dead general subedition

I'm studying mandarin and decided to sign up for martial arts. The local kung fu school here requires passing certain levels of HSK as part of moving up in sashes along with other requirements. It's owned by an old guy from China who apparently takes tradition very seriously. Will I make it if Mandarin is physically beaten into me?

I hate my English accent so much, an anglo woman said I use an Indonesian accent.

>>220387987
Did you fuck her

>>220387811
>kung fu
fake and gay
the only real martial art is bjj
learn protuguese

>>220389153
>the only real martial art is bjj
blow job jitsu
>learn protuguese
I'll compromise and learn capoeira

>mandarin learning communities
Everyone is nice and helpful
>japanese learning communities
Buch of insufferable schizos, tons of irony and sarcasm

Thanks for reading my blogpost

guten tag

Does anyone here like learning languages?

>>220390266
Normal people still learn mandarin, normal people stopped learning japanese when the bubble burst.

>>220390488
I like learning the language I'm learning, but I don't think I'd like learning languages in general

>>220390488
No but I like consuming content in English, even if I don't really understand everything

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i wish real grills were as nice as the assimil grills

I have returned to Japanese

>>220387811
Damn I wish I had one of these near me

>>220390488
I like doing anki. Learning languages is just a side effect

Is it true that if I don't live in TL's country or speak with TL's ppl regularly I will forget the language and waste my time?
I won't move to any of any potential TL's countries.
If I know the answer to this, the road ahead will be much clearer.

>>220392612
Honestly nearish is still an hour away, but I've genuinely heard nothing but good things about it so I'm excited

>>220393037
I don't think you actually have to live in your TL's country, but speaking in your TL regularly will absolutely help more than anything. It doesn't have to be in person though, there are plenty of spaces you can join to chat with people if need be

I'll cut to the chase:
The reason I haven't been able to learn any language is because everyone IRL is against me learning a foreign language.
For instance, my father speaks French and German. He said that he used to speak English well, but learning French and German made his English so rusty he effectively can't speak it anymore and that if I learn languages it'll break my English too.
Others think that I should only learn the language of a country I plan to live in or work in, or maybe if I marry someone from that country. And I am not planning to do that, at least not where I am currently at in life.
The idea of learning a whole language just for leisure and fun has been mocked that I feel tense just considering it.
But I could've always ignored what these people thought of me and just did my own thing.
Again, if I do start learning a foreign language (or foreign languageS), I should be prepared to face a wave of disapproval and resistance to this idea.
But here I am, finished my uni studies, and don't feel like playing video games or watching some movie, I'd prefer to learn a language instead, but I've been brainwashed to think that if something doesn't make me $ or is ultra relevant to real life I shouldn't do it.

>>220393371
Why don't you just pick french or german and talk to your dad? jfc

>>220390488
Yes and no. I like words/lingustics/speech and thinking about how this is the only species (other than some other Simians?) that have complex speech. Plus, I just like languages. Now, the PROCESS I go back and forth with. When it works, it works. But when it's slow, it's S L O W, nigga. You feel me?

>>220390488
yes, i like it, i just wish i had more time for it and didn't have a job.

>let's not write vowels even though our entire nominal and verbal morphology is based around them
what did the semitic languages mean by this?

>>220393371
you are only permitted to post in scottish gaelic

>>220390488
nope. I am damned by grim compulsion to continue studying chinese japanese and korean no matter the amount of time it robs from my precious fleeting youth. I have no choice in the matter

bump

Post stuff you like about your TLs

I'll start

>Spanish

A good balance of logic and literary qualities. I honestly think Spanish should be the lingua franca due to its ease of pronunciation. Again, it still amazes me that despite its simplicity it's still a beautiful language especially in literature.

>Portuguese (BR)
Poetic and musical while yet being melancholic; captures the tragic yet beautiful nature of human existence. Reminds me of the sea as well.


>French
An intellectual language with a rich tradition of philosophy, history and literature. It's a mark of a refinement to speak French.

>>220396771
it allows me to say 'nigga' publicly without lashback

>>220394369
it's actually the opposite since the consonant roots carry all of the information and the vowels can be inferred through context
though using an abjad for a non-semitic language is actual retardation and worse than not having writing at all, look up how badly hui chinese and ottoman turkish ended up

Only 3 hours of comprehensible input

>>220397939
it works pretty well for Farsi

>>220399986
i was going to say that there are some exceptions, farsi gets away with it because it has like 3 unique vowel sounds and phonemic vowel length which is always represented in writing (like in semitic languages)
even then it has like 4 different ways to write /z/ and other letters which are only used with arabic loans that have to be painfully learned

>no captcha
love this april fools btw

bump

>>220396771
>german
In english I feel like much of sophisticated writing is reaching for an obscure latinate word, and I like those words and think English's rich vocabulary is one of her great strengths, but something I enjoy about german lit is it seems what elevates there writing is of course also the use of uncommon words but also more creating new, highly descriptive words. Examples would be like from hesse the words schattenspend (shade-giving), wissensdurstig (thirsty for knowledge), todesmutig (courageous in the face of death). This shows ups of course just as much in mundane contexts like when I read a news report a few years ago describing the embattled then Chancellor Scholz as urlaubreif (ripe for a vacation as in in need of one).

>french
love hate relationship with the pronunciation. It is so hard but the sound of the language is also one of its draws.

>>220397806
german lets you saw digga

>>220393371
So, you want to learn a language?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN1Tw8XM1LY

thinking about learning koine greek and then normal ancient greek. I'm enjoying getting the hang of the alphabet and pronunciation isn't as bad as I would have guessed.

>>220393371
ill learn a language start to finish with u. what are you picking

So if I listen to audio intently, while not understanding most of it, while that improve my comprehension?

