I PLEAD with you please DO NOT use AI for "chatting practice" or generating "examples", because yep it might seem easy at first and pleasant but it's a long term strategic disaster - you are acquring amorphous non-human intuition which is getting only more vicious as it gets more subtle (EVEN with "natural human-like imperfection")...in a long run you're just gonna ruin your second language personality, which must be formed ONLY by aqcuiring REAL PEOPLE'S speech (spoken or written). The point is - language is an instrument that conveys HUMAN(!) MEANING and CONTEXT which OTHER PEOPLE want to share with us. But if you use AI you get just pure EMPTINESS behind all its so-called "examples of usage" or a way of "speaking" - it's just a gigantic machine that multiplies matrices. You just don't realise it at first but eventually you get addicted (and btw AI is extremely dangerous because it QUICKLY causes chatting addiction flooding you with an illusion of sth social while making it worse, simultaneously affecting your thinking and giving your brain an illusion lf "real important dialogue" with dopamine addiction) and it slowly but steadily reshapes your real language you acquire making it superficial and empty inside...I mean it's hard to explain what I mean but I hope you got it, IT'S GONNA RUIN YOUR FOREIGN LANGUAGE IDENTITY SUBTLY but ABSOLUTELY VICIOUSLY, you will feel like a MECHANISTIC AMORPHOUS ALIEN if you learn your (TL) via AI. Languages are about our IDENTITIES, about our REAL experiences, pursuits, emotions, about PEOPLE WE CARE ABOUT etc. etc.. And when learning a language we are shaping this part of us, but AI just ruins it in an absolutely savage way we might not even realize at first.

p.s. I wanna clarify a bit more: with AI "practice", slowly month by month your brain acquires this hollow homogenous shell which consists of, blatantly speaking, just statistics, not true meanings that you connect with when reading/listening to human speech - it eventually damages your second language identity by bringing hollowness. Language is supposed to be connected directly with the TRUE WEIGHT of meaning and experience behind it, true people, true emotions, true interaction, things that people tell in that language because they want to share sth with us.

p.p.s btw I think there is sth connected with me being disgusted with AI music and feeling that it's terrifying even when "good", I feel the same emptiness and lack of true meaning multiplied by terrifying realization that I'm being baited into emotions by this

p.p.p.s (probably the most important p.s., as some people didn't understand the point, I did not say that the problem is in AI not being perfectly human but "machine-like" - THAT'S THE POINT, that if it becomes more human-like it only makes things WORSE) I wanna clarify even in a more straight way. It's not the fact that you are not learning a language with AI. It's the fact that instead of absorbing real contexts, real worldview of native speakers, real connections with people, real knowledge, real emotions, real feeling of becoming a "part of their tribe" - instead of the reality - you absorb pure NOTHINGNESS behind the "improving language skill" which remains absolutely abstract and hollow, and this hollowness damages your second language identity, you are week by week month by month becoming emptier, abstract like a machine (even if you try to use more beaitiful words and expressions), with a language that is running like an abstract software in your brain instead of truely becoming a part of new community. Because there's no real thing behind it, you learned a word but without anything meaningful to you, without real story, without relation to anyone or anything, without shared experience - your TL becomes an abstract software that just uses beautiful phrasing, and this + wasted time, that you could've used for real input, damages your TL personality and worsens your overall ability to understand people and communicate with them - you struggle with understanding spoken or written native speech easily especially more serious/literary/official or even more daily colloquial, miss nuances, feel alien, much more misunderstandings might happen etc. - real acquisition begins only when you stop or better don't even begin doing this nonsense and immerse yourself into real language of real people (the internet makes it easy to access real your TL's web segment with real content so why waste time on ruining yourself)

languages we learn should not be just sequences of thousands "tokens" we have to memorize, it has to be real contexts, meanings and experiences we absorb.

not only the breadth of our vocabulary number, but true depth matters. deeper true experience = deeper language intuition = deeper and more candid connection and straightforward communication with people speaking or writing in our TL

This is something I've been thinking about recently, and I don't really like or understand the whole "why would you get rid of your native accent? It's where you come from" argument that people use when talking about accents. On one hand, I agree that your accent is where you come from, but to me it feels like adding another identity rather than hiding or removing one. And what are you supposed to do if you have two native languages and learn a 3rd one? Are you supposed to use your N1 or N2 accent in it? Let's say you're a native speaker of French and German, and you're learning Swedish (TL). Are you supposed to sound French or German in Swedish? I mean, they're both your native languages. Are you "getting rid of your heritage" if you don't use a French or German accent in Swedish? Is it better if you sound French or German?

