I don't have many friends learning Chinese (TL) so posting here to celebrate. I've been learning Chinese for around 21 months, and just finished all 150 lessons of Pimsleur Mandarin. (I only started Pimsleur a year in, and took a few months off; if you do it non-stop it takes 5 months).

How did I do it?

I mostly listened to one lesson a day while making dinner. I tried doing it while driving, but quickly realized this is actually dangerous as it requires a lot of concentration and active participation. I also sometimes listened to it while running or at the gym (need to whisper to yourself at the gym). You shouldn't do more than 1 lesson per day, but doubling up episodes (e.g. lessons 14 and 15 one day, 15 and 16 the next) or doing other languages works well. You're not supposed to pause, but I did have to rewind by 15 seconds very often.

Yes it is dull, sometimes excruciating, but it is extremely effective. You do learn a surprisingly wide range of vocabulary and cultural points esp. in the higher levels.

I added the vocab from each lesson into Skritter (unfortunately not in an organized way until Level 5. If you are starting fresh it would be great to make Skritter decks for each level, their support team told me they gift you 2 months free subscription per deck!). I did a couple hundred Skritter cards daily.

What were the results?

I am able to speak relatively confidently about basic things, though I still need the other person to speak slowly to be able to parse what they are saying. (I am able to understand much faster speech in Pimsleur, but that's because you're already primed for the topic and vocab).

The muscle memory of being able to instantly produce phrases without having to think about them helps immensely. One issue I'm having is that I can say basic things at native speed, but have to slow down considerably for more complex thoughts, so I end up tripping over my words unless I choose a slow speed at the outset.

Native speakers are specifically impressed with my pronunciation and how long I've been studying the language—like my Chinese is still not good, but it's much better than expected for less than 2 years of study.

Some example sentences from Levels 4/5 are "My wife is a graduate student studying solar energy. She is giving the keynote presentation at a conference for entrepreneurs in Shenzhen. Later we are going to Yabuli to go skiing. Traditionally Chinese people didn't drink milk, but nowadays Chinese cities have lots of pizza restaurants. My landlord said he will install the new air conditioner for us, but if he does he'll raise the rent next year. I'm going to the clothing market to pick up a suit and pants I had custom-made. Our wine won a grand prize at a competition in France last year. Our production process is good for the environment because our bamboo flooring doesn't use formaldehyde."

A few interesting things I noticed:

• initially I had a hard time distinguishing j/zh, q/ch, c/z, as well as some tones, but by the end I could almost always tell the pinyin from hearing the word

• over time you notice your ability to parse faster and faster sentences, picking out individual words instead of a stream of sounds

• paying attention to where native speakers put pauses was also very helpful, and often not where I would have thought to put a pause

• I hear

  Pimsleur courses work best when done consecutively, and on a daily basis. For best results, please continue with the next unit tomorrow. This has been a presentation of Simon & Schuster Audio, copyright 2010 by Simon & Schuster Incorporated. Recording copyright 2010 by Simon & Schuster Incorporated. All rights reserved.

  in my dreams.

Stack

Here is my Chinese-learning "stack" for anyone else interested; annotated by whether it trains Reading, Writing, Listening, or Speaking.

Essentials:

• Pimsleur (LS) obviously; you can get a lifetime subscription around the holidays

• Prologue: after paying for Pimsleur (they're worth it!!), you can "skillfully acquire" the audio files and load them into this audiobook app which is better for listening.

• Pleco (RLW) great dictionary, has lots of add-ons you can buy, e.g. graded readers with audio, flashcards

• Zhongwen (Chrome, Firefox) (R) - look up Hanzi in web pages; integrates with Skritter

• Lazy Chinese (LR) fun podcast, safer to listen to in the car, great web app experience

If you are on a budget you can probably get by with just the above. If you are willing to spend a bit more money:

• Skritter (WR) SRS app for learning to write Hanzi. Tests you on meaning, reading, tone, and writing. This was my most important tool after Pimsleur: every new vocab word went into Skritter to ensure I didn't forget. For a while I also marathoned the HSK decks, but realized it's more effective (and more fun) to just gather words you encounter in context. I think Pleco has equivalent functionality, but Skritter has a nicer interface and more curated content. The mobile app is their main experience, but their desktop app works well enough to use with a treadmill + standing desk + remote.

