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I've been hacking language learning for about five years, and I've spent ridiculous amounts of time trying and reading about different strategies. I've been to

I've been hacking language learning for about five years, and I've spent ridiculous amounts of time trying and reading about different strategies. I've been to Cuba, Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico to try immersion in different settings. Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice. That said, native speakers operate on a different level entirely. In my recent visit to Barcelona, I had no problems asking for directions, talking to the hotel staff and people in bars, chatting it up with friends in Spanish, etc. However, walking into a noisy / crowded restaurant where the language is going 100 miles an hour is a totally different scenario. As much as I want to believe otherwise, I'm of the opinion that getting to a level of "automatic" response where you can fluidly handle any situation requires living in a country where the language is in your face all day every day--and even then it still takes real effort. A friend of mine, who's a US ex-pat living in Madrid is of the same opinion. After three years living there, he still doesn't feel 100% confident; although, he admits that he has spent most of his social time around English speakers. None of this is intended to discourage anyone at all. In fact, learning Spanish ranks as one of the best decisions I've ever made; however, I think it's important for folks to go in with realistic expectations, as there's big difference between functional competency--with a language and fluency with fluency being a "white whale".

shmat 7y ago
I completely agree that there is a huge gap between B2 and that level you describe as automatic. I'm currently trying to bridge that gap, but I can't live in France so I think it will take me years. I know people who have done it without immersion, so I know it's possible. My solution is to "immerse" myself at home. I do 90% of my reading in French. 90% of the podcasts I listen to are in French. I watch French TV shows and YouTube channels. I listen to French whenever I'm driving, exercising, doing errands, cooking, cleaning, etc. I'm also spending 3 weeks a year in France. That's not full immersion but it helps. When I'm in France, I stay with French speaking hosts and do tours in French. I avoid English at all costs. It'll be interesting to see how far I can get.
- lottin 7y ago
  It's a highly effective method in my experience. Also don't forget the production side, you need to practice talking and writing too. You can talk to yourself if you have no one to talk to, it works just as well.
  - shmat 7y ago
    Production is absolutely important, but harder to do. I talk to 3 French people every week, 30 minutes in French in exchange for 30 minutes in English. I also have conversations with myself in French (like a schizophrenic). Where I have been lazy is writing. I need to write more and get it corrected.
    - tomaszs 7y ago
      My friend who learned english intensively for a lots of years told me one good advice how to become fluent in another language. And how to know you reached the level. It is when you think in this language. Yes. Exactly. You need to become fluent in thinking in a language to be fluent in real life situations. And its also kinda cool to be able to think in two language. Its kind of a superpower :)
    - himinlomax 7y ago
      Well I learned English by posting to message boards like this one (and before that Usenet) over the past 25 years, so you could try that.
- wes1350 7y ago
  Author here. I definitely don't feel completely automatic in French, but when having casual conversation I can be fairly automatic if the subject matter isn't too demanding. I think you're absolutely right that without being immersed in French, you will struggle being automatic, especially in all those situations that you only encounter while being in person with actual French speakers. I think getting C1/C2 certification doesn't really test for that kind of thing, but instead, to my knowledge, being able to communicate increasingly complex ideas in a relatively sterile environment. So, you probably could get fairly automatic when debating about economics or having general conversation or something abstract at home, but in France you probably won't be automatic until you spend a sufficient amount of time practicing all the little things in daily life. This is something I will struggle with to unless I immerse myself someday, but being able to say what you want generally is definitely good enough to at least survive at live decently well. Good luck, sounds like what you're doing is the best possible!
cdavid 7y ago
