宇崎ちゃん

I had a pretty broad schedule during the summer holidays, so I could make lots of hours every week during that period of time on learning Japanese. But I went back to work this week and I'll get some training in Maya, Unity and GarageBand from next week on, so I feared my schedule would be tighter than ever. Fortunately, it's still manageable. I've put my job to every 9:00 to 12:00 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I've put my training to every 14:00 to 17:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (2 subjects a day, all 3 subjects are given an equal twice a week). Language learning goes to every 19:00 to 22:00 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Learning Kanji goes to whenever reviews are available. Then my Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays can be used to take a rest (like playing a video game, or going to a pub while I still can (hint hint: summer is almost over)).

Split this post to a separate topic. If your post has absolutely no relevance to the topic, please create a new topic.

My reasons differ per language. I learnt English to communicate with the world (initially because it was yet another subject at school, but there's so much more you can do with English alone that what you can do with Polish and Dutch combined). I learnt Japanese initially to understand in-game text, but now also because I want to live and work in Japan. I learnt German because I thought I could use it on certain internet forums, but ended up not using it at all and my German skills have dropped horribly. I also tried to learn Spanish, Chinese and Russian, but I lacked motivation for all 3 of those.

Frisian is the closest you can get to English, since English and Frisian share a common root called "Anglo-Frisian". However, it's not the most useful language to learn, since it's exclusively spoken in the northern-most part of the Netherlands, south-western Denmark and somewhere near Hamburg in Germany. And in each 3 regions, the national language is preferred any way.

I don't know what Dualingos is, but if you only do Duolingo, you'll most likely complete the course with just a foundation of the Spanish language. Watching movies and/or listening to podcasts alone could make you more fluent in listening, but you'll lack all the other fundamental skills. Speaking alone will yet again make you only fluent in speaking. So in all 3 cases, doing just 1 thing is not enough. I recommend you to check out Olly's guide on how to do all of this, his guide is the most realistic and effective one I could find: http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/best-way-to-learn-spanish-on-your-own/

Not really @babelle, my country is one of the most powerful and riches countries of Europe economically and we still focus on English a lot. 90% of the people in the Netherlands are fluent in English, we even use certain words from English in our vocabulary to (optionally) replace the original Dutch words. Like to describe video games, we do say "spelletjes" occasionally, but "games" is far more commonly used. Or "tijdschrift", which is commonly replaced with "magazine".

I prefer learning independently in all possible ways. Of course I do take a language teacher in the beginning, but I never do it in a classroom, I do it in front of my own workspace. When learning independently, I learn much faster, I learn what's relevant to me, I can even request my teacher(s) to work on my weak points rather than working on whatever they offer at the moment. So do I want to train vocabulary? Grammar? Alphabet? Pronunciation? Listening? Reading? Writing? Speaking? I choose whatever I feel I need to improve most on.

Well said, although I would rather talk to anyone than to anything. Unlike an actual human being, an object can't correct your mistakes.

Heh, it's the exact opposite for me. To me Kanji readings are straightforward and Japanese grammar is a pain in the arse.

@fcuco What do you mean exactly by "region"? It was mistakenly only released in Europe and Australia due to a miscommunication with Nintendo of America. I'll make sure it'll be released in America after I get back home. Game footage: you can find some on YouTube, I highly recommend this one, since it represents the final version: No, there is no demo of this game. I did demo the prototypes on game events in the Netherlands before however. No, stylus is not needed. The only touch controls exist in the menu. Accelerometre is not used.

Not to discourage you, but exams don't exactly indicate your actual language level. They are however useful if you want to work, study or live in a country or company that requires it, but other than that they have no actual meaning. I know people who passed the Dutch test on C2, and I still barely understand a word of what they're trying to say. I've done N4 on Japanese and I passed it, now I'm aiming for N2. But I didn't do JLPT because I want to know how proficient I am with Japanese, it's because I want to work in Japan in the future.

Dutch localised games are on the rise these days, and they always make me feel embarrassed by the way they got translated from English. Where the same name, word, sentence, etc. sounds obvious or cool in English, the Dutch version tends to sound very vague or childish way too often.

Automatic translation tools are never accurate and never will be. It works OK with sentences like "This is a tree", but it will always fail with idioms, poems, normal longer sentences and features the target language lacks.

The worst thing is that the Spaniards eat too much. The worst people are Spaniards. So neither of the 2 you said were correct.

I merged it with an already existing topic. Edit: Forgive me, I thought both sites were the same thing. Sorry.

I moved it to the correct category.

Creating videos of you learning is a great way to motivate yourself. I tried it myself before, but ended up not uploading because of embarrassment.

The second one is "best fit", as it's written in my previous post. Because I thought you wanted a translation of that one too?

First of all, our condolences for your tragic loss. I lost my father 5 years ago, so I know exactly how it feels. I'm in no way fluent in Chinese, but I am decently fluent in Japanese myself. But I will reply any way, since chances are that whatever I will write down in Japanese may apply for Chinese as well (except for some simplifications in the characters and radical changes in pronunciation). For truely Chinese characters, I would ask @linguaholic to come over here, he's fluent in Chinese and he owns this place. Forgiveness: 勘弁 Literally: "intuition value", could also mean "pardon" and "forbearance". Best fit: 一番適当 Literally: "number 1 suitable" I hope this is at least something and good luck. Just to remind you: Chinese and Japanese are quite a bit different, I gave you characters based on Japanese. Things may either mean something different in Chinese, or certain characters may not be readable by Chinese people. But then again, I'm not a fluent Chinese speaker.

We could as well have moved your topic to that section, in case you didn't know. So I'll lock this one and let's continue here:

Since way too many people failed to understand the purpose of this topic, I have edited the first post with a very clear notice at the beginning. People who still fail to understand it should buy me some cake from now on.

The use of TV, comics, online news, radio, songs and whatnot all serve as awesome learning tools, but don't use those during your core study time, use those to fill up your non-learning hours instead. As for your learning hours, use a textbook and plan Skype sessions with real online teachers from Italki (yes that's internet-based, but it's still 1000 times better than offline classrooms).

It's as relevant to language learning as this topic is really. I'm using C# inside Unity for New 3DS, it does work on a regular 3DS too, but it's very laggy (and therefore unplayable at a number of points). That's the reason why I decided to make it for New 3DS only. I don't have a full capture unit for New 3DS, so it'll be difficult to make some video gameplay right now. I do have a video somewhere made with my mobile phone though.

Name 1 app that teaches you grammar AND works. As far as I've seen, they're all focused towards vocabulary only. If an app teaches you grammar, it's either bad or with no explanation.

Short answer: no. Long answer: it's only good if you use Duolingo as an aid to your main learning tool (whether it's a textbook, Italki lesson or something else that goes deep into a language). You can't rely on Duolingo alone, it'll give you out of context sentences a lot and only teaches you vocabulary up to lower-intermediate level. I know enough people who used Duolingo in the past, most of them still can't speak their target language, only some managed to learn the language. The reason: those who failed used Duolingo exclusively, while those who succeeded used Duolingo along with a bunch of other tools and aids.