
My Journey to a Better Language Learning System - troydavis
https://chatterbug.com/blog/en/2017-10-18-a-better-language-learning-system
======
misiti3780
I have spent the last 10 months learning italian, spending a total of 7 weeks
in the country, 150 hours studying, and 85 hours speaking on iTalki.

I have been using the method's described in Fluent Forever[1] and they have
been working extremely well for me. I have a speaking partner that I speak
with 3-5 times a week for 1 hour each time (If you want to learn italian email
me, he is awesome), and I keep track of literally everything I cant say, and
after the lesson make cards, insert them into Anki, repeat.

I can understand 80% of our conversations perfectly, and we talk for the full
hour, rarely breaking into english. Am I speaking perfect italian - no, but I
have absolutely no problems communicating. I was recently in Sicily with my
family and hanging out with a family that spoke no English and was translating
for 8 people in both directions with no problems.

This is the first new language I have learned but it seems the key to me is
described in the book

1) start with pronunciation and spelling (Gabe created pronunciation trainers
for most languages) 2) Learn some basic verbs (I need, I want, may I, to go,
to take, etc) 3) Building up a large list of nouns 4) Start using iTalki with
a partner very soon into your journey and keep track of what you dont know.

The state departments says it takes around 400 hours to learn the latin based
languages, I believe that seems fairly accurate.

~~~
akeck
Interesting. If you were interacting for 16h a day "in country" for 7 weeks,
then (16 * 7 * 7) + 150 + 85 = 1019 hours. If State Departments say 400 hours,
then this sheds light on why many non-native fluent speakers recommend
immersion - there's simply no faster way to meet or exceed 400 hours of
practice than daily immersion.

~~~
KGIII
Absolutely...

Academically, I've only failed two things. Typing and Spanish. Today, I'm
fluent in Spanish - though a bit slower than natives.

Why? I spent a whole lot of time with my pidgin Spanish below the border.
Eventually, I just learned. I did make an effort to learn a few things every
day, but I ended up actually learning more than that and doing so without even
realizing it.

I can't write Spanish, but I can read it. I can write it well enough so that I
could probably pass for a mentally handicapped third grader. But, I can speak
the language.

Other than some basic phrases, it's the only other spoken language I'm even
remotely fluent. (I also sign, ASL specifically, which has been surprisingly
handy.)

So, if someone really wants to learn a language, go visit the country where it
is spoken and don't hang out with tourists. Learn a few phrases (ordering beer
and where is the bathroom are good starters) and you'll pick up the rest.

As near as I can tell, people are very happy to help. I'm not sure if there is
some psychological thing to it, but people seem really helpful when you're
making a legitimate effort to learn their language.

By fluent, I mean able to understand and convey what is needed and not sound
too silly. I'm sure I'm not always using proper Spanish.

"Mí nescito habla Español, no Englais por favor."

That got me started along my journey of Spanish speaking. I'd say I was okay
after two weeks. Okay enough to get get around. I was not bad after a month. I
was actually able to have a full conversation, without much thought, after
about three months.

Also, I'm not sure...

Here's a puzzle for you people into psych stuff.

During my immersion, I would sometimes dream in Spanish. Except, in my dreams,
I was fluent. As in, I would prattle on and converse in Spanish - fluently.
Except, at the time, I wasn't actually fluent.

What language was I really speaking in my dream?

~~~
jerf
"As in, I would prattle on and converse in Spanish - fluently. Except, at the
time, I wasn't actually fluent."

My dreams frequently claim I am a master composer, and that this tune is
wonderful, or that I've written a really clever joke, or that they've told me
something important. None of the things I've ever dragged up to the waking
world have ever even remotely panned out as the dream promised. (If I may
anthropomorphize for convenience.)

I've come to the conclusion that that _is_ the dream, in some sense. You dream
that you were fluent in Spanish, but not just that you abstractly believed in
it but that you had the experience. But what language were you speaking?
Nothing. Nothing comprehensible, and possibly literally nothing at all; simply
the empty experience of fluency without any concrete referent.

Which makes the Dunning-Kruger effect more comprehensible, if it is possible
to experience the feeling of "competence" divorced from almost anything
concrete. Dunning-Kruger IMHO happens when the competence is firing and the
person in question has no counterbalancing reasons to suppress it. So one of
the keys of true competence is to be sure to eschew that feeling, in favor of
seeking out the ways in which you are not competent. That is another way of
looking at "deliberative practice", where you are always practicing just a wee
bit beyond your capability. If you don't do that, it's too easy to rest on
your laurels and feel soooper confident and awesome that you've _really
licked_ this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune, so now you _really_ know what
you're doing.

~~~
KGIII
That kind of makes sense, thanks! It has puzzled me for years. It was very
convincing dream Spanish, like fluency in technical verbiage and speaking
about higher order mathematics - all in Spanish when I still had a hard time
asking for a room for the night.

~~~
alphydan
I had a similar experience while doing undergrad physics. I would dream up
incredibly elegant solutions to hard calculus problems ... wake up, write them
down and go back to bed. In the morning I would find stuff like dx/dx = c or
some other trivial or incorrect equation.

------
casey_lang
I've always wanted to be fluent in a second language and have tried in the
past, but I always end up with the same problem.

While I recognize that the only way to gain conversational skills is to
actually have conversations, they terrify me. Engaging in small talk with
strangers in my native language is hard enough. Trying to do it in a second
language seems impossible. Even watching the demo video from the link, all I
could think was "this is awkward".

I would almost rather there be a sort of script or game around the
conversations, so they're not relying on my ability to be interesting while
also trying to do it in a different language.

