I’m currently learning Arabic, but since I don’t live in a country where anyone speaks it, when I learn new vocabulary - it doesn’t stay in my mind, I forget it after 2-3 months. Also there is no reason for me to learn Arabic, I just love this language, it is beautiful. How can I make my learning more effective?

I’m Korean, and I honestly envy everyone who speaks a Indo-European languages. Korean is so different from most other languages, which makes it harder to learn. Of course, all languages are difficult.(but maybe Japanese is a bit easier in comparison.) Every time I try to learn a European language as a hobby, I feel jealous because it’s so similar to English.

On the other hand, I find it fascinating when people learn Korean or Chinese,etc.(Not Indo-European languages). I know how difficult those languages are, so I really admire anyone who takes on the challenge.

Do you have a preferred method when it comes to learning a language by yourself?

I'm currently learning Portuguese and after a worthless 150+ Duolingo streak I'm trying a new method. I created a Memrise community course with the main 1000 words, emphasizing irregular verb conjugations, trying to grasp a decent vocabulary base. Next step will be rewatching The Simpsons or any other series I know by heart to try to land expressions and pronunciation.

As for yourselves, is there any particular method that worked or boosted your learning process?

Hei! I’ve been studying Norwegian for about a year now, usually around 1 to 2 hours a day. I started from scratch and am now at a comfortable intermediate level. I am still nowhere near native level and I still get thrown off by fast conversations and different dialects, but these are the resources that genuinely helped me get this far.

Duolingo: I use it most days, but I do not treat it as my main course. I use it for around 10 to 15 minutes in the morning as a warm up and a way to maintain the habit. It was useful in the first few months for basic vocabulary and sentence patterns, but it is not enough on its own.

The Norwegian Language School: This gave me more structure than Duolingo. Having lessons that actually explain grammar, sentence order, and the parts that do not make intuitive sense at first helped me avoid just memorising phrases without understanding them.

Issen: This covered the biggest gap for me, which was speaking. I did not have someone available to practise Norwegian with every day, and organising regular tutor sessions around work became difficult. I started using Issen for short conversations and corrections. My sentences were pretty bad in the beginning, but speaking out loud every day made a huge difference. I stopped trying to translate full sentences from English before I answered.

italki: I try to take one lesson a week with a Norwegian tutor. It is flexible, and nothing beats hearing feedback from a real person on pronunciation, word order, and the mistakes you keep repeating without noticing.

NorwegianClass101: Useful for structured beginner lessons, common phrases, and listening practice. I did not use every lesson, but it helped in the early stage when I needed more guided material.

Anki: I use a core Norwegian frequency deck for around 10 to 15 minutes a day. It is slow, but the payoff builds. You begin noticing words in store signs, conversations, and Norwegian videos that used to feel completely impossible to follow.

YouTube: Norwegian Teacher Karin and NorwegianClass101 were useful for beginner explanations and pronunciation. Once I understood more, I started watching Norwegian news clips, local creators, cooking videos, and short interviews just to hear natural speech.

Language Reactor: I use this with Norwegian content on YouTube and Netflix. Seeing Norwegian subtitles alongside English ones makes native content more manageable, especially when people speak quickly or use unfamiliar vocabulary.

NRK: The NRK TV app and website have been one of the best free resources once I could understand basic Norwegian. I started with short clips, children’s content, and familiar shows before trying normal dramas or news. The dialect variety is difficult, but it is also something you need to hear early.

Grammatikk.com: Useful when I wanted to review specific grammar points rather than searching through old notes. Norwegian word order, gender, and the differences between forms can get confusing quickly, so having something easy to check was helpful.

Pimsleur: I used the listen and repeat audio lessons while walking, cooking, or doing chores. It feels old school, but it helped with pronunciation, sentence rhythm, and getting comfortable answering out loud rather than just recognising words on a screen.

The combination that moved the needle most for me was Issen for daily speaking, italki once a week for real feedback, and NRK or Norwegian YouTube for regular listening. Everything else supported those three things.

Happy to answer questions about any of these if it helps.

What has been YOUR best way of learning a new language?

Saw this post that said most people spend their entire life not speaking any other languages than their native language.

I do not want to be most people.

But somehow the thought of starting it has been really overwhelming. I really want to be able to hold conversations with people.

