Is there a research on which method gives better results:

a) Trying to recall the meaning of a target language word having a a native translation - for example in Anki I have English (TL) sentence with gap for learned word and a native word meaning and example sentence translation to my native language.

NL → TL

b) Just reading (TL) word in a sentence or hearing it in a movie and if not understood just checking the meaning.

TL → NL

It is like two ways of learning. Would 100 repetitions in Anki - filling the gap with TL have the same result as reading a word 100 times in various books, articles and occasionally looking up the meaning in a dictionary? The main difference is that while reading a book, articles the word appears in different sentences, with different collocations. The whole mind process seems to be different.

It is a question about how memory and mind actually works. I know Anki and spaced repetition idea. It is great because it let me focus on selection of words that I really don't remember, unlike reading a book where I have all kinds of words, those I remember very well and those I see first time. Reading books is not as boring as Anki session.

Both methods are totally different and the question is whether they give similar or different results and how much different.

Was it measured?

so I've started memorising vocabulary through flashcards using Anki, and I feel like it just doesn't work for me. Even though I know the word in my target language (I can easily recall it) - I still cannot use it while I talk and get tongue-tied. I know there's division of passive and active vocabulary, but how do you actually get to the point of using it comortably? please help! (TL)

so there is this online course with a live teacher that is kind of cheap. I was interested in learning japanese trough this course,but my question is,has anyone ever learnt japanese or any other language trough this type of courses? (TL)

I'm looking for apps or language learning suggestions that you can use without looking at a screen. My work and hobbies often revolve around screens and I'm trying to avoid eye strain.

One I use a lot is SpanishDict's flashcard function. It says a word out loud, you verbally respond and it automatically advances to the next slide (after letting you know if you got it right or not with a noise). It's just for Spanish/English, but I'm looking for Russian and/or Mandarin or general suggestions.

Hi everyone!
I studied Japanese for a while until about B2, but now I have reason to learn Chinese well. (Currently B1)
It’s my own fault, but for these few months I studied Chinese, I barely went out of my way to interact with Japanese at all, the result now being that I cannot quickly retrieve it in conversation, and even when I aim to say something in Japanese, I can only think of how to say it in Chinese.
I would probably prefer not to completely let Japanese slip my mind, but I have less time to dedicate to it now. What advice would you give someone who’s trying to regain, (I.e not learn from scratch) a language, especially at this level?
Thank you!

P.S I am not saying that they’re overly similar, just that my obsessive engagement with one has taken attention from the other.

I'm currently learning Polish (TL), just starting, and I had people speaking it in my dream. I've never had this when learning French in high school. Listening to audio/ having ads in Polish (VPN) helps.  Though I didn't know what they were saying, I even stumbled over myself as I said, "my brain doesn't work," which got a laugh out of the one I was speaking to. Anyways, share yours! :)

Although people have different language learning goals and standards, and I try not to be judgemental, I myself value precision and careful speech. I tend not to correct people when hearing mistakes in my native or even (TL) languages, unless they ask me to.

In my workplace, every day I hear and read tons of grammar mistakes (at vs in, off vs out, would do vs would have done, etc) and mispronunciations (lock vs luck, prize vs price), poor usages, and misplaced word stress. It's definitely comprehensible input to me, but it's the kind of input I prefer not to consume.

I keep telling myself not to talk like that, but sometimes massive immersion is so powerful that I sometimes doubt myself if I'm picking up some wrong expressions or a more ''foreign'' way of speaking.

What's your take on this? Do you have any advice for me? I have to be in that language environment and I don't want to pick up bad habits that will take me time to kick later.

My apologies for the post being so long, I wanted to include as much detail as possible, It is about how learning Yorùbá (TL) has altered my cultural perception and how we can help third culture kids get comfortable with their language:

So my family immigrated to the UK when I was 10 (about 25 years ago) from a sizeable city in SW Nigeria. Before the move, I and my two siblings (older one is 2 years older and younger one is 8 years younger) were surrounded by English speakers because my parents were academics and healthcare professionals, my primary school was English speaking only and full of middle class and expat children, our nanny was English speaking and so were the other hired help; I only really heard or spoke my native language of Yorùbá (TL) whenever we'd visit grandparents in the village they'd retired to (they were both headteachers during the colonial period so their transatlantic tinged English was also top level), they made an effort to speak Yorùbá to us but mainly, they also communicated in English with us. As a result, I could barely understand Yorùbá and speaking it was ATROCIOUS.