~~~
kmtrowbr
I speak French and Spanish both fairly well. I learned them both, over the
past 20 years. Studied them in college, then lived in Lausanne, Switzerland
for a year, then lived in Mexico for a year. It all started off when I had a
giant crush on a French exchange student in high school.

> conversations, they terrify me

It is awkward! But that's why you should do it. Because, it doesn't matter.
You have to stretch yourself. You have to get comfortable with being bad.

Everyone feels embarrassed and weird when learning a second language. They
feel embarrassed that they are bad. But, of course they're bad, they never
learned. It doesn't mean you're stupid. In fact, if you can force yourself to
do something hard and you can force yourself through the awkwardness in the
pursuit of a goal, to me that's a high indicator that you are smarter than
average.

For me, learning a second language was so important in terms of the humility
(being as a child again, accepting being bad, being the foreigner, being "that
one weird guy"), then the recognition that the foreign culture & foreign
people are so very similar to my own, and then the ability to see my own
culture from another perspective. It's so good for your brain and there are so
many fascinating little details, just the poetry of the foreign language and
its words ... the way the words echo English in some ways and then in other
ways are different.

In a practical sense it would be hard to point to specific things that the
foreign language did for me, but in another sense it was one of the deepest,
most soul-expanding things I could have done. Gave me courage, a lot of
perspective, many friends, and many good times. Anyone who wants more specific
advice feel free to write me: good luck, go for it, it's worth it!

~~~
inkubus
so true can't upvote more

------
andy_wrote
I've done the Duolingo Spanish tree, and my feeling was the same as the
author's regarding "% fluency," which I thought was kind of a joke. Especially
for speaking and listening, there's really no substitute for immersion and
real-life regular interactions.

But I do feel that Duolingo was honestly pretty good about helping me to read
and write. In NYC there's a little ambient Spanish everywhere and I went into
it not with the goal of being fluent, but just being able to read signs and
understand a little bit here and there. (I haven't kept up with it and now
I've forgotten a good chunk, but I'd say that's a different issue.)

At least in my case, it's also been a good entry point because it's free and
convenient. I'm actually working on Duolingo's in-beta Czech tree (significant
other's family is partially Czech) and it's actually been an inspiration for
me to inquire about in-person classes, especially knowing that if I ever want
to hold conversations, I will need to have real-life speaking experience. I
probably wouldn't have done this if I hadn't started off on Duolingo and had
some fun with it!

~~~
mercer
I've been doing about 30 XP of Spanish on Duolingo for more than year now. 30
XP is about 10 minutes of practice, so very little.

One day I was watching a show or movie that had many scenes in Spanish, and to
my surprise I could actually follow much of what was said! I didn't realize
how (relatively) effective even those 10 minutes a day can be.

~~~
andy_wrote
Awesome! I did notice when doing the Spanish tree that I recognized a lot of
words just from seeing them around the city, especially from ads and public
service announcements on the subway.

------
gramie
I have been using
[http://www.languagetransfer.org](http://www.languagetransfer.org) to learn
Spanish, and it is the best language system, aside from total immersion, I
have ever used (I speak five language with varying degrees of fluency).

It is a series of audio files, typically about 10 minutes each, and all you do
is listen to them, answering questions when the instructor asks.

German, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Swahili, Spanish, and others. It's a labour
of love by Mihalis, who asks for donations but otherwise does it all for free!

I haven't tried Chatterbug, but I am completely sold on Language Transfer,
because it sidesteps the rote memorization that so many other systems use.

~~~
rahimnathwani
I just went to the site. From the description, it sounds like a similar method
to that used in the Michel Thomas CD courses. I'll definitely try it!

~~~
bababooey
I think it's actually better than Michel Thomas, but you're right that it's
the same system.

Fun fact, this system was first pioneered not by Michel Thomas, but rather by
Margarita Madrigal. She has a book called the Magic Key to Spanish. You can
also find her Magic Key to French and German online since those are out of
print.

------
primitivesuave
I highly recommend trying the app. The user interface is beautiful and the
approach seems effective. I could actually see this being used in a German
language school to supplement the curriculum, unlike pretty much every
language app I've seen so far.

I find Pimsleur to be a highly effective spoken language acquisition tool, but
the writing/reading aspect is abysmal and quite demotivating. Chatterbug seems
to be doing spaced repetition, and does it much better than Pimsleur
audiobooks because I can zoom through the things I remember and get as much
time as I need to repeat questions and think about the answer.

