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I learned Spanish, too, in about 12 months to dogfood my new app for learning vocabulary (which I just recently launched) [0] Even though I made an app that he
by dkaleta 5y ago
I learned Spanish, too, in about 12 months to dogfood my new app for learning vocabulary (which I just recently launched) [0]
Even though I made an app that helped me along the way to learn words, I don't believe in a single app/book/approach for learning a language. You need to expose yourself to A LOT of different language materials.
I was learning for about 2h a day, 6 times a week. I would read articles, books, websites in Spanish. I would watch YouTube videos [1]. I would read news, initially for beginners [2] and later regular [3]. And most importantly, I would have 4-5h a week itakly conversations.
After 6 months I understood quite a lot, but couldn't speak almost at all. Then magic happens and 6 months later, I was having a normal conversation (though still with some errors) about any range of topics: politics, global warming, travel, engineering etc.
I believe the key for me was to read a lot of books which were interesting to me. For example I read Bill Gate's book "How To Avoid A Climate Disaster" in Spanish, as well as about ~8 others in the first 12 months.
[0] https://www.obstino.com https://www.obstino.com
[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish
[2] www.newsinslowspanish.com
[3] https://elpais.com https://elpais.com
- aeyes 5y agoLet me add another resource to your list that helped me tremendously: https://coffeebreaklanguages.com/ https://coffeebreaklanguages.com/ They have free podcasts available on iTunes for a lot of languages, the Spanish content is absolutely amazing.
- athenot 5y ago> [2] www.newsinslowspanish.com Oh wow I've been after something like this for a long time. It's awesome because it's relevant content (news) but at a pace that beginners can follow. I don't know Spanish but knowing French, I could follow along the super slow mode and not feel lost. Going to look for this in German and Chinese, I wonder if there's something similar.
- DonaldFisk 5y agoYou can slow down Youtube videos without it distorting the audio. I've found it more helpful to use subtitles in the target language, though.
- halfdan 5y agoHere you go for German: https://m.dw.com/en/slowly-spoken-news-reports-learning-german/a-1833641 https://m.dw.com/en/slowly-spoken-news-reports-learning-germ...
- cyberpunk 5y agoDanke :)
- patrickdavey 5y agoAnyone know of this for Dutch?
- stdbrouw 5y agoIt’s not quite like News In Slow French, but you might like https://www.nedbox.be/ https://www.nedbox.be/. They sometimes refer to the easier to grok content from the Belgian public broadcaster, https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/rubrieken/klaar/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/rubrieken/klaar/. Perhaps most similar is http://www.wablieft.be/nl/krant http://www.wablieft.be/nl/krant with text and audio at two levels of proficiency.
- amelius 5y agoWhat is your age? (If you don't mind me asking)
- fowkswe 5y agoDo you mind sharing your age? Curious if youth played a part here - I'm in my 40s and wondering if I'll have as much success?
- dkaleta 5y agoI’m 34. I don’t think age matters that much. What matters the most is not even the method you use but the time spent with the language.
- jgwil2 5y agoTo put it into perspective, children learn their native language through ~10 years of complete immersion, so of course they speak it incredibly well. Very few adult learners will ever have the opportunity to be immersed in a foreign language that thoroughly over such a long time, but if they did we would expect them to speak that language excellently as well (albeit perhaps with a slight accent).
- wbsss4412 5y agoI’m in my early thirties and similarly learned French from 0 to a conversational level in a bit over a year. (Though I was already pretty strong in Spanish so that helped significantly) The age thing is mostly a myth imo. If you put in the time and effort you’ll get a lot back. The biggest issue is the concept of fluency. A lot of people believe they have to be 100% perfect or they don’t “know” the language. In reality, from the moment you start you will continually become more and more comfortable in an asymptotic manner (no one knows 100% of a language, ie what percentage words in the dictionary do you know). The biggest piece of advice - get comfortable in dealing with ambiguity, and don’t try to force constructs from your primary language onto the one you are learning. Meaning: don’t say X word means Y word in my native language, therefore I can use it exactly the same (it’s a different word, VERY likely with different connotations).
- laurieg 5y agoYou've hit the nail on the head! Being comfortable with ambiguity and not knowing something 100% is crucial. I've observed many language learners over the years and if someone has a habit of translating every word they see into their native language before they are satisfied then they usually make slow progress learning a second language.
