Topic: Learning a new language.

[rob1966]

I've read here people writing that a language is very fast but, in fact I believe it is just because the brain can't process it fast enough. I'm sure people learning english have the same problem.
I moved to Germany in 1992 with relatively little knowledge of German. Going to the pub helped!!!!! I live in the south, the dialect is Schwäbisch and I now find that to be 'normal'. People from other parts of Germany can be more difficult to understand, you have to concentrate. That said, they can't understand what the people here say!! A bit like asking a foreigner to learn english in Newcastle.
My aim this winter is to learn Spanish. I hope by the end of winter to be able to read well and to be able to watch and understand TV. Then in summer on my hols to speak as well.

I used to know a woman who was from Devon and spent a lot of time as a kid living in Spain, so she was fluent and also spoke with a Spanish accent. She found that when she spoke Spanish, they treated her as if she was Spanish and she couldn't cope with the speed and asked them to slow down. I suppose it is the same as us, when I'm speaking to a fellow scouser we tend speed up and I know other people cannot keep up with the speed.

I feel like when the German language was in its inception, they purposely made the grammar rules illogical just to have a laugh. Fucking hell, it's torture

I jibbed German off in school as it was wrecking my head.

[Kuytinho]

I've lived in Berlin for nearly 5 years now and wouldn't consider myself a proficient German speaker. I can understand most things in most contexts, and can make myself understood, but often find it difficult to express myself.

People are often surprised that I am not completely fluent yet, but moving to Germany means little when you work in English and spend most of your free time with your English speaking girlfriend.

I only make real progression when attending German lessons, and my German rapidly deteriorates when I am not enrolled in a course - because I just don't use it enough. I can order a Döner but I don't have lengthy conversations with German speakers. How often do you have deep conversations with strangers? How difficult is it to make friends as an adult? Never mind when you can't even express yourself properly.

And most people can speak English better than I can German. It's hard to keep up using German when you have the option to switch. Of course I don't let on that I can speak English during short interactions, but as soon as a conversation develops / somebody gets to know you, it often becomes apparent that it is easier to switch to English.

I've taken up golf, playing weekly with a German-only speaker, and expect my German will improve faster than my swing.

It's very much a long journey (at least for me), but also must consider that it is all relative. I have taken massive strides to get to where I am, and anyone beginning to learn would be hugely envious of my level. But with this level comes the realisation of a lifetime of learning to express myself as I do in my native tongue.

[Komic]

Anyone currently doing so, and if so any tips/suggestions you'd recommend?

Netflix has been helpful for me, listening and then reading with the proper captions in the same language

I've been learning using Netflix as well and a good tip I've had is to make another account and set the language to the one that you are learning. Helps group all those shows together and you can get more dubbed and subtitled shows. Learning Spanish the two main options for shows are cocaine or telenovela, so dubbed shows help mix it up. I now need to take the plunge and turn off subtitles.

[deFacto please, you bastards]

I've lived in Berlin for nearly 5 years now and wouldn't consider myself a proficient German speaker. I can understand most things in most contexts, and can make myself understood, but often find it difficult to express myself.

People are often surprised that I am not completely fluent yet, but moving to Germany means little when you work in English and spend most of your free time with your English speaking girlfriend.

I only make real progression when attending German lessons, and my German rapidly deteriorates when I am not enrolled in a course - because I just don't use it enough. I can order a Döner but I don't have lengthy conversations with German speakers. How often do you have deep conversations with strangers? How difficult is it to make friends as an adult? Never mind when you can't even express yourself properly.

And most people can speak English better than I can German. It's hard to keep up using German when you have the option to switch. Of course I don't let on that I can speak English during short interactions, but as soon as a conversation develops / somebody gets to know you, it often becomes apparent that it is easier to switch to English.

I've taken up golf, playing weekly with a German-only speaker, and expect my German will improve faster than my swing.

