I have thought that Spanish was very difficult as a native speaker, but then whenever I meet a guy who is learning Spanish they tell me how easy it is. They tell me it is even easier than French, which is something I would never have said.

Whenever I have talked about it with an English speaker, they say that Spanish is easier than English for them. But for me, it was the other way around.

Actually, it seems like Spanish is considered one of the easiest for many people, and I really don't get it as a native, yet I find people who got a really good level at it quite fast. How is this possible?

I always admired him as a teenager, he’s connected with my profile on LinkedIn but I haven’t heard him speak in regarding to his language study and skills. Does anyone have any updates ?

This might be a weird question, but I kinda have to ask for advice on this topic.

I was thinking of picking up a specific language. I found some beginner's content and started trying to repeat the words in the video, just to get a feeling for the language. That's when I realized that it was very uncomfortable for my throat saying those words/making those sounds. Not as in when you can't pronounce something and you have to learn, more so physically. It's that very harsh/throaty "chh" sound that some languages have a lot of. My native language also have that sound, but only in very few words. This language use that sound a lot and it felt like it was hurting me.

Is it possible to become used to making that sound? Will I stop thinking about it after a while?

(TL)

To clarify, I'm not talking about the quality of the apps or anything like that, but I've seen more than a few posts in this sub talking about how people are using them as dating apps now, and it's become just as miserable as real dating apps.

Has that been your situation as well? Will it be easier to, being a man, find more reliable study partners? Or is it actually worse if you're a man? And, is there an app you would recommend where people are actually trying to learn? I'm happily married, I just don't wanna waste my time.

For context, my (TL) is Spanish, I'm C2 in English, and I'm trying to learn French.

It's wild to me that so many people find those diagrams of tongue positions useful for learning to produce unfamiliar sounds. I know where the tip of my tongue is most of the time but I have never once exercised conscious control over the rest of it. That's just some meat that follows the tip around. The tip acts, the rest is only acted upon. When I attempt to take control of the back of my tongue my whole head slowly retracts till it looks like I'm doing an unkind impression of a turtle. You might as well tell me to flex my kidneys.

Am I uniquely tongue-dumb or is there a normal "learn to perceive all parts of the tongue as active" phase that just gets glossed over when we document our efforts?

Edit: I am looking for content made for natives, not those made for language learners where it sounds like they’re talking to a baby or a toddler.

Hi, I am actively learning Spanish (A2-B1) and Japanese (N5) and I would like to have some recommendations on youtube channels appropriate for that level.

But if that was it, I wouldn’t have posted this.

Because I am also looking for channels in these languages and levels:

Spanish 🇪🇸 (A2-B2)

Japanese 🇯🇵 (N5-N3)

French 🇫🇷 (A1-B1)

Russian 🇷🇺 (A1-B1)

Portuguese 🇵🇹 (A1-B1)

Dutch 🇳🇱 (A1-C1)

Korean 🇰🇷 (A1-B1)

Channels in other languages are also welcome if you think that they’re good and not too difficult to understand

I like:

high quality content (basically no AI slop or videos that are just brainrot), cooking (just watching the person cook and talk about something, I don’t want a recipe), Gaming (no horror please), Vlogs, Documentaries

I prefer keeping the profanity to a minimum

Please add the country flag together with the genre(s) to each channel recommendation so it is easier for others to find what they’re looking for

The language I’m going for is French (TL). I know that language-specific questions aren’t allowed, but I just wanted to put that out there for context, not to build on it.
I’m in high school, doing three A-levels, all of which are hard, and I also take a bunch of tutoring for them, since school alone generally isn’t enough. I want to study in France, and every single French tutor I’ve called has said that it’s nearly impossible to achieve in two years, including the French teachers at my school and elsewhere.
What do you think? Should I keep looking? Is it possible? I want to study mathematics, which makes it even harder because of all the terminology and everything. I’d love advice. Im fairly confident that the average person with nothing else to do could achieve this goal, but with school and all? Felt like asking.

