
Ask HN: How to learn a language on the side in 2018? - anotheryou
(spoken language, not a programming language)<p>Vocabulary seems to be solved with spaced repetition (anki, super-memo), motivation through gameification (duolingo). But this all feels rather primitive still.<p>What I miss:<p>a chat bot adjusted to your level<p>moving between tools or at least proper spaced repetition in duolingo<p>proven to be good, live online courses that replace going to a class (this might exist, haven&#x27;t found it).<p>systematically matching tandem partners (maybe you can be the native speaker for someone and have a native speaker in the desired language chat with you in return)<p>good bodies of vokab with audio, sorted most to least frequent, importable to my spaced repetition software of choice<p>anything else existing that I missed?
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0xfaded
I'm currently learning danish (and living in Denmark, so kinda cheating). I
spent about 6 months trying out all the new apps, and have gone back to Anki.

Back in the day I learned Japanese to nativish fluency using the Core Japanese
vocabulary decks. Basically 10000 words all with example sentences and human
audio recordings.

After seeing that many sentences, new grammar has only so many places to hide.
It's also a lot more fun to practice speaking a language when you have the
vocab to talk about basically anything.

I built a similarly formatted Anki deck using tatoeba.org, some web scraping
and google translate.

This type of structured rote learning works for me, but it's not "fun". I
write out every word and all is conjugations on paper, and have notebooks full
of just words. Unfortunately none of the "fun" methods work for me, but it is
motivating that in 198 days I will have 4000 words of danish.

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barry-cotter
Fluentu.com has all the graded material you will ever need in French in terms
of video input. Duolingo isn’t actually that good. I suggest cloze deletion in
Anki, not vocabulary decks. Read the Little Prince in English, make a cloze
deletion deck of the French original and listen to the French audiobook. Find
a teacher or language partner on italki or languageexchange.com or something.
Read Tintin or Asterix in French. Go.

Don’t learn from vocabulary decks after the first 1000 words. Use cloze
deletion to learn it in context. This helps so much with grammar.

Honestly I just wish baselang.com wasn’t exclusively in Spanish. It’s a
screamingly good deal if you actually use it, $200 a month for one on one
professional language teachers, up to four hours a day per person and a good
curriculum.

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laurieg
You already have more than enough tools there to learn a language.

But I'd like to introduce an idea that I think is really important: when you
learn a language there is no finish line.

You'll never get to the top of the mountain. You'll never beat the game.

What does that mean for your learning? Well, if your goal is to learn Italian
to understand authentic recipes, start reading recipe books today. If you're
learning Korean to sing your favourite k-pop hits, start with karaoke.

Too many people start learning a language with stale and old textbooks while
saying to themselves "I'll do the thing I really like when I get good enough."

"Good enough" is a mirage in the desert. You'll never get there so do it now!

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wallflower
Go to iTalki ([https://italki.com](https://italki.com)) like already mentioned
and do a couple sessions with different teachers. These are mostly not
professional language teachers so their rate is lower. They are native
speakers all, usually college students, who are doing this for a side hustle.
Some may even offer a free 30-min trial. The goal is to find someone who you
like practicing with and has a teaching style that it is compatible with
yours. For me, I just wanted to practice talking and some of these tutors had
a whole formal lesson plan. If your goal is conversation, focusing on
conversation is better than doing grammar lessons.

There is no substitute for practicing with a native speaker who will not
become frustrated/impatient/annoyed with you (like a friend). At a minimum, do
two one hour sessions a week. Three is better and five would be amazing
(assuming two or three different tutors).

Change your listening habits. Start to listen to audio in your desired
language. Music, even podcasts. You probably will not understand much to begin
with and the goal is to start picking out sounds, syllables, and word and
phrase boundaries. Eventually you will recognize connector words, short
phrases. Keep with it. Ignore those who say you need 95% knowledge of the
words being said to understand. Your goal is not to understand what is being
said completely but to train your ear.

Eventually you will realize correct grammar is what makes you intermediate
level. But no hurry, mistakes are how you learn.