>>220404753
Try it and report back.

>>220404753
Maybe, but nowhere near time effectively. If you're intent on immersion purism then try Dreaming Spanish style Youtube videos (people using lots of gestures, drawings, etc., search "[Target language] ultrabeginner comprehensible input" or similar). If you want to focus on audio so you get used to the sound of the language quickly, try a course with lots of TL audio like Assimil or Linguaphone. You should probably also try and find a frequency deck where the cards have audio, like the Refold ones in the OP. All of this will help you learn way faster than what is effectively listening to white noise.

If you're asking this despite being past the beginner stage, just listen to easier content.

>Finish Duolingo course
>The daily refresh section is trash and gives the simplest shit to review
>Decide to just do old finished lessons in reverse
>The review questions for the last unit are questions from the very first unit in the course that teach the most basic A1 shit

How can they fuck this up so badly? What a trash app.

>>220405516
>>Finish Duolingo course
that was your mistake

>>220405541
It's just a supplemental tool. I mostly input desu.
Pulling questions from random units would be a better review feature than what they use now.

Did Duolingo, for April Fool's, make lessons much harder? or am I just retarded

it was a review legendary, but it took 30 minutes to get a 59%.

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>>220405700

>>220405852
No I don't think so.

>there are non-logographic tonal languages that don't bother marking tone in writing

How right was Krashen about language learning?

>>220407448
Could you please summarize what he says (or what you think he says) about language learning, because I have seen many variations of his theories?

>>220407925
>Language is learned by comprehensive input (understanding messages)
>You need to consume messages in enough volume of messages in comprehensive amounts and that follows an order of I+1 (an input or message that includes extra linguistic knowledge being a vocabulary word or a new grammar structure)

>>220408032
>comprehensive input

*comprehensible input

>and that follows an order of I+1 (an input or message that includes extra linguistic knowledge being a vocabulary word or a new grammar structure)

I think the "i+1" thing is sometimes misunderstood. Some people think it means that we need to consume "i+1" comprehensible input in order to acquire language. My understanding is it's just that we acquire language incrementally, regardless of the the difficulty of the input. Certain levels of comprehension are more ideal than others (for example, the recommendation that 98% comprehensibility is ideal for reading material), but not that we can't learn from material that's 50% comprehensible. Krashen also said that we acquire parts of a languages in a certain order, so trying to force yourself to acquire a particular "+1" through targeted input might be futile or at least inefficient.

Krashen's basic message is consistent with my experience so far. Learning grammar or practicing output exercises (or translations) isn't how we really acquire a language. The important thing is the input we receive. To be sure, if you want to be good at output (speaking or writing), you need to practice those skills, but they are built on the base of acquired knowledge built from the input we've received.

>>220387987
speak like Jeremy Irons. literally listen and copy him until you have his accent. post results here once you have mastered it

>>220410114
>Krashen also said that we acquire parts of a languages in a certain order,
and this order varies depending on your native language.

>>220404753
no
i did a lot of this doesnt work
it maybe helps in training your brain to the sound (e.g you start to build a library of what sound patterns exist and what dont exist). maybe this helps in the very long run but you will not see any short or medium-term results of any kind
The rule of thumb is -
>mind automatically pays attention to the content without having to force (the same way you listen to native content) = quality learning source
>have to force attention hard in order to understand = not a quality learning source
>not understanding it at all = just noise

>>220407448
Not very. His ideas have just become dogma in online language learning spaces. He's controversial even in SLA, not the #1 authority of the field by any means, and there have been many SLA studies in the past 20 years that contradict his theories. Yeah most social science studies are p-hacked garbage that fail to replicate, but some of these had huge effect sizes and line up with my intuition and experience too. The acquisition vs learning thing is just a sort of unfalsifiable buzzword designed to sidestep concrete definitions, for example if you can show to a Krashen tard that something outside of input works they will say it helps you learn but not acquire.

There's a popular book on the science of learning called Make it Stick, it's not about language at all and more about general learning but the TL;DR is that passive learning doesn't really exist and you need to actually do stuff yourself actively to learn it. I'd also like to add that what people think of children learning a language is a romanticized ideal that doesn't exist, children are corrected constantly by their parents and teachers and go through years of schooling where they learn to read and write formally. People do not just passively absorb language magically. It's basically a gigantic naturalistic fallacy based on this false ideal of children a native language from their parents in early childhood that isn't even real.

>>220412280
paying attention to and comprehending content is not passive. This is sort of like saying that learning history by reading history books is useless and the only way to learn history is via flashcards and multiple choice questions.

>>220407925
his idea is that you best obtain new language knowledge by automatically inferring it from existing context. Either by visual context (e.g where what's being said corresponds clearly with what's happening) or by knowing all the other words so you can infer the meaning from surrounding knowledge. This is technically true in principle, you do it all the time in your native language, and there are hundreds of studies in SLA confirming its usually the most time-efficient acquisition method. But it's slightly misleading because there generally isn't any existing extensive corpus of material where everything is 98% comprehensible and easily contextually inferable at all times and every level

>gives up trying to find good Persian resources
>consider paying some native tutor on Preply
am I doing a blunder? search harder?
Also, I feel like a chain reaction if I learn Persian:
If I MiddleEastmaxx, then I might as well master Classical Arabic, learn Hebrew, and Turkish, maybe even Aramiac so I can become the quintessential history whiz
I can't keep it to Persian. I think I have to.
I also saw an Arabic tutor on Preply who exactly speaks all those languages (except Aramiac). It made me seethe since I probably will never match him

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>>220415387

>>220415387
why Hebrew or Turkish?

