The Language-Learning Thread

I went to Germany a few years ago and I used Duolingo before I went. I maybe got 2/3s of the way through and it definitely helped me (I was a tourist there still but trying to use no English).

Listening is still really hard as you've only ever practiced with a limit range of single sentences, but I could read quite a lot of basic tourist stuff and I could ask questions and say basic tourist stuff (ordering, generic manners etc).

If you're girlfriend is French, you're not going to suddenly be discussing the politics of the day or planning beautiful bilingual children but you might be able to send the odd message.

If's probably a very low GCSE grade when you've finished. Some stuff with German was quite knotty grammatically, but because it's still only giving you once sentence at a time, you aren't really testing your reading or listening skills much.

Noticed that this book is 99p on the Kindle today, might be of interest to some.

French: Short Stories For Beginners - 9 Captivating Short Stories to Learn French & Expand Your Vocabulary While Having Fun

https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/embed?asin ... .ybNK1MP6T

Rex Kramer wrote:Noticed that this book is 99p on the Kindle today, might be of interest to some.

French: Short Stories For Beginners - 9 Captivating Short Stories to Learn French & Expand Your Vocabulary While Having Fun

https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/embed?asin ... .ybNK1MP6T

Just grabbed this, thanks for posting.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Broke my 149 day streak on Duolingo .

I've completed all subjects, so I'm going to move on to Babbel, which is a lot better anyway.

Have you actually found that it's helped you? Duolingo I mean.

Had a quick look at Babble. Looks good, but I don't want to pay for an online course at the moment as I'm about to start a full time set of classes

It's definitely helped. As Parksey says, it's the listening that remains horribly difficult.

I can read bits and bobs now and often get the gist of a sentence in articles, newspapers etc.

Listening? No bloody chance. I might pick up on one word per sentence, maybe two if I'm lucky.

I'm always surprised how people - or at least those studying for the JLPT - finding listening the easiest by far. They tend to accrue close to full marks in that section, leaving them less to do in the others. I'm the opposite, in that I do better at vocabulary and grammar and need those points to offset my listening.

I just don't get how if you know a word, it's easier to here it spoken once, with an accent, squished in to a full sentence or conversation and at natural speed, compared to reading it at your leisure and being able to mull it over.

My problem is with the longer listening practices (as at the level I am at it's fairly involving stuff) is that I am terrible for losing focus, zoning out and treating it like TV static. I am so used to passive listening I am really bad at a actively doing it. What we do in English isn't really listening, as we're probably doing three other things too and just picking it up as background noise.

I also have a tendency to translate one sentence but already be knee deep in the next when I am done and end up hopeless lost.

My advice would to probably just keep listening. I practice listening the least and it shows. My home life is still largely in English. My apartment is an English cave. If you listen to stuff, even if it is passively and not really studying, you might get one word or two drop into your brain and the more times that happens, the fewer words you need to actively listen and translate for.

Remember, as a baby we probably spent one year or so just listening (through no choice of our own, as we were literally as clever as a potato). I think when learning a language we do it the other way round, and stick a bit of grammar or vocabulary groundwork in and then get frustrated when we can't understand them in conversation. I know that's what I am like.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Broke my 149 day streak on Duolingo .

I've completed all subjects, so I'm going to move on to Babbel, which is a lot better anyway.

Have you actually found that it's helped you? Duolingo I mean.

Had a quick look at Babble. Looks good, but I don't want to pay for an online course at the moment as I'm about to start a full time set of classes

It's definitely helped. As Parksey says, it's the listening that remains horribly difficult.

I can read bits and bobs now and often get the gist of a sentence in articles, newspapers etc.

Listening? No bloody chance. I might pick up on one word per sentence, maybe two if I'm lucky.

Is this Japanese you're learning then?

I just signed up to a 10 week course in French with Alliance Francais. They're apparently associated with the French Embassy and their setup was really swish, more like a French centre for the city of Manchester than a school; there's a library, common room, load of classrooms, "iPad bar" etc etc. I had to do an assessment before signing up so they could determine which level to put me in at, and I wasn't the shittest! I'm starting Elementary French 1 (a step above the lowest "Beginner" class) next week. 3 hours a week, every week for 10 weeks.

Merde, mais c'est la vie.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Broke my 149 day streak on Duolingo .

I've completed all subjects, so I'm going to move on to Babbel, which is a lot better anyway.

Have you actually found that it's helped you? Duolingo I mean.

Had a quick look at Babble. Looks good, but I don't want to pay for an online course at the moment as I'm about to start a full time set of classes

It's definitely helped. As Parksey says, it's the listening that remains horribly difficult.

I can read bits and bobs now and often get the gist of a sentence in articles, newspapers etc.

Listening? No bloody chance. I might pick up on one word per sentence, maybe two if I'm lucky.

Is this Japanese you're learning then?

I just signed up to a 10 week course in French with Alliance Francais. They're apparently associated with the French Embassy and their setup was really swish, more like a French centre for the city of Manchester than a school; there's a library, common room, load of classrooms, "iPad bar" etc etc. I had to do an assessment before signing up so they could determine which level to put me in at, and I wasn't the shittest! I'm starting Elementary French 1 (a step above the lowest "Beginner" class) next week. 3 hours a week, every week for 10 weeks.

Merde, mais c'est la vie.

Nope, French. I'm just obviously a very slow learner with languages!

Parksey wrote:I'm always surprised how people - or at least those studying for the JLPT - finding listening the easiest by far. They tend to accrue close to full marks in that section, leaving them less to do in the others. I'm the opposite, in that I do better at vocabulary and grammar and need those points to offset my listening.