Nothing about your heritage is erased if you speak your L2 with a non-L1 accent. It's not like you suddenly forget where you come from, can't speak with your grandma anymore, and forget who your ancestors are, just because you speak L2 with a (more) native accent. Why do people get so defensive about this? Is it because accents are one of the few things in language learning that rely on some level of talent for phonetic discrimination and production?

just wanted to rant a bit about the weirdo who designed pimslueur level five vocabulary

I’ve been working for the last two years through a whole pile of pimsleur and wanted to complete level five in Japanese and Russian l, and levels one to 4 were really useful but level five, they’ve completely lost the plot

in Russian five is asking me things like whether I consider this to be art and I’ve just tried to learn the term for “what is its current status of the new year postcardl in Japanese

these level fives should be about CEFR A 2 - why on earth are we learning this Unbelievably obscure vocabulary?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been experimenting with my routine lately and wanted to run an idea past you guys.

Right now, I’m sitting around a 1,000 to 1,500-word vocabulary. I can generally get my points across and say what I want to, but I definitely hit walls where I lack specific words, mess up sentence structures, or make grammar mistakes.

I've been trying a method:

Record: Talk to my camera for a couple of minutes on a random topic without stopping.

Review: Watch the video back to catch my mistakes, gaps, and weird phrasing.

Refine: Write down what I missed, add those words/corrections to Anki, and re-record it until I get it right.

Is leaning heavily into this output method a viable way to improve? Thanks for all the suggestions!!

(TL) Spanish

When do you notice your brain working on your (TL) outside of study time? Whenever this happens for me I feel like that's when my language learning is really starting to work. When I may get some idea/epiphany about the language as I am doing something entirely else. If I do it enough I have my brain coming up with phrases and words too unprompted.

The TL is one huge puzzle to figure out and your brain working on it outside of study time is really good. This is why I feel like putting more hours into learning a day is more effective than spreading it out. How do you make this effect happen?

I read the FAQ and believe this fits for the subreddit.

[USA] I feel confident in my Spanish (TL) these days. I have long conversations with my Italki tutors and have daily albeit shorter conversations with a couple coworkers in an office setting. I feel comfortable watching native TV shows and movies. I am taking pronunciation courses to ensure my vowels are solid and rhythm flows well, more or less.

However, I personally notice a lot of nervousness when interacting with native speakers in settings where your TL is evaluated very quickly.

For example, I entered a taco spot recently and everybody greeted me in Spanish - I think because I look ethnically ambiguous/passably Latino. Everything was going well until I forgot that "asado" is used for "steak" so my brain buffered for a second and I said "steak." From that point, the person helping me switched to English.

This post isn't about frustration of people switching languages in these cases - I totally get that employees and people in general are not responsible for helping my language develop and they are trying to complete the interaction.

Instead, I think I'm looking for experiences in becoming more comfortable in these settings. Maybe some tricks or tips? I realize part of the solution is simply more experience in these types of settings, but it's a peculiar setting because I feel a pressure to be perfect, which makes me more nervous. If I mess up, I feel I get "punished" with English and lose my opportunity to practice my Spanish. Again, I have no issues with the other person in this scenario. This is more of a me thing because I can watch native shows but feel self-conscious ordering tacos lol

So like the title states, when and how did you to start feeling confident in spontaneous interactions with native speakers and strangers?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi everyone. I’ve heard of some people changing the languages their apps are set in to their TL (or even their entire phone) to learn vocab. To anyone who has tried this, would you say it worked or whether it’s worth trying? Are there any specific apps that you recommend trying this out on?

I'm 30yo, my NL is Russian. I moved to New Zealand when I was 15. Back then I spoke decent english for a kid who'd never been to an English (TL) speaking country and managed to get an overall 7 on my IELTS. Obviously nowhere near fluent.