~~~
ThinkingGuy
Another vote for Pimsleur, at least for quickly acquiring a basic set of
phrases and words for travel purposes. I've used 5 different Pimsleur courses
(Turkish, Italian, Greek, Russian, and Dutch) in preparation for various
international trips. I've found going through just the first 8 or 10 lessons
is enough to get the necessary survival phrases firmly embedded in my memory.
Pimseur also offers lessons intermediate and advanced courses that can take
you to greater fluency, but I've never pursued any courses that far. If I
really wanted to work toward fluency in a language, I'd probably start out
with a different method.

As others have pointed out, Pimsleur is oriented strictly to the spoken
language, so if you need to be able to read the language, it would make sense
to supplement it with separate written course materials, especially if the
orthography of the target language is particularly different than your own
(e.g., Greek and Mandarin).

On a side note, I also find doing a 30-minute Pimsleur course to be a great
mental exercise. Recalling the phraes and responding to the prompts, I
literally feel like rarely-used parts of my brain are getting a workout.

~~~
andai
Repetition is the key to mastery!

Repetition is the key to mastery!

Repetition is the key to mastery!

------
Shank
I'd love to see more tools go into the space of learning what I consider to be
the farthest thing from English. That's like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.
There's a lot more that goes into learning these languages due to differences
in pronunciation, characters, and sentence structure.

I know the demand is often placed on the romance and germanic languages, but
they're often easy enough. You can usually bring along your own character set,
which dramatically eases the transition into something new.

~~~
schacon
We will absolutely tackle these languages. We're releasing German for English
speakers currently in order to learn better how more customers respond to the
methods we're using, and German is more complex grammatically for English
speakers than romance languages. Also, I didn't speak any German and I think
it's important to use your product yourself.

Personally I want very much to return to Japanese myself some day. As I
mentioned in the post, I studied it for several months. It is an interesting
question of how best to approach learning kana and kanji, since that's a
pretty difficult thing to get fast at. Memorizing a few hundred symbols isn't
super hard, but getting so good at them that you can sight-read takes a lot of
time and can be frustrating.

I would disagree that learning any language is easy enough, with or without
learning a new writing system. That's sort of like saying that learning the
piano is easy enough compared to the violin, just because it's always on key.
It's still a lot of work before anyone wants to listen to you play.

No matter what language you learn, if you want to become somewhat fluent, you
need to memorize several thousand abstract words, new sounds, new grammar
rules, etc. It's always a lot of work in absolute terms. I only bring this up
because I feel that it's somewhat harmful to say learning a language can be
"easy". It often results in people trying to learn, inevitably finding out
that it's still a lot of work and then giving up while blaming themselves for
being "bad at languages".

~~~
dicemoose
Is it important to learn the kana and kanji at the same time as learning how
to converse in Japanese? I'm a native speaker, but it was a lot easier to
learn kana and kanji because I already was able to speak some Japanese.

Also, I hope you try some immersion Japanese again. :D

~~~
thewhitetulip
Yes, learning Kana and Kanji is very important. You'll learn Kana in less than
a week but it takes time to learn Kanji. there are 2136 characters which are
high school level.

I followed this thread:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/6q4h6a/a_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/6q4h6a/a_year_to_learn_japanese/dkuskc2/)

What I have done so far:

1\. one chapter of Genki Elementary I 2\. 60 Kanji via memrise and "remember
the kanji" 3\. Given up on Duolingo till I read Genki 4\. Use an app called
LingoDeer, it is awesome. 5\. Started watching Japanese anime. Haven't
understood anything but "thank you" and "good morning" yet.

------
nileshtrivedi
Personally, I would love to learn a language by watching movies/videos with 3
subtitle tracks:

(1) What they are speaking - IN their script (this is called SLS: Same-
Language-Subtitling and has been quite successful for literacy programs for
one's own language)

(2) What they are speaking - IN my script

(3) What they MEAN - IN my language (i.e. translation)

Data for (1) is easy to find. (2) could theoretically be generated from (1).
It's (3) which requires a lot of deliberate manual effort.

~~~
tchaffee
I use movies a lot for learning a new language. Try using only the subtitles
in the language you are learning.

Subtitles in your own language will actually slow you way down. You'll stop
hearing the words in the foreign language and just read your native language.

At first it will seem very difficult to have only the foreign language
subtitles, but once you start seeing the repeated phrases and see the context
in which it happens, you'll pick up new phrases very quickly.

It does take a leap of faith, because at first you'll understand almost
nothing and it might be a bit boring or frustrating. If you stick with it,
it's pretty powerful.

