30 minutes a day, means you're gonna make it.

What resources are you planning to use?

It costs $600 but it's a class that you attend in real life rather than an online program. One of the reasons why I prefer to attend a physical class over online is that when speaking, someone will be able to correct me where I'm wrong.

Oh, I see. If that is your reason, you'll get that through Baselang for far cheaper.

You have unlimited 1 on 1 tuition, with live teachers.

Japanese women are like Indian women. They are either very cute and pretty or very fugly. No middleground.

I think that's probably correct

Indian women definitely don't do it for me though so thankfully I won't have to learn Urdu

Learning Japanese Crew. I have been on and off with it for almost 2 years, the lack of consistency really kills you when learning a language so I am basically back to square one with some things. strangely though, some of the most random information just sticks in your head no matter how long you have stayed away from it.



I used to bring a notepad and the book posted above ^ and work on it during my break times. I would look at 1 page of Kanji, and write it down and speak the pronunciation, then close the book and write down the characters by memory. I managed to master about 60 kanji in a short time. One thing that has hampered me is, I got on a new shift at work and have lots of friends I work with now, and we all sit together at break times so I just stopped doing it.

I can ready hiragana no problem (but obviously don't know what im reading most of the time) Katakana is kind of a pain in the ass lol, really need to practice on it.

I also use the Anki app on my phone and downloaded a deck that has 2000 flash cards. it starts out with easy stuff and gets progressively harder. but again, it is something I have not done in 4-5 months.


I lack discipline with it, although, I do feel great when I sit down and really try and then finally understand something. or when I can read a sentence that has Kanji + Hiragana + Katakana, and I know what it says. but then when I finally get something done and feel good, I just stop for a while.

I always think now, sheit, how good would my Japanese be if I really stayed focused and kept at it every day?

I listen to Japanese music all the time, and watch a few anime and live action drama's. I might also start to watch Japanese boxing as well to help with listening

Bigly problem is, I spend more time looking up ways to effectively study, rather than actually studying. or wasting time on forums like this one, as the internet has shattered my attention span

planning to start studying it again. my goal will be to do 1.5 hours daily focused learning.


Would definitely like to live in Japan one day, hopefully when I am still a young lad. have always found Japanese culture very interesting and very appealing. I have always thought about trying to become an english teacher in Japan, and then branch out to other areas of work after getting settled in / more fluent in the language.
I have this book as well, and I have also heard it's like a godsend for learning Kanji, but I don't understand how, as it doesn't tell you the pronunciation of the characters

Indian women dont' do it for anybody

Thank you! I will look into that book. I just hope that the book focus more on the Cantonese version instead of Mandarin. The tone can be quite different between the two dialects. I consider English as my second language. Sometimes my Chinese accent do come out when I speak English.

I can understand why Chinese might be a hard language. I don't think we have past, present or future tenses. We definitely don't have "ed" at the end of words to make it past tense in Cantonese.

As a Portuguese brah, I agree.

In to learn to yell at people in German.

I am a big fan of duolingo. There is also a program called “Mango Languages” or something like that. You get access via a library card - great for practical language learning and good situations. I mainly need to brush up on what I learned in school.

Edit: there’s also some podcasts I will try to listen to on commutes and walks

Studying Russian at a Moscow University from February

family from Algeria/Morocco?Because as is the rest of our education system, it taught us to remember bullchit facts that had no real world use. Pounding individual word vocab and drilling grammer is not how one learns to speak a new language. It's how one learns to read a foreign language.

I remember having hour long spanish classes in high school. 45 minutes of worksheet/textbook/flashcard chit. MAYBE 15 minutes of speaking drills. Haram.
No one gives a chit when the level 3 languages is your mother and father's native language.
Definitely won't make itI've heard this for years, believed it to be true and then i heard Portuguese. It may share some grammatical rules and root words but they sound not even remotely close. Portuguese sounds like someone put spanish and arabic in a blender.

Also I recently returned from mexico with a brazilian co-worker. Waiters would speak to us in spanish, she would kind of understand, respond in Portuguese, it'd fuk everything up then we'd just default to english.
agreed. people think they need to enroll in some course, buy some chitty (and epensive) rosetta program and alter their life to pick up the basics.