It is possible to have what I think you mean by automatic response level without living in the country. I myself sucked at English until University: I hated learning it, I could not understand it spoken, and I could not read well a mildly complicated text written in it (say something written in the economist or NYT). Today, except for pronunciation, I would consider myself fluent, though of course not native. While I do use English daily, I have never worked in an English-speaking country until well after I became fluent. The one thing that made it click was watching a lot of video content without subtitles
- deleted 7y ago
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mumblemumble 7y ago
My sense is that there are really two different registers you can shoot for. Past a certain level of proficiency, they're mostly divergent, if complementary, skills. The first is whether you speak articulately about complex topics. This one is easy to do from home; reading books, listening to podcasts, and talking with language partners on iTalki will all help get you there. The second is informal, everyday communication. This one's definitely a struggle. Not only is it hard to pick up on your own, but I'm pretty sure that, even if you've spent some time in a region that speaks the language, there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave. TV, especially sitcoms, helps, but only a little. There's just not a whole lot of overlap between the things people actually chatter about all day, and the things that make for interesting entertainment.
- viraptor 7y ago
  > there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave That applies even to your original language. ~15 years after moving away, talking to family and friends at home feels... awkward. I can still do it easily, but honestly, sometimes I wish I could use English, even if that's not perfect either. It's so much easier with friends who also moved out. We can switch to a more comfortable language for each thought or even mid sentence if you prefer a specific word choice.
  - bemmu 7y ago
    I've been in Japan for 10+ years and only speak my mother tongue of Finnish while talking on the phone with my parents. Very little loss, doesn't feel awkward, but I sometimes forget very rarely used words. If I have a half an hour conversation, there might be one word that a normal person should know, but that I've forgotten. Comes as a bit of a shock to me when this happens.
    - satanspastaroll 7y ago
      You've been maintaining the language by calling your parents every now and then
- 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hombre_fatal 7y ago
> Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice. Though that's why it's hard. Just like eating healthy and exercise isn't hard, just requires dedication, yet notice how few people have a particularly good looking body. The opportunity cost of learning a language is also immense. I've spent an incredible amount of time listening to and reading Spanish. It just isn't for everybody. It has to be something that makes you happy.
- abnry 7y ago
  I am of the opinion that many people who want to learn a language don't have any real reason to learn a second language other than to say they know two languages. Unless you have extended family or somehow became smitten with a foreign country, I am almost certain this is the case. So any attempts are really halfhearted and very little progress is made because the commitment is so large. This is why, if I ever get around to learning a second language, it will be Esperanto. It takes an order of magnitude of less time to learn and gives you the accomplishment of knowing another language. (Plus uniformity in language is cool.)
  - ARandomerDude 7y ago
    Maybe for secular/atheistic people. For those of us who are religious, there's great value in learning Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, etc.
    - monster_group 7y ago
      I teach Sanskrit which falls in this category (a religious / cultural / historical language). People show up to the class super excited to learn the language. They badly want to learn the language but have no clue how much effort it is to learn a new language. Learning the language is at the bottom of their priority list. You are not gonna be learning the language if it is the tenth item on your priority list no matter how much you "want to learn it". The semester starts with 20 people and by the end there's less than 10.
  - 7y ago
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
>> getting to a level of "automatic" response where you can fluidly handle any situation requires living in a country where the language is in your face all day every day--and even then it still takes real effort. I can tell you from personal experience that it's most important that you speak the language. Get yourself in conversations where you are forced to speak and listen to the language. There's a big advantage to recall words when you need them and to try to understand what the other person is telling you. The stress of the situation will burn the words into your memory. Ultimately you will have no choice but to learn it. Also, even fluent speakers will lose fluency if you don't practice so there's no such thing as being fluent for life without using the language regularly. The biggest disservice you can do to a person that's trying to learn a new language is to translate for them in their native language. It helps at the moment but long term it's harder for them to learn the new language.
