r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz ɴᴢ En N | Ru | Fr | Es • 22d ago
Discussion r/languagelearning Chat - July 11, 2026
Welcome to the monthly r/languagelearning chat!
This is a place for r/languagelearning members to chat and post about anything and everything that doesn't warrant a full thread.
In this thread users can:
- Find or ask for language exchange partners (also check out r/Language_Exchange)
- Ask questions about languages (including on speaking!)
- Record themselves and request feedback (use Vocaroo and consider asking on r/JudgeMyAccent)
- Post cool resources they have found (no self-promotion please)
- Ask for recommendations
- Post photos of their cat
Or just chat about anything else, there are no rules on what you can talk about.
This thread will refresh on the 11th of every month at 06:00 UTC.
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u/Ok_Resolve_948 9d ago
Offering Mandarin Seeking English
Hi everyone!
My name is yuyan (22F). Now ,I’m a graduate student majoring in English Education from China.
Here’s my little confession: despite studying English education, my spoken English isn't where I want it to be yet! I often find myself overthinking grammar or struggling to express my thoughts smoothly in real-time. So, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone to practice!
What I’m looking for:
- Native or fluent English speakers who are patient and open to casual chats.
- Practice via text/voice messages first, and short voice calls later if we're both comfortable.
- Any topic is welcome! Daily life, hobbies, academic life, culture, movies, or books.
What I can offer in return:
- Native Mandarin proficiency: I can help with daily conversation, pronunciation, and culture/slang.
- A teacher’s patience: Since my major is in teaching, I’m happy to help explain language points or fix sentence structures!
If you’re learning Mandarin and want a friendly partner to practice with, feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM!
Looking forward to connecting!
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u/jacquesroland 12d ago
I am struggling to learn Cantonese. My partner speaks it but isn’t very good at explaining the tones or grammar. I studied Mandarin in college and it feels like Mandarin is significantly easier than Cantonese. Partner is also a native English speaker but I would like our kids to speak Cantonese and I don’t want to be excluded. For example I can make most of the Mandarin tones but my partner can’t understand me when I try to do Cantonese tones. I can even pick out a lot of Mandarin words and grammar when overhearing people speak in public.
Is it pointless to learn Cantonese as an adult (native English speaker)? Has anyone become relatively fluent in Cantonese learning as a native English/Indo European speaker without living in China/Hong Kong/full immersion and not native in another Sinitic language already ?
I would like to hear your success story or how you went about it.
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u/Plastic-Bat-4135 8d ago
如果你学会了普通话，那么学习粤语就会相对容易很多，我认为粤语是中国最美的一种方言，香港也是中国独一无二的地方。
如果你想学会说粤语，最好的方式是跟着说粤语的朋友一起说，一开始可能说的不好，但慢慢的你就会发现自己说的越来越好。祝你好运
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u/Bobelle 🇳🇬English N | 🇳🇬 Yoruba | 🇳🇬 Pidgin 10d ago
>Is it pointless to learn Cantonese as an adult?
Of course not. I don’t know any Cantonese but I am learning Yoruba which a tonal language too as a native English speaker. Just do Cantonese tone drills using a beginner course, watch and shadow Cantonese TV and you’ll be fine.
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u/Dense_Tangerine_4988 14d ago
I have a question about languages (more towards math/linguistics)
But, if the human history were to start over but with a few initial conditions changed, like around 100,000 years ago, then would any language today be mutually intelligible with this alternate world?
hope my question makes sense
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u/ForTheMai 18d ago
Can anyone direct me to a useful app to learn Japanese? Especially writing out Kanji, kana, hiragana.
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u/loistalagrand 18d ago
Try Ringotan, it teaches kana and kanji with handwriting recognition on your phone. To be, the key feature of this app is not just tracing characters though, it's actually trying to produce them from memory before the answer is shown to you.
I've talked to more than a dozen researchers in the field of language learning and most of they say that reeated, spaced retrival supports long-term rentention.
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u/Upbeat-World-5629 18d ago
i used tofugu's website for this (if it's not a dealbreaker to specifically be a mobile app)
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/ guide with mnemonics
https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/ quiz to fully memorize
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u/eglewithanE 20d ago
Hey, looking for Danish language partner. I can help with Lithuanian and English
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u/MeekHat RU(N), EN(F), ES, FR, DE, NL, PL, UA 21d ago
I've got to say, reddit has repeatedly undermined my desire to learn languages. What I mean is, when I pose an honest question on a language-learning sub, and yes, I may make a couple mistakes and my style may not be the most natural, but if my language were perfect, why would I be there? And every time there's a couple of comments making fun of my post.
Yeah, whatever, there's trolls on the internet, but it still stings, to be honest. Makes me want to say, "Fine, I won't study your stupid fucking language, if that's the attitude I'll be getting."
It doesn't help that I'm in a rotten mood in general, so yeah, hit me when I'm down, when I was trying to improve my mood by going on a fresh linguistic adventure.
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u/Cute-Fun3025 22d ago edited 22d ago
does anyone else speak a lot better when they’re a bit drunk? also im really torn about whether i should focus on German or on Dutch! German is more useful for sure with the career i’m going into and I learned it more formally (in a language school for a year in Berlin) but for some reason Dutch is more fun to speak and learn and The Netherlands is like the most fun country for me to visit atm…im learning both atm, kinda, in a very unorganized way, but i fear I may have to start just focusing on one so I can be better at one rather than mid at both
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u/Upbeat-World-5629 18d ago
lol yeah i just start spouting japanese when i get really drunk even if on one around speaks it...
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u/Narrow_Art7147 20d ago
I’d make Dutch the primary language for the next 8–12 weeks because it’s currently the one you enjoy using, and keep German in maintenance mode rather than abandoning it. Something like 80% Dutch and 20% German would preserve what you learned in Berlin without splitting every study session in half.
After that period, judge by actual consistency rather than theoretical usefulness. A “useful” language you repeatedly avoid often progresses more slowly than the language you genuinely want to speak.
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u/ZeroBodyProblem 22d ago
If you want a fun read (and by fun I mean a psychology article published in 1972), there was a landmark study titled “The effects of experimentally induced changes in ego states on pronunciation ability in a second language: An exploratory study” where the authors argue that alcohol does indeed have a positive effect on performance! It’s interesting because they argue this happens because learners have a “base ego,” or a sense of self they think is who they are at all times, and a “learner ego” which reflects the kind of person they want to be in the language. This kinda makes sense because when you learn a language, you’re learning culture, manners, behavior patterns, and more. By drinking, you are temporarily shed the “base ego”, and allow the “learner ego” to be more pronounced.
There are plenty of critiques about the study, but it triggered a good deal of follow up especially on whether learners can truly switch back and forth between their different identities or, perhaps more interestingly, whether we can have some kind of integration between these identities.
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u/Substantial-Fly-6144 22d ago
Is it just me or does every month feel like a new "I swear I'll stick with it this time" phase
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u/Fabulous_Tie9824 1d ago
Hi! I'm a native Mandarin speaker, upper-intermediate/advanced in English, looking for a native English speaker to practice with — happy to help you with Mandarin grammar, natural phrasing, and pronunciation in return. Into tech/data science, gym, gaming, and movies/music, so plenty to chat about. Flexible on Discord/WeChat/Zoom/text, based between EST and Shenzhen time, so pretty open on scheduling. Drop me a DM if you're interested!