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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
HTML What's the best way to learn a new language?
Bayart wrote 8 hours 9 min ago:
The best way is the most natural : speaking it, regardless of ability.
Get a native speaker, ask them to teach you the very basics, get them
to keep speaking the language to you and correct you as you go. It
doesn't matter how laborious it is as long as you're _active_.
At the point you can get a basic conversation going you can start
actually looking at the grammar and the written language.
As a human being, your brain is made for spoken language first. Writing
is still new and cognitively less important.
ekjhgkejhgk wrote 7 hours 50 min ago:
I speak 4 languages, each learned in a completely different way.
We can argue what "best" means, but from my experience the fastest is
buy a grammar with exercises, read the grammar and do the exercises.
> Get a native speaker (...)
It's extremely hard work for the other person until you're past a
certain level. I tried this, and they struggled even though I could
already speak a bit, they they were a professional and I was paying
them well. If you're at zero, this is fantasy.
Aachen wrote 1 day ago:
Did I miss the part where the title was answered?
The article mentions some building blocks like microlearning, explains
how researchers test people with, for example, fictional words and
shapes to avoid that you draw on prior knowledge, states that "experts
make a case for human instruction" (but not which case or how that
human instruction should be shaped or structured), and shares shards of
how well the author did on the different tests. There's a lot of links,
which is nice, so I can dive deeper into the things mentioned (I've
read a bit about 'statistical learning' and plan to read the linked
paper on microlearning which is new to me), but I am not a step further
in what (combination of) method(s) is the "best way" up learn a new
language. Did I overlook it or fail to put some pieces together?
Edit: that microlearning paper (10.22034/meb.2022.355659.1066) is a
waste of time if you've read the submission whence it was linked and
know about spaced repetition. The paper makes a case that society has
become more fast-paced since Charles Babbage made the difference engine
in the 1800s and so microlearning can help us by breaking down lessons
to fit into our day, lowers costs per lesson etc., but might also
fragment the learning (and other obvious pros and cons). The most
interesting part was a forgetting curve cited from another paper
Stevvo wrote 17 hours 41 min ago:
the answer given in the article is "sustained exposure, interaction,
feedback, and social use over many months or years"
Aachen wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
Hmm yeah I guess it could be that they see this sound byte (quoting
one scientist's opinion, not a study's results) as having answered
the question. It's not reported to be the best way though, just
what "Achieving fluency in the real world requires" (any at all?)
The article speaks of so much research but, if this is indeed the
'answer', uses nothing of it in answering the question. Could have
just put that sound byte up top and saved themselves and us the
further trouble...
Also, what's feedback even supposed to mean? Like Anki? Like having
a speaker correct your grammar from the get-go as you speak, or do
you speak a bunch first and learn by stumbling and do they correct
major mistakes at first only? There's a million ways to fill
meaning into these words. Sustained exposure is obvious, but none
of the other words are any guide
jama211 wrote 16 hours 14 min ago:
Thank you!
fallinditch wrote 1 day ago:
Watching kids TV
nchmy wrote 1 day ago:
I learned Spanish just by being immersed and not really worrying about
anything.
I mostly just focused on real, practical vocab. And the verb
conjugation came with time.
I ignored verb conjugations at first - eg "He eat food."
Then learned present tense and used tricks to speak past and future
tense "Tomorrow he eats food" (but you don't even need present tense
for that!)
Then learned the simpler of the two ways to speak in the future - it's
equivalent to "I am going to __" rather than "I will __" (in Spanish
each verb needs conjugation when saying I will, but you use infinitive
when saying going to.
Likewise I picked one of the past tenses (one refers to specific point
in time, other is just "in the past"). Doesn't matter, in practical
usage.
The rest - progressive, imperative, etc all comes with time. You don't
really "need" them though. I still don't know the subjunctive tenses
(which are sort of hypothetical, feeling etc) and effectively
communicate with people about literally anything.
