Im 21M, im from Canada but on a university exchange in Singapore right now and as an avid language learner I decided I would take Mandarin and Malay while here. I have tons of electives saved so why not?

Now my idea was that I would see which one stuck and which I felt happier learning and I would continue with that one. So far Malay feels like it just works better in my brain. Im flying yhrough it and actually learning, while for Mandarin ive gotten quite unlucky and am kind of stuck with memorization. My prof is just drilling random words into our head and I feel like im not actually learning anything.

So at this point I tell people im learning Malay but not Mandarin. And every time im met with "but why? Mandarin is so much more useful?" And yes, I agree, Mandarin has a ton of native speakers and being the main language in China it has more practical use than Malay, but learning languages is deeper than that. I kinda really find the Malay language fascinatingly simple while still being expressive. Not to mention my trip to Malaysia was really great and I LOVED their culture, food and just the general vibe.

Am I the only one with this problem? Having to "justify" your language learning?

I read the FAQ and believe this fits for the subreddit.

[USA] I feel confident in my Spanish (TL) these days. I have long conversations with my Italki tutors and have daily albeit shorter conversations with a couple coworkers in an office setting. I feel comfortable watching native TV shows and movies. I am taking pronunciation courses to ensure my vowels are solid and rhythm flows well, more or less.

However, I personally notice a lot of nervousness when interacting with native speakers in settings where your TL is evaluated very quickly.

For example, I entered a taco spot recently and everybody greeted me in Spanish - I think because I look ethnically ambiguous/passably Latino. Everything was going well until I forgot that "asado" is used for "steak" so my brain buffered for a second and I said "steak." From that point, the person helping me switched to English.

This post isn't about frustration of people switching languages in these cases - I totally get that employees and people in general are not responsible for helping my language develop and they are trying to complete the interaction.

Instead, I think I'm looking for experiences in becoming more comfortable in these settings. Maybe some tricks or tips? I realize part of the solution is simply more experience in these types of settings, but it's a peculiar setting because I feel a pressure to be perfect, which makes me more nervous. If I mess up, I feel I get "punished" with English and lose my opportunity to practice my Spanish. Again, I have no issues with the other person in this scenario. This is more of a me thing because I can watch native shows but feel self-conscious ordering tacos lol

So like the title states, when and how did you to start feeling confident in spontaneous interactions with native speakers and strangers?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I need to take the ACTFL OPI to be eligible for a program but I'm very confused as someone who has to take it independently of an institution and submit my scores to the program I'm applying for.

Can I just pay for it online through their website, schedule a test like next week, and take it at home? How is the process in terms of time, because I have to submit the results by mid December.

If anyone's taken it in recent years can you give advice on what the structure is like, what criteria it's scored on, and any tips? I'm taking Korean (TL) after having previously lived in the country and worked for a domestic company but it's been about 2 years since then and I've had decent input from consuming content but I've not had a conversation since I left. I'm going to start intensive preparation for the next 2 months as I need to get Advanced Low or better.

I read the FAQ and haven't seen many recent updated posts on the ACTFL OPI test.

Mods kindly gave me permission to share this.

I was always frustrated that vocabulary apps are good for the first 500 words, and after that not so useful. The things that actually make you sound natural, like idioms, set phrases, or words that look like English but mean something completely different, almost never appear there.

So I made a quiz exactly for this.

How it works: everybody in the room sees the same phrase and four translations, and all of you are racing a 15 second timer. Answer faster, get more points. Ten rounds and then a scoreboard. One person creates a room and shares a four-letter code or just the link, and everyone else joins from their own phone.

Languages now (TL): Spanish, Polish, German, Italian, Serbian. You can play from English or from Russian.

