

I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here’s How - cwan
http://lifehacker.com/5903288/i-learned-to-speak-four-languages-in-a-few-years-heres-how

======
acqq
I just don't believe his claim: "C1 fluency in French in about 5 months" if he
started from 0 unless he didn't do anything but learning the language in the
target country. C1 is a damn high fluency:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages)

"Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise
implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without
much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and
effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear,
well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of
organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices."

I'm a long-time foreigner in a German-speaking country, learning German after
already speaking two more languages apart from my mother tongue, not knowing
German before I came here, so I know how many nuances a living language has.
Had he say A2, or B1 if he's a language talent, I'd believe him, C1, I can't
imagine. I can only guess he didn't actually try to pass some formal
verification tests, or he didn't start from 0, there simply must be something
he avoided to say. Or he simply lies to himself (and us) that it's actually C1
what he reached in five months.

~~~
freehunter
Yeah, I lived in Germany for just under a year. My great-grandparents spoke
nothing but German, and my grandparents were about 50-50. Even being steeped
in German my whole life and living there for a year, I only passed the B2
level test after I got back from Germany. Today, I could probably pass the A2,
just because I don't know anyone anymore who I can speak German with at any
deep level.

C1 in 5 months without living in the country and speaking nothing but that
language would put this person into "dangerously intelligent" territory.
Super-human levels of language skills. With this "method", I have to wonder if
he didn't just memorize phrases and words really, really well. Does he know
the grammar and rules well enough to construct a compound thought on the fly
and not sound overly foreign? Because you need to be able to do that for C1.

~~~
eric_bullington
See my response, but I think it's possible. When I first saw this post, my
first instinct as a professional (and nationally-certified) translator and
polyglot (fluent in 4 languages at some point of my life) was to brush it off.
But I see he places appropriate emphasis on vocabulary acquisition, which many
language learners fail to do.

It's possible, at the very least. I did this in about 4-5 months at age 17
while living and studying in France (plus I was dreaming and thinking in the
language by that point), and I only knew the basics before leaving. I consider
myself smart, but not "dangerously intelligent". I have scored very high on
foreign language aptitude tests, so I'm not totally representative. But it's
certainly possible.

~~~
shuzchen
I agree with the parents that doubt the veracity of these claims. There is so
much more to a language than just vocabulary and grammar that I can't imagine
anybody picking up on their own in 4-5 months. For example, in Japanese, there
are many levels of formality that affect the vocabulary you select as well as
the way you say something. And it's not just a matter of using one level with
a particular person, how formal you are is very dynamic, and can change back
and forth in the same conversation. Also, it's pretty much impossible to reach
a native level productiveness of giseigo and giongo (different types of
mimetic words) without being born and raised there.

However, if you're a language maven, then I can see how you can obtain high
fluency in a short amount of time (although even the mavens I came across had
issue with giseigo/giongo production, figure that out). But don't assume the
same technique a maven uses will apply to your everyday person. I've studied
Japanese for going on 14 years now (8 of those years being intense study:
masters program, study abroad) and the more that I learn the more that I
realize that I don't know.

~~~
eric_bullington
Japanese is notoriously hard to master. It's probably not very revealing to
use your experiences with Japanese as a benchmark when the blog author is
talking about his experiences with French, a language very close to English,
particularly in vocabulary (for obvious historical reasons).

~~~
shuzchen
You would have a point if the post author didn't also claim to be having the
same success with Russian (also rated notoriously hard to master for english
speakers). The tone of the article also implies that the same technique can be
applied to any language.

That said, I still doubt actual fluency is obtainable for non-mavens even in
the romance languages. In my experience, all early learners have a naive view
of their own ability, no matter what the target language is.

~~~
mattmanser
He mentions right at the start it took longer with Russian.

RTFA.

 _The US Foreign Service Institute makes estimates for language difficulties
for native English speakers, and they seem to be spot on in terms of
comparative difficulty—Russian seems to be taking twice as long as French did
for me, and they estimate languages like Chinese to take twice as long as
Russian._

------
graeme
Another great resource is Pimsleur. I've used their courses to learn Italian
and German.

It's a half hour of audio each day. The key is that you speak out loud. You
can do it while cooking or driving, or any other activity that is routine and
non-verbal.

