
Ask HN: Did you learn a language online? How fluent are you now? - superasn
What worked and didn&#x27;t work for you?
======
Mz
My mother says her English became fluent from watching American TV. So, I will
suggest you look for subtitled videos online in the target language.

There is a large difference between spoken and written. If you want to be able
to converse in it, you need to develop an ear for it. I have an ear for
German, which I never studied in school. I never developed an ear for French,
though I studied it in both high school and college. I can make conversation
in German. I can read and writes little French, but trying to verbally
exchange pleasantries in French is hard.

Decide what your goal is. Realize that understanding is easier than replying,
both verbally and in writing.

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superasn
After playing Duolingo for almost 345 days straight and completing the course
(english to french) I tried watching a french TV channel today and i couldn't
even understand one single sentence.

I feel that while I have learnt a few basic words it's very difficult to get
any fluency using such an app.

I guess the best way to learn a new language is to directly immerse yourself
into the environment but that's not possible for me. So I was wondering what
other ways are there to learn a new language and what worked for you..

~~~
dynamicdox
I have had the same experience as you. Duolingo in particular I think provides
a false sense of progress, as it can be somewhat of a guessing game that is
pretty easy. What I have found the best is to use a flash cards type app,
creating different categories: verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. after all, a lot
of learning a language is memorization. Supplementing this with watching tv
with subtitles has proven to be pretty effective for me, but of course as you
say, nothing is better than being in a place and speaking the language every
day.

~~~
auxbuss
After Duolingo, I've been using clozemaster (for Spanish). I paid the USD 40
pa for the audio version. I type responses rather than answer via multiple
choice. It's a lot more challenging than Duolingo, and I've learned a _lot_
more vocab.

I don't think language is about memorization so much as it becoming part of
your zombie mode, as the learning folks like to call it. Kind of a innate
understanding.

Other sites I've used:

* yabla [1] for listening comprehension

* lang-8 [2] for writing

newsinslowspanish [3] do a free podcast of the first 10-15 minutes of each of
their shows. Reading Spanish news' sites helps; most have additional videos
these days. I read EuroNews in Spanish. They also have an app.

Of course, there's tons of stuff on YouTube.

[0] [https://www.clozemaster.com/](https://www.clozemaster.com/) [1]
[https://www.yabla.com/](https://www.yabla.com/) [2]
[http://lang-8.com/](http://lang-8.com/) [3]
[https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/](https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/)

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oblib
I learned Javascript and a bit of Python online, but I'd learned Perl years
before that by reading the O`Reilly books.

What works for me is learning on a "need to know" basis. JS and Python are not
so different than Perl, and most all languages have common traits and features
so it comes down to learning syntax a lot of times.

I am not very fluent. I reference APIs and sample code, and head to
Stackoverflow for answers a lot, but only when I need to and I don't hesitate
when I need to because you can waste a lot of time doing that.

~~~
superasn
Haha I guess those are languages too, rather this being hacker news it's what
comes to mind first. That's great advice by the way. I too started with perl
and pretty much followed the same route. I wish learning real languages was
equally easy as googling stack overflow and learning it in the process!

~~~
oblib
It honestly never occurred to me this was about "foreign languages". lol!!!

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server36
If phone lines are considered online, then yes. I learned mostly from
listening to conversations. The easiest is just to listen.

If you cannot be around native speakers, try phone calls. Making a phone call
stops you from feeling ashamed, but helps you to practice (standard) sentences
and listening. It helps that they usually have a specific context. Look up
standard sentences for a topic (like hotels or restaurants) and just call. If
the call gets awkward you can always hang up.

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tomdre
When I moved to France from Italy I didn't speak a single word of French. I
spent 5 months on Duolingo (en->fr), hung out with French colleagues, read
books and watch cartoons for kids (Asterix and Tin Tin are my favorite).

After 8 months I was able to speak fluently French. A strong advantage was
that I already spoke a romance language.