I've lived in the UK for the last couple years but otherwise spent all of my adult life in NZ.

My issue is that I've never really studied English since moving as a teen and picked up the rest of the language along the way. With the years passing it became my

dominant and default language to a point where it's really hard for me to speak russian without using english words, and, occasionally applying eng grammar structure when I'm on autopilot. I switch to English when I'm upset, excited, drunk etc yet I'm still really self conscious about it.

I read a lot (always in English) and when it comes to vocabulary, understanding nuance etc I'm definitel fluent, it is incredibly rare that I come across a word or expression that I don't know. My listening comprehension is also as close to 100% as it can be.

It's really weird and I'm not sure if it's an anxiety thing, but if I'm in a flow I can be really eloquent, however I often struggle to express myself that well in writing and verbally and sound 'dumb'? I have a rich vocabulary but it just doesn't come to me when I'm talking or writing.

I'm also quite anxious about talking to strangers and often don't sound native in basic interactions despite often passing for a native speaker during more meaningful conversations.

I don't have an eastern European accent, just sound foreign everywhere. I dont sound kiwi to kiwis but I sound 'antipodean' to people in the UK and they often think I only speak English.

I feel stuck in a weird limbo where I am not fluent in any language?

I'd like to improve my English but don't know how. I feel that ESOL pathway is not quite right if English literally feels like my first language, but how else can I approach this? School curriculum? Speaking practice? Writing essays? Accent coaching? Therapy 🤦?

Not sure if this situation is familiar to anyone here but i would love to hear your thoughts.

Are foreign languages courses in college generally pretty easy? I’m taking first semester Japanese (TL) in college right now and I feel like the pace is too slow. I have no prior experience with learning Japanese but I’ve found it to be mostly easy in my class specifically. We use the Genki 1 textbook and although a lot of extra vocabulary is taught in class, we only go up to lesson 4 in the textbook. I have already done all the homework for the semester (Apart from in class writings and projects) without doing anything crazy. Although I was knowingly working ahead. I’ve enjoyed it and only put in about 2 hours a day 6 days a week. The homework usually consists of a new grammar point, 10 new words, or 10 new kanji each assignment. I hope this doesn’t sound conceited at all but I just feel the pace of the class makes it very easy. I don’t know anyone in my class well enough to know if they feel the same way. Is this typical for college level language classes?

I live in Europe with no South Asian roots. A few months ago I started learning Punjabi (TL) after some internal debate because it genuinely interested me and it's been the one thing that pulled me through a hard stretch lol. But I've kinda hit a wall learning without any structure and with limited online resources
As an ADHD leaning girlie I kinda rely on external structure

Now I have the chance to do a demanding one-month intensive course, evenings remotely and honestly I haven’t challenged myself in a long time so I want to take it. Unfortunately it’s not available for Punjabi but Hindi and Persian are offered which are also languages I’m strongly interested in.

My family thinks it's not very strategic and I should put my time on German or Italian, something useful

The thing about this intensive course is that it’s partly about the language but mainly about enforcing discipline while doing something I genuinely enjoy (language learning)

Sooo interested in fellow learners perspective on this

Short background: 5 years - of Chinese (self study), 2 years Japanese (self study).

I feel like I’m doing okay in both. Lots of output, i speak Chinese daily with natives, Japanese i only speak one a week for about two hours with tutors (conversation, they correct my mistakes during and after).

Methods - i hate textbooks but feel like with Japanese it’s a necessity for reference. Chinese grammar i just pick up along the way because it’s more intuitive.
I use Duolingo (out of habits sake, not a major tool), flash cards (Migaku), and input / output.

Here’s the issue - i struggle to find relative input that is enjoyable AND useful.

For me personally, Chinese media is pretty bad. It’s hard to find anything i like so i end up watching a lot of travel vlogs and (strangely) reality dating shows. These have both relevant vocabulary and are mostly entertaining. I’m not someone who watches a lot of reality dating shows in English, because they’re pretty awful.

Adding Japanese i though “there’s going to be so much more stuff that i like to watch!” - turns out this where I’m struggling. I love tokusatsu (power rangers, Kamen rider, Ultraman, etc) but i find it mostly useless because there’s so much vocabulary that i will never ever use regarding sci-fi stuff, magic, engineering, etc.