They teach you to pronounce phrases very well, and you learn the basic
structure of the language. Once you can say "I would like a glass of wine",
you can easily learn to say "I would like X".

When I got to Italy, people thought I had been living there for a year.

There are only two things you MUST do:

1\. Do a lesson every day. 2\. Speak out loud, in a normal conversational
tone. The program is teaching you to have conversations.

I love these courses so much that I'm compelled to gush about them whenever
language learning is mentioned. They won't make you a native speaker, but
you'll quickly reach a level where you can advance rapidly.

~~~
xiaoma
I used Pimsleur for Cantonese in 2010 during a trip to HK and have kind of
mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it was _good_ for pronunciation. Many
people were shocked by how good my Cantonese sounded and had troubles
believing me when I said I'd just gotten to Hong Kong. On the other hand, this
caused some problems-- people consistently over-estimated my language
abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I couldn't understand. Had my
speech sounded worse they'd probably have modified theirs a bit and I'd have
learned faster. The other wildcard is that I already spoke Mandarin fluently,
and definitely had a bit of help from all the cognates.

Another downside to Pimsleur I discovered more recently while working on
Swedish. They're all about the same! The dialogues and stories got kind of
boring since I'd heard them already in Cantonese.

Ideally, I'd like a resource like Pimsleur _plus_ some kind of podcast (e.g.
popupcantonese.com) so that I could build more vocabulary at least at a
passive level and understand more of the speech I elicit from native speakers.

~~~
nandemo
> On the other hand, this caused some problems-- people consistently over-
> estimated my language abilities, and as a result said a ton of stuff I
> couldn't understand.

I don't see how that's a downside of Pimsleur...

~~~
reneherse
Fundamentally, it's just a result of picking up certain attributes of the
language more quickly than others. That could be a result of the particular
teaching method that Pimsleur uses, or just the natural abilities of the
student.

I've had a similar experience to the grandparent while learning Mandarin (not
through Pimsleur), where my pronunciation has far outstripped my progress in
listening, grammar, and vocabulary. Hoping to remedy this through different
exercises, talking with (sympathetic) native speakers, and catching up on my
Chinese soaps. ;)

~~~
nandemo
Still, I don't see it as downside of the method at all. If Joe learns how to
say "Excuse me, where is the Hilton Hotel?" in Chinese with really good
pronunciation, and some Chinese people go on to assume he speaks really well,
then that means to me: (i) Joe used a method that teaches good pronunciation
from the start, (ii) those Chinese people are overestimating Joe's ability,
they're simply wrong.

On (i): any method has to make some choices on what to teach first. I think
good pronunciation and listening skills are much important than knowing
spelling or explicit grammar rules at the beginning. While Pimsleur is not
perfect, I believe it's a good method in that respect.

On (ii): it's possible that Joe got unlucky, or maybe people in that region
are monolinguals and don't quite understand that language proficiency is far
being binary. It's not a big deal anyway: just learn how to say "I don't
understand", "sorry, I don't speak Chinese well" and "please speak slowly". At
least the first 2 of those are stock Pimsleur phrases.

For what is worth, some of us foreigners in Japan experience a different
phenomenon: Japanese people who can't quite believe that non-Japanese can
speak their language.

~~~
reneherse
I agree that it's not a downside. It's just an interesting effect and
experience! As far as Pimsleur, from people's comments here I'd certainly
consider using their materials.

Regarding your experience in Japan, I think that's a demonstration of why
learning foreign languages (and traveling)is so significant: It creates new
cultural ties and has the power to jolt people out of their preconceptions and
prejudices (both for learners and native speakers). It opens minds on all
sides.

------
why-el
I speak three languages fluently (Arabic, French, and English), and I have the
same advice for anybody who wants to learn a new language:

\- Watch their news media. For instance, if you are learning Arabic, then
watch Arabic media. It might be tough at first, but just go at it. Be a baby.
Babies bombard their minds with input and eventually patterns form.

\- Pick a TV show you saw and watch the whole thing again using language-you-
want-to-learn subtitles. This can be fun, and well things will be mentioned so
often they will stick. This is extremely effective, and my English vocabulary
improved dramatically this way. I prefer this to carrying cards and trying to
memorize them. Its unnatural.

\- Go to a country that speaks it.