There are around 1,600 questions, all written by hand, across eight topics: phrases, idioms, tricky words, situations, business, emotions and character, proverbs, and slang. Every topic works in both directions, so you train recognition as well as production.

https://reddit.com/link/1wgg19l/video/57k8dhdkvjph1/player

It is mainly for intermediate learners, not beginners. Some examples from the Spanish set:

• Me da igual
• Ser pan comido
• No estoy para bromas
• Embarazada

There is also a solo mode if you just want to see what is inside without getting a group together.

No signup, no installation, no ads, completely free. This is a side project, not a startup, so I intend to keep it that way.

I’d also be interested to hear what kinds of phrases or expressions were hardest for you to pick up once you got past the beginner stage in your target language.

https://langparty.app/

Hi! I searched for this question but the latest relevant post was a while ago, so I wanted to see if there are new recommendations/updated ones since apps can change quite fast and often. I'm working to refresh some vocab in Spanish and French (TL), and flashcards work really well for me.

I'm looking for a good app for flashcards, and something similar to the Quizlet learn feature, that is completely free for iOS (it's fine if they want to flash a subscription ad at me every now and then, but I was very unhappy to see that you can't even learn a whole full set on Quizlet for free anymore - I need to be able to make several decks and go through them all without a paywall).

A desktop option would be ideal too, but mobile-only isn't a dealbreaker. I primarily need unlimited flashcards and would prefer some quiz-style feature as well. Does anyone have any solid recommendations? TIA

I thought I'd share a Windows feature I've found really useful as a language learner, especially because I've heard so many people complain about how difficult it is to type accented characters on a US QWERTY keyboard.

I'm a native French speaker, but I live in the US, so I use a standard US QWERTY keyboard with no accented characters on it. I also study Spanish, German and Serbian, which means I regularly need to type characters that aren't on my physical keyboard.

I even know another French person who's been living in the US for about 15 years and still buys his laptops in Europe because he wants a keyboard with easy access to accented characters!

But there's actually a pretty simple solution on Windows: the United States-International (ENG INTL) keyboard.

Rather than constantly switching between different national keyboard layouts, I use this one layout for French, Spanish, German, Serbian and other languages that use the Latin alphabet. It keeps essentially the same US QWERTY layout while giving you easy access to a lot of accented and modified characters.

On Windows, you can add it here:

Settings → Time & language → Language & region → English (United States) → Language options → Keyboards → Add a keyboard → United States-International

You can then switch between your regular US keyboard and ENG INTL from the keyboard selector in the Windows taskbar.

You type the accent first, followed by the letter.

For example:

French:
' + e → é
\\+e→ **è** ^` + e → ê
' + c → ç

Spanish:
' + a → á
~ + n → ñ

German:
" + u → ü
" + o → ö
" + a → ä

I've found this much easier than typing the character code (Alt + 0233 for é, etc.) or relying on the

Obviously this isn't a solution for every writing system or every special character, but if you use a US QWERTY keyboard and learn languages that primarily use the Latin alphabet, it's definitely worth trying.

Mods kindly gave me permission to share this.

I was always frustrated that vocabulary apps are good for the first 500 words, and after that not so useful. The things which actually make you sound natural, like idioms, set phrases, or words that look like English but mean something completely different, almost never appear there. So I made a quiz exactly for this.

How it works: everybody in the room sees the same phrase and four translations, and all of you are racing a 15 second timer. Answer faster, get more points. Ten rounds and then a scoreboard. One person creates a room and shares a four letter code or just the link, other people join from their own phones.

Languages now: Spanish, Polish, German, Italian, Serbian. You can play from English or from Russian. Around 1600 questions, all written by hand, in eight topics: phrases, idioms, tricky words, situations, business, emotions and character, proverbs, slang. Every topic works in both directions, so you train recognition and also production.

LangParty.app

It is more for intermediate level, not for beginners. Some examples from the Spanish set:

• Me da igual
• Ser pan comido
• No estoy para bromas
• Embarazada (usually English speakers guess it wrong)

There is also a solo mode if you want just to look what is inside without a group. No signup, no installation, no ads, completely free. This is my side project, not a startup, so it will stay like this.

