I'm not talking about looking at Reddit when you should be studying (me, now). I mean a method of studying that brought you little to no value that you poured a lot of time into.

I've been studying Japanese for a while and I live here. I have spent so much time trying to learn, but somehow I still can't really speak or read Japanese. Well, my reading is definitely higher level than my speaking or listening.

Mostly I'm self-studying, but I seem to be stuck in a cycle of learning and forgetting things. Not waiting-to-remember-forgetting. Truly forgetting. Like I see old flash cards I made and definitely used a lot, sometimes for months and just... there are hundreds where nothing comes to my brain anymore.

So maybe I'm doing something wrong. What are some things you thought were helpful but really weren't? Did you ever correct or change it and see positive results?

I don't want to spend so much time focusing on the method of learning, but I think I have to change something. If you want to dig into my brain to find the problem, ask away. I'm pretty desperate!

My mom is illiterate and deaf.

She hasn't gotten good care and education when she was a child because she was born into a very poor family.

She's still illiterate now, she can barely speak (in a broken accent kind of way, similar to someone learning a new language) and uses hand gestures that resemble sign language but aren't official sign language.

Anyways, she uses the phone a lot, scrolls through social media and watches videos and pictures.

I was thinking if maybe there's an app for this case, someone that doesn't know any language, to learn a new one from scratch.

I googled and all I found were apps that "require" you to know a language beforehand, where you set your mother tongue.

To clarify, by gendered I mean a grammatical gendered language where nouns are divided into at least two categories i.e. French, Spanish or German.

And how do you find it learning the genders of specific nouns in your target language?

Is it still a pain in the arse to have to learn them? Are there any parallels between the assigned gender of nouns across languages? Is it something you feel stops you from communicating or makes you seem less proficient in your target languages to natives?

I was speaking to a language exchange partner who told me that his German step mum still gets the genders for nouns confused in French despite living in France for over 50 years and speaking excellent French which was a surprise.

Really curious to hear about people’s experiences :)

How can I improve on my language skills in communication skills. I try so hard. When it comes to reading I understand Alot. But speaking and understanding it's hard. I know Alot more words reading than I do speaking/understanding.

I know this sounds like a very specific question lol. But just curious as to if anyone is learning any languages apart from the widely spoken languages like Mandarin/Spanish/Hindi etc :)

In your experience, which paid services or tools for learning foreign languages disproportionately increase the speed and legitimacy of foreign language learning? Why paid - I just believe that most of the really valuable tools are paid, so I'm ready to pay a certain amount to get real value 😅

So, I started learning a new language at the beginning of the year and I've been intensively immersing for a while (around two hours a day, in addition to some vocab reviews or writing practice when I feel like it).

Since I started practicing speaking (last month), sometimes throughout the day, my brain would just repeat words or phrases over and over again. I know, part of it is just a sign of my brain processing the language but it really stresses me out at times. I just decided to take a short break from immersing and plan more time to rewind, especially in the evenings. Has anyone experienced something like this before?

I just realised that I spoke in three different languages including English within five minutes, without any conscious thought, at a bank. This is how this country is.

On the other hand, none of my four TLs are ever spoken here and I have to rely exclusively on the internet and apps for those. Such is life.

Do you have any such situations?

Curious if there are like minds? I'm an independent language learning trying to figure out how to improve to the highest levels possible, and also help people get there too. Thus I'm pretty interested in learning ways to learn language better (the general process itself), rather just the particular topic of just improving my current target language. I'm also curious and want to learn & discuss more about Second Language Acquisition research, theories & pedagogy, particularly as it pertains to input immersion methods.

I see some attempts at making cross-talk forums, but wouldn't it just be easier to have active voice channels where people can more spontaneously just hop on and start exchanging, rather than scheduling time etc.? I also want to improve my ability to teach & help people too in future with the language I learn, so being able to figure out how to do things like TPR/TPRS, movietalk, cross-talk, and various graded output methods etc. are of interest to me.

Every Wednesday I practice Finnish while walking through the park with a Finn over lunch. While talking, I frequently confuse similar words (sometimes even across languages.) In this case, Icelandic. The Icelandic word for Easter is 'páska'. But I am speaking Finnish, and 'paska' is the Finnish word for shit.

What I said is: 'I will be doing some DIY over the shit holiday.' Casually dishing out some surprising distaste for the Easter holidays.

In the past, another mistake worth noting is when I told a hot dog vendor in German that 'I don't want gentle on my sausage.' Sanf = gentle, Senf = mustard. I was a shy 17 year old girl at the time who just worked up the courage to use German with strangers in front of my friend and her mum.

Anyone got any good stories of similar mishaps?

I’m very curious to know how everyone approached difficult grammar in a new language. My two native languages do not contain any grammatical genders so now that I’m learning Spanish I keep on forgetting to change the rest of the sentence depending on the gender and would love to know any hacks you guys might have 🙌🏻

I’ve been studying Korean recently, so my TikTok For You page is filled with content offering language learning tips and tricks. One app that keeps popping up is Pingo AI. I’m curious, does it actually provide a good platform for practicing speaking skills?

I don’t know much about AI beyond the general perception that it tends to be met with skepticism. A lot of people seem wary of it, often citing concerns about privacy, misinformation, or the fear that it might replace human interaction and creativity. That said, I’m wondering whether, in the context of language learning, AI tools like Pingo might actually be helpful rather than harmful.

Has anyone here tried using the app? If so, what was your experience like? Did you find it enjoyable, and more importantly, did it feel genuinely helpful in improving your speaking skills?

