Hacker News Reader

Comment by Affric | Hacker News Reader

I found Duolingo to be incredibly helpful.

The language I was learning had no tuition available for adults in my country and I practiced with native speakers when I could find them and consumed media from the community of the target language.

All while on public transport, when I would otherwise be on my phone. All for the price of nothing (though their model has grow much more user hostile).

This is not to advocate for Duolingo as a company or even the app as a method but I found it effective and useful as a tool.

Duolingo isn’t going to learn a language for you. You have to internalise the grammar and vocabulary.

Could I have done the same with a book? No. I could have done something different. Could I have done the same with a class? No, no classes existed for me.

View on HN

Nothing is a substitute for immersion, and learning a language is so incredibly hard that it's fair to question the motivation of the learner and ask whether they intend to live in the place that speaks the language.

If you intend to move, then whether you practice Chinese for 4 years in a classroom vs. with Duolingo, any differences are going to melt away very quickly and what will emerge as the forefront factor of success will be one's innate ability to push yourself in a foreign environment; i.e., don't be safe and only interact with people who speak your native language.

100%

We quickly learn how vulnerable we are without a local language or Lingua Franca.

In my experience working class immigrants who have immigrated to places that have no large established language community in their new home are the best demonstration of this. They often start with nothing but end up with great skills whereas others will just stay and interact with their native language community and be barely conversational in the majority language.

Learning a language is not that hard. Everybody does it, so it is not be that hard.

I learned French and Spanish natively because of my family, but I speak other languages like German or Mandarin, although I only know the most common Chinese symbols I can understand people talking and communicate myself effectively.

The most important thing is not forgetting what you learn, specially when the neural connections are weak. For this I used Anki and my own tools.

You do not need to push yourself so much. In fact I do not recommend pushing yourself into a foreign environment without basic understanding, specially If you are an adult and need to function in that enviroment.

I traveled to Germany only after studying it for years 30 min a day. It was much better experience than in China in witch it was similar to your "pushing yourself" method where very few people speak English.

In China the rate at which I could learn was not better than if I had started learning that in Europe. It overwhelmed my capabilities.

Also, China is a different culture, and you have to learn it the hard way with painful misunderstandings.

Everyone can learn at least one language.

I will say that I believe that it's not harder because of any innate fact but because people give up and go back to native.

My speech pathologist/therapist friends hate me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com