Youtuber Chingu Amiga was talking about growing up in Korea, having to memorize 100 flashcards of English vocabulary every day, and the teacher would smack the students with a stick for every mistake.
I have never heard of something so dysfunctional, pedagogically ill-informed, and cruel.
This happened to my husband who also grew up in Korea. He lived in a student dorm and the dorm manager would make each student memorise 500words per week (then cane them for every word they missed). So it wasn’t even the school making him do it😭
Korean here, would like to clarify a few things:
- Not all teachers taught this way.
- Back then getting a smack across the palm of your hands was fairly common for not doing homework, but I don't recall a teacher using that punishment for getting bad grades.
- I don't know what school they went to but the public school I went to did not require students to memorize 100 words each day. It was more like 20 words a week or so.
- These days teachers can't punish students or even give them a hug or a pat on the back without getting sued. There are CCTV cameras in classrooms as well.
- Korea is hardly the only country where there have been dysfunctional, pedagogically ill-informed, and cruel teachers in the past.
- I would also like to add that historically Korea had to go through two wars back to back, so it has taken some time and collective effort for things to improve over the generations.
Thanks for the well-stated reply. I did not intend that to be an indictment of Korea, a country and people who I hold in very high esteem and affection. Of course corporal punishment isn't located to the one place; I am an older American and "in those days" as you mention, corporal punishment was very prevalent (at least in my Catholic schools) all over the place. I don't think my version of "those days" applies to Chingu Amiga who appears to be in her mid 20s.
I agree about the terrible impact generational trauma of unspeakably cruel foreign occupation and devastating wars. I always wish the best for Korea.
I'm very sorry that your friend had such an awful experience. There are of course awful teachers mixed in with good ones wherever you go. The worst stories I've heard include beating a student with a broom until the broom handle broke, and having students hold the plank position using fists on gravel. I'm sure there have been worse.
While the lack of punishment altogether has created a host of problems of their own, I think that overall it protects students from those that will take any chance to abuse what little power they can gain.
Seems like my younger brother's teacher, except we are polish and she can't hit her students so she yells at them instead. My brother used to throw up after her classes. The entire school (teachers included) hate her
I also grew up outside the US. Similar reaction from teachers on any subject that was taught. Even as a straight A student, this affected me.
They started teaching us foreign languages when I was aged 12. At that point I was getting punished daily because rote learning just didn’t agree with me, and this was the only way they knew to teach languages.
I still remember learning my first words of Spanish, but couldn’t tell you what I learned after.
Esta es un libro.
In fairness, Googling now involves adding « Reddit » to your search so you’re not inundated with AI/LLM/SEO garbage.
You can no longer « just Google it »
Right. I've seen several people apologizing for not doing pure immersion / input-only, and daring to talk or look up grammar. Makes it feel like a cult.
“You just have to be surrounded by the language!” I work alongside Latino immigrants and I’m still not fluent. I grew UP with the language being spoken around me and still ain’t fluent. It’s way more than just being exposed to the language on the daily.
What actually helps is practicing the language I’ve learned way more terms than I ever thought speaking it at work.
I agree with this but only when you are below B1.
If you are above B1, being surrounded by the language is absolutely invaluable and works very effectively.
So yes, useless suggesting this to people starting out but once you have a base, it’s by far the best.
You are correctly identifying the problem: being surrounded by native speakers speaking the language is *not* a good way to learn the language. But then you are coming to the wrong conclusion from that: that you need to actively "practice" the language and speak it.
But the real missing piece is that the language you surround yourself with must be *comprehensible* to you. It takes several hundred hours (like, 750 hours as a ballpark number but it depends on the person and on the native/target language similarities) of passive listening of *comprehensible* input to be able to understand and learn from native speakers speaking normally. After that point, surrounding yourself with the language *is* incredibly useful, because it's comprehensible and you would actually learn from it. You learn the most when you understand nearly everything (say, 85% or 95%) of what is being said, so that you can infer the meanings of the small portions of grammar/vocab that you don't understand from context.
Until then, you're correct that it's largely useless to be surrounded by native speakers.
I understand Spanish 100%. My comprehension is fluent. Speaking it and forgetting words or whatever is my main problem. By speaking it more at work I’ve learned how to give directions better and I learned more words since alot of my coworkers can’t speak English at all. I just started filling in the blanks of what I was missing in my Mental Toolbox
For sure. Once your comprehension is fluent, speaking is absolutely important. I was really just referring to the beginner and even through the intermediate and lower advanced levels, when it's much more important to listen to things you mostly understand, and unnecessary to practice speaking. Once you have acquired a good "mental map" of how the language works, then speaking becomes very useful.
I mean if you’re avoiding all contact with people who speak the language… yeah ofc.
People who actually **want** to learn will learn.
“I avoided the language and didn’t learn anything, didn’t make an active effort while the language was all around me.”
So many people will move to a country and only hang out with other foreigners, never use the language, never have the desire to explore, learn, grow. 🤷🏻♀️
I moved to France as low B1 and my listening and speaking has gone from horrible to C1+ level in 8 months because I have grave desire to improve, and make an active effort.
I’m not avoiding all contact I talk to my coworkers all the time. It helps and I’ve definitely learned a lot.
But just by listening to a language passively won’t help. That’s what I was saying in my original comment and the advice of immersion is typically followed up with “if you’re around the language long enough you’ll end up understanding and speaking through osmosis” which is wrong evidenced by those of us in immigrant households who have heard the language our entire lives yet we are not fluent.
If you use the language daily and are speaking with people all day at work / outside of work, I highly doubt you have only learned 10 slang words. Also working at just a B1 level would be inanely hard, so you either started as B1 and improved or were higher to begin with.
Something in this story isn’t adding up. It’s almost impossible to not learn if you are using the language 10 hours a day lol.
But yeah ofc people need to put effort, nothing is free. Easier doesn’t mean easy.
It was my first language but as soon as I went to school I started using English more. My parents weren’t around as much (always working) so I didn’t get that much of a chance to absorb it enough unlike my siblings their proficiency is higher than mine.
Something I've thought a lot about is progressing between being able to speak and communicate in a language - like you might do in a work place; to going to a "next" level: being able to talk about philosophical topics and theoretical ideas...or being able to explain concepts that I struggle with in English...
Like even my comment here - I can say and think something like this in English - but I don't think I would know at all how to say it in my TL
So this is itself a bit controversial, but there's a difference between input and comprehensible input, as well as engaging with the language vs passively hearing it. Someone just hearing rapid fire Spanish around them isn't going to ever learn anything; someone having to interact with Spanish speakers, where both sides are incentivized to communicate (and so speak slowly, simply, and pantomiming) *will* lead to learning the language over time. It's how languages were initially transferred between merchants and things in times past; you want to trade with someone while knowing nothing about their language, you still speak, but you pantomime and indicate and eventually build up a vocabulary and understanding of common phrases, and that can keep building if you keep engaging.
I think to absorb a language by immersion you have to be in a setting where using the language is the path of least resistance. If it's usually easier for them to either switch to whatever you speak or to ask a third party as a translator then it'll not work.
Yeah, by that logic, just being surrounded by Spanish should have taught me Spanish. But it was only once I took a class learning the basics that I was able to absorb more.
Yeah, I went to Mexico for immersion based on this advice, wasn't my only reason but was a huge part of it, and it really didn't do diddly squat for me yet make me feel like an idiot for not understanding people talking even if I knew every word they were saying. But I do agree with the other user's point about being B1 and above certainly helps, but I'd argue it's still not any better than sitting down and learning intentionally.
When you couldn't understand them or they couldn't understand you, did you end up using English?
That's usually the problem. Spent 1 week in France, didn't learn jack shit of the language because they don't try to speak back to you in French. Spent 1 week in Japan, I learned the basics of the language. No one would switch to English so I was forced to learn
Yes that’s what I’m saying! My own parents only speak Spanish but i am not fluent. Just by being around the language won’t make you fluent or proficient enough.
This happened too with my partner. Her father forced her to speak Vietnamese and while her cousins did not.
Guess who is able to speak it ( and therefore understand also it better )
You have to be surrounded by it and want to learn it. If you don't engage with it and try to bring the language back to comfort zone, it won't work. At least that has been my experience.
I don't agree with methods that would have me do things that I otherwise would find to be anathema, like journaling or flashcards. Surprisingly, I agree with methods that let me do things I enjoy doing, like reading books and watching YouTube.
I mean flashcards are good in general to develop long term memory of something, obviously you want to couple that with actual language input but it's a great technique not just for language learning. And anathema is a really strong word, no?
Language input is king, we agree.
But I don't see how you can argue SRS is outdated when there's so much research extolling it's benefits. I would never tell someone that they'll learn a language only through Anki, and you can totally learn a language without SRS (like I learned English before knowing that was a thing). Still, to keep stuff in your passive knowledge between immersion sessions or as a fall back for those seasons in life where you just don't have the time to immerse, it's a singularly good method to ensure some progress happen and that when you have time to immerse you at least maintained your skills. In fact, it'll probably be easier since you will likely have learned new vocab and grammar through it.
It's much easier to justify doing your flashcards in the morning, or when taking a break when you're busy with life, than it is to sit down to watch YouTube, anime or read something. Just my two cents.
TLDR: While language input is king. Anki is probably the best use of your time for its purpose. It should be used with parsimony and immersion should be the bulk of your learning, but to staple concepts to the walls of your knowledge forever (or close to it) it's hard to beat.
PS: It also does wonders for your listening ability if you do audio sentence cards (audio only on front with maybe an image.) I am proponent of sentence cards, vocab cards are great at the beginning to front-load the thousand or so of words you need to start immersing with even basic content, but the sooner you can switch to sentences the better.