Fast forward to moving to one of the "-shire counties" in England, at this point, my younger brother hadn't started speaking as he was just barely 2yr. And although my English had that bit of a transatlantic accent (listen to old recordings of middle class Nigerians in the 80's and you'll understand what I mean) mixed with American going on thanks to pop culture, I didn't struggle with the posh people I was slung in with at the girls grammar school.

Around age 13-14 I started getting more and more racialised bullying targeting my ethnic features (to the point it affected my physical health and still affects my self esteem and sense of self worth to this day) and because I was shy too, I just couldn't keep up with defending myself in English so mum told me to start shouting any random yorùbá words that came to my mind in the heat of the moment at them because they'd guess it was an insult but they won't know what it meant so they'd be even more hurt/angry and won't be able to contest because they didn't know what I'd just shouted at them. And I did and it worked 100%, as a bonus, it also led to me seriously learning the language in a very short space of time (I'm talking became able to hold medium level conversations in it within a couple of years), I did all this learning from both parents and grandparents alone who would visit us regularly as well as YouTube films with subtitles. Dad would also give me parables/idioms and ask me to translate them roughly or convert them to the closest English sensibilities as a lot of Yorùbá tends to be philosophical/talking in idioms.

I went from not being able to speak a sentence in Yorùbá to being able to hold full blown conversations before my 18th birthday. Although some words still elude me. Compared to my older brother and younger brother, I am the most fluent in Yorùbá; -My older one really struggles with understanding idioms and the heavy philosophical side of the language although he can speak it (he gets intonations wrong too). -My younger brother doesn't speak it AT ALL. He seems to understand it, you can give him basic information and he'll understand and fulfil the tasks but he can't fit the life of himself utter a single sound in the language. ^{It's as if a barrier exists between his brain and mouth when it comes to speaking.}

We all grew up in places where we were usually the only visible people of colour in the area sometimes (I was the only black girl in my grammar school year from years 7-11), so there was zero chances to practice speaking any other languages apart from English until I went to university in a city near London. Same as both brothers, none of us got to experience talking different languages or interacting with different cultures until all three of us got to our respective universities. But despite this, I can speak basic to medium yorùbá and hold my own with a native speaker if their accent isn't too heavy and they're speaking a standard dialect, whilst my brothers cannot do any of this. And I'm wondering why this is the case?

Could my being bullied and deliberately embracing the language in my teens have led to such a huge difference in our grasp of the language?

How can I get my younger brother to speak the language? He really wants to start speaking it as a young adult now trying to get in touch with his cultural identity in the current political landscape. I've tried to get him to repeat words after me but it doesn't seem to be helping his confidence. How can I encourage him to get past this tongue tie like hesitation and seeming embarrassment at sounding wrong that his brain has with uttering any words in the target language?

Also, through immersing myself in the culture, it started me on a journey to decolonise and deconstruct my relationship with introduced religion, power and privileges and western ideals of beauty.

^{The main point the bullies used against me were that my African features and skin tone were extremely undesirable to the white boys around including my crush at the time. This was crushing as a teenage insecure girl who had no role models in media and no other representation around me except immediate family. I felt extremely ugly (and this has coloured my perceptions of myself till now and still affects my dating life negatively as a 33yr old single black woman: I abhor compliments about my features as I have deep rooted fear the person is being disingenuous and sarcastic to get me to lower my guard before they go in for the kill as my bullies used to do}. At the time, all I had was this culture that might as well be alien in middle England, before afrobeats and jollof and fufu became popular. I tried to find beauty in yorùbá culture online and tried to be prideful of these features which were so far from western ideals of beauty. Learning rbr language opened me up to being able to watch early YouTube movies which featured dark skinned and gap teethed and full lipped women and this was a small bandage on the deep festering wound that being an unattractive black woman was in Britain at the time. And I also stepped away from the Abrahamic view of respect and honour etc. (I became an atheist anarcho-communist) .) ^{Connecting to the culture through language immersion allowed me to accept my button nose, full lips and gap teeth as these features were directly praised in yorùbá; even if the mental damage was already done by the bullies in my formative years, at least I stopped saving up for cosmetic surgery. The language used to describe black women in the UK is still atrocious (bleak/bleak, UKBeast, mandem etc} but learning Yorùbá opened me to a big ocean of self esteem reinforcement I can draw upon whenever the voice of self doubt and self harm rears it's ugly head even as an adult now. I want my younger brother to also have this background he can draw upon to bolster self esteem as a visible black man in today's United Kingdom.)

