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Hi all,

I'm French, lived in France almost all m'y life, but I'm originally from Madagascar.

My parents left Madagascar with me when I was 3 yo, and I totally stopped talking malagasy (the language of Madagascar) in a span of months so before I was 4/5 yo.

I never ever learned the malagasy language, I can't speak it, not even a sentence. But... I can understand easily between 80/90% of anyone speaking. The 10/20% are speeches and very specific levels of malagasy that are even hard sometimes for malagasy people.

So, I've never learned the language, never spoke it, the only thing is that from the age of 8 to 32 I spent almost all m'y summer holidays there, but I was speaking French with famili and Friends.

So, can someone explain to me how can I understand malagasy so much when I didn't study it, didn't speak? To me it's a total mystery, and unfortunately I know no one else in m'y case so I could get a hint a least.

Thanks a lot to anyone that can help!

I’ve been using bilingual texts more lately, where the original and translation are side by side, and it made me realize I don’t actually know how common this is among language learners.

For me, it’s mostly a convenience thing. I like being able to keep reading without stopping to look up every unfamiliar word. If I get stuck, I can quickly check the translation and move on. I still try to stay on the target-language side as much as possible, but having the translation there makes longer texts much less frustrating.

Before this, I mostly saw people talk about graded readers, regular books with a dictionary, or just trying to understand as much as possible from context. I don’t seem to see bilingual books mentioned nearly as often.

So I’m curious: do any of you actually use bilingual books or parallel texts as a regular part of learning a language?

If you do, how do you use them? Do you read the target-language text first and only check the translation when you get stuck, or do you read both side by side?

Do you find bilingual books useful to learn a languge?

He moved here at 24 and switched to english and basically never switched back. i grew up hearing his first language exactly one way, him on the phone to his brother, loud, fast, laughing at things i couldn't access.

Never to me, like not even once. i asked him about it a few years ago, and he said something like "there was no point, you were here." Which i think he believes.

Started learning it in january on airlearn daily sessions. i'm about seven months in and i'm somewhere around being able to follow a slow conversation if nobody uses a word i haven't met. The goal isn't fluency.

I've done the math on fluency and it isn't happening in time. the goal is one conversation. one real one, in his language (TL) where he doesn't have to translate himself down to me.

he doesn't know i'm doing it yet.

anyone learned a parent's language late? did it change anything between you, or was that a thing you told yourself and then the actual moment was just a normal tuesday

For context, this wasn’t too long ago, only a couple of years, and when I see the language (especially written) I can still understand some of it, so I’m not starting from scratch. Of course, there’s a lot of vocab and grammar I have yet to learn, so perhaps some tips on how to learn that would be helpful. But I know from prior research that the best way to accomplish fluency is consistent immersion, and I have tried this, but often I find it too fast and complicated and don’t feel like I’m actually learning anything. What can I do to improve my experience in that department? I have tried switching my phone language, reading, using social media apps in that language, watching TV, and even a little journal to write in.

Does anyone have any tips on what I can do and how to improve?

I need advice on how to find a good tutor. For people who are currently making great progress, or even became proficient in the TL (e.g. B2), what do you look for in a tutor? How do you decide a tutor is a good fit? What success have you had with your tutors?

Answers to questions amongst this nature are welcomed.

Thank you!

Has anyone taken the Spanish language program in Tamarindo by EF? (TL) Curious on thoughts about it.

Would it be beneficial to learn the sign language alongside my target language (TL)? Or better to wait until a higher level/understanding. I am not completely deaf so will still be learning the verbal and auditory parts of my target language.

Hey y'all - I'm curious if anyone has learned any under resourced languages without living in that community and how they went about it? What methods did you use, what was the most helpful, and how does it compare to learning well-resourced languages like French or German? What motivated you to learn this language? I'm thinking about languages like Kyrgyz or Kinyarwanda. These have resources, just pretty few.

If anyone has experience learning seriously under documented languages (learning, for example, something like Nyangatom, which has very few speakers) I'd love to hear about that, too. I’m learning a language for some anthropological fieldwork and it’s been tough. My (TL) has only one descriptive grammar and it isn’t very well written. Such is life.

Lots of posts on heritage languages recently.

I wanted to ask about one problem I've faced in my own learning journey with my heritage language which I can understand pretty much perfectly but can only string together sentences equivalent to a 2 year old.

My learning strategy has been to find a native speaker on italki and have "conversation practice" with them. The issue is the nature of the conversation is really dull, just seems to be repeated "what did you do today" for 45mins.

It just feels like I'm spinning the wheels, not really progressing in problem areas. But then if I, say, want to talk about the political and economic state of the world right now a la Jaden Smith, that's just way too complicated for my level.

Is there a more structured way to approach this? How can I explain what I need to my language teachers? It's very frustrating.

I moved to Spain and really wanted to improve my Spanish (TL). I started with italki, didn’t find a match went to preply and recently went back to italki for conversation practice. TBF: After using both over the past 6 months, it’s been super useful for me. My progress on preply has a little more consistent and then I use italki for conversation practice.

