i cannot decide what language to learn. i’m Greek so the closest languages phonetically to greek are Spanish and Italian. I’ve started dabbling in Russian because of my Russian best friend but i think from a practical standpoint Spanish is the most logical language to learn also cause of the big diaspora it has worldwide. How would you act in my place?

I used to talk to this guy on HelloTalk; we talked for many months. He’s Japanese, and I study and really like the Japanese language. He taught me many new things, so it was nice. However, I had to delete my account because the app was becoming a big distraction for me in a bad way. I didn’t tell him, though, since he was always busy working a lot. Unfortunately, we hadn’t exchanged social media. Well, two months ago, I created a new account and found him again on HelloTalk. I feel like talking to him again, but I’m afraid. I don’t know if he’ll agree to talk to me again or if he’ll ignore me. What do you think?

Hi all,

I've been studying Chinese for a while now, and just got my TOCFL B1 certificate not too long ago (it's around HSK5 in the old format).

Now, doing an HSK6 course, I still learn tons of useful vocabulary; in addition to words from books/movies, I definitely still got tons to learn, but when it comes to grammar... The course teaches grammar points that feel like they should go into 2 groups: The first, feels exactly like other words I learned/used before; The second, references words that were taught in previous courses that I never really used.

Overall, it feels like the newly-taught grammar principles are somewhat... un-useful?

Does anyone else here feels like the later-taught grammar principles are simply not useful? Do you use those principles on day-to-day basis? Would love to hear your personal experience!

Long Ask. I need advice as stated LL ain’t for the poor but it’s also tailored to one type of learning generally. It is usually flash cards or the dreaded Duolingo both in my opinion not actually grasping the languages. The closest I’ve come so far to something different are thee “Coffee Break” podcasts which are like a 3rd person viewing of a one to one lessons with snippets of cultural reasons behind words and grammatical lessons. My ask are there any other resources or any better. I don’t mind the language so long at least become bilingual at a conversational level. I have some envy for those not from native English speaking countries who seem to be bilingual before they are adults while us in native speaking countries are told “you don’t need another language but here is the most bare bones just in case you do”. So again sorry for the super long ask but any resources that could help achieve this goal that come over less flash cardy and more language learning?

I see a ton of on-line personal instruction; BaseLang, Preply, italkie, Berlitz, lingoda, Don Quijote (spelled with a j), Varsity Tutors, Babbel, and many, many more.

Is the Tried-and-True Berlitz generally the most effective way to go? BaseLang looked very interesting, but then I saw the complaints about how they pay their teachers (which doesn't speak well to the program), so I don't know how standardized those lessons would be.

Just looking for people's experiences and preferences, if you could take full-time language again for a couple months, what would you do?

To anyone who majored//minored in a foreign language, what level to it take you to and what do you do with your language degree now?

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu!

Through a song and few days of practice, it was so fun to doo!!

it’s the name of a hill in New Zealand and roughly translates to: "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed, and swallowed mountains, known as the land traveler, played his flute to his loved one."

Everyone keeps telling me to just go to a community college, and i am really considering it. Not sure if i should go in person or online. Honestly, Im not sure what the hesitation is but if yall know any pro and cons please let me know

Hi everyone, I am looking for an alternative to Quizlet that is free for students to use. I would make the flashcards and they would then be able to practice on their own time. Preferably the students do not need to make an account to start practicing with the flashcards I make, but maybe that is not possible.

My main language is english but i want to add 3 more languages to my skill set lol on a basic level of course.

what is the 3 most useful languages? (besides English ofc)

i was thinking spanish, chinese & maybe Russian or italian?

(also is this timeline even possible ? 6 months - year)

I love learning foreign languages and currently I am into Turkish (which is my 7th one). So, now I have this question in my head: how long you need to learn the language to start understanding it in movies and TV shows, without any subtitles? I am curious about your opinion, because for every language I learned I needed a different amount of time even if I learned them on the same pace. I would like to get different perspectives on that topic, so share your experience please.