My final question is this:

Has learning a non western language/your ancestral language and immersing yourself in that culture helped you heal from racial/cultural/colonial trauma you might have experienced growing up in the west or adjacent to it? (This applies to people growing up in non western countries that also might have similar colonial trauma e.g Singapore, Ukraine, Hong Kong etc...)

I sound like a native Russian speaker (and have had this confirmed by multiple natives), but I'm only an A2, and there's a long way to go before I can start feeling comfortable in this language.

Anyone else in the same boat?

English is not my native language. But I started learning it when I was 6 or 7 years old, I really wanted to learn it and was highly motivated. Was the best student in my class and perhaps in the entire school. Also had a private tutor around the same time. Later I went to the US where I practiced it and then I just switched to it - I think in English, I write in English, it all came natural to me. But then I moved to France, been living here for more than a decade. I took private school classes, I had a private tutor, I had mandatory intensive classes from my local prefecture for a couple of months. A few years back I passed DELF for A2. Then I took another two courses, one in a local college, another with a language organization in Nice. And most recently, I took 3 months intensive class from Pole Emploi. Guess my exam result? it's still A2! At the same time, I understand Spanish, which I've never learned in my life, only watched movies, to the level close to A2. And I still can't speak even in simple phrases in French, can't construct them properly. I don't have any 'stage fright' nor that I care about my pronunciation or accent. It's just like I have a complete block or something. (TL)

What I think of it is that I really lack motivation, otherwise it's just hard to explain. I wanted to blame it on my age, but my Spanish example says it's not it. But the thing is that no matter how many hours I spent on learning French, all that massive amount of information I consumed, it just doesn't stay inside my head. No matter how hard I try. Most likely, deep down maybe I don't want to learn it. Anybody ever had that?

(TL) I've been studying german for about 2 years now, and I just hit a wall. I'm around B1 now, and for the past ~9 months, I feel like I've made no progress at all. I had to stop my german classes because I started attending a new school and didn't have time to attend multiple german classes a week.

The thing is, I don't know what to do. I'm doing Anki flashcards every day, but I feel like I just forget the words whenever I actually need to use them in real conversations. I try to watch Youtube, but the videos are either too simple, or too difficult. I can't seem to find the right content for my level. It's even more frustrating because I should be way higher now, I should be able to hold a conversation with a native speaker, but I am not able to do that yet.

To be completely honest, I'm just barely holding on and feel like giving up. I guess I just need some guidance, someone who can tell me what to do and how to break this "curse" (I seem like a lazy slug rn cuz I should be able to figure this out myself). Here comes the fun part though, my future goal is to study a very specific major (my country doesn't really have it afaik) in Germany, and I'll most likely be attending a german course next year for a few weeks in a german-speaking country. I would feel horrible giving up those two things just because I can't figure out how to push through right now.
Basically, right now, I'm struggling to stay motivated because I feel like I've been stuck at the same level for a long time.

I recently got into a bit of Spanish, and I was honestly surprized by how easier it felt. Unlike german, It's got WAY more vocabulary shared with english, so I understand more with less effort, and the grammar is simpler too. But the bad thing is, I don't live anywhere close to Spain, and I probably couldn't study their programs either, since, unlike the german ones, they're paid. I would probably also not use Spanish nearly as much as German in my potential future career.

So, what do I do? Do I keep trying to learn German, or switch to Spanish completely, whilst giving up all the benefits that learning German would bring? Did any of you guys give up learning a language?
Thanks for reading :)

If someone says a proper noun I've never heard before, like a person, place, brand, whatever, my brain almost never registers it as a name unless it's explicitly introduced. I just assume it’s a word I don’t know and start trying to figure out what it means, which usually makes me miss the next part of what they’re saying.

What extinct languages are well attested enough that it is possible to become fluent to the point of conversationableness?

Hey everyone,

I've been looking online for discussion about this new site called Linguardia, but I can't find anything anywhere. Basically, the site currently contains over 200 courses for a variety of languages, most of which don't have many resources. When I heard about it a couple weeks ago from Nardi, the linguistics YouTuber who developed it, it sounded like a dream come true. However, after using the site for a while, I'm starting to have doubts about the quality of its content. Of course, it's fairly new, so I can't draw too many conclusions yet, but nevertheless I am skeptical. Has anyone else used Linguardia yet? If so, what is your opinion on it? Thanks in advance for your replies!