>>220415798
To unlock the "Middle East" stack. I know, it's a retarded concept but I feel like learning one language in isolation is wrong, if I am just doing it for fun, why not learn other similar ones?

you're fucking hopeless

>>220411691
hm, but would this work?
>make audio flash card of short phrases of audio
>learn (basically memorize) the words of the flash card and what the phrase is saying
>then, once the words are learned, just practice listening to the flashcard and identifying all the words in it every time it comes up.
this is what im doing now for audio mining and it seems quite helpful, so far. i've also done this for another language where i have much better skills and i found it helpful as well.

>>220416765
Why?

>>220408032
Okay, I remember now. I fell for that one. I also didn’t see much success among people using that method, even though they often had some experience learning a language the traditional way or chose easy languages. Not checking any words or rules sounds pretty radical, too.
I don’t know, maybe they start speaking too late, or after all those thousands of hours of input, they just don’t feel like finishing the process with output.
But I agree that input is super important, and looking up definitions in a dictionary in your TL is better than doing so in your native language. But listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking (as well as math) are all separate skills. Maybe I’m talking nonsense, but different parts of the brain must be responsible for all those things
>>220411691
>it maybe helps in training your brain to the sound
This for sure. The question is whether you have to do only that before you can move on to other language-related tasks
>>220416148
So learn some international language then like French or Spanish. Also, making plans for the future is pointless. A one language, even easy one, takes at least 1 year, 1.5-2 years more realistically. It's a lot of time, Anything can happen during that time: you might fall in love, find a job that requires a different language, or die without ever having learned a language

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What do we think of the Friedrich Engels method of language learning?

>>220417703
that sounds extremely inefficient

also, when learning a completely new skill, is there effectively any difference between "learning" and "memorizing?"

I'm not talking about sitting down and memorizing grammar tables. it's more like, at the beginning of a language, it feels to me like every single word and sound is like a new concept that has to be learned, gotten used to, or just "memorized," effectively, by your brain, through continued exposure.

Is there any difference between memorizing and learning/understanding for a skill that is brand new?

>>220417510
he said he wanted to learn classical arabic and aramaic about three months ago a little bit past the start of the new year

>>220417747
It was probably a good way to learn in the 1840s, when Engels was alive. They didn't have pop-up dictionaries or infinite access to native content on the internet lol.

1. Some time ago, I realized that I can’t hold a good conversation in English. I’d had this realization before, so I started studying, but now it’s even worse. It’s really getting me down.
2. This calls into question the idea* of learning another language. However, I’ve been considering going back to German or French, or learning Dutch or Scandinavian.
I’ve limited myself to these languages because I like them (whether it’s the way they sound, or the movies, literature, songs, etc.), but I also have a chance to find work in Poland using them, and besides, they’re a great option for moving abroad, even as a backup plan.
There are fewer learning resources available for the Scandinavian languages and Dutch, but I also get the impression that the language isn’t as necessary there, at least when you first move there and you know English well. Later on, of course, you have to learn the language, but there are programs to help with that. But they also seem easier than French and German, and my slow progress is discouraging me, which is probably why I’ve only had some success learning Italian
>This calls into question the idea*
Does that sound bad? Unnatural or pretentious?

>>220418841
it's not obviously non-native. but the meaning is a little ambiguous here. 'calls into question' can imply both 'whether we should' (x) or 'whether we shouldn't' (x). 'This makes me question the idea of ___' or 'this makes ___ questionable' would be a bit more natural in this context.

>>220417703
I mean, reading is a powerful tool to achieve fluency but it's an almost impossible task if you don't know enough vocabulary to have a minimum flow or understand the context

>>220419457
>'whether we should' (x) or 'whether we shouldn't' (x).
So like whether I should focus only on English or whether I shouldn't, but without talking about alternatives?

>>220417703
>communist
>is retarded

shocking

>>220417703
How the fuck did he have enough freetime to do that, sounds incredibly difficult

>>220422180
People had lots of free time before the internet and doomscrolling were invented.

Hey everyone
Recently I decided to start keeping track of the amount of time I spend doing certain things for my TL. That is anki, reading (which includes adding to my anki), listening and scriptorium. I will also be doing other things in a more ad hoc way.
I have a strong suspicion that anki is going to prove to be the best use of my time by far. I will update you sporadically.

>>220422554
You will never get far, just give up bro

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>tfw you finish a book in your target language

This was a loooong one

why is everyone on the internet so stubbornly retarded about learning japanese? you ask for directions on how to learn and every time, without fail, they will tell you to do your fucking anki. you tell them flashcards is not how you learn a language and they tell you to do your fucking ankis. you tell them that you need a more streamlined way of learning than "memorize a few kanji without knowing how to actually speak or construct sentences or just generally learning the fucking language" and they tell you to do your fucking ankis. i get that gatekeeping is important but i have never received good advice when asking how to learn japanese

>>220424499
Try this 30 day spoon-feed.
https://learnjapanese.moe/routine/

Anki and input are pretty much the gold standard. People recommend that because it works. The other alternative is to read a textbook or pay some retarded hundreds of dollars to spoon-feed you the same textbook, which is unlikely to get you to a high level in the language.

>>220424639
thanks anon, this seems useful
but how is anki the gold standard when all it does is turn you into a walking dictionary? it doesn't teach you how to use verbs and proper form and whatnot

also these captchas are really fun and way less tedious than the usual ones, i wish they'd keep them forever

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>>220417762
Yeah, "memorizing" is not equivalent to learning. It usually helps though because it builds the necessary scaffolding structures that facilitate the real learning. In language acquisition, you can use something like Anki to build a mapping between TL word and rough NL meaning which allows you to have a "mental dictionary" that helps you understand sentences while reading and listening, which is when the real acquisition happens.

Pic related gives you an idea of the general "levels of knowing". Memorizing a math equation doesn't mean you understand it, but if you can access it in your short-term memory while doing other tasks that facilitate learning, like solving a problem, it obviously helps.