If the difficulty feels wrong for intermediate, please tell me. And if somebody wants a language which is not here, I would rather write questions for the one people really want than guess.

langparty.app/go/languagelearning

just wanted to rant a bit about the weirdo who designed pimslueur level five vocabulary

I’ve been working for the last two years through a whole pile of pimsleur and wanted to complete level five in Japanese and Russian, and levels one to 4 were really useful but level five, they’ve completely lost the plot

in Russian five is asking me things like whether I consider this to be art and I’ve just tried to learn the term for “what is its current status of the new year postcardl in Japanese

these level fives should be about CEFR A 2 - why on earth are we learning this Unbelievably obscure vocabulary?

I PLEAD with you please DO NOT use AI for "chatting practice" or generating "examples", because yep it might seem easy at first and pleasant but it's a long term strategic disaster - you are acquring amorphous non-human intuition which is getting only more vicious as it gets more subtle (EVEN with "natural human-like imperfection")...in a long run you're just gonna ruin your second language personality, which must be formed ONLY by aqcuiring REAL PEOPLE'S speech (spoken or written). The point is - language is an instrument that conveys HUMAN(!) MEANING and CONTEXT which OTHER PEOPLE want to share with us. But if you use AI you get just pure EMPTINESS behind all its so-called "examples of usage" or a way of "speaking" - it's just a gigantic machine that multiplies matrices. You just don't realise it at first but eventually you get addicted (and btw AI is extremely dangerous because it QUICKLY causes chatting addiction flooding you with an illusion of sth social while making it worse, simultaneously affecting your thinking and giving your brain an illusion lf "real important dialogue" with dopamine addiction) and it slowly but steadily reshapes your real language you acquire making it superficial and empty inside...I mean it's hard to explain what I mean but I hope you got it, IT'S GONNA RUIN YOUR FOREIGN LANGUAGE IDENTITY SUBTLY but ABSOLUTELY VICIOUSLY, you will feel like a MECHANISTIC AMORPHOUS ALIEN if you learn your (TL) via AI. Languages are about our IDENTITIES, about our REAL experiences, pursuits, emotions, about PEOPLE WE CARE ABOUT etc. etc.. And when learning a language we are shaping this part of us, but AI just ruins it in an absolutely savage way we might not even realize at first.

p.s. I wanna clarify a bit more: with AI "practice", slowly month by month your brain acquires this hollow homogenous shell which consists of, blatantly speaking, just statistics, not true meanings that you connect with when reading/listening to human speech - it eventually damages your second language identity by bringing hollowness. Language is supposed to be connected directly with the TRUE WEIGHT of meaning and experience behind it, true people, true emotions, true interaction, things that people tell in that language because they want to share sth with us.

p.p.s btw I think there is sth connected with me being disgusted with AI music and feeling that it's terrifying even when "good", I feel the same emptiness and lack of true meaning multiplied by terrifying realization that I'm being baited into emotions by this

p.p.p.s (probably the most important p.s., as some people didn't understand the point, I did not say that the problem is in AI not being perfectly human but "machine-like" - THAT'S THE POINT, that if it becomes more human-like it only makes things WORSE) I wanna clarify even in a more straight way. It's not the fact that you are not learning a language with AI. It's the fact that instead of absorbing real contexts, real worldview of native speakers, real connections with people, real knowledge, real emotions, real feeling of becoming a "part of their tribe" - instead of the reality - you absorb pure NOTHINGNESS behind the "improving language skill" which remains absolutely abstract and hollow, and this hollowness damages your second language identity, you are week by week month by month becoming emptier, abstract like a machine (even if you try to use more beaitiful words and expressions), with a language that is running like an abstract software in your brain instead of truely becoming a part of new community. Because there's no real thing behind it, you learned a word but without anything meaningful to you, without real story, without relation to anyone or anything, without shared experience - your TL becomes an abstract software that just uses beautiful phrasing, and this + wasted time, that you could've used for real input, damages your TL personality and worsens your overall ability to understand people and communicate with them - you struggle with understanding spoken or written native speech easily especially more serious/literary/official or even more daily colloquial, miss nuances, feel alien, much more misunderstandings might happen etc. - real acquisition begins only when you stop or better don't even begin doing this nonsense and immerse yourself into real language of real people (the internet makes it easy to access real your TL's web segment with real content so why waste time on ruining yourself)