It's very much a long journey (at least for me), but also must consider that it is all relative. I have taken massive strides to get to where I am, and anyone beginning to learn would be hugely envious of my level. But with this level comes the realisation of a lifetime of learning to express myself as I do in my native tongue.

Music to my hears, as I'm having some plans to moving to Berlin at some point and it's one of the reasons why I'm learning German [but I've also listened to German music for about a decade so it's not completely foreign to me and I know 2 languages already so some things come easier].

A question slightly off topic, how difficult/easy was it for you to find work in Berlin, particularly in environment where you can speak English and how is life there in general? 

[deFacto please, you bastards]

I used to know a woman who was from Devon and spent a lot of time as a kid living in Spain, so she was fluent and also spoke with a Spanish accent. She found that when she spoke Spanish, they treated her as if she was Spanish and she couldn't cope with the speed and asked them to slow down. I suppose it is the same as us, when I'm speaking to a fellow scouser we tend speed up and I know other people cannot keep up with the speed.

I jibbed German off in school as it was wrecking my head.

I don't blame you, the witting of the numbers backwards is driving me mad 

[Kuytinho]

A question slightly off topic, how difficult/easy was it for you to find work in Berlin, particularly in environment where you can speak English and how is life there in general? 

There's a big start-up scene here, with loads of these companies insisting on English as their working language. I started in a customer care job serving the UK market, and now work in a different company in a sort of PM role - also with no German required. Equally, I know people who have worked in bars and retail with zero knowledge of German.

Moving here was the best decision I ever made. Much better working environment, interesting people from different backgrounds, great transport links, better beer. Can live happily here, even without knowing the language. But I do miss Greggs, Hobnobs, like-minded football fans and me ma.

One note of caution: finding a flat is an absolute nightmare. Overcome that and you're set, but you need to overcome 50+ other applicants for every cupboard under the stairs.

[deFacto please, you bastards]

There's a big start-up scene here, with loads of these companies insisting on English as their working language. I started in a customer care job serving the UK market, and now work in a different company in a sort of PM role - also with no German required. Equally, I know people who have worked in bars and retail with zero knowledge of German.

Moving here was the best decision I ever made. Much better working environment, interesting people from different backgrounds, great transport links, better beer. Can live happily here, even without knowing the language. But I do miss Greggs, Hobnobs, like-minded football fans and me ma.

One note of caution: finding a flat is an absolute nightmare. Overcome that and you're set, but you need to overcome 50+ other applicants for every cupboard under the stairs.

Cheers for all the info, greatly appreciated! 

[Willi]

Another point, don't be afraid to take your kids abroad to live. Mine were age 7 and 10 when we came here, they were put in the local school, not speaking any German. After a year they were speaking the local dialect like they were born here.
I speak German very well but I started aged 35, after 27 years you can tell I'm a foreigner. They say it is much easier to learn a language before puberty.

Remember the stages of learning a language 1) Reading 2) Understanding 3) Speaking which is why I wrote above I am hoping to do the first 2 stages for Spanish in the next 6 months. I started at the start of October.

[Willi]

And for anyone living in Germany, I order my teabags and a couple of packets of Jelly Babies for my daughter (now aged 37) from
https://www.greatbritishfood.de/
 

[deFacto please, you bastards]

Cheers for the info Willi, which city do you live in btw?

[BobPaisley3]

I speak German very well but I started aged 35, after 27 years you can tell I'm a foreigner. They say it is much easier to learn a language before puberty.

I’d say if you haven’t done it by 5 then it’s pretty much the same level of difficulty for all.

[Willi]

Cheers for the info Willi, which city do you live in btw?

I live in Altenstadt a. d. Iller which is a very small town between Ulm and Memmingen, about halfway between Stuttgart and Munich.

[Willi]

I’d say if you haven’t done it by 5 then it’s pretty much the same level of difficulty for all.

Our kids managed very well as no English (apart from English lessons) was spoken in school.
I remember my son came home after about 6 months and said, the teacher said he was the best in the class at reading German out loud. Mind, he said, he didn't understand it all.

