how to learn languages quickly?

[Hard Boiled]

Does anyone here any tips on acquiring languages quickly?

My notes so far include:

• Realising that a language is a representation of culture so in order to learn a language you need to understand the culture behind it. The idea of being able to transfer your "english brain" into your "french brain" for example doesn't work. Things like sayings, metaphors, word changes are all influenced by culture.
• Interact with the language how you plan to use it. For example with Spanish, the moment you want to learn Spanish you try speak and write it.
• Spend time thinking in a language as well as speak and write in it. This might sound like a weird one but you can think faster than you can speak and write plus it takes less energy to do so you might as well try it out.
• Repetition, repetition, repetition.
• Compartmentalising online language learning to a separate chrome profile and change the language to target language.

Any thing I could add or improve on.

 

[AlexBrown84]

Be around people that speak it

Learn sentence structure

Learn vocabulary

Maybe I’ll try to learn thai even though it’s a disgusting sounding language

 

[cloUder]

It sorta depends on the language
the best way is to do immersion learning, like consuming content in said language and acquiring vocabulary and pronounciation that way
the thing is that this approach gets more useful the more you know a language, which means you have to acquire at least some base in said language before taking the immersion approach
the best way to do that IMO and through what ive researched, is using flashcards and being consistent
Reading through a book about grammar while taking ~20 new words per day in flashcards is how you can get a base in a language fairly quickly so you can start immersing
there are other things you can do but i wont go in depth in this comment, but im sure that with all the methods i know you can learn a language even as hard as japanese or chinese in 1.5 years as long as youre determined
european languages on the other hand would be a walk in the park - 3-6 months

 

[cloUder]

@AlexBrown84 should i make a detailed thread/guide on language learning here and on .org?
im confident ive discovered almost every aspect to language learning and how to do it optimally

 

[AlexBrown84]

@AlexBrown84 should i make a detailed thread/guide on language learning here and on .org?
im confident ive discovered almost every aspect to language learning and how to do it optimally

Yea

It sorta depends on the language
the best way is to do immersion learning, like consuming content in said language and acquiring vocabulary and pronounciation that way
the thing is that this approach gets more useful the more you know a language, which means you have to acquire at least some base in said language before taking the immersion approach
the best way to do that IMO and through what ive researched, is using flashcards and being consistent
Reading through a book about grammar while taking ~20 new words per day in flashcards is how you can get a base in a language fairly quickly so you can start immersing
there are other things you can do but i wont go in depth in this comment, but im sure that with all the methods i know you can learn a language even as hard as japanese or chinese in 1.5 years as long as youre determined
european languages on the other hand would be a walk in the park - 3-6 months

Yea the immersion part works well as long as you have a little bit of formal training. I only did a semester of Korean in school years ago but learnt how to read write sentence structure and basic vocabulary and was able to build off of that to where I can speak it

 

[cloUder]

Yea

Yea the immersion part works well as long as you have a little bit of formal training. I only did a semester of Korean in school years ago but learnt how to read write sentence structure and basic vocabulary and was able to build off of that to where I can speak it

whats your level of korean?

 

[AlexBrown84]

whats your level of korean?

Conversation and can read but only understand a little

 

[Hard Boiled]

Be around people that speak it

Learn sentence structure

Learn vocabulary

Maybe I’ll try to learn thai even though it’s a disgusting sounding language

Thai isn't a terrible language, even though they kinda sound like ducks.

 

[Hard Boiled]

@AlexBrown84 should i make a detailed thread/guide on language learning here and on .org?
im confident ive discovered almost every aspect to language learning and how to do it optimally

Ye sure. I would be interested in hearing more of what you have to say.

 

[Hard Boiled]

i know you can learn a language even as hard as japanese or chinese in 1.5 years as long as youre determined
european languages on the other hand would be a walk in the park - 3-6 months

this relates to this:

Realising that a language is a representation of culture so in order to learn a language you need to understand the culture behind it. The idea of being able to transfer your "english brain" into your "french brain" for example doesn't work. Things like sayings, metaphors, word changes are all influenced by culture.

 

[fatchadlitecel]

Can you learn Spanish from video games & tv shows? I feel like that's how most people globally learn English and how I learned a lot of vocab in my youth.

Like say I complete Spanish duolingo and then whenever I'm in the mood for some video games/tv I try to find a spanish dub or spanish subtitles. That plus trying to talk to spanish dudes on 4chan.

 

[Hard Boiled]

Can you learn Spanish from video games & tv shows? I feel like that's how most people globally learn English and how I learned a lot of vocab in my youth.

Like say I complete Spanish duolingo and then whenever I'm in the mood for some video games/tv I try to find a spanish dub or spanish subtitles. That plus trying to talk to spanish dudes on 4chan.

Im sure that you can however the engagement on games can be quite low.

Also I think that the old fashioned boring textbook way is the best way to go for memorising and learning a language since it's the most efficient way to learn a language even though it's kinda unnatural.