~~~
cloverich
It's funny because as silly as your suggestion seems, this is how real
language aquisition. I'm super interested in any more info you have about your
success doing this! (I.e. Language learned or how long before things started
clicking etc)

~~~
tchaffee
I learned Italian to the almost fluent level. I can conduct business and get
through complex negotiations. I learned a little Spanish before having to
switch to Portuguese for business reasons, and I'm now advanced beginner in PT
after a few months. I have also learned a little Mandarin.

How long before things started clicking? Almost immediately. You recognize
what you've recently learned from your other resources and you get to hear
different pronunciations, accents, and even slurring. But to learn new things
from context takes longer. It's very hard to say. I'm not keeping track of how
many times I hear a slang phrase or some other common phrase before it sinks
in. I would guess hundreds of times. But that's why this method works so well.
The most common phrases and words will be repeated over and over even in one
movie. So you are automatically getting more exposure to the most common
words.

------
nicpottier
I've been going through the process of learning Spanish for the past year or
two (with various levels of dedication) and I have also thought about starting
yet another language learning app. I used RosettaStone and DuoLingo for a
while and they both provided a lot of value, but for sure the greatest benefit
came from doing 1 on 1 lessons with native speakers. Lots of progress then.

One thing I've noticed with all the language learning apps though is that they
are generalized methodologies that are then applied to lots of languages. IE,
duolingo in French and Spanish and German are basically the same track, just
in different langauges. Same with Rosetta Stone (even more consistent there).

That seems to really be leaving a lot on the table. Every language has its
quirks and most importantly every language has a few shortcuts you can learn
to really give yourself a ton of utility with little work. But because the
software is built to be generalized you get the lowest common denominator
instead of the fastest possible path to fluency and speaking.

Not sure which approach chatterbug is taking, but at first blush and by the
way they talk about it I'm guessing it is yet another generalized approach,
but I suppose we'll see.

~~~
schacon
Our curriculum is all designed from scratch by our linguistics team in house,
so it will certainly be specific to each language.

However, I'm sure that as we do several languages, we will reuse patterns and
exercises that transfer well. A situation to practice shopping or numbers can
work the same in Japanese or German without having to reinvent it. Certainly
all of our grammar drills and exercises will be customized to each language,
though.

I think it's pretty important to remember as well that one of the main things
here is the a lot of your time in the system is spent talking to a real human.
You can get the exact same live exercise several times and still have it be
pretty different if you have different tutors. It's not really possible for
that large part of our system to be really "generalized" in this way. Our
system is very human, not just technological.

------
djb_hackernews
Language learning apps are step 5 in the ten step process of achieving
programmer hubris nirvana.

1) I'm in college and I'm going to build an app to easily buy and sell books

2) Off campus housing is hard, I'm going to build an app to find roommates

3) Splitting bills with roommates is hard, I'm going to build an app for cost
splitting

4) All my previous apps sucked because they weren't social, I'm going to build
a social network app

5) I'm bored partying with my new friends, I'm going to level up and build an
app to learn a new language

6) I'm lonely, I'm going to build a dating app to find a mate

7) I found a mate and the whole engagement/wedding industry is a fraud, I'm
going to make an app to make it easier to navigate

8) My children are awesome, I'm going to build apps to manage their
time/friends/eating/sleeping/learning

9) Technology is a waste of time, I'm going to spend my time on other hobbies
and my family

10) I've been working 20 years in a boring industry and I see an opportunity
to write boring software that solves boring problems that businesses will
actually pay for. Jackpot.

Edit: As others pointed out, should have included: ToDo app, Blog App, and a
travel app. Travel should probably be 5 with language at 6.

~~~
erikpukinskis
You say this snarkily, but I don’t see what is wrong with someone growing up
and wanting to try to use coding to solve problems relevant to their stage of
life.

It turns out some problems are complex, but so what? I’ve been working on
“programming interfaces for beginners” for 12 years and still haven’t
succeeded. That’s not because I’m dumb, nor is everyone who thought it would
be easy and failed.

It’s because there are building blocks that don’t exist yet, so when you try
to make the thing you end up getting distracted making a building block—or
eight—and then your schedule gets shot and this kills the project.

But there’s no shame in that. If we’re lucky, you made a new building block
which will eventually mature, in one form or another, maybe just in
conversations with other devs who are closer to cracking that low level
problem.

And then guess what... time is ripe for a hubristic person, young or old, to
step up and try their hand at your original problem, now with one more
building block. There’s now a 5% higher chance of success. Eventually someone
will hit a threshold.

Is your post meant to be more than classic HN stop energy?

~~~
funkaster
The problem is the attitude "this problem is unsolved and no-one seems to be
working on it. I'll fix it, even though I'm not an expert in the domain...
because coding fix everything".

Don't get me wrong, this is a very common problem for engineers (I'm an
engineer and I fall into that trap every now and then). But from the post,
what's lacking is actually talking and working head-head with teachers and
linguists and people doing language learning research, because, you know...
these people have actually spent their whole life trying to teach other people
languages. So they might know a thing or two, that an engineer trying to teach
himself a language might be missing.

~~~
schacon
I'm not sure where you get this.

I studied linguistics in college and one of my cofounders got her degree in
linguistics from Harvard. Another of our employees is a computational linguist
from Cambridge.

Additionally, all of the curriculum and much of the course methodology itself
was designed by teachers who have been teaching languages both online and in
the classroom for years.

We have additionally consulted active linguists and educational psychology
researchers to see if there is anything else we should be looking at in their
fields that we can apply.

This post was about how my understanding of the product I felt I wanted as a
customer was formed. Linguists and teachers built the curriculum and work with
the engineers here to see how we can apply the ways they want to teach.

~~~
funkaster
If that's the case, then I'm sorry I got the wrong impression, but it was the
tone on your post that led me to that. Before your reply I took a look at the
about page on your site and saw the diverse team. You should've give them more
credit to them and how you searched for that type of support when building the
app. Otherwise it's very easy to reach a similar conclusion to the one I got.