nmfisher 7y ago
Totally agree. I believe there's a difference between "competence" (I know how to say X) and "fluidity" (I can say X as easily as breathing). You can learn the first on your own. Takes a lot of effort, sure, but it's doable. I don't think you can learn fluidity outside of actually living in a country. You need to be bombarded daily with questions that you're forced to respond to. Even then, some people just don't make the effort, which is why you get people who have lived in a foreign country for decades and their language skills haven't improved. My first three months in China were worth more than the preceding three years of self-study.
- laurieg 7y ago
  This is definitely true. I usually describe it as "language knowledge" vs "fluency" in my classes. You can learn fluidity on your own, but it takes the right kind of practice. It's easy to think of learning a language as "study". You go through books learning words, phrases, verb endings etc. Most exercises in textbooks only care about you getting the right answer, not how quickly you do it. Compare this to learning a musical instrument. There is some study needed, but realtime practice is the bulk of what you do. If you need 30 seconds to work out the next chord in a song then you can't play the piano. The gold standard is practicing with a metronome. The areas where you can't keep up are the areas where you need to practice. I'm quite surprised that this idea of realtime practice is still so uncommon even though everyone has a smartphone nowadays. In the past, Pimsleur language courses put an emphasis on being able to answer in the language you are studying more or less straightaway.
monster_group 7y ago
>> However, walking into a noisy / crowded restaurant where the language is going 100 miles an hour is a totally different scenario. I honestly don't get how people talk in noisy bars and restaurants. I struggle even in English. One almost has to shout in the other person's ear. If it's that close I am thinking more about how my breath smells after having a few drinks rather than topic of discussion - lol.
- shmat 7y ago
  I read a study that said that in your native language you only need to hear 1/3 - 1/2 of the syllables and your brain will automatically fill in the rest, which is why you can understand conversations in a noisy environment. In a foreign language, unless you've achieved a very high level, you need to hear everything so noisy environments are a problem.
rajlego 7y ago
I really like this site [1] because it shows you just how big the gap between native and non-native speakers is. Non-native speakers generally know around 10,000 words while adult native speakers tend to know upwards of 20,000 words. I think the reason that getting to real native level fluency is extremely hard is that they have thousands more hours of input than you do and it's very hard to make up for that in real situations other than reading/watching lots and lots of Spanish content. [1] http://testyourvocab.com/ http://testyourvocab.com/
- rimliu 7y ago
  That page made me feel good about myself: English is my fourth language, and it estimates my vocabulary to be at 23200 words.
  - alberto_ol 7y ago
    My spoken and written english is very bad, but my score has been 27400. So I think that the test is not that meaningful.
- kosievdmerwe 7y ago
  The number of words you have to know to learn a language properly is why it's a daunting proposition to me and why I've stuck with the two I grew up with. There are 8760 hours in a year. Even if you somehow managed to learn a word an hour, that's still multiple years to get to 20-40k words. I think we take for granted how many years it takes for kids to learn a language to adult level when we say "kids have an easy time learning languages". It may be easy in that it doesn't require as much conscious study as adults do, but it isn't quick either. Granted mental maturation messes up the time lines, but I think it's hard to argue that it doesn't still take many years. So depending on what motivates you the time commitment needed at a minimum can be heartening (I'm taking years because there's lots to learn) or disheartening (This is a multi-year endeavor that I'll have to focus on when I could be doing something else). EDIT: Though reading up on what B2 is, it is a much less daunting proposition, but even C2 doesn't sound like native speaker level, just able to communicate effectively level.
nexus2045 7y ago
As a native Cantonese speaker learning Mandarin since I was 5, you think I'd have some advantage (which I do - vocabulary is largely similar), but I still struggle greatly with communication the more informal it is. Learning from language teachers is almost similar as reading travel phrasebooks - those situations are too forced and not realistic enough. Most communication involves lots of jokes and nuances where the topic isn't even clearly defined, unlike business settings.

