Learning languages (open thread)
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Quite a few of us here are polyglots or at minimum learnt another language in adulthood.
I'm curious what methods do you use to quickly pick up a language. Is it Duolingo and italki? Do you take courses in-person? Do you watch lots of movies and TV shows with the subtitles turned off?
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it's clear to me that nothing rivals a course with a proper teacher. i haven't yet had the chance to compare course over video talk to in-person, but i suspect it's similar to the difference between an in-person therapy and video-conference therapy - i'd do it when i need to, but i'll do in-person when i can.
as for how to do it - i think it's best to have as many varied learning opportunities as you can at the same time. right now for Czech i do in-person courses and Anki spaced repetition and Duolingo and listening to podcasts and chatting to friends over IM and proper talking. language learning has four fronts - comprehension in text (aka reading), production in text (aka writing), comprehension in spoken (aka listening) and production in spoken (aka speaking), and i don't think you can really feel confident in a language unless you tackle all four. production especially.so essentially my tips would be:
- find as many instances as possible to practice your target language and have them be as varied as possible. online apps and chatting with people and posting memes online in your target language.
- watch Language Jones videos because he's got some amazing additional tips that are universally true. (for real though, a similar conversation recently came up on Hebrewverse and like three people independently recommended his stuff. he's really good.)
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I personally learn best in a course with a teacher and with other students. I have done one-on-one lessons before, and this works for some people, but I need the opportunity to practice speaking with others who are not as good at the target language as well. I prefer to have this be frequent (like daily or 3x a week). I can and do learn quickly with one.
I do have a friend who learns very well from books, online resources, and private tutoring, and he learned Chinese in about a year to a pretty solid level, after which point he went to China for study abroad. But that's not me, I prefer a class.
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Wouldn’t call myself a polyglot but for Japanese I learnt mainly through absorption, with one-on one classes to grasp the grammar (which I can’t say I’ve exactly grasped lol).
I learnt some Cantonese and Mandarin through in-person classes and watching a lot of movies but without being surrounded by it it just leaks out of my brain.
So basically I think it depends on the person. I know some people who only took classes in Japanese back in the UK and ended up exceptionally good at doing the written exam and can read books and academic articles but can’t order in a restaurant as nobody can understand their pronunciation.