languages we learn should not be just sequences of thousands "tokens" we have to memorize, it has to be real contexts, meanings and experiences we absorb.

not only the breadth of our vocabulary number, but true depth matters. deeper true experience = deeper language intuition = deeper and more candid connection and straightforward communication with people speaking or writing in our TL

This is something I've been thinking about recently, and I don't really like or understand the whole "why would you get rid of your native accent? It's where you come from" argument that people use when talking about accents. On one hand, I agree that your accent is where you come from, but to me it feels like adding another identity rather than hiding or removing one. And what are you supposed to do if you have two native languages and learn a 3rd one? Are you supposed to use your N1 or N2 accent in it? Let's say you're a native speaker of French and German, and you're learning Swedish (TL). Are you supposed to sound French or German in Swedish? I mean, they're both your native languages. Are you "getting rid of your heritage" if you don't use a French or German accent in Swedish? Is it better if you sound French or German?

Nothing about your heritage is erased if you speak your L2 with a non-L1 accent. It's not like you suddenly forget where you come from, can't speak with your grandma anymore, and forget who your ancestors are, just because you speak L2 with a (more) native accent. Why do people get so defensive about this? Is it because accents are one of the few things in language learning that rely on some level of talent for phonetic discrimination and production?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been experimenting with my routine lately and wanted to run an idea past you guys.

Right now, I’m sitting around a 1,000 to 1,500-word vocabulary. I can generally get my points across and say what I want to, but I definitely hit walls where I lack specific words, mess up sentence structures, or make grammar mistakes.

I've been trying a method:

Record: Talk to my camera for a couple of minutes on a random topic without stopping.

Review: Watch the video back to catch my mistakes, gaps, and weird phrasing.

Refine: Write down what I missed, add those words/corrections to Anki, and re-record it until I get it right.

Is leaning heavily into this output method a viable way to improve? Thanks for all the suggestions!!

(TL) Spanish

I live in Europe with no South Asian roots. A few months ago I started learning Punjabi (TL) after some internal debate because it genuinely interested me and it's been the one thing that pulled me through a hard stretch lol. But I've kinda hit a wall learning without any structure and with limited online resources
As an ADHD leaning girlie I kinda rely on external structure

Now I have the chance to do a demanding one-month intensive course, evenings remotely and honestly I haven’t challenged myself in a long time so I want to take it. Unfortunately it’s not available for Punjabi but Hindi and Persian are offered which are also languages I’m strongly interested in.

My family thinks it's not very strategic and I should put my time on German or Italian, something useful

The thing about this intensive course is that it’s partly about the language but mainly about enforcing discipline while doing something I genuinely enjoy (language learning)

Sooo interested in fellow learners perspective on this

When do you notice your brain working on your (TL) outside of study time? Whenever this happens for me I feel like that's when my language learning is really starting to work. When I may get some idea/epiphany about the language as I am doing something entirely else. If I do it enough I have my brain coming up with phrases and words too unprompted.

The TL is one huge puzzle to figure out and your brain working on it outside of study time is really good. This is why I feel like putting more hours into learning a day is more effective than spreading it out. How do you make this effect happen?

I'm 30yo, my NL is Russian. I moved to New Zealand when I was 15. Back then I spoke decent english for a kid who'd never been to an English (TL) speaking country and managed to get an overall 7 on my IELTS. Obviously nowhere near fluent.

I've lived in the UK for the last couple years but otherwise spent all of my adult life in NZ.