>>220425041
This is a pretty good explanation of what Anki actually does
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrBFhsnBQ2k

>>220425092
that's a weird way of looking at it for me, i could never memorize so many words if i didn't have a structure i could use them in, it's way easier to memorize them something if i've used it in something like an equation or when forming a sentence to me, dunno about americans but that's how they always taught things when i was in school

>>220424499
anki is just an autistic activity for people who feel interested in languages.

>>220424499
>>220427708
the main people you see arguing against anki are redditors forever stuck in A1-A2 territory for multiple years
the only way anki doesn't work is that you find it so excruciatingly boring that you self-sabotage. Also side rant, but 'learning styles' are a myth. People aren't 'visual learners', they just are addicted to screens

So what is everybody's way of learning a language? For me it's
>learn the 1000 or so most common words with Anki (always TL to English, never the other way around)
>start reading as soon as possible (start with childrens books or books I already know the plot of)
>try to use TL only dictionaries, but if it doesn't help, use a TL to German or English dictionary
>watch YouTube videos or (preferable) movies with TL dub and sub
>never talk, never write, never look at grammar
>only consoom

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>>220428789
>collect beginner texts from textbooks like assimil/colloquial
>read them in lute and re-read to review
>climb the graded reader ladder
>watch youtube/shows/movies with language reactor
>easier translated fiction from english
>eventually can coonsume shit comfortably on my own
>intermediate plateau of anguish where nothing happens for a while
>if i don't run out of content, eventually output starts coming out
>another plateau where nothing happens and you still haven't acquired x feature of language so it's still embarrassing to say you know it
>... hello, anything happening?
>pick another language to pass the time

>>220422668
I've already come a long way. I just need to put more work in.
>>220424499
Have you considered that the real techniques are impossible to communicate? How do you think a baby learns a language? We really can't explain it. You should learn Japanese with no particular technique. Figure it out for yourself.

>>220387633
I feel like ai completely kills the new to learn a new language except for when you want to actually move countries

>>220430925
Kills the need*

>>220430925
How does it do that?

>>220428789
I don't even have a standard way of getting through the beginner stage, I basically just get by with whatever I'm able to find until I can get to the inpoot stage. And I'm also like you, I never do any output except for a few posts here in German. But I'm doing that as more of an experiment to see for myself if output skills can magically appear from doing only input. And also, I only care right now about watching/listening to content, don't care about writing or speaking yet anyway.

>>220430925
It's not there yet. When it can make a romhack translation of JP-only games in one prompt, then maybe we'll be in that range.

>>220429256
So this is the power of intrinsic motivation?

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Found this ultra-cheap 30-day Persian bootcamp that claims to teach you just enough Persian fundamentals to learn the rest by inputting.
Do it? Costs $9.99

I need to learn Spanish ASAP, what is my method? No I did not read the OP.

>>220434304
>Download the Refold Spanish deck in the OP, add 20 new words a day (~30 minutes a day)
>Complete 2 lessons of Assimil a day (~30 minutes per lesson, much less at the beginning)
>Buy some good introductory Spanish textbook, don't obsess over the vocab list or example dialogue (other resources are better for that) or even do any of the exercises, just read through the grammar explanations so you can make sense of patterns you notice in your immersion
>Spend some time each day watching Dreaming Spanish, starting from the ultrabeginner videos
>After you finish the Refold 1k deck, read Spanish content (starting with graded readers, increasing in difficulty until you can read easy native content) and sentence mine with Yomitan
>After you finish Assimil, almost all of your study time should just be immersion, with 10-30 minutes on Anki a day and occasionally reviewing grammar points
If you do this for three hours a day you'll learn very quickly
t. someone who doesn't speak Spanish, has never tried to learn Spanish, and isn't planning on trying to learn Spanish

How did people learned enough vocabulary to read in a foreign language before Anki?

>>220435294
The same way they do now. Anki barely does anything.

wait

>>220435294
Mezzofanti repeatedly wrote lists of vocabulary from memory, or something like that. This is according to the account of someone who met him and asked him what he did. This guy talks about it like it was a common method back then (early 19th century) but I'm not sure exactly what it was. All those methods and anki are basically the same. It's all forced recall with spaced repetition. People were using physical flashcards with algorithms not too different to anki before they had computers.

>>220429256
this is basically what i've been try to do with bosnian/croatian/serbian so far. my plan is to just slowly and steadily go through the whole assimil book, mining flashcards and re-reading the text, and then see where I'm at 6-9 months from now when I reach the end.

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>>220435294
In the recent past people used physical flashcards. You could do a sort of spaced-repetition by placing cards in different piles

>>220424499
You do some combination of consuming content while looking up words, talking to natives, doing flashcards or other srs games, and learning grammar. devote 4500 hours to doing any or all of these activities and you will then know japanese

>>220434971
aight thanks

Thread cpr bump.

what do you guys do to improve writing?

>>220415798
Hey PolBro, if you are still interested in the learning with me thing, I have chosen French.
I already committed to it. I'll start tomorrow. I've secured A1 to B1 progression.

>>220415798
drop your Discord so I can add you and we can both inspire each other

Hola. Soy yo.

fucking hell how do I filter flags?

>>220445509
With 4chanx click the little down arrow next to the last digit, go to filter, flag and that's it.

>>220445509
4chan X
it also lets you filter words/phrases/images

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>>220440866

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this fucking language

>>220423101
always a terrific feeling

>>220428789
learn basic pronunciation
learn basic grammar
ankigoon vocab (I do English/Spanish to TL, I prefer it as it helps me recall the word for the concept I want and I'm still able to recognize the word after the fact)
talk to people on HelloTalk, try not to cheat with a translator
inp00t with books, music... use books to build up vocab

maybe not the most efficient method but it's gotten me to good levels in Spanish and PT.