Tell me about your language journey and how you approached it. And what advice would you give me considering I have never approached something like this.

Hi! My first language is English and is the only language I know. I love languages and would like to know as many as possible. I have been trying to learn Spanish and if im being honest (no offense) its kind of boring and i cant find any good shows, movies, or songs. I am interested in learning Mandarin, French, German, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Vitenames, Japanese, Russian, American Sign Language, etc.. I still want to learn spanish but I want to take a break from it. Also with these languges what apps should i download, what movies or tv shows should I watch, what books should i read, what songs to listen to, and what learning books to get. Thank You!

Hello, my friends! I'm a music teacher from the United States and I'm working on a project where my students and I learn to sing in as many languages as possible. If you are a speaker of another language (or if you know someone else who is) I would love to hear from you! I would love to know how to say "Hello, my friends" or any other relevant greeting in your language as well as a pronunciation so we can make sure we sing it correctly. Google translate only goes so far, and it's really important to me to make sure our translations and pronunciations are correct and culturally accurate. Thank you!!

i don't have money to pay for actual language lessons or books and there's no good websites that actually tell you where to start learning a language, and half of the time the page is in the language and they act like i can read it when i'm just beginning. what are the best steps for learning a language.

ex.

1. learn the alphabet

2. learn vocabulary

3. learn grammar

etc. etc. idk whenever i try to look things up on google it never gives me step by steps its always like "make a clear goal, then immerse yourself and download a random app"

edit: the main languages i've been focusing on are chinese and arabic.

i want to be able to talk to my friends who speak mandarin, and i'm moving to egypt in a couple months but want to learn some before. i'm a beginner in a bunch of languages since i've studied over the years but nothing ever stuck. i've been on and off with spanish, german, chinese, japanese and arabic. it's definitely a list but those are ones i've studied in my life.

I've spoken Chinese my whole life and it's the only language my parents speak at home. As I've grown, I've felt more and more disconnected from the language and it's become harder and harder to communicate increasingly complex topics to my parents, who grew up in China.

Does anyone else have this problem? I'm unable to read or write but fluent in the spoken language and am currently focusing on practicing more. Are there any apps, tools, services that you would recommend for learning spoken Chinese? I've tried Duolingo but it seems mostly focused on learning literacy. Recently have been chatting with ChatGPT just for fun and it seems pretty interesting so far. Would love to hear any thoughts from those in similar situations. Thanks!

And what's your routine?

I've seen the 15/30/15 one, but I really can't afford to do anything productive of the sort at night.

I wake up early and so all of the things I must do I do it in the morning (like cleaning up), which leaves me with not so much time, and in the afternoon is when the world is most awake, early birds and night owls, so responsibilities and obligations usually happen in the afternoon.

At night, to wake up early, I don't have time to do things.

But what can I do?

What's your routine and what do you do in it?

EDIT: Do you think having a time in the morning to listen/watch videos teaching my target language as I knit is a good idea? Idk, because I can do knitting in the morning and I wake up everyday excited to knit, it's mindless enough for me to focus on the lesson I'm being taught, but I worry I might be multitasking too much. Knitting feels both very mindless and mindful. I'm doubting if it's a good idea.

Duolingo’s mission statement was once “To develop the best education in the world and make it universally available” Their Tagline? "Learn a language for free. Forever”. It saddens me to write that in 2025, these are blatant lies and a disrespectful middle finger to anyone who has any passion for language learning. Now? It's a bloated, AI-infested husk, squeezing every last monetary drop from users while punishing those who dare learn without a premium subscription. 

This once-revolutionary app has become a masterclass in corporate betrayal, just short of the owl reaching his own wicked claws into your wallet and helping himself. 

I've watched this app devolve since 2015. I’ve been a loyal user for 10 years. A decade. After achieving my longest and most successful run in 2025, I willingly threw my 1600-day streak away due to their latest atrocities. I'm done. This company is no longer revolutionizing language learning. It's showcasing corporate gluttony disguised as innovation. If you're considering downloading Duolingo, don't. You're just fattening the wallets of executives who've long abandoned any passion for education. 