~~~
personlurking
I'm with you on the bombardment method. In terms of fluency, my Portuguese is
95%, my Spanish is 85%, my Italian is 50% and my French is probably 20%. Of
course, these percentages would be best if broken down into reading, writing,
etc, in order to get a clearer picture.

I don't consider myself to be a quick language learner (ie, with a 'gift' for
it) but I do believe that being passionate goes a long, long way and that
bombardment and immersion are key. It's not about the time it takes, it's
about your drive to reach the right level for you. Being a language lover, I
never just want to "get by", I'm looking for near-fluency or fluency. It took
me a good decade and a lot of commitment to reach the levels I've reached in
the languages mentioned.

Btw, the OP is right about getting the accent down. To me this is just as
important as any other aspect of the language.

~~~
why-el
I am actually in Brazil right now and I just started learning Portuguese a
week ago. I am basically just watching How I Met Your Mother with Portuguese
subtitles. Such a beautiful language. My French helps a lot though.

~~~
personlurking
After teaching myself Brazilian-Portuguese at home in California over a good 5
year period, I moved to Brazil to perfect the last stage, speaking. After half
a year, I moved back to the States. A few years later, I moved again (to
Brazil) for a few months and last year I moved here once more. Now I've been
here for almost a year this time around.

So I've climbed this mountain and found myself wondering what is next. Seems
I'm going to take another stab at Italian since it's been several years since
I first got into it. That's what's great about language learning, if you
consider yourself a lifelong learner, you can 'bookmark' your learning process
for later.

~~~
why-el
I know right? I reserve a fixed time for each one of the languages I speak and
find myself learning few more words every day. I dont know about you, but I
see a lot of similarity between the human languages I speak and the computer
languages I use. They both require life long commitment. Isn't that
interesting?

------
alasano
I was forced to leave my home country at the age of 3 because of war and then
after 6 years in Germany we were given no choice but to leave the country
since the refugees were costing the German government too much money and
various other reasons.

There's plenty of time to make a new life in 6 years only to be forced to
throw it all away. We were given a choice between Australia, the US and
Canada. We ended up in Quebec city where I've been for almost 14 years now
(since September 98').

Even though the journey was hard for the 4 of us, harder for my parents than
for me and my sister, I regret nothing. I'm fluent in 4 languages and
functional in 2 others with a brain wired for learning to speak.

Upon arrival at 9 years old I was the best in French after only 1 year, in a
school filled mostly with people raised on the language. Plus I was picking up
English at an amazing rate thanks to the Simpsons playing 6x more often than
in Germany. Add subtitles and the fact that I knew all the episodes anyways
and you get an abnormal learning rate.

What I'm trying to say is, bullshit as to C1 fluency, I was under ideal
conditions to get there (and C2) in a little less than a year with a brain
that acts like a sponge at that age. His method may get him towards his
objectives faster but I think he may overestimate his abilities.

------
mtjl79
As an American who speaks multiple languages, the thing for me was learning
the first. When you learn another language you get a true understand of your
own language that other people don't understand who are not bilingual.

After you learn a second language, others get much much easier and the
learning curve is much shorter.

~~~
brucejaywallace
I also noticed this....it also gets easier depending on the language....