And the kids saying they got a grade 1 in English  I should bloody think so.
They complained that the english teacher's pronunciation wasn't very good !!!

[BobPaisley3]

Our kids managed very well as no English (apart from English lessons) was spoken in school.
I remember my son came home after about 6 months and said, the teacher said he was the best in the class at reading German out loud. Mind, he said, he didn't understand it all.

Yeah that’s the key. Wish we’d put our oldest in a local school but he went to the International school instead.

[stoa]

I live in Altenstadt a. d. Iller which is a very small town between Ulm and Memmingen, about halfway between Stuttgart and Munich.

Ever been to Vorarlberg? Our German is the best...

[Willi]

I tend to go to Lermoos, Ehrwald in Tiroler Zugspitz Arena for skiing or Mayrhofen, Zillertal. German is indeed an experience. They are used to tourists though.
Where in Vorarlberg?

[stoa]

Dornbirn. And the crazy thing is, that you can go a couple of kilometres from here and it's almost impossible to understand what people are saying because of their dialect. I don't envy anyone who has come here trying to learn German. A friend of mine is from India and he has been here for about five or six years or so and I think it was pretty hard for him to learn the language....

[Willi]

Dornbirn is south of Bregenz and just over an hour from me.
I live in Bayern but on the border with Baden Württemberg. There's a noticable difference in dialect within 2 kilometers.

[CHOPPER]

For the last 20 years, I've been trying to learn Denial, spoken mainly by blues and my blue mates. And to this day, I just can't seem to get it.

[Willi]

 You'll never learn that if you are wearing red 

[Pheeny]

They complained that the english teacher's pronunciation wasn't very good !!!

Same with mine.He even pulled his teacher up once for the way she pronounced Chile...

[Pheeny]

And for anyone living in Germany, I order my teabags and a couple of packets of Jelly Babies for my daughter (now aged 37) from
https://www.greatbritishfood.de/
 

There is also http://www.stonemanor.uk.com/shop-online/ they have two shops in Belgium as well as online...

[deFacto please, you bastards]

Someone said ''Life is too short to learn German'' while I was looking for some tutorials, really made me laugh and seriously killed my motivation to learn haha

[kellan]

A heads up for anybody who uses duolingo free and has had their version update from the 'do as many lessons as you fancy' lingots system to the 'oh dear you ran out of hearts so go get some more before you can do another lesson or maybe just pay for the subscription version' system - if you go to https://schools.duolingo.com and set yourself up as a teacher, then create a classroom, then open up another browser tab and visit the join code link to also make yourself a student of said classroom, then go into the app and click the heart in the top corner - the option for unlimited hearts via pro subscription will now be unlimited via student status so you can carry on using the app exactly as you were

Or the browser version itself still has the lingot system so you could always just switch to using that instead.

[kellan]

Mine updated when I went to use it this morning. I had no idea the hearts version had been around for so long and I'd just been lucky to not get it yet.

I've had a play with it since doing the workaround. Only just noticed it changed my Spanish for English speakers lesson tree to a more simplified one. It's a tree I can see I've had before though because I'm a few lessons through a level already and can remember when it switched from this simplified one. I was annoyed because there were then a load of levels added earlier on the tree where I had already completed so had double-back to do them also. This is a very long-winded way of saying if you remove yourself from the classroom and then delete the classroom, your tree will revert back. I've got the one with more lessons on it again now. And for now I've still got the unlimited hearts too.

Maybe just use the website version if you don't want to mess around with your tree progress.

[L4Red]

I started a Spanish degree with the OU last year, the first year was too easy as I had a little bit of experience so I sort of coasted through and I've cancelled this year as I have no motivation at all, too much shit going on to find the time where I can study in peace.

The best app I used was Memrise, loads of lists on there for vocab, verb conjugations etc. Added to that if people want to get conversational then there are apps/sites like italki where you can pay for 1-2-1 lessons, mostly the Latin American teachers are affordable, the ones who live in Spain are way way too expensive for an average person.

