educated (formal or by oneself) on tech but switched to being a diplomat on seeing opportunities to make a better difference with their skills. Depending on the area of work, diplomats could highly benefit in today’s world by understanding tech better. We have allowed tech to dictate policies for too long and playing catch up. So any diplomat who understands tech well would be a great asset to policy makers and decision makers.

ryanmercer3• 6 years ago

but what does a diplomat do on HN?

Learn things? I'm none of the things you listed, nor do I do anything remotely related to computer sciences, but I still frequent HN.

Mediterraneo10• 6 years ago

Alan Mustard, former US ambassador to Turkmenistan and trained in agriculture, is a well-known OpenStreetMap geek and quite familiar with GIS issues. Diplomats can have hobbies, you know.

I myself am a linguist and translator, no professional background in the hard sciences or IT at all, but I have still been involved in Free Software for many years and so HN is a natural news channel to read.

BTBurke5• 6 years ago

Programming is now a hobby and I still do some open source stuff and push out various side projects for fun.

Eventually I'll have to retire and so I always hope some of my side projects will take off to supplement my retirement income.

jacquesm3• 6 years ago

check your comprehension by translating their answers to English

Why to English?

kelnos• 6 years ago

I assume he means "to your native language", not to English, specifically.

psychoslave• 6 years ago

Thank you very much for this feedback. I'm estonished of the fact that you target an on the fly translation to your (presumably) native language. I mean, for me it seems like a far harder task than to note what you understand in the source language directly.

Actually, I often find that I can fluently exchange with someone speaking English (which is not my native language), but if a third person ask me to translate, it's really a higher level of complexity to find the relevant expressions.

I understand that at the start, one feel more at ease to use its know point of reference in languages already known, but at some point this scaffold is only an additional layer that slows down your expression flow, isn't it?

bluGill5• 6 years ago

Since he is a diplomat I expect that the ability to translate is sometimes more important that his own understanding. He doesn't directly have power to make decisions, he needs to bring everything back to the leaders of his country. (of course he will know what the goals of his country are and what compromises are acceptable, but his decisions are subject to review)

BTBurke5• 6 years ago

We do a lot of on the fly translations. In meetings, we may have to translate for an Ambassador or senior official that doesn't speak the language. Depending on the topic, it may not be appropriate to bring a professional translator, so we do the best we can.

We also meet with a wide variety of people and take copious notes. I personally take notes in a mix of English and the local language, but mostly in English because I have my own shorthand to help me remember what is said. It's hard to develop that kind of shorthand in a foreign language without writing everything and that is too slow for a normal conversation.

namelosw• 6 years ago

Totally agree on there is no shortcut for "hacking" languages. But at the same time "The quality and type of practice you do matters a lot" as you've said.

And also, for learning languages, one way could be significantly less painful than others.

I grew up in China, where almost every student struggles so much on English learning, every day. I found myself very easy to pass every exam and beating the average, without listening to the lectures or doing any homework - simply by playing video games (especially RPG). I was/am by no means excellent at English, but it was almost a totally free perk for me.

Basically video games are:

1. Designed to be both engaging and challenging, whereas schools suck at those so much.

2. Have specific and meaningful targets, if you failed to understand what's going on or what's the mechanism you're not likely to play along.

3. Including scenarios and plots. A lot of reading and listening activities. You don't have to appoint a teacher or native speaker to talk with you. You can start anytime you want (except I have intolerant parents so I have to play it sneakily).

4. Cheap.

ChuckNorris89• 6 years ago

I grew up in Eastern Europe and had the same experience, ending up speaking English near natively as a kid thanks to watching undubbed cartoons on BBC, Cartoon Network and Fox Kids, Hollywood movies and playing video games.

I thought this was the case across all of Europe but found out that in the rich part of Europe all entertainment is dubbed in the local language so youngsters there had worse English skills than I expected for such wealthy nations.

It's probably one of the reason so many US tech companies have opened up shop here, other than lower wages.

ryanmercer3• 6 years ago

Quickly, make a language teaching startup that does so by creating a few genres of video games (that are comparable to others in those genres but also prioritize language acquisition) and actually lure good game designers over.

Then tell me when the product is ready so I can use it.

echelon• 6 years ago

Could you expand upon this? How many hours a day do you study? Are you learning in structured classes? What curriculum are you using? Do you study while residing in a country that speaks the language?

Are you saying it takes a year and a half to reach fluency if you take it on as a full time job?

BTBurke5• 6 years ago

We have a foreign language institute outside Washington DC where they teach about 70 languages.

It's an organized class for 5 hours a day in small groups with a native speaker as the teacher.

There is usually an additional 2-5 hours of independent study/homework depending on the complexity of the language.

Professional fluency takes between 24 and 88 weeks depending on the difficulty of the language. Spanish is 24, Mandarin would be 88. "Hard" languages like Finnish and Estonian are in the middle at 44.