Most important of all, you just have to be humble, get rid of your
pride/shame, and be willing and eager to make mistakes. I've spoken
with thousands of native speakers and never had a bad experience due to
lack of proficiency, even when I knew nothing. This is what most
learners of language (or anything) lack, and they therefore are too
afraid to ever actually practice. They need a psychologist more than a
language teacher.
treetalker wrote 1 day ago:
For me, the sentence method works well.
1. I get new sentences from Glossika (they've thought through which
sentences to present, and in what order â i.e., the curriculum). I
get a few at a time â between 5 and 50, depending on how difficult
the target language is / how close it is to one I already know.
2. I put those sentences into Mochi, with a template that automatically
creates and embeds audio files of the target language.
3. I do the learning, memorizing, and reviewing of the sentences in
Mochi using FSRS. I practice writing and pronunciation as I go along
with the cards. (Using Mochi also helps me maintain languages I've
learned in the same place.)
4. I return to Glossika and occasionally cram pronunciation practice
from the human-generated audio there (Mochi is TTS, after all).
5. I supplement with TV and radio for immersion. When I reach a higher
level, I start reading books.
6. Travel or living abroad, when I can.
The real trick is getting a couple new sentences and using SRS every
day. Consistency moves mountains!
mandeepj wrote 23 hours 58 min ago:
I haven't tried, but I think most of the steps you have listed can be
done in NotebookLM. Thanks for sharing your workflow. It's great.
jonplackett wrote 1 day ago:
Michel Thomas is the answer (or it was for me anyway as someone
previously TERRIBLE at languages)
BBC made a documentary about him where he teaches a French gcse to the
6 worst kids in the school, in I think 2 weeks. [1] He was also in the
French resistance, survived concentration camps and is generally a very
interesting person.
HTML [1]: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL94A517B00A16C187&si=4eAvjj...
HTML [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Thomas
robocat wrote 12 hours 27 min ago:
I tried to find a good article summarising Michel's language teaching
method.
This references his tapes: [1] ChatGPT gave a reasonable looking
answer to my prompt "Summarize what is special about how Michel
Thomas teaches Language".
Maybe just another case of a highly intelligent person coming up with
an "obvious" solution that is great: yet is not quite so obvious to
others. He clearly was talented - but also he avoided explaining the
rationale behind his method for years.
HTML [1]: https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/learning-european-languages-m...
nchmy wrote 1 day ago:
His successor is [1] , which is just a labour of love by a genius
polyglot and language teacher.
So much so, in fact, that the owners of the Michel Thomas IP tried to
sue him for stealing the methodology. The EFF, back when they
actually did anything, shredded them. [2] Please check Language
Transfer out and support him how you can.
HTML [1]: https://languagetransfer.org
HTML [2]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/no-you-cant-pate...
zaken wrote 1 day ago:
> Occupations Nazi hunter
Amazing
shartshooter wrote 1 day ago:
I spent my childhood in a rural town but learning Spanish from various
teachers from 4th grade through high school. I always did well but
focused too much on the process of Spanish such as getting very good at
conjugating verbs without knowing what the meant
After several years away from Spanish I picked it back up in college
and began traveling and living off and on in Latin America
I remember the first times I started dreaming in Spanish, or the first
time I had a screaming match with someone trying to steal money from
me. I would unconsciously think of a phrase in English and constantly
be trying to convert it to Spanish all day long. It was the most fluent
Iâve ever felt
A few months ago I went on a trip to Central America and was worried my
Spanish would have been lost after over a decade away. Turns out that
quite a bit is still there
Folks regularly compliment me on my pronunciation(which is hugely
important and shows that youâre trying, folks give you so much grace
if you donât know the words but are trying)
I also find that I can speak far better than I can listen. I regularly
have to ask people to repeat themselves or slow down, which is
frustrating to me but what can you expect after not staying sharp?
Last thing: Iâll echo another commenter who said to listen to music.
My high school Spanish teacher had us listening and singing shakira.
Sheâd print off the lyrics and weâd sing along. This was hugely
valuable for pronunciation and flow. Also, old Shakira stuff is great
Nothing beats the pressure of using a language all day in a place where
they donât speak your language.
