I have found that Language Transfer is the best language learning system I have used.
French, German, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili, Spanish and Italian all taught by the same guy. Each course is a set of audio files you can listen to on Soundcloud, YouTube, download, or use the minimalist but very functional phone app.
Check if your local library has any resources. Mine let me claim a free rocket languages premium account, which supports Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Korean, ASL, Portuguese, and Russian up to (I think, don’t remember) CEFR level B2
How do I get this distraction free environment with the textbooks? I got a bunch for college and everywhere was still stuffed to the gills with distractions!
I think maybe my own brain is made of distractions…
At least for me it feels like that when I sit down to read a book I somehow trick my brain to go into “learn” mode like it actually tries then to remember stuff and to be attentive. Its harder to do that being on the phone i think. Maybe environment wasn’t the right word.
What language are you interested in? I learned Spanish through Internet resources fairly easily (easy but very time consuming, as all language learning is). If you’re wanting Spanish I can give some great suggestions.
I used Linq for a while. It makes lessons out of whatever “real” content you want in the target language, so you can watch videos, listen to music, read news articles, whatever. The app/site translates words for you as you need them, and keeps track of what you have and haven’t encountered before, so you can find the percentage of new words that works best for you as you look for new articles. I imported a couple of ebooks and read through them, it was pretty good. There’s also a way to pair up with native speakers of your target language who are learning English so you can chat and help each other I think, but I never used it.
It does have the same problem as other things like Duolingo and Memrise where it gamifies it and adds a daily streak, so if you’re not in the mood you have to force yourself to sit down for 10 minutes and do something. I don’t know about other people but personally all that does is ensure I never get enough of a break to get back into the mood, so I do the bare minimum every day and resent it.
This is a copy/paste of a comment I made a few months ago:
I highly recommend checking out Dreaming Spanish - it’s a channel/site that teaches Spanish through a method called comprehensible input. Basically, all you do is watch, listen, and read in Spanish totally in Spanish, no translations whatsoever. That sounds intimidating, but the beginner stages they really talk at you like you’re a baby almost. They talk with their hands a lot and use drawings. That’s the most important part, because in the beginning you won’t be able to understand any Spanish or hardly any. But by making it so simple you can basically understand even though you don’t know the words. After a hundred or so hours of this, you can move on to slightly less easy content. And so on and so on until you can understand just regular media in spanish. At that point, your learning will really take off, because you can watch things that you’re actually interested in and that will capture your attention more.
They don’t do any explicit grammar or vocabulary practice. That’s on purpose, the arguments of comprehensible input is that language isn’t learned, it’s acquired. You didn’t learn English by rote memorization, you listened a lot. If you can hear a few words and make the connection to the meaning by watching, and then you hear that word dozens or hundreds of times more - you will have a better understanding of that word than a simple translation flashcard could ever give you. Because words don’t have just one meeting they’re complex and change in different situations. But the best part is through this method you won’t even realize that you’re learning these words. Same goes with grammar, with this method things just kind of sound right. You can use the correct grammar, but you might not necessarily be able to explain why. Just like native speakers.
I’ve personally listened, or watched over a thousand hours of things in Spanish in a bit over a year. And at this point most media is almost as easy to watch as English for me. I also read the full Harry Potter series in Spanish. (It was rough at first, but after I got used to the writing style a lot of the times I’d forget it was in Spanish in the more exciting sections) I need to practice speaking more, I can definitely do it and be understood but it lacks pretty significantly behind my understanding but that is really just a question of how much practice I can get. But once you’ve banked 1k, 1.5k hours the rate at which your speaking will improve is way faster than the process of learning so far.
They have a ton of free content, and if you want more you can pay just $8 a month - but honestly if you do a few hours a day after a couple months you’ll be able to just watch some YouTube videos of native speakers and you won’t really need dreaming Spanish anymore. But the site does have a handy hour tracker that you don’t need to pay for at all that I still use to this day.
