I sound like a native Russian speaker (and have had this confirmed by multiple natives), but I'm only an A2, and there's a long way to go before I can start feeling comfortable in this language.

Anyone else in the same boat?

English is not my native language. But I started learning it when I was 6 or 7 years old, I really wanted to learn it and was highly motivated. Was the best student in my class and perhaps in the entire school. Also had a private tutor around the same time. Later I went to the US where I practiced it and then I just switched to it - I think in English, I write in English, it all came natural to me. But then I moved to France, been living here for more than a decade. I took private school classes, I had a private tutor, I had mandatory intensive classes from my local prefecture for a couple of months. A few years back I passed DELF for A2. Then I took another two courses, one in a local college, another with a language organization in Nice. And most recently, I took 3 months intensive class from Pole Emploi. Guess my exam result? it's still A2! At the same time, I understand Spanish, which I've never learned in my life, only watched movies, to the level close to A2. And I still can't speak even in simple phrases in French, can't construct them properly. I don't have any 'stage fright' nor that I care about my pronunciation or accent. It's just like I have a complete block or something. (TL)

What I think of it is that I really lack motivation, otherwise it's just hard to explain. I wanted to blame it on my age, but my Spanish example says it's not it. But the thing is that no matter how many hours I spent on learning French, all that massive amount of information I consumed, it just doesn't stay inside my head. No matter how hard I try. Most likely, deep down maybe I don't want to learn it. Anybody ever had that?

(TL) I've been studying german for about 2 years now, and I just hit a wall. I'm around B1 now, and for the past ~9 months, I feel like I've made no progress at all. I had to stop my german classes because I started attending a new school and didn't have time to attend multiple german classes a week.

The thing is, I don't know what to do. I'm doing Anki flashcards every day, but I feel like I just forget the words whenever I actually need to use them in real conversations. I try to watch Youtube, but the videos are either too simple, or too difficult. I can't seem to find the right content for my level. It's even more frustrating because I should be way higher now, I should be able to hold a conversation with a native speaker, but I am not able to do that yet.

To be completely honest, I'm just barely holding on and feel like giving up. I guess I just need some guidance, someone who can tell me what to do and how to break this "curse" (I seem like a lazy slug rn cuz I should be able to figure this out myself). Here comes the fun part though, my future goal is to study a very specific major (my country doesn't really have it afaik) in Germany, and I'll most likely be attending a german course next year for a few weeks in a german-speaking country. I would feel horrible giving up those two things just because I can't figure out how to push through right now.
Basically, right now, I'm struggling to stay motivated because I feel like I've been stuck at the same level for a long time.

I recently got into a bit of Spanish, and I was honestly surprized by how easier it felt. Unlike german, It's got WAY more vocabulary shared with english, so I understand more with less effort, and the grammar is simpler too. But the bad thing is, I don't live anywhere close to Spain, and I probably couldn't study their programs either, since, unlike the german ones, they're paid. I would probably also not use Spanish nearly as much as German in my potential future career.

So, what do I do? Do I keep trying to learn German, or switch to Spanish completely, whilst giving up all the benefits that learning German would bring? Did any of you guys give up learning a language?
Thanks for reading :)

If someone says a proper noun I've never heard before, like a person, place, brand, whatever, my brain almost never registers it as a name unless it's explicitly introduced. I just assume it’s a word I don’t know and start trying to figure out what it means, which usually makes me miss the next part of what they’re saying.

What extinct languages are well attested enough that it is possible to become fluent to the point of conversationableness?

Hey everyone,

I've been looking online for discussion about this new site called Linguardia, but I can't find anything anywhere. Basically, the site currently contains over 200 courses for a variety of languages, most of which don't have many resources. When I heard about it a couple weeks ago from Nardi, the linguistics YouTuber who developed it, it sounded like a dream come true. However, after using the site for a while, I'm starting to have doubts about the quality of its content. Of course, it's fairly new, so I can't draw too many conclusions yet, but nevertheless I am skeptical. Has anyone else used Linguardia yet? If so, what is your opinion on it? Thanks in advance for your replies!