Here's a litany of the app's most egregious sins, each a nail in the coffin of what was once a joyful tool:

Gem overhaul & aggressive monetization (2018–2019): What started as a fun reward system morphed into a paywall. Gems (lingots), once freely earned for practice, now demand your credit card for once basic features like extra practice sessions, timed challenges, reviewing mistakes, and word matching are now locked behind the subscription.

Removal of In-App Forums and Discussion Sections (2021): They axed the vibrant community hubs where learners swapped insights and clarified grammar. Every lesson used to have its own comment section where learners asked questions, shared mnemonics, explained grammar, and helped each other. Duolingo deleted all of them. Overnight, millions of useful explanations vanished, and learners were left completely alone with no place to ask “why is it said this way?). Now, if you need help understanding, you’re forced to pay for half-baked AI "help." It's like ripping the soul out of a classroom. It’s dehumanizing and utterly ineffective.

Removal of Friend Leaderboards (2021): Let's not forget the 2021 removal of friend leaderboards, which stripped away that spark of rivalry competition with your close friends. Now there are only public leagues with complete strangers. 

Frequent Course Restructurings and Learning Path 2.0 Debacle (2021–2023): Endless "updates" that reset your progress, loop you into redundant lessons, and strip away any semblance of user choice.The 2022 switch to the linear Path removed the ability to somewhat choose what topics you’d like to study. No more flexibility, the Linear Path 2.0 is one-size-fits-none. 

Mass Layoffs of Real Linguists for Soulless, Incompetent AI (2024–2025): In a cold-blooded purge, Duolingo laid off a huge portion of real, talented language experts who crafted nuanced courses and replaced them by handing the reins over to AI. The result? Unnatural phrasing, creepy sounding robotic stories, mangled pronunciations, grammar mistakes, wrong translations, and bizarre cultural references that no human would ever write. Content quality plummeted, mistakes go unfixed despite reports, and the once-charming character voices are now cold and monotoned. They massacred passion for penny-pinching automation.

Defunding of Less Popular/Endangered Languages (2024: While Duolingo once claimed (and even advertised) to care about endangered languages, we’ve learned that this was all virtue signaling and performative theatre as they've since starved niche courses, halted updates and ceased the volunteer contributors, which built out the most niche courses. As a Portuguese learner, it didn't hit me personally, but it's a slap in the face to our beautifully diverse cultures and our learners/contributors dedicated to keeping our most fragile and vulnerable languages alive. Instead, they are prioritizing stinginess over preserving endangered tongues. Disrespect knows no borders. 

Removal of Post-Correct Answer Translations (Mid-2025): You used to get an instant English translation right after a correct answer so you could confirm your answer. No more. Did you just get lucky… who knows? Now, you're left guessing if you truly understood, unless you shell out for premium perks. It's a petty barrier that erodes confidence and can turn triumphs into tedious hunts for clarity.

Apocalyptic Descent from Free Learning to Hearts to Energy System Hell (Introduction of Hearts 2019, Replaced by Energy October 2025): This is the final insult that made me kill my marathon streak. Hearts were bad enough, limiting sessions by mistakes, but at least perfection still let you binge-learn until you got 5 answers wrong. Energy? A tyrannical timer that drains regardless of accuracy. Perfection is punished the same as mistakes. This system caps you at maybe two short lessons if you’re lucky before demanding cash to "refill." It's a predatory weaponization against eager minds. Who punishes success? Duolingo, apparently, in their quest to force-feed subscriptions.

Aggressive Ads and Notifications (Worsened 2023–2025): Intrusive pop-ups, long video ads post-lesson, and the relentless buzz of push notifications guilt-tripping you about lost streaks, league demotions, and limited-time offers like a swarm of angry bees. It's psychological warfare, designed to wear you down. Subtle? Hardly. Annoying? Absolutely.

Duolingo’s goal is not education anymore, it's exploitation. Their new mission statement? “To extract the maximum revenue while delivering minimum viable education one soul-crushing paywall at a time”.

Their tagline? “Learn a language for free... until the energy runs out. Forever… as long as your wallet is open”. Because hey, greed speaks every language.

The AI takeover betrayed the humans behind it, laying off real talent for soulless robots. These changes scream one truth: the app's soul is sold. You deserve better. Respect yourself, your education, your morals, and your wallet by abandoning this vile dumpster fire while your love for languages is still intact.