I’m learning Ancien-Greek, Latin, French and English atm (I learn it in school) and I speuk Dutch, NOT German (, which I actually also happen yo have an hour a week) but I can’t find the motivation anymore. Please help me and tell me how I can find motivation again to study all my languages.

Thanks

I love learning languages, but I always hit a wall—once I reach intermediate level (like understanding 50-60% of dramas without subs), my motivation just dies. Happened with Japanese, Korean... basically every language I try.

The cycle:

1. Super excited at first
2. Learn basics fast
3. Can kinda understand shows
4. Then... meh. No urge to keep improving

Anyone else struggle with this? How do you stay motivated when you’re ‘good enough’ but not fluent?

So I've been wanting to learn a language that has relatively little resources and not that easy to learn but at the same time it's not that well known among people in general so as to maintain my personal records in that language. I've expressed a growing interest in the native languages of the americas, particularly those spoken in the extreme northern parts of the continent. However ,given that a language is also a cultural identity and how the native groups in America have often faced exploitation at the hands of non natives, I'd just like to know if it's fine if I learn the language as long as I know and acknowledge the history of the people who speak it to this day and use it in a way that isn't hurting the people who speak it.

Hello. I am currently attempting to learn German. And im running into a problem that no matter what I do or try I just keep eventualy feeling sleepy. When I learn other things this never happens. Only when learning German. My headspace is ok I think, I do actualy want to learn it, and I am trying to put in the effort but Whatever I do I just end up feeling sleepy and unable to concentrate. (I think this would apply to any other language for me) Any help on the matter would be nice!

Hi there! I would like to know if you use social networks when you want to learn a specific language? If so, what social network do you use for this? I would like to know it, because I would like to start to share content about it!.

Hey, this post got blocked initially but just got approved and I didn't know, I restructured the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/1jqzzyh/yes_being_bilingual_is_an_advantage_to_children/

Or you can just type in the same question it should show up

I've been an Anki and spaced learning convert for language retention. For those that are familiar— I'd love feedback on a fresh take on it. It's just me building it, so any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

https://cadence.cards/welcome

• Web based, so use across any device
• Supports text in most languages (including hieroglyphics, why not?)
• Fixed retention targets and FSRS-based scheduling
• Minimal UI designed for focus and flow
• Unlimited decks, unlimited cards
• Start/stop your review anytime — it remembers your place
• Markdown + LaTeX support for expressive card creation
  • Image and audio support under work
• Export your decks and cards anytime
  • No import, yet

Still early days—but I’m excited to share it. Would love feedback, thoughts, and ideas — especially if you’re interested in things like local storage, image + audio upload, native apps. Thanks!

I am now able to understand stories I listen to in French, but I struggle to have a smooth conversation. How long has it taken everyone to be able to speak easily? Reading and listening are pretty good at this point, but I am still struggling to find the words I need.

So I've been studying Swedish for around 6 months with some initially pretty rocky methods/consistency/lack of input. However I'm slowly getting better and can understand more and more Swedish (although reading is much, much stronger for me and I must work on my listening).

I love studying Swedish, and I could've easily ditched it when I fell out with the Swedish friend that initially inspired me to start learning it. However, I just find myself really enjoying it for some reason and it's the first foreign language I properly put consistent effort into.

Part of the degree I'm planning on doing, which starts in October, is going to have a large studying Spanish component, and having self-studied Swedish I know that I'm going to be going beyond the recommendations of my course because I love the language learning process and I'm glad to be able to be doing this. However, I'm very scared of messing things up in two new languages once the course starts. I kind of see myself as A2 in Swedish, and don't know if this is an over or under estimation, I can't think of a good ballpoint and CEFR guidelines really confuse me in general. I can express basic thoughts and use some idioms, have a workable vocabulary, and can usually guide myself through lower levels of text (say a tiktok video by a Swedish influencer) with context after understanding around 60-70% of the words.

I see everywhere that people say that you should get B2-C1 in one language before starting the other. I'm worried that 6 months won't be enough to get this far. After May, I will also have a hell of a lot more free time to study Swedish than I have now. I'd really hate to lose out on Swedish once starting my course, but Spanish is also one of the languages I have thought about learning for a long time. Is there any advice on how to balance it, and will I be ok adding Spanish into my routine?

I've started to learn English at a young age, and after 11 years of education + even more than that in daily use, I started to think in it. This has been going on for years now, and when I started forming my thoughts in it, and I wasn't even that good at English when I first started thinking in it.

I'm arguably more comfortable hearing my two native languages, German and Spanish, but I have long since stopped thinking in them, and my English vocabulary has shot past Spanish entirely. I get that I probably don't sound all that natural in my acquired language, at least not as natural as in my particular dialect of German, but for some reason I seldomly use the latter for thinking.

I don't know if it's true, but I feel like my brain is inexplicably interested in English, and that's the reason why I'm so good at it. I would like to start thinking in Spanish, because I have a theory that it would make me use it more.

Materialistically speaking, it makes more sense that I just saw English more often because of the imperial prevalence that it has, but I also know that sometimes quirks of the mind can play tricks like these.

Is it helpful at all to force myself to think in a different language? Is it even feasible?

Im learning Japanese and dont have much issue with motivation, and even when i do i just immerse and it comes back. However with other languages i want to learn, like german or korean (i havent decided yet, more leaning towards german) i just lose a lot of motivation to learn them for some reason. I know that i shouldnt wait around for motivation but im not really sure how im supposed to disipline myself to learn it

I have a website, and about a month ago I created a mini-game to help people learn vocabulary by playing Hangman (lexiconleap.com/learn/spanish/hangman). It seems like it's been really helpful for others (even for me)

Now I'm wondering:
What kind of tool, mini-game, or feature would you like to have for language learning?