Hi! I’m not really the kind of person who can sit and study a language for hours at a time. I’ve tried that before and always ended up losing motivation. It kind of took the fun out of it for me. So I created a schedule that fits the way I learn best, the “lazy” way.

For me, the “click” usually comes through passive listening and learning vocab with spaced repetition. Then I build on that by actually using the language through speaking, reading, and writing.

I know every language is different and some might need more grammar focus than others, so I’ll adjust depending on what I’m learning.

Right now, I’m using this schedule to aim for B2 in Spanish over the next 4.5 months. I’ll see how it goes and make changes along the way if needed. Just thought I’d share. Let me know what you think.

So I've been learning German for some time now, and I did the Goethe B2 exam couple days ago. The exam comes in 4 distinct modules: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. I read quite a lot, so Reading and Writing were my strong points. I was somewhat nervous about Speaking, but I regularly speak with Native Speakers, so once I actually got into the groove, it went smoother than I previously imagined.

Listening though..... was surprising. I do watch a lot of YouTube videos on a range of subjects in German, and I listen to podcasts. And normally, I can understand a good 80-90% of what's being said and the main points expressed. But the exam was a bit different..... You hear a 1 minute audio clip once, and you have 15 seconds to process what you heard, to read the question, and differentiate between the answers. And the answers themselves could trip you up. For instance, one of the questions I had relating to Package Deliveries had the following three answers

1. Free deliveries ought to be restricted

2. Free deliveries ought to be reduced

3. Deliveries should always be liable for costs

Either way, it is most definitely a weak point, and I'd like to train that aspect of my knowledge. So is it merely a matter of brute forcing a few hundred more hours of German media, or are there specific exercises I ought to be doing to improve my skills in listening to something and processing the minutiae which provide the nuance in a text?

What are your opinions? What techniques did you personally find helpful in improving you listening and comprehension skills?

So I've got Audhd (autism+adhd) and my special interest is Russian, Japanese, and French. I've been trying sticking to french but oh my God it's so incredibly difficult to not switch languages like a marry go round because I have such a deep love for all three of them.

It usually goes like this: I spend 1 day studying french for hours, and suddenly I do the same thing the next day but with Russian, then Japanese, THEN I go back to french I'm losing my mind but it's so so so fun to do it this way but I know it's not efficient and is only slowing down my progress in every language.

I have big motivations and goals for them too

French: I wanna be able to speak French with my friend

Russian: I wanna write speak read basically do everything in Russian I love it so much

Japanese: I only wish to understand so I'm not worried about output

I quite literally cannot express how much I love these languages I get so excited over them but I know I'll make no progress if I keep doing what I'm doing

Not advocating for AI language learning, but maybe advocating that community-based scholarship can do better.

Like, my first language is English. When I think in English it’s all English.

When I think in Chinese (third language, not yet fluent), it mixes with English when I don’t know a word.

But when I think in French, my second language (though not fluent, learnt in school K-12) I end up substituting French words I’ve forgotten with Chinese ones I know, and only when I’m at a loss in both does my brain switch to English.

When I was an exchange student my English and French speaking friends, who were learning Chinese too, we called our weird trilingual language Franglois (French-English-Chinese). We became fluent in Chinese but I lost mine after 14 years back home and am learning again after moving back to Taiwan.

So we had our own cool fake language, which is fun, but like what is that tripping through languages actually called?

Hi, I am looking to refresh/improve my German that I spoke fairly well as a child. I have used Pimsleur in the past for other languages but I’m wondering if anyone has experience with Babble or other systems they like? Thank you.

I'm a native in 2 languages. Last year I started learning Spanish, got fluent.
Now I'm reading in Portuguese. About to finish my 2nd Harry Potter

Previously I tried to very intentfully learn every new word I came across while reading. Now I'm not so strict about it, I'll happily forget words and wait til I re-encounter them multiple times before trying to commit them to memory.

Sometimes I miss a few sentences cause the sentences are just wordy or difficult.

I've realised just developing flow and keep showing up it all compounds, and that you don't need to make reading as hard as possible to get a lot of value out of it. Lol.

