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Learning another (human) language is like that. Almost anyone can do it. It requires no special skills, training, or experience. There are some tricks that y

by retrac 4y ago

Learning another (human) language is like that. Almost anyone can do it. It requires no special skills, training, or experience. There are some tricks that you can use, but mostly it's just an enormous amount of work, not particularly challenging work either, that you need to persist at for years, even decades. I'd like to think this is common knowledge, but I have many times talked with people who hope to learn French to fluency in six months, and people who are convinced they could never learn it no matter what. Both types are terrible with estimating their abilities.

sebzim4500 4y ago
>people who are convinced they could never learn it no matter what Do these people actually believe that it would be impossible for them, or merely that they would give up before success. i.e. do they think that they would not be able to learn the language in five years if they were offered a billion dollars? Because personally I doubt I will ever learn a second language, but I'm sure I could given enough time and the right incentive.
- retrac 4y ago
  Some do think that. Often an impression formed from no obvious progress after a few weeks.
- malshe 4y ago
  I am one of those people who think it is impossible for me to learn a new language!
- w0m 4y ago
  I could learn another language. But I can't learn a second language insofar-as I can't foresee a situation where I"d be willing or able to dedicate the mental capital toward the task.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  I think most people who say that probably consider it "not economically viable". That is, their assessment is that the expected reward doesn't justify the expected investment.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Because personally I doubt I will ever learn a second language, but I'm sure I could given enough time and the right incentive. Yeah—I know I can do it, and even know that I enjoy learning another language, but also know from experience that I don't have enough natural reasons to use anything but English, that I'll have any hope of keeping it up without committing to permanently spending 10+ hours a week doing nothing but practicing the language for the sake of it, all for the occasional few minutes a year (optimistically) in which it's actually useful, or for the once-a-decade trip I might take to somewhere it's widely spoken. Au revoir my once-somewhat-decent French. Europeans sometimes imply Americans are dumb or hopelessly provincial for being so persistently monolingual, but it's hard as fuck to keep up a second language when you can travel 1,000 miles and the locals are all still speaking English (at least, mostly). European learners of other European languages are doing it on easy mode, compared to us. It's hard to find a route anywhere in Europe that long that doesn't pass through at least three different languages, as primarily spoken by the locals, and even finding one with that few takes some effort. So I'm both aware that I can learn another language, and aware that I in-fact won't short of some huge shake-up in my life circumstances, which may as well be the same thing as "can't".
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    >it's hard as fuck to keep up a second language when you can travel 1,000 miles and the locals are all still speaking English (at least, mostly) Nonsense. I live in Latin America and English is a second language for me. I'm not sure if there are even any land routes I could take to reach an English-speaking country, as I believe the Colombian jungle interrupts the road. Learning a language is about four things: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. With the Internet you can do three of those four things right from home. Hell, I've been learning English for 24 years and for the first 20 I had maybe one or two conversations with native speakers. The question is not how far you need to travel to speak to a native, but whether there's anything in that language that interests you. Language after all is just a tool to move ideas between people's brains. If there's not then yeah, you would have no reason to learn a language. And I'm sorry to say that does make you provincial. Please don't take it the wrong way; I don't mean it as an insult, just as a statement of fact. You were born into your culture and you're satisfied with ignoring everything else. You've never thought "oh, I wish I could read this, but it's not in English" or "I love this book/show/movie/etc.; I wish I could experience it as a native would", or at least not to the point that it inspired you to learn.
hutzlibu 4y ago
"but I have many times talked with people who hope to learn French to fluency in six months, and people who are convinced they could never learn it no matter what." It is a question of intensity. If all you do is speaking french and learning grammar and are surrounded by french people, you could reach some level of fluency in 6 months. But not while learning it on the side (unless you are very talented).
billfruit 4y ago