I remember meeting a backpacker from another country who spoke English
but would only speak Spanish to when we traveled and would pull out her
dictionary regularly and make notes in her notebook. I learned that
Germans are crazy disciplined and that that discipline pays off. Her
Spanish was amazing after only a few months in the country
empath75 wrote 22 hours 27 min ago:
I took 5 years of latin, a year of college french and 2 years of high
school german. I can speak or read exactly zero of those languages.
I have never taken a Spanish class.
I spent 3 months in central america 15 years ago and even _today_ I
can converse a little bit in spanish and read spanish reasonably
well. There is nothing better than total immersion.
slfnflctd wrote 1 day ago:
> I regularly have to ask people to repeat themselves or slow down
I don't know how true it is, but there is a perception that Spanish
is often spoken very rapidly by native speakers. I'm sure this is
more true of some languages than others, but I noticed it very early
on when I attended a bilingual elementary school for a couple years.
steveBK123 wrote 1 day ago:
> Nothing beats the pressure of using a language all day in a place
where they donât speak your language.
Nothing beats immersion I'd agree. I found self-studying very
difficult because sure I could try and read or listen, but I had no
one to really judge my writing/speaking responses back. Or you learn
how to speak like a textbook written in the 80s.
> I also find that I can speak far better than I can listen.
I had the same problem when traveling with a non-fluent understanding
of the local language. It logically makes sense though - you only
need to learn 1 way to say a thing, but theres 100s of ways for
someone to respond to you.
> Folks regularly compliment me on my pronunciation
Conjugation/grammar & pronunciation go a long way. You can fill in
vocabulary gaps by reaching for similar enough words, describing the
thing, or offering up the English word for the thing and get there
often... provided you can place it within a decently constructed
sentence.
I also find knowing the local way of saying umm/uhh helps a lot so
people understand you are slowing down/thinking/struggling for the
right words.
human4567 wrote 1 day ago:
Just read the language's wikipedia word by word, each time trying to
predict the next word. After several repetitions you'll be an expert in
that language, easy peasy.
linhns wrote 1 day ago:
Live with it, think in it.
Ylpertnodi wrote 1 day ago:
Learn your own languages' grammar.
Then learn (in all tenses) the below verbs that are (usually) followed
by infinitives
Can / am able
Must/ to have to
To want to
Then, 'to be' and 'to have' (to go with the above).
Vocabulary...including a boatload of infinitives.
realPtolemy wrote 1 day ago:
I recall that my old German teacher taught us that listening to Music
in a particular language, and watching TV where they speak a language,
were the two best ways to learn a languages.
Her reason for why: Context and various slang words are grasped much
quicker compared to the cumbersome process of repeating of words and
phrases (She did not omit the need of the latter though).
She was great, 60 years old at the time and had us repeat the lyrics of
Rammstein songs in class, her favorite band.
kkkqkqkqkqlqlql wrote 1 day ago:
I don't know if music in a new language works so well. Lots of songs
have, like, "forced" slang or even changes in pronunciation or
syllable stress to meet the constraints of the lyrics. In my country
I see lots of people that only listen to music in English but don't
have any grasp of it.
Instead, I would go with cartoons or children/preteen's shows first.
In adult shows, even when not R-rated, characters usually speak way
too fast, or, what is most common, the voices are not mixed very
clearly, unlike cartoons.
What worked for me best (for English) was watching Disney movies, the
same ones I watched in Spanish.
> She was great, 60 years old at the time and had us repeat the
lyrics of Rammstein songs in class, her favorite band
This is hilarious, like "Now, kids, repeat after me, 'te quiero
puta'"
asdxrfx wrote 1 day ago:
Regarding the Cartoons totally, way easier to understand them
because they speaking slow. I'm learning German right now the same
way
duncan_britt wrote 1 day ago:
HTML [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis
dbbk wrote 23 hours 22 min ago:
This is basically what Dreaming Spanish does right? Just shit loads
of comprehensible input videos.
cousin_it wrote 1 day ago:
Yes! I stumbled on this idea myself (when trying to learn German) and
it works very well. I just read books and listen to audiobooks,
starting from a very basic level and then gradually higher level. The
talking improves almost automatically, without having to practice it.
aix1 wrote 13 hours 18 min ago:
> The talking improves almost automatically, without having to
practice it.