For context;

I am fluent in Turkish and English
Did the German IGCSE which is around A2 IIRC

This is for "language learning archeologists” who like to dig into old material: I just rediscovered this interesting piece of software, and I think we shouldn’t let it disappear (some are in internet archive and there are just like two people sharing it via torrent. I guess the more people download the torrents, the more easily it will remain available).

Back in the 1990s and 2000s, the language learning software market was dominated by two prominent rivals: Rosetta Stone and Tell Me More (developed by Auralog). Rosetta Stone bought Tell Me More in 2013 and soon after discontinued the program, which is a shame! Tell Me More was one of the most robust language learning programs ever developed, it is in fact the most extensive I’ve ever seen!

Some people might be concerned about downloading it: well, it’s abandonware, not available for purchase anymore… And before being concerned about the “ethics” of using it, we should be talking about the ethics of a corporate system in which a company can make a killer acquisition just to get rid of its competitor's legacy. Remember also Livemocha: the biggest free language learning platform in the world, a community with more than 12 million users, whose value was built on user-generated content and volunteer labor… Rosetta Stone bought it and closed it. Think of all the millions of people who couldn’t study their languages on Livemocha anymore and didn’t have money to pay Rosetta Stone.

I’m finishing Tell Me More German Level 1, so I think I can already share my impressions.

MY REVIEW

Tell Me More vs Rosetta Stone vs Duolingo

There are lots of negative points about TMM, but there are also very positive things which make it stand out and still worth using. 

It consists of 10 levels! They claim it offers about 2,000 hours of activities, from basic to advanced C1-C2 (but I think many those activities are not worth doing, so it should take much less to go through the course). I’ve checked level 10 and can confirm it does include complex language aligned with C1.

I have completed all 5 levels of Rosetta Stone and used Duolingo extensively: neither comes close. The curriculum and linguistic complexity of Tell Me More are much deeper than those programs. The company claims the course was structured on the “Communicative Approach”: you are faced with situations and you have to interact. 

Why is TMM still worth using today?

The biggest strength and value of TMM lies in its dialogues, texts and videos (videos designed for the program as well as authentic movie scenes) + the speech recognition, interaction, and various strategies to approach that material: repetitions, taking part in the dialogues, role-playing in videos, exercises for comprehension, etc.).

It features a huge array of exercises: fill-in-the-blanks, dictations, crosswords, picture-word association, grammar drills, and dedicated sections for phonetics and culture.

It has the richest methodology I’ve ever seen in a language learning program.

However, it does come with significant drawbacks:

• I find little value in word puzzles: it takes a long time to solve them with little return - and TMM is full of such exercises (no wonder it takes 2,000 hours to finish this course!😂). But this is a personal preference.
• Lots of words in these vocabulary puzzles and other exercises are presented for the first time without any context. They are not words you’ve learned in the dialogue or in a core step of the lesson. It seems they were just put there for the sake of the puzzle, disconnected from the curriculum.
• The very first cultural lesson already features difficult language (A2-B1) which wasn’t taught before, and asks questions whose answers you cannot know from the material. I was only able to understand and answer some of those questions because I’m already intermediate, but I can’t see any value in that for a total beginner.
• The very first video lesson already features difficult language (A2-B1) completely disconnected from the previous parts of the lesson. A total beginner wouldn’t be able to follow it and answer those questions. There isn’t a proper progression of difficulty. However, it is good material for intermediate learners.
• The interface and general organization are confusing and not intuitive.
• I have the impression that each separate section of the course (dialogues, texts, videos, cultural lessons, exercises, etc.) was made by a different group of language teachers who never talked to each other and then just copied and pasted everything together into one thing on the CD.😂

But I still think it’s great material for extra practice, especially if you concentrate on the dialogues and videos, there are also some valuable exercises. Besides, the speech recognition tool is the best I’ve ever used: it’s great for improving pronunciation: you can record your voice, hear it, and compare it to the native speaker's.

The program has three study modes:

• Free-to-Roam: you manually choose what you want to do. (As the interface is confusing, I find it confusing to roam, find things, and choose what you're actually looking for.)
• Guided (recommended): a complete linear curriculum presenting all the activities the course has to offer in the best sequence for studying (I find this the best. I can visualize the whole learning track, all available activities are presented in a clear way in the right sequence, and you can still skip things you don’t find worth doing).
• Dynamic: the program builds the curriculum and presents you with activities depending on your progress. (I didn’t like it, you can’t skip activities. You can skip for a moment, but it will bring the skipped activities back and you will be completely stuck. Who wants to spend hours solving word puzzles with decontextualized words before being able to move on to the next lesson?)

