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 worked well for me, I like that I can replay sentences and repeat until I’ve got it. I find that easier than textbooks. Prob used it for 2 -3 years.

I use Alexa on YouTube for grammar, she breaks it down very well in short videos. Also, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve replayed her numbers video until I knew them off by heart.

I then started a local council course, sadly cancelled from lack of funding.

Then I moved to France this summer, using my French already with trades people and vet etc. They pretty much understand me. I usually look up a few key vocab words before an appointment.

Keep going it is worth it.

DH and I did a few months of Japanese classes (in person, group) before our honeymoon there. It was enough to let us get by with shops, hotels, occasional chats with people in bars about where we were from, half in Japanese and half in English. I loved learning something new.

I actually felt that I picked it up much quicker than e.g. French at school, because there was much more emphasis on speaking to each other and less on e.g. absolutely accurate spelling. My biggest tip is to just stop worrying about making mistakes. Just like I mostly understand what people who are speaking imperfect English are trying to say, people mostly understood me!

My impression is that Duolingo's usefulness depends on the language being learned, as well as the personality of the learner. Apparently, each course is "made" by a team of volunteers (overseen by staff) so what goes into them depends on the teams.

Some time ago, DH completed the entire course in one of my native languages. The course was quite short and he definitely couldn't string together more than the most basic of sentences by the time he finished. And also, as mentioned by several posters, he felt reluctant to try speaking up if he couldn't say things with perfect grammar. More crucially, he could hardly follow at all when native speakers spoke to him (quite patiently and slowly) - he said the nice grammatical sentences he'd learned barely resembled the way that people actually chatted to each other in real life.

More amusingly, I did the Duolingo assessment thing for this language and it assigned me at 60% of the course because I was translating the more advanced sentences in a way it deemed incorrect!

I have a difficult target language which I want to learn. I'd like to learn Thai so I can speak to my lovely sister-in-law. But I don't want to learn the notoriously difficult Thai script, I just want to speak it. Anyway, there's no Duolingo Thai course. I'm thinking of finding a YouTube channel or a podcast or something like that.

Duolingo definitely can vary!
Also Klingon, Latin, Esperanto but no Thai?

Ive taught MFL in the past and respectfully disagree. Whereas there is no way you can reach fluency with it you can definitely pick up a lot of vocabulary and sentence structure. It is useless on grammar but i think used alongside proper lessons has a place. It's also very convenient and cheap. OP I'd recommend it and look up "alliance francaise" who i think do online group lessons.

link to alliance francaise online lessons
(this is just the manchester branch - there will be other branches offering online lessons)
https://www.afmanchester.org/learn-french/online/
Also, not looked recently but open university had good language learning courses in the past ,which include a week abroad at some point. My df has done several.

I found BBC Bitesize incredibly useful for German grammar basics. It's worth checking out for the other languages which can be taken at GCSE level too. It was much more informative than Duolingo. I also had a fab BBC CD.

Online course with City Lit? You still have time to enroll before term starts.

I'd say combine Duolingo with something else.

The value of Duolingo is that it keeps you going with the bite size down time learning.
You don't have to go there lesson by lesson, you can attempt skipping, the newly added things like stories are quite good.

For combination - some intentional learning - classes, online classes, reading, grammar book.

The free version of Duolingo seems to be a lot more limited than it used to be.

I’m learning Greek and only get a few minutes a day before I have to watch ads to gain more energy.

something to consider is old school but free, but have a look in your local library and see if they have language courses with books+CDs.

Was Duolingo the only thing you used to learn Italian?

Just quoting myself to add that City Lit have some nice Return to [language] courses which are for people brushing up an old GCSE or A Level, which is nice as you don't have to start at the beginner level again. For example Return to French (elementary) which is only a few weeks so not too expensive. I sound like a salesperson but I've enjoyed doing a similar course for another language.

I asked an ex-Welsh tutor for advice on learning the Welsh language, and she recommended watching Welsh children's TV. It makes sense, because children have to learn a language from scratch, so do it as a child would! I have since graduated to bilingual picture books, and always ask people at work for useful Welsh words and phrases! It is a slow process, but I'm hoping to get there one day.

Berlitz used to be popular for learning French. They do fast-paced individual and group online lessons and residential stays.

"I asked an ex-Welsh tutor for advice on learning the Welsh language, and she recommended watching Welsh children's TV."

An excellent idea. Postman Pat speaks French (Pierre Martin le Facteur), Danish (Postmand Per), German (Postbote Pat), Latin American Spanish (El Cartero Pat) and many other languages ... all at an easy level and with visuals to assist.

Don't forget Padraig Post. 🙃

I agree that it depends partly on how you learn - I am much more like to do well if I see things spelled, and if I write them.