Also has anyone used this site for French https://www.lawlessfrench.com/learn-french/french-for-beginners/

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>>220446185

Fucking ankigooned spanish/port/france for like an hour and a quarter (adding cards + reviewing). idk ankigooning three languages at once is a good idea kek

>person starts listing off numbers
AHHHHHHHHH
I really need to practice listening to numbers
But it sucks so much

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>>220387633
Can a Korean speaker translate this?

>>220448574
Poop didi coops peep pididdy poops

>>220448574
its a quote by 김정은 (kim jong un). our great people something something the holy power of socialism yada yda

If anyone is learning Japanese and interested in a speaking partner let me know! I'm trying to get back into learning Japanese

>>220387633
Is anyone interested in Anki integration for Openclaw or Gemini CLI?

How do I get gud at listening? It's too hard... :(

>>220450448
Listen to people talking slower

Finished HSK2. Obviously haven't mastered it but the HSK2 DuChinese stories are very easy to follow. Excited to get into HSK3. I will probably have to slow down now and actually pay attention to the Chinese ZeroToHero videos now (thanks to the anon who shared the Russian torrent of the rip a while ago)
Also extremely excited to eventually reach HSK4, because then the course is completely in Chinese and there seems to be a metric shitton more to learn per chapter
I hate failing Anki cards just because I mistake one tone but I'll keep being strict and trusting the process...
I really don't want to get into mnemonics for sinograms because it seems like a lot of extra busywork and a meme, but if anyone here has used shit like HackChinese, Mandarin Blueprint or HanziHero and taken the mnemonics pill then I'd love to hear experiences. I've searched online and didn't find many advanced learners that went through them tho, so I don't trust it much

>>220390266
>Buch of insufferable schizos, tons of irony and sarcasm
I think it's because Japanese attracts more autistic people who are undersocalised or developmentally stunted and turn everything into a my way or the highway pissing match lol

>>220424499
Japanese learners are autistic and think their method is the only way to do things, and their method is whatever they are parroting from a youtuber.
Serious Dunning Kruger in the Japanese learning community

>>220428433
>the only way anki doesn't work is that you find it so excruciatingly boring that you self-sabotage
This is me, except I am also busy so my amount of reviews eventually spiral to the point of me never doing them in addition to finding it boring from the get go

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too many languages... so little time. Three classical, 4 modern. Tired.

>>220450448
Most of the time listening comes together on its own once you acquire enough words to the point where comprehension is automatic. You might know the words but your recall is slow and it takes time for you to construct the meaning in your head and relate it to the other words in the sentence. Even reading can help with listening if you're improving your speed and automaticity, but for that you need to get to a stage where you need minimal lookups and you can achieve a certain consistent reading flow.

>>220452391
>I am also busy so my amount of reviews eventually spiral to the point of me never doing them
you can manage this by lowering your new cards per day and desired retention rate. Default is 90%, you can go to 80%. I haven't heard of people going lower but hell, if you need to...
I'm >>220451314, I've decided to try HackChinese. I'm usually not into using SRS other than Anki, but with Chinese I'm just doing the pre-made HSK lists anyways, I might as well try HackChinese for the premade list with the mindset of eventually moving over anki for my own sentence mined cards. Just tried it for 5 minutes and the UI doesn't feel great but at least it has a 21 day trial

>Odmah počinjemo plakati.
Sometimes I hear the final h pronounced as a breathy "huh" sound. Other times, it is pronounced like a "kh" (X).

is there a rule for this?

>>220453684
Nah, I just gave up learning moonrune languages entirely and stick to more angloid friendly ones which I can learn from reading like Norwegian and French

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ich wünsche euch allen ein besinnliches Osterwochenende

>>220450448
you just need to be patient. It will get better eventually with enough input. Can be very frustrating though.

el bump

do you ever listen to people in your TL that are teaching speakers of your TL to learn your own language?

what country does this name come from?
>Chin Su Yi

>>220460543
Yeah

listened to a podcast of afrofuturism in french
yep those people are just as insufferable in a different language

>a year and a half into Japanese
>realize I should've learned Chinese
it's over

cool new german word I just learned

>Atompatt
literally atomic stalemate (like chess); basically, meaning the situation after the Soviet Union gained the bomb and the USA and them no longer would/could conventionally wage war.

From von Bismarck zu Hitler by Sebastian Haffner

Dazu kam noch folgendes: In genau diesen Jahren der Berlin-Krise, zwischen 1958 und 1961, bildete sich das heraus, was seither das Verhältnis der beiden Großmächte und ihrer Blöcke zueinander bestimmt hat, nämlich das sogenannte Atompatt.

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>>220463110
Just swap lol
Chinese is cool

>>220463110
a decade into Korean and I'm taking the sinopill now.
I've always been tempted to learn Japanese, but I know it'll be a deadend socially/profesionally like Korean was. At least with Chinese you will find speakers absolutely everywhere you go. (And it'll make kanji easy-peasy if you eventually come back to Jap)

>>220463167
i was learning german for a while but then I realized that it would involve me needing to talk to germans so I quit

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>>220390266
one group was drawn by anime, the other by grand tales of brotherly love

>>220463525
so true
I think every city I've been to in Europe had Chinese people

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>>220463167
Just finished the book off; he spends some of the last chapter discussing the prospects of a reunion of West and East Germany writing:

"We want to pause at this point and pose the question, whether there exists a chance that in the foreseeable future the present state of affairs could change? Does the current situation offer a reason to think that something akin to the Russian Proposal, which stipulated a unified, yet also neutral, Germany, once again could be on the table? When we consider the reality of the situation soberly, then the answer is a simple no.