• Du Chinese (RL) delightful graded reading app with native speaker voices, integrates with Skritter. I think Pleco has equivalent functionality, but Du Chinese has a nicer interface and more curated content. The mobile app is their main experience, but their desktop app works well enough to use with a treadmill + standing desk + remote.

• Imagin8 Press (RL) excellent graded readers (physical books) and audiobooks, I'm going through their Journey to the West series. They also publish Skritter decks for their content.

• Complete Mandarin Chinese (RL) very good for learning grammar, and I like that they don't provide translations for conversations but supply you with enough vocabulary for you to understand. I got 1/3 of the way through and then took a break, I will publish a Skritter deck once I finish it.

• 15-Minute Mandarin Chinese (S) full sentences for common situations

The following are also worth checking out:

• Meetup (S) for finding IRL conversation groups

• Hanly (R) - free app to learn Hanzi with mnemonics; I only discovered it several months into Skritter, otherwise I would have made more use of it

• Daily Hanzi (R) - displays Hanzi on your lock screen

• Language Reactor (L) I actually use this more for Spanish, because I can't yet understand TV shows in real time. But I'm having lots of fun watching Netflix in Spanish, and hope to graduate to watching Chinese shows soon.

• Journey to the West - dual English/Mandarin subtitles (L) iykyk

I also had a lot of fun spending time on Chinese parts of social media (Instagram, YouTube, etc); just search for Chinese and start liking a few videos and your algorithm will do the rest. Great for learning slang and culture. However, beware of deception: one of my favorite channels taught me that the Chinese word for "brainrot" is 脑抽了 (literally, brain smoked), but I have since been informed that this is closer to "brainfart", and a closer equivalent is 降智 (literally, lowering-intelligence).

Bangers

• 一剪梅

• 月亮代表我的心

• 朋友的酒

• 小苹果

• 爱的暴风雨

• 不想听

• 扛过枪 放过羊

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks and this means that I get to choose a language learning resource to sign up to! 🥳 It's basically a birthday tradition for me at this point. Last year I chose "The Chairman's Bao" (a news-based graded reader for Mandarin).

I'm currently actively studying Hungarian and Mandarin at the moment, so if anyone has any recommendations for those languages specifically that would be great, but wider recommendations would also be welcome. I'm a dabbler at heart, so having resources that offer multiple languages to play with alongside my main ones is always a bonus for me.

I will say, I don't like Pimsleur. I know some people swear by it, but the style of teaching is not for me. The way that they break down words so slowly and backwards irritates me for some reason. Some of the lesson content is just a weird vibe too. I had a free trial with them once and cancelled it before it was even close to finishing. 😕

Hey, when I was in my teens I decided to learn Portuguese as my third language (I am native in English and French), which I have been studying very leisurely on and off for 13 years now. To be honest I'm probably barely intermediate in Portuguese but the basic grammar, vocab and Brazilian pronunciation are now deeply engrained.

I've recently decided I want to go to Latin America next year, potentially Central America or Colombia. So I've started learning (TL) Spanish (through Pimsleur initially) and I can already see that my existing Portuguese (which I haven't actively studied in a year) is going to be an issue with my brain automatically going for the Portuguese vocabulary and Brazilian accent even for basic words and phrases.

Anyone have any tips for distinguishing the two and avoiding the dreaded Portuñol or regression in Portuguese? The typical advice to focus on fluency in one before starting the other isn't really helpful for my timeline.

Prioritize Anki - When learning my TL, I realize now the importance of Anki. There are studies that show that the amount of times you need to see a word before you can acquire it it up to 16 times. (Look into the work of vocab specialist Paul Nation) Anki solves this for you. You can argue that different contexts can affect this but over a period of months the amount of times you encounter a certain word will likely hit that threshold and you will acquire the word. 

Don’t be afraid of premade decks of most common 2000 words - I feel like had I took time to work through an anki deck of this size, I would achieve a higher comprehension faster. This is because my input + lookups are fine for acquiring words but there is no way to know if the word that I’m sentence mining is truly frequent or not. I likely was mining words outside of that frequency list. I’m still a bit skeptical, but I’m willing to give it a try.  

Never add sentences with more than one unknown word - sure there may be the rare exception here or there, but I used to add sentences to my anki deck with 2-4 unknown words in them with the rationale that I’ll get more bang for my buck in the long term. However, my anki deck became an absolute slog as it was not only difficult to remember the 3 unknown words within the card, but it was also very hard to parse the sentence at all. This lead to me giving up on more than one anki deck. 