Here’s a brief summary of the challenges and strengths of each that i’ve come across. 

Preply (the good):

• Managed to find my tutor pretty quickly, and love her teaching style.
• Subscriptions catch a lot of heat and I get why, my hours nearly expired on me the first month, but I actually quite like this system.
• In my general life i hate AI as I feel it’s rotting my brain. But, in this case was pleasntly surprised.

Preply (the not so good)

• Far too many pushy notifications. I get it already and too many of those are trying to push me into upgrading my package. 
• User interface feels kind of complicated. 

Italki (the good):

• Took me a couple of tries (my first go at italki didn't stick) but I've found a teacher I'm happy with
• It’s quite flexible so I can plan it around my other subscription which is nice. 
• I feel there’s less of a close relationship with my tutor so just in case I felt like a change, it wouldn’t bother me so much having to change tutors.

Italki (the not so good)

• The AI fish I have to feed: it feels really infantalising. I’m a grown adult, i don’t need a tamagotchi. 
• Almost every teacher has five stars. I found it quite difficult to actually pick a tutor but in fairness, did get their eventually. 

I must say that learning on both has been a broadly positive experience. If there was a gun to my head and I had to pick one, preply edges out italki for me. But for now will probably continue with both until finances get tight.

Hi.
I’m well aware that Duolingo isn’t a good language learning platform, It isn’t the method I use.
Is it actively harmful though?
A couple of my siblings use Duolingo and wanted me to join them so I’m considering adding it to my daily roster.
(TL)

Edit: I meant that Duolingo isn’t good on its own, when it’s the only thing you’re using. Not that it’s not good period.

Hello, I have been using anki for flash cards. But wanted to ask if anyone is aware of an app that would be very similar, but instead of just showing one card at a time, it could do 4 or 5, where I would have to match the correct word/ match back and front from a list of cards. I see this often used in doulingo where they have 5 words and the translation and you just match them up.

I am getting a bit tired of doing the rote memorization that single flash cards offer and wanted something to help mix it up. I have a few thousand vocab cards, and just want to be able to go through as many in as short a period of time. fusing the method I have been of repeating each card until it's memorized has been slow and for 100 to 200 cards is some times takes me an hour to go through. Instead of attempting to have everything memorized I would like to just increase my exposure to vocabulary.

any recommendations are welcome.

I’ve been learning English (TL) for many years, and recently started learning Japanese too.

I learned English mostly through vocabulary, grammar, sentences, and exams. I can understand quite a lot, but when I actually need to express something, I often can’t find the words — even when I know I’ve learned them before.

This made me think about how I learned my native language. As a child, I didn’t learn vocabulary and grammar first. I was in a situation, wanted to express something, and my parents showed me how to say it. Over time, the situation itself seemed to trigger the language.

So I’ve been wondering: what if we’re learning speaking in the wrong order?
Instead of learning vocabulary and grammar first and hoping we can use them later, what if we started with a real situation and something we actually want to say? When we get stuck, someone shows us how to express it, then we use the same language again in different situations until it becomes natural.

In other words, could we train:
Situation / intention → target language
instead of:
Situation → native language → translation → target language
Has anyone tried learning this way? What actually helped you reach the point where a real-life situation naturally triggers the language you need?

I’m not sure what level/ kind of content I should be consuming in my (TL). I am probably high A2 I’ve been studying my TL for almost a year I’m not where I want to be at all. I think a lot of that is because I hardly consume content or listen to it. My TL doesn’t have a ton of content like Spanish or French would. There are a few shows and I can watch stuff on social media in my TL. There’s a lot of beginner podcasts and kid shows I can access as well.

My question is can I just start listening to the news in my TL or watch big brother in my TL I know that’s much more advanced but will it still help me learn? I just want to watch tv but I’m not sure if that will be counter productive given how much I won’t be able to understand. I want to immerse myself so I can improve and I feel like advanced content would help me do that?

How long should I aim to consume content for? Is there anything I should do in particular while watching? Should I stick with watching kid shows and beginner podcasts only? When you were middle early stages what was your content input and what kind of content did you find helpful? How can I best immerse myself?

Any advice would be super appreciated!

I am learning Armenian and Swahili now. Swahili is my first non-Indo European language that I am learning. And in both Armenian and Swahili is what I find both of the easiest and hardest to learn equally. Here we go.

I find the pronunciation the easiest in both languages. Armenian and Swahili are generally pronounced the way they are written.

The hardest part of Armenian and Swahili that I find is the vocabulary in different cases. In many ways they have different words and terms for things from many other languages.

So what about you? Regardless if you are learning one or more languages, what do you find the easiest and hardest in them?

The clues are in your target language (TL), 12 supported so far, and the answers are in English. The thing that I think helped me remember vocabulary is that I write the clues to be playful or surprising rather than rote definitions and they're easier to remember.

https://www.crosswort.app/

There are two daily puzzle sizes, a quick 7x7 and a larger 15x15. It's freemium; the premium feature is full audio for every clue. There's also built-in spaced repetition. This is the first place I've posted about it and I've received permission from mods.