The book was written in 1987.

Crazy how unpredictable history really is. Was a very pleasant read and I am going to read his shorter Anmerkungen zur Hitler next, which should be a nice follow up. I have one more history book on the fall of the Weimer Republik and then I want to read Drei Kameraden by Erich Remarque which is set in the 20s of berlin. After that I think I am down with ww1/2 stuff for a while.

Starting to wonder if Icelandic would have been easier than German

>>220463383
I'm too far in now. I've spent hours a day every day learning Jap for a year and a half. It took like a year just to start being able to struggle through reading books for 14 year olds and another 6 months later I'm finally starting to get to a point where it doesn't feel like I'm slamming my head into a wall all the time.
I think if I just stick with it a little longer, maybe another half year, I'll reach a point where I can input passively with ease. Then I can start the process all over again with Chinese. That's what I tell myself at least.

>>220463110
what do you want to do in chinese?
why did you learn japanese?

so you guys have holidays on
>Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
>Juneteenth
but not now when it's Easter?
damn.. we have four day weekend
Good Friday and Easter Monday

>>220465601
I wanted to watch anime lol. But that led to getting interested in some Chinese media, and what I've realized is that Chinese content is much more difficult to access if you don't know Chinese. Anime has become so popular that pretty much everything worth engaging with from Japan is available in English these days. It's not like the past where you had to wait weeks for subtitles to release and the translations were garbage. But there is still so much Chinese content that is impossible to watch if you don't know Chinese. And there are Chinese tourists everywhere. And there are several Chinese restaurants with actual Chinese owners where I live. Meanwhile I've never encountered a single Japanese person and probably won't unless I go to Japan.

>>220465949
interesting, most people don't learn chinese for its content, especially not over japanese, but if you're into gaining exclusive access to that then I see why it'd appeal to you, japanese content is certainly more widely translated
gaining access to more people is definitely a strength of chinese

>>220464967
Anmerkungen zu Hitler is a great and underrated book. We read it in history class in 10th grade.
Hafner is an underrated historian and was largely overshadowed by Guido Knopp (who is an idiot)

I am already doing japanese anki every day. Takes me anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour.
What else can I do to better study japanese? At the rate I'm going I feel it will be years before I'm even remotely comfortable.
I don't want to be one of those weebs who says "I'm learning japanese" 10 years late with little practical ability.

>>220466151
>>220465949
Jap "content":
>anime and manga slop
>some books written by lonely incels about how they can't get a shag
>light "novels"
>the tale of Genji ig

Chinese Civilisational Products:
>Three incredibly influential philosophical strains of thought that have occupied the centre of all East Asian civilisation (Confucianism Daoism Legalism) and can only be compared to the Greeks
>3000 years of history all recorded in exacting detail
>2500 years of poetry in countless forms, completely incomprehensible in translations
>700 years of literature including stories that have defined all future storytelling in Asia e.g. Journey to the west, romance of the three kingdoms
>surprisingly underrated arthouse cinema
>flourishing literary scene spanning six countries (opposed to jap literature which is entirely focussed on light novel slop)
>TV drama slop if you REALLY can't bear to part with your beloved 100-hour long tv series

Chinese content is heavily censored though
Narou is actually wild, you can find insane degenerate shit there. Last one I found was a guy turning a middle schooler into a sex slave

god damnit now the FUD is setting in for me again in picking japanese over chinese

>>220468037
it's censored for viewers in China but outside of China you can very easily get your hands on banned/censored books and films

Why is there such a war between Chinese and Japanese learners? I haven't noticed anything similar between German and French learners or Swedish and Italian learners.
>>220444890
Ok, French then. I've already started yesterday independently desu. Not using discord though

>>220467715
What ive been trying to do is find ppl higher level than me to speak to so I can actually practice speaking but nobody wants to. Ig you can move to Japan or something. Or worst case post video games on Japanese servers but tbdesu i tried that and could not communicate effectively at all

>>220390488
I enrolled in a Russian course in my city. It was in-person over the year. But they cancelled it because everyone chose the virtual option, not enough numbers. And then they all kept their cams off and didn't talk. I should be more motivated, but I want to be *around" the language. I've forgotten all the Russian I learned!

i shouldve devoted the last 3000+ hours I spent on language learning to something else
couldve written a tolkienesque epic in that time

>>220470472
you could have started writing it in your target language

Should i dabble in an ancient-near-east language?

>>220472254
I only did like 25-35 minutes of Anki a day. I've been studying for 4 years inconsistently and am around N3 level.

I recommend spending more time sentence mining anime, shows, VNs, music, or whatever else you like. Try to get a good balance of intensive and extensive study. Here's a good youtube channel to start with.

https://www.youtube.com/@the_bitesize_japanese_podcast

Do you want any other recommendations?

how much japanese so i need for a jgf?

>>220462436
Related kino: https://youtube.com/watch?v=XzJ8bwDuAr0

>>220472386
Oops, meant for >>220467715

how much japanese so i need for a jbf?

>american pronunciation
Harder (I literally can't pronounce relatively with t flapping) but way more content available for immersion
>british pronunciation
A bit easier, but still hard. Way less content to immerse

I can't decide

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Can anybody who has learned a modern romance language (ideally Spanish) + Latin confirm how much overlap there is between the two?

I want to learn Latin to read old poetry and literature, but I know Spanish is more useful in America and has more modern audio and video content while Latin would be pretty much just reading. How much does knowing one language speed up knowing the other? I already have experience with learning a difficult language (Japanese).

>>220470472
Tolkien knew Latin, Old English, Old Icelandic French, German, Finnish, Welsh, and more, and made up several fake languages, and still found time to write a tolkienesque epic.

