
A Review of Language Learning Tactics - laybak
https://knowledgeartist.org/article/language-learning-tips
======
wallflower
Language learning is kind of like raising a child. As my sibling say, it is
all theoretical until you actually do it.

So if you really want to learn a language, just start vomiting out words with
a teacher one-on-one. Just like with child rearing, vomit and messiness is
always involved.

There is no magic technique. If there is a magic technique, it is like this
article alludes, to use many techniques. Some may work, some may not. It is up
to you to find those techniques that work for you. You are the only one who
can do that.

Don't take SHIT classes. I took a Spanish class once where the teacher spent
15 minutes of a 45 minute class by having _each one_ of the students go
through their homework answers.

Don't confuse activity with productivity. There are many things that you might
think are productive, and they are not. Sometimes it depends on where you are
in your language learning process. For example, listening or watching to a TV
show in your target language with _subtitles_ in the target language can be
counter productive if you barely understand the sounds, let alone the meanings
and grammar. Also, subtitles are not 1 to 1 to the audio.

In my experience, if it is painful to you, you won't continue doing it. Most
of language learning can be a pain. One of the best ways to get around the
pain is to find a teacher (iTalki is a great site for that) who you find fits
your needs and _meet regularly_ with them. At the minimum, twice a week.
You'll probably find that, over time, you'll develop a friend-type
relationship more than a teacher-student relationship. How else are you going
to talk for an hour? And if you are paying someone for their time and not
relying on your friend who speaks that language it is a clear-cut
transactional relationship. Patience can be bought. By paying a teacher, you
are paying for their patience and your accountability to them.

It is like going to the gym. If you go to the gym once a week, don't expect a
lot. However, if you go to the gym 3 times a week, you can definitely expect
some improvement. You can expect even more improvement if you work with a
personal trainer who gently pushes you, as you get better.

EDIT: Updated and refined my argument about taking classes

~~~
traceroute66
> Don't take classes. I took a Spanish class once...

I _STRONGLY_ categorically disagree with your "don't take classes" statement.

I would rephrase your statement "don't take shit classes".

Don't waste your time on "My name is Bob" classes looking at cartoons in
textbooks.

But good classes. With proper structured tuition. Given by a true native
teacher. Not an opportunity to be sniffed at.

Why do I say this ? Because I've done it. It was bloody hard work at the time
and I hated every minute of it. But the outcome in terms of my fluency,
including finer details like pronunciation etc without needing to think about
it ? Unmatched. As far as I'm concerned there's no substitute for supervised
learning.

If you want to learn a language properly, you need someone not afraid to tell
you you're wrong (rather than just being nice and saying "that's good" all the
time, or turning a blind eye to your abysmal pronunciation). You also need
someone to push you and challenge you, especially with technical aspects which
again is not something you'll find with friends.

~~~
ipnon
Classes that don't focus on the painful, difficult conversations the parent
mentions are worthless, so the point still stands. These classes can be
detrimental because they are learning theater. They give the mere appearance
of language comprehension.

------
crehn
After learning Korean to a fluent level (and working there for 3 years),
here's some things that come to mind:

\- Be persistent. Studying languages is often boring, annoying and takes
years. Nobody likes memorizing vocabulary. Embrace it. Study every day, even
if that means only reviewing 5 words on some days.

\- Don't try to analyze and understand everything. Communication isn't a
science, treating it as such is unproductive and frustrating to the learner.
There will be many things that at first sight make little sense, and that's
okay; just move on. Language can be very nuanced, but with persistence you'll
eventually "feel" the subtleties.

\- Passive learning is super helpful. Change the phone language, watch movies
(whether in the target language with subtitles, or your native language with
target language subtitles), listen to music, etc. Doesn't matter if you don't
understand.

\- It can be depressing and you'll want to stop. Even after months of studying
hard, go to a party with only natives and see how much you'll understand.
Likely very little. Know it's normal, and only temporary.

\- The hardest part is reaching a level of fluency where your brain no longer
actively translates the language.