[Ghost Town]

I've checked out Duolingo because people keep mentioning it but find it incredibly tedious and badly designed. Not sure that it really teaches you well, either. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone feels they've become proficient in a language via using it, because I have my doubts that it is possible.

I guess on the plus side it's free

[kellan]

I've checked out Duolingo because people keep mentioning it but find it incredibly tedious and badly designed. Not sure that it really teaches you well, either. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone feels they've become proficient in a language via using it, because I have my doubts that it is possible.

I guess on the plus side it's free

I've been using it for a number of years. Though admittedly stopped doing so as a serious learner somewhere along the way. So I say this as someone who is bothering to use it only casually now.

It's not something which will tell you why your answers are right or wrong, for the most part. I remember there once being a lightbulb button on each level which gave some explanation for whatever said level was teaching you. But it disappeared, on my version at least, some time ago. And since then the learning process has been to start a new level with a bunch of new words or grammar rules which I am left to figure out myself through trial and error, with nothing to help understand what I can't grasp. Or to help understand why the things I can grasp are done the way they are. Even when the lightbulb was available to me, and I was a serious learner, I still needed my laptop beside me for further reading up on what Duolingo was teaching. I've never got the impression it is designed to give me everything I need, more to be a tool for use in conjunction with other apps or websites which go more in depth. I suppose you could say it is best used for practising what you have been properly taught elsewhere. And I think it does a perfectly good job of being that. But if I were to start taking my learning seriously again, I can't imagine Duolingo by itself would help me to reach proficiency.

[reddebs]

I've been using the free version since March and find it very frustrating.  My go to method, probably incorrectly, is to do the practice questions which keep repeating until you get them all right.

If I've time or can be bothered I then go to the lessons but it infuriated me that my 5 'lives' were used very quickly especially on a new section and more often than not I wouldn't bother doing the practice to get them back again.

A few weeks ago I decided to sign up for the 2 week free trial and that really helped as I could just repeat the lessons until it sank in and I managed to complete a lot from that level that I'd been trying to do for months.

Now though I'm flying through the practice part with perfects pretty much everytime yet fail miserably still on the lessons.

Would I pay £80 for it, no, even though doing away with the stupid hearts did help.

[L4Red]

I've checked out Duolingo because people keep mentioning it but find it incredibly tedious and badly designed. Not sure that it really teaches you well, either. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone feels they've become proficient in a language via using it, because I have my doubts that it is possible.

I guess on the plus side it's free

It's awful, the Spanish stuff on there is dreadful

Really, the only way to learn a language is to speak it as often as possible.

[L4Red]

Yo aprendo espanol hoy. Por que es malo?

I'm hoping to work my way through the whole course and then with a base level of understanding, start a physical course.

It's probably more that I just don't get on with it. I found it really weird, odd sentences that they get you to translate. If you want to learn lists of vocab, verb conjugations etc then flashcard apps like Anki or Memrise work much better.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/search-results?as_q=spanish#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=spanish&gsc.page=1 have a look on here for good free courses, they're just extracts from the full degree courses.

Also I liked Lengalia but it's quite dry and I think it was about £50 for a year. However you do get accredited A1 A2 etc certificates as you progress.

[Ghost Town]

It's probably more that I just don't get on with it. I found it really weird, odd sentences that they get you to translate.

Yeh the strange sentences; 'The cat married the elephant' and stuff like that.

BUt worse, the design of the Duolingo programme is poor, IMO, and I'm pretty proficient at languages. When you answer a question, if you get it wrong it just tells you the correct answer and you have to move on to the next question, eventually coming back to the one you got wrong again at the end.

This is poor pedagogy; when you make a mistake the first thing you should do is try and rectify it. When you make an error Duo should tell you you are wrong and let you try again, so you can think about it and try and spot what you did wrong and rectify it yourself, without seeing the correct answer. If you have a chance to do that you will probably not make that error again because it will be reinforced in your mind. Just telling you the correct answer is valueless.