shmat 7y ago

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

lottin 7y ago
It's a highly effective method in my experience. Also don't forget the production side, you need to practice talking and writing too. You can talk to yourself if you have no one to talk to, it works just as well.
- shmat 7y ago
  Production is absolutely important, but harder to do. I talk to 3 French people every week, 30 minutes in French in exchange for 30 minutes in English. I also have conversations with myself in French (like a schizophrenic). Where I have been lazy is writing. I need to write more and get it corrected.
  - tomaszs 7y ago
    My friend who learned english intensively for a lots of years told me one good advice how to become fluent in another language. And how to know you reached the level. It is when you think in this language. Yes. Exactly. You need to become fluent in thinking in a language to be fluent in real life situations. And its also kinda cool to be able to think in two language. Its kind of a superpower :)
  - himinlomax 7y ago
    Well I learned English by posting to message boards like this one (and before that Usenet) over the past 25 years, so you could try that.
wes1350 7y ago
Author here. I definitely don't feel completely automatic in French, but when having casual conversation I can be fairly automatic if the subject matter isn't too demanding. I think you're absolutely right that without being immersed in French, you will struggle being automatic, especially in all those situations that you only encounter while being in person with actual French speakers. I think getting C1/C2 certification doesn't really test for that kind of thing, but instead, to my knowledge, being able to communicate increasingly complex ideas in a relatively sterile environment. So, you probably could get fairly automatic when debating about economics or having general conversation or something abstract at home, but in France you probably won't be automatic until you spend a sufficient amount of time practicing all the little things in daily life. This is something I will struggle with to unless I immerse myself someday, but being able to say what you want generally is definitely good enough to at least survive at live decently well. Good luck, sounds like what you're doing is the best possible!

cdavid 7y ago

It is possible to have what I think you mean by automatic response level without living in the country. I myself sucked at English until University: I hated learning it, I could not understand it spoken, and I could not read well a mildly complicated text written in it (say something written in the economist or NYT). Today, except for pronunciation, I would consider myself fluent, though of course not native. While I do use English daily, I have never worked in an English-speaking country until well after I became fluent. The one thing that made it click was watching a lot of video content without subtitles

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mumblemumble 7y ago

My sense is that there are really two different registers you can shoot for. Past a certain level of proficiency, they're mostly divergent, if complementary, skills. The first is whether you speak articulately about complex topics. This one is easy to do from home; reading books, listening to podcasts, and talking with language partners on iTalki will all help get you there. The second is informal, everyday communication. This one's definitely a struggle. Not only is it hard to pick up on your own, but I'm pretty sure that, even if you've spent some time in a region that speaks the language, there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave. TV, especially sitcoms, helps, but only a little. There's just not a whole lot of overlap between the things people actually chatter about all day, and the things that make for interesting entertainment.

viraptor 7y ago
> there's still no great way to avoid steadily losing it if you ever leave That applies even to your original language. ~15 years after moving away, talking to family and friends at home feels... awkward. I can still do it easily, but honestly, sometimes I wish I could use English, even if that's not perfect either. It's so much easier with friends who also moved out. We can switch to a more comfortable language for each thought or even mid sentence if you prefer a specific word choice.
- bemmu 7y ago
  I've been in Japan for 10+ years and only speak my mother tongue of Finnish while talking on the phone with my parents. Very little loss, doesn't feel awkward, but I sometimes forget very rarely used words. If I have a half an hour conversation, there might be one word that a normal person should know, but that I've forgotten. Comes as a bit of a shock to me when this happens.
  - satanspastaroll 7y ago
    You've been maintaining the language by calling your parents every now and then
7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hombre_fatal 7y ago

> Getting to a solid level of competency in a language actually is not that hard. It just requires dedication and consistent practice. Though that's why it's hard. Just like eating healthy and exercise isn't hard, just requires dedication, yet notice how few people have a particularly good looking body. The opportunity cost of learning a language is also immense. I've spent an incredible amount of time listening to and reading Spanish. It just isn't for everybody. It has to be something that makes you happy.

abnry 7y ago
I am of the opinion that many people who want to learn a language don't have any real reason to learn a second language other than to say they know two languages. Unless you have extended family or somehow became smitten with a foreign country, I am almost certain this is the case. So any attempts are really halfhearted and very little progress is made because the commitment is so large. This is why, if I ever get around to learning a second language, it will be Esperanto. It takes an order of magnitude of less time to learn and gives you the accomplishment of knowing another language. (Plus uniformity in language is cool.)
- ARandomerDude 7y ago
  Maybe for secular/atheistic people. For those of us who are religious, there's great value in learning Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, etc.
  - monster_group 7y ago
    I teach Sanskrit which falls in this category (a religious / cultural / historical language). People show up to the class super excited to learn the language. They badly want to learn the language but have no clue how much effort it is to learn a new language. Learning the language is at the bottom of their priority list. You are not gonna be learning the language if it is the tenth item on your priority list no matter how much you "want to learn it". The semester starts with 20 people and by the end there's less than 10.
- 7y ago