I absolutely don't doubt your experience, but find it interesting
that mine has been the exact opposite.
I listen to a lot of German and read a fair amount. As a result,
my listening and reading comprehension got pretty good (at least
B2). My writing has also improved significantly (probably also
around B2). However, I find that this does not transfer well to
speaking, which I need to practise separately in order to see a
meaningful improvement. After some targeted lessons I'm just about
approaching B1.
Perhaps transferability will improve once I reach a certain level
of fluency. I think this might have happened when I was learning
English. However, this was so long ago that I no longer remember.
For the next language I might try to overemphasise speaking from
day one just to see how the learning trajectory differs.
AreShoesFeet000 wrote 1 day ago:
This has worked for me. Just try to enjoy a self bombardment of the
foreign language and hope you will catch on eventually.
duncan_britt wrote 1 day ago:
I'm in progress learning Vietnamese this way. To me, whether it
works or not is no longer a question :)
Were you trying to learn a language or did it just happen to you?
amai wrote 1 day ago:
Does the article actually answer the question of the headline?
watwut wrote 1 day ago:
No.
Aldipower wrote 1 day ago:
1) Use Anki with pictures and pronunciation to get necessary
vocabulary. But it needs audio to learn pronunciation. Very important.
2) Speak, listen, speak, listen with native speakers in person.
_Nothing_ beats this!
3) Evening school is a bonus
amai wrote 1 day ago:
See also
HTML [1]: https://louisrli.github.io/blog/2023/06/13/effectively-using...
fatihpense wrote 1 day ago:
I like Anki because it is a calm piece of tech. It has been there for
a long time with the same behavior. There is a merit to its
boringness. You can also activate FSRS algorithm for supposedly
better spaced repetition in profile/deck settings. This was an
interesting read:
HTML [1]: https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/Spa...
ipnon wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs true that 70% of a language is about ~100-300 words. In
linguistics this is called the âcore sight setâ. If youâre in a
pinch traveling I recommend asking an AI for the 300 most frequent word
core sight set and cramming these with Anki. You can get gist with
about 10 hours of study and be much more useful than 100 hours of
Duolingo. With the core sight set and a generous amount of loan words
and gesticulation you can communicate practically any necessity to
anyone. It will by no means be elegant or poetic but it gets the job
done reliably. Itâs the 10,000 word long tail of vocabulary where a
language shines but itâs the first 300 where it lives and breathes.
ThinkingGuy wrote 1 day ago:
The focus on a small set of core vocabulary is one of the main
principles of the Pimsleur method, along with a strict spaced
repetition format. When I travel to a new country I always spend
about 15-20 hours beforehand doing the 30-minute Pimsleur lessons,
just to pick up basic survival vocabulary. I've always been satisfied
with the results.
kjellsbells wrote 1 day ago:
Frequency lists are very useful but learners need context in order to
use them, because little word atoms like prepositions, pronouns etc
are heavily over represented in the core set. So make sure to study
how to use those, and master the core to be/to have verbs too. Some
languages have two verbs that roughly translate as to be so you need
to crack that too.
Beware free lists on Ankiweb. They are very variable in quality.
Frankly better to build your own.
postsantum wrote 1 day ago:
I tried this is it didn't work. The most common words are the most
versatile too and need context
You can learn word "investigation" without context, but not get or
set
bondarchuk wrote 1 day ago:
I cannot find anything on google nor on google scholar under "core
sight set" that has anything to do with language.
In fact the term does not appear to exist at all.
srameshc wrote 1 day ago:
I love brazilian Portugese becuase I love Brazil and it's people and
culture. So I listen to a lot of brazilian music and I am always
curious about lyrics. I try to sing along, but it's hard sometimes to
read it in english and pronouncate, sometimes 't' is 'chi' ... I might
be wrong , I am new to the language and I am learning. I have picked up
a lot of words in my subconscious and I know what they mean and this is
probably a good way learn in my opinion.
shminge wrote 1 day ago:
I thought this was about programming languages before I saw it was from
BBC, making me ask - what is the best way to learn a new programming
language?