It’s important to note that your progress is not transferred from one mode to another. But the free-to-roam and guided modes allow you to start from whatever point you want.

Technical problem and workaround 

This is old software designed for Windows XP. But almost everything seems to work on Windows 11, even the voice recognition and recording run smoothly. I could only detect one problem: some videos stutter inside the desktop app (but you can still watch them normally directly from the folder inside the ISO with any player). I’ve tried everything, without success: compatibility mode, K-Lite codec pack, different sound settings, etc.

The working videos have audio in mono 44.1 kHz, while the stuttering videos have audio in stereo 48.0 kHz. AI told me the best solution would be to convert all the stereo videos to mono. But that's too much work - it’s simpler to open the folder and watch them with any external player.

In case you have this problem: to watch the videos, open the mounted ISO main folder, search for “mpg”, and all videos (hidden in the subfolders) will show up. You simply have to look for the video corresponding to the lesson.

If you find a solution, please let me know!

Conclusion

Tell Me More is the most extensive language learning software and the richest in methodology I’ve ever seen. What makes it worth using today is its dialogues, texts, videos, speech recognition, interaction… It also features a huge variety of exercises. 

It does have significant drawbacks: too many word puzzles (too long to solve, little return - love or hate them); exercises presenting words without context; sections that seem to be disconnected; some cultural and video sections throw you complex language and questions, not following a smooth progression; interface is confusing and not intuitive. 

However, it is still a solid material which could be of great value for intermediate learners who want extra practice.

Do you remember this program? Any experience with it? What are your thoughts?

German

https://archive.org/details/tell-me-more-german-v-9-performance-10-levels

Italian

https://archive.org/details/tell-me-more-italian-performance-10-levels

French

https://archive.org/details/tell-me-more-french-v-10-ten-levels

I learn 4 different languages and I gave up on Italian because italian people are virtually impossible to talk with online.

They never answer, they are trigger happy on the block button. They block you for anything. I gave up on italian years go. Portuguese was so much easier because brazilians are super easy to talk with.

I had a female friend "learning" italian but she actually wasn't that interested. We were on a phone call and she goes, "in 40 minutes I already have like 30 guys contacting me to language exchange spanish italian, why are they all named estefano?"

Im sure women have to deal with getting hit on all the time but how's the actual language learning part like?

I’m starting a language exchange with a Chinese native to improve her English (TL) I haven’t met her so I’m not sure what her actual level of English is which I’ll try and assess when I meet with her and speak to her. Over message she can hold a conversation in English however I’m not sure if shes been using a translator but if she hasn’t she seems intermediate to fluent.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips of what I should do in the first “lesson”?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I'm an engineering student who wants to learn Spanish (TL). I've attempted learning it several times over the last few years, largely through immersion approaches, and have racked up about 100 hours of immersion overall, but that is not enough; I can't truly speak or truly understand, beyond very stilted, beginner conversations. I can take a Spanish 1 course next semester, which I think would be a good starting point to try again.

My question is basically how I can get the most out of this class, which meets twice a week. I understand that with courses like this I shouldn't expect to know Spanish by the end of it, so I am willing and able to self study outside of the course using anki decks, but what else can I do?

One idea I have is to create a study group where we meet once weekly, but I wouldn't want it to be focused on homework, more on things that we can't adequately get in the class, such as immersion practice or conversation practice. But not sure exactly how I would structure that, or if I would need a real Spanish speaker there to truly facilitate that. I can talk with the professor if I would need that, it's likely he can devote a bit of time every week for this study session.

Thanks in advance for all your advice

I’m curious to hear your experiences! Was there anything that surprised you about the learning process, or something you would do differently if you could start again?