------
jinushaun
Reminds me of my own experience. I "beat" Duolingo French, but not
conversational at all. I can ask the perfect question, but can't understand
the answer. Most of the time, no one can even understand my pronunciation.

------
coffee91
I used to use Anki Flashcards but I actually found that online tutoring is a
lot better now. I use Verbling which solves a lot of the issues mentioned in
the OP blog. The video system is all in the browser, no Skype as others have
mentioned with iTalki and my teacher shares PDFs directly on the site. It also
tells me what page she is on so I can be in sync, and we draw notes etc on top
of the whiteboard.

------
foobaw
I speak three languages fluently and I can attest to Chatterbug's methodology.
However, there's still much research to be done in the field. I participate in
a lot of linguistic research since my case is a slightly more unique than
others.

Also, I'm curious if they're hiring and/or have plan to scale. There are so
many features they could add.

~~~
schacon
We aren't currently hiring, but we would love to talk to you for future
reference. We have many plans to scale. :)

I agree that there are a lot of features we can and will add. This is only the
very beginning of what we can do to improve this process, I think. I would
love to hear any ideas.

------
pmoriarty
I'm a fan of a method of language learning called TPR (Total Physical
Response).[1][2][3] It is by far the fastest and easiest way I know of
learning vocabulary and grammar.

In a nutshell, with TPR the teacher gives the student a command in the target
language, demonstrates the action the command is asking for, repeats the
command and finally the student copies the action.

For example, if English was the target language, the teacher could say _" sit
down"_, then sit down themselves, then once again say _" sit down"_ and the
student would copy the action by sitting down. This can then be repeated for
_" stand up"_, for _" pick up the fork"_, or any other arbitrarily complex and
sophisticated command.

As you've no doubt noticed, the commands are given in grammatically correct
sentences, in context. Grammar is not explicitly taught, however. It is
implicitly taught and implicitly learned.

What makes this method work really well is that when you learn words and
grammar, you're not doing it with just your mind and maybe some visual cues,
you're using your body and doing so in a specific physical context (the place
where you're learning), associating what you're learning with parts of that
place. It's somewhat analogous to using a memory palace to learn, only without
any extra effort of constructing the palace or imaging placing things you want
to learn there. With TPR you actually physically interact with the things you
learn in that space.

Another great thing is that a TPR teacher need not have any special training
in education or really even in the method. TPR takes maybe a minute or two to
explain to anyone, so you can recruit helpers from any friends or
acquaintances you have who know the target language and are willing to help,
though if you want consistent lessons and dedication you'll probably want a
professional tutor or teacher anyway.

TPR focuses on learning to understand, in emulation of the first step of a
child's language learning process. Children first learn to understand, then to
speak, then to read, and finally to write. TPR helps with the first part.

TPR has its limits, and it can't be used for all aspects of language learning,
but it's fantastic for getting your language learning bootstrapped really
quickly.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_physical_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_physical_response)

[2] -
[http://tola.maf.org/collect/missionb/index/assoc/HASH01da.di...](http://tola.maf.org/collect/missionb/index/assoc/HASH01da.dir/LEAVALON.pdf)

[3] -
[http://tola.maf.org/collect/missionb/index/assoc/HASH0162.di...](http://tola.maf.org/collect/missionb/index/assoc/HASH0162.dir/KICKSTAR.pdf)

~~~
schacon
I've read a lot of TPR(S) and also Krashen, whose research I believe the
system is based on. It is somewhat difficult to use some of this theory over
video, but we often discuss what we can take from ideas like this to help
beginning speakers when they don't have a wide vocabulary they can access. I'm
curious if using TPR(S) helped you learn a language? I own a few books on it,
but I haven't seen it actually widely implemented.

~~~
physicsyogi
I learned French, (some) Arabic, and (some) Chinese with TPR and TPRS. It was
a lot of fun, actually, and I had previously found language learning hard. I
also took French in college, with the Rassias Method, so it was a second go
round for me.

I learned from a French professor friend who trains all her second language
acquisition grad students in TPR and TPRS. One of her students has had great
success teaching elementary, middle, and high school students French using
these methods.

I've seen a few non-teachers who have learned TPR/TPRS to teach their
languages in the US; languages like Tamil.

------
schacon
I'm curious who else in the community here learned a new language to either
comfort or fluency and how they did it.

~~~
dudul
I studied English at school from 8yrs old to 18, and I was really bad at it.
After graduating high-school I decided to work on it (I wanted to work in IT,
and english was a must-have). That was around the time when DVDs were really
taking over, and it was now really easy to watch movies in original version
(as opposed to the dubbed versions). So I started watching movies in English.
Like a lot. I'm talking 3 to 5 movies a day every day for months. I took a
year off between high school and college.

After that, I was fluent in listening, I moved to an english speaking country
and started working on the speaking part. I was less intimidated since I could
understand perfectly so I wasn't shy about speaking and exercising my
pronunciation. I'm now fluent in English and live in the US. Most natives I
talk to have no idea I'm a foreigner. Usually after an hour of conversation
they start wondering which part of America I'm from and they're always
surprised to hear I'm from Europe.

