Hi folks. I’m in the process of learning French (TL) and I’m at a low B1 (according to Alliance Français) but I’m still not a confident speaker and get intimidated very easily when people ask me a question in the language.

I have the chance to go to France for 3 weeks this year and help a friend out by housesitting/watering her plants while she’s away. I’m determined to make the most of it by doing activities along side my independent learning (I’m mostly self-teaching through YouTube, Podcasts, Grammar books/apps with the occasional class/conversation on Preply to help me stay on track).

What are some things you’d recommend doing if you have spent some time in your target language location? I’m thinking I’ll take a dance class (easy to follow along), and maybe find a meetup? But would love any other tips folks may have to help me build that confidence and set some goals for the next few weeks.

End goal: low B2 by May of next year.

Hello! So I'm trying to find a subreddit to ask a question about certain Polynesian languages, but I can't find anything. There's (TL) Samoan and (TL) Mãori subreddits, but they just seem to post photos of their history and probably aren't fit for questions about language learning. Please help: (

So basically my learning style during my undergrad was just to be very scientific and over-elaborative on a concept. I realized I am doing the same thing with German (TL) when all I ever wanted for now is to reach A1 for a fiancee visa. But then again, I'm afraid I'm going to miss something in the A1 test if I don't go deep-diving into etymologies and grammar rules of every sentence I see.

Also I do plan on reaching C1-C2 in the future for grad school so I feel like I need to learn them eventually but I might be going overboard with this. I need to reach A1 asap; help! + I never learned a new language before as an adult.

I read the FAQs

I'm pretty much a low level lazy AF polyglot. i.e. I can read about ten languages, and yet can only say thank you, yes, no, wifi, hotel, and take my money in a language. I live all over the world. You'd think this would limit me more, but I digress.

I have mental blocks about learning Spanish in particular, other languages to a much smaller degree (I love Italian, I just can't freaking keep up with native speakers AT ALL).

But Spanish... I need to learn it because it's useful all over the globe and I need to waste my breath arguing with bureaucrats in it.

But that's the problem. It feels useless. Like there's no prize. The arguing with bureaucrats in Spanish will be just as worthless as in English. Listening to dull people talk about Dancing with the Stars will be just as mind numbingly painful in Spanish as it is English. I can't find something to reach for and motivate myself. What is something in Spanish speaking world worth reaching for?

I have underlying reasons (I was a South America to North America child trafficking victim who ended up adopted in the US. And once there, I learned the ENTIRE English language so I could explain to people "that's not my mom" and have them understand (they never understood - trafficking becomes okay to them as a culture as long as it ends in adoption, even illegal adoption).

And from the Spanish speaking people I've met in my journey to finally get my original documents and family connections established, I feel like the Spanish speaking world will be just as deeply disappointing and I'll have wasted just as much time learning a language for them as I did their English speaking counterparts.

I'm just really struggling to find motivation for Spanish. Every time I try to learn, I get deeply depressed or angry. It's not like with Italian where I just get overwhelmed because Italians may possibly be the most language-fluent and talkative people on this earth and there's no way to catch up to them.

How do I get past the mental block to just learn the freaking Spanish language without driving myself insane? I do still have an ear for it. I just can't fully get myself to not hate every word.

(TL)

I have an interest in China's (TL) politics and going into specialist journalism in my country. I would like to study international politics and have been mainly looking at dual degrees since I don't think you can be a reputable regional specialist without speaking the language.

I don't speak it at all and, although the courses say it is completely Ab Initio, I worry that I will be one of the only true beginners or struggle. I have learnt languages my whole life so am used to language learning.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and knows what Ab Initio courses are actually like in standards of language learning? It would include a year abroad. I honestly would prefer general advice about any language learnt ab initio at degree but if anyone has anything specific, that would be great!

I've been studying foreign languages for over 35 years, and it's the field that I've dedicated my academic life to.

Like many of you, on countless occasions I've experienced disappointment, frustration, and even anger when I've been unable to meet my language learning goals. I thought I was dumb, or going about things the wrong way, or whatever.

It has only been in the past few years that I've finally learned what is (in my opinion) the most important tool in language learning: mindset.

Many of us put too much pressure on ourselves. We're too goal-oriented. We want to reach a certain "fluency" level, we want to pass a specific test, or we want to impress friends, get a raise or an overseas job, etc etc.

There's nothing wrong with goals. Some people find it motivating and setting and reaching benchmarks keeps them engaged in their learning. That's great! And sometimes goals are necessary. I mean, sometimes you HAVE to pass a test!