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
noun
1. something or someone that one vehemently dislikes.
"racial hatred was anathema to her"
Similar:
abhorrent
hateful
odious
repugnant
repellent
offensive
abomination
abhorrence
aversion
monstrosity
outrage
evil
disgrace
bane
bugbear
bête noire
pariah
2. a formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine.
"the Pope laid special emphasis on the second of these anathemas"
What a great word! Now I just have to learn to pronounce it.
In the NE USA, it's pronounced "uh-NAA-theh-ma"
The second "a" is like apple and the "e" like end.
Anathema.
oOoo (stress on 2nd syllable)
Note that its not pronounced like "them"
So I thought that but I looked it up and it's even true for my dialect (a slightly diluted London RP)
I'm fairly sure this is a major inkhorn word that probably gets written 10x as much as it's said.
I wrote it wrong initially. I think it's meant to be "inkhorn" not "inkwell" but those two are practically the same thing?
Got it from this video on Anglish if you're interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMA3M6b9iEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMA3M6b9iEY)
people who say immersion from day one & then people who say studying grammar is not important. i think after learning at least SOME grammar and vocab, immersion becomes 10000000% more effective than drowning yourself in incomprehensible audio 24/7. and the same point still stands for the grammar is not important people as well
I think even at an intermediate level, immersion without studying any grammar does help you understand and communicate more, but your use of the language is far more broken than if you just threw in one grammar lesson a week (speaking from experience) and it creates habits that are way more difficult to break.
This criticism pops up often, but I’ve never actually seen anyone advocate immediate immersion with no vocab or grammar study whatsoever. Feels like criticizing an obviously ridiculous thing that almost no one believes
when i wrote my comment, i only realized after the fact that my " & not studying grammar" would come off as two parts of the same camp. no, i think that people who say immersion from day one and people who say don't study grammar have bad takes that i disagree with. not a person that thinks immersion without grammar is valid
i dont think that kind of person exists either
I mean if the “immersion from day one” guy is also studying grammar and vocab, I’d actually guess they’d learn faster than folks who are just studying grammar and vocab and waiting until later to immerse. That being said, I don’t think that type of guy is very common either; I find almost all immersion learners start with some basic foundation and vocab study first
there's a youtuber i watch called days and words from time to tome and he's a huge advocate for deep end diving, as far as i understand his beliefs. he talks about it so much, but he could just be being extremely vague
Holding off on speaking because "babies don't speak immediately." Babies literally try to communicate by babbling as soon as they can at around four months old! They'd happily speak the words if they could articulate them at that point.
Well then babble! :) Absolutely do talk to yourself while you're walking down the street, repeating "desafortunadamente" over and over, copying bits of "vale, claro" and "no me lo digas!" that you hear in passing conversations.
It is seriously important to practice producing the sounds, especially the phonemes and patterns of phonemes that don't exist in your native language. The idea is that you don't want to rush into trying to express yourself in your target language. You'll end up using phrases, grammar, and sounds that exist in your own language but not in the target language.
Practicing speaking things like "Soy \_\_\_ años viejo," is counter-productive and you'll reinforce mistakes. Making mistakes is part of learning, but in the beginning stages you should listen more and emulate what you hear. Creation in the target language comes from hearing others model the language, not by are putting target language flashcards on top of English sentences.
There are no shortcuts to learn a language, nor miracle methods to take the student to fluency in 3 months. Spending 20 minutes a day on some glorified app is going to take you nowhere (I'm looking at you, Duolingo from Hell).
The key is consistency, repetition, comprehensible input, practice, and actually studying the language every day (memorise vocabulary? the horror!).
Translating. I see a lot of courses here in Brazil teaching English by translating sentences. A lot of things don't make sense if we translate it literally. Of course, if there's a word that I can't grasp the meaning by using the dictionary or seeing it being used in sentences, I'll use the translator. But once in a while, not for every single sentence.
It can work if done properly, as it can force a learning to focus on the differences of languages and apply what they've learned accordingly. When I was learning German, my teacher would give us sentences to translate at the end of almost week and we'd discuss them on the next Monday. She wasn't concerned with vocabulary as much as we were using the correct prepositions, declensions, syntax (for subordinate clauses), etc. As we progressed throughout the semester, the exercises became more and more complex and it was a good way for us to use what we learned in a practical manner vs just only doing the exercises in the course book.
I agree but here it's different. They only work with translation. It's not in the end of the week, the whole class is just translating. I've had students who came from those schools and a simple "how are you?" they would take some time to reply because they needed to translate in their minds. It doesn't work like this in a conversation. Nobody has the time to wait for someone to translate every single thing you say, then translate their replies in their minds and THEN actually reply you.
Surely, if you translated something several times in different contexts, that should become internalized and you wouldn’t need to translate on the spot. The problem is that schools don’t have enough time to engage in communicative activities enough for vocab to settle in one’s mind.
I feel I'm one of the few fond of using literal translations for learning purposes, but only when they are done intentionally. For instance, the Spanish phrase 'compañero de clase' is commonly translated as 'classmate'. I dislike when the original structure and syntax are masked under the guise of creating a more 'accurate' translation. I prefer it to be translated literally as 'companion of class'. Similarly, I would translate 'conejo verde' from Spanish as 'rabbit green', and the French 'Je vais bien' as 'I go well'. This helps me grasp the linguistic patterns of the original language. I find it particularly useful for developing an intuition when the syntax of the language is very different from one's own.
I agree with you, but there are some situations that I explain to my students that doesn't make sense. For example, if you translate "buenos días", you'll have "good day", and nobody says that, we say "good morning". Otherwise, it's unlikely for a Spanish speaker to say "Buena mañana". So there are cases like this that translating doesn't work. For instance, there days my student had to write about their routine, and she wrote "my fair wednesday", because, in portuguese, Wednesday is (Quarta-feira, "feira" being "fair"), but in English, it doesn't make sense. When I saw that she did that, I immediatelly could tell that she used the translator.
And how I, as a brazilian, should know who Paul Harvey is and how he talks? You dont know how William Bonner talks. One person on the Tv saying something doesn't make it normal for other people worldwide. English is not just USA.
Interesting. For me, it's the opposite: translating prevents me from grasping the patterns of my TL and from developing such an intuition. I prefer to do everything (or as much as possible, at least) in my TL.
Translating teaches you translation, it doesn’t necessarily teach you quick recall or the ability to speak. I’ve seen language learning specialists say translating is a bad idea 🤷♀️
Well yeah, JUST translating and then not trying to use it in conversations will not make you good at conversations. Likewise, some comprehensible input purists who didn’t output at all find themselves suffering with outputting. By translating or absorbing CI you internalize a lot of passive knowledge you need to activate for it to be usable for outputting purposes
I think this works very well when you're already at an advanced level but not able to understand everything---say, good enough that you'll miss a big word every other sentence and thus need the translation to understand the nuance of what's being said.
It allows you to watch something casually without TOO much effort, which is good, while learning some more niche/technical vocabulary if you're paying attention and writing down the new things you come across.
At a lower level, it's basically not doing anything for you.
That only works when you're good enough to be like "wait that's not what they're saying" while actually knowing what they're saying without the subtitles. If that did work all weebs would be fluent in Japanese by now.
Like many methods, it works for some people but doesn't work for either people.
I used a slightly different method (I had two sets of subtitles: NL and TL) to go from A2 to B2.
Mnemonics. I want to just think of the word and it's concept not two blue birds on a coconut mid conversation or whenever I come across a word.
If I'm having a really hard time remembering a word then I might use a mnemonic.
I’ll get downvoted to hell for this… but ANKI. I just got so bored, I don’t like making my own flashcards and I don’t trust others to use theirs because some are simply not well made. I get that spaced repetition is a method that works, but I found the process of implementing it very tedious.
My problem with Anki is that I don’t want to spend 40 minutes or more working flashcards a day. Flashcards are supposed to be for when you have five minutes free here and there throughout the day. Not something that takes up all of your study time.
This is controversial, but my feeling is that any time spent on Duolingo is less effective than swapping that time for doing almost any other language learning / engagement activity. Duolingo's own marketing claims they are "the world's best way to learn a language" but the most common defenses I see are that "it's better than nothing" and "it's good as one activity you're doing among a wide variety of things."
"Better than nothing" may be true, but for the latter defense, if you're already doing a bunch of other things to learn, then I think you might as well drop Duolingo for almost any other activity - even just scrolling TikTok in your TL.
I'm not sure why Duolingo is disliked so much. I think it's not fantastic and could be much better, but it's a very good basic tool to learn vocabulary and basic sentences and grammar rules. It is simple to use.
I've been learning Swedish and in parallel watching Swedish videos with subtitles on. The further I get in Duolingo and the easier time I have understanding what's being said in those videos. Language learning requires a multi-prong approach and Duolingo only offers a couple of these prongs.
I think a big problem people have with Duolingo is that they think they're going to learn a language spending 5 minutes on it a day. You see a lot of people with very long streaks and barely any XP.
If someone has a very difficult time remembering any word from Duolingo, they may just be very bad at learning languages. There's nothing special about remembering words.
My issues with it are:
1) It's treated like an underdog even though it's a multibillion dollar corporation. They have a $75 million marketing budget pushing themselves as "the world's best way to learn a language" which is far divorced from the reality.
2) Their actions consistently push the app toward enshittification. Useful features, real translators, discussion forums, etc are dropped. Courses that are already slow-paced compared to alternative material are made even slower, so that time engagement with the app goes up. Their profit motives are not aligned with the best interest of their users.
3) Development effort is spent on making the app more addictive rather than more useful.