------
nnd
Learning a language is simple. Immerse yourself in the environment where
everyone speaks the language (travel to that country) and force yourself to
speak that language only at all times. This is the key. I’ve learned German
like that in two months.

~~~
schacon
I would argue that immersing yourself in a native environment is hardly a
simple thing. It's expensive - often in money, but always as an impact to your
life. If you have a job, or spouse, or kids or pets, how does this work. I've
actually done this and each one of these things is a huge problem. If you're a
young, single person who can work remotely or doesn't need a job, then maybe,
but that's not most people. If you do need a job, getting a visa to work in a
new country is also non-trivial and often impossible.

It's also not just on you to "force yourself to speak a language". You need
someone to listen to you. When you know 20 words of a language, cornering
anyone to practice with is difficult and somewhat unfair. You need to know or
meet some people who care enough about you to have some really horribly slow
and boring conversations for a very long time while you improve. If you're not
paying them for that time or otherwise reciprocating, then it can be a
somewhat selfish thing to ask them to do that for a long time.

It's also very hard to pick up vocabulary implicitly from conversations unless
you have some base. My German is good enough now that if I don't understand a
word I can ask them to rephrase it using other words and I can often get it.
Children can do so just from environmental and contextual input often, but it
takes them _years_. So you still have to spend a lot of time studying and
building vocab on your own in order to try out.

This method certainly can work, as I did mention in the blog post, but it's
far from simple.

~~~
nnd
> I would argue that immersing yourself in a native environment is hardly a
> simple thing. It's expensive - often in money, but always as an impact to
> your life. If you have a job, or spouse, or kids or pets, how does this
> work. I've actually done this and each one of these things is a huge
> problem. If you're a young, single person who can work remotely or doesn't
> need a job, then maybe, but that's not most people. If you do need a job,
> getting a visa to work in a new country is also non-trivial and often
> impossible.

Too many ifs, sorry but those sound like the same excuses people say when they
explain why they can't travel (more). You have to figure out what your
priorities are, and if you really want something you'll find a way.

>It's also not just on you to "force yourself to speak a language". You need
someone to listen to you.

Easy. Just go buy some food. You don't need much language skills for that task
and it's a start. Or if you are single, go on a date with someone who doesn't
speak your language (this was personally the most efficient way for me
personally). You overcomplicate things. Your rate of learning a language is
proportional of how uncomfortable you want to be. I've seen people studying in
language schools for years until they get everything perfect and they can't
even maintain a basic conversation. Overall this idea applies to all learning:
"to become a master you should be willing to be a fool", i.e. make mistakes.

> It's also very hard to pick up vocabulary implicitly from conversations
> unless you have some base. My German is good enough now that if I don't
> understand a word I can ask them to rephrase it using other words and I can
> often get it. Children can do so just from environmental and contextual
> input often, but it takes them _years_. So you still have to spend a lot of
> time studying and building vocab on your own in order to try out.

Most of the information is communicated via non-verbal channels: body language
and intonation for example. Using your intuition is crucial here. The rest is
basically pattern matching. A single word you can understand from the context.
Once you understand > 50% words in a sentence, you can derive the rest from
the context and then it becomes a self-reinforcing learning system.

Well, children also don't have the same intellect as an adult and cannot apply
more sophisticated learned cognitive techniques.

~~~
prashnts
> You have to figure out what your priorities are, and if you really want
> something you'll find a way.

> Too many ifs, sorry but those sound like the same excuses people say when
> they explain why they can't travel (more).

That's a really narrow way to call it an "excuse". It might be easy for you
but it's not a case for everyone. You were privileged to be able to do this --
acknowledging this instead of calling it an excuse would be nice.

> Using your intuition is crucial here. The rest is basically pattern
> matching. A single word you can understand from the context.

I'd agree to this. I learned English as my second language through this
approach.

I am now trying to learn French and this is where it gets complicated a bit,
unless someone can correct you. If you take the template for "I am ..." which
translates to "Je suis ..."; plug in some word -- say, "I am sorry" for "Je
suis desole" it works. But it can't always be expanded. You'd expect "Je suis
excité" to mean "I am excited" but it translates to "I am horny". Point being
-- pattern matching and cognitive techniques can only get you so far.
Linguistic connotations are complicated.

------
bsaul
That video convinced me and was ready to give you all my money since I have
some time right now. But unfortunately the two languages i’d like to learn (
mandarin and hebrew) aren’t there.

Anyone could recommend me a system for Chinese or Hebrew ?

~~~
barry-cotter
This is not how I got past basic Mandarin but I’m fairly confident it would
work.

Get the paid version of Pleco, the best Chinese dictionary app. Turn on spaced
repetition in flash cards and download the HSK 1-6 flash cards. Learn the HSK
1 cards _with sound_ so you get started on pinyin. Buy the Chinese Breeze
graded reader books, leve 1. Listen to the audio version on the cds a few
times then try and read the books. Repeat by HSK level until you run out of
Chinese Breeze graded readers, move on to other graded readers, move on to
using italki.com for conversation and native texts loaded into pleco’s reader
functionality for reading.

Duolingo has Hebrew for what that’s worth.

Good luck.

