Tyrell

If I were to learn French, I think it would be because of hobby. Learning French has crossed my mind multiple times, and I see the language itself as 'sexy' and somewhat 'exotic'. But I never actually got myself to learn it yet because I can't see myself using it in the future, and it'd just.. deteriorate, you know? When I learn a new language I also try to take into account how useful it would be for me. Like I wouldn't learn some random African language, because I would never get to use it. And the effort and time I've put into learning the language would just go to waste.

I tried, but it doesn't work with me. I'll admit that it somewhat helps with some of the pronunciation, but not everything else. The reason is because I, like many other people, only learn words that stand out. Kawaii desu ne, senpai, moshi moshi, baka, nani and then some awkward indescribable high-pitched screams and moans. But those common words aside, I know and get practically nothing else.

I think for me the biggest challenge was writing (and understanding) the letters. Being someone who grows up speaking and writing languages with Latin alphabets, it's incredibly hard to suddenly have to write 'symbols' like Japanese letters. "こんにちは、私の名前は〜です".. it just looks incredibly complicated and completely unreadable, at least at first glance. And that demotivates you from learning the language. And it just gets worse from there, because it's barely the hardest thing about Japanese.

Writing is very important when learning a language, especially for me. It's pretty useless when you know how to say words but don't know how to spell them. You'd be like one of those people who don't know the difference between "your" and "you're" & "they're" with "their", a.k.a embarrassing. That aside, I've found that writing helps me learn, it helps the word stick in my brain for some reason. Combine that with listening and you've got yourself the recipe for success.

I'll admit that it can be quite hilarious and entertaining, but only when you actually have a grasp of the language and at least understand the basics already. When you're learning a completely new language though, it's hell. For example, like I mentioned before, I'm learning Spanish, and one of the questions required me to translate "Soy el oso" (or something like that) which translates to "I am the bear". It didn't make any sense and I doubted myself multiple times, like "Is that really the translation?". Because it didn't make any sense whatsoever. Then there was another one which translated to "Your duck is my dinner". I feel like they screw me up really badly, especially when you're taking the shortcut tests where mistakes do matter.

I believe Korean, Chinese and Japanese are all among the hardest languages to learn, especially for native English speakers. Personally I think Korean is the easiest, while Chinese and Japanese are somewhat tied. If I had to pick one as the hardest though, I think I'd say Japanese is the hardest. There's hiragana and katakana and all that jazz and it's just like plain horrible. Chinese pronunciations are far easier because you really just have to follow the tone marks, or whatever they're called. But once you've tackled that I think it only gets easier.

No, it was actually in the last year of middle school, junior high school and the first year of high school. The teacher was absolutely horrible, she really turned me off from learning the language. It's such a shame because I was actually somewhat interested in learning it - in fact, I'm actually of Chinese descent, so it should have been somewhat natural. She's absolutely vile - she shouts at you when you make a mistake, makes fun of you when you fail a test and calls you dumb, etc. And that's only the root of it. She 'teaches' through intimidation and I don't like that everyone in the class had to be plagued with fear every time it was her turn to teach. So I rebelled and practically refused to care. I moved to another school after the first year of high school and the new teacher was far nicer, but it was unfortunately already too late. If only she taught me from the beginning.

For me I mostly read, watch TV series/movies in that language and most recently use apps to learn it (Duolingo is probably the most known option for this - it's mentioned in language learning forums a lot). But all of that aside, I think what really matters is your passion for the language and how intense your desire to learn the language is. You really have to be motivated to learn the language. You have to really want it; have genuine interest. I learned Chinese for at least four years and I still suck at it, because I don't have the passion and drive to learn it. I hated the language (mostly because of the teacher though, she's like the spawn of the devil - vile, vile, vile). So I guess my mind just 'refused' to learn it and I fail at every test. Good times. Praise the lord it's no longer compulsory.