\- Study from multiple sources. Most textbooks explain the nuances in natural
language badly.

\- Nearly all dialogue in textbooks is unnatural and robotic. Don't imitate
textbooks or you'll sound like one.

\- Observe and imitate natives. Often, the forced imitations eventually become
a natural part of your speech.

\- Stop caring so much. Don't try to be perfect. Speak a lot and allow
yourself to make many mistakes, because you will.

~~~
tatrajim
\- join Peace Corps and work entirely in Korean in a rural health center for
two years with minimal English. Or that's how one used to do it. Stressful but
effective.

\- as with all foreign language speakers, the rules are subtly different for
outsiders. Just copying native speakers can result in unpleasantness. In
Korean, non-Koreans who "misuse" "panmal" (the blunt, informal speech level)
by closely imitating friends can come across unintentionally as thuggish.
There as elsewhere foreigners are held to higher standards.

~~~
irq11
Can’t comment on Korean, but Japanese beginners worry _far too much_ about
politeness. It doesn’t help that the textbooks all start with a relatively
stiff level of grammar, but Japanese students often become neurotic about it.

If you’re a beginner, no reasonable human being is going to think _anything_
nuanced about your choice of words. When was the last time you judged a non-
native speaker of your own language for this level of subtlety?

My advice is to do whatever it takes to _be understood_. You’re going to sound
like a rude idiot. Make peace with it.

~~~
tasogare
You are totally right. This is why I don’t even bother using polite form
expect when I really need it: my interlocutor is glad I’m speaking more
Japanese than he could speak English or my native language anyway.

I would also add that speaking a Japanese that is too good can backfire, as
native have then more expectations that go further than language (behavior),
especially for East-Asian people. Keeping illusion of semi-(in)competence can
be useful.

------
xnyan
I tried several times in various ways to learn languages, the only one that
worked (I became and still am fluent in russian) for me was a combination of
academic instruction and living in the target country. In my case this was
eastern Ukraine.

The academic instruction was crucial for me. No matter how much I listened, I
was never going to really understand the difference between unidirectional and
multidirectional verbs of motion until it was explained in a way I could
really grok.

On the other hand there is quite simply no replacement for hearing and
speaking with native speakers of the target language. I taught quite a few
English classes and there were often Ukrainian teachers who spoke English
flawlessly, but for whatever reason students who only learned from non-native
English speakers were at a clear disadvantage compared to those who also had
native teachers, and everyone was at a disadvantage to those who had practiced
in an English speaking country.

I worked with tons of people who lived in eastern Ukraine for years and never
learned Russian or Ukrainian beyond a few phrases, I really do think it takes
dedicated instruction combined with tons of practice with native speakers to
really make fluency happen.

~~~
laybak
thanks for sharing! agreed that an ensemble approach of trying a bunch of
approaches and doubling down on what works is the most effective.
Russian/Ukranian is certainly tricky to learn without formal instruction.
Though as a counter example, I once met a guy who learned to converse fluently
just by playing the guitar at bars and chatting up strangers. But that's just
an anecdote

~~~
cpursley
We call that "piva-translate" at my local watering hole ;)

------
JoeDaDude
One suggestion I was given, and am putting into practice: develop a large
vocabulary, something like 1000 words, in your target language. You can do
this without knowing grammar or verb tenses, or anything and it will give you
a leg up on any conversations, lessons, etc.

How to learn 1000 words? I'm using the Leittner method, aka Spaced Repetition,
as implemented in the Anki flash card app [1] , and beautifully explained in
[2].

[1] [https://apps.ankiweb.net/](https://apps.ankiweb.net/)

[2] [https://ncase.me/remember/](https://ncase.me/remember/)

~~~
nullsense
The most effective way at getting through the pain period for me was to Anki
about 2000 sentences (both reading and listening cards for each sentence) and
have that cover all the way up to upper intermediate level grammar. Doing so
gives you a base of about 1500 ~ 2000 vocab at the same time.

After that progress takes off if you acquire vocab as fast as possible while
speaking to natives as much as possible.

