#aspiring polyglot

[k9-tongue]

is it actually possible to learn multiple languages myself WITHOUT being in classes for them or speaking one-on-one with native speakers?

i dont have the money or the ability really to do classes, and spanish and japanese are really the only languages i could justify learning right now because yhe rest of my family is interested in spanish so we're seeing bout a family tutor, and japanese because of my boyfriend

so itd be kinda useless for me to try 3 other languages on top of those, right?

[mireya44]

god I love to meet people with different cultural backgrounds so much and it feels so good to explore their cultures and customs which makes me wanting to learn a language they speak so bad especially as a someone who is in love with language learning

[vempress]

i’ve been grinding german recently and i feel like i understand 90% of everything i listen to/read. i obviously don’t read scientific papers or so, but i understand news articles, podcasts about trends or history, movies i watch and so on. i have a really hard time understanding song lyrics though, but i also have a problem understanding it in english and even in my native language, so i don’t worry too much about it right now lol.

anki is so so so good, i can’t believe i only started using it a couple weeks ago. it’s genuinely fun to play around with and i love making my cards a little dumb or funny, because it makes me remember even better lol.

i’ve also been watching some italian videos again, i didn’t touch italian for like three months, so almost everything i learnt is “gone” however, i immediately understand old words that i ‘forgot’, its just that they’re not in my active vocabulary (i don’t even have an italian vocabulary yet lol) but i think it’s going to come back to me quickly. i need to freshen up my memory. i’m going to go much slower this time around though. i think i burnt out a little last time.

[m4rmaladet0ast]

underrated language learning tip: listen to asmr in your target language! (if that sorta thing doesn't give you the creeps) I find asmr is usually very easy to understand, with lots of repetition, and lots of over explaining. (plus it's super relaxing if studying is stressing you out!)

[euphrosynthetic]

I learn languages better when I don’t learn from a textbook.

I do fun little mini games or continuously try to translate poems, I make guesses on how words fit together until I have an unexplainable understanding of basic grammar, and only then do I check a textbook to explain what I understand.

We’re built to learn languages. When a language is taught, there’s a disconnect between the text’s explanation and actual, deep understanding that will help me learn more as time goes on. It’s great to be able to double check grammar rules to be sure I got it right, but I can’t learn when primarily “taught”.

[sakorispolyglot]

Self-Learning Troubles

I have for a long time had troubles with learning languages by myself. I was doing Duolingo courses for German and the way I was doing them probably contributed to how I was able to maximize my time learning and also maximize my recall afterwards. Back in 2019, I was doing a tech internship and when I would go on my lovely state-mandated breaks (oh how I miss them now that I've moved to a state that doesn't have them), I would take the time to do some German Duolingo lessons (this was before the re-tool to make it more like the CEFR scale, obviously, if that makes a difference; I don't believe it would but this is an aside just for your information; I have digressed, anyway...). Of course, my life has much less structure now than it did then (plus those breaks at work are now non-existence because different state laws so), so I don't think I'd be able to do something similar.

I have since tried to just be a sponge for the languages that I'm learning. Listening to music in the language, attempting to read things in the language, and continuing to say to myself that I'll make a goalpost of trying to take a certification exam for the language that I would then have to study for and eventually hope to pass. I've been looking at said exam for German for a while now, so you can guess how that has gone.

My ADHD and other relevant neurodivergencies make it difficult for me to learn things the normal way, and I don't think there's a way to replicate the way I learned ASL (where I would often watch interpreters and listen to what was being interpreted and attempt to pick up on signs; I have actually attempted to look into this, although the answers that I got were basically "you could try to do it, but I doubt you'll get good results out of it"). Another reason that would be difficult is that I took a class for ASL where we were only allowed to use ASL during lecture hours. That added on the pressure of being graded and since I graduated university two years ago, that definitely won't work.

Tbh I don't know why I decided to write this post. I'd love to be able to study languages daily and make some kind of routine where I could sit down (or probably more accurately, carve time out of my busy work schedule) and practice/learn the languages I'm learning at the time. I feel like I haven't found the right method for me. It's waiting out there somewhere, and I just have to find it. All of the conventional methods haven't worked for me as of yet, so I guess I keep searching.

This is a jumble of word salad, and if you'd like to add a proverbial salad dressing to help me out, feel free. Or don't; this is the free internet, and I have no say in what you do with it.

[i-use-oxford-comma]

The polyglot urge to learn irish rn

[willinskiasinwill]

I feel so genuinely sad when i see a text on Tumblr in a language I don't understand. Like that may be a priceless piece of thought and i just what? Can't place silly letters together? Damn.