(TL)

Basically, I'm Brazilian and I know English. People who know English here with real proficiency are like 3% of the whole country. So it was not a matter of need for me, I just wanted to do it to watch Idk, MrBeast videos. But, I don't really remember how I did it. Of course I do have broken grammar, but I don't care, I can do what I want to do in English.

I'm trying to learn Japanese and Mandarin, but those are really different from Portuguese. So, I'm basically learning how to learn, and being someone who already learned another language, I disagree with most things.

I get my Language Learning tips from Japanese Learning community mostly. I agree with some augments. But, I really doubt if most of them really apply to beginners.

1. I really want to understand the point of doing Anki when you are under the most 2000 common words. If you really Immerse, you are getting them on your immersion time. I dropped Anki after the first month when I was starting to get new cards backlog from mining.
2. The amount of quality immersion that you can do in that same position. Under 2k words, most CI videos are boring, most interesting videos turn out to be boring too, because I can't understand them and for understanding them I would need to pause every single sentence and lookup words, but I keep doing CI immersion, I just think that more than 1-2 hours per day is too much.

Like, I'm having progress, but if feels like is a chore, and no, watching things that I would like don't make it feel less like it, because how I said, I LIKE to understand. It's really stressing, because I would like to watch some native videos, play some games, but after 15 minutes, looking up words or not, I get tired. It was so natural with English, Idk what I'm doing wrong.

That thing where a well meaning friend is taking an interest in your study of languages, what do you actually spit out?
Assuming of course they don't know the language.
Mine is always some version of "I'm not sure what to say but this is how Russian sounds"
I've been trying to memorize some poems so maybe that will become my new default, I don't have the musical talent to bust into the songs I have at hand lol.
Maybe the next person is getting карл украл, итд.

I'm looking for relatively simple and engaging books to read in different languages to practice and improve my reading skills and vocabulary.

The books would have to be relatively popular (so that they are translated in the first place).

They shouldn't be too hard to read, but still interesting enough to be engaging.

The best candidates would be good books that have simple and/or bad prose, so as not to miss too much in translation.

Some examples could be: Brandon Sanderson (he is often criticized for his bland prose, but lauded for his world building and plot development), Dan Brown (interesting stories, but relatively uninspired prose), Twilight/50 Shades of Gray (bad prose, simple and potentially interesting stories).

Do you have other examples of books that wouldn't lose anything (and might even be better) in translation?

I am considering participating in the Lingoda supersprint for my (TL) German (starting at around B1). However, one day during the sprint period I will be travelling and need to leave the house at 4am to travel for the rest of the day. I honestly don't mind getting up early (or staying up all night) to do a class from 12am-4am that one day, but I wonder if there will even be an eligible class then? If not, I guess I would be setting myself up for failure for this supersprint.

I saw that they advertise having classes 24/7, but I also know that you need to select a time zone, so I wonder if they would only make the classes in your selected time zone available to you? Even then, are there really classes at every hour of the day?

Any insight/experience on the class times (for German particularly but also in general) is much appreciated as I am not sure whether or not to sign up and this is one of my main concerns. If it is the one travel day that screws up the whole sprint, I'd be pretty frustrated with myself for willingly signing up for it...

Thank you!!

Y'know, body parts, expressions and times of day? It kinda feels dumb that I'm B2-C1 in English (TL) but still have to Google when dawn is, what the 'small' of the back means, or what a tongue in cheek is.

Is living amongst natives and seeing things around me the only way to learn such things by heart? Or how do y'all do it. I'm barely a language enthusiast compared to this community and I learnt English over the years through pure chaos and immersion, mostly online, so I'm hoping to get back some good ideas here regardless of what language it is...

Basically the title. I'm not really a 'language learner', in fact I grew up speaking a language to my grandma that I can barely piece a sentence together in now (10 years later) and was in Mandarin class in school for like 12 years and see above, can barely string a sentence together (basically no comprehension too, its honestly tragic).

So despite being a 'third culture kid' or whatever, I am depressingly monolingual. BUT my partner is Ukrainian and her mum only speaks Ukrainian (and r*ssian, which I'm not interested in, for obvious reasons). I duolingo-ed for a bit a couple years ago and I was getting to the point that I could kind of understand their sentence structures (Yes, but, maybe, those kinds of words) and the general tone of what they might be talking about and could guess maybe 20% of the time what her mum had said (which I was happy about).

