r/languagelearning

Last year I did a research Internship at Tokyo University and I really liked it, didn't think much of it at the time because I have never been particurlarly fond of Japan, I'm not a fan of anime and japanese culture in particuliar and have been learning Chinese for about 4 years and have a C1 certification. I have always thought I was more of a Chinese culture person than a Japanese one.

This year I managed to reach my goal of being admitted to the best university in China with a full schorlarship and I started to attend about a month and a half ago, I was originally very excited since it's also my first time in China. Everything should be perfect but for some reason I keep realizing how much living in Japan felt better than living in China... And mind you at the time I spoke very rudimentary Japanese as opposed to being fully fluent in Chinese. And even with the language barrer everything just felt so perfect. I also love the life in China but my brain automatically compare everything to Japan and man I just miss it.

Was I wrong all this time ? I originally started Chinese for business opportunities and I still think that it's way more useful than speaking Japanese but man I just feel the need to live in Japan after I graduate, I guess im starting committing to Japanese. but damn I know that these languages take just so much time to master. I used to make fun of Japan weebs but I am starting to understand

(TL)

That thing where a well meaning friend is taking an interest in your study of languages, what do you actually spit out?
Assuming of course they don't know the language.
Mine is always some version of "I'm not sure what to say but this is how Russian sounds"
I've been trying to memorize some poems so maybe that will become my new default, I don't have the musical talent to bust into the songs I have at hand lol.
Maybe the next person is getting карл украл, итд.

I’m a C1 in Spanish and yet every time I go to Spain I feel *more* self-conscious? If I fluff an interaction or have to repeat myself I feel like I failed.

Yet if I go on holiday somewhere like Greece, not speking a word of Greek, I’m not bothered.

I realised that it’s because as you get better at a language, what you’re looking for changes.

In Greek I’m a tourist and I’m primarily looking to function - if I manage to order a drink - amazing! If I say thanks in Greek and the waiter smiles - omg, get me!!

At a higher level, you start looking instead for belonging. Evidence that you belong in this language, that you belong in native spaces. And the time investment and level of emotional investment is higher - if I still can’t make myself understood in a crowded bar, then jesus, was 20 years all just a waste of time?!

Does anyone else experience the greatest self-doubt in their strongest language?

(TL)

I'm looking for relatively simple and engaging books to read in different languages to practice and improve my reading skills and vocabulary.

The books would have to be relatively popular (so that they are translated in the first place).

They shouldn't be too hard to read, but still interesting enough to be engaging.

The best candidates would be good books that have simple and/or bad prose, so as not to miss too much in translation.

Some examples could be: Brandon Sanderson (he is often criticized for his bland prose, but lauded for his world building and plot development), Dan Brown (interesting stories, but relatively uninspired prose), Twilight/50 Shades of Gray (bad prose, simple and potentially interesting stories).

Do you have other examples of books that wouldn't lose anything (and might even be better) in translation?

I'm trying to learn a language that's severely endangered, so there aren't a lot of native speakers near where I live, and subtitled media in the language is limited. How could I go about doing immersion in a way that will actually be helpful to learning the language? I'm aware that immersion isn't the only route for language learning, but I am just trying to evaluate if it's something I can do to supplement my classes and self study (plus it's what I'm used to from learning French lol).

(TL) Ojibwemowin/Anishinaabemowin (I know there's an dedicated anishinaabemowin subreddit, but the last post there was 3 years ago so I figured it was probably better to post it here.)

hi !!! im mostly looking for input so books, shows, websites, ect, but also learning resources :) ive had a lot of success searching llyfr (book in welsh (TL) ) on the internet archive, and oddly enough ik the jehovahs witnesses website has a frankly absurd amount of langauge options so ill go check out if its got welsh lol, but yeah im just curious about how other ppl who learn minority languages find media or learning resources or rlly just anything in their TL !! btw im in the uk so if u do know anything welsh specifc location wont be an issue, i wont need a vpn or anything

and yes i know about S4C and ive been just watching it 24/7, godbless the infinite welsh input channel blociau lliw and shwshaswyn on top 🔥🔥

