Ask HN: Foreign language learners, what's the workflow you find most effective?

19 点作者 arcticadder超过 2 年前

My initial exposure to English was through video games. Then as a fifth-grader, I was sent to a private language school where I had group classes with other kids. However, being a kid as I was, I was never aware that the time would come when I would get to use what I learned in real life - otherwise, I would have invested a lot more energy into it. Now that I'm late in my 20s, I have a crystal-clear idea of why knowing a foreign language - such as English - is paramount. Hence, I want to put a more coordinated effort into studying languages.Do you use applications (for example, Duolingo or, perhaps, some other less gamified app), or do you resort to more traditional methods such as group classes where you get to improve everything from speaking to listening to reading and writing?How do you improve every aspect of your language skill (reading, listening, speaking, writing)?What do you use for translating unfamiliar words and improving your vocabulary? Do you use wordlists?Do you practice spaced repetition? Do you make your own flashcards?Feel free to describe your workflow and the tools you use.

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mamonster超过 2 年前

Languages I speak: Russian(Mother tongue level), English(Beyond C2), French(C2/Beyond C2), German(C1).My advice would be as follows: 1. Duolingo and Anki are horrible for beginners, see point 2 below. Should not be more than 10% of learning time.2. Beyond the basic 1000-2000 words(for European languages), vocabulary expansion for mastering language is not only overrated but detrimental. It is much more important to have a solid grasp on grammar. You can talk/write around vocab issues with good grammar much more than the other way around.3. For whatever language you are learning, you need to figure out what is the "key" differentiator of that language and focus on mastering it almost immediately. For example, one of the key aspects of Russian is the extensive declension system, beyond what is seen in other Western languages. For French, I would say stuff like subjonctif and understanding where to place the different accents (aigu,etc) are the complicated parts.4. I would say that once you have the basics down(i.e beyond A2 level), your time splits should be as follows: Grammar:30%. Learning new structures, doing drills, etc. Reading:20%. Seeing usable grammar. If you have grammar and basic vocab down your will see how easy it is to fill in the blanks in terms of what the words mean. Writing:20%. Try writing short stories, maybe a diary entry, maybe stuff about your work. Speaking:20%. This should be higher if you live in the target language country, but speaking basically helps you to make stuff come out more seamless. If you are struggling with forming sentences much more obvious when speaking. Same drills as writing only oral. Vocab: 10%. You should ideally be learning vocabulary that has an immediate use to you to make it stick better(job,etc). Otherwise, you should try to cover all your bases on basics like body parts, weather, home, etc.5. For gendered languages, knowing the genders well will make or break how native speakers receive you. Wrong gender articles sound extremely off to native speakers, do not downplay it. For vocab, learning word without its gender is useless.6. Passive consumption is cool but should never be counted as learning time.

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BayAreaEscapee超过 2 年前

I'm on my third foreign language. I believe you have to have a "multi-pronged" approach.I think the most common mistake people make is to study a lot of grammar at the beginning. Mostly at the beginning you need pronunciation and vocabulary. Grammar should come a bit later.I use:1. Duolingo. I also pay for it and practice my mistakes the following day to build in some time spacing for memory retention.2. Anki (spaced repetition). I use both a frequency dictionary of flashcards from the Internet and also make a second deck with a small number my own cards3. On-line lessons from Verbalplanet. Surprisingly affordable!4. Occasional consumption of media in that language. (Trying to read news in that language or watching TV shows in that language.)

WheelsAtLarge超过 2 年前

Regular conversations in the language you want to learn. You CAN'T use your native language at all and you must respond in the language you are learning. And you can't get help from your conversation partner by having them translate to your native language. Doing it this way forces you to search your memory for the words you need and the adrenaline of having to understand the words and answer correctly helps you remember. Do this enough and you will get the language's basics in a relatively short time. It's not the easiest way to learn but it's the fastest way to get to fluency.BTW, stay away from Duolingo. It won't get to the level you want to be at. There are better and faster ways to learn a new language.