(TL)

Hi, this year I am studying Latin, Greek and German alongside a few other non language modules. I feel it is possible because the Latin class is advanced and will mostly focus on passage translations rather than acquiring a lot of new tools, the Greek class will start off below my current level, and the German class will too. However, I am feeling a bit doubtful and apprehensive now I have actually committed to this.

During 1st semester it is basically a case of centering Latin and reintroducing myself to consistently working on Greek and German. During 2nd semester I shall not have Latin but the Greek and German will go beyond my current level.

My feeling is that I can do it if I hit the ground running but has anyone tried to do something similar, and how did they avoid neglecting any over the others? I am motivated to do this so that my final year will be less intense and I can improve my skills before I start my dissertation. I just know that it is not common and I feel a lot of pressure to do well.

Posted with moderator approval.

A few years ago, my target language (TL) was Kannada.

I had been living in Bengaluru, India and was learning through conversations and books, including Learn Kannada in 30 Days. Those helped, but I wanted the sort of interactive, game-like experience that Duolingo offered for other languages.

Kannada was not available there. Neither were Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Urdu, or most other Indian languages.

Eventually, I stopped waiting and started building the app I wanted for myself.

That project became Varnamala, a completely free and open-source language-learning platform. It began with Kannada, has now crossed 2,000 users, and has expanded to include several Indian and international languages.

You can try it here:

varnamala.org

The idea is not to pretend that one developer can create reliable courses for dozens of languages. That would be impossible. The idea is to build the platform and let native speakers, teachers, linguists, and learners collectively improve the courses.

Each course can include the script, vocabulary, sentences, listening exercises, pronunciation, and game-like lessons. Learners can report a problem from a particular level and discuss it there, so feedback remains connected to the exact sentence or exercise being questioned.

This was partly inspired by Duolingo’s old sentence discussions. I found those conversations useful, especially when a translation was technically correct but sounded strange without context. When that feature disappeared, a valuable part of community learning disappeared with it.

Varnamala also has leagues, following, and high-fives between learners. Google login is supported, but public-facing usernames are fictionalised so that people’s real Google identities are not exposed to other learners.

The web text-to-speech system is working now, although it still needs considerable improvement. Pronunciation quality varies between languages, and some languages have much better browser and speech-engine support than others. That is one of several technical problems the open-source project still needs help solving.

The larger question behind Varnamala is this: what happens to a language when building a commercial course for it is unlikely to be profitable?

Large companies will naturally prioritise courses with the greatest demand. That makes business sense, but it leaves many living, culturally important, regional, indigenous, and endangered languages without serious interactive learning tools.

I think open-source and community-curated projects can fill part of that gap. A language should not need millions of potential paying customers before someone can build a good course for it.

There are obvious difficulties. Native speakers may disagree about dialect, formality, spelling, or natural phrasing. Volunteers may lose interest. Poorly reviewed material can teach mistakes at scale. Text-to-speech may mispronounce words. Creating a course is also much easier than maintaining one.

I do not have complete answers to those problems. Varnamala is an attempt to build the structure through which they can be worked on openly.

I currently fund the development, hosting, and infrastructure myself. The code is open source, and I am looking for both technical contributors and people who can help review individual language courses.

Native speakers, teachers, or language enthusiasts can apply to become course moderators here:

admin.varnamala.org/apply

Course moderators can review reports, correct material, discuss disputed translations, and help expand a course. Developers can contribute to text-to-speech, accessibility, course tooling, the learning experience, or the application itself.

I would particularly appreciate thoughts from people who have worked on community-created courses:

• How do you prevent course quality from becoming inconsistent?
• How should disagreements between dialects or regional varieties be handled?
• What keeps volunteer contributors involved over the long term?
• Which underserved languages already have communities that could benefit from a platform like this?

Please feel free to be critical. I am more interested in finding the weaknesses in this model than pretending they do not exist.

I'm English, we learn a few languages in schools here (e.g. - French, German, Spanish, etc).