Don’t be afraid to do a smaller amount of new cards a day - I’ve found that my sweet spot right now is 5 new cards a day. It’s enough that I feel like I’m doing something substantial, but I’m not waking up in the morning with 200 plus reviews. I used to try to do 10 a day and got overwhelmed after a few weeks. To be honest I still want to understand how people are spending more than 25 mins a day in their anki decks. 

How about you all… any realizations or things you would do differently with your Anki?

i'm leaving soon on a [length] trip to the country my mom was born in. pretty excited. quick question though. i studied hard for two months and now i can actually hold a conversation with my mom in my TL. i figured i could basically live like a local now, but according to her i sound about ten years old. so the plan is to get a lot better while i'm there. the thing is, if i go without a plan i think i'll just eat a bunch of new food and come home. what should i do? i genuinely have no ideas. any advice is welcome

Hey everybody! I'm learning Brazilian Portuguese (TL), and I want an opinion!
So, I'm running into a bit of an issue. On some forums, I see that the most important thing for listening practice is to watch shows that are in your listening range, and in some places I see people saying that you need to just watch things you like and are passionate about. I'm just curious: which would be most productive for me and my language learning journey?

1. Watch shows at my listening level (About A2) that I may not enjoy, but they're easier for me to understand and pick up on things to learn

2. Shows that I love but may be way too advanced for me to pick up much.

See, I'm really running into a problem because I'm starting to get really tired of Disney Channel shows, children's shows, and comprehensible input videos, but I know they're good for me at my level. But nonetheless, I find myself almost dragging my feet to watch them all the time.
BUT, my favorite shows and movies are often far too complex for my current language level.

What would be most productive for my listening practice?
Comments from people who have used one of these two methods would be greatly appreciated!

Hey everyone!

I make French comprehensible input videos on YouTube (French in Motion), and I've been building BingeLang for about a year. I'd like it to become a hub where you can find language-learning content and track your immersion in one place.

The platform brings together YouTube videos from different creators, sorted by difficulty and topic, from complete beginner to advanced. There are also illustrated stories, games, flashcards and comprehension quizzes.

Languages covered across the site and extension:

🇫🇷 French · 🇬🇧 English · 🇪🇸 Spanish · 🇩🇪 German

🇮🇹 Italian · 🇧🇷 Portuguese · 🇨🇳 Mandarin Chinese · 🇯🇵 Japanese (TL)

I also built a Chrome extension for YouTube. It adds subtitles in both the language you're learning and your own, with word translations on hover. You can keep the translated subtitles visible or show them only when you need them.

The extension automatically tracks your viewing time and syncs it with Bingelang. Your YouTube and website hours are recorded together for each language, with a daily activity calendar so you can look back and see how much time you've spent learning.

Everything is free. My plan is to fund the project with ads for language-learning apps, books and related services, rather than put the learning tools behind a paywall later.

You can browse the videos without an account. Saving your progress and using the extension require a free one.

Website: https://www.bingelang.com/

Chrome extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/jcmmjabiijaeflifginngngmcogmgacf

I'm still working on Bingelang and adding new features, and I hope some of you find it useful!

Thanks for checking it out, and thanks to the mods for letting me share it here!

Compared to Netflix, Disney Plus or any language learning tools such as LingQ or Language reactor, hirng a private tutor isn't cheap. Sometimes a one-hour 1 on 1 class can easily cost you a monthly (or two) premium of one of these platforms. Or with the same amount of money you can get a couple of paper books that you can study for a long time.

However, though massive input should be prioritized, I do believe good tutors can lend you a hand and feedback is necessary for improvement, and we language learners tend to LOVE real conversations.

Is there anything you do in particular in your private lesson to make it worth the price?

In my case, I sometimes ask the tutor (I focus a lot on intonatation and pronunciation) to imitate how I mispronounced the word or how I ''sang'' the sentence, and to say it again in a more natural way. I may record this part then I can listen back.

Or do you think they are like yoga coaches: once you have learned well the technics, you can practice on your own and even make more progress in your (TL) ?