I'm guessing the answer is making small things, but what exactly? I've
made so many to do list apps I don't know what to do with them
strogonoff wrote 1 day ago:
When learning, motivation is first, everything else follows.
At some point I felt the drive to move on from Python as my main
language. There was no question of âhowâ: when I needed or wanted
to build anything, I would simply go with Go (later TypeScript) and
plow on. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what motivated that drive,
but I think it was probably curiosity after seeing examples in other
languages, wanting to be more competitive, andâletâs be
honestâthe basic desire to feel a little cooler in the eyes of
peers.
Be mindful of second-order volition here. Like when someone says âI
want to quit %BAD_HABIT%â, what they really say is âI want to
want to quit %BAD_HABITââif they really wanted to quit, they
would have already done it. Similarly, if you want to learn a
programming language, you are all set (unless it is so esoteric that
there are no suitable resources or references, which never happens),
but if you want to want to learn a programming language then what you
need is some lateral move (tricking yourself, putting yourself in
some situation, etc.) that makes you actually want to learn it.
These days learning a new programming language is a more sketchy
question, because LLMs drain a few major sources of motivation: you
can hardly feel cool for knowing how to program in a new language,
because anyone would rightfully assume it was written with an LLM;
you increasingly do not actually need to know a language, because a
model writes everything for you; the competitive advantage is
decreasing. Unlike speaking some human language, there is no society
of native speakers that would accept you more or treat you better
thanks to you speaking their language.
embedding-shape wrote 1 day ago:
> I'm guessing the answer is making small things, but what exactly?
I've made so many to do list apps I don't know what to do with them
My favorite way has always been to not just build small things, but
build small useful things. There is always something that could be
better, and there is always a subset of languages best for the task
at hand. If it's a CLI, then a language that can compile to binary
tends to be best (for me at least), so that already limits the
languages somewhat. Then depending on what the task is, it might make
sense to learn a new language for it.
Then naturally over the years I've picked up 10-15 languages this
way, by just following what each language seems best at, and not
being afraid of spending 2-3 weeks writing something basic.
Then for each language you learn, next one gets a lot easier,
especially when most mainstream languages today are Algol-like
languages and more similar to each other than different.
ivanjermakov wrote 1 day ago:
Writing one from scratch gives a lot of understanding to how it works
under the hood and in the process you learn right phraseology and
treat all languages as computational fronteds.
xandrius wrote 1 day ago:
As any language, the core is "why" do you want to learn it. Is it to
add it to a list and that's it? Then you might struggle by creating
todo lists or play pretend on Duolingo.
On the other hand, if you do have a goal in mind try to do tiny bits
of that.
My goal for natural languages is always connecting with another
culture at a deeper level than just using English. If that's the
case, you get someone to talk/write to and slowly do it. It won't be
instantaneous or dopamine fueled but after a few years you might
realise that you've been chatting with someone completely in their
language without major hiccups.
For programming languages, I understand that filling a CV is
tantalising and useful, so you've got to come up with projects and
things you'd actually like to be doing with such a language.
You could say you want to pick up COBOL for a future job, well figure
out what would make sense to use it for and go with that.
And if you really cannot think of anything, then you can fall back to
make something up: make a game with such a language (even better if
it is not meant for games), automate something, recreate a small tool
which you find frustrating. And even if after you have read this and
still cannot find a thing which gets you, maybe learning this
language is not within your current interests and you might start
considering to move on.
tmtvl wrote 1 day ago:
Make things that require you to use the parts of the language you
don't have a strong grasp on yet, so as to get to know those better.
Sorting algos, data structures, a kanren, and a library website would
be a good variety pack. And aside from that, reading codebases is
also important. Read the code of your CPAN equivalent, your
Alexandria equivalent, your Spring equivalent, and your SDL
equivalent.
dabinat wrote 1 day ago:
Create something you actually need, or port something you already
created in another language.
I needed a tool to get the contents of a remote zip file without
downloading the whole file. I wanted to learn Go, so I created the
tool with Go, then I ported it to Rust when I wanted to learn Rust.
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