I’ve tried to learn French, german, and even Spanish before but until this try when I discovered this method, I didn’t really get anywhere. At this point I’m almost comfortable saying that I’m bilingual. And it really doesn’t take that much effort just make it a routine, and once you can get into more advanced and interesting videos just watch things that you’re interested in. When you really get good, you can just watch the TV shows and movies that you already like to watch, but put on the Spanish dub. It’s that easy. I’m not doing anything differently now than I was before I knew Spanish but I’m learning every day because I just do the things I normally did but in spanish!
(Or since you said you’ve done the whole DuoLingo tree, you could try a higher level. Whichever feels fairly easy to understand)
But I’d recommend doing it on https://www.dreamingspanish.com/ where it will automatically track your watch time, let you filter by person/accent/level/topic, etc.
The beginning is by far the hardest part. The least interesting videos, the least level of comprehension. It will feel like a chore. Luckily the beginning is where you have the most motivation to push through it.
I want to learn Spanish but I haven’t found something that’s free (or a low fixed cost) that appeals yet. I don’t want a subscription fee. I liked that Duolingo was interactive and had little stories.
I speak English and some French. I wouldn’t mind learning more french, too.
What are some good alternatives?
I have found that Language Transfer is the best language learning system I have used.
French, German, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili, Spanish and Italian all taught by the same guy. Each course is a set of audio files you can listen to on Soundcloud, YouTube, download, or use the minimalist but very functional phone app.
Completely free, supported by donations.
Check if your local library has any resources. Mine let me claim a free rocket languages premium account, which supports Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, Arabic, Hindi, Korean, ASL, Portuguese, and Russian up to (I think, don’t remember) CEFR level B2
Pimsleur. Scientifically developed method. Lessons are a little longer than we would normally do today but it works.
Pimsleur! Easily found online
i’d guess… textbooks. like actually though. some are really well written, nicely ordered and prioritize stuff which is actually useful.
also you get a distraction free environment as a plus which, i think, is more helpful than one might think.
Unironically love this answer
How do I get this distraction free environment with the textbooks? I got a bunch for college and everywhere was still stuffed to the gills with distractions!
I think maybe my own brain is made of distractions…
When’s the last time you went to your local library?
Like a week ago! But it’s usually busy.
At least for me it feels like that when I sit down to read a book I somehow trick my brain to go into “learn” mode like it actually tries then to remember stuff and to be attentive. Its harder to do that being on the phone i think. Maybe environment wasn’t the right word.
Rosetta stone maybe?
Anki
Depending what you want out of it.
Anki Memrise Wlingua
What language are you interested in? I learned Spanish through Internet resources fairly easily (easy but very time consuming, as all language learning is). If you’re wanting Spanish I can give some great suggestions.
I’ve completed the spanish course on Duolingo a couple years ago, but I feel like I am still lacking. I would be interested in your suggestions !
I used Linq for a while. It makes lessons out of whatever “real” content you want in the target language, so you can watch videos, listen to music, read news articles, whatever. The app/site translates words for you as you need them, and keeps track of what you have and haven’t encountered before, so you can find the percentage of new words that works best for you as you look for new articles. I imported a couple of ebooks and read through them, it was pretty good. There’s also a way to pair up with native speakers of your target language who are learning English so you can chat and help each other I think, but I never used it.
It does have the same problem as other things like Duolingo and Memrise where it gamifies it and adds a daily streak, so if you’re not in the mood you have to force yourself to sit down for 10 minutes and do something. I don’t know about other people but personally all that does is ensure I never get enough of a break to get back into the mood, so I do the bare minimum every day and resent it.
Interesting, will check it out ! But yeah the streak thing makes me feel the exact same way…
This is a copy/paste of a comment I made a few months ago:
I highly recommend checking out Dreaming Spanish - it’s a channel/site that teaches Spanish through a method called comprehensible input. Basically, all you do is watch, listen, and read in Spanish totally in Spanish, no translations whatsoever. That sounds intimidating, but the beginner stages they really talk at you like you’re a baby almost. They talk with their hands a lot and use drawings. That’s the most important part, because in the beginning you won’t be able to understand any Spanish or hardly any. But by making it so simple you can basically understand even though you don’t know the words. After a hundred or so hours of this, you can move on to slightly less easy content. And so on and so on until you can understand just regular media in spanish. At that point, your learning will really take off, because you can watch things that you’re actually interested in and that will capture your attention more.