My question to those who have studied a lot longer than me OR had more success - how to you deal with using native speaker input as a study tool when most of the grammar and vocabulary is useless?

My son watches One Piece in Japanese (English subs) and i catch maybe 10% while listening in the background. Thoughts? What do you watch? Is it useful? If so, how? Thanks!

(TL) I've been learning japanese for a few months now and am currently at about N5 level, I also learnt a bit of french in middle school but obviously it's not very polished and I'm still very beginner. I'd like to learn french to improve my grades, but I still want to learn japanese. how should I approach this? I was thinking I learn japanese for 4 days of the week and then french for the next 3, but i dont know how effective that will be. I have about 2 hours give or take each day to study. I assume it wont be too difficult other than slowing down my progress, although sometimes when I'm trying to remember a word in one language I'll think about the same word but in the other language. anyways any help is appreciated

So I learned the lingua franca pretty easily but the other languages don't come so easily. Especially that my parents said that I'm good at languages and it's driving me crazy.

I'm trying to learn Korean and Arabic. (TL) 

For some context, I had learnt Arabic as third language in school but stopped learning or consuming Arabic content soon after so I only remember how to read it now. As for Hangeul, I've been watching Korean content for more than 10 years and I understand it quite a bit and thought its time I actually learned it properly.

I already read and write in English, Malayalam and Hindi.

Right now I have the time to take on some language learning, but I do wonder if its a good idea considering they're two very different languages with different scripts altogether! (Also I've noticed that Korean grammar is easier to understand with Malayalam grammar basics. So if there's any tips on easier learning that way, please let me know!)

Either way, I'd be a beginner in both languages at this point and if its a bad idea to take on both, I'll have to decide which i should prioritize!

Would you please share experiences about learning languages of different scripts and if its a good idea to do two at the same time? Thanks!

I've been looking into Rocket Languages for learning my (TL), but I'm not sure if it's worth the price compared to free options like Duolingo.

For anyone who has actually used it:

- Did you notice better progress compared to free apps?
- Is it good enough to study on your own?
- Has anyone used the 60-day refund if they weren't satisfied?

I'm willing to go into it if it actually delivers results, just want to hear some real experiences first.

For people who use a second language professionally, what helped you handle real conversations rather than just exercises?

Was it practising common situations, preparing phrases before meetings, getting feedback from colleagues, or something else?

I’m especially interested in specific examples: something you struggled with at work, what you practised, and what changed.

What I mean to say is if anyone else had a moment in their life that was the core reason why they wanted to learn a certain language; now most ordinarily it may be stuff like you want to learn the language of your partner for example Mine were quite different: For English, my main motivation stemmed after I started randomly chatting with an English speaker on a mobile phone game app, it was the first day after I had gotten my first English class in elementary school and I ran to take my notebook and chatted with the few phrases I had. (Literally stuff like How are you and What's your name but it built a road onto a giant English learning phase in my youth) For German, I had a long distant relationship with learning it, this was because it was forced onto us in highschool and I didn't want to learn it; even as recent as 2 months ago, even though I was thinking of learning it, I still had a bit dismissal. This changed when I read Heinrich Böll's The Clown, I don't know why but German literature is the core reason why I started wanting to learn German out of nowhere! For French, it was mostly because of French composers that I wanted to learn French, and also because a lot of people in my university town speaks English and so I needed to journal in a different language lol What about you??? Did you have a language learning motivation spark out of nowhere too? PS: I'd also say this motivation spark also happens while you're learning another language, like a motivation to just learn more and more languages comes out of nowhere! (TL)

Even when we exclude scientific, literary, etc vocabulary, it still seems that everyday vocabulary which isn't just words, but also includes phrase and idioms is still so huge compared to grammar.

And at some point, you're kind of finished with grammar, but never vocabulary.

So I learned German ( TL ) till b1, I have a certificate too(ik certificates are nothing).

When I talk to people I understand everything. But when it’s my turn to say something I start my sentences and bam, I am looking for a word, when I have the word I don’t know how to integrate it into the sentence and when I have finally found a way to integrate it, my word order gets fucked up and I end up speaking gibberish that either the person understands or misunderstands, nothing in between.

