I’ve been studying Spanish semi-intensively for about seven months now. I feel like I’ve hit a sort of “runners high” in that while there is still sooo much I don’t know, I am able to follow along YouTube videos, podcasts, etc., and it feels pretty good.

However, it’s taken me so long just to get here. I am wondering how people who learned multiple languages to a high level (let’s say late B2-C1) managed to get there and maintain it?

Hi everyone! I’m working on finishing my graduate degree in Applied Linguistics and I’m doing some research into pronunciation by learners of French. I’m looking for some participants to take part in this study.

What’s involved: Participants will record themselves saying 18 French words and answer some language background questions.

Who can participate:

● Learners of French as a second language (English first language)

● Learners of Spanish as a second language AND French as a third language (English first language)

Tech requirements: A device with stable internet access and a microphone (laptop will likely work best).

Time requirement: About 10-20 minutes

Link to participate online and more information:

https://gvsu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_djmH34SkJzLbY46

(Sorry my first language isnt english) My wife was recently diagnosed deaf a this spring and we have been doing good learning sign. But now there has becoming issue becuae it’s starting to get very cold for her hands.

She has arthritis and her fingers stiffen during cold. We live in a country where it gets very cold from November - April. She wear gloves but it’s hard for her to sign with them on, does anyone have similar situation where they have a solution? She has her phone to otherwise bit it is also somewhat tedious to use for every day.

E.g., adding X hours of grammar study/classroom time/speaking practice into a comprehensible input approach, or vice versa, or some secret third option.

From my own experiences, and based on what other people have said in this sub, a "mixed" approach seems to be more effective than just using one of these tools and nothing else, but im curious if there's been any actual research into this.

In class I am given these long lists of vocab and grammatical structures that I have to learn. We barely go over them in class and move on. We are not really expected to know them. I want to truly know these words (I am a Spanish major) but I just don’t get the practice I need in class. How do I go about getting them down? For example, I am learning political vocabulary right now, but just writing sentences and flash cards is only enough to get me through a test before I forget it. Do you have any advice for making it stick? I am in the 200-300 ish range for coursework if it helps at all. (TL)

For me it was French, particularly how many sounds are reduced in real-life speech and how clipped it can be, sometimes I’m like, there is literally no distinguishable phonetic information here - but clearly the entire French nation disagrees haha. I really love it though, it’s been a fascinating jump too.

It made me wonder what other languages have the steepest ‘learning —> IRL’ jump in your experience?

(TL)

Hey all,

So, I'm neurodivergent and I've got relatively slow auditory processing (for those who don't know, it just means that it takes my brain a little longer to process/make sense of spoken language/sounds; it's my brain, not my ears). For this reason, I'm very keen to work on my listening comprehension, so here's the strategy I've been using.

Day 0: Pick a short story from my collection of graded German (TL) short stories, one that I can already understand ~ 70 - 90% of. I note down the words/collocations I don't know and make them into Anki flashcards (no translations, pictures where possible, sentences with key words omitted for linkers/turns of phrase etc).

Day 1: do my flashcards and then listen (instead of re-reading) to the audiobook of the short story.

Day 2 - 7: repeat flashcards, re-listen to the short story and shadow every sentence.

By about day 6, I can confidently shadow almost the whole short story.

Here's my question: would I make better progress if, instead of repeating the same short story every week, I ploughed ahead through more short stories/reading and listening material? I came across this post (linked above) and I'm thinking that I could stand to move at a faster pace. While my method does work, it gets pretty boring a couple days in, which is a real test of my patience.

Many thanks all :)

I've added the "(self-promotion)" tag to the title to follow the rules of the sub but I promise I am not selling you anything or even asking for viewers or anything like that. Stars on Github are of course appreciated, but thats not what this is about either. I just wanted to share my story and hear what others have to say.

I’m still a beginner in Japanese, and I’ve always been amazed watching more advanced learners guess the reading and meaning of words they’ve never seen before. So I got curious and tried to actually measure how often that’s possible, by breaking words into the pieces they’re built from and checking whether those pieces give the word away.