Imagine you were in a classroom and your teacher asked you to say something and you stumbled; she wouldn't just tell you the right answer and move on, she'd give you a chance to get it right; profit from the error.
 
It's good that it is free and has lots of language choices, and new ones appearing all the time, but it's scuppering itself by the design of the teaching method, and those of you using it are being kept back from progressing quicker, unnecessarily.

The forums are an absolute disaster as well.

[L4Red]

Yeh the strange sentences; 'The cat married the elephant' and stuff like that.

BUt worse, the design of the Duolingo programme is poor, IMO, and I'm pretty proficient at languages. When you answer a question, if you get it wrong it just tells you the correct answer and you have to move on to the next question, eventually coming back to the one you got wrong again at the end.

This is poor pedagogy; when you make a mistake the first thing you should do is try and rectify it. When you make an error Duo should tell you you are wrong and let you try again, so you can think about it and try and spot what you did wrong and rectify it yourself, without seeing the correct answer. If you have a chance to do that you will probably not make that error again because it will be reinforced in your mind. Just telling you the correct answer is valueless.

Imagine you were in a classroom and your teacher asked you to say something and you stumbled; she wouldn't just tell you the right answer and move on, she'd give you a chance to get it right; profit from the error.
 
It's good that it is free and has lots of language choices, and new ones appearing all the time, but it's scuppering itself by the design of the teaching method, and those of you using it are being kept back from progressing quicker, unnecessarily.

The forums are an absolute disaster as well.

Put better than I could but I wholeheartedly agree.

Just checked Lengalia that I mentioned earlier and its 59.99 (euro) for 12 months, and you get all courses from beginner to C2, podcasts, videos, flashcards etc etc etc Skype access to tutors seems to be on there too now. But crucially it explains the theory behind each lesson, gives you plenty of test questions and like you said before, the opportunity to see how and why you were wrong, and you can add the ones you get wrong to a list that it tests you on more frequently.

I'm going to renew and get back into it, at that price it's worth it. Plus I just did a placement test on there and I haven't regressed too far so strike whilst the iron is lukewarm and that.

[RJH]

Just been upgraded to the hearts systemon Duolingo, and to me it's a massive backward step.
Instantly cut my daily use of it by about 75%.

The whole model of Duolingo is "figure it out yourself, learn from your mistakes" - a lot of lessons don't have any tips, and those that do are fairly sparse. So a system that actively punishes you for mistakes runs completely counter to that.
It's also very frustrating when you lose a life because Duolingo doesn't accept what is actually a perfectly valid translation.

Presumably the idea is to try and force more people on to the paid system, but personally it just puts me off.
"We've made the free version shit, pay £100 a year* to get basically what you used to get for free" doesn't really appeal to me.

*I think that is what it costs -  it what is another "fuck you" move, Duolingo seem determined to hide how much Duolingo Plus actually costs.

[Ghost Town]

The whole model of Duolingo is "figure it out yourself, learn from your mistakes" - a lot of lessons don't have any tips, and those that do are fairly sparse.

If that is their model then they are doing it wrong. Just telling you the correct answer won't help you learn from your mistakes. It's too passive; there's no active cerebral engagement, so to speak.

I'm not sure what all this hearts business is.

[Komic]

I found doing Duolingo made me good at Duolingo not the language. It's decent for getting a foundation of vocabulary so you can learn grammar without looking up words constantly though, but finding other ways that require you to think more are better.

Not sure if its been mentioned in here already but if you have Netflix you can create a new profile and set the language to the language you are learning. This gives you a lot more subtitle and dubbed version options. The dubs for spanish are slower than the native shows which is good, but the subtitles dont match perfectly. You can also replay tricky scenes at 75% speed as well.

Another good tip I've had is to keep a diary, helps with generatingthe language if all the other things you do are just understanding it.