Good luck! Be patient with yourself. Language learning is not an automatic
process after childhood.

~~~
ninetax
I'll put in a word for iTalki as well. I just tried a teacher out and started
scheduling lessons. One year later my Spanish is miles ahead.

I'm not motivated enough to do any homework or studying, but as long as I
schedule those lessons and attend I'm on track to B2 proficiency by the end of
next year or sooner.

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marbu
I think you are missing the overall picture. Instead of the list of apps,
focus on the elements of language learning in general.

Eg. if you need to be able to communicate with other people in foreign
language, the only way to learn such skill is to actually speak with people
using the target language. There is no AI good enough to learn you this. You
can try to meet some people speaking the language, pay for the teacher, or if
there are no such people in your local area, using videoconferencing over the
internet. When you figure which case applies to you, then you can try to look
for an app to help you with that (eg.
[https://www.meetup.com/find/language/](https://www.meetup.com/find/language/)
for finding local groups or
[https://www.italki.com/home](https://www.italki.com/home) for finding a
language teacher over internet).

It's also important to understand that there is no silver bulet, and many
different approaches exists and nobody will tell you what is right exactly for
you. That said, you should be trying to focus on list of approaches which are
proven to work, and try to figure out which you will use. You can do that by
searching for the description of language learning process from people who
learned few languages already.

~~~
anotheryou
thanks, italki looks promising

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ArtWomb
Audiobooks and movies where you already know the source material verbatim
(Harry Potter, Star Wars). Just watch a few times with the language track you
wish to learn. And you will pick up phrases right away.

Apart from full immersion, engaging with native speakers on Twitter can help
conversationally. Also a great way to pick up modern slang and culture.

Make a habit of reading the major daily newspaper online as well. They report
the same wire news stories. So you can usually infer meaning just from the
content. If there is a live broadcast news stream online, keep it on in the
background.

And start early in life. I wish there was mandatory Mandarin for every six
year old out there ;)

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blueboo
If you're busy with a job (and you're posting on HN), you probably have enough
money for a tutor. Language tutoring over skype is cheap -- you'll get a
(human) chatbot adjusted to your level that moves between tools. And it
replaces and is superior to going to a class.

If the prospect of practicing with a human makes you nervous -- well, that
anxiety is in proportion to how fast your neurons will be motivated to
reconfigure themselves for their new knowledge!

~~~
dazc
This resonates with me since I used to have a teacher come to my office twice
a week for a one hour lesson.

I always found the actual learning experience quite difficult but, over time,
our casual chats moved from nearly all english to nearly all spanish simply
because I felt comfortable enough that if I got words wrong or had a mental
block it didn't matter since she would sense what I was trying to say and help
me along.

As you suggest, I found the stuff I had anxiety about at first was the stuff I
learned and remembered most. The simple stuff I learned with not much effort
is the stuff I need to keep revising.

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omosubi
I find Memrise to be what duolingo ought to have been. I used it to learn
about 800 words of portuguese which I then used to travel around parts of
portugal where english was rare. I wasn't having in depth conversations but I
could ask for and understand directions, order food, go through stores, etc. I
also did some speaking with people on hellolingo and a couple lessons on
iTalki which were both a big help.

My main gripe is that there aren't any places in the current memrise
implementation to use the memorization in practice. It would be great if they
would add a "test your knowledge" part for each section where each of the
vocab words you just learned are used in ways you haven't seen or combined
with stuff you have already learned. I think that's the one thing it is
missing to make it a top notch app.

Otherwise, I've learned that doing grammar exercises isn't really that
valuable until you have a lot of vocabulary and speaking experience (at least
for me). memorization and speaking are much more valuable initially.

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zapperdapper
Currently learning Tagalog.

Here's what really helped me: watching Tagalog movies. Here's what happens -
you listen and over time you get to recognize certain words. You can then look
up the words for meaning. Over time you can build up vocab and pick up
phrases. Supplement with some book work. I've also found some language lessons
on YouTube quite useful. It's a slow process though!

I have a similar process with music videos. Try this one for example:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ascys0eBlqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ascys0eBlqw)

Tagalog with slight rap! If you can get some of the rap you are doing well. I
got a lot of useful words/phrases from this! Also useful because it has the
tagalog words displayed too.

Really fun way to learn...

Salamat!

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pasbesoin
An engaging story to follow.

The most effective learning materials I encountered had this.

At the beginner level, two older examples:

"French in Action"

"Destinos"

Once you have some level of fluency, you can pick your own stories to follow.

Also, before this, you can use subtitles on interesting programs. A lot of
language learning is the sound of the language. And you will start to
recognize parts of what's being said. Well-written, contemporary programs can
also supply a lot of everyday speech and idioms that are short-changed in many
learning materials.

Just be aware that subtitles often deviate significantly from what's being
said. Space and reading speed constraints, but also the quality and effort of
the interpretor(s). Even in languages I know less well, I not infrequently
encounter and identify subtitles that do not choose the idiom most at parity
with the idiom or expression originally used.

------
Hej_linus
I think it's more important to keep up motivation rather than finding a silver
bullet. To me enjoyment is more important than efficiency while learning in
general.

In my case, I'm learning Japanese. From the get go I knew it's a long process
to reach real fluency.

I began with a traditional teacher based course. I learned basic grammar,
which was really great. What I didn't like was the pressure to perform on
time. Juggling a job and a billion projects made it kinda difficult to perform
week after week.

After the course was over I had a big sigh of relief; I'm an engineering grad,
but this was something completely different. I'm used to study more esoteric,
not as applicable stuff as real languages.

I went to Japan that summer and figured out that I didn't understand anything.
I already expected this. Listening was the big issue, and reading, and
speaking...

Reading is my key to learning. I remember learning how to read Swedish (my
native language) by reading subtitles to James Bond movies. That was my
beginning of learning English as well. Japanese is pretty dang hard to read
due to the thousands of symbols you need to know.

At the same time of learning Japanese I began learning Javascript. I began
building my own tools, catered to my own learning needs. By this process I've
been able to create fun web-stuff, and to imprint over 1000 symbols in my
thick noggin. Now I'm able to understand about 75-80% of the symbols used in
writing. I'm finally able to read easier texts and learn vocabulary in a
different way than pure memorization.

Tl;dr: you probably don't need fancy chatbots to learn a new language. If you
want tools, try building them yourself.

