宇崎ちゃん

Flash cards are meant to be used alongside an actual learning source, not as your only learning source. Same as with mobile apps. Without flash cards, you will forget things easily. Without actual learning materials, you will not come far.

The only thing I don't agree on is "act as a child". I used to believe this was true but in the end, you're an adult. Most things that work for children works for adults too, but some don't. For example, children don't need to rely on flash cards to remember things whereas adults must. This is because children grow up with the language surrounded, whereas adults usually need to take own initiative to surround themselves with the language. And to me, Japanese is one of the easiest one in this aspect. This is because I have my PC and phone (tablet = PC) languages set to Japanese, most of the video games I own are in Japanese, I have collected CoroCoro comics for a half year last year, etc. For Spanish and Russian on the other hand, I will need to re-buy my games (European versions are OK for both), I will need to find sources to buy books (novels or comics) in Russian and Spanish, but anything else is just internet stuff (videos, music, Skype tutoring, news, etc.).

Which is why I like Italki so much. Same profession as with face-to-face teachers, but just with a way lower price per hour (of course depending on where they live, so a teacher in London (UK) would obviously ask more than one in Riyadh (Saudi-Arabia), even though in both cases they teach Arabic).

And I have moved this topic to the Spanish section.

The official Spanish language exam is called "DELE". I didn't try it myself yet, but here you can test your Spanish skills per level. This website offers a full mock exam, including the answers sheet.

I learnt English at school at first, but I never felt like I knew the language based on just school materials. Later on I have applied what I knew on public forums (in English), that's the moment I actually started to learn (and it was the first time I realised I knew English). My grammar was terrible at that time and my vocabulary was limited, but people still managed to understand me if they put effort into it (and if not, they just acted like dickheads).

For most people, paying for lessons is a big motivator. Humans don't want to waste money, they want to spend it so it's worth it. In many cases, the price also indicates the quality to many people. But in many cases, it's all true. I have learnt more Japanese from a professional teacher than from a language exchange. The latter one switched to English a lot and I picked up only 1 new vocab word out of a 30 minute conversation (which was 15 minutes of Japanese and 15 minutes of Dutch). The teacher on the other hand tossed new vocabulary and grammar rules every minute (in the beginning, because the more I spoke, the more I already understood). And in many more cases, it's not true. I have learnt far more C++ in 1 month for free, than I did in 1 year at school (1906 euros a year, paid monthly). This is related to the fact I can take my time when I learn for free, while at school you must focus on whatever the teacher explains to all 80 to 250 students (depending on the course given). Because you didn't understand something? Too bad, the teacher won't sacrifice his time to explain it in-depth! And also, no demo's during class, because there's no time for that.

This part is incorrect. Think of languages like Spanish or German, the Spanish use accents like "é" and "ú" a lot, same goes to the German "ä" and "ö". Of course you can be lazy and decide not to write them down, but that's not always going to happen without consequences. For example in Polish: Zrób mi łaskę. Zrob mi laske. The first one means "do me a favour", while the second one means "do me a blowjob".

Oh? I heard a whole different thing from friends and family. More like "only some Japanese speak (broken) English".

That sounds horrible, considering there are many web trends these days that will make your computer lag a lot. I'm proud I don't use any of these, it's hipster technology any way.

I know, adblocker is very handy for blocking anything unwanted (not just ads). But I sometimes whitelist websites where ads aren't much of a hassle (like this website, which uses only 1 ad per page), and this site has no unwanted pop-ups of any sort. But there are websites that just spam with ads AND annoying pop-ups AND cookie walls, these sites just deserve to be adblock'd.

Just solved most of the problems mentioned above. I just used AdBlock Plus to block all of the annoying banners/walls/pop-ups, making his site a thousand times more pleasant to read! Now I finally feel comfortable reading his website.