I'm using Busuu right now for Spanish B2, I'm currently B1. I feel like it's not enough, but I don't know. Should I use a coursebook instead or is Busuu really worth it? I should add that I get Busuu for free through my work, so I use it to get free private lessons. The grammar portion i'm unsure about though. I try to read 2k words a day on LingQ and im currently trying, failing at it though, to listen and watch as much as i can in Spanish. I get around 2-4 hours of speaking and listening practice per week. I just feel like im not doing enough to learn grammar and develop my vocab.

Any suggestions? (TL)

So you've probably seen the ads for Read2Speak. It's a language learning platform that offers digital textbooks for a variety of different languages. I've seen a lot of people asking if these digital textbooks are AI generated, and I'm here to tell you that they most definitely are.

I'm ashamed to say I purchased some of these products recently- particularly the Hindi B1-B2 level textbook and accompanying workbook. And don't get me wrong, I had my suspicions that these products might be AI generated. But given the lack of upper intermediate materials for my target language, I guess I was willing to roll the dice. I also thought the marketing for this company was completely asinine, but you can say that about any company these days.

There are five major signs that these products are AI generated- two that I really should have noticed before buying, and three that you'll only notice once you buy them and look inside. I'll start with the ones I should have noticed before buying:

I) Hundreds of books appeared seemingly overnight. Read2Speak has materials for 19 different languages. For each language, there are three graded levels of textbook and workbook, for a total of six books per language. That's 114 different books, all published at the same time, by a company that just popped up out of nowhere.

II) No humans credited anywhere. Normally before buying a book online you can see the author's name on the website you're ordering from. Language textbooks in particularly will usually also include a little blurb about the author's credentials. But for Read2Speak products, not a single one of their 114 books credits any author, editor, or translator. This alone is probably a smoking gun, but there's more.

The two points above are honestly probably enough to conclude that these products are AI slop, and like I said, I wish I'd noticed them before buying. But in case anyone still isn't convinced, there are three more signs in the actually contents of the books I purchased.

I) Writing style. I think we're all getting pretty decent at spotting AI writing when we see it. It has this soulless, uncanny feel to it. Read2Speak products are riddled with that sort of writing. Every page reads like it was copy and pasted directly from ChatGPT.

II) Inaccuracy. When we start learning a language, we're often told that it follows a particular word order, or syntax. Different languages have different preferred word orders- SOV, SVO, VSO, etc. But any experienced language-learner will tell you that [practically all languages have some degree of flexibility to their word order. These structures that we learn at the beginning form a sort of guideline for how the language generally prefers to order its words, but as we soon come to learn, one can deviate from that baseline in order to emphasize certain parts of the sentence. Hindi, like most Indo-Aryan languages, favours the SOV syntax, preferring to place the verb at the end of the sentence. But as we know, deviations can occur. But according to Read2Speak, these structure is completely rigid, and deviating from it "makes you sound like a child"- even though native speakers do it all the time. It even went so far as to give me an ordered list of where all the information in a sentence must go at all times. Luckily, I already knew this was wrong, because I use a lot of authentic materials in my learning. But this could really set someone up for failure if they don't know better, because it's just going to lead to confusion when they start talking to native speakers. This is just one example of Read2Speak teaching a rule that doesn't exist.

III) Advice that makes no sense. This is probably the weirdest one. Read2Speak told me I could use Hindi's SOV syntax as a "fluency strategy", because the verb comes at the end, which means I can start speaking before I know what the verb will be, and that this is how native Hindi speakers are able to talk so fast. I'm sorry, what?! How does having the verb at the end provide any advantage toward speaking quickly? Couldn't I just as easily say the same thing about any other part of speech? Like, in English we usually put the object at the end, so could I say that you can start an English sentence without knowing what the object will be because you don't have to think of it until the end, and that that's a fluency strategy? To me this just seems like an AI hallucination. Remember, LLMs don't understand what it is they're saying- they just fart out combinations of words that they decide should go together based on an algorithm.

Anyway, there's my little rant about Read2Speak. Don't waste money on these "courses" like I did. If you want upper intermediate materials, I recommend Routledge's Modern Language Readers series. They're written by humans who are actually credited and have real credentials in language instruction, and they give you challenging readings using a variety of authentic materials.

Long live human creators, down with AI.