We test with native speakers at the end to determine our level on a 5 point scale. Each of our embassy jobs has an associated language requirement, usually 3/3, which means professionally fluent in speaking and reading.

kripy• 6 years ago

"The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has created a list to show the approximate time you need to learn a specific language as an English speaker." [0] French ranks in Category I: you wonder if the same method would apply for a Category V language.

[0] https://effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/languag...

lowercased• 6 years ago

I've done short stints in Spanish and Japanese classes, and have traveled abroad for short periods (Spain, Russia, China). I understand short phrases and can do very basic stuff: ask for directions, say please/thank you, get mugged, etc.

I have some family that have done intense language study, and lived abroad for years (mostly Russia, but other places too), one thing I've always been curious about is wordplay.

Do non-English languages and cultures have the same amount (or potential for) wordplay like English does? My family who've lived abroad have said 'not as much as English', but... they only lived in non-English places for a few years, so their experience - while valuable - may not be conclusive.

digitalsushi• 6 years ago

I don't speak Swedish but someone told me they have their own pun Olympics simply because of how easy the language is to mold into puns

wingerlang• 6 years ago

Looks like it is a comedy group that is setting some competition event yearly.

jobigoud• 6 years ago

In French we have a long tradition (16th century according to Wikipedia) of a specific kind of wordplay named "Contrepèterie" where two phonemes in an apparently innocuous sentence are swapped, to create a different sentence.

Here is a website with some: https://lapoulequimue.fr/

Ex with the website name: la poule qui mue (the hen that is moulting) -> la moule qui pue (the mussel (slang for pussy) that stinks).

If you are in a business setting and you are scheduling your next meeting, avoid saying "Je te laisse le choix dans la date" (I'll leave you the choice of the date).

pieq3• 6 years ago

Polyglot here. I'm struggling with written Chinese (traditional Chinese, as I live in Taiwan). Written (traditional Chinese) and spoken (Mandarin) forms are very different, especially in novels but even in news articles. I've got a pretty decent level in spoken Mandarin (most of my colleagues are Taiwanese, meetings are in Mandarin), I can use traditional Chinese to type when chatting with friends online, but I'm completely lost as soon as I open any news articles shared by my Taiwanese friends.

Any recommendations?

realitygrill• 6 years ago

Have you tried the Guoyu Ribao, or Mandarin Daily News? Seems like you need extensive reading practice, and that might be a good way to start.

I've also heard excellent things about Outlier Linguistics' resources for Chinese characters, assuming you're still spending a lot of effort learning characters.

pieq3• 6 years ago

Thanks!

I'll try 國語日報, I'm not sure where to buy it though (it used to be available easily in every 7-Eleven out there but it's been a while since I've seen a copy in a convenience store...).

I already know between 800 and 1000 traditional characters. Looking at Outlier Linguistics products, it seems more targeted towards the entry level. Their Pleco dictionary is nice, though. Reminds me of the explanations one could find in Wenlai (a desktop Chinese-English dictionary with a lot of historical explanations for each characters).

tanilama• 6 years ago

I doubt Chinese the written form can be learnt in 12 months...

I have learnt English for at least 10 years, still take some efforts to read a novel, specially in a fantasy setting...

pieq3• 6 years ago

Sorry, my message was not very clear. I've studied Chinese in the past, and I'm using it daily. I already know a bunch of written characters, it's just that reading articles seems really out of reach...

And yes, I know what you mean with English... and yet, I'm lucky enough that my mother tongue (French) actually shares a lot of vocabulary with English!

justlexi93• 6 years ago

Studying French with audio is a must if you want to learn French to communicate: understand spoken French and speak French yourself. Absolutely. One year is quite enough time to learn a language reasonably well if you put in necessary amounts of daily hours and disciplined study.

la_baguette2• 6 years ago

Native French speaker here... (this is a throwaway account)

I am not judging the overall ability of OP to actually speak French or its methodology but I got triggered by the embedded French text and "correction" [1].

Neither the original text nor the correction make any sort of sense.

Here is the original text :

Je vous propose une deuxième solution : des credits pour s’inscrire à un gymnase proche. Il est évident que faire du sport nous aide beaucoup à bien gérer le stress et améliorer la santé. Cependant, il est parfois difficile de trouver le temps pour s’inscrire à un bon gymnase et se dédier à l’assister, particulièrement quand on est tout seul. Si on donne aux employés des credits pour faire du sport, il sera probable qu’ils se motiveront et ils iront le gymnase ensemble. Cela pourrait beaucoup réduire le stress parmi nos employés et faire en sorte que notre entreprise trouve toujours le succès.

In a conversation, French-speaking people would probably get the general idea if they were to try hard enough but it is at the frontier between gibberish and (young) child level of French.