I just don't get how if you know a word, it's easier to here it spoken once, with an accent, squished in to a full sentence or conversation and at natural speed, compared to reading it at your leisure and being able to mull it over.

My problem is with the longer listening practices (as at the level I am at it's fairly involving stuff) is that I am terrible for losing focus, zoning out and treating it like TV static. I am so used to passive listening I am really bad at a actively doing it. What we do in English isn't really listening, as we're probably doing three other things too and just picking it up as background noise.

I also have a tendency to translate one sentence but already be knee deep in the next when I am done and end up hopeless lost.

My advice would to probably just keep listening. I practice listening the least and it shows. My home life is still largely in English. My apartment is an English cave. If you listen to stuff, even if it is passively and not really studying, you might get one word or two drop into your brain and the more times that happens, the fewer words you need to actively listen and translate for.

Remember, as a baby we probably spent one year or so just listening (through no choice of our own, as we were literally as clever as a potato). I think when learning a language we do it the other way round, and stick a bit of grammar or vocabulary groundwork in and then get frustrated when we can't understand them in conversation. I know that's what I am like.

I'm the same I find the listening section the hardest. Although I practice reading and writing far more than the listening stuff. Although I find it really hard to pick up certain words as they're so short.

Tafdolphin wrote:I just signed up to a 10 week course in French with Alliance Francais. They're apparently associated with the French Embassy and their setup was really swish, more like a French centre for the city of Manchester than a school; there's a library, common room, load of classrooms, "iPad bar" etc etc. I had to do an assessment before signing up so they could determine which level to put me in at, and I wasn't the shittest! I'm starting Elementary French 1 (a step above the lowest "Beginner" class) next week. 3 hours a week, every week for 10 weeks.

Merde, mais c'est la vie.

How was it?

Has anyone had any experience using We speke? Apparently you can sign up and chat to people in other languages for free.

Probably going to give it a try later.

https://www.wespeke.com/

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:I just signed up to a 10 week course in French with Alliance Francais. They're apparently associated with the French Embassy and their setup was really swish, more like a French centre for the city of Manchester than a school; there's a library, common room, load of classrooms, "iPad bar" etc etc. I had to do an assessment before signing up so they could determine which level to put me in at, and I wasn't the shittest! I'm starting Elementary French 1 (a step above the lowest "Beginner" class) next week. 3 hours a week, every week for 10 weeks.

Merde, mais c'est la vie.

How was it?

Come on then, spill the beans!

Just signed up with a Japanese tutor; gonna get serious about improving my skills and passing the JLPT.

Also starting a cantonese course next month (somewhat more relevant).

Skarjo wrote:Just signed up with a Japanese tutor

I see where this is going.

I learnt French at school and got a A* GCSE although I can speak a little I’m not fluent by any means, the way I was taught was more aimed at me passing the exam rather than learning the language

I love traveling and after visiting Bavaria for the first time around my 19th birthday I fell in love with it there (and someone) and since that point I statered learning German and now I would say I am quite good

Karl wrote:

Skarjo wrote:Just signed up with a Japanese tutor

I see where this is going.

The only positive test results he'll be getting back are ones that involve a cotton swab etc etc.

What level are you going for? You were here for three years, right?

My problem is that I mainly "study for the test" so I'm pretty good at passing the JLPT (got N2 in the summer and aiming to take N1 in July) but because I've never been formally taught or had my speaking corrected, I'm really bad in a conversational setting.

I have a Japanese girlfriend but her English is way better than mine (basically fluent) so I am just lazy and default to that. I mean, John Smith only ever spoke English to Pocahontas, didn't he? Just need to ship her back to the UK and avoid the part where she dies of TB in the end.

So how is everyone getting on with their language learning?

I've have duolingo oin my phone for ages but never used it, yesterday I finally made the decision to start taking it seriously. I realised if I used Duolingo as much as I play some video games I'd probably be able to speak another language to a decent standard by now.

I'm trying to learn French and Japanese, obviously Japanese is a lot harder

My profile is: https://www.duolingo.com/3enj4min if anyone wants to add me or whatever you do on there.

I just finally committed to taking the JLPT N5 Exam in December.


Eeeeeep.

I failed the N1 test for the second time (got the results last week). Thought I'd made improvement from my first attempt, which was merely just a trial run as I was nowhere near ready. I think I improved by a whopping two points. Gains in reading and grammar were offset by the listening being horrendously difficult this time for some reason. I actually regressed on that part in terms of score.

Six months should be okay to get ready for N5, especially as you were here for a couple of years, right?. If you need any help just let me know.

I can't take the test this December as my friend selfishly organised his wedding for the day before so I'll be back in the UK. I mean, really, didn't he check which language-based exams were happening that weekend?

So I'll have a year to make sure that it's not up to chance this time. Or with the 12 months I'll go up four points this time.

Cheers man, I'll hit you up if there's anything I need. Yea, I feel pretty confident that I'll do alright with N5 with a good few months solid head down work. My kana, basic kanji and grammar are not too bad and I think a lot will come back with dedicated study. Plus I have a week in Tokyo in October to completely immerse myself in it.

No idea if anyone can help with this but because of a recent windows update my pc will no longer let me access Japanese keyboard. I'm now forced onto Microsoft IME and for whatever reason I cannot switch to it with alt+shift and even when I select it with win+space it does nothing. I've fiddled with the settings, no change. The alphabet selection no longer appears next to it in the task bar. I sometimes try to re-download the keyboard but get error 0x80070490 instead (but eventually get around it and re-download anyway).
I'm at a complete loss of what to do. I need this keyboard so I can keep in touch with friends I have back in Tokyo.