I know this blog, I really like his tips and tricks, but I really hate his website. Just open his website and you will be interrupted by: 1. A banner at the top (you can't remove it). 2. A big box begging you to subscribe (you can only minimise it). 3. A whole subscription wall. 4. (In some cases) a dark screen with a pop-up asking one more time to subscribe. It's just annoyance at its best, it's very surprising people seem to come back to his site nonetheless. Speaking of annoying: the comments section use infinite scrolling + "load more" button.

I have heard of Lang-8 before, but not quite used it. However, I gave it a try once and got a correction instantly (it's almost creepy, lol). But I forgot it existed the next day, I dunno why.

I know there are more generic apps like Duolingo and Memrise (the latter one is very helpful), but I don't know any specifically for just Spanish. But you should still use them with caution, apps are never intended to be used as your only study material, they're meant to be used as a learning aid. <B1 learners should use something much more explanatory as their main material, like textbooks, Italki lessons or what I recently started to use: InnovativeLanguage. InnovativeLanguage is the company behind SpanishPod101, JapanesePod101, RussianPod101 and a lot more. Their sites will seem like scam to you at first, but the materials they offer are excellent. InnovativeLanguage has an Android app too, textbooks could have a digital Play Books version or not (it differs from book to book) and Italki doesn't need an app (Italki lessons are most likely being done on Skype).

@Voytek I have a degree, but it's not even a bachelor's one. From my experience here in the Netherlands, I can say that degrees won't help you to find a job, it just fulfils 1 of the many requirements a job may have (ICT-related jobs often don't require a degree, teaching jobs almost always do). Another requirement you may often see is work experience, that's where an infinite loophole begins: You have a degree? Then you don't have any work experience yet. You don't have any work experience yet? Then you most likely have no degree.

There are plenty of Android apps to learn one or multiple language(s), but I can't stress enough the importance to use real world content. Apps are fine for absolute beginners, but once you moved beyond B1 level you should read/listen to the news, product reviews, podcasts, books, comics, etc. in that language while it's NOT a learning material. The main reason is that language learning apps provide simple, unreal sentences. This is OK for people who just start learning a language, but a big no-no for people more advanced like that. And non-learning apps are more commonly available for free too. I say all of this because people often overestimate this, and seeing how you explained your learning process in another topic, I assume your Spanish is already beyond A2 at the very least.

Yeah, and I gave up after just looking at the lesson material. Good thing I had a 14 day money back guarantee, I would have been fucked for 4 years otherwise. Yes, I still have plans to move to Japan, but I'll just stick with my web- or game developer career instead, preferably self-employed.

I was always against studying 2 languages at the same time, but I just picked up Spanish and Russian again and experiment this dual learning thing. If everything turns out successful, I'll learn 2 more languages at the same time (but let's get fluent in Spanish and Russian first, shall I? ).

There are lots of books not being translated into Dutch or Polish, but I don't mind it since I am reading English more often than Dutch and Polish combined on a daily basis any way.

* = "Practice" in American English, "Practise" in British English, so in general both are correct. Welcome.

Where is speaking? Also, shouldn't "watching videos" fit as "listening" too?

Don't practise a few hours straight every day, or you will get tired in a few days. What I do instead is finding any moments I don't do anything, even if that's as short as 2 minutes, and use that time for language learning. It seems very little, but it adds up a lot over time. Practise 30 minutes a day with a native speaker and use stuff like books, videos, music, apps, etc. during the rest of the day. Waiting in a queue in your local supermarket? Apps. Commuting to work by train? Books. Break time during work? Videos. Being at work? Music. Just to name a few examples.

Here you can listen to all of them: http://www.deutschland.fm/ One page; all radio stations, that's the purpose of this series of websites. They have a whole lot more countries listed there and it works like a charm.

My current progress at WaniKani says I know 677 kanji. However, around 30 new kanji get unlocked each week if I'm going through it as quickly as I do now and many kanji I already know aren't within this 677 kanji range, they reside within the other 40 levels I didn't unlock yet (I'm level 20 now and there are 60 levels over there).