The result is an anki add-on that optimizes the order of your deck so that you can guess the correct meaning and pronunciation of a card on your first attempt. You can find the add-on here, GuessWithAnki.

Has anyone else noticed similiar patterns when studying vocab? How long did it take you to notice and how helpful have you found it? So far I've only looked at Japanese, Chinese, and English languages but I'd be interested to know if there are other target language (TL) decks this could be useful for.

For more details on how the add-on was made you can watch the video or check out the full technical write up here.

Any additional feedback on the process and analysis is appreciated.

Does anyone have experience with this practice and if so would you recommend it? In my case it's learning Turkish in order to have an easier time with Kyrgyz later down the road.

I want to learn kyrgyz in the future but as someone who relies heavily on immersion for language learning it's difficult to find reliable content to grasp the grammar. I am thinking about learning basic Turkish before diving into Kyrgyz to better grasp turkic grammar. I am mainly interested in doing this because there is so much more turkish content for immersion and learning online then for Kyrgyz. Also i do want to learn basic turkish to some degree as i visit there quite often and im interested in general in the language.

What are your opinions? Do you think it will help me later with understanding kyrgyz grammar better?

(TL)

Recently I found that there were some wordy, unnecessary expressions when I talked to some AI in my native language (not English), while I also used ChatGPT to improve my spoken and written skills in my target languages (English and Spanish). These expressions are annoying and disgusting, especially when they appear frequently. Also, I can easily identify whether an article was written by an AI tool through such details in my native language.

I definitely don't want to speak or write like AI, no matter what language I'm learning. Therefore, I wonder whether this is a common language problem(TL) that you have also noticed when you talked to AI in your native languages, or it is just because all current agents have not gotten adequate training in my native language.

If this is a common problem, I wonder if I should continue to believe AI when I use it to learn new languages. But AI is indeed an inexpensive, convenient choice, compared to hiring a native speaker to correct my grammer mistakes and judge my works anytime. So if possible, please also give me some suggestions regarding this issue.

(Forgive my poor English please. I'm not sure if there are some inappropriate expressions or not because I didn't use any AI tools to polish the text above.)

I am 32 y.o. and planning on going to Taiwan for a 10 week college language exchange program this winter. I am genuinely wanting to get to conversational Chinese. Anyone did this later in life around my age? Was is hard making friends? Will I be considered creepy? (ethnically Korean, male, single, also retired already)

I have had thoughts about giving up studying French. The main reason? I haven't made any online friends who speak French. I thought maybe that if I were to study another foreign language, I would find a true friend quickly and easily. Maybe. Maybe not. You only know if you try, right?

But, I realized something. I don't like learning a language for the sake of the language itself. I like learning a language for the hope of being able to connect with people. Often times, when I listen to French, I feel very drained and I thought it was because I did not like the French language. However, now I see that the real problem wasn't French, but the subject that was being discussed in French.

I'm watching a video right now in French about paganism, a subject that I find really, really fascinating, and I'm loving the learning I'm doing, because I'm being fed emotionally at the same time.

Hey guys, I'd (Arabic N, English N, French A2) love to learn (TL) Russian and improve my French further. My main motivation for that is to read books in their original language, and Russian + French have so many amazing literary books.. I'd love to ask you guys about your experiences learning any language for the sole purpose of reading books.. How did it go? How did you do it?

Hi everyone,

I’m interested in learning French (TL), German, or Dutch, but haven’t decided which to start with. I have some background in French and German, having studied French for four years in school.

Money is a bit tight, so I’m considering self-studying using textbooks, apps, and AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, etc., with limited opportunities for actual speaking practice.

This is somewhat how I learned English, although I studied it for 12 years in school. English was also the language of instruction, meaning textbooks and terminology were in English, but teachers generally didn’t use it for everyday conversations.

Has anyone managed to reach B1/B2 or higher primarily through self-study? How much would the lack of regular speaking practice affect my progress?