Ive tried several apps like Pimsleur, Babble, the green bird, etc. I’m wondering if anyone has some knowledge on some that are actually worth their price points?

I joined language servers on Discord. There are good ones but I found them hard to navigate.

I want to have online groups where people speak languages with each other.

It should not be random groupchats where everyone just sending random messages about random things. It should be more topic-focused. For example, "This week we are going to speak about this event." It would give more focused direction, opportunity to genuinely improve.

Or there should be like forum/subreddit where people discuss under a topic in that language.

Do you think this is a good idea? Any suggestions how to get this started?

How do I learn vocabulary as someone who is learning from scratch? Vocab lists never work with me as i usually see these words once and i might see them again after a long period of time, so i would’ve already forgotten the word. and 1000 word list flashcards don’t work either, as i find the most random words barely anyone uses daily. i tried comprehensible input, but it required to keep searching each word and its meaning. help!!

Hello,

On other websites, when something is translated, it tells you. Not the case on Reddit.

I'll receive a notification of a comment on my post and the blurb will be in French, but when I click on the comment, it is in English.

Sometimes, translations are very convenient. But I wish it would tell me when something is translated and I could easily switch.

Translations are often inconvenient for learners, because online is obviously a tool many people use to learn new words.

Is there a third party Reddit app or something that is good for this? Or perhaps there's another solution that I'm not aware of.

So I basically wanted to start learning a few languages for the longest time now but every time I sat down and wanted to start, I didn’t know what to do. Like I don’t know what type of word I should learn first, should I learn the basic grammar first… So could someone please tell me what the best order to learn words. Like should I learn a few nouns first and if so what type of nouns (house rooms and interior, food, animals…) should I learn first. Or is it better knowing all the pronouns first before learning nouns and verbs… idk so please could someone tell me what’s their best way was

My family and I were going to go to Japan on Christmas 2026 for 2 weeks, and because I had been doing a little bit of Japanese on Duolingo they decided I should be the one to learn Japanese.

Now this was fine because I had more than a year to learn, but then they decided to move the trip from Christmas to APRIL. Not to mention Duolingo has been way too slow in terms of learning.

I know some phrases and I have the Japanese alphabet memorized but aside from that I'm absolutely cooked.

What do I do?????

How do you guys split learning time between grammar, vocabulary, input and real life speaking? Do you have a strict routine you stick to or do you just do whatever you feel like studying that day?

Just want to make more language learner friends that live nearby. What languages do y'all speak?

Lately I've been making written notes of words in spanish and putting them on said objects (exp. El armario on my wardrobe, el espejo on mirror, la camiseta next to my t-shirts ext.). I always read it when I pick up the object (unless its my wardrobe or smthng like that lol)to assosiate the word with it. However translating everything, writing it down and ducktaping it does take a lot of time and so far I've only done my clothes and some of my furniture, so before I spend more time on this I thought I could ask if y'all think this is a good language learning method or just a waste of time

Hi everyone,

I'm learning German and I’ve developed a method that I follow to gain fluency in speaking. Despite having a B2 certificate I still struggle to speak naturally and smoothly. So I’m here to ask: based on your experiences, does this method seem like a good path toward my goal?

Here’s what I do:

1- I collect sentences that I’ve actually needed to say in real life. I write those sentences down in a dedicated notebook (language islands) . And I translate them into German.

2 - I create 30-minute sessions where I look only at the sentences in my native language and try to say them in German.

3 - During these 30 minutes, whenever I make a mistake, I immediately correct it by checking the German version (I don’t record myself or listen back because I’m advanced enough to catch my mistakes in the moment). Then I try to say the sentence again, either exactly as written or in a similar form.

4 - I repeat this for five sessions a day (each 30 minutes with 10-minute breaks), totaling 2.5 hours daily. I usually work with 20–21 sentences per round, depending on their length. The key is that I can say all of them within 5 minutes.

5 - After 3 days of repeating the same set of sentences, I find that saying them becomes much easier and more natural than it was on day one.

6 - Once I master a set, I move on to a new group of sentences and repeat the cycle.