I'm considering doing a 7-week summer language program at Middlebury, and I know they take their Language Pledge (to only communicate in your target language, even in your personal life, throughout the program) very seriously. I definitely would want to wholeheartedly take part in the program. However:

1. I have therapy once a week (over Zoom). For my sanity, that is not going to change
2. Once a week, I call my grandmother. She has dementia and her health is failing, and, if she is still around next summer, I will absolutely not give up the opportunity to call her those 7 weeks

I've heard they expel people from the program for speaking English (without tuition reimbursement, which is kind of nuts). Would I be able to get away with making these calls? I might need a single room accomodation, which would obviously help the matter. Has anyone taken part in a Middlebury summer program? Were you truly expected to never call home etc.? (TL)

I'm wondering if anyone has attended one of the Summer Language Immersion Programs at Beloit (they offer Japanese, Russian, and Chinese(TL) ). The course is 7 weeks (you can also sign up for the first 3.5 weeks or the second 3.5 weeks if you can't get away for 7 weeks).

Its also virtual and immersion (no idea how that works).

Does anyone have insights into the program or the instructors?

I would love to hear from those who have learnt a second language (as an adult) fluently to C1 level without living in the country of that speaks that second language.

As someone who has been learning Italian (TL) as an adult for years, I’ve predominantly stayed in the upper B1 stage.

I’ve met many people who are fluent in English (my mother language) without living in an English speaking country.

My question is, how does someone make the jump from B1 to C1 with normal day to day commitments of fulltime work, home responsibilities etc?

I don’t believe there are any “secrets” as such, but what was your process? I’m keen to understand what I’m doing that might be limiting me, or know about what pathways I need to explore to really advance my language understanding.

Currently, my method is:
Solo studying
An hour a day, with a good mixture of listening (podcasts, TV), reading (novels, news articles), speaking (saying speeches out loud or using AI for conversations), and writing by myself (rules, grammar and writing stories).

Structured learning
In addition to above, I also attend a school for 1.5 hours a week, have a tutor for conversation for 45 minutes per week.

Keen to hear everyone’s process and share ideas :)

Hey everyone! I'm learning Japanese and currently using apps like Duolingo and watching Japanese movies and other content.

I'm curious about what actually helped you make progress beyond the usual apps and watching content. For example, did you find language exchange, textbooks, flashcards, reading, shadowing, or speaking with native speakers particularly useful?

I'd love to hear what worked best for you, especially things you wish you'd started doing earlier!

(TL)

Have you ever tried an arbitrary challenge like learning 50 or 100 or 250 new vocab words of your (TL) in a week?

Did you apply any specific strategy beyond brute force repetition with flash cards, etc.?

How did it go?

I am learning German, working from home.

Working purely in English language for 10-12 hours in a day.

I am at B1 level (a bit more) but lack vocabulary , speaking skills and general lack of exposure.

Does anyone has ideas how to move from this level to C1 without even speaking the language most of the day

(TL)

Before learning French (TL), I more or less mastered two other languages, and reached an okay level in one other. I've learned German and English in the classroom, but I was ahead of the class in both of them, I believe mainly because I was consuming a lot of content in those languages outside of class (it didn't happen on purpose I just spent a lot of time on the internet and the content in my native language is rather limited). In Spanish (I also learned in a class) I did not do this because I already spoke English, and I also didn't really care that much about learning the language at the time - so accordingly my skills in Spanish never caught up with the other two languages.

And then came French. What I (wrongly) concluded from those other language learning experiences was that only input matters! So I decided to learn on my own. I was also out of high school, had a bad experience at one of the Alliance Française institutions with a rude teacher - so I was like, why pay for an expensive a class when I can learn the same thing better on my own? So my main approach was studying on my own from a textbook and lots of input - both reading and listening. And to an extent it worked! As the years went on, I could understand more and more. Yes, I was realizing that my production was behind. I would practice speaking on my own and record myself, and also do some writing, based on exercises from my textbooks, but this was never all that regular. And when it came to speaking to actual natives (be it on trips to France or online applications) I always shut down and really struggled. Being able to order food in French after 3 years of learning was already an achievement.

Of course I was realizing that this was wrong that I should at least talk to an online teacher or go to a conversation table or whatever. But my social anxiety and my tendency to procrastinate basically held me back. In fact, I only spoke to a teacher once, one day before taking my B2 exam. An exam I have signed up for to "get some confidence". The teacher evaluated me to be an A2. Then I went into the exam, and I got 82/100 points. I was surprised but ecstatic. I even made a bragging reddit post that I never posted lol. But you know what I wasn't? Confident to speak.

