This is a more focused follow up to a question I had the other day about moving to other countries. I’m wondering what the best options are for learning a new language at the moment. I’m vaguely aware of companies like Duo-lingo losing their reputation lately and it’s hard to trust the top google results nowadays with all the SEO junk. So does anyone have suggestions for trustworthy/useful sites for learning a new language? If it matters, in particular I’m interested in trying (In roughly this order) Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish.
As far as I know, the current best practice for language learning is called Krashen’s Hypothesis or Comprehensible Input. Basically, we can learn a language best by hearing words that are slightly more complicated than what we already know. I am learning Korean and there is a nice YouTube channel where a guy makes videos of himself playing games and he talks about what’s on the screen at different levels of complexity. You could look for something like that in the language you want to learn.
CI is the correct answer. The ppl at dreamingspanish have a great breakdown of why it works. Chinese is a bit tougher because its much harder to find CI content, especially for beginner, but I’ve made faster progress in both spanish and chinese than I have with any other method.
I tried all the other methods people suggested below for years (flash cards, audio courses, reading); none of them worked. You might memorize words, but you won’t actually be able to understand someone speaking to you. I have a friend who has a duolingo 3+ years streak (meaning she uses it every day), and still can’t understand a native speaker talking at a beginner level. If she’d have spent even 1% of that time doing comprehensible input she’d be much further along.
dreamingspanish
Thanks for the recc. I was half expecting it to force a pay gate to simply watch any of the videos (the internet can make me cynical like that!) and better yet, they have a superbeginner video on an exact topic I was interested in learning about after some South American immigrant friends had brought it up. Immersion almost seems ‘too good to be true’ because one can learn interesting content more enthusiastically than studying it formally, I’ve found the same with history and political theory.
I’ve never seen any persuasive evidence to support Krashen’s hypotheses.
Krashens hypothesis is just that people acquire languages by understanding messages. Not by studying grammar, memorizing vocab, and “traditional” learning (IE based on skinner’s method, of error=punish, correct=reinforce).
Not only is CI backed up by evidence, and by the many polyglots who have successfully learned many languages through CI / immersion, you’d also need to show evidence of babies not learning their first language this way to refute it (IE show evidence of babies learning their first language by studying grammar and doing flashcard study).
Adults are different from babies.
“This just in…”
My advice for future: just try to use language for things that interest you. It doesn’t matter what it is. Youtube videos, films, books, games, anything!
Great way to learn a language indeed. And even while browsing:
Toucan is a browser extension which changes some words or sentences on all websites you browse to the language you selected. Clicking on the word/sentence will show you the word in your language together with a “listen” button to hear how it sounds.
I used it for a while and installed it on a browser profile I only use to browse generic content like news, nothing private.
I’m tri-lingual, and can make myself understood for basic stuff and can generally get the gist in 3 more. I learned English by immersion in my teens, probably the ideal age. When I arrived in America, beginning of summer, I joined all youth summer activities available in town; baseball, archery, joined a Scout group, etc. I made friends and was interacting in English constantly. By School start, I was placed in regular classes. My sister didn’t do these things and was placed in many English for learners classes, with foreign students. I speak much better than her.
Also, I watched Sesame Street, Mr Roger’s, and other children’s shows
My kids have not lived in an English speaking country, but game in English, watch all media in English, with subtitles in English, and attended bi-lingual schools. I spoke in English with them a lot while they were growing up. They speak very good English, with my daughter having EU C2 level, the highest official level in a foreign language.
Watching foreign media, with subtitles in that language, including children’s shows, reading foreign news and stuff, etc. helps a lot.
Also, in many areas there are foreign language oriented Meetups.
I’ve seen some variant of this advice in a few places, but I don’t really understand how it’s meant to work at the start. If I don’t understand anything being said, how do I begin to start translating and learning? I’ve been watching anime for years and while I know a handful of really common words or phrases that tend to get said in isolation, I don’t know anything about the grammar or most vocabulary that isn’t neatly isolated from the rest of a sentence. If you asked me to try to say even a basic sentence or listen and understand one, I’d be lost. Thinking about it now, I don’t think I even know some of the basic touristy phrases like how to order food or ask for directions. Most of the things I do know seem quite useless in real life. (SUGOI!)
I suppose technically this is how we all learn our first language as a child but… that kind of just happened at a time I can’t really remember. I have no idea how to replicate that as an adult.
So do you have any insight on how to do this?
You’re right, staring blankly at media when you know nothing at all, even children’s programming, is a waste of time for languages as foreign as Japanese. That’s why it’s usually recommended to first go through a basic grammar guide like Yokubi or Tae Kim, and grind some basic vocab through Anki with a deck like Kaishi.
If you don’t know the basic alphabets (kana) yet, you can learn to read them as early as right now, it’s the first thing any learner should do IMO, and the good news is that it can be done in less than a week’s time or even just a few hours. I highly recommend Tofugu’s guides for that purpose.
Set up Yomitan, it’s a chrome extension to look up words in your browser instantly and can connect with anki to create flashcards, together they’re the backbone of my studies. Supports many languages, not just Japanese. Note that it doesn’t come with pre-installed dictionaries, you have to look up yomitan dictionaries for the language of your choice.
All ressources linked are free
Btw, Sugoi is a totally useful word in real everyday life too ;)
Ooh so much information! I’m saving this to give it proper attention later, thank you very much
(Now, little dummy myself, don’t forget to come back here and do exactly what you said you would, please)
I wouldn’t attempt that. Try to get some in-person practice with native speakers, either wherever you are now, or (better) by travelling to the countries of interest. If neither of those works for you, take a class with a human instructor. We are all wired for that, and not for learning languages from computer screens.