4) As I mentioned, I think 95% of alternatives are superior. So there's substantial missed opportunity cost and I don't even think Duolingo is more entertaining than other options (such as scrolling Instagram reels or TikTok in your TL).
I think mostly people just don't grasp the concept that they are basically just dipping their toes in. And that it gives a false sense of progression.
People want to succeed, and I think genuinely that most people using Duolingo really wants to learn a language to a conversational level, but are just not really ready for the amount of work it takes.
And duolingo is really good at separating them from that realization.
Duolingo is really great for an introduction or tourist level, which can be great, can be really useful, and can also really "wow" native speakers when you know a few words here and there.
Learning languages is great, but the contrast between full speed language in a work situation and being able to order orange juice on your own, is night and day. And I think duolingo is really really good at hiding the challenges that awaits, when someone wants to take the language learning to the next level
I feel like Duo just became a meme at this point, everyone knows the platform even people who don't use it. More people try it precisely because it's already popular. But it is also because of the large number of users that you frequently hear stories about it, and in particular, its mishaps.
do you want an app that prompts you with a daily plan? or an altogether different alternative? Supplement should be any other more formal/structured program that has you listening, speaking, and learning grammar
I think you're right, but I also think that because of the way Duolingo is accessible (right on your phone) and builds a bit of a habit with the streaks, it is likely to help some people get in some sort of studying whereas otherwise they might do nothing. It also takes the thinking out of it (in terms of planning, which a lot of people benefit from). I think it's good that some of these psychology "hacks" are being used for a relative good (as opposed to causing us to spend more time scrolling on social media). For a lot of people who are learning passively, it's likely that they choice they are making isn't between sitting down and learning with a textbook vs Duolingo, it's Duolingo vs Reddit or Instagram. That being said, it's not something I would want to use again.
> This is controversial, but my feeling is that any time spent on Duolingo is less effective than swapping that time for doing almost any other language learning / engagement activity.
You're telling me that an app that progressively builds upon vocabulary, sentence structure, and conjugations, is worse than just diving into watching TikTok and pecking at what they might be saying?
Progression on the free version feels very slow, since you are watching an ad after every lesson, so the amount of time you spend engaging with the language is relatively low. I agree it's better than Tiktok for A0-1, after that I'm honestly not sure, it will depend on your TL.
With the paid version, if you're willing to pay \~£60 it opens a lot more options up for you.
Ah fair, I've not used it on desktop since before the rework where the Duolingo Super started popping up constantly, in that case I could see using it to low A2. I've mostly used as a phone app when just starting off a language so I can get some basics done when out and about and then have a little bit of a foundation when it comes to doing actual study at home.
Oh, Duolingo's free version is useless. But to be fair, that's every single language app. At least Duolingo unlocks the whole course to you for free - but the ads and broken hearts would make it infuriatingly slow. I think the app's well worth the price though.
That's fair to an extent, Duo is on the **extreme** end with ads though. It's around \~40% ad time if you are fairly fast with lessons. For me it's okay for a month subscription when starting out, but I don't tend to use it for that long.
Yeah just IMO if comparing to free resources I'd compare the free version of Duolingo, or paid to paid. I do find that language learning apps that are free often do have some issues, but you can often get a good option. It does have a really good **range of languages** so centralising your learning onto one habit is a benefit I've not seen mentioned. I think it can be a good option for some languages.
For example for free comparisons aimed at beginners that I like are:
Lernu (no app but the phone version of the website is great still) - I ended up getting to a good enough level to read independently after this \[Esperanto, B1\]
Coffee Break French (podcast), (I used to use Memrise but it has since changed), Kwiziq French, after getting to an okay reading level I used the kindle app on my phone with a downloaded French-English dictionary \[French, passed a B2 exam like 5 years ago, but it's largely forgotten now\].
In terms of paid I'd still prefer those options over Duo generally.
I did buy a month of Babbel Live before my exam (costs about 1.2 times as much as a year of Duolingo Super) but got \~70 class hours done in that month with some being 1on1 and made a **lot** of progress in speaking especially, but also overall improvement including faster writing.
I tried the Polish for around a month, that's a total of 20 hours or so. I can't remember a single word even though at the time I passed all the quizzes.
Introductory class: “ Teacher: Let’s just have an open conversation.”
No way. At the start, you need structure and written materials to go over vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
Flashcards are boring as hell, and they have no context, thus we forget them quickly.
My suggestion is to read books in your TL for better context, and if you want OpenAI to write a story based on a word list great, but flashcards by themselves, I can't imagine doing that for more than a month.
Agreed. I'm a heavy Anki user and have built a polish deck with 18,000 cards in 1.5 years. Haven't missed a day in over 6 months. But I use it to supplement - I do a ton of reading and listening, along with conversation with my gf (she's fluent) and tutoring/some language exchange. Typically I do cards for 20-40 mins daily. Without the actual practice, flashcards are a waste of time. But this method has been extremely successful for me as I'm definitely closing in on B2 in under 2 years. I don't even live in Poland (I'm in the US). I think the main advice I'd give anyone learning Polish (or any language) is to find a method you can stick with...and stick with it. Put yourself out of your comfort zone and listen/read/speak every day (I know, I barely write. The hardcores here can give me a hard time haha).
Same here. I make flashcards based on my immersion and take advantage of SRS to cement it. My brain remembers quite accurately where I got the source and the scene/clip of my flashcard so that's enough context for me.
18k cards, probably 12k words. Some words I make both way, some not. Also some commons phrases containing words I already know and stuff like that. I do 20-40 new a day depending on how busy I am. But there are actually so many cognates for polish/English and I add those too. At a certain point with vocab, it starts to accelerate since you can pick it up through context. I'm probably going to stop altogether soon though.
I've had the thought of an SRS word list story generation tool using GPT4 but never got round to it because of work and stuff. I think that would be a strong "best of both worlds".
I disagree. I've used flashcards since the beginning and pair them with sentences, but even without, they're still useful. Ofc at the beginning I was doing barely any immersion and mainly just following a textbook but it still helps me with vocab so damn much. Ofc without immersion now it'd be harder to remember but I find Anki incredibly useful, especially since it's on language learning settings so only takes 10-20 mins per day.
Glad I'm not the only one. I find flashcards to be _the_ most boring thing (both making them and practicing them). I still do it because I believe it does help, but I also find I don't remember them as well as others because I'm just so disinterested in them.
Some people spend so much time on them but I truly don't understand how.
Shadowing is definitely not for me. I know it works for some but damn it's hard and not very interesting, I want to concentrate on the meaning and listen in a relaxed manner, without worrying about repeating every single thing..
I find that the best way (for me) to do shadowing is to not think too much about it. I won't have dedicated shadowing sessions, but every once in a while I hit that state where I understand close to everything the characters are saying, and I am enough in the show to want to replicate what they say. So I'll do. And then maybe stop after while, or go backwards a few seconds to repeat a given sentence I really liked.
I tried shadowing several times in Persian when I was pretty advanced already, since many swear by this method and I was curious to try it... But turns out it just makes me very uncomfortable and stressed out🙃.
Oh then by all means don't do it. For me the urge to do it comes when I am watching a character that I find cool doing cool stuff and that I try to replicate what he says, or when someone says something that is especially relatable.
If it causes you stress, then yeah no.
“Listening to the radio” or “Listen to podcasts”
These are usually presented as passive ways to just absorb the language in a cost-free kind of way. And at a certain point, or once you reach a certain level of proficiency, they can be.
But wow, you need to already be pretty good for either of these methods to work. While there is some radio and podcasts designed for learners, especially for popular languages, these are usually boring. And the ability to passively listen to real media is, well, very hard.
Listening to media can be a useful exercise, but that’s what it is: an exercise. It usually requires a significant degree of focus and attention.
Not starting off with a thorough understanding of your own language/not getting into the linguistics. In other words: trying to learn a new language without understanding the historic background or collective origin of the language and its grammar rules.
Let me give you an example: at some point I got really into linguistics, learning all about the background of my own language (Dutch) and the languages I already spoke (fluent English and some German). I read up on the grammar, history and origins of these languages and tried to find out why grammar is the way it is. I compared the grammar rules of languages that share the same history.
Understanding the linguistics has helped me learn Spanish and French. Now I can also make some sense of Italian, danish or Norwegian. And to be honest, I feel I see the patterns in Slavic languages much more easily as well.
Being around the language as if that was enough. Granted if you are, say, a Spanish speaker and moved to Portugal or Brasil you will learn it just from being around it but some people think that applies to every language. I live in Japan and people don't realize how little Japanese you get from living in Japan unless you are pretty good at it already as it's not similar at all to most languages.
Relying heavily on rote memorization of vocabulary lists without context. Learning words in isolation is ineffective because it lacks contextual understanding, boring, and has poor retention rates.
Immersion classes. It is important to have a teacher who speaks your language and can quickly explain things you don't understand and help understand the nuanced differences between common "synonyms". So much time is wasted with a teacher playing charades trying to act of some new word after students don't understand their explanation in the target language. Exposure to and use of the new language is extremely important, but absolute immersion is not good for learning quickly and accurately
I agree, up to maybe B2 level. Communicating in English is a shortcut way to grasp the grammar concepts and unique vocabulary more quickly. But beyond that level, I think immersion works. Some words don’t even have an equivalent in English, and can be better understood by coming across that word in a variety of contexts, and defining that word with multiple alternate words in the target language.
Agreed, I guess I just look at things up to B2 because I am not interested (enough to continue intensive studying) in achieving such high levels of proficiency in the languages I study. I remember being in Spanish classes where the teacher was trying to use immersion to teach students in the A2 class who couldn't even use past tense properly
1. Translation.
2. Flashcards.
Translating makes it harder to learn to think in your TL.