[redgriffin73]

I found doing Duolingo made me good at Duolingo not the language. It's decent for getting a foundation of vocabulary so you can learn grammar without looking up words constantly though, but finding other ways that require you to think more are better.

Not sure if its been mentioned in here already but if you have Netflix you can create a new profile and set the language to the language you are learning. This gives you a lot more subtitle and dubbed version options. The dubs for spanish are slower than the native shows which is good, but the subtitles dont match perfectly. You can also replay tricky scenes at 75% speed as well.

Another good tip I've had is to keep a diary, helps with generatingthe language if all the other things you do are just understanding it.

Thanks for the Netflix tip, will give that a go.

[kellan]

Just been upgraded to the hearts systemon Duolingo, and to me it's a massive backward step.
Instantly cut my daily use of it by about 75%.

The whole model of Duolingo is "figure it out yourself, learn from your mistakes" - a lot of lessons don't have any tips, and those that do are fairly sparse. So a system that actively punishes you for mistakes runs completely counter to that.
It's also very frustrating when you lose a life because Duolingo doesn't accept what is actually a perfectly valid translation.

Presumably the idea is to try and force more people on to the paid system, but personally it just puts me off.
"We've made the free version shit, pay £100 a year* to get basically what you used to get for free" doesn't really appeal to me.

*I think that is what it costs -  it what is another "fuck you" move, Duolingo seem determined to hide how much Duolingo Plus actually costs.

I've posted some steps on the previous page for how to get round the heart system by making it give you unlimited supply.
https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=222563.msg17466836#msg17466836
https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=222563.msg17467260#msg17467260

It is still working for me. I get an occasional 'have a freebie turn of unlimited hearts for this level' pop-up now and then but nothing changes once I've completed it, the unlimited hearts are still there letting you use the app like it used to allow.

[kellan]

I'm not sure what all this hearts business is.

They have essentially gamified it. Think of hearts as lives. Every wrong answer takes a life away. When you run out of lives, you have to go backwards to an easier lesson and replenish by getting answers right. Or you spend gems earned from already completed lessons to' buy' more lives. Or you just fork out real money for the paid version to do away with it all.

They will have justified it on the argument that replenishment goes hand in hand with revisiting earlier and easier levels/lessons which ought to teach you how to complete the one you weren't able to. But say you are on level 4 of a lesson, it doesn't actually let you go back to level 3. Duolingo has never done that. So unless you can find another lesson of related content, the replenishment process won't teach you a thing of what you need to carry on progressing through the lesson tree.

[Ghost Town]

They have essentially gamified it. Think of hearts as lives. Every wrong answer takes a life away. When you run out of lives, you have to go backwards to an easier lesson and replenish by getting answers right. Or you spend gems earned from already completed lessons to' buy' more lives. Or you just fork out real money for the paid version to do away with it all.

They will have justified it on the argument that replenishment goes hand in hand with revisiting earlier and easier levels/lessons which ought to teach you how to complete the one you weren't able to. But say you are on level 4 of a lesson, it doesn't actually let you go back to level 3. Duolingo has never done that. So unless you can find another lesson of related content, the replenishment process won't teach you a thing of what you need to carry on progressing through the lesson tree.

Sounds like a load of pointless nonsense. Or just a way of getting you to pony up.

I did notice that the whole DL programme is very gamified. XPs and gems and lingots, whatever they are, and crowns and leagues and competing against others, and now hearts (which I hadn't seen as I've only looked at the desktop version of the site).

Far from helping I think these game features can distract you or reduce your progress. Language learning is not a game; it's not achieved by completing bits and getting points. It's an almost mysterious, non-linear process that requires an immersed approach. If you can get lost in the language you'll come out knowing more than you realise. This game approach militates against that immersive experience.

Sorry, not trying to put people off. The fact it is free is a big boon. But I would definitely advise using other methods as well, ideally ones which involve as much production as possible.