>>220467919
German "content":
>rap and novel slop
>some books written by lonely incels about how they can't get a job
>atheist "philosophy"
>Goethe ig

Roman Civilisational Products:
>Three incredibly influential philosophical strains of thought that have occupied the centre of all Western civilisation (Christianity Humanism Civil law) and can only be compared to the Greeks
>2050 years of history all recorded in exacting detail
>2225 years of poetry in countless forms, completely incomprehensible in translations
>700 years of literature including stories that have defined all future storytelling in Europe e.g. The divine comedy, Aeneid
>surprisingly underrated arthouse cinema
>flourishing literary scene spanning sixty countries (opposed to germ literature which is entirely focussed on fiction slop)
>telenovela slop if you REALLY can't bear to part with your beloved 100-hour long tv series

>>220472961
Not much. Knowing English is already a lot of overlap

>>220467919
>2500 years of poetry in countless forms, completely incomprehensible in translations
What is the point of all that poetry if you don't know how most of it was pronounced though.

>>220472883
irish

Thought I was good at speaking English, but I was unable to explain current economical turmoil triggered by geopolitical wars to some random zoomer on OmeTV

>>220474747
the beauty is in the wording and structure not the pronunciation for most poetic forms
also we can predict pretty well how Tang and post-Tang poetry was pronounced, which is the best stuff, only pre-Tang is relatively hard

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is he based?

>>220472969
unrelated but I always wonder about how good were people back in the day at learning languages, specially missionaries that ended up in Asia and wrote the first bilingual dictionaries and shit. Sure the bookkeeping work they did was impressive but for some reason I can't imagine them being better than A2. I know of religious Western people that translate poetry and are considered scholars of the Asian language of the country they're in, and they're noticeably terrible when they open their mouths.
same with Tolkien, was he really fluent at Finnish or did he just have some basic notions and that was enough to be impressive? I don't know

Immersion is a coping methods for lads who cant rote memorize the structures

>>220478547
Finnish pronunciation doesn't seem complicated, with Asian languages you might be right. On the other hand, missionaries, apart from their training and education, also spoke the language fluently, so they could adapt good pronunciation and the flow in speech over time, just as you adapt the body language, mannerisms, and habits of the people around you.

I Just don't know how people end up becoming fluent readers in multiple languages
I don't see how I'd find the time beyond 2-3 and I find it hard to give up my reading time in a language to learn others

>>220480565
Throwback to this classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oudgdh6tl00

>>220478547
those missionaries had full immersion and absolutely nobody to translate into English for them, they HAD to learn the language properly. Admittedly over time more converts learnt western languages and missionaries' skills waned but the first ones must have been highly fluent to produce Chinese/Japanese translations of the bible when dictionaries didn't exist, and to give sermons in Chinese/Japanese that made sense and managed to convert people.
Something specific to China is that a lot of early westerners learnt Manchu first because it was considered easier than Chinese (and yeah if you don't have any resources for Chinese then it is).

the people back in the day who claimed to speak X language but were actually shit were writers and polyglots who never left their country to go live in another one, for example Ezra Pound's "Chinese" being completely fake and wrong all the time

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Little late for an April Fools joke? It can't be...

arabic script. how did you guys do it? give me apps that arent duolingo cause thats miserable

>>220483713
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjggPVhNiRw&list=PL3XyqhiKYw6PWQBE1neqJFTrDuQ6stlQO

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>>220485495
>mentions a calligrapher named "Muhammad Izzat"
Lol
Just what a repulsive and ugly phlegmy language. Thank God the Italians decided to contrive Latin letters

Anyway when you want to learn a script in a TL just look up "handwriting tutorial" in it on youtube. Some crackpot will have indubitably recorded himself writing for hours.

If you just need to learn how to type, then just copypaste paragraphs of your TL into typing practice software like monkeytype. I checked and it seems they support Arabic.

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I'm still doing Latin vocab every day but I've got a bit lazy with grammar and reading.

The Persian academy responded and they have a very complicated payment process but the bootcamp is intensive, lasts for 6 months, has homework, personal accountability, pronunciation feedback and shit, all by a native persian speaker that's C2 in Arabic.
If I sign up for it I'll do it. Do it?

Tbh this is feeling more like a drug deal than paying for a language course, gonna stick with French

>>220487321
see: >>>/wsg/6122960

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>>220483713
meesa muy happy

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>>220483713
deesa great, hurrah

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>>220487609
>>220487638
jarjar bin ks

>>220487321
They have a normal operating schedule despite the ongoing bombing campaign? I think you should stick with Persian. Their commitment to service is not just next level, it's

Day 3 of Icelandic learning, why do I feel like this is a rabbit hole that brought nations to its knees before?

>>220472961
I'm learning Spanish now after having spent a long time learning Latin. I think it helps picking up vocabulary faster, because you're more likely to recognize cognates that you wouldn't from just English alone, and those words stick easier because they already have some significance. I wouldn't study Latin just for the cross-over benefit of helping with Spanish, but there is at least some carry-over. Probably less than knowing a modern Romance language, but not zero.

lebensrettender Stups

I know it's super ironic for me to say that, but the current Syrian pres visited Germany and he's pledged to accept 800,000 Syrian deportees.
The deportations will focus on the lowest tier Syrians, i.e., Syrians that didn't bother to learn German even after living in Germany for 10 years, and they never put in effort to seek employment, and lived off social benefits, and sent the money back to Syria (i.e., literal leeches).
How can someone live in a country for 10 years and NOT learn the language of that place?
I know I've been the hyper procrastinator but trust me if I had the need to learn a language I will go A1 to C2 in 3 months.
Holy shit

>>220467919
>Three incredibly influential philosophical strains of thought that have occupied the centre of all East Asian civilisation (Confucianism Daoism Legalism)

Confucianism was a mistake and no one cares about legalism

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>>220491278
>Germany is significantly increasing deportations of rejected asylum seekers and illegal migrants, with over 19,500 removed in the first ten months of 2025—an 18% increase over the previous year. The government has tightened rules, enabling faster deportations, reducing benefits, and extending detention times to curb illegal immigration and target criminals.