Let me break it down :

Je vous propose une deuxième solution : Perfectly fine.
des credits pour s’inscrire à un gymnase proche “crédits” is an unrelated term ; “gymnase” is the old-fashioned name for a place where all kinds of indoor sports take place. If the the idea here is “vouchers for gym subscription”, the closest in French would be “des abonnements à des clubs de fitness/salles de sport”.
Il est évident que faire du sport nous aide beaucoup à bien gérer le stress et améliorer la santé. You can improve _your_ health, not _the_ health. Given that he used “nous”, that would be “… améliorer notre santé”.
Cependant, il est parfois difficile de trouver le temps pour s’inscrire à un bon gymnase Same comment as above regarding “gymnase”.
et se dédier à l’assister Literally translated “dedicate yourself to assist the gym [the building]”. A correct wording would be “et y être régulier”.
particulièrement quand on est tout seul. Perfectly fine.
Si on donne aux employés des credits pour faire du sport, Same comment as above regarding “crédit”.
il sera probable qu’ils se motiveront et ils iront le gymnase ensemble. Here, the conjugation (the tenses) are plain wrong – it’s really obvious yet whoever did the correction didn’t have a clue. And it lacks a preposition and a grammatical article. Literally translated “it is going to be likely that they will be motivate themselves and they would go to the place where all sorts of sports take place together”. Properly translated “il est probable que cela les motive et qu’ils participent à cette activité ensemble”.
Cela pourrait beaucoup réduire le stress parmi nos employés Ok.
et faire en sorte que That’s perfectly fine and the “correction” isn’t any better. They are synonyms.
notre entreprise trouve toujours le succès. That’s fine from a grammatical point of view but that is not a wording that would be used in that context. Once again, the “correction” isn’t better. The general idea of the text is that, in the context of a fictional company, providing employees with vouchers for gym subscriptions could help reduce their overall stress, have a positive effect on their health and, at the end of the day, contribute to the success of the company. The last sentence would be used by a sect and would roughly translate to “our company will always manage to find success”.

[1] http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png

mmhsieh• 6 years ago

I’m from the future, you should learn Chinese.

practice9• 6 years ago

Does anybody here have experience of "learning" physics, electrical engineering or material science in 12 months?

By this I mean starting from the very basics to a level where you can comfortably talk about main concepts and start designing or experimenting using your knowledge

globular-toast• 6 years ago

I learnt French in about six months. I was able to read the news, Wikipedia, technical journals and and some novels (although this was by far the most difficult). My main motivation was to be able to read French papers for my PhD. I accomplished that goal.

However, I was not able to speak French at all. I actually went to the South of France thinking I'd be able to converse but was immediately disheartened when I couldn't understand the first thing they said and they couldn't even understand me saying the word "tarte" in a patisserie.

My approach to learning to read/write French was simple. First learn the grammar of your mother tongue. If you don't speak a second language, you probably don't know this. Secondly, learn the grammar of the new language by using study materials written in your mother tongue. There is an excellent series of books that covers both of these called English Grammar for Students of X (where X is, French, for example). Thirdly, learn loads and loads of vocabulary (including genders etc if necessary). For this I used Memrise which was excellent at the time (but I think it has regressed since). Then just read a lot.

Things I found not useful at all were Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. They don't teach grammar to adults. They are aimed at babies which is fine if you have ten years to learn this, I guess. There are no shortcuts if you want it to be quicker.

I still know a surprisingly large amount of French after several years, but it's fading. I'd still love to be able to speak it fluently one day. Any advice for getting there?

loufe• 6 years ago

I had the good luck of getting hired into a job in a 100% French environment here in Quebec just out of school almost 2 years ago. I started with just an intensive 6 credit French course in university and grade 11 English-Canada high school french as a background which conversationally accounted for very little.

I understand feeling as though your structured grammar classes in school failed you when you first went to X country and spaghetti came out your mouth. However, that grammatical framework served me incredibly well as time went on. I found it filled in holes of knowledge without need to go back and correct them later. IMO, it is not a bad place to start, a traditional grammar focused class.

If you're looking for tips, the biggest is to maximize exposure - speaking, reading, writing, hearing the language. It is simply a matter of time if you force yourself into it. In addition to everyday language practice with my colleagues to do my job (don't let them speak your native tongue with you, ever!), I hosted french movie nights, read in french, and installed Antidote for my emails (seriously - if you're learning French, buy Antidote).

Seriously, don't let them speak your native tongue with you, ever, for any reason. Force the language you want to learn without exception - conversation language patterns are very, very hard to undo once set.

Last point: Contrary to the author, "heavily accented French" to me is France French, I am far less fluent with it. Choose your teachers based on what accent you want to have, yourself.

hyakosm• 6 years ago

French here. If you travel to a French-speaking country, don't hesitate to speak french, even if it's not perfect. Priority is to be understood. For an english-native, the temptation is probably to speak english because « everyone speak english in the world » (wrong), but generally people prefer listen a foreigner speaking their language with errors than perfect english.

thedirt01155• 6 years ago

Excellent collection of resources! I'd like to add one: https://forvo.com/ Forvo is a free site where you can look up words and hear them spoken by native speakers.

grayed-down• 6 years ago

Why learn another language when you can just talk louder?

I Learned French in 12 Months

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