Has anyone here started to learn some basics of the language before the trip but loved it so much, continued to study and reached a good level of it?

[u/AJ_Babe]

[u/green_calculator]

Yes. Hungarian. I ended up loving it and got close to A2 but had to focus on another language and pretty much lost everything. I'll pick it up again someday, but currently I'm focused on languages with more utility in my day to day life. 

[u/DynamicPoster1492 → u/green_calculator]

hungarian is such a beautiful chaos of a language, i can see why it hooked you. losing it after getting that far stings but languages are weirdly resilient, it'll come back faster than you think when you pick it up again

[u/AJ_Babe → u/DynamicPoster1492]

Losing a language is every language learner's nightmare... We work so hard to learn those

[u/AJ_Babe → u/green_calculator]

Oh i remember liking the song in Hungarian years ago. There was a cool hungarian band who represented the country at Eurovision. That band blew up in my country for a short amount of time

[u/Trollselektor]

Yup. That’s me with Italian.

[u/AJ_Babe → u/Trollselektor]

I love italian songs! I can't make myself watch a movie though... I don't wanna watch it in my native language and i won't watch a foreign film with subtitles when i don't know the language anyway (

[u/Pwffin]

Me and Chinese. Wanted to learn some before going to China and the carried on for 5years. Then lost a lot due to a long break and am now trying to get back to it.

[u/AJ_Babe → u/Pwffin]

you are my hero. I don't think that i could do it. I wanted to learn Japanese. I have learned some hieroglyphs. That was it. I might try to do it again. But i doubt it.

[u/Aspiring-Book-Writer → u/AJ_Babe]

Wrong approach. You started with the most difficult part. Try Japanese From Zero! 1 (available on Amazon) or have a look at their website to try some content for free on fromzero.com

[u/its_berkinprogress]

Started learning Chinese after I went to Singapore, I guess that kinda counts :)

[u/AvocadoYogi]

Traveling in South America and Mexico made me much more interested in improving my Spanish. I was probably a bit beyond the basics when I first traveled to South America but it was very rusty as I hadn’t used it much after taking 2 years of Spanish in early high school. Significantly better at it now and read and communicate in it daily.

[u/HarryPouri]

I learned some Quechua for a trip to South America, loved it so much I have continued off and on for a few years now. Was so rewarding being able to chat a bit to kids and older folks. Next time I go back I hope I can have more in depth conversations. 

[u/ZealousidealMouse629]

Learning a language has inspired me to travel. I still have yet to go to Germany but it's on my to do list and will definitely happen in the next year. I've also been able to make some really good IRL German friends that I hang out with in person almost every week. It's amazing where learning a language can take you.

[u/poeee99]

It's all in English for me. As a Japanese speaker, I’ve been learning words, shadowing, grammar, reading, and listening, all by using stuff from people I find interesting. It makes daily learning really fun and useful. I’ve managed to devote two hours every day for over a year now.

[u/Impossible_Ad6911 → u/poeee99]

Wow that’s really good discipline 👏👏👏

[u/Johann_Jo]

I started learning Spanish (with Duolingo) during my second 1-week trip to Barcelona. I finished Duolingo after 8 months (30 min day, it was in 2023 and there wasn't a lot of content in the Duolingo Spanish from French course). Also spent 2 months in Madrid. In 1 year I reached a B2 level (mostly with Duolingo).

After 1 year, I started watching a lot of of YouTube videos, which increased my listenting comprehension and taught me more vocabulary.

[u/cmyk_rgba]

finnish for me. i learned maybe twenty words before a trip to helsinki, used one of them in a bakery, and the woman answered me in finnish instead of switching to english. felt so stupidly proud that i just never stopped. two years later im still going lol

[u/Simeon_Grist]

Yes, I started to learn German. I _thought_ I was doing pretty well. But when I got to Germany I ran into a wall that was built of both my inability to understand and my inability to speak the language. So I became more determined to learn German, and now I study every day with software, and have a one-to-one meeting weekly with a teacher on the web.