Language Learning General

Curious what people's learning methods are. I listen to the biggest talk radio of the language 30mins-1 hour every day and read for an hour revery day, adding new words into an Anki deck. I also try to write my diary in the language. This is not an interesting method and maybe not the best, but it's intuitive, covers all bases and seems to work for me.

gingermilk You're definitely right, that can be an issue, but getting you thinking in the language is worth the odd error here or there, I think.

I'm a native English speaker, and currently learning Spanish. I have been told that I used to know it as a kid, and then eventually forgot it when I moved to an area where no one else spoke it.
I unfortunately know no other languages. I have tried learning some many times by myself, and in school. None of it stuck very well. The best was German when I studied for a year, even then I could only understand on the level of a child. I decided to do Spanish since it is one of the more useful languages where I live, I liked what I know about with Spain, and I have been told they have underrated books and movies. If I learn Spanish to a good degree, I would want to learn German or Russian.
I'm currently running through teach yourself Spanish books and doing their exercises.

gingermilk
Languages I know are Japanese and English.
I have wishes to learn French and Chinese!

I guess I'm learning german, but it's been really on and off for me for a while now. I used to attend a course for it and made it through B1, but I really didn't try too hard and that was a while ago and I ended up forgetting a lot of things. Then recently I started feeling super guilty about that for no real reason and started forcing myself to review some grammar and then started reading a couple pages of a book in german each day. It really worked for a while, but then I got bored of it and now I'm feeling all guilty again.
I feel like it'd be a lot easier if I knew someone or a group of people that had something in common with me and I spoke german with them regularly, but that's probably never happening lol
Language learning is hard...

bakkin113 I'm native and I wouldn't mind talking in german with you from time to time!
Learning japanese myself and got back into it recently, and I know those fustrating feelings, lol

I'm a native English speaker learning Russian and Mandarin through self study. On a good day, I can hold a conversation.

Now I've added Japanese to the languages that I'm juggling. I noticed that I can get the meaning of most of the kanji, it has a massive amount of loanwords, and I watch anime with subs so why not give it a go? This time I'm employing a few new strategies.

First I'm prioritizing listening comprehension. My theory is that children learn to listen before they learn to speak - and they learn to speak before they learn to read and write. I've failed to prioritize listening comprehension with Chinese and Russian and it's biting me in the back. It's difficult to key in on spoken words because my mind is on the alert for the mispronunciation rather than the actual pronunciation.

Luckily I've found a wonderful anki deck that is built for listening practice. Better yet it's anime themed! It's called "Jlabs Beginner Course" and it's the only Anki flashcard deck that I looked forward to studying every day.

Another strategy I'm using is to use English subtitles. I know people advocate for watching anime with Japanese subs right away, but I've done it with Mandarin and found what becomes an enjoyable hobby becomes a chore. I'm pausing and translating words (many of which are not useful) and I miss patterns because it's difficult to grab context and get a "road map" of the sentence. It's more like speed reading practice.

With English subtitles, I can speed read the sentence and prepare my brain for what is about to be said, identifying anything important. I'll then concentrate on listening for key words and how they interact with each other. I'll hit the rewind button occasionally to drill it into my mind.

Finally, I'm focusing heavily on studying phrases and idioms instead of individual words. Drilling words is useful at first but once you encounter synonyms I think it's time to drill phrases and idioms instead. Therefore if I find a useful word, I'll not only write the word in my Anki deck, I'll write the entire sentence where I found the word. It'll give a better feel of which context is best suited for which synonym and I become more acquainted to making sentences.

Overall, I think learning a foreign language requires constant shifting of strategies. While I'm satisfied with the pace of my listening skills, I know I'll need to eventually switch strategies again.

AlexMillerJr

Thanks, ChatGPT.

I find linguistics itself (especially IPA notation and regional accents) to be pretty damn neat, but I don't really speak any other languages.

English is my native language, and I'm slowly reaching fluency in spanish, not sure if I'll ever be able to speak it well though.
My level is pretty decent so now I'm mostly learning now by watching history videos about south america, I'll watch one or two 30-40 minute videos a day of their history, starting from when the Spaniards arrived. I always feel guilty when doing so, though, since I'm putting so much time into learning about South America and the Spanish empire instead of just learning about the USA that I currently live in.

It is really interesting, though, and if there was a good series about the USA in native Spanish I'd watch that, as it is now I satisfy my urge to learn about history and learn Spanish at the same time.

I'm looking for Russian learning guides and ressource websites similar to learnjapanese.moe for Japanese, or heavenlypath.notion.site for Mandarin.
I'm also looking for a language partner willing to learn French and to teach Russian

I'm learning Spanish. There's some good podcasts for practice, my favorite is called Immersive Spanish. For more immersion, I try to watch Spanish content. I watch Vtubers and a Idol corp released a Spanish branch this year which is great for someone like me. I get to hear people speaking it while I can also glance at the chat messages as well.

I am a native speaker of English and an advanced speaker of Spanish, but not quite fluent. I have been learning Japanese for the past few years, but I admit that my progress has been slow. I possess around a JLPT N5 level of proficiency in it.

Update for a year later, Finnish is going strong, can comfortably put it on a resume. Talking with others is a bit rough seeing if how I can't find anyone to bullshit with and Finns are allergic to friends lmao. Don't give up fellas.

gingermilk Spanish, I already know english pretty well and I'm just perfecting it. :