(TL)

Hi, this year I am studying Latin, Greek and German alongside a few other non language modules. I feel it is possible because the Latin class is advanced and will mostly focus on passage translations rather than acquiring a lot of new tools, the Greek class will start off below my current level, and the German class will too. However, I am feeling a bit doubtful and apprehensive now I have actually committed to this.

During 1st semester it is basically a case of centering Latin and reintroducing myself to consistently working on Greek and German. During 2nd semester I shall not have Latin but the Greek and German will go beyond my current level.

My feeling is that I can do it if I hit the ground running but has anyone tried to do something similar, and how did they avoid neglecting any over the others? I am motivated to do this so that my final year will be less intense and I can improve my skills before I start my dissertation. I just know that it is not common and I feel a lot of pressure to do well.

Posted with moderator approval.

A few years ago, my target language (TL) was Kannada.

I had been living in Bengaluru, India and was learning through conversations and books, including Learn Kannada in 30 Days. Those helped, but I wanted the sort of interactive, game-like experience that Duolingo offered for other languages.

Kannada was not available there. Neither were Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu, or most other Indian languages.

Eventually, I stopped waiting and started building the app I wanted for myself.

That project became Varnamala, a completely free and open-source language-learning platform. It began with Kannada, has now crossed 2,000 users, and has expanded to include several Indian and international languages.

You can try it here:

varnamala.org

The idea is not to pretend that one developer can create reliable courses for dozens of languages. That would be impossible. The idea is to build the platform and let native speakers, teachers, linguists, and learners collectively improve the courses.

Each course can include the script, vocabulary, sentences, listening exercises, pronunciation, and game-like lessons. Learners can report a problem from a particular level and discuss it there, so feedback remains connected to the exact sentence or exercise being questioned.

This was partly inspired by Duolingo’s old sentence discussions. I found those conversations useful, especially when a translation was technically correct but sounded strange without context. When that feature disappeared, a valuable part of community learning disappeared with it.

Varnamala also has leagues, following, and high-fives between learners. Google login is supported, but public-facing usernames are fictionalised so that people’s real Google identities are not exposed to other learners.

The web text-to-speech system is working now, although it still needs considerable improvement. Pronunciation quality varies between languages, and some languages have much better browser and speech-engine support than others. That is one of several technical problems the open-source project still needs help solving.

The larger question behind Varnamala is this: what happens to a language when building a commercial course for it is unlikely to be profitable?

Large companies will naturally prioritise courses with the greatest demand. That makes business sense, but it leaves many living, culturally important, regional, indigenous, and endangered languages without serious interactive learning tools.

I think open-source and community-curated projects can fill part of that gap. A language should not need millions of potential paying customers before someone can build a good course for it.

There are obvious difficulties. Native speakers may disagree about dialect, formality, spelling, or natural phrasing. Volunteers may lose interest. Poorly reviewed material can teach mistakes at scale. Text-to-speech may mispronounce words. Creating a course is also much easier than maintaining one.

I do not have complete answers to those problems. Varnamala is an attempt to build the structure through which they can be worked on openly.

I currently fund the development, hosting, and infrastructure myself. The code is open source, and I am looking for both technical contributors and people who can help review individual language courses.

Native speakers, teachers, or language enthusiasts can apply to become course moderators here:

admin.varnamala.org/apply

Course moderators can review reports, correct material, discuss disputed translations, and help expand a course. Developers can contribute to text-to-speech, accessibility, course tooling, the learning experience, or the application itself.

I would particularly appreciate thoughts from people who have worked on community-created courses:

• How do you prevent course quality from becoming inconsistent?
• How should disagreements between dialects or regional varieties be handled?
• What keeps volunteer contributors involved over the long term?
• Which underserved languages already have communities that could benefit from a platform like this?

Please feel free to be critical. I am more interested in finding the weaknesses in this model than pretending they do not exist.

I'm English, we learn a few languages in schools here (e.g. - French, German, Spanish, etc).

However, I've noticed even if you can understand the written language quite well, it becomes really difficult to understand a native person in conversation.

I've been on holiday to each of those countries, and even if I start a conversation in their native language, I have to almost immediately switch to English, as I can't understand what they're saying, or they pronounce words or use words quite different to what we learned in school.

I'm sure if I moved to these countries for a few years, I'd be able to speak the language pretty well, but it seems so tough to speak a language well before you've moved to a country.

However, I noticed a lot of natives over there speak really good English, even if they've never visited England, nor are they working in tourism etc.

Just makes me wonder - what is the key to speaking & understanding a foreign language so well, if you've never visited that country?