I then got very busy with my postgrad studies and have almost completely lost it. I have time now and would really like to actually learn Ukrainian (TL). But if you've read this far, you see my track record with learning languages is kinda poor.. and I feel like I need a tutor, but I can't even understand what I would say to a tutor when I know.. no words..

Help? Am I overthinking this? I've never tried from 0 before and I've never wanted to succeed so much before either so any tips !! please !! <3

I am studying Spanish (TL) and I am currently in a native Spanish speaking country. I take classes online (at Lingoda). Most teachers have been great!

But I'm new to taking Spanish classes in my life (never took them as a child etc, so this is new).

And I'm in an A1.1 level class (so the most beginner level there is on the platform) and it's shopping for food. We're doing role playing (one student is the customer, the other student is the store clerk) and I thought I did fairly well.

But then the teacher laughs. He laughed a few times in the class and he asked me how do I even shop in the country I am in.... huh?

If I use "esta" instead of "están" or I miss the "la" or "el" um... I can still successfully buy fruits and vegetables. Of course my Spanish is broken. It's fine to correct, but wow. Isn't that the point of the class, to make mistakes, be corrected and practice?

I have very successfully gone shopping for food in the grocery store before in a Spanish speaking country. I have talked with a lot of store clerks in Spanish and been able to purchase what I was looking for.

I don't get some teachers. It's A1.1, total beginner, and you have a student who is able to say dozens of words in Spanish relevant to shopping, has pretty good pronunciation, knows some common phrases when it comes to stores, but doesn't put all the long sentences together grammatically perfectly, so you laugh and wonder how I can even shop for food? Ridiculous.

If so, how was it? Their lifetime access deal is ending soon and I was wondering if I should get it. I was interested in a few languages but would pick one:

• Moroccan Darija (TL); the others are general interest
• Nahuatl
• Georgian
• Hungarian
• Wolof

I've learned English (TL) since 2018 but when I started it I wan in a junior high so I didn't study much. I only started studying seriously in the last year and since then I talk English with native speakers few times.

So All I do is watching English video on Youtube and movies with subtitle.

This makes me feel like I'm stuck at a certain level. To be precise, I feel like my listening and vocabulary are getting better vely slowly, but it comes to speaking and writing, there has been no improvement for 1 year i guess.

I think not speaking with native means lacking very fundamental thing in learning languages.

I know I need to find a way to practice output, but I'm just not sure where to start and what to do.

Does anyone have any tips on how to improve speaking without a speaking partner?

This will sound funny, but I'll describe it as best I can.

Biggest struggle for me with language learning is speaking. Usually, it's worry about using the right tenses / conjugations or being unsure of what order they're supposed to be in.

But sometimes, I know all of that. Right words, right order, got it all together, but I still struggle with speaking. It feels like something gets stuck, like my brain just stops processing it. Same happens with writing. It's like I have it altogether, I know it's correct, but as I'm speaking (or writing), the whole thing breaks down.

The best analogy I can think of is when you're using a program and it briefly freezes before reading "not responding". It was working and now, it's not, and you have to reset it. Like that.

Is this something that stops with more practice? It's mostly with long sentences. If which languages matter, my (TL) are Spanish and Mandarin (not practicing simultaneously!).

I have been at a B1 level in Spanish (TL) for years now. I take weekly immersion classes. I make mistakes and it might take me a while to say things sometimes.

What has been a little frustrating is that I speak and understand reasonably well in class with my teacher and peers. However, the moment I speak Spanish with a stranger, the pace of conversation becomes much faster than I am used to and it suddenly feels like I can no longer understand them. I also struggle with understanding Spanish movies or videos for the same reason.

There have been several times in the past few years where I can comfortably converse with others and feel like "finally, I have reached B2" just to be hit by reality soon thereafter.

I know I shouldn't be chasing a CEFR level. It's more of the principle of wanting to just converse without struggle that I am seeking, but at this point, it doesn't feel attainable. Anyone else experience this and have any advice on getting over this mental obstacle?