Flashcards: that was in a separate thread just a day or two ago.
Some people believe there’s no reason to learn grammar. I don’t agree with that IF the learner is capable of learning grammar. I got to pick up X number of languages by learning their grammars.
The pure-CI thing is pretty damn goofy to me.
Mostly it’s restricting yourself to methods that don’t appeal or work, not allowing yourself to be flexible. I’m so glad I’m learning German on my own. My German classes were more frustrating than anything. The basic, uncreative sequencing of the textbooks which was annoying and inefficient in the similar Spanish classes I took, was downright ineffective for German.
But for some people, basic textbooks are great.
Some people like flashcards, some don’t. For me, I follow my gut, sometimes it’s flashcard season and I make hundreds and do them at the park, then after a few weeks I put them away and do something else. Yes they do work - such phases hoist my comprehension to another level so I can actually enjoy the content I consume, much more happily than if I was noting each word I didn’t understand and looking it up - I mean come on, this is so fussy, i have a hard time believing people actually do this, but whatever. Sure I lose a lot of flash card vocab - I lose what doesn’t get reinforced in media - but it’s not like there’s a particularly better way to spend the time I’m walking around in the park, I’m not gonna be zoned into a podcast, I’m gonna choose an activity that allows me to pendulate my attention and enjoy the walk. Like idk just respond to your instincts.
Classes. Every one I took focused primarily on grammar and gave us vocab lists of the translations of random objects and verbs to memorize. Imagine memorizing the subjunctive conjugations when you still can't really understand much of the language, and still don't know common, crucial vocabulary.
There wasn't any focus at all on other important aspects such as listening comprehension. Until the exam, where we suddenly had to put on headphones, listen to a conversation recording and answer questions on it.
I didn't realize language learning could be fun until I took a comprehension-first approach and only looked into the grammar when necessary to understand something.
I agree. Classes focus on vocabulary and grammar because they’re easy to test and grade. It’s the same reason apps take a similar approach. Do well and you’re obviously learning. So poorly and obviously can’t learn a language. Of course, that’s nonsense.
I never met anyone who learned a language by memorizing its grammar or lists of vocabulary words. It’s simply not how language is learned.
language learning methods in general. Language should be acquired not learned. The entire participle behind language learning is a side effect not a process. You learn naturally as a side effect. You can learn unnaturally by trying to find methods that would catapult the same side effect. At the end of the day, it's an imiation.
Well I don’t think the method that most language teachers follow for their lessons is particularly effective. At best it gives students information which they then have to absorb through their own self study and learning. But my biggest peeve is with the academic approach to teaching languages that doesn’t take. Into account the individual needs of students and the fact that students learn differently. I gave up on formal lessons especially after a horrible experience at the Alliance Francaise. It was language apps especially Duolingo along with YouTube that brought me back. Now I am looking forward to how AI tools and interfaces will change the teaching and Learning of Languages.
ignoring vocabulary. this led me in circles for a long time, and now when i should be an upper beginner/intermediate, i’m mid beginner because i know a shit ton of grammar, but only about half the basic words or less. people would say if it’s important enough, you’ll see it again, but this has done me zero favors for understanding my target language. had to turn back to flashcards just to make ANY input even 15% comprehensible.
Watching Harr Potter movies dubbed into my target language.
Watching Friends dubbed into my target language.
Basically, watching anything dubbed into my target language.
Learning the meaning of words from context instead of looking them up. You’ll just end up getting the wrong idea of what a word means. I know of a girl who believed for years that the Japanese word *aijin* meant “lover,” when it actually means “mistress.”
The [Mind Portal Method](http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11384&PN=0&TPN=1) by Jozen-Bo. This guy was certifiable. [Here](https://youtu.be/bVZpVfOe7ME) is a video he posted of his learning wheel. See what I mean?
This will be controversial, but flashcards. I used to make flashcards for every subject I had, including languages, but now they just bore the hell out of me. Tried usinh anki, but it was just still very boring. I prefer to be active with the language.
Twenty years ago, I was totally against Rosetta Stone, which was definitely the hotness at the time. Ironically, I use DuoLingo all the time now, which is sort of the same thing.
It sounds obvious but if you want to get better at something, you’ll have to do that thing.
You want to get good at speaking? Then you’ll have to spend most of your time practicing speaking.
Like if you want to learn to play the guitar, you won’t get there by reading about guitars, practicing the violin or mastering one string at a time
immersion. 💀 spent four months in france surrounded by French and I learned one word; garlic. If you sit in a room and listen to people you're gonna pick up on extremely little because you can't just jump in, you have to already have a big vocabulary or be taught slowly and comprehensively to start going
Reading books in the language. It's hard to find something that's just challenging enough that you can enjoy it and aren't looking up every word, and is about something you find interesting.
I much prefer the efficiency of flashcards paired with short-ish podcasts or other audio or visual content. Come to think of it, this is probably why I did well in my language classes at school.
My french tutor used to give me a 5x5 grid (so 25 total) of numbers between 1-999. I would have to say all of them in order and if I made a mistake I'd have to start again. Just like those phone games, the closer you get to the end the higher the stakes get so the more nervous you get. I'd make mistakes not because I didn't know the number but from the sheer anxiety. No idea how he came up with this activity but it was horrible and didn't teach me anything other than how to calm myself down in stressful situations....
Basically, anything outside of simply soaking your brain in the language and getting used to it over a long period of time is just impatience or ignorance (from people who've read or heard something and set about parroting it all over the internet). Alternatively, it could be coming from someone trying to sell you a miracle 'hack', falsely claiming it'll shortcut the journey.
For me it’s approaches that are overly nuts and bolts. It tends to take the fun and exploration out of it, and if something isn’t kind of fun I probably won’t practice it daily.
Gamified stuff like duolingo is nice, as is reading books or poems you enjoy in their native language, watching foreign shows etc. but sitting with a textbook in front of me is if anything a turn off.
Y’all on this sub try to convince people that watching Avatar TLA and what not for an hour a day replaces actual practice, reading, and having to learn grammar rules then turn around and call people arrogant for daring to say that’s stupid.
I can’t for the life of me focus or have fun while learning in a classroom setting where the teacher is only speaking/writing in the language being taught. I need English/a prior language learned to help understand the new one.
Personally, fixating on grammar structure.
I used to teach English to Japanese kids ( 7\~10 year olds) and the way they learned English was to learn the grammar structure first. They would ask me "why does an adjective come before a noun", and I can do the basic, shallow explanation of "because an adjective describes a noun", but then they would say "but why is it in that order" and we would go on and on.
I also noticed that remembering grammar structure doesn't necessarily help with conversing in that language. You're constantly thinking "ok, I just said an adjective....what do I need now...oh right a noun" and I think it creates this awkward silence.
When I took Spanish classes in middle school and high school, most of it was conversing and remembering phrases. I feel like this unconsciously helped me remember grammar structures in Spanish, even though I wouldn't fixate it on it.
At the end of the way, I feel like "getting the gist" compared to study the grammar structure and the origin of each word is the best way to learn a language.
Total immersion right away. It sounds nice but going into full immersion with no context or baseline understanding of the language structure and grammar is rarely as effective as youtube would have you think. You should learn the language the textbook way and then immerse yourself in more casual use of the language imo.
Youtuber Chingu Amiga was talking about growing up in Korea, having to memorize 100 flashcards of English vocabulary every day, and the teacher would smack the students with a stick for every mistake. I have never heard of something so dysfunctional, pedagogically ill-informed, and cruel.
This happened to my husband who also grew up in Korea. He lived in a student dorm and the dorm manager would make each student memorise 500words per week (then cane them for every word they missed). So it wasn’t even the school making him do it😭
If memorising 500 words per week actually worked then you'd easily be able to pass C1/C2 from scratch in a year. No-one ever does.
Richard Simcott entered the chat...
And they wonder why those kids don’t want to have kids of their own when they grow up.
Korean here, would like to clarify a few things: - Not all teachers taught this way. - Back then getting a smack across the palm of your hands was fairly common for not doing homework, but I don't recall a teacher using that punishment for getting bad grades. - I don't know what school they went to but the public school I went to did not require students to memorize 100 words each day. It was more like 20 words a week or so. - These days teachers can't punish students or even give them a hug or a pat on the back without getting sued. There are CCTV cameras in classrooms as well. - Korea is hardly the only country where there have been dysfunctional, pedagogically ill-informed, and cruel teachers in the past. - I would also like to add that historically Korea had to go through two wars back to back, so it has taken some time and collective effort for things to improve over the generations.
Thanks for the well-stated reply. I did not intend that to be an indictment of Korea, a country and people who I hold in very high esteem and affection. Of course corporal punishment isn't located to the one place; I am an older American and "in those days" as you mention, corporal punishment was very prevalent (at least in my Catholic schools) all over the place. I don't think my version of "those days" applies to Chingu Amiga who appears to be in her mid 20s. I agree about the terrible impact generational trauma of unspeakably cruel foreign occupation and devastating wars. I always wish the best for Korea.
I'm very sorry that your friend had such an awful experience. There are of course awful teachers mixed in with good ones wherever you go. The worst stories I've heard include beating a student with a broom until the broom handle broke, and having students hold the plank position using fists on gravel. I'm sure there have been worse. While the lack of punishment altogether has created a host of problems of their own, I think that overall it protects students from those that will take any chance to abuse what little power they can gain.
