u/idonthaveanametoday

hi,
I'm sure some of this is covered in individual posts but I was curious if anyone just picked a new language as an experiment? Many not anyting you need to learn or have any relation. It might be your first new lanaguage or a new one and have thought "this worked for spanish let me try something else?" Curious how it is is going so it does require a lot of free time investment.

I'm trying to figure out what my next language will be.

I’ve been reading Sam Harris’s recent essay, the responses to it, and watching people completely lose their minds over it. And honestly, I’m a little confused by the level of surprise.

People’s views evolve over time, sure. But nothing he said struck me as wildly out of character. If you’ve followed him for any length of time, there’s a pretty clear throughline in how he thinks. He’s always occupied this unusual intersection of interests: meditation and secular spirituality, atheism, neuroscience, ap ethics, and politics. You don’t have to agree with all of it, but it’s not as though he suddenly became a different person overnight.

From what I can tell, most people aren’t actually angry that he’s unwilling to debate certain topics. They’re angry about the position itself. The criticism isn’t really, “Why won’t he debate?” It’s, “Why does he believe this?”

I can see flaws in his essay. I think there are blind spots and assumptions worth challenging. And yes, there was a time when he might have been more willing to engage publicly with critics. But I also understand why he thinks it’s a waste of time now. If two people can’t even agree on the baseline facts of a situation, the conversation often devolves into arguing about reality itself rather than testing ideas. At that point, neither side feels heard, and almost nobody changes their mind.

Would a debate satisfy his critics? Maybe a few. But I suspect many people wouldn’t be satisfied unless he arrived at a completely different conclusion. That’s a different complaint altogether.

I also have my own criticisms of him. Over the years, I’ve found the podcast repetitive at times, with many of the same themes resurfacing again and again, often behind a paywall. So I’ve gradually listened less. But that’s it if someone’s work stops resonating with you, you can disengage. You can criticize them, explain why you think they’re wrong, and move on.
You don’t have to agree with someone about everything to find some of what they say valuable. And if you reach the point where their views genuinely repulse you, you’re under no obligation to keep consuming their content.

I just don’t understand the shock. Agree with him or disagree with him, this all seems pretty consistent with who Sam Harris has been for a long time.

I just want to start by saying I really love this community. There are so many helpful people here, tons of resources, updates, teacher recommendations, research discussions, and people from all over the world sharing experiences. It’s honestly one of the better language-learning communities I’ve seen online. It's really inspiring to see people from all ages and communities go on this learning journey . I'm OG Pablo white boarding from from almost the beginning with breaks here and there?

That said, is anyone else kind of fatigued by the constant “purist vs. non-purist” debates?

At times it starts to feel like Lord of the Flies with different factions and belief systems. The roadmap starts getting treated less like a guideline and more like a religious text where people argue over whether someone followed “what Pablo said” closely enough.

To me, the roadmap always seemed like a general guideline for what people can roughly expect, not a guarantee or a strict doctrine. Like any skill, there’s variation. Some people excel at speaking early. Some lag behind despite putting in lots of hours. Some people absorb grammar explanations easily, others hate grammar and tune out immediately.

I’ve always felt that people should just do what works for them. If someone wants to spend two hours a day for a year doing pure input with no speaking or grammar because they believe that’s the best approach, that’s totally fine. It's an experiment that's for sure. And honestly, for people who dislike studying grammar, it probably does make the process more enjoyable and sustainable. For others they might sacrifice a little more accent to be able to communicate with friends, loved ones , etc.

At the same time, I also know plenty of multilingual people who studied grammar and speak their languages perfectly well. I understand the argument that delaying speaking can help with accent issues or prevent bad habits early on. That makes sense to me. But the idea that reading a grammar explanation after you already have some foundation in the language is somehow “harmful” feels exaggerated.

Recently someone posted a speaking video, and because he wasn’t amazing, people were asking if he was trolling. But language learning isn’t linear. Sometimes people put in hours while distracted. Sometimes people progress unevenly. Sometimes people are stronger in listening than speaking. That’s just normal human variation.
I guess my point is that a lot of these discussions seem to miss the bigger picture. The goal is acquiring the language and enjoying the process, not policing whether someone followed the roadmap with perfect ideological purity. Or getting upset with people who are proud of following it exactly as written .

Anyway, not trying to make a complaining post. I know it's bringing up the topic I said was fatiguing. Just sharing thoughts after seeing another round of “purist vs. non-purist” arguments and wondering if anyone else feels similarly exhausted by it sometimes.

Update: I'm referring to people who have no room for nuance . Not all the thoughtful discussions on this sub

Before people jump in with “AI sucks” or “just talk to natives,” that’s not really what I’m asking. I already understand AI can make mistakes. Native speakers make mistakes too sometimes, especially casually in conversation or texting. If an app occasionally explains one thing imperfectly, I’m not that worried about it if overall it’s still useful. Pablo himself recommends them

I’m mostly talking about pronunciation here.

The closest thing I’ve found so far is Shadowing.app.

A lot of apps can:
- recognize what you said
- give you a pronunciation percentage
- maybe highlight a sound or letter

But Shadowing.app is the only one I’ve used that actually gave detailed feedback like:
- where stress placement sounded wrong
- which syllable was overemphasized
- where rhythm/prosody sounded unnatural

That’s the kind of feedback I’m looking for not just “87% pronunciation score.”

For conversation/grammar AI tools, I actually think Superfluent is excellent. It gives very natural recommendations and explanations that feel more realistic than most apps I’ve tried.

I’ve also looked at apps like TalkPal and others where you describe images or respond to prompts, which can be useful speaking practice, but pronunciation accuracy and feedback quality seem to vary a lot between platforms.

For more traditional structured resources, I’ve tried things like:
- Speechling - they would tell you when something was wrong but if you get close it is just marked a good .
- Pimsleur

And for human interaction/conversation practice:
- iTalki
- Preply
- HelloTalk
- Tandem

Those are definitely useful for conversation practice, but most natives aren’t trained teachers or pronunciation coaches, so they often can’t explain why something sounds off or what specifically needs fixing.

I know there are strong English-focused pronunciation apps like Elsa or BoldVoice, but I’m trying to find tools that work well for OTHER languages too.

People on here are always finding new resources I didn't know about . So lemme know if you know of any

Genuine question: ever since the war in the Middle East started, have any of you noticed different reactions when talking about Krav Maga? So I'm talking more recently

For those who train or run schools, have you seen any drop in student interest, or not really?

One thing I’ve noticed is that some people, once they hear Krav Maga comes from Israel, suddenly assume the person training must be Israeli. You don’t really see people make the same kind of assumptions with arts like Muay Thai or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Then there are also people who confuse it with a completely different kind of “MAGA.”

Just curious if others have noticed any shift in perception, awkward reactions, or if it’s mostly business as usual.

I still subscribe to Dreaming French , so I use that for Spanish as well . I had gotten a lifetime membership to Immersion and was pleasantly surprised to see German included recently

That’s a pretty nice bonus.

I don’t think Immersion has its own subreddit, and I know some people here have tried both apps, so I figured I’d share in case it helps anyone.

Very cool overall… though I’m not sure I can realistically handle three languages at once.