Perhaps learning to play a musical instrument is also like that.
- criddell 4y ago
  I feel that. I bought a guitar in 1996 and took a community college introduction to guitar class, then took private lessons from a teacher for a couple of years, then signed up for lessons at a Suzuki school for a year, then took weekly lessons from a teacher at a Guitar Center store for a few months. In between I’ve bought books and apps and followed online lessons. Right now I’m working through a rhythm fundamentals class from Justin Guitar. I have almost no sense of rhythm. I have a guitar at home and one at work so I’m often picking it up and messing around when I need a break from work. I still don’t know a single song from start to finish (other than nursery rhyme songs that are just a few bars long). I’m pretty close though on Nirvana’s About a Girl. I’m also essentially tone deaf but my kids, on the other hand, both have perfect pitch somehow. They can hear a microwave beep and tell you it’s a b-flat the same way I can say a car is red. I am going to see an audiologist soon because I’m wondering if the crazy squealing I hear non-stop is related to my difficulties.
  - cloverich 4y ago
    One nice thing about getting over the hump in guitar is, once you can manage a few shapes (barre chords in particular), you can play thousands of new songs without having to learn any additional technical skills.
    - criddell 4y ago
      I’m okay at barre chords. I can barre the Emajor, Eminor, Amajor, and Aminor shapes and move them around decently. Power chords as well. I know lots of major, minor, and 7th chords on open strings. It’s hard for me to describe, but I can do one thing at a time pretty well. I can tap my foot to a metronome. I can strum muted strings (so it’s just a percussive sound) in time to a metronome. But I struggle with tapping my foot and strumming in time to a metronome even when all I’m doing with my fretting hand is muting the strings. I can play parts of some songs and some riffs but if I try to play it along with the original track, I lose the rhythm after a bar or two. I don’t seem to be able to extend that length. I end up strumming with the rhythm of the lyrics (syllables) rather than the drum beat. Right now, I’m mostly working on trying to establish some sense of rhythm. The Justin Sandercoe’s course on this is probably the best resource I’ve found. He has some exercises that are almost meditative.
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
There are intensive language programs in which you can learn basic fluency in about 2-3 months. But you would be spending 40+ hours/week in this case.
tetha 4y ago
I've also been wondering if this isn't similar to the boiling frog idea, just on its head. Practically speaking, I don't think I made huge, noticeable progress in my guitar skills over the last 4-5 days, at least I couldn't really point out anything that has been a huge jump. And in fact, many if not most weeks are like that. And focusing on this part tends to be a bad idea. On the other hand, 4 months ago, after I got my guitar adjusted and fixed, I was just a mediocre bass player with some object with way too many, way too tiny, way too sharp strings. Just 1 or 2 weeks ago, something in my head suddenly went "Jo, this actually sounds like a slow and terrible version of the rythm section that song you're working on covering at the moment". And these are the more important insights to look at. And sure, I'm also starting to realize how long the road might be to good, own original songs, but at the same time, the progress over some 2-3 years plus half a year on the guitar is a lot, looking at it over a longer time. This is also something healthy we do at work every 6 - 12 months too. Stop wondering about the daily grind of incidents and service requests and smaller scale improvements for a moment and consider where we were a year ago.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
That's the key behind success with using something like Duolingo. Establish a daily habit with it and keep at it for very long streaks. The app is the tool to keep your habit intact.
wallflower 4y ago
When I talk with friends and acquaintances who say they want to learn a language, I always tell them it will be one of the most difficult and rewarding things they will ever do. Number one, you will literally vomit out words in the beginning that make no grammatical sense and stink to high heaven in terms of language non-ability. Two, you have to break away from Duolingo. Like learning Scratch for programming, Duolingo is only going to get you better at Duolingo type games and quizzes. If you really want to learn a language, you have to invest in live practice with a native speaker. In the near future, this could become a conversational AI. For now, go find a reasonable native speaker on iTalki. Practice at least twice a week. Do not practice with friends or family as it will be frustrating for both sides. Pay someone. Third, learning a programming language compared to a human language is difficult because there is shame and embarrassment connected with messing up for most people. As you continue to vomit out your beginner language, you will eventually ascend to the intermediate level. Like L5 at Google, many of you will never make it to advanced level. I think that is quite ok. You really do not have to be able to understand live standup comedy in your chosen second language. The ability to communicate thoughts, dreams, fears, and stories will be enough. It took me about 3 years to get to that level of being able to argue politics and economics in Spanish. I freely admit my accent is gringo (never gonna be able to roll Rs) and I still make mistakes and sometimes accents make it hard to listen. You are never going to get to 100% comprehension. 80/90% depending on the situation.