That initial bootstrapping phase can be done in 4 months.

------
tasogare
I opened the article and as soon as the beginning we are greeted with total
bullshit: "When it comes to learning a language, immersion is key".

No, immersion is not key. I know a bunch of people immersed for years in a
foreign country that can’t introduce themselves in the local language.
Happened to me too. Immersion only works if one as enough prior knowledge so
that some input will be comprehensible, and then build on that. For
bootstraping this, traditional methods (books, videos, classes) are required.

Also claiming having learn 9 languages without even listening them nor the
level attained is cringy as hell. I’m so fed up of the mainstream blog posts
about language; opening my own website/company about language learning is on
my todo list once I graduate from PhD (related to language education).

~~~
laybak
Thanks for the feedback. I recently started blogging about my own experience
and hoped it could help others. it's a continuous learning process for me to
both explore what to write about and improve my form.

Sorry it didn't live up to your standard / wasn't written in a style you would
appreciate

------
nkozyra
I realize that duolingo is a business, but the relatively recent give a
"hearts" limit (unless you pay!) is really unfortunate.

You can use the app but as soon as you struggle, you're likely to be kicked
out for some time. That's when you need practice the most, and they're
discouraging you. It's disastrous for free users and indicates they gave too
much for free and/or their monetization strategy is failing.

~~~
halfdan
I think you're misunderstanding the feature (or maybe I am?).

The way I understand it losing hearts prevents you from progressing too
quickly. You can refill hearts by practicing content you've covered already
and hence strengthen your basics.

~~~
nkozyra
That's a generous way of looking at it, imo. If you're working through stuff,
you absolutely will get things wrong. That's true in languages, in
programming, in learning anything.

Stopping when you make 5 mistakes is a very bad thing when you're trying to
learn.

------
smcl
I also find the following useful:

\- reading some specially printed books with your native language and the
target language side by side (eg left page English, right page Czech for me)

\- writing regularly can be great practice. Doesn’t have to be about anything
profound, just “what I did on the weekend” is fine, even if it was boring and
unspectacular. It helps if you have friends willing to read and correct you,
but just forcing yourself to produce the right words in a low-pressure
situation can be really useful

~~~
tkgally
Thanks for mentioning literacy. Most of the other suggestions, both in the
original post and in other threads, focus on speaking and listening skills.
While those are important, they're only part of what you need if you want to
use a language at a high level.

A Russian teacher I had in college more than forty years ago told us about her
experience. As a teenager, before World War II, she had moved with her family
to Austria. When they arrived, she understood no German whatsoever. The way
she learned it, she said, was just to read book after book in German. While
she didn't understand what she read at all when she started, within a few
months she was, she said, fluent, thanks mainly to the extensive reading.
Systematic study in school and social immersion no doubt helped her as well.

I had been studying Russian for several years at that point and had reached a
plateau, frustrated at being unable to read literature without looking up most
words in a dictionary, so I tried what she suggested. Over the next couple of
years, I read my way through dozens of novels and nonfiction books without
using a dictionary. While I understood very little at first, the repeated
exposure to vocabulary and grammatical patterns in meaningful contexts
kickstarted my acquisition of the language, and soon I was enjoying Tolstoy,
Chekhov, and the like in the original. In my case as well, continuing to study
vocabulary and grammar systematically, both in class and on my own, also
helped.

I applied the same technique when I moved to Japan in 1983. After having
learned hiragana, katakana, and a few hundred kanji, I started reading real-
world texts—newspapers, magazines, novels—straight through. I understood very
little at first, but I made steady progress and after a couple of years I was
able to start working as a Japanese-to-English translator. Once again, the
effect of the extensive reading was boosted significantly by continuing to
take language classes and to memorize vocabulary. The immersion in Japanese
society also helped, of course.

I'm really glad I made that effort when I was young to learn not only to speak
Japanese but to read and write it as well. That has made all the difference in
my life since.