I'm learning Spanish right now, and for example, Portuguese and Italian can at
times be very similar

~~~
pavel_lishin
I learned a fair bit of Spanish in high school, already knowing English and
Russian. A lot of the language constructs were similar to Russian, so they
just clicked easily in my mind.

Lost most of it by now, of course. I can call a guy an asshole, and I can buy
him a beer, but the bit in the middle where I apologize - that, I can't do :P

------
huherto
Learning a second language allows you to appreciate the commitment that it
requires. People who has never gone thru the process, don't appreciate it and
they think it is a matter of studying six months one hour a day. I had a
supervisor who said that he was going to learn Spanish (at 55) so we can tell
him stuff that we didn't know how to say in English. I have been learning
English for 23 years since I was 21. I felt this was insulting. Somehow he
thought he could do it; may be he felt he was smarter than us because his
English was fluent. Of course he was never able to say anything in Spanish.

------
LyleK
Great tips! Another fascinating (Creative Commons-licensed!) framework I have
heard about recently is Language Hunters. <http://www.languagehunters.org>.
Their methods involve playing games with native speakers, in person or via
Skype. They claim someone can reach fluency in a few months.

------
Jun8
I looked at the estimates for learning difficulty for English speakers
([http://voxy.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/110329-VOXY-...](http://voxy.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/110329-VOXY-HARDLANGUAGES-FINAL-WIDE.png)) and saw
that they mix together the language difficulty with the difficulty of the
writing system. For example, Japanese (labeled hard) and Turkish (labeled
medium) are similar (relatively speaking, looking from a English speaker's
vantage, also add Korean to this group). In the explanation for why Japanese
is so difficulty they mention the three different writing systems, etc., which
is true (some consider the convoluted Japanese writing system to be the most
complex in the world, on par with Maya hieroglyphs). But what if you want to
learn just _spoken_ Japanase? Similarly, what if you wanted to learn Turkish
in the 1910s when it was still using the (modified) Arabic alphabet?

As for the "thousands of characters" scare for Chinese, I've read estimates
that for daily communication you can make do with less than a thousand
characters.

~~~
w1ntermute
> As for the "thousands of characters" scare for Chinese, I've read estimates
> that for daily communication you can make do with less than a thousand
> characters.

It's not that hard. After years of frustration at being essentially illiterate
in Japanese while having a decent level of spoken fluency, I've finally
buckled down and started learning the kanji using Remembering the Kanji in
combination with Anki. It really _is_ possible to learn 20 kanji a day if you
dedicate about 45 minutes of time.

There's a similar book called Remembering the Hanzi (both Traditional and
Simplified versions are available) that you can use to much the same effect.
At 20 per day, you can learn the 5000 hanzi that are said to cover just about
everything you might come across in day-to-day life in less than a year.

~~~
oohaba
I used RTK as well, except with the website kanji.koohii.com instead of Anki,
to learn 50 kanji a day. Did that for 2 months before moving to Japan, started
using Anki for vocab / grammar, and passed the JLPT 1 examination in less than
a year and a half.

~~~
mattm
I'm learning Japanese now. Can I ask you some questions?

~~~
oohaba
Sure, ask away, though email might be better!

~~~
mattm
What's your email?