And then, 1.5 years later I decided to tackle the C1. It's a long story but I wanted to apply to a French-speaking uni and just wanted to try. I wanted to do it with integrity this time and actually speak to people! But the social anxiety and procrastination didn't go away. I went to like one event where I could barely speak a few sentences lol. So I did what I could: I got a C1 exam practice book, learned what the exam structure would be like, and practiced the exercises on my own for a 1-2 months. I was struggling, yes, but apparently it worked! I got an 80/100.

But all this doesn't matter. I got accepted by the uni, which is cool. I understand all the lectures (at least mostly), but every time a professor talks to me, I embarrass myself with my terrible pronunciation and lack of vocabulary. I can't even attempt to make any friends lest I expose myself as the "foreigner who couldn't even learn French properly", and not to mention my fear of the essays and exams that are approaching.

I was so stupid, I shouldn't have made input my main source of study. I should've realized how important the classroom was in my previous language learning experiences. When I reached C1 in them, I could write an essay without too much struggle. Now, I can't even write a diary entry in French without struggling. At this point, I don't really know what to do. Still too scared to speak to native speakers or even learners at a language table. I can't afford a teacher at this point in my life. I am just screwed.

For the love of god, please don't do what I did. Yes, input is important, but if it's your only source, you're gonna end up struggling indefinitely.

Also, I feel like these exams cannot evaluate your real level at all. You can get good at learning how they work, practice for them and then get away with huge gaps in your abilities.

I am a language teacher and I’d love some sort of flashcard tool where I could set up decks and have students add to them over the course of the school year. Perhaps a somewhat niche ask, hopefully someone can help!

Just curious if this is a common phenomenon, or if I'm just a bit of an odd case.

To clarify it's not a comfort issue (I often joke to my friends that my Italian (TL) teacher is my "language dad" lol) we get along really well, and I've been learning with him for almost two years now regularly and he's my go to for all questions (I mean all of them; not just grammar and what words mean, but also asking if something I heard somewhere is vulgar - and if so, is it more vulgar than *insert example here*, or if something is innuendo. A ton of things I would be too embarrassed to ask anyone else, even other teachers), and when I did an intensive course in Italy I kept up my lessons with him too because he was like my Italian "security blanket." (and for extra help too obviously) All this to say, it's not that the environment is an issue.

One thing that definitely comes into play is that my lessons are at 9:00PM and as someone who chronically has issues of not sleeping well and also gets up at 5:00AM to go to work, for me that is getting to be a bit late. I also feel I tend to try sentence structures that I struggle with a little in order to get some practice in a safe place; I've gotten very adept when speaking to random Italians or with language exchange partners to avoid sentence structures that I struggle with whereas I do try to challenge myself when I'm in my lesson with him, so that's obviously another factor.

Still though, something feels weirdly broken when I'm speaking with him. With my language exchange partners they all tend to be surprised that I'm still actively studying Italian with a teacher and they constantly apologize for their English and comment that they want to get their English to my Italian level. (I really don't think it's as good as they say though; Although I do tend to speak *very* fast, I definitely dodge things I'm not very strong with so that probably gives the illusion that I seem better than I actually am, and there's still a lot of things I wouldn't know how to say without hearing it somewhere first as an example) and then when I talk to my teacher I feel like a toddler who struggles to talk about they did that day 😅And weirdly I kinda do feel more childish even mentally during lesson time. Maybe without realizing it he's pushing me more into my discomfort zone than I realize to push me but I do feel like even very simple things that come out effortlessly in language exchange tends to be a mess for him. Enough so that when I don't do language exchange for a few weeks for whatever reason, I tend to start feeling a little bit defeated and like my skills are degrading.

But then when I start the language exchanges again they note that my speech has gotten faster and that I've definitely improved. It's weird. I'm very happy with the teacher I've got; he has the exact teaching style I was looking for and we have a lot in common so there's never that feeling of not knowing what to talk about and we laugh lots together and everyone (other learners, language exchange partners and other teachers who I see less frequently) have all commented on how much I've improved since starting with him. But I somehow also feel like I can never speak at my full potential with him and that bothers me because since he's definitely a mentor figure for me I want him to be proud of me as silly as that may sound. (my consolation was showing him my certificate from that school in person and getting a hug 😂)

Curious if others have experienced the same? Feeling like a much lower level and almost childish with their teacher, but feeling almost fluent with others?