~~~
wallflower
Can you please tell us more about the specific tools you designed and built?

~~~
Hej_linus
The only one I have online is jlpt.se. I'm a bit conscious about sharing it
with people who know code, since it's a bit of a rats nest. The ui is clean,
the logic is not..

One of the big things I was missing in other tools was actual input. I've also
haven't had any luck with srs, I prefer learning in an ordered list, then
shuffling the order.

I implemented an "unstrict" input method. If I input a letter contained in the
word it's an accepted answer. This is a very conscious decision. It's really
hard to get a nice tempo with a strict input.

The Kanji part is the only part useful according to me. I simply can't learn
vocabulary through regular rote memorization. I'm going into the second
"phase" of learning, which is reading. Feels like banging my head into a wall
most of the time, but eventually I will break through.

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cbayram
For me languages were learned out of necessity. If possible, my suggestion is
to move to a region where the language is spoken. Immerse yourself, perhaps
there is a community that speaks the language nearby. Go to their cultural
festivities and such.

Second, make mistakes, butcher the language and express yourself without care
embarrassment. Don’t focus on 99% mistakes, it’s the 1% you learn and retain
that add up over time.

Third, do not learn the language by being in a room full of non-speakers.
Grammar can be learned on your own if you wish to get technical.

Lastly, optionally, when ready read books in that language to your level.

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jason_slack
For me, I prefer books (old fashioned as I may be). I have spent the last 4
years learning Chinese. 80% reading and writing. My speaking isn't great, but
it is because I can't hear enough.

I read normal books, I also review text books for help and I practice writing
characters each day. I also try and write e-mails to co-workers and friends in
Chinese as much as possible.

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thetricia
Why are you learning this language? Do you have an end goal in mind? A
community you'd like to participate in, etc? If you do have one you probably
want to structure your learning around it.

Otherwise it's like learning to program without ever working on a project -
possible but an uphill battle.

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peterburkimsher
I wrote Pingtype to help me learn Chinese. The blog describes my failed
attempts, and how I finally found a way that works (singing along in church,
and reading the Bible every day).

[https://pingtype.github.io/docs/blog.html](https://pingtype.github.io/docs/blog.html)

~~~
jason_slack
Wow, very cool. I thought about blogging in Chinese to help me learning, but I
never did. Instead I spend my time reading and writing on paper, every day.

But, is the content you write about true, personal?

------
anotheryou
Any recommendations for French in specific are also welcome!

~~~
jjgreen
Once you're past the "basic vocabulary" stage, watch films in French, but with
the French subtitles.

~~~
anotheryou
I just found a way to display two languages in the youtube subtitles :)
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/two-captions-
for-y...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/two-captions-for-
youtube/lpeonmjfimoijceaalocpgjjchocbiap)

pretty awesome with slow paced documentaries (bit a bit hard to find English
and French subs, even when filtering for CC). E.g.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YWXxsJQ4IA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YWXxsJQ4IA)

~~~
wallflower
The problem with English subtitles is that you will usually just end up
reading the subtitles and not focusing on the audio.

~~~
anotheryou
I put the french subtitles first and it works out quite well for me. In any
way you have to stay in a learning mode, pause at times to look up a word in
the english subtitles, repeat for yourself in your head in the pauses etc.