Grab Pimsleur, dedicate 30 minutes of your day to doing one lesson per day, sprinkle in that day's newly learned words/phrases into your day to day situations, continue for 30 days profit. You won't be remotely fluent but you will have developed this confidence boosting base that allows you to THEN go pick up a grammer book, visit additional websites, etc that will help you solidify the language. Most people go balls deep from the jump and quit before the end of 3 weeks.

I WAS a huge fan of duolingo (https://forum.obnoxiousbrutes.com/showt...0193141&page=1) but quite honestly it's just as bad as the classroom work we get in american schools. It gives an extremely false confidence in your target language. What ends up happening is you spend hours and hours "gaming" this language, remember what words/phrases look like but you're not speaking enough. Most people try to pick up a foreign language to speak it to people not just to read literature. People underestimate the importance of developing new muscle memory in their mouths to form the new sounds.Would have been cheaper in Minsk, but that will prob be a really fun experience.

WTF this is relevant to my interests. Two years ago, I made the decision to learn Spanish. From scratch. I took German in high school, and now, many years later, am knee-deep in espanol.

Language red-pills incoming

1. You have to be motivated. You need to have a very clear-cut reason why you're going to dedicate time out of your day to study your target language. Mamby-pamby "oh I just wanna fuk around wit this app" doesn't cut it. Make sure your reason for wanting to learn a language is clarified and specific. Otherwise you will not follow through. You have to have a goal you're trying to achieve by learning your language. Whether it be work, romance, travel opportunities, familial, or whatever reason. No clear-cut easily stated reason = guaranteed failure. "Oh yeah I've always wanted to learn Japanese because I enjoy tentacle porn" doesn't work. "I'm going to learn Japanese so I can watch un-edited, difficult to find tentacle porn" does work. See? Clear cut honest motivation.

2. The toughest pill to swallow in our cell-phone age:You cannot learn a foreign language as an adult by fiddling with an app sporadically whenever you happen to have downtime every other day. You will retain nothing. Rather, you can only learn by dedicating a set period of time to a planned out curriculum.You can almost make a game out finding the free-time to get your language study in for the day. I need 30 minutes each and erry day, and sometimes I'll get pretty creative in how I carve out that 30 min. That in of itself actually gives you a sense of accomplishment.


So there you go, those two rules are what separates the 3% who actually achieve language proficiency from the 97% that give up. There is a small rule #3 that I should mention: Don't try to tackle material that is too advanced for your current level. Be humble. Many people give up by saying "WTF, I studied Russian for two weeks and I can't read Dostoevsky in his native word?! Fuk it, I'm giving up!" This is a journey with small increments each day (every day).






1. Pick a single program that has a set curriculum. This could be a textbook series, computer program, web service, an actual class, whatever. You need to select your "central resource" from which everything else will be ancillary. The most important element is that this curriculum teaches you the rules of the language. FYI - Rosetta Stone does not teach you any of the rules, it merely infers them. You need something that directly explains WHY you're conjugating a verb this way rather than that.

2. After a month into your program, supplement with an audio program. This could take many forms. The idea is that you should start building your hearing skills. Our brains are actually designed to pick up language via audio. For 200,000 years homo sapiens were illiterate. Our brains don't need to see words to build vocabulary. Examples: Pimsleur, Language Transfer, Michael Thomas, youtube music covers of english songs (srs), and slow-spoken songs in your native language.

3. After about 5 months, see if you can get your hands on any language test materials. Specifically the european test level materials (ie, A1 (absolute beginner), A2, B1 (int), B2, C1, C2). You can use these to asses your progress.

4. As you try to move from beginner to intermediate (or A2 to B1) pick up a linguistics book about your target language. This helps explain A LOT and will help things "click" as you begin to make more complex sentence formations. For example, "The Story of French" or "The Story of Spanish" by Julie Barrow, or "A History of the Japanese Language" by Bjarke Frellesvig.

5. At around 6 months in, your 5 months of audio supplements should make watching tv in your target language a lot easier. "Extra" in spanish (sitcom where they intentionally speak slowly) on youtube was a big help for me. But keep it simple, don't get overwhelmed trying to watch spanish language netflix shows yet. This is where people get easily frustrated and give up. Rather, build up a youtube subscriber list of language education/discussion in your target language (look on the web for lists of good youtube series).

6. Around now is also the time to start hitting the language podcasts. "News in Slow XXX" or the Duolingo podcast, etc are all good. Google for some lists of best podcasts for learning your target language, and see which ones "fit" for you.