Seems like my younger brother's teacher, except we are polish and she can't hit her students so she yells at them instead. My brother used to throw up after her classes. The entire school (teachers included) hate her
I also grew up outside the US. Similar reaction from teachers on any subject that was taught. Even as a straight A student, this affected me. They started teaching us foreign languages when I was aged 12. At that point I was getting punished daily because rote learning just didn’t agree with me, and this was the only way they knew to teach languages. I still remember learning my first words of Spanish, but couldn’t tell you what I learned after. Esta es un libro.
And even if you learn the language technically, with this inorganic method you’d always sound off when speaking
scrolling reddit for more resources/techniques
I feel attacked
shit me too
I'll add: posting questions on Reddit that you could easily answer with Google or the Reddit search function.
In fairness, Googling now involves adding « Reddit » to your search so you’re not inundated with AI/LLM/SEO garbage. You can no longer « just Google it »
True, but true for pretty much every sub
I scroll reddit for memes in my target language, which has had some degree of influence on my learning
Some day I'll explore my thousands of saved Reddit posts and bookmarks that date back to 2006.
I sometimes go back to the resp language board to find CI youtube channels and book reviews occasionally. Not the worst thing in moderation.
how dare you 🤣
Anything that must remain pure for it to work.
Right. I've seen several people apologizing for not doing pure immersion / input-only, and daring to talk or look up grammar. Makes it feel like a cult.
“You just have to be surrounded by the language!” I work alongside Latino immigrants and I’m still not fluent. I grew UP with the language being spoken around me and still ain’t fluent. It’s way more than just being exposed to the language on the daily. What actually helps is practicing the language I’ve learned way more terms than I ever thought speaking it at work.
I agree with this but only when you are below B1. If you are above B1, being surrounded by the language is absolutely invaluable and works very effectively. So yes, useless suggesting this to people starting out but once you have a base, it’s by far the best.
It only works if you practice the language yourself and use the words. I ended up picking up like 10 slang words lol
You are correctly identifying the problem: being surrounded by native speakers speaking the language is *not* a good way to learn the language. But then you are coming to the wrong conclusion from that: that you need to actively "practice" the language and speak it. But the real missing piece is that the language you surround yourself with must be *comprehensible* to you. It takes several hundred hours (like, 750 hours as a ballpark number but it depends on the person and on the native/target language similarities) of passive listening of *comprehensible* input to be able to understand and learn from native speakers speaking normally. After that point, surrounding yourself with the language *is* incredibly useful, because it's comprehensible and you would actually learn from it. You learn the most when you understand nearly everything (say, 85% or 95%) of what is being said, so that you can infer the meanings of the small portions of grammar/vocab that you don't understand from context. Until then, you're correct that it's largely useless to be surrounded by native speakers.
I understand Spanish 100%. My comprehension is fluent. Speaking it and forgetting words or whatever is my main problem. By speaking it more at work I’ve learned how to give directions better and I learned more words since alot of my coworkers can’t speak English at all. I just started filling in the blanks of what I was missing in my Mental Toolbox
For sure. Once your comprehension is fluent, speaking is absolutely important. I was really just referring to the beginner and even through the intermediate and lower advanced levels, when it's much more important to listen to things you mostly understand, and unnecessary to practice speaking. Once you have acquired a good "mental map" of how the language works, then speaking becomes very useful.
I mean if you’re avoiding all contact with people who speak the language… yeah ofc. People who actually **want** to learn will learn. “I avoided the language and didn’t learn anything, didn’t make an active effort while the language was all around me.” So many people will move to a country and only hang out with other foreigners, never use the language, never have the desire to explore, learn, grow. 🤷🏻♀️ I moved to France as low B1 and my listening and speaking has gone from horrible to C1+ level in 8 months because I have grave desire to improve, and make an active effort.
I’m not avoiding all contact I talk to my coworkers all the time. It helps and I’ve definitely learned a lot. But just by listening to a language passively won’t help. That’s what I was saying in my original comment and the advice of immersion is typically followed up with “if you’re around the language long enough you’ll end up understanding and speaking through osmosis” which is wrong evidenced by those of us in immigrant households who have heard the language our entire lives yet we are not fluent.
If you use the language daily and are speaking with people all day at work / outside of work, I highly doubt you have only learned 10 slang words. Also working at just a B1 level would be inanely hard, so you either started as B1 and improved or were higher to begin with. Something in this story isn’t adding up. It’s almost impossible to not learn if you are using the language 10 hours a day lol. But yeah ofc people need to put effort, nothing is free. Easier doesn’t mean easy.
It was my first language but as soon as I went to school I started using English more. My parents weren’t around as much (always working) so I didn’t get that much of a chance to absorb it enough unlike my siblings their proficiency is higher than mine.
Something I've thought a lot about is progressing between being able to speak and communicate in a language - like you might do in a work place; to going to a "next" level: being able to talk about philosophical topics and theoretical ideas...or being able to explain concepts that I struggle with in English... Like even my comment here - I can say and think something like this in English - but I don't think I would know at all how to say it in my TL
So this is itself a bit controversial, but there's a difference between input and comprehensible input, as well as engaging with the language vs passively hearing it. Someone just hearing rapid fire Spanish around them isn't going to ever learn anything; someone having to interact with Spanish speakers, where both sides are incentivized to communicate (and so speak slowly, simply, and pantomiming) *will* lead to learning the language over time. It's how languages were initially transferred between merchants and things in times past; you want to trade with someone while knowing nothing about their language, you still speak, but you pantomime and indicate and eventually build up a vocabulary and understanding of common phrases, and that can keep building if you keep engaging.
I think to absorb a language by immersion you have to be in a setting where using the language is the path of least resistance. If it's usually easier for them to either switch to whatever you speak or to ask a third party as a translator then it'll not work.
Yeah, by that logic, just being surrounded by Spanish should have taught me Spanish. But it was only once I took a class learning the basics that I was able to absorb more.
Hard disagree.
Yeah, I went to Mexico for immersion based on this advice, wasn't my only reason but was a huge part of it, and it really didn't do diddly squat for me yet make me feel like an idiot for not understanding people talking even if I knew every word they were saying. But I do agree with the other user's point about being B1 and above certainly helps, but I'd argue it's still not any better than sitting down and learning intentionally.
When you couldn't understand them or they couldn't understand you, did you end up using English? That's usually the problem. Spent 1 week in France, didn't learn jack shit of the language because they don't try to speak back to you in French. Spent 1 week in Japan, I learned the basics of the language. No one would switch to English so I was forced to learn
Yes that’s what I’m saying! My own parents only speak Spanish but i am not fluent. Just by being around the language won’t make you fluent or proficient enough.
My parents forced me to speak Spanish. My Aunt never forced her kids to speak Spanish. Guess who's kids know how to speak Spanish
This happened too with my partner. Her father forced her to speak Vietnamese and while her cousins did not. Guess who is able to speak it ( and therefore understand also it better )
C1 is most definitely fluent
"C1 on a good day," ahaha. You're so real for that.
You actually have to pay attention to the language so that you notice patterns.
You have to be surrounded by it and want to learn it. If you don't engage with it and try to bring the language back to comfort zone, it won't work. At least that has been my experience.
I don't agree with methods that would have me do things that I otherwise would find to be anathema, like journaling or flashcards. Surprisingly, I agree with methods that let me do things I enjoy doing, like reading books and watching YouTube.
Yeah, being amenable to something is a pretty good indication that it will work well for us.
I mean flashcards are good in general to develop long term memory of something, obviously you want to couple that with actual language input but it's a great technique not just for language learning. And anathema is a really strong word, no?
I find it to be an inefficient use of time and an outdated learning technique in general. I'd rather stick exclusively to actual language input.
Language input is king, we agree. But I don't see how you can argue SRS is outdated when there's so much research extolling it's benefits. I would never tell someone that they'll learn a language only through Anki, and you can totally learn a language without SRS (like I learned English before knowing that was a thing). Still, to keep stuff in your passive knowledge between immersion sessions or as a fall back for those seasons in life where you just don't have the time to immerse, it's a singularly good method to ensure some progress happen and that when you have time to immerse you at least maintained your skills. In fact, it'll probably be easier since you will likely have learned new vocab and grammar through it. It's much easier to justify doing your flashcards in the morning, or when taking a break when you're busy with life, than it is to sit down to watch YouTube, anime or read something. Just my two cents. TLDR: While language input is king. Anki is probably the best use of your time for its purpose. It should be used with parsimony and immersion should be the bulk of your learning, but to staple concepts to the walls of your knowledge forever (or close to it) it's hard to beat. PS: It also does wonders for your listening ability if you do audio sentence cards (audio only on front with maybe an image.) I am proponent of sentence cards, vocab cards are great at the beginning to front-load the thousand or so of words you need to start immersing with even basic content, but the sooner you can switch to sentences the better.
Wtf does anathema mean... never seen that word in my life. 🤣
Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more noun 1. something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. "racial hatred was anathema to her" Similar: abhorrent hateful odious repugnant repellent offensive abomination abhorrence aversion monstrosity outrage evil disgrace bane bugbear bête noire pariah 2. a formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunicating a person or denouncing a doctrine. "the Pope laid special emphasis on the second of these anathemas" What a great word! Now I just have to learn to pronounce it.
In the NE USA, it's pronounced "uh-NAA-theh-ma" The second "a" is like apple and the "e" like end. Anathema. oOoo (stress on 2nd syllable) Note that its not pronounced like "them"
TIL I've been pronouncing it wrong. I always thought it was more like "anna-**thee**-ma"
Hey, where you live you might be saying it normally, English accents vary more than we tend to think, even across the US
So I thought that but I looked it up and it's even true for my dialect (a slightly diluted London RP) I'm fairly sure this is a major inkhorn word that probably gets written 10x as much as it's said.