For me it’s when someone says they learned a language to a C1 level in 6 months. Their C1 is never C1.

( TL) I am around B1 in speaking, higher in comprehension ( both written and oral) but only A2 or A2+ in writing / grammar. These are all estimated based on my teacher's ratings and chatgpt's ratings.

Currently, I read a novel and try to get through atleast 50 pages a week. I can follow most of the story except when the descriptions are too vivid and there is too much unknown vocab. But that does not stop me from still understanding the story in general. For listening, I just watch youtube videos I want and for speaking I only speak with my italki tutor like once a week. I have finally started writing atleast thrice a week, I get corrections from chatgpt and alternate between a new written passage and reviewing previous corrections.

What this made me realize is how difficult it is to improve grammar. Like I could be corrected, review the correction and still use a bad construction when it is time for me to create my own sentences. I also realized how a lot of improving grammar comes down to memorizing the correct phrases. For example: I might continue using Dans la court terme until I drill into my head to use À court terme. It feels like language learning at lower levels comes down to memorizing the correct phrases until you have a sufficient repretoire that you can start mixing and matching and make it your own.

TLDR: What do you do to improve grammar, especially when preparing for an exam( and need atleast B2)?

I don't know if this is 'a thing' or if it's just me, but has anyone else noticed that, quite often, a foreigner can understand another foreigner speaking your native language better than you, the native speaker, can?

I watch a lot of travel vlogs, and I've noticed that I often struggle to understand someone speaking broken English, but the vlogger, who isn't a native English speaker either and often doesn't have a particularly high level of English, can somehow understand what they're saying, lol. I get that they're there in person, but I can usually hear the words quite clearly and still struggle to understand what the person is saying. 😂

I am learning punjabi (TL) and most of all I have learned so far is through speaking (or trying to) speak with natives

What I did at the beginning was to learn the basic grammar, structure, and most used verbs, pronouns, etc. but i jumped in conversations and I built all the rest throughout daily talks with natives that would correct me when I make mistakes, and I would ask them for translations on the go

What I also do a lot is try to transcript voice messages I receive in Punjabi and then translate them and try to understand the structure however, as they speak too fast, the vast majority of them is unintelligible to unless they are saying phrases I am familiar with

I enjoy the transcriptions I think it’s fun, but I’m wondering if it’s going to help in anyway, and I am not skipping too many steps

So far the most challenging thing to me has been oral comprehension when natives are speaking at their regular pace

If I carry on doing this, should it get easier with time or am I just putting a lot of energy for nothing and should get back to consuming content my level

Has any of you managed to learn or progress in a language using this method?

(TL) In my country, they are using Anki alot to study a new word. I'm curious about other techniques you're using. Thanks

(TL) Is it reasonable that I feel annoyed that my teacher of two years conducted our most recent lesson from a second job she just took on, and was constantly interrupted by a colleague? She seemed to think that conducting my private lessons from her second employment is the new way forward. Her rate is high compared to other teachers.

She also spends a lot of our lesson time complaining to me about her other students who cancel on her at the last minute which is quite draining for me and makes me feel hypervigilant.

Not every language learner manages to find a language partner or a friend online to talk to regularly. So, some people just resort to speaking to themselves.

If you've mostly practised speaking by talking to yourself, how far did it take your speaking skills? Do you think there are efficient ways to do it?

Ideally I would like to read a book in a foreign language (not predetermined texts, books that I have chosen to read), translate the words that I don't know yet, and then save and review them all in the same app.

I have used ReadEra for more than a decade now, with reverso context as my default translator in the readera settings. There are great features present in this combo already (translation, pronunciation, example sentences, underlining words...), but there is no way to practice these words inside the app. If you know a similar app but with a flashcards feature, or maybe flashcards apps that work well with readera, I would sincerely appreciate it. 🙏🏻

For me, it's tonal languages. A language can be agglunitative, have 70 cases, have an ovs sentence structure, and have consonant clusters, and i still wouldn't be bothered so much, but if it is tonal, I'm probably not learning it.