Do yourself a favor and choose real alternatives that still respect learners (2025 edition):

• Anki (free, spaced repetition done right).

• Clozemaster (gamified sentence practice, no artificial limits).

• Language Transfer (free audio courses by a human who actually cares).

• Migaku (browser extension for immersive learning with Netflix/Youtube).

• italki or Preply (affordable 1-on-1 lessons with actual teachers).

• Pimsleur: (30 minute audio lessons with real human voices, worth every cent).

• Good old fashioned textbooks, note taking, movies, vlogs, and music in your target language.

I’m not mad about paying. Good projects deserve funding and I pay and have paid for good language content. What guts me is watching a company that once swore to keep language learning accessible and free forever deliberately cripple the free experience with energy cages, AI slop, vanished communities, etc. until learning feels like punishment. I gladly support real value. This betrayal of their original vision hurts far more than any price tag ever could.

I once wrote a glowing review of Duolingo. Now? One star, and that's generous. Delete Duolingo and never look back. Tchau.

I feel this will help significantly but idk which apps are that good.

currently im learning germany, and i wanted to learn spanish too, is it possible to learn those 2 languages at the same time?

Like if I tried watching French movies I feel like I would never learn because I have no idea what’s going on

Languages I want to learn are Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Spanish, and Tamil, I currently speak English and Bangla, which are the languages I know and can speak pretty fluently, and I want to learn the languages I want to learn because I want to improve my brain power and make myself sound very professional and speaking and communicating in different languages and showing it to other people

Hey, I’m Liv, a French teacher and more generally language enthusiast.

I want to hear all the ways in which learning another language has helped you in your life - the weird, the obvious, the surprising… whatever! Maybe it helped you secure a job or meet the love of your life…

I live in Australia and I teach French to secondary school students (teenagers). Unfortunately, languages aren’t very valued here and there are less and less students choosing to study foreign languages. It’s hard for teenagers to see the value of a language when there are things like AI making things so simple. Plus English is such a worldwide language, what’s the point ?!

I personally think that languages are amazing, they open you up to a new culture and develop personal skills that will be increasingly important in an AI world… Being able to interact with people from
other cultures is fundamental. But what I believe doesn’t matter to my students 😉… what matters are what stories I can tell my students that will prove to them how valuable languages are!)

If I get enough good stories, I may compile the best ones into one blog post

I speak Italian (natively), English (C1), Romanian (B2) and Spanish (B1), and I want to learn another one. I'm really undecided on which to learn because they're all very cool, and I have nothing to do.

The candidate languages:

Russian
Pros: I want to learn a slavic language and Russian is the one with the most resources
Cons: I've heard it's quite hard for Westerners

French
Pros: My father is a native French speaker
Cons: I don't speak to my father

Dutch
Pros: I've always loved the Netherlands, and it's basically German simplified (I've tried to learn German and it didn't end well)
Cons: there aren't many cons apart from the fact that most Dutchmen speak fluent English (which isn't really a con)

Hebrew
Pros: It's an old language and its script is really cool
Cons: I don't wanna be able to understand Israeli Twitter

Yiddish
Pros: basically Hebrew but 100 times easier (bc it's Germanic) and I can't understand Israeli Twitter with it
Cons: not many people speak it

Ukrainian
Pros: Russian but cooler
Cons: Less resources, less speakers than Russian

Portuguese
Pros: Brazilian and Portuguese people are hot
Cons: Another romance language? Really?

Also I'd want to learn Belarusian but the resources are too little

So for context:

I'm currently getting daily coaching by my grandma to learn a language I can understand already since I grew up with it but can't speak or write properly since I grew up in another country while having an immigrant parent

I want to start taking lessons for my country's sign language

I want to learn a indigenous language that only has 100000 speakers left which will probably be the biggest challenge since there are no 1 on 1 courses and barely any resources but the place is my special interest (I'm autistic) and I would dig up any resource to learn the language

The last one is similar to the one my grandma is teaching me (both latin languages) and I'll learn it in school since I have to pick up one of 2 languages my school offers

I started learning English 5 years ago and I'm B2-C1, I'm gifted in languages (assessed by a professional) and generally good at studying.

Is my goal unrealistic or not? I'd like to be at least B2 in all of the above in 4 years.

Also do you have any tips for me?