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eimrine超过 2 年前

This sequence has worked for my learning English from zero to hero:1. Start doing it in childhood.2. Set a decent layout (qwerty is for idiots which are majority of people), when you will have time get touchtype in keyboard trainer.3. Have a browser extension which can translate any word on webpage using hotkey or double-click.4. If no money to travel abroad, find people in your country who speak English. Hackathons, festivals, streets in big cities usually have a lot of them.5. Realize how little of content is on your non-English language.6. Register HN account and discuss shit a lot, firstly using a dictionary, then being kind of a person with aphasia, then going to fluent speaker.7. ...8. Profit!

mejutoco超过 2 年前

My strategy is:- buy a textbook with exercises (usually extra thin book)- buy flashcards with basic vocabulary- buy a more than decent grammar reference for the language- Randomly flip between doing exercises and flashcards and checking the grammar book when something comes up.- Subscribe to news in that language and browse them on my ipad.Still, before covid I used to take classes (of Polish, in German) at the Volkshochschule (community college). IMO in person classes give some good motivation to do the exercises and not want to be ridiculed.

TheAlchemist超过 2 年前

If it’s really important to you and you can afford it - once you have some basic understanding and vocabulary - go live for 3 months in an English speaking country (or whatever language you’re trying to learn).It may seem radical but as far as I know it’s by far the fastest way to learn. 3 months seem like a lot, but I believe you can reach the level that would take several years of learning with usual methods.

sfusato超过 2 年前

For improving reading & listening, consider listening to an audio book while also following the text at the same time. Good resource for this would be <a href="https://librivox.org/" rel="nofollow">https://librivox.org/</a> (free public domain audiobooks).

danwee超过 2 年前

Watch video with accurate subtitles in the target language.

laurieg超过 2 年前

Language learning is a marathon not a sprint. The majority of people give up before reaching their goals. With this in mind, you should think carefully about how you will keep your motivation up and how you will make the process fun and interesting all the way through. Don't expect it to suddenly get fun when you reach a particular level. Lots of people put up with boring study now in the hope that there'll be a magical point in the future when they are actually good enough to do the thing they really want. Just skip the boring part and start doing the thing you really want to do right from the beginning.When choosing a teacher, think of them like a coach. They'll give you guidance, encouragement, correction and explanations, but they won't do be able to do the work of learning tons of vocabulary for you. You have to find a way to get all that stuff in your head, just like an athlete who has to find a way to wake up early and jog for miles everyday.Start with spoken language. Spoken language is the ground truth of a language. Writing has additional layers of culture, class, snobbery and education. Speech is pure grammar flowing out of people's mouths. Try to find TV shows, podcasts, youtube channels and so on where you can listen to the language and get a good feeling for the sounds and rhythm. Try to make sure you listen to a reasonable amount of unscripted conversation. Hollywood movie scripts are too perfect. You need to get used to all the "umms" "errs", sentences that change direction half-way through and so on.If I had to lay down a more specific plan I would say do something like this:* Go through an audio only language course like Pimsleur.* Start watching TV shows, movies and videos in the language. As you watch, pick out words and phrases that seem to pop up a lot. Look them up and put them in flashcards/a notebook/an app so you don't forget them. You'll notice that you pick up the meaning from context surprisingly well on occasion. (It's very easy to work out a phrase like "Run away!!" in an action movie, for example)* As you build your vocabulary you'll start to notice chunks of language together and patterns. Study a basic grammar book to help understand how the phrases that you already know are put together.* Keep doing this process regularly for months and years. You'll get to a point where you more or less know all the words, and you'll have learnt them in common, natural phrases and sentences.Some pitfalls to avoid:* Hyper-optimising the language learning process and endlessly trying new apps, software. Sure, it's fun to write a script that grabs words from X and puts them into beautiful flashcards in Y, but really you only need to learn 10 words a day steadily for a couple of years, may as well just write them by hand.* Trying to race through lists of the 10,000 most common words. No context, no grammar. Very boring too so most people give up.* Translating everything to your native language all the time. At the start, translation is necessary, but even simple concepts and words don't map neatly between languages. It's best to avoid your native language as much as possible.* Focusing on the written language over the spoken language. If you goal is to read and write, no problem, but in reality spoken and written languages can be quite different.* Asking "why" too much. Sometimes an explanation can be helpful but often the answer is "That's just how people use the language". Getting hung up on the thousands of strange rules and inconsistencies in a language isn't helpful. Just listen, copy and use!