------
countersixte
<http://www.memrise.com> is another spaced repetition alternative to Anki.
You'd need another tool to practice your grammar, but for vocab alone it works
great.

~~~
Scaevolus
Memorizing vocab in that way is less efficient than SRSing whole sentences,
where you get semantics, contexts, and grammar at the same time.

------
AznHisoka
alljapaneseallthetime.com basically recommends same techniques: listening
first, then verbal. He even goes to the extreme of listening to the foreign
language 24/7, even in your sleep. Have kanji (or hanzi, or arabic) posters
displayed in your bathroom. Turn the radio on when you're in the shower.
Listen to podcasts when you're at work and subway. Keep those podcasts on
while you're sleeping so you hear it first thing when you wake up.

Immerse yourself completely, and it'll almost be the same as listening in that
foreign country.

------
krollew
It migh sound unbelievable, but why not?

I'm learning Ukrainian and Russian for 3,5 months. I understand Ukrainian just
like that and understand Russian quite well; written and spoken. I speak
ukrainian quite good and start to speak russian (because I started with
ukrainian and didn't write russian first). It was 3,5months of nearly no
effort maybe couple hours a week.

OK, I'm polish so slavic languages are nothing new to me, but many people
learnt russian here with nearly no result. I think it's way of learning. I
just started write and read ukrainian and russian bit later.

If I learnt familar language so fast with no effort why not to learn european
language in 5 months of some effort? It's possible since european languages
are not completely different and I know english and understand german now.
Well, maybe it won't be C1, but I can believe there are people with better
language skills than me.

------
inspiredworlds
Its great to see this kind of discussion on Hacker News and how people are
hacking their way to learning a language. I think its kinda difficult to
obtain that level of fluency without living in the country, being immersed,
and communicating with other people. There are certainly tools and ways that
can aid you to learn - I've done similar things to learn a language such as
learning from movies/tv shows/CD's/books/mobile apps/sitting near people on
the train and listening to their conversation.

I've actually made it my mission to make languages fun and easy to learn, and
started a company called Native Tongue. If you are interested in learning a
language check out our vocabulary mobile apps for Spanish and Mandarin.
They're called Spanish Smash and Mandarin Madness.

<http://nativetongue.com/>

------
sakopov
My native language is Russian and I have never met a foreigner who mastered it
even after years and years of practice. It is almost unheard of to find a
foreigner who can speak and pronounce correctly. Usually it's one or the
other. The majority of native Russians spend 12 years learning Russian grammar
and still cannot spell right. I find it hard to believe that a non-native
speaker could. On the other hand it took me 3 months to become fluent in
English at 14 while attending a high school in the US. Another 6 months to
lose my accent and by the end of the year i was thinking in English. Being
immersed in the culture of native speakers is probably the best way to learn
any language. However, overcoming the complexity of a language is sometimes
very difficult/impossible.

------
JohnLBevan
Sounds like an opening for an App.

Gabriel's put a lot of effort into creating his flashcards, but they'd be the
same for everyone - so you could allow the community to generate the cards,
and the part of the community for whom this is their native language could
rate these cards, the best bubbling to preference.

The use of existing sites (Google Translate / Lang-8) to get/validate
translations is good, but this could be baked into the same system as the
flashcards, using that system's community, or having an API to connect that
system with the external sites so that it's just one system from the user's
perspective.

In terms of reading books / watching tv / etc, again a catalogue of links to
e-books / youtube clips / etc., along with ratings of difficulty could be
maintained by the community and presented through the app.

Build this on top of facebook / google plus / etc and tools such as hangouts
are also available to help users from different countries / of different
native languages talk to one another, taking it in turns of 30 min sessions in
one another's languages.

------
pothibo
I'm always irritated when people talk about how good they are in [xyz]
language. Here in Québec City, I hear all the time how this person is fluent
in english and everything.

I spent 1 year in New Zealand when I was 17, I learned the language the hard
way, when I got back, I was fluent, not bilingual but fluent.

Now, 10 years later, I'm no where as good as I used to be, still I find people
who tell me they are fluent in english and how they can express themselves
nearly perfectly in english. If I have the luck to hear them speak once, I
usually figure out right away how their english is (poor). On the other hand I
have a friend that is perfectly bilingual from birth. He never claimed he was
so and I knew about it after I knew him for a year...

This is a personal story, I agree, but it does show a trend. People who claims
that "speak", "are fluent", etc. are usually to be taken with a grain of salt.
There's no magic in this world, and language is hard.

There's no such thing as a free lunch

------
DanBC
This is what happens when I try to learn a language by watching movies.

([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-cAnFbEXY0&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-cAnFbEXY0&feature=related))

This is also pretty much what happens to me when I'm in the US. I think I'm
talking real words, but people don't understand me.

~~~
virtualeyes
LMAO! Thank you.

It's the same for me when I'm in England, the locals just don't understand me.

"you know what I mean, right?", I say, and they respond with, "oh, royt, e
means royt!" WTF is royt, can't these people articulate themselves properly?
k-rist they invented the language and we had to improve it, god bless America,
rush limpbag and everything that makes the homeland free of the brave.

"ave a pint yank, ave a pint"

------
nathell
Can anybody share his/her self-made Anki DBs or recommend some good-quality
ones? This looks to be of tremendous utility to other language learners,
myself included (I'm mostly interested in English, French and German).

~~~
AndyNemmity
I agree, I would really love an Anki DB on German.

------
mshafrir
If you need help deciding which language to learn,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers)

~~~
WildUtah
That list is misleading.

1\. Mandarin

Lots of people, but spoken in only two countries (China and Singapore) and
essentially nowhere else.

2\. Spanish

With only half the number of speakers of Mandarin, Spanish is the second most
widely spoken language in the world. The people of over twenty countries on
three continents prefer it.

3\. English

Only third in speakers, but the most widely spoken language, number one in
both art and commerce.

4\. Hindi

Spoken in only two countries.