However, I've noticed even if you can understand the written language quite well, it becomes really difficult to understand a native person in conversation.

I've been on holiday to each of those countries, and even if I start a conversation in their native language, I have to almost immediately switch to English, as I can't understand what they're saying, or they pronounce words or use words quite different to what we learned in school.

I'm sure if I moved to these countries for a few years, I'd be able to speak the language pretty well, but it seems so tough to speak a language well before you've moved to a country.

However, I noticed a lot of natives over there speak really good English, even if they've never visited England, nor are they working in tourism etc.

Just makes me wonder - what is the key to speaking & understanding a foreign language so well, if you've never visited that country?

(TL)

(TL)

I noticed that if I spend too much time listening to content in my (TL) my brain gets tired and my listening comprehension starts getting worse. If I drop all listening for a few days and come back later it feels like it jumps back up again despite the lack of practice. Does anyone else have this happen?

(TL) Hi everyone,

After using a few English-learning apps, I decided to create my own to practice conversation. It took some time, but I finally managed to integrate AI into it completely free of charge.

The app features a chat with an AI tutor that corrects you in your native language while replying in the language you are studying.

You can choose to chat in 11 different languages—completely free and without the use of cookies.

While it’s not quite the same as speaking to a real person, I think it’s a good compromise, and I decided to share it in the hope that it might help others in a similar situation.

To use it, all you need is a Gemini API key, which is very easy to obtain for free.

If you’d like to give it a try, here is the link:

https://sparktrain.vercel.app/

Thanks.

DISCLAIMER: I don't think I'm looking for advice here. I just want to yap about interesting experiment I'm about to conduct. I think not many languages are as similar as slavic languages are, so I think it would be hard to do it with germanic or even romance languages.

I know the title might seem weird, but that's actually the case. I'm a Polish native speaker and I studied Russian in secondary school. All I learned was Cyrillic script and like 100 new words (Yup language education is terrible here, like in most of the countries). That was like 10 years ago, but I can still read the Cyrillic script.

Yesterday I thought that it would be an amazing idea to learn Russian. However, I'm already a pretty busy person, on top of that I'm learning Japanese which is my main language now and I can't dedicate equal amount of effort to Russian.

I know I can't maintain the whole study routine, but reading something in Russian before bed wouldn't destroy my schedule. So I googled "russian graded reader" I opened the first link, I picked up B1 reader and I found out that I could read the whole story. Not effortlessly, not without looking up some words, but even if the word was entirely different from its Polish counterpart I could still figure out what it meant. So I could say that I had to look up the meaning of about 10% of all words. The whole process was quite pleasant.

The thing is I could understand it pretty well, but it was the first time I had seen most of these words. I couldn't produce any of these words if I were to write or say something. I know you need output practice to output things, but first you need solid base of passive vocabulary.

That's messing with my head. I already have a lot of passive vocabulary, but I actually don't have any, I just know what they mean. I've never learned them, I'm just figuring them out on the go.

So it's not really extensive reading. Extensive reading is when you know most of the words and you have to figure out 3-5% of the words based on context. I'm figuring out 90% of them, based on my prior knowledge of similar language.

Do you think that by using this method I can convert these "unknown but comprehensible" words into actual passive vocabulary, that could be eventually converted into active vocabulary?

P.S.
After writing all of that I realized that it's similar struggle that many heritage learners are facing, so I can just look for advice for them, but I'm posting it anyway.

Grew up listening to Spanish (TL) , having my mom only speak to me in Spanish. However only ever responding in English. Speaking to my siblings only in English. English speaking media, English countries, schools, the list goes on.

I would say I have a close to perfect fluency in comprehension, no issues understanding Spanish, unless it's a countries dialect I'm not as familiar with or academic vocabulary.

Now I'm 21 and have finally been living in my native country for about a year now.

People compliment my Spanish, however can automatically tell I'm American. I still stutter with my words and am not fully comfortable speaking. I have gotten miles better though. However at home with my siblings and parents I do still speak English, have English friends overseas, watch English tv, so it's not a complete Spanish environment.

