Nice! I slowly learned (some) German ~10 years ago but don't live there anymore, so hardly use it. But since I don't want to lose it, I forced myself to use everyday things (phone, laptop, websites, etc) in German as practically as possible, maybe you'll want to give it a try!
I’m about 2 years into a similar journey with Japanese. My wife is Japanese and we are teaching our son the language, so it’s been very valuable for me to know it too, ちょっと (a little bit). At this point, the time I spend on Duolingo each day is quite exhausting. To really absorb the lessons, I have to focus intensely, and it winds up taking away from my productive time rather than replacing down time. It’s been worth it, but it wasn’t something I was expecting when I started.
Hello I learned Hungarian as an adult. I made this account, because I think I may be the only person who reads your substack in the same situation!
I learned it because my father's side is Hungarian, but I unfortunately had no connection with the language growing up, I wanted to change that, so I took formal classes + duolingo, could barely make a sentence after 6 months, so decided to try and seek out language partners, by sheer numbers I found some really nice Hungarians who exchanged English for Hungarian speaking time. Joined a nice Hungarian discord and made friends there, and overtime just learned to participate more and more, and became conversationally fluent. (Happy to share more in private if you are curious)
If I could go back and give tips to myself, I would say to read this every month: https://magyartanulas.github.io/ and just skim it and take more from it each month. The grammar and phonetic system is a blessing that it's purely logical like programming, and I would focus on that more to aid in the complex system that is agglutination.
Sok sikert a tanulashoz! Kivancsi vagyok, hogy mi a helyzett mostanaban a magyar tanulasoddal? Szabad írni vissza ennek a szövegnek magyarul? Ne aggódj, ha nem.
I've been learning German as an adult for 3 years and my best advice is to get an online tutor. Duolingo and other apps are nice and tempting, but nothing beats having the realtime feedback of a native speaker that you're specifically paying to teach you. I think the paying part is important because teaching someone a language can be a very energy consuming task. Furthermore, trying to learn from a partner can be difficult if you're already entrenched in one language (this was my experience :). I've seen people fall into the false productivity trap of Duolingo — their streak is long, but their real world conversational skill isn't great.
Previously, I learned Mandarin Chinese using a combination of Duolingo, but also more importantly going to weekly language exchange meetups since I was too cheap for a tutor :)
Nice! I slowly learned (some) German ~10 years ago but don't live there anymore, so hardly use it. But since I don't want to lose it, I forced myself to use everyday things (phone, laptop, websites, etc) in German as practically as possible, maybe you'll want to give it a try!
That's a great suggestion, thank you! Once I'm able to handle it, I'm gonna try that for sure :)
I’m about 2 years into a similar journey with Japanese. My wife is Japanese and we are teaching our son the language, so it’s been very valuable for me to know it too, ちょっと (a little bit). At this point, the time I spend on Duolingo each day is quite exhausting. To really absorb the lessons, I have to focus intensely, and it winds up taking away from my productive time rather than replacing down time. It’s been worth it, but it wasn’t something I was expecting when I started.
Hello I learned Hungarian as an adult. I made this account, because I think I may be the only person who reads your substack in the same situation!
I learned it because my father's side is Hungarian, but I unfortunately had no connection with the language growing up, I wanted to change that, so I took formal classes + duolingo, could barely make a sentence after 6 months, so decided to try and seek out language partners, by sheer numbers I found some really nice Hungarians who exchanged English for Hungarian speaking time. Joined a nice Hungarian discord and made friends there, and overtime just learned to participate more and more, and became conversationally fluent. (Happy to share more in private if you are curious)
If I could go back and give tips to myself, I would say to read this every month: https://magyartanulas.github.io/ and just skim it and take more from it each month. The grammar and phonetic system is a blessing that it's purely logical like programming, and I would focus on that more to aid in the complex system that is agglutination.
For vocab I would make a new youtube channel and only search and choose Hungarian videos even sooner, and pick out content that interests me. If it's demotivating to understand almost nothing, mix it in with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK2nctSUee8&list=PLvmdJkyGlZRe5jB6hGLiF38bv677eDcRI and https://babadum.com/
Sok sikert a tanulashoz! Kivancsi vagyok, hogy mi a helyzett mostanaban a magyar tanulasoddal? Szabad írni vissza ennek a szövegnek magyarul? Ne aggódj, ha nem.
Üdv: Joey :)
I love Duolingo! Even though I don't use it as my main learning tool, it's an amazing app to acquire some vocabulary and practice on any spare time.
checked out lingq app?
I've been learning German as an adult for 3 years and my best advice is to get an online tutor. Duolingo and other apps are nice and tempting, but nothing beats having the realtime feedback of a native speaker that you're specifically paying to teach you. I think the paying part is important because teaching someone a language can be a very energy consuming task. Furthermore, trying to learn from a partner can be difficult if you're already entrenched in one language (this was my experience :). I've seen people fall into the false productivity trap of Duolingo — their streak is long, but their real world conversational skill isn't great.
Previously, I learned Mandarin Chinese using a combination of Duolingo, but also more importantly going to weekly language exchange meetups since I was too cheap for a tutor :)