I just took my OPI for the ACTFL and scored Advanced low in Spanish. Not the score I wanted, but it is what it is. Ok, I understand that maybe it's because I did not jump through the right hoops and use the right kind of Spanish for a test, but someone else I know just scored Intermediate high, and this person literally cannot conjugate verbs still. They can't use por or para, they can't nail ser or estar, and they don't understand how the preterit works. I am listening to them as I type this, and they can't even conjugate the verb tratar into the first person form still. AND YET they have an intermediate high certificate. This makes no sense

I have lived in Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras. I have worked and taught English in many different locations, and have zero stress speaking formal or colloquial Spanish. I don't think in translations, I don't falter when I have serious discussions and yet I still was rated at only Advanced low. All of my media is in Spanish, I just finished Albert Caymus' The Stranger in Spanish, and just started a more critical analysis of los cárteles no existen by Oswaldo Zavala.

Can someone please give me some insight into what I am missing? I reached out to the testing center to ask why I was given low and not standard or high but have heard no response. The test was free through my school, so they probably don't feel the need to get back to me.

Can someone please explain this to me? How could they rate this person Intermediate High, and me advanced low?

I say B1+ because i scored highly on an official language test that I did at my language school that was allegedly B2 (but I definitely dont feel B2). I already use my TL in my day to day life including some work meetings, so i would say 50-60% of the time, but im still not so good at more in depth conversations and very shy about telling long stories. My grammar and foundational knowledge is very good.

Would it be a good idea to use italki to speak more about deeper topics and get feedback on how i speak/using phrases that natives use? I go to language cafes but the volunteers are not teachers and only ever correct you if you say something completely wrong. If they understand you then they dont correct you.

For example, in my case I'm learning (TL)german. I can already say basic phrases, connect some thoughts but everything really simplistic (A1-A2 i'd say).

But I love to read, and I want to learn that way, but even simple reading material or news designed for these levels feels kind of "overwhelming". Simply because I literally have to translate a lot of the words because I simply don't know the meaning of them, and without them it turns impossible to understand. (And one such as german where 1 word can have a thousand different meanings...).

But I can't be the only person that have this unhealthy desire to just go for DeepL (or whatever) and translate everything right? But I also don't think there are any solutions to this. How do you guys deal with this when learning a language?

PS: I'm (NL)portuguese (although I usually learn from english), so I'm directing my comment for situations when the target language is not even similar to the language used to learn from.

I have a question about how to tell if what you're doing is helpful, or whether there are better or worse ways to increase your inputs.

I'm currently learning French (TL) in Montreal, doing the Francsisation programme with the Quebec govt. It's a really amazing opportunity as I'm being paid to study 30 hours a week (due to being an immigrant) and I've gone from basically no French to b1 in about 8 months.

However I'm now hitting a bit of a plateau, and I know I need to increase my inputs outside of class. The problem is doing this much active learning a week is really tiring my brain out, and I don't want to watch TV in French or try to read outside of class if it's just going to be mentally taxing without benefit.

I guess what I wonder at this level is what it is that's actually helpful - for eg with listening, is it just hearing without necessarily understanding a radio show that helps, or should you really try to listen hard? Ditto with TV (radio appeals more because it feels more like I can do other things while listening, like household chores).

And with reading, at this point is it smarter to be stopping and searching up every word I don't know in a comic book, or should I just try to keep reading and get the overall sense?

I'd love to hear what exactly people got or are getting out of increasing their inputs at the early b1 level! Thanks!

After two years of learning I am struggling with old vocab.

I have been learning japanese (TL) quite diligently for almost two years, but then for some quite serious reasons i had to stop for 3 months. Now i came back and there is quite a lot of vocab I once knew, but now can recall only partially or not at all. I have this list containing 2.5k words, which i knew quite well. While reviewing back then i averaged at around 85 - 90% accuracy in all of this.

Now i came back. Some words i only know how to read, but don't recall the meaning, some i recall just the meaning, but can not read them, some i don't remember at all. It frustrates me, but i am hopeful that i can gain it all back.