5\. Arabic

The world's third most widely used language, but usually spoken in places
where you just can't use it to pick up girls. (Unless you are a girl yourself)

~~~
swang
You forgot Taiwan/ROC under Mandarin. Also there are a lot of cities in the US
(or at least in California) where you can get by just speaking
Mandarin/Cantonese.

Also, how is that list misleading? The title is, "List of languages by number
of native speakers" and not, "List of languages by some specific importance"

~~~
WildUtah
1\. There is only one China. The pretenders in Beijing will be overthrown soon
enough.

2\. The list is misleading if used, as suggested, to prioritize languages to
learn. It seems accurate enough as far as sheer numbers go.

3\. California should just be marked as an exception to every list of facts.
(The only country where you can comfortably live you life speaking only
Vietnamese, except California; the first twenty digits of pi, except in
California; &c)

------
kentosi
If he claims that he's now fluent in French then he needs to back this up with
a posting of his voice (or a youtube clip) of him speaking in it. Let that be
the judge of how fluent he is.

~~~
theycallmemorty
Couldn't that be easily faked? Anyone could memorize a speech in another
language and make sure to get the accent/intonation down before recording. If
he's an Opera singer he's already experienced in this.

------
zerostar07
Once i used a chrome extension to replace web banners with flashcards. Now i
'm bombarded with words. <http://projectilo.com/113>

------
sparknlaunch12
Immersion is most powerful. ie living in the country, forcing you to live,
eat, breath the language.

However as described, a mixture of techniques is needed. Writing, reading,
talking, listening. Plus practice, practice, practice.

There are a few examples of people learning languages quickly... Like get
fluent in 3 months. Once you understand the mechanics it is easier.

Also some languages are easier than others. Germanic languages 'should' be
easier for English speakers.

------
drucken
This guy's method is a very solid approach to learning languages especially
for Romance and Germanic languages, even if his claimed results (C1 in 5
months) are hard to believe for ordinary people.

Two other resources which are inline with his approach are the Assimil series,
which is highly regarded by non-academic linguists (and some practical
academics), and the LingQ words-in-context language learning website.

------
atroche
I've been having an awesome time learning Spanish using <http://duolingo.com>
for the past few weeks.

------
pavel_lishin
Anki is definitely not free on mobile devices.

~~~
socksy
Whilst the iPhone one isn't free, the Android version is:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS5pY2hpMi5hbmtpIl0)

~~~
klez
Also free as in freedom (GPL)

------
mschnell
Almost everything ever asked about language learning can be found in the
forums of 'How to learn any language' [1]. But careful, you can get hooked
pretty fast.

[1] <http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html>

------
vertis
Awesome story. I had to laugh at the part where you linked the language
difficulties. I had a somewhat abortive attempt to learn Chinese last year (we
have an office over there). I don't think I've ever come up against something
quite so hard as trying to get the tones right in Chinese.

------
kenrikm
English/Spanish here. My wife is Cuban and did not speak much English when I
meet her so it was a Huge motivating factor. ;) Italian and Portuguese will be
next for me as once you know Spanish you automatically know big chunks of
other Latin based languages.

------
5vforest
This is great -- although IMO not a replacement for programs like Rosetta
Stone, as this method requires significantly more dedication.

~~~
binarycrusader
I often see Rosetta Stone advertised and mentioned, and I even briefly toyed
with a demo version in the past, but it didn't click for me.

Can anyone provide their own success story for Rosetta or a competing
alternative?

~~~
mdaniel
I bought all 5 levels of Rosetta French version 3, and I lambast it at every
opportunity.

There is one positive item, one huge negative and one poor implementation
point.

The positive is that I think the mechanism, or put another way the Rosetta
Stone platform, is mostly good. The combination of visual and aural, with a
relatively simple screen-is-one-concept approach, is good.

The negative for me was the actual _content_ itself. I learned about ladders,
and horses and crazy things that not once have I encountered here in Paris. It
would have been helpful to learn food items, grocery store items, things folks
(even tourists) would likely find useful.

I hesitate to mention this because it might not have been a Rosetta Stone
objective, nor might it fit into their framework/platform. But, there were no
verb tense lessons. Even just rote learning of "je voudrais ..." [I would like
...] would get you out of 80% of the conversational jams when trying to get a
sandwich, or similar.

The poor implementation point is that I did not experience any good luck using
their voice recognition engine. Perhaps it is because I really have horrible
French pronunciation. However, isn't that the very situation Rosetta is trying
to correct? I found no way to discover _why_ it was upset with my
pronunciation. It was just a very frustration experience.