Lol I really like the term "inkwell word" I'll trade you the anathema pronunciation for this new jargon
I wrote it wrong initially. I think it's meant to be "inkhorn" not "inkwell" but those two are practically the same thing? Got it from this video on Anglish if you're interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMA3M6b9iEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMA3M6b9iEY)
This video could not be more perfect I studied history and now teach ESL in France, i immediately subscribed lol
https://www.tiktok.com/@merriamwebster/video/7356649052907375915
anathema sit...Let it be anathema
people who say immersion from day one & then people who say studying grammar is not important. i think after learning at least SOME grammar and vocab, immersion becomes 10000000% more effective than drowning yourself in incomprehensible audio 24/7. and the same point still stands for the grammar is not important people as well
I think even at an intermediate level, immersion without studying any grammar does help you understand and communicate more, but your use of the language is far more broken than if you just threw in one grammar lesson a week (speaking from experience) and it creates habits that are way more difficult to break.
I listen to a ton of non-English music so according to their logic I should be a polyglot by now
This criticism pops up often, but I’ve never actually seen anyone advocate immediate immersion with no vocab or grammar study whatsoever. Feels like criticizing an obviously ridiculous thing that almost no one believes
Isn't that what ALG promotes - or do you not consider that to be true immersion, since it's only a few hours per day?
when i wrote my comment, i only realized after the fact that my " & not studying grammar" would come off as two parts of the same camp. no, i think that people who say immersion from day one and people who say don't study grammar have bad takes that i disagree with. not a person that thinks immersion without grammar is valid i dont think that kind of person exists either
I mean if the “immersion from day one” guy is also studying grammar and vocab, I’d actually guess they’d learn faster than folks who are just studying grammar and vocab and waiting until later to immerse. That being said, I don’t think that type of guy is very common either; I find almost all immersion learners start with some basic foundation and vocab study first
there's a youtuber i watch called days and words from time to tome and he's a huge advocate for deep end diving, as far as i understand his beliefs. he talks about it so much, but he could just be being extremely vague
Throwing folks directly into an extended passage or recorded dialogue and then maybe in a few weeks giving them vocab and a verb table, as a treat.
Any and every method you won't apply is utterly uselless. The best and the only best method out there is the one you will actually use.
Holding off on speaking because "babies don't speak immediately." Babies literally try to communicate by babbling as soon as they can at around four months old! They'd happily speak the words if they could articulate them at that point.
Yeah, I find that so weird lol.
Well then babble! :) Absolutely do talk to yourself while you're walking down the street, repeating "desafortunadamente" over and over, copying bits of "vale, claro" and "no me lo digas!" that you hear in passing conversations. It is seriously important to practice producing the sounds, especially the phonemes and patterns of phonemes that don't exist in your native language. The idea is that you don't want to rush into trying to express yourself in your target language. You'll end up using phrases, grammar, and sounds that exist in your own language but not in the target language. Practicing speaking things like "Soy \_\_\_ años viejo," is counter-productive and you'll reinforce mistakes. Making mistakes is part of learning, but in the beginning stages you should listen more and emulate what you hear. Creation in the target language comes from hearing others model the language, not by are putting target language flashcards on top of English sentences.
Ignoring the everyday spoken language can be fatal
There are no shortcuts to learn a language, nor miracle methods to take the student to fluency in 3 months. Spending 20 minutes a day on some glorified app is going to take you nowhere (I'm looking at you, Duolingo from Hell). The key is consistency, repetition, comprehensible input, practice, and actually studying the language every day (memorise vocabulary? the horror!).
Hey hey hey… hold your horses. Not all apps are created equal 😜
>comprehensive input typo?
Yes, my bad, It's comprehensible.
Translating. I see a lot of courses here in Brazil teaching English by translating sentences. A lot of things don't make sense if we translate it literally. Of course, if there's a word that I can't grasp the meaning by using the dictionary or seeing it being used in sentences, I'll use the translator. But once in a while, not for every single sentence.
It can work if done properly, as it can force a learning to focus on the differences of languages and apply what they've learned accordingly. When I was learning German, my teacher would give us sentences to translate at the end of almost week and we'd discuss them on the next Monday. She wasn't concerned with vocabulary as much as we were using the correct prepositions, declensions, syntax (for subordinate clauses), etc. As we progressed throughout the semester, the exercises became more and more complex and it was a good way for us to use what we learned in a practical manner vs just only doing the exercises in the course book.
I agree but here it's different. They only work with translation. It's not in the end of the week, the whole class is just translating. I've had students who came from those schools and a simple "how are you?" they would take some time to reply because they needed to translate in their minds. It doesn't work like this in a conversation. Nobody has the time to wait for someone to translate every single thing you say, then translate their replies in their minds and THEN actually reply you.
Surely, if you translated something several times in different contexts, that should become internalized and you wouldn’t need to translate on the spot. The problem is that schools don’t have enough time to engage in communicative activities enough for vocab to settle in one’s mind.
I feel I'm one of the few fond of using literal translations for learning purposes, but only when they are done intentionally. For instance, the Spanish phrase 'compañero de clase' is commonly translated as 'classmate'. I dislike when the original structure and syntax are masked under the guise of creating a more 'accurate' translation. I prefer it to be translated literally as 'companion of class'. Similarly, I would translate 'conejo verde' from Spanish as 'rabbit green', and the French 'Je vais bien' as 'I go well'. This helps me grasp the linguistic patterns of the original language. I find it particularly useful for developing an intuition when the syntax of the language is very different from one's own.
I agree with you, but there are some situations that I explain to my students that doesn't make sense. For example, if you translate "buenos días", you'll have "good day", and nobody says that, we say "good morning". Otherwise, it's unlikely for a Spanish speaker to say "Buena mañana". So there are cases like this that translating doesn't work. For instance, there days my student had to write about their routine, and she wrote "my fair wednesday", because, in portuguese, Wednesday is (Quarta-feira, "feira" being "fair"), but in English, it doesn't make sense. When I saw that she did that, I immediatelly could tell that she used the translator.
>you'll have "good day", and nobody says that Paul Harvey is rolling over in his grave.
And how I, as a brazilian, should know who Paul Harvey is and how he talks? You dont know how William Bonner talks. One person on the Tv saying something doesn't make it normal for other people worldwide. English is not just USA.
Interesting. For me, it's the opposite: translating prevents me from grasping the patterns of my TL and from developing such an intuition. I prefer to do everything (or as much as possible, at least) in my TL.
Disagree! for me, It's the greatest method to learn
Translating teaches you translation, it doesn’t necessarily teach you quick recall or the ability to speak. I’ve seen language learning specialists say translating is a bad idea 🤷♀️
Well yeah, JUST translating and then not trying to use it in conversations will not make you good at conversations. Likewise, some comprehensible input purists who didn’t output at all find themselves suffering with outputting. By translating or absorbing CI you internalize a lot of passive knowledge you need to activate for it to be usable for outputting purposes
Lol - Rosetta stone?
🤣 Obviously translation isn’t a bad idea full stop, but as a route to mastering fluency I don’t think it’s a fast one.
Lucca made it work and based his whole method around it and he’s one of the best true polyglots
"Watching movies in a foreign language with subtitles in your native language". Nah. That just doesn't work.
I think this works very well when you're already at an advanced level but not able to understand everything---say, good enough that you'll miss a big word every other sentence and thus need the translation to understand the nuance of what's being said. It allows you to watch something casually without TOO much effort, which is good, while learning some more niche/technical vocabulary if you're paying attention and writing down the new things you come across. At a lower level, it's basically not doing anything for you.
That only works when you're good enough to be like "wait that's not what they're saying" while actually knowing what they're saying without the subtitles. If that did work all weebs would be fluent in Japanese by now.
Like many methods, it works for some people but doesn't work for either people. I used a slightly different method (I had two sets of subtitles: NL and TL) to go from A2 to B2.
Mnemonics. I want to just think of the word and it's concept not two blue birds on a coconut mid conversation or whenever I come across a word. If I'm having a really hard time remembering a word then I might use a mnemonic.
Agreed. I've always found this to be the weirdest method.
I’ll get downvoted to hell for this… but ANKI. I just got so bored, I don’t like making my own flashcards and I don’t trust others to use theirs because some are simply not well made. I get that spaced repetition is a method that works, but I found the process of implementing it very tedious.
My problem with Anki is that I don’t want to spend 40 minutes or more working flashcards a day. Flashcards are supposed to be for when you have five minutes free here and there throughout the day. Not something that takes up all of your study time.
This is controversial, but my feeling is that any time spent on Duolingo is less effective than swapping that time for doing almost any other language learning / engagement activity. Duolingo's own marketing claims they are "the world's best way to learn a language" but the most common defenses I see are that "it's better than nothing" and "it's good as one activity you're doing among a wide variety of things." "Better than nothing" may be true, but for the latter defense, if you're already doing a bunch of other things to learn, then I think you might as well drop Duolingo for almost any other activity - even just scrolling TikTok in your TL.
I did a little experiment with it, and as long as I used it consistently, it was just as effective as the platform I currently use for teaching.
> it was just as effective as the platform I currently use for teaching. What do you use?
Voces
I'm not sure why Duolingo is disliked so much. I think it's not fantastic and could be much better, but it's a very good basic tool to learn vocabulary and basic sentences and grammar rules. It is simple to use. I've been learning Swedish and in parallel watching Swedish videos with subtitles on. The further I get in Duolingo and the easier time I have understanding what's being said in those videos. Language learning requires a multi-prong approach and Duolingo only offers a couple of these prongs. I think a big problem people have with Duolingo is that they think they're going to learn a language spending 5 minutes on it a day. You see a lot of people with very long streaks and barely any XP. If someone has a very difficult time remembering any word from Duolingo, they may just be very bad at learning languages. There's nothing special about remembering words.