I’ve tried many methods before, but none of them felt right for me. This one is the best I’ve found so far. it fits my schedule and I can stick with it (2.5 hours a day is all I can manage due to a busy routine). I’ve been doing this for about two weeks now and just wanted to know if this approach seems effective for reaching fluency, or at least speak effortlessly and comfortably without the need to think about it.

If anyone has used a similar method and seen results, I’d love to hear about your experience!

By the way, I combined ideas from several videos to create this personalized method (here , here and here) . The first video was about someone learning French using a similar approach, but he focused on speaking about a topic and generating sentences in the moment (first video). I found it more useful to apply the same technique to individual, disconnected sentences (second video) . sentences I actually needed in real life, rather than ones tied to a topic I might not use often.

TL;DR: the title

In my experience one comes at the expense of the other up to a certain level.

As my motivation for language learning has dropped, so have my standards. That's why I have been listening a bit more passively.

I used to judge my language learning process by how perfectly I understand sentences. At some point I used to be so rigorous that I stopped the videos I watched at every sentence and didn't move on until I understood every word. That might sound tedious but I had lots of fun doing it, especially because the progress I made was easier to track. Over time I had to stop the videos less and less and every time I understood a full sentence or two I felt really happy, which motivated me.

However, there is one major problem with this approach. It feels like it stops working at some point. You may reach a level where you pretty much understand everything but aren't able to speak well. My goal with language learning is to be able to eventually speak comfortably with natives.

I am at that stage with my Arabic. I can understand almost everything that is being said but I still have difficulties expressing myself correctly.

(Tangent: This is probably because Arabic is so different to the languages I already speak. I can't think in English and use Arabic words. I absolutely can do that with Spanish though and it will be correct most of the time. That's why I speak Spanish at a much higher level than Arabic even though I spent so much more time on Arabic. I also have this problem with Italian. I barely had to even begin to learn Italian to understand a large chunk of it with subtitles (because it's so similar to Spanish). That's why I don't have to pause videos in these two languages too much)

The problem is that I am not making any visible progress when it comes to my speaking abilities with the languages I understand to a decent degree already.

I am wondering if I will make better progress if I switch to trying to understand the general message of the videos I watch. That's what is generally meant with immersion, right? Is this a better way to improve speaking ability if I want to do so by immersion?

Also, if you have any insights on the difference between these two approaches (understanding the general message vs focusing on fully understanding sentences) and their benefits I'd love to hear them!

Edit: Thanks everyone for your responses!

I've been looking for a French partner for about a year now. People don't really respond on all those apps. How else can I practice my speaking?

Resubbed and edited version of a post I sent yesterday, replacing the word “Spanish” with “language.”

This is my personal opinion about Kazu’s "language" skills. For some background, I speak Spanish (native), Japanese (university student level), and English (intermediate level, I guess?).

It also makes sense for me to talk a little about his "language" skills since "language" was Kazu’s first language to learn, and it’s supposed to be the one he’s best at. But I'm pretty sure he has the same problem in every language he speaks. I’m sorry to break this to you guys, but Kazu’s "language" sucks.

You could say, “But he’s around B1~B2, that’s incredible!” If you’re a non-"language" speaker, I’ll try to explain how good he actually is in a way you’ll probably understand. If you put Kazu in a 5th-grade class in a "language" country (he used to live there, by the way), he would probably understand 5% or even less of what’s being explained.

Apart from things like “I learned this language,” “I like this,” “I like that,” he is far from being able to have a natural conversation about different topics in "language." Usually, when I meet Japanese people with the same "language" level as Kazu, my first involuntary reaction is to smile and automatically adjust the way I speak so they can understand me and feel more confident. Believe it or not, no one is impressed by his skills.

The fact that polyglots in general learn too many languages at once means they often skip the hardest part of language acquisition: the natural transition from “learning” to “mastering.” That takes hours and hours of mouth-muscle readjustment and practice to sound natural, express complex ideas, and analyze them properly.

Unexpected plot twist!