------
wenc
I think I agree with Steve Kaufmann (a well known polyglot -- you can google
him) that techniques aside, you really need 3 basic elements to learn a
language

(1) attitude -- being willing to make mistakes (it's actually part of the
brain rewiring process -- we remember better when there's an emotional
connection). Also being willing to take the language as it is, and not
imposing your own values on it from the get-go (e.g. why are there so many
unnecessary cases/conjugations? it's stupid! -- people who are super-
contrarian and judgy probably struggle more... they try to analyze everything
but end up not learning anything. It's a common attitudinal problem among many
otherwise smart people.)

(2) constant contact -- you need to spend time with the language in small
chunks (e.g. 1/2 hour a day) over a long period of time rather than spend a
week studying then stopping for several months.

(3) ability to notice things/distinctions -- this is important because if you
cannot differentiate sounds or details, it can be hard to get to a certain
level. I believe this ability is at least partly innate; folks who have this
ability in spades seem to be able to progress faster. (but I also believe
folks who have a growth mindset and put in the work eventually get there)

With these elements, one can assemble a combination of techniques tailored to
oneself (everybody learns differently). For me, watching YouTube creators
explain local culture is what interests me. Podcasts work for some people, but
interesting content doesn't always exist in my target language, so I'm
perfectly happy to reject that as technique for acquiring certain languages.
Taking classroom lessons actually works really well for me because I like
structure, so I do it weekly. Some people like music for learning languages --
it doesn't really work for me because I don't get to learn intonation (music
obscures intonation and vowel lengths).

Learning techniques have to necessarily be bespoke because we come at
languages with different backgrounds and interests. But I believe the 3
elements above have to exist.

In my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- immersion by living in a country
is overrated as a technique. It helps for sure, but it really isn't necessary.
The elements above are what are needed -- without these, even immersion is
ineffective. I've met Irish guys living in Barcelona who couldn't speak any of
the local languages. I've first hand experience living in several places where
I never learned the local language because there was always a way around it.

~~~
trocado
> In my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- immersion by living in a country
> is overrated as a technique. It helps for sure, but it really isn't
> necessary. The elements above are what are needed -- without these, even
> immersion is ineffective. I've met Irish guys living in Barcelona who
> couldn't speak any of the local languages. I've first hand experience living
> in several places where I never learned the local language because there was
> always a way around it.

Immersion works when there's no other way around it. In particular for native
english speakers, you'd have to be in a situation where either most people you
interact with don't know enough english for communication to be effective, or
(and this is very rare in my limited experience) you would have to make an
effort to stop using your native language altogether, even when locals address
you in it. It also helps when there aren't any family/friends/compatriots
around so you can't really "cheat" and you won't be able to function on a
daily basis unless you learn and practice the local language.

~~~
wenc
I agree -- physical immersion can work (the power of a physical-social
environment is quite palpable) but I merely wonder if it's sufficient or
necessary.

Being immersed with no alternatives does force one to learn simple phrases to
get by but it seems quite possible that you'll never have non-trivial
conversations with locals until you have enough vocabulary -- and locals won't
have non-trivial conversations with you unless you have enough vocabulary.
Also native speakers are often loathe to correct you when you make mistakes,
so the feedback loops is often broken. To get out of this chicken and egg
situation, it seems to me that some amount of focused study is required, and
whether that is done in the country or outside doesn't seem to matter
(especially with sites like iTalki or others).

As an example: I have friends who taught English in Korea for years (where
English isn't widely spoken). They were able to function for years with a few
choice phrases and never needed to go beyond that.

Sometimes even at significant levels of immersion, it's possible to not be
able to speak the language beyond the basics. I have friends who attended
German universities, in German, but have trouble speaking German. Likewise in
the US there are many international students attending college in English, do
fairly well in school, but struggle greatly to converse in the language.