I haven't tried the method, and I don't think it's going to work for me. I've always had a passion for writing but I can't see myself writing a story in a language that I just started learning and/or only know the basics in. I think it's mostly because I prefer writing novels, so having to struggle with grammar and the language in general to write it would shift my attention from the story line way too much, which would result in me being turned off by it. If it works for you though, good for you, keep doing it.

Absolutely. For me personallythough, I lean towards listening to songs and the conversations in movies/TV series for the definition of 'active listening', so not exactly constant repetition. I think constant repetition would work nicely as well though. It's not the way that I prefer, but it's one of the ways I (and I'm pretty sure, many other people) often end up doing without even noticing. I've caught myself repeating a certain word or sentence multiple times to understand it. It's usually only a few times though, maybe like 5-7 times at most. That being said, it just hit me that listening to songs could also fall into the category. If you listen to a song on repeat, you're listening to the same thing over and over again, no? And after a while you just know the words.

It's in German, but no problemo. Google Translate is here to save the day (with it's rather poor translation, but that's okay). I think I would fall into the third category, "3) The third type of learner is the type of reader.".. whatever that means. But I'm assuming it means people who learn best from reading. That's me. I LOVE reading. I learned most if not all of my English from reading comics, novels and random articles on the internet.. oh and urban dictionary. It has saved and taught me more than once. Kudos to that website. Anyway yes, It takes a while, but it's the learning way that I enjoy the most out of all the ways listed in that article.

Indonesian (mother tongue)English - C2Spanish - A1Chinese - A1Malay - B1Dutch - A1I think I'm rather fluent at English. I've been learning and practicing it for years, but there's always room for improvement. I express myself better when I'm typing though, so I still have to work on my speaking English. Plus I love learning new words, and there are still a bunch of English words that I don't know yet. Expanding my vocabulary is my priority for English right now. I just started learning Spanish, so that's an A1. Chinese, I tried to learn it in middle school and junior high school but it never really stuck with me. But I do know the basics (or some of them at least). Plus I know how to learn to ten so that's special. I try to talk to my Malaysian friends in Malay since it's pretty similar to my native language, and they fix it whenever I make a mistake. I never learned it through applications or tests, mostly only spoken and written conversations. Dutch.. my mother's grandmother is half Dutch and she talks to her in Dutch from time to time. My mother has forgotten most of it, but she still remembers some, and she often slips in some Dutch into our conversations, and I've just grown to understand it. I don't know how to write them though. That aside, the Indonesian language borrows A LOT from the Dutch, just sometimes in different spelling. According to the Wiki, it is estimated that 10,000 words in Indonesian language can be traced to the Dutch language.

I literally just started learning Spanish so I'm gonna go ahead and give it a go. Duolingo is probably better though, because you get to translate sentences from English to Spanish and vice versa. So it's not just limited to translating words (paint = pintar / drink = beber / etc). Plus you also get to speak the language, which is another great thing about it. Great app nonetheless though! Will still be checking it out. Can't hurt to try.

When I was younger, I wanted to learn Japanese and Korean. Japanese because I liked anime (cliché, I know) and wanted to study abroad there.. but after a few attempts on learning I just gave up. I realized that I don't have the drive or passion for the language. I just have absolutely no interest in learning it. So I gave up and moved on to the next one, which was Korean. The reason why I wanted to learn it is pretty much the same as the reason why I wanted to learn Japanese, except replace the 'anime' part with K-Pop, so that's cliché number two. I gave up and stopped learning the language for the same exact reason. After that I really just stuck with English - practicing it and improving it. Recently though, I'm starting to be interested in learning Spanish.. and by recent I mean recent. I literally just started learning it a few days ago, and I'm actually enjoying it! I don't know why I want to though. I don't listen to Spanish songs and I have no interest in studying abroad in Spain whatsoever. It's quite sudden. A week ago I had absolutely no interest in learning Spain. Never had the desire to learn it either. I'm the kind of person who can't learn a language unless I'm genuinely interested in it. No matter how much I try, if I don't like the language I just won't get it. Studied Chinese for two years and literally the only thing I can do right now is count to ten.