------
IgorPartola
I learned English when I was 12-14. I got to the point where I could converse
in it in roughly 9 months between 13 and 14, after doing a 2x a week class
with roughly 12 people. Yes, age is a huge factor, but the class was a part of
a school that had multiple concurrent tracks, and ours was doing better than
others. Age groups were all mixed and I was the youngest there. The keys to
success for me were:

1\. Teacher who didn't waste time. We plowed through the course material at a
pace of roughly two chapters per lesson. This was double the speed of other
tracks.

2\. Teacher who wasn't a native English speaker. This was huge. A native
speaker of English, even a professional teacher, can't usually explain to you
things like the difference between past perfect and present perfect tense. Or
how conjugation of pronouns works. Or the rules and exceptions of conjugating
verbs in different tenses. She was able to explain this because she had to
learn it in a structured way.

3\. English is a very structured language. Unlike Russian (my first language),
it discourages run-on sentences. It also has a specific order of verbs and
nouns. It also has a pretty simple system of taking the same sentence through
all nine tenses with mostly modifier verbs (be and have). This all maps really
neatly into handy charts that are very quick to memorize. By contrast in
Russian you have three tenses, so the difference between "I am walking" and "I
walk" is up to the reader to discern.

4\. English is simpler than Russian when it comes to conjugation. There is no
conjugating verbs, adjectives, or adverbs by gender. The only conjugation you
do is by tense. "Exception" verbs suck (be, am, was, will/shall). But aside
from the most common ones (be, have, go), they fall into one of several
patterns(think/thought, bring/brought, ring/rung). Less conjugation is better,
and since English requires complete sentences (you don't generally see
sentences like "gone" and have to infer who just left, he or she, etc.) no
additional information is conveyed by conjugation. Can you tell I hate
conjugation? Basically going from Russian to English felt sort of like going
from Python to Basic: you have a lot fewer paradigms to worry about, while
already being familiar with the paradigms Basic uses.

5\. Lots of memorization of words. Once you figure out how to say "Today after
work I am going to get dinner with friends" you can easily substitute drinks
for dinner, date for friends, school for work, etc. So I made my goal learning
the structure of the language and learning enough words to make substitutions.
Once I conceptually knew how to use all nine tenses, the rest was simple
memorization and usage.

6\. Lots of conversations and not being afraid of my bad accent. You know
what's great about talking to other students? They don't give a shit that your
accent sucks. Native speakers, especially ones outside the classroom might be
nice about it, but you are always keenly aware that you don't sound like them.

7\. Finally, after I was able to hold conversations in English, emersion
helped. Side note: try not to move your kids to a completely new country and
send them straight to high school a few months later. It's brutal.

On the other hand, I have failed to learn any other languages since. Part of
it is lack of time and motivation since I don't have a specific need for them.
Part is that I am in fact older. I am about to take up Japanese and after that
maybe get back to French. To this day I have failed to teach any of my past or
present partners Russian.

~~~
schacon
This is a great rundown!

One interesting thing that comes to mind is that most of the recent research
I've read says somewhat counterintuitively that the age factor is not as big
of a deal as you might think[1]. I was taught at University that there is a
critical period age after which it becomes much more difficult to acquire a
language, but there is actually little evidence for this.

Aside from accent acquisition, which does seem to be linked pretty tightly
with age of exposure, the biggest difference generally between adults and
children in language acquisition is the amount of time they have to learn it.
Some studies even suggest that children are worse at some aspects of
acquisition[2]. As you said, adults are busier, which is the biggest
difference.

[1] Hakuta, Bialystok 2003 [2] Ferman, Karni 2010

------
eric_bullington
@schacon Interesting post. I agree that language-learning is more of a
marathon than a sprint. As someone who speaks several languages[1], it was
interesting to read about your perception of how polyglots learn languages.
You picked up on some good things (flashcards and these days spaced repetition
learning programs since vocab is critical, multiple different tools and books,
online tutors) but you didn't mention a characteristic that most polyglots I
know share[2]: an excellent foundation in the grammar of their own language,
and the inclination to spend the time necessary to build a good foundation in
the grammar of whatever language they are learning. I'm sure there are
exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be enough of a trend that it's worth
mentioning.

Some people promote the idea of learning a language "naturally" through an
immersive environment. Although immersing yourself in the language is critical
once you've picked up a strong foundation, I've personally known very few
people who have learned a language to near-native fluency _as an adult_ by
simply jumping into a new language environment. Kids do this all the time, but
the way most adults successfully learn a new language is different from the
way children do it. I've watched some people waste a lot of time trying to
speak to native speakers of a language they're learning without having any
kind of foundation in vocabulary and grammar. They would have done well to
spend at least a portion of that time picking up a basic vocab through
flashcards and learning grammar fundamentals of the foreign language in
question.

And although I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, most polyglots I know
are fascinated by grammar, in addition to having a strong interest in
phonology and speech/accents.

So to anyone who has tried and failed to learn a foreign language as an adult
and is thinking of giving it another try, I recommend picking up both a review
book on the grammar of their native language, as well as a basic but complete
grammar of the language they are targeting. Spend some time with these books
along with Anki and the language-learning apps, and _then_ go out and immerse
yourself in another language environment, either through online language
communities, or living/traveling abroad.

And one last type for new language learners: be sure to study idioms and
phrases when you use Anki or whatever flashcard program, and not just simple
words. Having a good stock of idioms is critical to fluent conversation.

1\. At one time, fully fluent in 4 languages, now 2 are rusty but I'm picking
them and another back up. I've also enjoyed an intermediate level of fluency
in an additional 5-6 languages at one time or another. (I've also worked as a
professional interpreter (2 years) and translator (10 years))

2\. The only exceptions to this rule have been people who have learned 3-4
languages as children, but even they have a much better knowledge of grammar
than most Americans I know.