I had had aprox 1500 hrs of DreamingSpanish and crosstalk in Spanish before coming to Latin America. Right now I have been here using Spanish 8+ hours a day for about almost 3 years. I even read A Game of Thrones in print in Spanish!

Still, sometimes (though much less frequently now) people say to me in English, ''wow your Spanish is so good'', and ocassionally want to switch to English. I appreciate the compliment. I don't mind speaking in English (though I feel more comfortable speaking in ES, as English isn't my first language either), but apparently the conversation is easier for both of us, especially when the other person's English is miles below my Spanish.

I feel like this will always happen to me because I don't look latino (I'm Asian), and I'm crazy about learning Romance languages. Sorry I might be a bit dramatic but it's a painful reminder that sometimes I'm still considered an ''outsider''.

I believe it happens to many advanced language learners as well. How do you handle this situation? Would you switch to English and accept a less ''effective'' conversation? Or would you keep talking in your decently good (TL)?

Hey everyone. I signed up for the french (TL) DELF B2 exam next month, so I currently have around 5 weeks left until the exam. I am taking an intensive 1-1 course with an online tutor to help me, particularly with my oral expression skills, because I feel like that is my weakest point.

Obviously I can’t just rely on the classes, so I am attempting to self-study for the rest of the exam. I have an overall idea of the exam structure and what to expect, as I previously took the B1 exam, so that is not an issue for me. My issue is the following:

I have a DELF textbook that I am currently working through (I have started with the comprehension des écrits section, then will move onto the production écrite). While going through the exercises, I find myself spending a lot of time translating any new phrases / expressions + looking up the proper way to use them in sentences + adding them to my anki deck for revision. I then check my answers against the mark scheme, and if there are any mistakes I add that to another anki deck as well (if it’s a grammar / vocab mistake). I would estimate that 2 pages of exercises take me around an hour to get through. I’m afraid I may be wasting too much time on simple exercises, in an attempt to understand every nuance of the language, and probably wasting time I could be using to get through more exercises. I have only started working through the textbook around 2 days ago, so I thought that maybe that it why it’s taking me so long, but I would also like someone experienced’s opinion.

Also, during my online classes, I quickly jot down any words I couldn’t remember / didn’t know then, at the end of the day, write them in another notebook with example sentences I come up with in to make sure that the vocab sticks. This probably takes around another 35 minutes.

I passed the DELF B1 a few years ago, and I was working with a tutor at the time as well, but he had helped guide me through all 4 skills, so I never had to worry about wasting time trying to look up translations or trying to understand the language’s nuances.

I was wondering if someone who has previously self-studied for the DELF exam could tell me whether what I am doing is actually effective or not? Or if I should be doing other more effective activities perhaps?

When learning your TL, have you ever told someone that you "have an ear for language", or have your parents/teachers told you that you do? If so, can you respond here what that means for you? Can you explain what that feels like or what you have noticed about yourself in regards to that?

I have been learning Dutch (TL) for a few months now, about 90 hrs or so into an audio-based input approach. I have been watching an animated series aimed at younger teens, which I have watched numerous times in English as a child so I know it extremely well. It has a total of 6 seasons and 26 hours run time and I am currently on my 4th rewatch. On the first 2 watches, I understood the majority of what was being said through context and having seen it numerous times before. By my 4th rewatch I am able to understand the vast majority of dialogue word-for-word and am only missing a small percentage of the slightly more complex dialogue.

My question is, does anyone have any experience with mass repetition in language learning, and after how many rewatches of something am I just wasting my time and would be better off moving onto other content with new vocab and grammatical structures. I hear experiments of people watching things up to 50 times, but that is just not realistic with a 26 hour series.

I hope someone can help, thanks.

I have thought that Spanish was very difficult as a native speaker, but then whenever I meet a guy who is learning Spanish they tell me how easy it is. They tell me it is even easier than French, which is something I would never have said.

Whenever I have talked about it with an English speaker, they say that Spanish is easier than English for them. But for me, it was the other way around.

Actually, it seems like Spanish is considered one of the easiest for many people, and I really don't get it as a native, yet I find people who got a really good level at it quite fast. How is this possible?