So I have been learning romanian for about 3 month-ish only by duolingo and my vocabulary increased but I don't see any progress in speaking to a native speaker. any help?

Hey lads, Looking to break into some competitive industry's such as finance and trying to differentiate myself... In that I have 'basic' knowledge of Russian and when I say basic I mean I can understand a fair amount but struggle speaking/reading/writing.

Now I'm wondering whether I should pick up russian again and over the next couple of months/years try and become conversational...

Or pick up another language which is typically considered 'easier' such as Italian or Spanish.

In the latter option, would there be any recommendations of languages which would be useful whilst being 'quick' to pick up?

Thanks in advance

I would like to speak and learn Japanese well, but do I need to converse with someone in Japanese to achieve that? Is there another way, or how can I overcome this?

Are there any language learning apps that show IPA or approximate pronunciation in english

I have a timer on anki set to six seconds. Even though I might manage to beat that time, I still feel like I'm straining to recall the answer. Can I still hit "good"? About how many seconds should I be aiming for per card?

So you go to school or buy a beginner book and study it. You speak from the beginning. You study some level of grammar. You study vocab. You have a teacher or a tutor, helping you. (And you are not spending 1500 hours input just listening.)

im using the mango languages korean course, which is fine, but it only teaches the bare essential vocab, like "hello", "thank you" and "goodbye". but if i want to learn words like "dog", "lunch", or other semi-common words, it really falls short. any good ways?

I'm currently at a B2 level in French and aiming to achieve advanced fluency (C1/C2). What are the best strategies, techniques, and activities to push past the intermediate plateau and build advanced comprehension, fluidity, and production skills? Any tips, resources, or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Je suis actuellement au niveau B2 en français et je vise à atteindre une maîtrise avancée (C1/C2). Quelles sont les meilleures stratégies, techniques et activités pour dépasser le plateau intermédiaire et développer des compétences avancées en compréhension, fluidité et production ? Tout conseil, ressource ou expérience personnelle serait grandement apprécié !

I know this sounds really autistic, but how do you get someone from HelloTalk to be your friend and language partner?

I’m learning Chinese and currently have one person I know IRL who I language exchange with over video calls. We usually chat for a bit in English and then we will go through one of my graded readers in Chinese. I like this as we start asking questions and joking about the story while speaking Chinese or English in a curious and natural way. 

Maybe it’s unreasonable of me to expect to arrange something like this with a free app. 

There is no shortage of people messaging me, but I’m not sure who I should be selecting for. Most of the time people want to keep it to text and voice messages on the app. I get that, so I’ve been trying it, but to be honest I don’t really get anything out of this. The delays sap my momentum and interest. 

There’s also the issue of most of the people messaging me are women in my age range, who then don’t really hold up the conversation and it’s giving big dating app vibes. It’s very hard to build up rapport. I wish I could just fast forward to the point where we are friends already and know each other’s senses of humour and can just get to talking. I admit I make things harder by not really having an interest in Chinese media or Asian pop culture.

Before I give up I thought I would see here if there is some approach I am missing. I really would like to just get to a familiar, routine video call situation (for free :D). 

Has anyone here accomplished this? And if you did, how did you get from messages on the app to that point without being bored senseless?

2 years ago i stumbled upon an app for learning languages and now i don't remember the name of that app it was really helpful for learning, basically the app was developed by a guy that records himself with another person that doesn't know anything about that language and he teaches the student and you also learn with them, i appreciate anyone who knows the name.

I'm learning a language but I ended up with an accent and vocabulary from my main sources of input that makes me sound very stupid/disrespectful to other people in that language. I need to get rid of this due to the fact that soon I'll be moving to a country where I will be forced to speak it, but I want to sound normal.
Any advice/help is appreciated.

Some context.

I started studying a language with my sister (japanese), we've started with just 15 minutes of doing anki everyday to gain some vocabulary. The idea is to start slowly increase the time we spend studying every day, so in a span of 12 years to have been averaging about 1 hour a day. The objective being to reach at least a b2.