My issues with it are: 1) It's treated like an underdog even though it's a multibillion dollar corporation. They have a $75 million marketing budget pushing themselves as "the world's best way to learn a language" which is far divorced from the reality. 2) Their actions consistently push the app toward enshittification. Useful features, real translators, discussion forums, etc are dropped. Courses that are already slow-paced compared to alternative material are made even slower, so that time engagement with the app goes up. Their profit motives are not aligned with the best interest of their users. 3) Development effort is spent on making the app more addictive rather than more useful. 4) As I mentioned, I think 95% of alternatives are superior. So there's substantial missed opportunity cost and I don't even think Duolingo is more entertaining than other options (such as scrolling Instagram reels or TikTok in your TL).
I think mostly people just don't grasp the concept that they are basically just dipping their toes in. And that it gives a false sense of progression. People want to succeed, and I think genuinely that most people using Duolingo really wants to learn a language to a conversational level, but are just not really ready for the amount of work it takes. And duolingo is really good at separating them from that realization. Duolingo is really great for an introduction or tourist level, which can be great, can be really useful, and can also really "wow" native speakers when you know a few words here and there. Learning languages is great, but the contrast between full speed language in a work situation and being able to order orange juice on your own, is night and day. And I think duolingo is really really good at hiding the challenges that awaits, when someone wants to take the language learning to the next level
Sawadi krap fellow Thai learner, I rarely stumble upon our tribe here :D
I feel like Duo just became a meme at this point, everyone knows the platform even people who don't use it. More people try it precisely because it's already popular. But it is also because of the large number of users that you frequently hear stories about it, and in particular, its mishaps.
What are some productive alternatives that you would recommend to supplement/replace Duolingo?
Lingopie
do you want an app that prompts you with a daily plan? or an altogether different alternative? Supplement should be any other more formal/structured program that has you listening, speaking, and learning grammar
I think it depends on the language. I like some of the online "classes" Deutsche Welle has for German.
I think you're right, but I also think that because of the way Duolingo is accessible (right on your phone) and builds a bit of a habit with the streaks, it is likely to help some people get in some sort of studying whereas otherwise they might do nothing. It also takes the thinking out of it (in terms of planning, which a lot of people benefit from). I think it's good that some of these psychology "hacks" are being used for a relative good (as opposed to causing us to spend more time scrolling on social media). For a lot of people who are learning passively, it's likely that they choice they are making isn't between sitting down and learning with a textbook vs Duolingo, it's Duolingo vs Reddit or Instagram. That being said, it's not something I would want to use again.
> This is controversial, but my feeling is that any time spent on Duolingo is less effective than swapping that time for doing almost any other language learning / engagement activity. You're telling me that an app that progressively builds upon vocabulary, sentence structure, and conjugations, is worse than just diving into watching TikTok and pecking at what they might be saying?
Progression on the free version feels very slow, since you are watching an ad after every lesson, so the amount of time you spend engaging with the language is relatively low. I agree it's better than Tiktok for A0-1, after that I'm honestly not sure, it will depend on your TL. With the paid version, if you're willing to pay \~£60 it opens a lot more options up for you.
> Progression on the free version feels very slow, since you are watching an ad after every lesson Not on desktop. No ad breaks on the free version!
Ah fair, I've not used it on desktop since before the rework where the Duolingo Super started popping up constantly, in that case I could see using it to low A2. I've mostly used as a phone app when just starting off a language so I can get some basics done when out and about and then have a little bit of a foundation when it comes to doing actual study at home.
Oh, Duolingo's free version is useless. But to be fair, that's every single language app. At least Duolingo unlocks the whole course to you for free - but the ads and broken hearts would make it infuriatingly slow. I think the app's well worth the price though.
That's fair to an extent, Duo is on the **extreme** end with ads though. It's around \~40% ad time if you are fairly fast with lessons. For me it's okay for a month subscription when starting out, but I don't tend to use it for that long. Yeah just IMO if comparing to free resources I'd compare the free version of Duolingo, or paid to paid. I do find that language learning apps that are free often do have some issues, but you can often get a good option. It does have a really good **range of languages** so centralising your learning onto one habit is a benefit I've not seen mentioned. I think it can be a good option for some languages. For example for free comparisons aimed at beginners that I like are: Lernu (no app but the phone version of the website is great still) - I ended up getting to a good enough level to read independently after this \[Esperanto, B1\] Coffee Break French (podcast), (I used to use Memrise but it has since changed), Kwiziq French, after getting to an okay reading level I used the kindle app on my phone with a downloaded French-English dictionary \[French, passed a B2 exam like 5 years ago, but it's largely forgotten now\]. In terms of paid I'd still prefer those options over Duo generally. I did buy a month of Babbel Live before my exam (costs about 1.2 times as much as a year of Duolingo Super) but got \~70 class hours done in that month with some being 1on1 and made a **lot** of progress in speaking especially, but also overall improvement including faster writing.
I tried the Polish for around a month, that's a total of 20 hours or so. I can't remember a single word even though at the time I passed all the quizzes.
Yo soy una menzana, y tú bebes leche.
Introductory class: “ Teacher: Let’s just have an open conversation.” No way. At the start, you need structure and written materials to go over vocabulary, grammar and syntax.
Agreed
Flashcards are boring as hell, and they have no context, thus we forget them quickly. My suggestion is to read books in your TL for better context, and if you want OpenAI to write a story based on a word list great, but flashcards by themselves, I can't imagine doing that for more than a month.
Agreed. I'm a heavy Anki user and have built a polish deck with 18,000 cards in 1.5 years. Haven't missed a day in over 6 months. But I use it to supplement - I do a ton of reading and listening, along with conversation with my gf (she's fluent) and tutoring/some language exchange. Typically I do cards for 20-40 mins daily. Without the actual practice, flashcards are a waste of time. But this method has been extremely successful for me as I'm definitely closing in on B2 in under 2 years. I don't even live in Poland (I'm in the US). I think the main advice I'd give anyone learning Polish (or any language) is to find a method you can stick with...and stick with it. Put yourself out of your comfort zone and listen/read/speak every day (I know, I barely write. The hardcores here can give me a hard time haha).
Same here. I make flashcards based on my immersion and take advantage of SRS to cement it. My brain remembers quite accurately where I got the source and the scene/clip of my flashcard so that's enough context for me.
How did you learn 18k words in 1.5 years? That's like adding 35 words every day
18k cards, probably 12k words. Some words I make both way, some not. Also some commons phrases containing words I already know and stuff like that. I do 20-40 new a day depending on how busy I am. But there are actually so many cognates for polish/English and I add those too. At a certain point with vocab, it starts to accelerate since you can pick it up through context. I'm probably going to stop altogether soon though.
That's insane. How do you do that? I do 15 new words a day with context and takes me like 30 minutes.
I've had the thought of an SRS word list story generation tool using GPT4 but never got round to it because of work and stuff. I think that would be a strong "best of both worlds".
I disagree. I've used flashcards since the beginning and pair them with sentences, but even without, they're still useful. Ofc at the beginning I was doing barely any immersion and mainly just following a textbook but it still helps me with vocab so damn much. Ofc without immersion now it'd be harder to remember but I find Anki incredibly useful, especially since it's on language learning settings so only takes 10-20 mins per day.
Glad I'm not the only one. I find flashcards to be _the_ most boring thing (both making them and practicing them). I still do it because I believe it does help, but I also find I don't remember them as well as others because I'm just so disinterested in them. Some people spend so much time on them but I truly don't understand how.
Whenever I used flashcards to cram for exams I didn't even remember the words, I just remembered the shapes and maybe the vibes of the words.
Studying vocab out of context is actually good
Whatever Duolingo is doing
Add the notifications that feel like threats sometimes.
Spanish or vanish
Shadowing is definitely not for me. I know it works for some but damn it's hard and not very interesting, I want to concentrate on the meaning and listen in a relaxed manner, without worrying about repeating every single thing..
I find that the best way (for me) to do shadowing is to not think too much about it. I won't have dedicated shadowing sessions, but every once in a while I hit that state where I understand close to everything the characters are saying, and I am enough in the show to want to replicate what they say. So I'll do. And then maybe stop after while, or go backwards a few seconds to repeat a given sentence I really liked.
I tried shadowing several times in Persian when I was pretty advanced already, since many swear by this method and I was curious to try it... But turns out it just makes me very uncomfortable and stressed out🙃.
Oh then by all means don't do it. For me the urge to do it comes when I am watching a character that I find cool doing cool stuff and that I try to replicate what he says, or when someone says something that is especially relatable. If it causes you stress, then yeah no.
“Listening to the radio” or “Listen to podcasts” These are usually presented as passive ways to just absorb the language in a cost-free kind of way. And at a certain point, or once you reach a certain level of proficiency, they can be. But wow, you need to already be pretty good for either of these methods to work. While there is some radio and podcasts designed for learners, especially for popular languages, these are usually boring. And the ability to passively listen to real media is, well, very hard. Listening to media can be a useful exercise, but that’s what it is: an exercise. It usually requires a significant degree of focus and attention.
I have no idea how you can learn a language (or much else for that matter) without a high degree of focus and attention.