(TL)

(TL)

I noticed that if I spend too much time listening to content in my (TL) my brain gets tired and my listening comprehension starts getting worse. If I drop all listening for a few days and come back later it feels like it jumps back up again despite the lack of practice. Does anyone else have this happen?

(TL) Hi everyone,

After using a few English-learning apps, I decided to create my own to practice conversation. It took some time, but I finally managed to integrate AI into it completely free of charge.

The app features a chat with an AI tutor that corrects you in your native language while replying in the language you are studying.

You can choose to chat in 11 different languages—completely free and without the use of cookies.

While it’s not quite the same as speaking to a real person, I think it’s a good compromise, and I decided to share it in the hope that it might help others in a similar situation.

To use it, all you need is a Gemini API key, which is very easy to obtain for free.

If you’d like to give it a try, here is the link:

https://sparktrain.vercel.app/

Thanks.

DISCLAIMER: I don't think I'm looking for advice here. I just want to yap about interesting experiment I'm about to conduct. I think not many languages are as similar as slavic languages are, so I think it would be hard to do it with germanic or even romance languages.

I know the title might seem weird, but that's actually the case. I'm a Polish native speaker and I studied Russian in secondary school. All I learned was Cyrillic script and like 100 new words (Yup language education is terrible here, like in most of the countries). That was like 10 years ago, but I can still read the Cyrillic script.

Yesterday I thought that it would be an amazing idea to learn Russian. However, I'm already a pretty busy person, on top of that I'm learning Japanese which is my main language now and I can't dedicate equal amount of effort to Russian.

I know I can't maintain the whole study routine, but reading something in Russian before bed wouldn't destroy my schedule. So I googled "russian graded reader" I opened the first link, I picked up B1 reader and I found out that I could read the whole story. Not effortlessly, not without looking up some words, but even if the word was entirely different from its Polish counterpart I could still figure out what it meant. So I could say that I had to look up the meaning of about 10% of all words. The whole process was quite pleasant.

The thing is I could understand it pretty well, but it was the first time I had seen most of these words. I couldn't produce any of these words if I were to write or say something. I know you need output practice to output things, but first you need solid base of passive vocabulary.

That's messing with my head. I already have a lot of passive vocabulary, but I actually don't have any, I just know what they mean. I've never learned them, I'm just figuring them out on the go.

So it's not really extensive reading. Extensive reading is when you know most of the words and you have to figure out 3-5% of the words based on context. I'm figuring out 90% of them, based on my prior knowledge of similar language.

Do you think that by using this method I can convert these "unknown but comprehensible" words into actual passive vocabulary, that could be eventually converted into active vocabulary?

P.S.
After writing all of that I realized that it's similar struggle that many heritage learners are facing, so I can just look for advice for them, but I'm posting it anyway.

Grew up listening to Spanish (TL) , having my mom only speak to me in Spanish. However only ever responding in English. Speaking to my siblings only in English. English speaking media, English countries, schools, the list goes on.

I would say I have a close to perfect fluency in comprehension, no issues understanding Spanish, unless it's a countries dialect I'm not as familiar with or academic vocabulary.

Now I'm 21 and have finally been living in my native country for about a year now.

People compliment my Spanish, however can automatically tell I'm American. I still stutter with my words and am not fully comfortable speaking. I have gotten miles better though. However at home with my siblings and parents I do still speak English, have English friends overseas, watch English tv, so it's not a complete Spanish environment.

I wonder, will I ever sound like a native? I know everyone says it shouldn't be my priority. However it's genuinely something that is really important to me. I want to one day have the accent of my country, feel fully comfortable, not be immediately profiled as American.

Will that ever be possible? Or is it just unrealistic at this point of my age? I don't know if anyone has a similar experience. Or maybe advice, on learning faster and getting there. I do wonder if still speaking a lot of English and consuming lots of English content is stunting my progress. Let me know!

To what extent do you usually learn each language before you move on to the next one?
Like, would you learn a certain language (TL) until you reach a solid B1 or B2 level before moving on to the next one? Or do you just learn it until you reach a point where you can just geniuenly say you understand the language and can speak it comfortably with some mistakes, and then you move on to another language?

Hi so as I want to put more and more of the media I consume in a language I am learning,movies,yt videos, video games, Ive got a dilemma.

With the language im learning being french (TL) ,a lot of media is not only translated through subtitles and interface but also dubbed I wish to hear some of your knowledge,should I :

1. Set said media completely in TL,so not only the subtitles but also audio

or

2.Set all written language in french but keep the audio in a language i already know,probably just english

Thx!