- kurthr 4y ago
  I'm learning a language now. It's tough and embarrassing, and what it takes to keep getting better seems to change as I move along. Something that was formative in my understanding of language was visiting Glasgow years past, and realizing that just an "accent" could easily knock me back to understanding only 20-30% of words. Still, based on context it was possible to get around and after a week I was up to 70-80% comprehension with locals.
  - LemmyInThePub 4y ago
    In the UK, it isn't necessarily accent per-say. In North England and Scotland, we pronounce words using short vowel sounds (bath, castle) whereas in the South, they use long vowel sounds (b-are-th, c-are-stle). Not being able to easily pick out the vowel sounds makes it much harder for a non-native speaker to understand. The so called "BBC English" that you probably learnt is based on a Southern England 'home counties' pronunciation.
jack_riminton 4y ago
Applies to almost everything (bar a few things with physical limitations) Some people define themselves as someone who "can't draw", but drawing is literally just making a mark, comparing it to what you see, adjusting the mark or making another It's not easy, but it's very simple
- Jensson 4y ago
  And some people don't got that kind of patience, so they can't do it. Or, today we have pills that helps with patience, but I'm not sure if that counts.
  - jack_riminton 4y ago
    Yes and I suppose patience is directly correlated with the amount of interest one has in the subject. When people talk of talent I sometimes think obsession is a better metric, are they obsessed enough to keep going when others give up. Or rather; are they obsessed enough to become talented
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I've spent shitloads of time drawing but there's something mechanically wrong with how I do it—my marks don't come close enough to resembling what I'm trying to do. Weird lumps and squiggles everywhere. I'm sure I could fix that, but the focused practice on just making straight lines or circles or re-learning how to hold a pencil or whatever would be boring as fuck, so I'm never going to.
    - jack_riminton 4y ago
      Actually you've brought up the next challenge of an artist, which marks to make! Look at the paintings of David Hockney (or even his iPad doodles), there's not a straight line or neat circle in sight. But he's a relentless doodler. As Hockney says himself, art is just seeing. The more you practice, the more you see, the better you are at knowing which marks to make. I'd recommend this doc if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdqch3-D94A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdqch3-D94A
wazoox 4y ago
Yeah it's funny. 25 years ago I could manage working in English easily, and have English conversations, and I could read entire books. Gradually I went into more complex books, but the hardest thing was watching any movie without the need for subtitles, took me several years of constant listening of English language material, that's really what made a difference.
- wilburTheDog 4y ago
  To be fair, I turn subtitles on for half of the movies I watch and I'm a native English speaker.
akudha 4y ago
You’re saying it requires no special skills, just persistence and hard work. I’d suggest that persistence itself is a skill, which most people lack.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I remember talking with someone, who expected engineers to be proficient in new computer languages "in two weeks." For myself, and, as some folks here have pointed out, I am possibly developmentally challenged, I've found that I can learn the basics of a language in a short time (maybe two weeks? I've never clocked it). Becoming good with the language, on the other hand, takes years. I've been writing Swift, every day (and learning new stuff, just about every day), since it was announced, in 2014, and there's still a ton that I don't know. The language is still evolving, so I'll never know it all. Also, in my experience, the difficulties are really with learning frameworks and SDKs. I've been learning the ins and outs of the various native Apple SDKs, along with Swift, all that time, and I still have a ways to go.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Well, if nothing that explains why i'm so against learning another language. I know 2 languages and learning English has been an incredible painful process started in my childhood and peaked in my adulthood. That's like 30 years of pain and I still make extensive mistakes. Your description fits and really explain why i never even considered learning another language, despite all people saying "it gets easier"