7. Figure out what the B2 level is for your language and keep up the materials to reach it. Once you do - Bam! All of the native-level tv shows are fair game. For spanish, I wouldn't dream of watching "La Casa de Papel" or "Club de Cuervos" (popular spanish netflix shows) before this point. Also, try to watch live action stuff - it helps to see peoples mouths moving and gesticulating with the words. The absolute worst thing you could do is try to watch The Simpsons or some other dubbed show. They often have to speak at such a rapid pace to keep with the segments that even native speakers get confused. As always, see if playing the vids at 0.75x speed is an option (and subtitles of course!)

8. Around this same point, you need to be practicing speaking with others. Actually maybe around step 2 even, if you're comfortable. Meetup.com has a lot of helpful options, as does italki, or taking actual classes (library, community college, adult ed courses at universities). Speaking to someone, having them respond, then speaking back (creating a conversation flow) will help imprint vocabulary (and rules) into your brain.

9. Purchase a kindle (the $45 one) and load up a bunch of books in your target language on there. You can get tons for free via the kindle lending library program that amazon has. Or load pdf's you download. Then install a XXX-English dictionary, and set it as the primary dictionary on your kindle. Now when you're reading an A1-B2 book on your kindle, and you come across a word you don't know you can just tap the word with your finger and the english translation instantly appears.

I would want to achieve steps 1-8 before going to a country where they speak the target language. Personally I want to be at B2.

10. The apps like Duolingo, flashcards, and Rosetta Stone are great for reviewing material. Not learning new material - you won't retain it from them. But you will retain stuff you learn elsewhere then review on these.

It is, but why the fuk would I choose to live in Minsk over Moscow lol

Aw crap I didn't realize I'd written so much. Concerning Spanish, here's what worked for me:

- I purchased Fluenz (Latin American Spanish)



- After completing Level 1 of Fluenz, I began listening to Pimsleur spanish during my commute



- While in the kitchen, or cleaning, or whatever, I would listen to the following podcasts: Spanish Obsessed, News in Slow Spanish, Duolingo Podcast, and Doorway to Mexico. I listened to many, MANY spanish podcasts and "click" with these four. SpanishPod, Coffeebreak Spanish, etc just didn't do it for me.
- I began listening to covers by KevinyKarla. By listening to spanish covers, I was able to insta-translate a lot since I already knew the english lyrics. Here's an example:



- I took a night class (once a week) at my local community college. Cost me $90 for 8 week course. Got to do plenty of talking.

- I traveled to Medellin, Colombia and enrolled at Toucan language school for a week. Many major cities all over the world offer week-long "immersion schools" for english speakers. There were literally five different schools in Medellin alone. They gauge your level and put you in a class with people at that level. Typically its for like 6 hours a day, and then you chill with your classmates or go off and explore the rest of the time. I had a blast.

- There's a couple of youtube shows I enjoy (Nachotime Spanish, Butterfly Spanish) and I try to watch them a few times per week.

I also seek out a few spanish-learning message boards to discuss and ask questions with people also learning spanish.


Oh, I should mention there is one other thing that you can start right from the get-go: Language-learning discussion podcasts. Like just podcasts where the hosts talk about strategies and stuff about fluency. I enjoy "I will teach you a language", "Actual Fluency" and "the Fluent Show".

este



huehuehue



Y'know one other thing I should mention - when you're at the B2 level (again, you should be constantly assessing where you are - at least every 3 months or so), start using the target language "version" of things. Watching MLB? Well then watch it with the spanish simulcast. Likewise for other sport events. Same goes with video games - there's some tutorials on how to get alternate language audio & text for games on Steam. In fact there's this one game called Pillars of Eternity, where a guy made a script compiler that merges any two of the 6 languages that are available (its a text base game). So if you select the spanish/english option, the game text will read stuff like "Tu caminas por el bosque/You walk through the forest."

Another Spanish learner here (from Australia). You Americans are lucky that you have many spanish speakers around you to practice with.

I've been studying properly for 8 months now and I have been taking classes at university which are actually great and I had 2 great teachers.

What I use to supplement my spanish learning:

HelloTalk - An app where you can speak with natives in spanish and they can practice english with you. I recommend this one after you have some basic foundations down. The only downside is its hard to find someone who is keen to practice with you every 1-2 days.