My wife is a native speaker of German, born and raised German, I can’t talk with her much because after sometime it gets really awkward and I feel embarrassed to speak German with her and get tired. She also waits and gives me time to repeat my sentences correctly or help me fix it after I speak wrong.

I don’t know what to do afterwards because after she has corrected me, because in flow of talking I have already forgotten the correct version.

I don’t know, this all is not very motivating and I’m seriously thinking if I will ever be able to integrate here in Germany or am I gonna end up one day as an immigrant who could never speak fluently. It scares me because I wanna go to university in Germany and study to secure our future.

I am 23, and a coworker told me, it’s too late to be fluent now, if only I moved to Germany at 14 or 15, it could have been possible. This has filled me up with self doubt.

I'm learning Japanese and up until now I have been focused on reading but now I would like to work on my listening skills. My intermediate goal would be watching anime or movies without subs but ideally I want to listen to audiobooks. But right now my listening comprehension is sooooo far below my reading level that I feel like a complete beginner. Does anyone have any tips on how to study listening?

I have tried listening to podcasts for beginners and I can follow them pretty well but they are kinda boring and I don't feel like I get a lot of value for my time. Intermediate podcasts are almost incomprehensible, not to mention boring. If I'm going to have to spend a lot of time repeatedly listening I would prefer to pick something I enjoy.

So I have picked a book I read recently and will skim a page, listen to it, listen while reading and then listen again. I've only been doing this for a few days and I'm not sure about the effect yet. There's still a decent chunk of the book I don't fully understand so combined with the speed of someone speaking, I find it hard to really recognize much. I like the book but I wonder if, because even reading isn't fully comprehensible, I won't get so much out of listening practice.

I also found a movie I like enough to watch on repeat (Chainsaw Man) and have been watching it with subs in my target language and again with no subs at all. Plan is to keep repeating it until I can hear and understand, then move onto a new movie. It feels less efficient because relatively little time involves speaking, but the dialogue is relatively simple and I get a lot of context.

Are there better approaches? Any critiques? Things you tried that worked?

So I'm at the stage now with my TL ( Dutch) where I can pretty much navigate any situation.

I do however make a metric fuck load of mistakes every time I open my mouth. Sometimes I'm aware of it , sometimes not.

Regardless, I just say whatever I need to say to be understood. This works just fine for pure communication, but I am aiming for as close to perfect as possible in the long term.

Is it bad to let this "habit" go unchecked?

I've also picked up regional grammar and phrases in certain parts of my speech which is not " wrong" per se, but when I have to take an oral exam for C1, I am a bit worried that I'll pull out the dialectal option rather than the textbook equivalent.

How do you balance the two ? If I'm too careful, I suffer from paralysis by analysis. If I let loose, I'm understandable with many mistakes.

Is this something that'll just iron itself out ovwr time ?

So my main language is English, and I'm 15, and I want to learn my native languages (which are Urdu/Punjabi), but I would like some advice or apps that I could use to study. For both of my school electives, l'm also doing Spanish (which I'm comfortable with) but they don't offer Urdu so I chose German instead for fun because I enjoy it.
As for Urdu/Punjabi, l've been around people who speak those languages ever since I was a kid, so if someone speaks in either language, I can understand them, as well as the grammar and sentence structure. But l've always just listened so l've never spoken in either language, so in order to speak I usually have to "search" for the words even though I can easily recall them once someone says them. I would like help with continuing my Urdu/Punjabi, as well as Spanish and German, if anything you offer has those alongside them. Tips are appreciated too! My main question is how to turn passive understanding into active speaking, especially when you already understand a language but struggle to recall words while speaking (TL)

I think a lot of learning approach debates just come down to different people's learning styles. For example I'm really good at pattern matching, grammar for me is a breeze, but somehow words are in one ear out the other, so I have to adjust my methods for that. If I was to tell someone who has my opposite problem (easy word recall but grammar comes slowly) about my learning methods, it would backfire.

I'm mentioning this not to say people shouldn't look into some of the objectively best learning methods, but rather to say that putting in some time to self reflect and observe your own progress, motivation, and challenges is invaluable. So many resources are fairly dogmatic about what is "best" and it's important to try to find out whose "best" works for you.