by retrac 4y ago

sebzim4500 4y ago

>people who are convinced they could never learn it no matter what Do these people actually believe that it would be impossible for them, or merely that they would give up before success. i.e. do they think that they would not be able to learn the language in five years if they were offered a billion dollars? Because personally I doubt I will ever learn a second language, but I'm sure I could given enough time and the right incentive.

retrac 4y ago
Some do think that. Often an impression formed from no obvious progress after a few weeks.
malshe 4y ago
I am one of those people who think it is impossible for me to learn a new language!
w0m 4y ago
I could learn another language. But I can't learn a second language insofar-as I can't foresee a situation where I"d be willing or able to dedicate the mental capital toward the task.
HPsquared 4y ago
I think most people who say that probably consider it "not economically viable". That is, their assessment is that the expected reward doesn't justify the expected investment.
yamtaddle 4y ago
> Because personally I doubt I will ever learn a second language, but I'm sure I could given enough time and the right incentive. Yeah—I know I can do it, and even know that I enjoy learning another language, but also know from experience that I don't have enough natural reasons to use anything but English, that I'll have any hope of keeping it up without committing to permanently spending 10+ hours a week doing nothing but practicing the language for the sake of it, all for the occasional few minutes a year (optimistically) in which it's actually useful, or for the once-a-decade trip I might take to somewhere it's widely spoken. Au revoir my once-somewhat-decent French. Europeans sometimes imply Americans are dumb or hopelessly provincial for being so persistently monolingual, but it's hard as fuck to keep up a second language when you can travel 1,000 miles and the locals are all still speaking English (at least, mostly). European learners of other European languages are doing it on easy mode, compared to us. It's hard to find a route anywhere in Europe that long that doesn't pass through at least three different languages, as primarily spoken by the locals, and even finding one with that few takes some effort. So I'm both aware that I can learn another language, and aware that I in-fact won't short of some huge shake-up in my life circumstances, which may as well be the same thing as "can't".
- fluoridation 4y ago
  >it's hard as fuck to keep up a second language when you can travel 1,000 miles and the locals are all still speaking English (at least, mostly) Nonsense. I live in Latin America and English is a second language for me. I'm not sure if there are even any land routes I could take to reach an English-speaking country, as I believe the Colombian jungle interrupts the road. Learning a language is about four things: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. With the Internet you can do three of those four things right from home. Hell, I've been learning English for 24 years and for the first 20 I had maybe one or two conversations with native speakers. The question is not how far you need to travel to speak to a native, but whether there's anything in that language that interests you. Language after all is just a tool to move ideas between people's brains. If there's not then yeah, you would have no reason to learn a language. And I'm sorry to say that does make you provincial. Please don't take it the wrong way; I don't mean it as an insult, just as a statement of fact. You were born into your culture and you're satisfied with ignoring everything else. You've never thought "oh, I wish I could read this, but it's not in English" or "I love this book/show/movie/etc.; I wish I could experience it as a native would", or at least not to the point that it inspired you to learn.

hutzlibu 4y ago

"but I have many times talked with people who hope to learn French to fluency in six months, and people who are convinced they could never learn it no matter what." It is a question of intensity. If all you do is speaking french and learning grammar and are surrounded by french people, you could reach some level of fluency in 6 months. But not while learning it on the side (unless you are very talented).

billfruit 4y ago

Perhaps learning to play a musical instrument is also like that.