~~~
rms25
Pimsleur is all about pronunciation, you should try it.

~~~
mdaniel
I thought that Pimsleur was basically a language podcast: i.e. unidirectional
content. _Hearing_ someone speak a native language is not the same as having
ones pronunciation evaluated, which is also separate from learning proper
pronunciation.

But yes, after hearing all of the raving reviews in this thread, maybe I
should give it a closer look.

~~~
dpark
The first lesson is free in most (all?) languages, so you can give it a try if
you want. You just have to give them an email address. After the reviews in
this thread, I decided to give it a try, and it seems like a nice product. I'm
planning to buy the first level (Italian), and I'm now just trying to decide
between the audio-only and the "Unlimited" that they've introduced recently,
which throws in flash cards and some reading material.

It is "one way", but if you're able to dedicate time to it, the "they
pronounce", "you pronounce" will probably work well. If you're halfway
listening in the car, then it probably won't work.

------
surferoso
downvote me please, but why is this on HN? I am currently learning Swedish
just because we moved here for work, but English is the language we ALL speak
at work, no matter where we come from. most HNers would need to learn a
language if they get a job overseas for daily survival outside of work, @ work
I bet 100% will be speaking English.

~~~
throwawaytruth
Anything that falls within topic as long as the author frames to match the
guidelines ("anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"). Don't
believe me? Try looking back at some of the /best lists in archive.org for
politics, crime, or sports. They are there and it's the high rep Hners posting
them. This is all about framing it right as long as you are seen in a
favorable condition for framing the item.

So yeah, that's how it is. I am sure to expect a counter stating why this is
on-topic, or how this one topic is rare etc etc. Framing. Frame shit well,
anything looks like gold.

\----

The backstory? HN tells you to read <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>
and <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> but not even the regulars do
it. No one follows the rules, because the rules are the regulars and hive mind
make the rules. They make this their land to stomp on all and armchair speak.
And that's the truth. I can pull references all day.

If ever tried swearing here? Or giving a point against the masses? Downvoted
right? Blame the hive mind and their inability to think on their own.

Now check a regular high rep HNer. He swears, he goes against the masses tells
them "What are you all thinking? I am ashamed of these comments here"

A bazillion votes right? Same content, different framing.

Before this post ends up as a dead link from users with too much emotion
overflowed from the workplace, remember if you want to do well in this
community, here are some steps to follow. I assure you these work. I've
experimented with them and have studied high rep members for months

* Circle jerk with reference, your point must inflate the previous point if not disagree with reference.

* Frame your shit. Follow the masters and their styling, they can make cooking a pasta HN worthy. It's amazing actually they really do have that bullshit making skill

* Bring in completely tangential points and references to counter anything written. The aim of the game is to disagree with just the right level of snark

* Never ask why HN is the way it is, this will only upset the hivemind, they don't like their emotions swayed.

* Attack YC companies, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, the community gets a kick out of this, they love seeing them fail and pointing how crappy they but never when those companies are busting their chops making something successful

* If you are really really really angry about something someone wrote, use a throwaway account this is _key_. HN regulars do this, all the time.

* Never interact with an HNer out of HN, not on twitter not on forums not on anywhere. The pseudonymity high they get off of being here makes them who they are. Don't take that away from them.

* Never comment on the original article (Cannot let the author know all the snark and non constructive criticism you leave them can you?)

* If you find a cool product on the internet that is not free, find a way to clone it in a weekend and put in on Github on rails and say "Tell HN: This is my piss poor clone done over the weekend give me karma now"

pg once/twice/three times?/I lost count/ tried to fix this community but it's
not fixable when the top community members fail to see they are full of
themselves and imparting that notion to newcomers that this is how the
conversation and behaviour must be.

You may ask, why am I still here? Well you see, after you get past the circle
jerk inflated ego mindset, there is actually treasure in here. And that sucks.
Love/hate relationship I tell you.

Did I once say frame your shit?

If you haven't already, would you mind reading about HN's approach to
comments?

------
everyguy
I taught myself Japanese using basically this method and it works.

------
awayand
dont believe everything you read