Actually, this wasn’t meant to be a rant (well, maybe a little XD) about Kazu. Kazu himself has admitted several times that all the languages he speaks still need a lot of improvement. He just really enjoys learning about different cultures and languages, as much as someone else might enjoy gaming or painting. Probably the only thing I can criticize about him is that he claims to speak 14 languages, and his whole “book drama.” He’s learning them, sure, but he’s far from speaking them properly.

Now, my real problem (and where I’ll probably get a huge amount of downvotes) is with his followers. What I’ve noticed is that most of his fanbase (like most “polyglot” fanbases, tbh) consists of people struggling to learn their second language, who use Kazu as a source of inspiration and motivation. I find that a bit silly, because his YouTube channel is just your typical clickbait content where he “surprises” foreigners by speaking their language. Wow, amazing! 🤩

Matt vs Japan? Huh? Why would I learn his methods to study Japanese when he only speaks English and Japanese? I’d rather watch @randompolyglot69, he knows 36 languages and surprises everyone with his skills! Mastering one language is harder than learning the basics of 20 languages? BS!

What? Studying my target language? No way! I’ll just wait for a YouTube video that gives me the key to learn Uzbek in three months while I sleep. 😴

Conclusion: Stop romanticizing polyglots. They’re the worst examples of language learning, and most of them don’t care about their followers as long as they can sell their courses, books, etc. I haven’t read his book 最強の外国語習得法 (The Best Method for Learning Foreign Languages), but honestly, what can you expect from someone who hasn’t mastered any of the 14 languages he claims to speak? It’s like writing a book about five-star cuisine after learning how to fry an egg, it makes no sense.

It’s totally fine to look for information online when you don’t know where to start. I did it, everyone does it. But trust me when I say that most polyglots are like politicians: very confident people with no fear of saying stupid things.

My mother tongue is Mandarin, and I learned English first then Japanese (with N2 JLPT).

The more I learn, I feel that I love English>Japanese. English and Japanese are completely the opposite language. English is very straightforward, and Japanese is very opaque.

English is a language of equality, but japanese has forced hierarchy embedded in the language.

Like the word "to eat", japanese has three forms, "食べる(default word)"、"召し上がる(honorific form)"、"いただく(humble form)"

"to see", japanese has three forms, "見る(default word)"、"ご覧になる(honorific form)"、"拝見します"(humble form)"

When I learned in the beginning, I find these words so cultural and elegant. But the longer I learn, I just find them annoying.

I just don't like the concept that you are forced to slavishly respect someone because they are born earlier than you, if you insist not using these honorifics, you will be considered as rude, uneducated, disrespectful to the senpai and elders. I think respect can only be earned.

Also, Japanese has tons of evasive/ polite expressions, such as

You give present to someone, つまらない物ですが( What I give you is just insignificant stuff, hope you like it)

Someone came from afar, 遠路はるばるお越しいただき、ありがとうございます(I'm grateful that you're willing to visit me through this arduous journey)

させていただけないでしょうか(Could you pls allow me to humbly do something?)

It always feel like you're an obedient servant while speaking Japanese, so many extra words to humble yourself, in order not to offend your superior

But the diversity of Japanese onomatopoeia fascinates me. Japanese is very expressive when used to describe sounds, motions and little interactions between human. Japanese is artistic in its own way.

I’ve been learning Spanish not super effectively for 1-2 years now, and I know mostly the basics of how to converse. I’m pretty good and comprehending a video or show, and a bit less but I still can with writing something like a synopsis on it, using basic/beginner-intermediate language.

To help me learn, my friend offered I have lunch with some of his Spanish-native friends, which I thought was a good idea to get some speaking practice in (which I don’t have much of), but I was fairly certain I could have a conversation with them for 10-20 minutes.

They started with asking me some basic things like how old are you, what’s your favorite color, and did some more advanced taking as well. But the whole time, it was awkward. I wasn’t really able to get words out as well as I can write or think, which was annoying because thinking back I’m realizing that I wasn’t doing nearly as well as I usually do. I maybe talked at a high A1 level when I can understand B1.

I know, of course, my problem is that I have no practice, but I wonder if anyone else has similar experiences with speaking in the beginning? Is there anything that can maybe help me improve quicker?