criddell 4y ago
I feel that. I bought a guitar in 1996 and took a community college introduction to guitar class, then took private lessons from a teacher for a couple of years, then signed up for lessons at a Suzuki school for a year, then took weekly lessons from a teacher at a Guitar Center store for a few months. In between I’ve bought books and apps and followed online lessons. Right now I’m working through a rhythm fundamentals class from Justin Guitar. I have almost no sense of rhythm. I have a guitar at home and one at work so I’m often picking it up and messing around when I need a break from work. I still don’t know a single song from start to finish (other than nursery rhyme songs that are just a few bars long). I’m pretty close though on Nirvana’s About a Girl. I’m also essentially tone deaf but my kids, on the other hand, both have perfect pitch somehow. They can hear a microwave beep and tell you it’s a b-flat the same way I can say a car is red. I am going to see an audiologist soon because I’m wondering if the crazy squealing I hear non-stop is related to my difficulties.
- cloverich 4y ago
  One nice thing about getting over the hump in guitar is, once you can manage a few shapes (barre chords in particular), you can play thousands of new songs without having to learn any additional technical skills.
  - criddell 4y ago
    I’m okay at barre chords. I can barre the Emajor, Eminor, Amajor, and Aminor shapes and move them around decently. Power chords as well. I know lots of major, minor, and 7th chords on open strings. It’s hard for me to describe, but I can do one thing at a time pretty well. I can tap my foot to a metronome. I can strum muted strings (so it’s just a percussive sound) in time to a metronome. But I struggle with tapping my foot and strumming in time to a metronome even when all I’m doing with my fretting hand is muting the strings. I can play parts of some songs and some riffs but if I try to play it along with the original track, I lose the rhythm after a bar or two. I don’t seem to be able to extend that length. I end up strumming with the rhythm of the lyrics (syllables) rather than the drum beat. Right now, I’m mostly working on trying to establish some sense of rhythm. The Justin Sandercoe’s course on this is probably the best resource I’ve found. He has some exercises that are almost meditative.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago

There are intensive language programs in which you can learn basic fluency in about 2-3 months. But you would be spending 40+ hours/week in this case.

tetha 4y ago

I've also been wondering if this isn't similar to the boiling frog idea, just on its head. Practically speaking, I don't think I made huge, noticeable progress in my guitar skills over the last 4-5 days, at least I couldn't really point out anything that has been a huge jump. And in fact, many if not most weeks are like that. And focusing on this part tends to be a bad idea. On the other hand, 4 months ago, after I got my guitar adjusted and fixed, I was just a mediocre bass player with some object with way too many, way too tiny, way too sharp strings. Just 1 or 2 weeks ago, something in my head suddenly went "Jo, this actually sounds like a slow and terrible version of the rythm section that song you're working on covering at the moment". And these are the more important insights to look at. And sure, I'm also starting to realize how long the road might be to good, own original songs, but at the same time, the progress over some 2-3 years plus half a year on the guitar is a lot, looking at it over a longer time. This is also something healthy we do at work every 6 - 12 months too. Stop wondering about the daily grind of incidents and service requests and smaller scale improvements for a moment and consider where we were a year ago.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

That's the key behind success with using something like Duolingo. Establish a daily habit with it and keep at it for very long streaks. The app is the tool to keep your habit intact.

wallflower 4y ago

When I talk with friends and acquaintances who say they want to learn a language, I always tell them it will be one of the most difficult and rewarding things they will ever do. Number one, you will literally vomit out words in the beginning that make no grammatical sense and stink to high heaven in terms of language non-ability. Two, you have to break away from Duolingo. Like learning Scratch for programming, Duolingo is only going to get you better at Duolingo type games and quizzes. If you really want to learn a language, you have to invest in live practice with a native speaker. In the near future, this could become a conversational AI. For now, go find a reasonable native speaker on iTalki. Practice at least twice a week. Do not practice with friends or family as it will be frustrating for both sides. Pay someone. Third, learning a programming language compared to a human language is difficult because there is shame and embarrassment connected with messing up for most people. As you continue to vomit out your beginner language, you will eventually ascend to the intermediate level. Like L5 at Google, many of you will never make it to advanced level. I think that is quite ok. You really do not have to be able to understand live standup comedy in your chosen second language. The ability to communicate thoughts, dreams, fears, and stories will be enough. It took me about 3 years to get to that level of being able to argue politics and economics in Spanish. I freely admit my accent is gringo (never gonna be able to roll Rs) and I still make mistakes and sometimes accents make it hard to listen. You are never going to get to 100% comprehension. 80/90% depending on the situation.