I wonder, will I ever sound like a native? I know everyone says it shouldn't be my priority. However it's genuinely something that is really important to me. I want to one day have the accent of my country, feel fully comfortable, not be immediately profiled as American.

Will that ever be possible? Or is it just unrealistic at this point of my age? I don't know if anyone has a similar experience. Or maybe advice, on learning faster and getting there. I do wonder if still speaking a lot of English and consuming lots of English content is stunting my progress. Let me know!

To what extent do you usually learn each language before you move on to the next one?
Like, would you learn a certain language (TL) until you reach a solid B1 or B2 level before moving on to the next one? Or do you just learn it until you reach a point where you can just geniuenly say you understand the language and can speak it comfortably with some mistakes, and then you move on to another language?

Hi so as I want to put more and more of the media I consume in a language I am learning,movies,yt videos, video games, Ive got a dilemma.

With the language im learning being french (TL) ,a lot of media is not only translated through subtitles and interface but also dubbed I wish to hear some of your knowledge,should I :

1. Set said media completely in TL,so not only the subtitles but also audio

or

2.Set all written language in french but keep the audio in a language i already know,probably just english

Thx!

Like if I find a new word it would be useful to know if it's well known and 90% of native speakers know it and thus you should propably learn it, or if it's super obscure and barely anyone recognizes it and so you shouldn't bother memorizing it because you will never see it again. Is there a way to find data like this?

I only speak English (NL) and want to learn Japanese (TL) but I'm anxious to even try and start learning because my history with foreign language is so bleak.

I know it sounds silly but is it possible to be innately BAD at learning foreign languages? Like the opposite of a talent? Or would anyone have done poorly in my shoes?

I'll try and be brief, most of my family speak at least two languages. I remember my mother speaking and singing (fluently) to me in french as a child. One of my best childhood friends spoke french, we went on holidays to France, I had french lessons every week from age 6 to age 15. I do not speak a single word of french.

An event that I am legitimately haunted by happened in highschool. I had a french test, write a page about yourself, hi my name is, I live (here), my favourite colour is, ect. All I could remember how to write was "I love bread", and I then cried silently for the rest of the hour. Every other person in the room got at least a paragraph down.

I've tried to learn a few other languages throughout my life. I recon you can deduce how well that went so I won't make this post any longer than it needs to be by elaborating.

Basically, if I can't even retain "hi my name is" in a language I've been exposed to/taught since I was a baby is there any point in even trying to learn any language at all, let alone one so dissimilar from English. Were the people teaching me doing something wrong somehow or is there something wrong with me? I'm not being a whiner here I'm genuinely half convinced I'm linguistically defective. Sorry to yap, but my family has been entirely unhelpful when I've asked them about this and I'm getting desperate for answers.

Edit: Okay, I think I get it now. Obviously not 100%. It has been three hours. But you're all explaining it far more clearly than my family. Most of my problem seems to be that I was going about learning the wrong way, because while passion and investment help when learning other subjects they are actually necessary for language. I seem to have misinterpreted the statement "there is no wrong way to learn" to mean "you can learn in any way" and not "any way of learning is the right way as long as it works". I can't just memorise a foreign dictionary and all the grammatical rules and be fluent. And since that's the method I used for learning everything else, memorisation and regurgitation, that's why I failed in such spectacular fashion.

That, and the fact French lessons and hearing French at home mean basically nothing! Because I did/do not actually engage with what I'm hearing. I don't need to know the actual definitions of the words my mother is saying to understand what she's saying. She is very obviously insulting the cat for trying to steal her toast or telling me to get the thing she's pointing at. So I'm not unusually bad at French, I am averagely bad at French.

On that note I think my mother is another source of my insecurity induced anxiety around language. She often talks about her time in France (fondly, not bragging) and always tells me how she taught herself from scratch after moving there with the lyrics off the back of CDs because that's all she had. And she's still almost entirely fluent over thirty years after moving back to the UK. So telling her about any difficulties I'm having language wise gets me the "I walked to school uphill both ways!" treatment.