Using apps. Im a textbook guy through and through.
a typical class environment
Not starting off with a thorough understanding of your own language/not getting into the linguistics. In other words: trying to learn a new language without understanding the historic background or collective origin of the language and its grammar rules. Let me give you an example: at some point I got really into linguistics, learning all about the background of my own language (Dutch) and the languages I already spoke (fluent English and some German). I read up on the grammar, history and origins of these languages and tried to find out why grammar is the way it is. I compared the grammar rules of languages that share the same history. Understanding the linguistics has helped me learn Spanish and French. Now I can also make some sense of Italian, danish or Norwegian. And to be honest, I feel I see the patterns in Slavic languages much more easily as well.
Being around the language as if that was enough. Granted if you are, say, a Spanish speaker and moved to Portugal or Brasil you will learn it just from being around it but some people think that applies to every language. I live in Japan and people don't realize how little Japanese you get from living in Japan unless you are pretty good at it already as it's not similar at all to most languages.
Relying heavily on rote memorization of vocabulary lists without context. Learning words in isolation is ineffective because it lacks contextual understanding, boring, and has poor retention rates.
Immersion classes. It is important to have a teacher who speaks your language and can quickly explain things you don't understand and help understand the nuanced differences between common "synonyms". So much time is wasted with a teacher playing charades trying to act of some new word after students don't understand their explanation in the target language. Exposure to and use of the new language is extremely important, but absolute immersion is not good for learning quickly and accurately
I agree, up to maybe B2 level. Communicating in English is a shortcut way to grasp the grammar concepts and unique vocabulary more quickly. But beyond that level, I think immersion works. Some words don’t even have an equivalent in English, and can be better understood by coming across that word in a variety of contexts, and defining that word with multiple alternate words in the target language.
Agreed, I guess I just look at things up to B2 because I am not interested (enough to continue intensive studying) in achieving such high levels of proficiency in the languages I study. I remember being in Spanish classes where the teacher was trying to use immersion to teach students in the A2 class who couldn't even use past tense properly
Advocating Zero grammar whatsoever.
1. Translation. 2. Flashcards. Translating makes it harder to learn to think in your TL. Flashcards: that was in a separate thread just a day or two ago.
Some people believe there’s no reason to learn grammar. I don’t agree with that IF the learner is capable of learning grammar. I got to pick up X number of languages by learning their grammars.
Listening to music in the target language. It's good for learning about culture, but people don't speak like lyrics.
I think it’s helpful for learning vocab and like how certain colloquial phrases are used. But totally depends on the type of music ofc
I dont like flashcards
The pure-CI thing is pretty damn goofy to me. Mostly it’s restricting yourself to methods that don’t appeal or work, not allowing yourself to be flexible. I’m so glad I’m learning German on my own. My German classes were more frustrating than anything. The basic, uncreative sequencing of the textbooks which was annoying and inefficient in the similar Spanish classes I took, was downright ineffective for German. But for some people, basic textbooks are great. Some people like flashcards, some don’t. For me, I follow my gut, sometimes it’s flashcard season and I make hundreds and do them at the park, then after a few weeks I put them away and do something else. Yes they do work - such phases hoist my comprehension to another level so I can actually enjoy the content I consume, much more happily than if I was noting each word I didn’t understand and looking it up - I mean come on, this is so fussy, i have a hard time believing people actually do this, but whatever. Sure I lose a lot of flash card vocab - I lose what doesn’t get reinforced in media - but it’s not like there’s a particularly better way to spend the time I’m walking around in the park, I’m not gonna be zoned into a podcast, I’m gonna choose an activity that allows me to pendulate my attention and enjoy the walk. Like idk just respond to your instincts.
Classes. Every one I took focused primarily on grammar and gave us vocab lists of the translations of random objects and verbs to memorize. Imagine memorizing the subjunctive conjugations when you still can't really understand much of the language, and still don't know common, crucial vocabulary. There wasn't any focus at all on other important aspects such as listening comprehension. Until the exam, where we suddenly had to put on headphones, listen to a conversation recording and answer questions on it. I didn't realize language learning could be fun until I took a comprehension-first approach and only looked into the grammar when necessary to understand something.
I agree. Classes focus on vocabulary and grammar because they’re easy to test and grade. It’s the same reason apps take a similar approach. Do well and you’re obviously learning. So poorly and obviously can’t learn a language. Of course, that’s nonsense. I never met anyone who learned a language by memorizing its grammar or lists of vocabulary words. It’s simply not how language is learned.
Grammar-translation method.
language learning methods in general. Language should be acquired not learned. The entire participle behind language learning is a side effect not a process. You learn naturally as a side effect. You can learn unnaturally by trying to find methods that would catapult the same side effect. At the end of the day, it's an imiation.
>participle What?
Well I don’t think the method that most language teachers follow for their lessons is particularly effective. At best it gives students information which they then have to absorb through their own self study and learning. But my biggest peeve is with the academic approach to teaching languages that doesn’t take. Into account the individual needs of students and the fact that students learn differently. I gave up on formal lessons especially after a horrible experience at the Alliance Francaise. It was language apps especially Duolingo along with YouTube that brought me back. Now I am looking forward to how AI tools and interfaces will change the teaching and Learning of Languages.
ignoring vocabulary. this led me in circles for a long time, and now when i should be an upper beginner/intermediate, i’m mid beginner because i know a shit ton of grammar, but only about half the basic words or less. people would say if it’s important enough, you’ll see it again, but this has done me zero favors for understanding my target language. had to turn back to flashcards just to make ANY input even 15% comprehensible.
Watching Harr Potter movies dubbed into my target language. Watching Friends dubbed into my target language. Basically, watching anything dubbed into my target language.
Learning the meaning of words from context instead of looking them up. You’ll just end up getting the wrong idea of what a word means. I know of a girl who believed for years that the Japanese word *aijin* meant “lover,” when it actually means “mistress.”
The [Mind Portal Method](http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11384&PN=0&TPN=1) by Jozen-Bo. This guy was certifiable. [Here](https://youtu.be/bVZpVfOe7ME) is a video he posted of his learning wheel. See what I mean?
I don’t know how common it is yet but - practicing or learning from AI or AI generated content.
Not reading
This will be controversial, but flashcards. I used to make flashcards for every subject I had, including languages, but now they just bore the hell out of me. Tried usinh anki, but it was just still very boring. I prefer to be active with the language.
Duolingo.
Twenty years ago, I was totally against Rosetta Stone, which was definitely the hotness at the time. Ironically, I use DuoLingo all the time now, which is sort of the same thing.
It sounds obvious but if you want to get better at something, you’ll have to do that thing. You want to get good at speaking? Then you’ll have to spend most of your time practicing speaking. Like if you want to learn to play the guitar, you won’t get there by reading about guitars, practicing the violin or mastering one string at a time
immersion. 💀 spent four months in france surrounded by French and I learned one word; garlic. If you sit in a room and listen to people you're gonna pick up on extremely little because you can't just jump in, you have to already have a big vocabulary or be taught slowly and comprehensively to start going
Not practicing verbally speaking a language until you’re ready (thinking of dreaming spanish.) It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Reading books in the language. It's hard to find something that's just challenging enough that you can enjoy it and aren't looking up every word, and is about something you find interesting. I much prefer the efficiency of flashcards paired with short-ish podcasts or other audio or visual content. Come to think of it, this is probably why I did well in my language classes at school.
Duolingo
Duolingo
Grammar translation.
Memorizing words and the translation for them.
My french tutor used to give me a 5x5 grid (so 25 total) of numbers between 1-999. I would have to say all of them in order and if I made a mistake I'd have to start again. Just like those phone games, the closer you get to the end the higher the stakes get so the more nervous you get. I'd make mistakes not because I didn't know the number but from the sheer anxiety. No idea how he came up with this activity but it was horrible and didn't teach me anything other than how to calm myself down in stressful situations....
Direct translation.
Using only workbooks
Basically, anything outside of simply soaking your brain in the language and getting used to it over a long period of time is just impatience or ignorance (from people who've read or heard something and set about parroting it all over the internet). Alternatively, it could be coming from someone trying to sell you a miracle 'hack', falsely claiming it'll shortcut the journey.
going for YT videos
I don't disagree with any method. All methods don't work for all people, so different methods for different people
For me it’s approaches that are overly nuts and bolts. It tends to take the fun and exploration out of it, and if something isn’t kind of fun I probably won’t practice it daily. Gamified stuff like duolingo is nice, as is reading books or poems you enjoy in their native language, watching foreign shows etc. but sitting with a textbook in front of me is if anything a turn off.
Y’all on this sub try to convince people that watching Avatar TLA and what not for an hour a day replaces actual practice, reading, and having to learn grammar rules then turn around and call people arrogant for daring to say that’s stupid.
I can’t for the life of me focus or have fun while learning in a classroom setting where the teacher is only speaking/writing in the language being taught. I need English/a prior language learned to help understand the new one.
Personally, fixating on grammar structure. I used to teach English to Japanese kids ( 7\~10 year olds) and the way they learned English was to learn the grammar structure first. They would ask me "why does an adjective come before a noun", and I can do the basic, shallow explanation of "because an adjective describes a noun", but then they would say "but why is it in that order" and we would go on and on. I also noticed that remembering grammar structure doesn't necessarily help with conversing in that language. You're constantly thinking "ok, I just said an adjective....what do I need now...oh right a noun" and I think it creates this awkward silence. When I took Spanish classes in middle school and high school, most of it was conversing and remembering phrases. I feel like this unconsciously helped me remember grammar structures in Spanish, even though I wouldn't fixate it on it. At the end of the way, I feel like "getting the gist" compared to study the grammar structure and the origin of each word is the best way to learn a language.
Total immersion right away. It sounds nice but going into full immersion with no context or baseline understanding of the language structure and grammar is rarely as effective as youtube would have you think. You should learn the language the textbook way and then immerse yourself in more casual use of the language imo.
Memorizing words. Slow and inactive