It also depends what is available- face-to-face classes are usually best, but can be difficult to find these days. But we also have the Internet now, and it doesn't really matter where you are for online classes (timezones can matter, though.) My Welsh classes have just restarted this week. I like doing a class because of the other people in group work in particular.

Duolingo is not a total waste of time - I have been learning Dutch from scratch, but I bought a grammar book alongside, because Duolingo is generally rubbish at explaining grammar. I think if I hadn't already done German, I would be struggling a lot more with the grammar and sentence structures. It's difficult to explain separable verbs at the best of times, but Duo doesn't even try, it just shows you the pattern, and it took me ages to get my head round them, even when I had an actual teacher at evening classes.

Duolingo can be useful for vocab, it's good for patterns. I have been using it to revise my school and evening class languages.

But as well as Duolingo and online classes, there are resources available all round the world - videos, websites, etc, etc, so you can do a bit every day. Back in my school days, you had to find someone who was going to France and ask very nicely if they could bring you back a newspaper. Now, you just Google. That makes the options way easier.

In your situation, I'd look for an online class and do a bit of Duolingo and maybe another course or practice site online. I think you need to get to about high A2/B1 level before websites etc in the language aren't too impenetrable, as they often have more formal vocab/grammar.

I had a German teacher - my very first one, who decided to start us off by translating a children's story - a fairytale. That has some particular structures (in English, we don't often use "once upon a time" elsewhere) and vocab like witch, spell, etc, which isn't as useful in most daily lives. I do expect to start learning a language with "hello, my name is... I live in... I work as a... I would like a cheese sandwich" sort of thing.

I also found in Germany - soap operas are hard: often fast, slang, speaking over each other. But I saw a lovely documentary about the history of tractors - slower speech, more formal language, lots of dates and numerical facts, so I could follow it (which is mostly why I found it lovely, though also I grew up on a farm and we had Deutz tractors.)

I did French O level and forgot most of it.

Have been trying to pick it up again and started with you tube listening to beginners language teaching, children's songs and stories and TV programmes . The songs can help build vocab. Then progressed to intermediate podcasts and some simple documentaries in topics I enjoy. I don't understand all of those by any means but some of them give people's names and age and how long they have been working for x and follow along the pictures for getting a sense of what's happening. You will understand the narrator well before the general public.

I find a multifaceted approach helps. Songs, stories, reading articles , learning vocab from you tube, you tube teachers, I really need to go to language classes but life has been hectic. Next year maybe. Would love to travel to France at some point too.

Also here to suggest Bitesize (https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/learn) if you want to revise what you probably learnt at school, and see how much you still remember.

I often come across language textbooks in charity shops, so it might be worth finding a basic French one with the grammar, and maybe a dictionary? or an online one, like https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-french ?

And yes! to using Netflix/ Youtube etc - ideally with subitles in French - especially to watch programmes/films/ about subjects you're already slightly familiar with/ interested in.

In most big towns and cities, there are language exchanges/ conversation cafes where you can meet up with other learners and/or native speakers to practise talking, maybe discuss books or watch films together, even if there aren't any formal 'classes' as such.

Good luck!
Bonne chance!

PS: archived, but may still contain useful content & links: https://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french/

I would say an evening class to start out, then after a couple of terms try to find a language partner or one on one teacher to complement your studies. You need to both learn the grammar (which will be easiest in a class if you are not a confident language learner) and use the language in conversation. I have used italki in the past for language learning.

I would say duolingo is close to worthless. Actually speaking the language is the main thing - look up words as you go and you will broaden your vocabulary.

We have some French friends who speak excellent English.- when we asked how they had learned, they said they got the basics at school and then just spent time watching lots of English Language programmes and films like Game of Thrones - initially with the French subtitles on and then later without.

Duolingo is great as an addition to another learning route (it is really helping to supplement DDs school French lessons) but doesn't work in isolation.

Have a look at the Say Something In website. It started with Welsh then added other languages. It uses a spaced repetition method.
www.saysomethingin.com/en/

Bilingual person here 👋 (English and Spanish, with some French which I haven’t practised much) I would suggest you check YouTube for tutorials on the basics. Once you have that down, maybe check your local library for textbooks or old French schoolbooks where you can expand your vocabulary while knowing how to pronounce the words (you can double check with google translate on pronunciation when unsure) hope this helps!

I learned languages in school and whilst this isn’t obviously the same, it’s what I’d suggest if someone I knew came to me asking this question.

Duolingo helped me learn the script (Arabic) but nothing about grammar, which made it confusing when compiling sentences.

I would use a proper teacher for that.

I live in Saudi so I try and read the names of businesses etc, on the buildings and walls on the way to/from work. Duolingo has definitely helped with that.