~~~
schacon
Thanks for the great comment. I agree that you need to learn the grammar of a
language. I personally have a pretty hard time internalizing grammar rules.
Our head curriculum designer always makes fun of me because I want to ban
tables of things (conjugations, etc) from the world. I can study and memorize
it and then when I go to use it, totally miss and it's frustrating. But if I
hear a sentence structure 30 times in a few weeks, I will often naturally
start using it.

We try in our system to teach grammar through the same spaced repetition
system - presenting a rule and then giving you a cloze test and spacing it the
same as vocab. So we can know, for example, that your second person plural
conjugation is weak and often missed, but your first person singular is strong
because you always nail it. Then we can try to show you exercises that make
you practice the weaker thing when you're in a live session, to reinforce it
in a different environment and make sure you can produce it orally too.

Most recent research that I've seen, and the linguistics researchers that I've
talked to, seem to conclude that there is little difference between being
implicitly and explicitly taught grammar. That you don't need be explicitly
explained the rule to use it consistently, but that the important thing is
that your focus is brought to mistakes in form and you make an effort to
improve those mistakes. There are a hundred studies on this and they all seem
to come out slightly differently and generally not very significantly. That
said, learners often like to know the rules, even if it's not significantly
helpful for long term retention and production.

I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book unless
it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume you know
the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't. As we said, language
is a marathon and it's hard to stick with if you're immediately and mind-
numbingly bored, which grammar books are good at. I personally prefer to get
communicative and work on fixing my grammar as I go, since it gives me
momentum.

I like the middle ground that Chatterbug has taken. The grammar testing is
interactive and you can reinforce good patterns when talking with human beings
in a spaced way. I know my grammar is in many cases wrong when speaking in
German, but most people don't seem to find the mistakes I make at my level
particularly problematic, and it gives me time and confidence to focus on the
forms that I'm getting wrong.

What's really funny to me is that watching my own videos right after I do a
lesson, I notice many of my own grammar errors, because I'm hearing them and
have time to think about them, but I don't always have time to pull stuff
properly when in the heat of trying to formulate and speak a sentence in real
time. But I belive that helps me improve faster and stay motivated.

~~~
eric_bullington
I'm glad that you're integrating grammar into Chatterbug, even if it's
implicit. I do believe that learning a foreign language's grammar implicitly
(via immersion) is an inefficient way to pick up grammar. I tutored languages
for 5 years in university and grad school, and I always saw the light bulb go
off when I explained the rules _why_ some word behaved in a certain way in a
sentence. For most people, it's very enlightening and makes language learning
easier and more enjoyable.

> I would caution against recommending that people pick up a grammar book
> unless it's an incredibly good one. Most are dry and difficult and assume
> you know the vocabulary of linguistics, which most people don't.

I strongly disagree. First, grammar books very rarely use any linguistics
vocabulary. And learners can find totally adequate basic grammars in the back
of introductory language learning books and textbooks. They do assume you know
a little grammar vocab, but not linguistics (which is, of course, a field of
study completely separate from language learning). For Indo-European
languages, that includes things like "indirect object", "relative pronouns",
"demonstrative pronouns", etc. And for declined languages like Russian and
Greek, they may use terms like "nominative" and "accusative". But they often
explain these terms first, and if not, that's why I recommend people first
pick up a basic book on _English_ grammar.

And yes, if your goal is simply to get by in a language, like to the level of
a serious tourist, making frequent grammar mistakes is not a big deal.

But if your goal is to learn a language fluently, and particularly if your
goal is to learn _more_ than one language fluently, you should ask yourself if
it's worth the initial investment of learning the basics of grammar, to the
level that you're able to follow a basic introductory grammar. For most people
reading HN, I'd think this is something they could pick up in several weeks
part-time, or maybe a month or two if they have absolutely _no_ background
(like, you have no idea what the subject of a sentence is, or what verb tenses
refer to). And then, based on my past multi-decade experience learning,
teaching, and speaking multiple languages, I'd be willing to bet that things
will "click" much more than if they had no idea what these things refer to.

Finally, I do agree that grammar should not be a major focus of foreign
language learning -- maybe 10-20% of the time. But that 10-20% has the
potential to make the other components of your language learning voyage much,
much easier.

------
mezuzi
C'est la langue la plus difficile, plus difficile en fait, que l'Allemand et
l'Arabe. N'est-ce pas?

~~~
schacon
Quelle langue, Allemand?

------
claimred
How does one learn Mandarin Chinese though