- netfortius 5y agoB1 in 5 months, as follows: - radio FranceInfo [almost] all the time (when no other structure learning happening) - TV5 https://apprendre.tv5monde.com https://apprendre.tv5monde.com - french movies streaming, with french subtitles (!) - online magazines: Le Parisian, Libération, Le Figaro, etc. - book : "Grammaire progressive du français - Niveau intermédiaire (A2/B1) - Livre + CD + Appli-web - 4ème édition" - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leconjugueur.droid https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leconjugue... - https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-monolingue https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-monolingue - https://www.reverso.net/orthographe/correcteur-francais/ https://www.reverso.net/orthographe/correcteur-francais/ Last two in browser with strong ad blocking, to avoid distraction.
- usr1106 5y agoWithout https://leconjugueur.lefigaro.fr/ https://leconjugueur.lefigaro.fr/ I could not survive. Mostly for writing, but if there e.g. is a weird passé simple or subjonctif also for reading sometimes.
- jgwil2 5y ago> with french subtitles (!) This is crucial. Watching movies in a foreign language can be difficult because of how fast the dialog is, but if you use subtitles in your language, you will always be thinking in your language first, then translating to the target language. Put subtitles on in the target language so that you can catch words that you wouldn't catch from the audio only, but you are still immersing yourself completely in that language.
- wrycoder 5y agoEspecially for French, since, like English, the actual pronunciation can be quite unexpected, compared to the text. I came out of high school with four years of Latin and three years of German. Being a language expert, I thought I'd try the beginning French course. The first day in class, the professor began rattling off in French, and the other students seemed to have no problem with that, having apparently had several years of high school French. I couldn't make heads or tails of what what going on and quickly dropped the course.
- Izikiel43 5y agoThe problem with Spanish is what country’s Spanish you learn. Words can mean different things in different countries, and also pronunciation changes.
- barbecue_sauce 5y agoLike for instance, in the US there was once a large tex-mex restaurant chain called Chichi's (long since bankrupt). When I told my friend from Spain this, she was horrified.
- bayesian_horse 5y agoThat's the least problem I'd say. Spanish is pretty conserved, especially the written language. Listening comprehension is always the last of the skills to kick in, because it is all-or-nothing. You only understand every word in the sentence or your brain gets overloaded. While reading foreign texts you can easily skip a word you can't understand and still figure out what the rest means. Or at least, more often so, because you don't have to keep everything in short term memory.
- _puk 5y ago> Listening comprehension is always the last of the skills to kick in Is that actually the case? I've always found it easier to follow a conversation in a language I am learning than to speak it. You get an awful lot of context when listening, only need to put a few words in the right place and suddenly what you're hearing makes sense. You can get away without literally translating everything. Speaking on the other hand, you can't converse properly without being able to find the right word at the right time and in the right place.
- usr1106 5y ago> I've always found it easier to follow a conversation in a language I am learning than to speak it Absolutely not. I have lived abroad half of my life (sometimes with a language reasonably close to my mother tongue and sometimes very far) Speaking is always easier. I can make my own speed and I never use an unkown word. Sometimes I have to be a bit creative how to explain things if I am lacking a word. Following discussions is hard. People use words I don't know all the time. Slang, dialects, accents on top of that. And many of them just speak too fast. This can take many many years and might never disappear when certain speakers are involved. News speakers or documentary movies might be a different story.
- renewiltord 5y agoOh. Thank you for being up front about the time commitment. That helps. I, too, would like quick results but I don’t feel like I can give it the go that you did so I think I will not do this.
- alexpotato 5y agoI grew up bilingual (English first language, Italian from my mother) and the "read a book you liked in your first language but translated into your desired language" is an excellent way to get exposure. For several reasons: - You liked the book originally so you won't mind reading it again - You know the story so if you get to a part where you don't understand the language, you can infer the meaning based on the your knowledge of the story - Because it was translated, it's good to see how a phrase you know well in your primary language was converted into the new language. This is particularly helpful for your own "on the fly" translation when you are speaking. In my particular case, I knew "family" level Italian very well (e.g. how you would speak to your parents, siblings at home etc). What I didn't know was more formal and inter-adult language grammar. Reading books by one of my favorite English authors translated into Italian was a real game changer.
- jamiek88 5y agoNever thought of this but makes a great deal of sense. Same with movies. Watch your fav movies in French lang. for example. You’ll know what yippekayeh mother fudger is!
- aidenn0 5y agoWhen I did an exchange in Germany, I picked up Der Kleine Hobbit for that reason. My first week it was mentally exhausting just reading a page or two, but things picked up quickly from there.
- LAC-Tech 5y agoThat's a pretty cool language learning app concept - you haven't overcooked it. A lot of apps want to make themselves the star of the show - if that makes sense - but really it's a vessel to learn vocabulary, and it looks like yours lets a user add arbitrary vocab, which means it will be relevant. Any plans to add new languages?
- SneakyTornado29 5y agoDoes [0] support latex?