I need some suggestions for my next approach, so i came to ask for help.

My plan right now is just powering through it all. The next week i have all for myself so i was thinking about using it all for vocab repetition. Several hours, every day, just vocab. Filter through the things i know, practice the things i dont know. I want to start doing some new stuff as soon as possible, so i would appreciate some ideas, how to make the whole proces as effective as possible.

Did anyone went through the same? How did you came back from it?

\[I dont use anki, because it usually frustrates me, (it gets buggy on my phone from time to time) so I use different flascards app better suited for my needs.\]

So getting the preface out of the way to avoid 30 comments saying the same thing:

• this is not as a main source of flashcard learning (which are and will continue to be predominantly TL->N);
• this is not a replacement for output with actual human beings;
• this is not a blanket "should I, for every flashcard I have, make a reverse one"

So I've been using readlang to read articles and books for a while. This has made me a huge stack of words and phrases, and recently I picked up anki again and made flashcards out of them. It's going great. I can read articles from Canon van Nederland which are about 600-700 words long and translate 10-20 words/phrases per article. The site claims the versions of the articles I use are at a C1 level (bonus: if you're learning dutch it's a great site - they have settings where the same content is available in levels from A2 up to C1)

However, I then reach the common problem that my input (mostly reading) is both far stronger than my output (mostly writing) and also that I'm suspecting I am picking up context more than actual words.

For instance, I have a card:

> Hij keek weer naar de Hokkie-robot, die onverzoenlijk stil en doelgericht voor hem stond, met zijn slagstick in de aanslag geheven.

I know that onverzoenlijk here means unyielding, but I will look at onverzoenlijk and go "uhhh well it's a negative (on) and it's an adjective..oh it says Hokkie-robot, so because I've read hitchhiker's guide 500 times it's going to be unyielding silence".

I probably would not be able to tell you without the context. I think if I saw it in another context I don't know if I'd pick it up. I definitely could not tell you that the Dutch for "unyielding" is onverzoenlijk.

So I'm thinking of making some flashcards that prompt for output. I know this is usually a bad idea (you don't want to reinforce that TL->N->TL translation loop), and it certainly would not work for cards with longer phrases (e.g. emerged from the smoke curtain - my card for this uses dook uit but I could also produce it with kwam..uit I think).

I don't think I can make a pictorial representation of a lot of these sorts of cards (you're not looking at a picture and thinking immediately that it is representing unyielding unless you know you've used that specific image..).

So, two questions:

• Is it a bad idea or a harmful idea to make cards for words or phrases without context? Or should I be replacing all my contextful cards with hidden context until I show the reverse side? (and then being more lenient about words with many uses)
• Is it a bad idea to make output cards for singular words and short phrases where there is no ambiguity? Should I trust the process that output follows naturally from having a confident level of input, and my problem is that I just don't do enough outputting?

EDIT/UPDATE: Well, I tried going through my cards to pick out potential words for making output cards, made about 50, then encountered 6 different translations for "approach" and realised it was not going to be a good idea.

However, wrapping the sentence context in an Anki hint field so I need to click it to see the context seems like it has legs!

UPDATE2: oh god hiding the sentence by default is absolutely going to kill my stats in the short term

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying to reconnect with my heritage and learn Krymchak (TL), but I’ve hit a pretty massive roadblock. My family has Krymchak roots, but I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, and I’m definitely not an academic—just a regular person trying to learn my heritage language from scratch.

Whenever I search for resources, all I seem to find are scattered vocab lists that look AI generated or super dense linguistic papers written in Russian. I’m looking for an actual, structured full course—something with clear modules, grammar explanations made for regular people, and step-by-step lessons. A bit more than Duolingo, but not super complex.

Does a comprehensive online course, interactive platform, or full textbook in English actually exist for Krymchak? If not, how have other heritage learners in similar situations managed to build a real study plan without knowing the regional bridge languages?

Any advice or direction would mean the world to me. Thanks!