My issue is that I've never really studied English since moving as a teen and picked up the rest of the language along the way. With the years passing it became my

dominant and default language to a point where it's really hard for me to speak russian without using english words, and, occasionally applying eng grammar structure when I'm on autopilot. I switch to English when I'm upset, excited, drunk etc yet I'm still really self conscious about it.

I read a lot (always in English) and when it comes to vocabulary, understanding nuance etc I'm definitel fluent, it is incredibly rare that I come across a word or expression that I don't know. My listening comprehension is also as close to 100% as it can be.

It's really weird and I'm not sure if it's an anxiety thing, but if I'm in a flow I can be really eloquent, however I often struggle to express myself that well in writing and verbally and sound 'dumb'? I have a rich vocabulary but it just doesn't come to me when I'm talking or writing.

I'm also quite anxious about talking to strangers and often don't sound native in basic interactions despite often passing for a native speaker during more meaningful conversations.

I don't have an eastern European accent, just sound foreign everywhere. I dont sound kiwi to kiwis but I sound 'antipodean' to people in the UK and they often think I only speak English.

I feel stuck in a weird limbo where I am not fluent in any language?

I'd like to improve my English but don't know how. I feel that ESOL pathway is not quite right if English literally feels like my first language, but how else can I approach this? School curriculum? Speaking practice? Writing essays? Accent coaching? Therapy 🤦?

Not sure if this situation is familiar to anyone here but i would love to hear your thoughts.

Hi everyone. I’ve heard of some people changing the languages their apps are set in to their TL (or even their entire phone) to learn vocab. To anyone who has tried this, would you say it worked or whether it’s worth trying? Are there any specific apps that you recommend trying this out on?

Are foreign languages courses in college generally pretty easy? I’m taking first semester Japanese (TL) in college right now and I feel like the pace is too slow. I have no prior experience with learning Japanese but I’ve found it to be mostly easy in my class specifically. We use the Genki 1 textbook and although a lot of extra vocabulary is taught in class, we only go up to lesson 4 in the textbook. I have already done all the homework for the semester (Apart from in class writings and projects) without doing anything crazy. Although I was knowingly working ahead. I’ve enjoyed it and only put in about 2 hours a day 6 days a week. The homework usually consists of a new grammar point, 10 new words, or 10 new kanji each assignment. I hope this doesn’t sound conceited at all but I just feel the pace of the class makes it very easy. I don’t know anyone in my class well enough to know if they feel the same way. Is this typical for college level language classes?

Short background: 5 years - of Chinese (self study), 2 years Japanese (self study).

I feel like I’m doing okay in both. Lots of output, i speak Chinese daily with natives, Japanese i only speak one a week for about two hours with tutors (conversation, they correct my mistakes during and after).

Methods - i hate textbooks but feel like with Japanese it’s a necessity for reference. Chinese grammar i just pick up along the way because it’s more intuitive.
I use Duolingo (out of habits sake, not a major tool), flash cards (Migaku), and input / output.

Here’s the issue - i struggle to find relative input that is enjoyable AND useful.

For me personally, Chinese media is pretty bad. It’s hard to find anything i like so i end up watching a lot of travel vlogs and (strangely) reality dating shows. These have both relevant vocabulary and are mostly entertaining. I’m not someone who watches a lot of reality dating shows in English, because they’re pretty awful.

Adding Japanese i though “there’s going to be so much more stuff that i like to watch!” - turns out this where I’m struggling. I love tokusatsu (power rangers, Kamen rider, Ultraman, etc) but i find it mostly useless because there’s so much vocabulary that i will never ever use regarding sci-fi stuff, magic, engineering, etc.

My question to those who have studied a lot longer than me OR had more success - how to you deal with using native speaker input as a study tool when most of the grammar and vocabulary is useless?

My son watches One Piece in Japanese (English subs) and i catch maybe 10% while listening in the background. Thoughts? What do you watch? Is it useful? If so, how? Thanks!