I think immersion is merely a tool: the underlying driving force really is
"intention". With intention, it's possible to go much farther even if
immersion was not a tool at one's disposal.

~~~
KTallguy
The positive thing about physical immersion is that it provides lots of
practice opportunities as a simple consequence of daily life. It’s not as
helpful if you create a comfortable bubble and refuse to venture out.
Sometimes it means rejecting invitations from classmates and seeking local
experiences instead.

Another nice thing about immersion is that you can engage with cultural events
that may not be present in your own country, and gain a deeper understanding
of the natives themselves, which ties straight back into the language.

Depending on the country or your living situation it can be really hard to
branch out... learning while living in a student dormitory was great because I
was forced to express myself, even if I was sick, felt less motivated, missed
home, etc.

------
traceroute66
Given the author mentions the "subtitles on Netflix" route as an option. The
only thing I've got to say to that is subtitles on Netflix are shit. I'm
sorry, there's no other word for it. Other streaming services not that much
better, but Netflix seems to be particularly bad.

COVID has given me a reason to watch more content. I've found myself watching
some fabulous output from Korea, Japan and elsewhere on Netflix.

But the subtitling on Netflix is just abysmal. I mean seriously, we're talking
about schoolboy fundamentals here. White text on white/bright background ?
Yup, Netflix does it, not just occasionally but _A LOT_. Subtitles bouncing
around the screen during the course of the same film/episode (i.e. jumping
between top and bottom of screen). Yup, Netflix does it, again not just
occasionally but _A LOT_.

Honestly, makes me feel sad for those hearing impaired people who actually
rely on subtitles.

~~~
Omin
Far worse than the presentation is that they often don't even match. And it's
not that they are leaving out words (which is already horrible for language
learning), but the subtitles are phrased entirely different than the spoken
words.

I've tried to improve my French via Netflix and it's useless. Netflix
subtitles are often just the English subtitles independently translated. Even
for original French content you are not guaranteed to get correct subtitles.

~~~
knubie
This bothers me to no end. It makes the vast majority of content on Netflix
nearly useless in terms of trying to pick up new words.

------
Udik
Since nobody has mentioned it, my favorite method is listening to songs and
learning the lyrics. It's the same suggestion made in the article of
memorizing entire phrases of the language, only with song lyrics it's made
easier by the cues given by rhyme and metric. And if you like the songs, it's
a pleasure, and repetition (i.e. singing by yourself) is easy. And a memorized
text works as a reference for both lexicon and grammar.

~~~
laybak
Yeah I had a fun time looping songs and memorizing them too. Songs by Sido and
Cro were very helpful when I was learning German.

For some reason this didn't come to mind when I was outlining for the article,
would've included it haha

------
wl
This list is focused on speaking and understanding spoken living languages.
Does anyone have any tips for learning to read dead languages?

~~~
JoeDaDude
For Latin, the go to resource to start learning is the book Lingua Latina [1]
which has an easy conversational style. You can understand a good percentage
of the book without any a priori (see what i did there? :) ) knowledge of any
kind. Concurrently with that, you might listen to the Latin language videos by
Scorpio Martianus [2] who also does some videos in Greek.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books/about/Familia_Romana.html?id=...](https://books.google.com/books/about/Familia_Romana.html?id=MFowBQAAQBAJ)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRllohBcHec7YUgW6HfltLA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRllohBcHec7YUgW6HfltLA)

------
dchuk
I guess this question fits well enough this thread:

I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, and have tried lots of apps and various
techniques and can listen ok, read well, and barely speak. I have an 18 month
son, and a Hispanic nanny who basically pure Spanish to him.

Something I’ve been doing lately, is translating each phrase I say to him on
my phone (“Do you need help with your legos?” Kind of thing) and storing the
translations in a spreadsheet.

Surprisingly, there’s no app that I can find where you can link a spreadsheet
to it and then generate Spaced Repetition Flash Cards from the rows in it. I
know there’s a ton of apps where I can make cards straight in the app, but I
was surprised there’s nothing that can work straight off of a Google Sheet.

So I’ve started tinkering with React Native just to learn something new and
potentially hack together something for this.

So, my question: Is anyone else interested in the idea of having an app where
they can load up a spreadsheet and turn it into smart flash cards really
easily?

~~~
krackers
Export to csv and load into Anki?

~~~
laybak
yeah this seems to be the easiest