If you use Duolingo and is a somewhat competitive person, try to use the friends feature. I personally dislike the app, but it's grown on me thanks to the feature. I can be quite competitive from time to time so competition keeps me motivated. If it wasn't for my competitive nature I would have deleted the app days ago. It doesn't have to be Duolingo though, if you can find similar applications or websites that have similar features, I'd say go for it. It really keeps you going.

I read a lot of manga, but I enjoy One Piece the most. If I remember correctly, it's the first manga and anime that I've ever read/watched, so I guess it has a special place in my heart. I haven't touched it in a while though. I couldn't be bothered to wait another week for the new episode, so I just ditched it and told myself that I'd come back later on and binge watch the episodes. I'm currently at episode 600 something. Maybe 642.

Not me. I'm the kind of person who prefers focusing on one language at a time - it's very time consuming, but I'm afraid that learning multiple languages at the same time would just screw everything up and I'd be putting a tremendous amount of effort for an ineffective way of studying, just because I'm trying to save some time. But hats off to those who could.

I'm trying to finish English but it keeps tripping me for no absolute reason with it's unnatural and stupid translations. I could have finished it an hour ago but no, because heavy rain equates to raining cats and dogs for God knows what reason. I'm extremely annoyed with Duolingo at the moment so I'm probably never going to finish a language there. I'll admit that the website has a nice and friendly layout, but whoever is responsible for those translations needs to get fired.

So I just tried it and I have to say that it's rather horrible. The words and translations aren't natural and some doesn't even make any sense - what does 'raining cats and dogs' even mean? I'm having a dreadful time on the website so far as I keep failing my tests because of these mistakes. They also keep using super formal and rare words that nobody uses anymore. Oh and some guy (presumably American or British judging from the username) tried to argue with me about my own language in the discussion section when I complained about one of the translations. I'm rather offended by this website. At least now I know that I wasn't exactly wrong for being pessimistic towards this website.

I've actually always been rather pessimistic about Duolingo for some reason.. but reading the replies in this thread, I'm starting to slightly change my minds. Some of you made it sound really good, so I'm probably going to try it later. Hopefully it's good like you guys described

It took me about two years to fully 'master' (I'm using the term rather loosely here) English. Though, looking back I realize that I wasn't half as good as I thought I was - I wrote several English tweets and Facebook statuses, and they were.. embarrassing, to say the least.

Generally I think horror movies with monsters and gore are far more terrifying than psychological thrillers. The reason is because those horror movie monsters and gore are designed with one intention: to scare you. And these movies tend to rely quite heavily on jump scares, and as cheap as that is, you've got to admit that it's still pretty terrifying. Generally speaking, psychological thrillers are aimed more towards the characters in the movies, and not you. They can be quite terrifying when you watch it, but it doesn't exactly scare you. Though, generally these kind of movies have a longer lasting impact on your mind - so there's that.

I honestly doubt it. Some people, like me, enjoy buying books - as in actual books, not the digital ones. For me, personally, it also applies to other things such as, say, music albums. With iTunes being available in pretty much every country, people have full access to music more than ever. With one or two clicks on your mouse, it'd start downloading and you'd be able to enjoy the music you want in no time. But not for me. I actually prefer going out and buying the music albums. I don't know why - maybe because I'm a collector, or maybe it's just a personal preference.

The traditional way, the one you mentioned in the the opening post: Pick up a book, and read it. It's not really because I prefer the traditional way, but rather because electronic devices tend to hurt my eyes after a prolonged use. I also find audio books pretty weird, and I can't seem to concentrate on anything I'm doing when I'm listening to it because I tend to dive into the stories I'm 'reading'.

Well I learned English through online games. MMORPGs, to be exact. A lot of them relies very heavily on communication (because you have to strategize and organize your party before going through dungeons, and stuff like that - basically planning), so like it or not you're pretty much forced to talk. In my case, whenever I talk to them, I just somewhat 'mimic' them. The way they talk, the way they word what they want to say, their grammar, etc. So I just get better at English every time I talk to them (the people I played with are mostly Americans or British). So you're basically having fun and practicing at the same time.