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

>> getting to a level of "automatic" response where you can fluidly handle any situation requires living in a country where the language is in your face all day every day--and even then it still takes real effort. I can tell you from personal experience that it's most important that you speak the language. Get yourself in conversations where you are forced to speak and listen to the language. There's a big advantage to recall words when you need them and to try to understand what the other person is telling you. The stress of the situation will burn the words into your memory. Ultimately you will have no choice but to learn it. Also, even fluent speakers will lose fluency if you don't practice so there's no such thing as being fluent for life without using the language regularly. The biggest disservice you can do to a person that's trying to learn a new language is to translate for them in their native language. It helps at the moment but long term it's harder for them to learn the new language.

nmfisher 7y ago

Totally agree. I believe there's a difference between "competence" (I know how to say X) and "fluidity" (I can say X as easily as breathing). You can learn the first on your own. Takes a lot of effort, sure, but it's doable. I don't think you can learn fluidity outside of actually living in a country. You need to be bombarded daily with questions that you're forced to respond to. Even then, some people just don't make the effort, which is why you get people who have lived in a foreign country for decades and their language skills haven't improved. My first three months in China were worth more than the preceding three years of self-study.

laurieg 7y ago
This is definitely true. I usually describe it as "language knowledge" vs "fluency" in my classes. You can learn fluidity on your own, but it takes the right kind of practice. It's easy to think of learning a language as "study". You go through books learning words, phrases, verb endings etc. Most exercises in textbooks only care about you getting the right answer, not how quickly you do it. Compare this to learning a musical instrument. There is some study needed, but realtime practice is the bulk of what you do. If you need 30 seconds to work out the next chord in a song then you can't play the piano. The gold standard is practicing with a metronome. The areas where you can't keep up are the areas where you need to practice. I'm quite surprised that this idea of realtime practice is still so uncommon even though everyone has a smartphone nowadays. In the past, Pimsleur language courses put an emphasis on being able to answer in the language you are studying more or less straightaway.

monster_group 7y ago

>> However, walking into a noisy / crowded restaurant where the language is going 100 miles an hour is a totally different scenario. I honestly don't get how people talk in noisy bars and restaurants. I struggle even in English. One almost has to shout in the other person's ear. If it's that close I am thinking more about how my breath smells after having a few drinks rather than topic of discussion - lol.

shmat 7y ago
I read a study that said that in your native language you only need to hear 1/3 - 1/2 of the syllables and your brain will automatically fill in the rest, which is why you can understand conversations in a noisy environment. In a foreign language, unless you've achieved a very high level, you need to hear everything so noisy environments are a problem.

rajlego 7y ago

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

rimliu 7y ago
That page made me feel good about myself: English is my fourth language, and it estimates my vocabulary to be at 23200 words.
- alberto_ol 7y ago
  My spoken and written english is very bad, but my score has been 27400. So I think that the test is not that meaningful.
kosievdmerwe 7y ago
The number of words you have to know to learn a language properly is why it's a daunting proposition to me and why I've stuck with the two I grew up with. There are 8760 hours in a year. Even if you somehow managed to learn a word an hour, that's still multiple years to get to 20-40k words. I think we take for granted how many years it takes for kids to learn a language to adult level when we say "kids have an easy time learning languages". It may be easy in that it doesn't require as much conscious study as adults do, but it isn't quick either. Granted mental maturation messes up the time lines, but I think it's hard to argue that it doesn't still take many years. So depending on what motivates you the time commitment needed at a minimum can be heartening (I'm taking years because there's lots to learn) or disheartening (This is a multi-year endeavor that I'll have to focus on when I could be doing something else). EDIT: Though reading up on what B2 is, it is a much less daunting proposition, but even C2 doesn't sound like native speaker level, just able to communicate effectively level.

nexus2045 7y ago

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