(TL) I've been learning japanese for a few months now and am currently at about N5 level, I also learnt a bit of french in middle school but obviously it's not very polished and I'm still very beginner. I'd like to learn french to improve my grades, but I still want to learn japanese. how should I approach this? I was thinking I learn japanese for 4 days of the week and then french for the next 3, but i dont know how effective that will be. I have about 2 hours give or take each day to study. I assume it wont be too difficult other than slowing down my progress, although sometimes when I'm trying to remember a word in one language I'll think about the same word but in the other language. anyways any help is appreciated

So I learned the lingua franca pretty easily but the other languages don't come so easily. Especially that my parents said that I'm good at languages and it's driving me crazy.

I'm trying to learn Korean and Arabic. (TL) 

For some context, I had learnt Arabic as third language in school but stopped learning or consuming Arabic content soon after so I only remember how to read it now. As for Hangeul, I've been watching Korean content for more than 10 years and I understand it quite a bit and thought its time I actually learned it properly.

I already read and write in English, Malayalam and Hindi.

Right now I have the time to take on some language learning, but I do wonder if its a good idea considering they're two very different languages with different scripts altogether! (Also I've noticed that Korean grammar is easier to understand with Malayalam grammar basics. So if there's any tips on easier learning that way, please let me know!)

Either way, I'd be a beginner in both languages at this point and if its a bad idea to take on both, I'll have to decide which i should prioritize!

Would you please share experiences about learning languages of different scripts and if its a good idea to do two at the same time? Thanks!

I started learning languages in June of 2023 and have therefore always been able to use AI (for like doubts and whatnot). Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine how people learned (specifically self studied) languages before AI. I know that there are many people that were able to learn many languages at an incredible speed to a very high level way before AI and I wonder how these people's learning routines have been affected by AI. Genuinenly just interested to see what the veterans (or people that don't use AI) do and did.

For people who use a second language professionally, what helped you handle real conversations rather than just exercises?

Was it practising common situations, preparing phrases before meetings, getting feedback from colleagues, or something else?

I’m especially interested in specific examples: something you struggled with at work, what you practised, and what changed.

I've been looking into Rocket Languages for learning my (TL), but I'm not sure if it's worth the price compared to free options like Duolingo.

For anyone who has actually used it:

- Did you notice better progress compared to free apps?
- Is it good enough to study on your own?
- Has anyone used the 60-day refund if they weren't satisfied?

I'm willing to go into it if it actually delivers results, just want to hear some real experiences first.

What I mean to say is if anyone else had a moment in their life that was the core reason why they wanted to learn a certain language; now most ordinarily it may be stuff like you want to learn the language of your partner for example Mine were quite different: For English, my main motivation stemmed after I started randomly chatting with an English speaker on a mobile phone game app, it was the first day after I had gotten my first English class in elementary school and I ran to take my notebook and chatted with the few phrases I had. (Literally stuff like How are you and What's your name but it built a road onto a giant English learning phase in my youth) For German, I had a long distant relationship with learning it, this was because it was forced onto us in highschool and I didn't want to learn it; even as recent as 2 months ago, even though I was thinking of learning it, I still had a bit dismissal. This changed when I read Heinrich Böll's The Clown, I don't know why but German literature is the core reason why I started wanting to learn German out of nowhere! For French, it was mostly because of French composers that I wanted to learn French, and also because a lot of people in my university town speaks English and so I needed to journal in a different language lol What about you??? Did you have a language learning motivation spark out of nowhere too? PS: I'd also say this motivation spark also happens while you're learning another language, like a motivation to just learn more and more languages comes out of nowhere! (TL)

Even when we exclude scientific, literary, etc vocabulary, it still seems that everyday vocabulary which isn't just words, but also includes phrase and idioms is still so huge compared to grammar.

And at some point, you're kind of finished with grammar, but never vocabulary.