Youtube Channel: Why Not Spanish? - Have great videos ranging from Beginner to intermediate. 90% is presented in spanish and there is only Spanish subtitles to use if you need them, which I find very helpful because I can read better than I can listen.

Netflix in Spanish WITH Spanish subtitles - Do not bother with spanish netflix in english subtitles imho, its pointless. Once you have a serious foundation watch some netflix in Spanish with Spanish subtitles.

Find spanish speaking friends - They aren't in abundance here in Australia like the US but I have managed to find a couple of Spanish speaking friends who will speak Spanish with me regularly.

Good work making this thread OP, I was actually thinking about making one exactly like this a couple of weeks ago but was too lazy.

To anyone who has acquired a foreign language recently, does it actually become a 6th sense like your default language? Where it feels like youre exchanging emotions not words?

I would say Portuguese sounds like a mix between Spanish and Russian (and by Portuguese I mean, European Portuguese). But it also depends on the region. Brazilian Portuguese sounds completely different from the Portuguese we speak in Portugal.

in...


started learning German and Arabic ... been doing it for almost 9 weeks now

Been learning Spanish for 4 years now after switching from Italian. To me, Spanish and Italian are more similar than Spanish and Portuguese. Throw in French and Romanian and you have all the Romance languages with similar aspects.

A couple foundational things:

I started by using ANKI spaced repetition flashcards to learn the 1000 most used words in the language (with Spanish verbs, they will be the infinitives so you'll also need to study conjugations). Make sure the words are used in a sentence to gain context. As well as having the sentence in english. This is memorization but it gives you a base to work from as you start listening to and reading your chosen language. You can also string some broken toddler sentences together.

Getting pronunciation correct is pretty important. Doesn't matter how much you can say if no one knows what you're saying. Most people bring their english sounds into the target language which causes problems for people trying to understand you. Look for guides on how to pronounce every letter including what the position of your jaw, tongue and throat should be. Go syllable by syllable and try to nail the correct sound. Record yourself speaking a sentence and have natives on an app like HelloTalk critique it and provide feedback.

Listening comprehension is very challenging. We're used to the rhythms and cadences of our own language and not so much our new language. To develop your ear for your target language, listen to a sentence and then repeat it back. You won't be able to repeat the correct words but you can mimic the rhythm by humming or saying gibberish. Do it enough and your brain will start to pick up the rhythms and patterns that natives frequently use.

Thanks brah - I'm going to take a look at HelloTalk. I hadn't used that before.

Bump, for weekend miscers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oudgdh6tl00




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGjqkoG2H4w

Nice that this is a thread. I've been slowly improving my Spanish/French/Italian over the years but have been wanting to get more into it. 2019 I plan to travel to Mexico or South America, so I think I'm going to do more of a Spanish focus and try to achieve some intermediate level of competency there. I kind of switch between the ones I study which I'm sure is bad practice since they're such similar languages. Spanish seems the most useful second language as an American by far. My mother is from Italy and it would be nice to talk to my Nonna in Italian (never actually been able to have a conversation with her in my entire life because her English is bad and she's uneducated) but she's 91 so not too sure about that one.

Italian is definitely one of my favourite languages, due to it's melodic sound.

Spanish just seems too damn practical to ignore learning, if a person wants to travel (and especially for an American, like you point out).

I think it is very important to speak with people in the language you are learning even if you are not very good yet, so that you develop your social skills and learn the way to interact and be funny with people.

there was a guy on youtube called "MAttvsJapan" and he did the AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) style of learning. basically all your free time is dedicated to learning the language, writing / listening / speaking / whatever else.

so he became proficient in Japanese in like 2 years, but when he went to live in Japan he wasn't happy because his social skills we chit

Tried Michel Thomas method couldn't stand it. Hearing the goober students fuk up live was cringey for me. Pimsleur was my method of choice. Tried doing both at the same time for my third language and definitely recommend just choosing one or the other because they serve the same purpose (learning bitesized situational phrases, and building base vocab)We butted heads like a year ago in your travel thread because I told you I was a boujee traveler and you said you preferred to go off the beaten path. Now here you are telling me you're going to the mega city that is Moscow when the language is the same in minsk, the women are just as attractive, and it's cheaper? come on mane.
Pshhhhhhhh good luck with that.I like hearing swedish for the same reason. Very melodic.

spanish was my first language, so i'm trying to learn italian now. i know the basics through duolingo but i always get bored.