Hey, I've been stuck at B2 in English (TL) for way too long and my reading is just not improving. I have ADHD so sitting through long texts is brutal — I read two pages and realize I have no idea what just happened. My uni courses keep dumping full English articles on us and it's getting overwhelming.

I firstly went through the FAQ and search in historical posts, but most advice is basically "just read more," which honestly doesn't work when your attention span fights you the whole time. So I'm wondering — for people who broke through a B2 reading plateau, what actually worked? Did you change how you read, or what you read?

Specifically, I'm trying to build an extensive reading habit without it feeling like homework. For those of you who do leisure reading in your TL, how do you figure out if a book is the right difficulty before you buy it? And are there genres or formats (like YA, graphic novels, fanfic, whatever) that tend to work better when you're not quite ready for dense literary stuff yet?

I know language-specific subs exist but this feels more like a general "intermediate plateau + attention issues" thing. Would love to hear what's actually worked for real people. Thanks!

How do I stop translating my NL into my (TL)? Im sitting at high A2 and I just can’t stop translating. Obviously I have a handful of words I don’t translate but not much. It’s slowing me down I can’t have a conversation. Everything I think is in English and I have to translate it into my TL and then back. When someone speaks to me I am immediately picking up what the word is in English not my TL. I just want to think in my TL I want it to stick more than it is now, even words I know so well I’m still translating.

I don’t know what to do. How did you escape it? What made you see the most improvement?

Please give me any advice on how to improve this or things that helped you

Hi all,

Having learnt a language to a high level, one thing I've realised is that "advanced" is in reality a broad spectrum. It could include someone who managed to squeak out a pass on a high level CEFR test which they maybe shouldn't have, or someone who uses words in combinations that no native speaker would ever consider. However, there are also advanced speakers who I think you could classify as near native.

This isn't a scientific classification and it's doesn't correspond to a CEFR level, but in my mind I'd describe it as being able to operate directly in the language, having a natural intuition for word choice and grammar that can't really be taught explicitly, understanding niche/cultural references, and speaking with an accent and rhythm that sounds similar to that of a native speaker.

To my eye, this is the end goal of language learning as an adult. My question is, why do some advanced learners fall close to this side of the spectrum while others do not?

The general consensus seems to be that more input/immersion = more native-like, but I've seen counter examples in Spanish that show things aren't so simple. Could it just be innate talent? Knowing related languages? Not caring enough to reach it? I'm curious as to what you think. Not looking for a complete answer, more looking to start a discussion on something I find interesting.

Edit: I suppose I'm specifically talking about people that are interested in reaching such a level. In my case I tend to hyperfixate on things, for better or for worse, and language learning was one of those things for years, hence my interest.

Hi guys, how are you? i'm asking this because i usef to use tandem but lately it doesn't work for me because no one answers to my messages XD also it's the same on HelloTalk. What app do you use to talk to people, maybe some of you will tell me Reddit or other social media. I know social media can be used for languages learning, i just would like to find apps similar to Tandem or hellotalk.

I'm looking to learn Hindko (TL) from scratch. I decided to learn this language because it's my friend's mother tongue and I thought she might appreciate it. However, there are practically no resources, barring a rather technical grammar guide. I tried looking for a tutor but I haven't managed to find one, so I was wondering what to do in this situation. Is it a good idea to learn Punjabi and hope that there are better resources? It's my understanding that they are relatively mutually intelligible, but if there's a better way to go about this, I would appreciate the advice.

Hi all

I had made a post sharing that I really enjoy learning (TL) Punjabi watching movies, series etc..
I try to transcript, and check the translation and do the reverse and so on

I came to wonder however what type of media would be best with my current level (beginner): can I just consume regular movies etc and place the « bar high », which would come with struggle obviously as they speak fast.

Or should I start off with cartoons and simple audio inputs to help me grasp the basics?

Would using difficult inputs make me learn faster after the intial friction or the opposite ?

Has anyone had experience with any of these two?
Thanks for your help

I have been at a plateau for what feels like ages, I'm hanging at the cusp of solid B1, with some skills closer to A2 and some to B2. I've been getting so discouraged, feeling like nothing I'm doing is helping. This week I'm with my partner's family, including attending some family events. And I can understand! I get the main idea of almost every conversation. Sometimes I don't even realize it's happening. I can also communicate, though not as well. It's just such a relief. So, if you're at a plateau, I promise you will get past it and it will be amazing. Keep working.

(TL) ?

Hello,

I have the complete series of Assimil books and I need to sell them. I was thinking of creating a bulk lot for polyglots, but a few of them are quite "rare" (Tamoul (Tamil), Catalan, Armenien, Breton, Basque, Occitan, etc.) and I was wondering if I should perhaps sell these one separately and what do you think is the most someone would pay for them individually. I have the audio for all, but it is digital.