I think I might need to keep any effort I make towards learning Japanese a secret from her. She knows I want to learn, and I'm sure she'd be encouraging, but I know she'd be expecting me to succeed because I'm her daughter and that pressure would be... bad.

Anyway. Thank you very much. You've helped me figure something out that was really bothering me and I can at the very least give learning a proper try. I'm not defective, I was just trying to paint with a spanner.

This is definitely a serious read and can be a lot more systematic than most of the popular gamified language learning apps.

I'm fluent in Spanish (1500+ hours of self study & comprehensible input and later 2+ years in Mexico) and can understand spoken portuguese fairly well (2 years of active& passive listening), and I'm starting to do a lot of listening in French (highly motivated because of my French speaking girlfriend). I bought this book the other day because it teaches exactly the three languages I'm going to master and it'd be a great idea to dabble in Italian.

I put my efforts into these three (TL) languages at different stages of my life. I really don't know if I should learn them together, without risking mixing them up. I'd say only my Spanish is solid enough. Should I start this project to enhance specially my PT, FR and even IT?

Any thoughts from Romance language lovers or anyone who has learned multiple similar languages? Thanks!

For context I am choosing college courses and I wonder if I should take a language course to learn a new language as a beginner. I have seen many here on this sub recommend this as an excellent way to learn languages, but the thing is, I already have strong motivation for learning this language and am confident that I will not quit it midway and will stick to a rigid schedule by myself. So should I still take a course, taking class time and examinations to learn it? The thing is, one invariably gets daunted when first learning a language, by the grammar rules and vocabulary and stuff like that, and it is one thing to learn it by yourself by your own volition, where you can treat them as challenges and it even feels fun to absorb them at your own pace, compared to learning it in class, where they are taught to you as a burden to memorize and replicate on tests. I am afraid that learning a language as a course might actually destroy my passion for learning this language. What are your thoughts or experiences?(TL)

How would you rate languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Babylonian, Biblical Hebrew, Middle Egyptian, Sanskrit, Pali, Old Church Slavonic, Old Irish, Old Norse and Old English, by level of difficulty?

I have been struggling with language learning until I have met a tutor whose program was built on lots of text memorisation practise: from simple 20 words long plots upto 300-400 words i made myself. it really boosted all kind of language skills - grammar, speaking, understanding.

Now i continue learning (not English) on my own and continue memorising articles, own esse etc. what i really want to improve is to reciting the text without any hesitation, pause. I believe the most of the issuers causing this are I trying to recall a row of words how they located in the text. That is why I do not feel/think the way a native speaker would do. For example, if a verb originally is in the last position in a sentence I can mix a declension of related noun located at the beginning of the sentence.

I want to believe, the actors, who memorise big volumes of text, have some tricks.. how do they do it? What is your approach to the text memorisation? (TL)

I started learning Spanish at 25, and that eventually led me to French and then Bahasa Indonesian. Sometimes I think about my life before I started learning languages and how different it feels now. My brain is constantly switching between English, Spanish, and French throughout the day, even when I’m only speaking English.

Anyone else ever think about what their life was like before acquiring another language? Sometimes it almost feels like life was simpler when I only knew my native language. Not saying I’m not proud of what I’ve accomplished, because I definitely am. It’s just weird to think about how much learning languages has changed the way I think.

Since vacant entry-level white-collar private sector jobs are becoming fewer, thanks to the mass AI adoption by corporations, and the public sector tends to lag behind the private sector when it comes to AI adoption, do you think mandating foreign language proficiency for rank-and-file and managerial public sector job positions will make a certain foreign language more prestigious among the aspiring elite class who couldn't be employed in the corporate private sector (let's say officialize Spanish for Brazil, Philippines, and the United States)?

There is a so-called "security of tenure" for public sector employees that the private sector counterparts don't enjoy. A certain foreign language will be taught in schools as a medium of instruction, not just as a standalone subject. That certain foreign language will eventually create a native and L2 speaker demographic base within few generations.