They don’t do any explicit grammar or vocabulary practice. That’s on purpose, the arguments of comprehensible input is that language isn’t learned, it’s acquired. You didn’t learn English by rote memorization, you listened a lot. If you can hear a few words and make the connection to the meaning by watching, and then you hear that word dozens or hundreds of times more - you will have a better understanding of that word than a simple translation flashcard could ever give you. Because words don’t have just one meeting they’re complex and change in different situations. But the best part is through this method you won’t even realize that you’re learning these words. Same goes with grammar, with this method things just kind of sound right. You can use the correct grammar, but you might not necessarily be able to explain why. Just like native speakers.
I’ve personally listened, or watched over a thousand hours of things in Spanish in a bit over a year. And at this point most media is almost as easy to watch as English for me. I also read the full Harry Potter series in Spanish. (It was rough at first, but after I got used to the writing style a lot of the times I’d forget it was in Spanish in the more exciting sections) I need to practice speaking more, I can definitely do it and be understood but it lacks pretty significantly behind my understanding but that is really just a question of how much practice I can get. But once you’ve banked 1k, 1.5k hours the rate at which your speaking will improve is way faster than the process of learning so far.
Check out this this playlist of videos that really explains things in more depth. It has English subtitles you’ll have to turn on. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GrtxQ9yde-J2tfxJDvReNf
They have a ton of free content, and if you want more you can pay just $8 a month - but honestly if you do a few hours a day after a couple months you’ll be able to just watch some YouTube videos of native speakers and you won’t really need dreaming Spanish anymore. But the site does have a handy hour tracker that you don’t need to pay for at all that I still use to this day.
I’ve tried to learn French, german, and even Spanish before but until this try when I discovered this method, I didn’t really get anywhere. At this point I’m almost comfortable saying that I’m bilingual. And it really doesn’t take that much effort just make it a routine, and once you can get into more advanced and interesting videos just watch things that you’re interested in. When you really get good, you can just watch the TV shows and movies that you already like to watch, but put on the Spanish dub. It’s that easy. I’m not doing anything differently now than I was before I knew Spanish but I’m learning every day because I just do the things I normally did but in spanish!
You can start their Super Beginner (most basic level) here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GbOHc3siOGQ5KmVSngZucl
(Or since you said you’ve done the whole DuoLingo tree, you could try a higher level. Whichever feels fairly easy to understand)
But I’d recommend doing it on https://www.dreamingspanish.com/ where it will automatically track your watch time, let you filter by person/accent/level/topic, etc.
The beginning is by far the hardest part. The least interesting videos, the least level of comprehension. It will feel like a chore. Luckily the beginning is where you have the most motivation to push through it.
Wow was not expecting such a detailed answer ! Thank you very much !
I want to learn Spanish but I haven’t found something that’s free (or a low fixed cost) that appeals yet. I don’t want a subscription fee. I liked that Duolingo was interactive and had little stories.
I speak English and some French. I wouldn’t mind learning more french, too.
Check out my comment: https://thelemmy.club/comment/22430489
And also the same team has started a French version as well, but it’s not quite launched yet but could be a resource in a bit!
I’ve been using Busuu
Duolingo classrooms
Using an LLM is actually a great use case. But you’ll have to fact check it periodically.
how are you supposed to fact check it if you don’t know the language?
Well, you can look up conjugation tables or a dictionary. But for romance languages, they’re pretty damn good.
Cope harder
NLP is one of the few tasks they’re actually good for?
Mmhmm, because what I really want is a program that teaches me to say “orange bacon sandwhich” when I ask it to tell me “where is the bathroom?”
Hopefully if you’re at the point of knowing basic verbs and conjugations you’d recognize a string of nouns?