kurthr 4y ago
I'm learning a language now. It's tough and embarrassing, and what it takes to keep getting better seems to change as I move along. Something that was formative in my understanding of language was visiting Glasgow years past, and realizing that just an "accent" could easily knock me back to understanding only 20-30% of words. Still, based on context it was possible to get around and after a week I was up to 70-80% comprehension with locals.
- LemmyInThePub 4y ago
  In the UK, it isn't necessarily accent per-say. In North England and Scotland, we pronounce words using short vowel sounds (bath, castle) whereas in the South, they use long vowel sounds (b-are-th, c-are-stle). Not being able to easily pick out the vowel sounds makes it much harder for a non-native speaker to understand. The so called "BBC English" that you probably learnt is based on a Southern England 'home counties' pronunciation.

jack_riminton 4y ago

Applies to almost everything (bar a few things with physical limitations) Some people define themselves as someone who "can't draw", but drawing is literally just making a mark, comparing it to what you see, adjusting the mark or making another It's not easy, but it's very simple

Jensson 4y ago
And some people don't got that kind of patience, so they can't do it. Or, today we have pills that helps with patience, but I'm not sure if that counts.
- jack_riminton 4y ago
  Yes and I suppose patience is directly correlated with the amount of interest one has in the subject. When people talk of talent I sometimes think obsession is a better metric, are they obsessed enough to keep going when others give up. Or rather; are they obsessed enough to become talented
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I've spent shitloads of time drawing but there's something mechanically wrong with how I do it—my marks don't come close enough to resembling what I'm trying to do. Weird lumps and squiggles everywhere. I'm sure I could fix that, but the focused practice on just making straight lines or circles or re-learning how to hold a pencil or whatever would be boring as fuck, so I'm never going to.
  - jack_riminton 4y ago
    Actually you've brought up the next challenge of an artist, which marks to make! Look at the paintings of David Hockney (or even his iPad doodles), there's not a straight line or neat circle in sight. But he's a relentless doodler. As Hockney says himself, art is just seeing. The more you practice, the more you see, the better you are at knowing which marks to make. I'd recommend this doc if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdqch3-D94A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdqch3-D94A

wazoox 4y ago

Yeah it's funny. 25 years ago I could manage working in English easily, and have English conversations, and I could read entire books. Gradually I went into more complex books, but the hardest thing was watching any movie without the need for subtitles, took me several years of constant listening of English language material, that's really what made a difference.

wilburTheDog 4y ago
To be fair, I turn subtitles on for half of the movies I watch and I'm a native English speaker.

akudha 4y ago

You’re saying it requires no special skills, just persistence and hard work. I’d suggest that persistence itself is a skill, which most people lack.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I remember talking with someone, who expected engineers to be proficient in new computer languages "in two weeks." For myself, and, as some folks here have pointed out, I am possibly developmentally challenged, I've found that I can learn the basics of a language in a short time (maybe two weeks? I've never clocked it). Becoming good with the language, on the other hand, takes years. I've been writing Swift, every day (and learning new stuff, just about every day), since it was announced, in 2014, and there's still a ton that I don't know. The language is still evolving, so I'll never know it all. Also, in my experience, the difficulties are really with learning frameworks and SDKs. I've been learning the ins and outs of the various native Apple SDKs, along with Swift, all that time, and I still have a ways to go.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

Well, if nothing that explains why i'm so against learning another language. I know 2 languages and learning English has been an incredible painful process started in my childhood and peaked in my adulthood. That's like 30 years of pain and I still make extensive mistakes. Your description fits and really explain why i never even considered learning another language, despite all people saying "it gets easier"