For now I have a lot of time and I've been the most motivated one to learn, even though we both want to. I am scared that if I push too much the increasing of studying time I will end up bittering the process. And I want to go at the same pace. So for now I just want to keep it small, is a long time goal after all.

So to satiate my desire to learn a language, I thought about starting to learn another completely unrelated language (Finnish) in parallel for now, until the Japanese study catches up. But it worries me that it could interfere with my Japanese learning, which is the number 1 priority.

In 2024 I dabbled in Finnish for a while and even though grammatically is completely different to japanese, I kinda feel that I might confuse them because they have similar sounds (both have few vowels, long vowels and double consonants).

It might be an irrational fear because the way they construct words and the possible syllable structures are different. But I wanted to hear some opinions.

I've gotten bored of watching the basic "100 words for beginners" videos on youtube and making anki decks. They are good if you are just getting started and don't know a single word maybe, but I don't think they are really helping. If I want to learn on a deeper, more sophisticated level than just memorizing some vocab words, what resources should I look into for each of my TL languages? I'm trying to learn German, and the 3 major Latin-based languages (Italian, French, Spanish) and dabble a little bit in learning Russian but not as seriously. I know there are subreddits for each TL but I didn't want to ask the same thing in every sub. TIA.

Background: both of my daughters (11 and 8) have had formal Spanish instruction since first grade. I have mostly used 'flip flop Spanish'. I like the program, but we need to make some changes for a variety of reasons.

Another mom brought my attention to comprehensible input theory, and I was very intrigued.

I set my eldest to the Spanish story listening YouTube videos while I worked with my youngest in flip flop. I would ask her my eldest to narrate (summarize in her own words) the video in English, but use Spanish words if she was able.

I downloaded the first set of books from input wand. I tried doing all the pre-read activities with both girls and it was a lot. Also beyond the abilities of my youngest.

So I am looking for other options.

The videos in dreaming Spanish don't seem like they would be engaging to children. Especially 8yos. Could someone tell me if I'm wrong?

What would be the best source for my youngest? She gets very frustrated when she doesn't understand everything She HATED input wand. She thought Megan Hayes videos were 'ok'.

With any of these video inputs, do you watch the same video on repeat? Have a few you do in rotation.

How do I measure progress?

Edited for clarity and atrocious grammar. This post was composed in a stop/start fashion as I needed to do other things. My train of thought was thoroughly derailed.

I need to become a b2 in German but with work and life, I just don’t have the time to take actual courses, but I just subscribe to Rosetta Stone and steadily learning using the app. I feel like I made much more progress than when I use Duolingo, but can it take me to at least a B2 level?Or would I have to take courses and what are your general experience using Rosetta Stone?

Hi, I'm a freshman at college right now and I'm trying to learn Telugu by this summer so I can properly speak with my family when I visit them in India. For the past few months, I have been learning vocab, practicing the script, and learning the grammar as well. However, I feel as if I am not moving fast enough. I want to immerse myself in the Telugu language as much as possible so I can have at least conversational fluency by this July.

So far, I have been practicing by copying vocab onto Anki and practicing it. I have learned the Telugu script mostly, and have been practicing by reading news articles in my target language. I haven't been practicing speaking with my family, though, because I feel like I don't want to mess up or embarrass myself in front of them. However, I will try and speak with them in my target language soon.

My question is, how do you immerse yourself in a language throughout the day if you don't have that much time to study? I would say I can only section off around 30 minutes of active studying to learning my language, but because of school, I don't have that much time. If there is anyone with any advice, please comment or let me know.

Silly question, but I’d appreciate some insight.

I'm struggling with French listening. I’ve seen people suggest listening to audios and then revisiting them after a few weeks to gauge retention and improve listening comprehension.

Here’s my question: if I listen to, say, 50 audios, revisit them over time, and eventually understand them perfectly, does that mean my overall listening skills have improved? Wouldn't it mean I’ve just gotten better at understanding those specific audios? Would this help me with other audios too, or is it more limited?

Thanks in advance.