To ask how you learn a language?

[ThatCyanSheep]

I’m totally embarrassed to not be able to speak any other languages, I did German and French in school but gave up at GCSE level. I’d like to start learning French again but have no clue where to start? ChatGPT had suggested purchasing textbooks and working through them to get the basics, but is there another way?

Duolingo?

Join an evening class.

I’ve downloaded it, but I’ve always felt it was a bit of a hassle for very little return!

There’s none near me unfortunately

Definitely don’t follow ChatGPT’s advice! Start with Duolingo, join an in-person evening class and try to holiday in the country they speak they language if you can afford it.

Do lots of different things simultaneously and you will learn quickly, especially as you have GCSE - Duolingo, text books, YouTube mini films on specific grammar points, Tik Tok, read online newspapers, keep a vocabulary note book, Telford yourself reading out loud, evening class, remote conversation group Good luck!

Was listening to a lady who came over here (Ireland) and learned Irish. We are crap at languages in Ireland, and have very few fluent speakers. She said duolingo is a good start, but to learn it really you have to listen to people speaking it on YouTube and radio stations, read magazines and newspapers and use a dictionary as well as google translate. She went in then to do exams that go all the way up. She said everyone she talks to is very disappointed that you can’t just learn it quickly using duolingo. She’s fluent in Irish, German, French, Italian and Russian (she’s from Ukraine)

I teach language. Duolingo is a complete waste of time, you will find people with streaks of hundreds of hours who couldn't produce a sentence of their own if their life depended on it.

I agree with the evening class suggestion as it will give structure but if you really want to learn you need to do more than just the one or two hour class a week.

what worked well for me learning a language as an adult was taking the sentence structures taught in class, then playing around outside of classes with replacing the noun or verb in the sentences taught to you in class. That way you widen your vocabulary and also are revising the sentences taught structures and depending on the grammar rules you will be practicing applying those to different words too.

once you’ve got decent learning hours under your belt, you could start talking to yourself when cooking/in the shower/ walking to work etc and making up little dialogues. If there are words you don’t know you can make a note of them and look them up later to add to your dialogues in future.

good luck!

I recommend Paul Noble's CD course or audiobook. He knocked the rust off my dusty old French O Level so that I could hold a simple conversation when I went to France.
He has courses for other European languages too

What are you going to use it for? To watch films in the language, to visit and speak fluently with locals? To pass the visa requirements?

The problem with using apps is the lack of dialects and accents and colloquialisms and slang. I learnt more by watching general daytime French TV and working towards a structured qualification than any apps taught me as it doesn't stick in my head.

Real life interactions with native speakers. Go to the country where they speak the language you want to learn, it’s the only way. Failing that, meet ups with native speakers who don’t mind you practising.

Re Duolingo. I agree, it’s useless on its own as it’s too passive. Language skills need to be active and current, you need to learn to think on your feet.

I think that’s an insane generalisation! We have a complicated relationship with the Irish language for historical reasons, but I don’t think that extends to other languages. I only had school Irish, but after living abroad for years, moved to Galway in a role which involved regular meetings in Irish, so I got much more fluent. And I speak three languages other than English fluently, plus I get by in Arabic. I don’t think that’s particularly unusual around here.

Michel Thomas (or Paul Noble, but he's a knockoff of MT) + Anki. Spaced repetition is the only way!!

You can use Chat Gpt as a tutor. Upload the vocab/grammar concepts you do know and ask him to test you/converse with you as you learn more.

My goal is to be able to get by when i go to France next year, and to be honest just to learn something!

I am bilingual (English and Gaelic), speak fluent French and am also reasonably competent (B1) in Japanese and Korean (but I had intensive lessons in both and lived and worked there for a while).

I recently decided to learn Italian and have taken a mixed approach - Duolingo is good for habit-forming, but I also attend both in-person and online classes on a weekly basis and do 'the hard yards' in terms of memorising verb tables the old-school way by just constantly writing them out. I also listen to Italian podcasts and radio stations

I've gone from 0 to roughly A2/lower B1 in about five months this way, but I appreciate it's quite hard-core - that equates to about at least an hour of practice a day. It will probably take me about two years to get to C2 without immersion.

However, I've just got back from Italy and I was able to converse with native speakers easily, so worth it!

Language learning apps
Language learning CDs
BBC Bitesize
Watch TV in that language (Netflix, Walter Presents on Ch4)
Watch YouTube videos/listen to podcasts in/teaching that language
Listen to music in that language
Evening class

I've gone from knowing basically no German to understanding spoken and written German reasonably well, while getting slowly better at speaking....and did/do all of the above. 😃

My DD used Duolingo and has a decent 2 year streak. She now has additional conversational classes online with an Oxbridge student which help think on your feet, learn grammar better and practice her accent.

Is there an online course provider you use?

'Telford' should read 'record'. Apologies!

Institut Francais (and various other places such as City Lit) do online evening courses.

www.institut-francais.org.uk/french-courses/#/

I have been taking classes with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Londra – Il nuovo sito dell'Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Londra https://iiclondra.esteri.it/en/Istituto Italian Cultural Institute - they have lots of options!

Edited to say - apologies, not sure why the link went a bit mad!

I share a house with one. Years and years of Duolingo, unable to order a beer 😀

I have some sympathy as I did A level French and had to sit on a bench in the Gare du Nord working out how to order my breakfast when I went to be an au pair.

You are an inspiration!

Languages teacher here. Ideally you would learn in a way which involved actually being able to speak to people, for example at a class (even a virtual one).

Duolingo is pretty good as a starter, but it is pretty limited. You don't gain any kind of level of conversational fluency with it. The most important thing is to do LOTS of listening, whether it's podcasts, YouTube videos or (eventually) audiobooks. Listening improves your comprehension, vocab, grammar and sense of sentence structure, pronunciation and accent. If you are aiming to speak (rather than write), you ideally learn by listening, not reading.