>>220491893
>Confucianism was a mistake
the ideology that allowed Chinese civilisation to persist for 2500 years was not a mistake
>nobody cares about legalism
it's basically Hobbes 2000 years before Hobbes, one of the most advanced philosophical texts of its time, and crucial to the functioning of later dynasties

what philosophies have the jap ever produced? probably some manifestos about why they should be allowed to rape kids and hunt whales
jap state was run on Confucian principles for 1500+ years

>Pokémon Waves/Winds will feature 11 languages including localization in Brazilian Portuguese.

Unironically soy facing right now. Should I get a switch for immersion?


https://youtu.be/cIdgDKDpwaQ

>>220451314
How are you using Anki exactly? Are you exporting your words from DuChinese and Pleco to excel files and converting them to Anki or are you using a third party screen reader with Anki integration? Or are you manually making sentence cards?

>>220487321
>>220487580
>>220491278
So did you change the language or not?

>>220491278
I had a Greek living in the flat above mine and despite working in Germany and having a wife that was fluent in both Greek and German, he never bothered to learn it, too, aside from some snippets. He was a helpful guy, but still.
If you're moving solely in social circles that speak your mother tongue, you probably don't see the need to learn the language of your host country.

>>220492204
>the ideology that allowed Chinese civilisation to persist for 2500 years
you mean broke apart massacred most of its population and then reformed every century or two?

>>220387811
Burger, how are you learning Mandarin? I want to give it a shot. I tried to use Duolingo for Russian and German, but I found out it was dogshit, so I don't wish to spend my time on something that won't yield results, besides feeding some hungry CEO.

>>220492970
Nothing impressive, I'm using the HSK decks that everyone seems to have been using for many years. The 'Refold community Chinese deck' actually is just a reskin of those cards. They're titled "HSK [number] - JK". I was reordering the new cards to keep the same order as I see them in the HSK lessons but it's a bit of a bother, I might just keep the random order from now on. I'll go through all of them soon enough.
Now I'm trying HackChinese too and it's nice that they have seamless DuChinese integration and lots of word lists for specific resources, including HSK words ordered as they're shown in the official textbooks, but I think I'd feel like a chump paying $144/year for a worse Anki. Also the AI voice narration is worse than the recordings from the free Anki decks lmao
I haven't tried importing DuChinese words into Anki yet but it seems easy enough

Did you guys know the guy who wrote the shi shi shi shi poem was actually in favor of getting rid of chinese characters?

>>220481457
This is inspiring
I wish I could study for 12 hours a day, on my one day off I find I study less not more
Damn maybe I need to do micro studies like this with Old Norse again
My problem is that I'm always thinking 'I can't commit enough time to this language (only 20-30 minutes a day), what is the point?'

>>220496944
>I haven't tried importing DuChinese words into Anki yet but it seems easy enough

DuChinese has an anki-file export option.

>>220495460
Hi Banitsa, I'm using a few different resources right now. Mainly SuperChinese and DuChinese, and then Hanly specifically for characters. I also have HSK books that you can find online for free which have been nice. This is more just focusing on foundations and pinyin pronunciation as I'm going to formally be taking Mandarin classes at my college in a month or so as well.

>>220492812
I used my switch one a lot to learn german. Most of the games support multiple languages.

Always surprised me when playing the pokemon games that Portuguese wasn't an option. I guess they just played the spanish version or the italian one.

>>220485951
Reading is the most important thing you can do, fren. Read Latin every day.

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i downloaded the "spanish with ease" pdf from annas archive and i thought it would come with the audio. i'm not sure how to obtain the grail. please help. many thanks.

>>220501384
You can just download the French version (search "assimil L'Espagnol"). Since the audio is entirely in Spanish, it's identical in all versions, so you can read the English PDF whilst listening to the "French" audio. You can also search on ruTracker if even the French version isn't available.

Also, the free download speed on Anna's Archive is ridiculously slow, which isn't noticeable for tiny ePub files but it can take literally 8+ hours for 500MB files of audio. Scroll down the page and click "show external downloads" and you'll probably find something literally 50x quicker.

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>started learning japanese because of all of the racist japanese tweets that appeared on my timeline after Elon tweaked the algorithm
Here's hoping I'll stick to the habit

>>220501870
i'm glad elon made it common knowledge that social media deliberately forces culture war goyslop into everyone's feeds

anyone with a brain already knew it but now normies without a brainknow it too

https://youtu.be/AC4DflnYnNU
i will master korean sound discrimination with this

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>>220501764
thank you fren. i've completed my folders and made bookmarks based on your suggestions.

>>220501945
normies need their slop delivered by the trowel load, i rarely touch (exclusively lurking) xitter or any other social media yet not a single bit of politics/culture war/other garbage graces my timeline because i've only ever interacted with art posts
Too bad the average xitter user eats up engagement bait posted by thirdies paying their bills with xitter blue payouts, not like they have anything better to do with their time regardless

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Good morning.

where do i go after this bad boy? is it just straight inputting?

there are lots of grammars and other textbooks but short of finding some very specific "graded readers" (which are A2, B1, B2 content in Serbian for foreigners, which serve the same purpose) I haven't found much structured learning content beyond this and the colloquial series, and really not much into the B1+ level

>>220499490
Thank you, my high calorie friend. Hope you have much oil and success in your studies. As for me, I'll try to follow your example in my studies