languages

/languages272

A place to talk about language learning

I think about this movie a LOT, especially after living in different countries and learning languages.
impressed by the level of details and overall quality in duolingo now

first I've heavily used it back in 2014 to learn english from scratch

a few years back I've started learning spanish which I picked back up now

with Argentina on a path to become the best country on Earth can be a great investment
Dear @33bits anons, you’re welcome to post in /languages anytime 😘
Getting myself a little treat for tonight. Which one should I get?
What kind of language learner are you?

Are you focused on just one language?
A few?
Are you a dabbler?
Going deep?

I'm a bit of a mix.

My main language to learn is Mandarin Chinese. I'm aiming to be able to read at an adult level - I want to be able to read modern Chinese political and philosophical texts, as well as modern Chinese commentaries on classical Chinese texts. Speaking isn't a super hard goal for me, but eventually, I'll likely get a tutor to help me get to a decent level on that. I'm doing great on self-study learning to read and listen to the language, but speaking I want to have feedback from a fluent speaker.

I'm also dabbling in Korean very slowly, and a bit of Spanish here and there because I'm going to have to take a couple semesters of that for gen ed requirements for my degree - so far the school hasn't offered Chinese, though they do have a Chinese department (I think the professor is with students in China for a couple years), which sucks cuz that would be a slam dunk class!
I'm an explorer. I'm currently mainly focused on Chinese because I have a goal of reaching fluency there, but I'm also learning Korean and dabbling in Spanish.

https://youtu.be/FRK-cRbyh28?si=9DT2IF3a2kS8riXK
The letter X in Portuguese is pronounced as “sheesh“. If you are not following me on Sheesh yet, you should.
It’s a testament to hard work.
I have a new approach for learning Kanji. I will skim the rest of my Kanji book (2300ish characters) and only pay close attention to the characters and their English translated meaning. Then I will read a novel with Furigana to find the Japanese readings for the Kanji.

Knowing the vague use of the characters via the skimming method + looking up definitions I don't know as I read sounds more fun than textbook reading.

(I will note down all Kanji with single Onyomi readings and study those as freebies)
This video is aimed at English learners, but I'm gonna try it with Chinese and see if it will work that way, too! NotebookLM can understand a LOT of languages, so in theory it'll still work, but I haven't played with it all that much.

https://youtu.be/d8W7rajfPXo?si=Thur3T6-j6hW4Zzl
Hey all!

I have a new global chat app that's designed with multi-language support as a primitive.

Specifically:
- no login needed (browser based)
- stage for the group chat to talk
- crypto tips

All posts get translated to the language you've selected

Join here:

https://getfirstresponder.com/anychat?room=tp92lf
This is fun! My streak is down to 3 days :))
One of the things I like to use ChatGPT for in my language learning is to create "graded readers".

They have vocabulary and grammar at various learner levels, and you can have it create them on any topic you want, in basically any language you want.

I have a couple ways that I use them.

I put them in my language learning Obsidian vault where I can then create new vocabulary notes for any new words that I encounter, and then I import them into LingQ where I can read through them using a popup dictionary and automatic translation tools.

And they're WAY more interesting than the sorts of generic graded readers you can find online.
How many languages do you speak?
Me: 3
Portuguese, Spanish and English
next week I’m going to do an English class for the students at the school I graduated from in my small town in Ukraine.

not that I’m even remotely qualified to teach English in any way lol but I think I can encourage them to stick with learning English and other foreign languages and talk about the opportunities it can bring (even within the country, since based on new legislation, proficiency in English will be required for many government and leadership positions) 🌎❤️

I’m also speaking to 11th graders, and I hope they’re nice, because we were such assholes in 11th grade! 😶‍🌫️😂
8 languages at once is a bit much, but personal challenges like this are a great deal of fun!

https://youtu.be/qv381JklIu8?si=gM0pYl3K3LaqkBS4
I don't study to memorize, I study for exposure.

The more you're exposed to a word or grammar structure, the more you're going to remember it.

You can drill yourself, take a quiz the next day, ace it, and then try quizzing yourself in a month.

You'll have lost most of it, unless you managed to maintain exposure to those words.

I start my language learning process by deliberate and systematic exposure.

I make vocabulary lists (AI is *great* for speeding that up), and then I go word-by-word and create a definition note in my Obsidian vault. I'll also use song lyrics and graded reader stories (again, AI is great for those) to start learning words in context and seeing grammar structures.

Then I just consume content in the language using various language learning tools I've accumulated.

Which exposes me to the words more and more in various contexts, both spoken and written.
I started learning Chinese a year and a half ago, but it's always helpful to go back to videos like this to see if there's anything new I want to try adding to my own language learning routine - especially now that I'm working on buckling down to break through the intermediate plateau in Mandarin and get restarted on learning Korean.

https://youtu.be/2VrGcijvDCY?si=nTrsk6xQPjgwhq6K
Lyric videos are GREAT for language study.

And it's really fun once you finally manage to sing a song in your target language!

https://youtu.be/QSGnDDTnTzI?si=RNioByivKXx_8fp2
I think everyone should be learning another language on the side. Don't stress about it, don't study too hard, just go with the flow and learn as you go. I took an 8ish year break from learning Japanese and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things 🗾
One of my fave resources for intermediate language learning has become Clozemaster.

You need to know enough of the language that you can start to pick up more words in context. So if you're studying a language with a lot of overlap with your native language, you can probably use it at an earlier stage, but with Chinese, I needed to know about 500-750 words before this tool became more useful to me.

https://www.clozemaster.com/
Request membership for languages below. I check for invites daily. Keep content on the topic of language learning!
Hello, hello! Wanted to pop in and let everyone know I've been made a co-moderator of this channel!

I won't be making any huge changes - I'll add a request invite frame shortly to make that process easier. I think curated channels are best, and just throwing the invite link out there is an invitation to spam, which we don't want here.

Language learning is a major special interest of mine. I dabbled with a bunch of different ones for years, but never got very far.

Until last year when I decided to see if I could learn Chinese.

Turns out yes, I could - still am - and I learned I have a knack for learning languages and quickly became obsessed!

So I'll mostly just be sharing language learning resources as I continue my own obsession with learning languages - I'm intermediate with Chinese and beginner in Korean, with plans for more once I've hit intermediate Korean.

What language(s) are you learning right now?