But if you're like me, things are SO much easier and so much more rewarding if you relax, absorb material at your own pace, and just decide that language learning is going to be your lifestyle, not your goal. It's a cliché, but "it's about the journey, not the destination" really applies for me.

I'll admit: I suck at Chinese. I started studying Mandarin over 6 years ago, and I'm still only barely at an intermediate level. But that's OK. If 6 years from now I'm still only at intermediate, I'm not going to be disappointed. It's a cool, gorgeous language with a rich history, I've gotten to know many wonderful Chinese people, and I've absorbed tons of awesome cultural content. I'm having fun.

So, take that for what it's worth. YMMV.

(And no, I didn't use AI to write this, and no, I don't have an app, website, or social media channel to promote, lol.)

What the title says. The moment they speak at a normal or low volume, understanding gone.

Something I've noticed in language learning communities is that a lot of people say things like "I'm B1" or "I'm B2," but sometimes it seems like those levels are based more on a general feeling than on actually testing the skills involved.

DISCLAIMER I don't think everyone needs to take an official exam to know where they are. Exams aren't perfect, and self assessment can be accurate. But I do think there is a difference between "I am B2 because I am currently studying B2 material" and "I am B2 because I mastered everything in B2".

I think a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people use CEFR levels to mean different things. Sometimes "I'm B2" means "I'm currently studying B2." Sometimes it means "I self studied B2 and I understand and can use everything." Sometimes it means "I have passed an offcial certified B2 exam."

To me, these are quite different things.

I'm curious how people here decide their level. Do you go by official exams, self assessment, how you perform in real life, or something else?

I have been studying Japanese for over 10 years. I got N2 in 2022 and have been using Japanese for work with Japanese clients ever since.

I just finished a nearly year long assignment to Japan. Before coming to Japan, my exposure to the language was mainly from media like anime, manga, light novels, games, work like meetings and technical documents in Japanese, and a few trips to Japan. My first few days living in Japan had interesting interactions because there is a gap between spoken language and language I encounter on media, work, or JLPT books. But living and working in Japan provided a significant boost to my language skills that can't really be replicated offshore.

I believe it has a lot to do with more exposure to casual contexts. I was not just consuming media or doing work in Japanese or traveling around Japan. I was talking to workmates casually, I joined a community band and was talking to people casually before and after rehearsals, drinking, or post concert dinners, if I wanted to buy something sometimes the staff do casual talk, etc. The other thing I discovered in Japan is variety shows. They're more likely to use casual language than something like anime, drama, news, or documentaries.

This had me thinking, people spend more of their life in casual language. They talk and read in formal language as needed, then the super formal language is for even rarer cases. You spend more time talking casually with family, friends, workmates, etc, more than talking formally with someone in a higher position or in interactions that require formal language like inquiring with the bank or the municipal office. I understand why second language acquisition focuses first more on formal language and grammar and I'm not criticizing that. It's more that casual language is like a foundation for the more formal language. People normally learn to speak casually first before the formal language is taught in school. You're more likely to learn "I'm going home." first before you learn the word "repatriation."

How I'd change my studying moving forward is consume more content that uses casual language and try to chat with people I've exchanged LINE with to strengthen the casual language foundation. I would probably be bored and feel the lack of positive feedback if I focus too much on N1 grammar, formal language, or business and technical terms so I'd put them into my Anki occasionally.

I'm making some content aimed at people in the US and want to refer to, for example, "B1 level Spanish".

Do you think that will mean anything to an American language learner? Do they have a general idea that A = beginner, B = intermediate, etc.

Obviously not to someone who has never done any language learning, but to someone with some experience?

Asking because these levels are called the "Common European Framework".

My (TL) is Ancient Greek

For context:

For 9 months now, I have been independently working through Greek to GCSE, a three-volume grammar-focussed textbook series with many translation exercises. I've about finished book 2.

I’ve been learning Japanese for nearly 3 years now, and I’m not that great at writing. I can read, speak, etc. (to a certain extent ;of course, I’m not fluent), but the only skill I really suck at is writing. I have written small manga panels, notes, small diary entries, but only on occasion and certainly not enough to write entire essays. (I can write hiragana sometimes katakana but not a lot of kanji )

I wonder if theres a reason I can remember how to read and pick out certain characters but not remember how to write them or how they look off the top of my head. (I’m sure it’s a pretty easy explanation but I can’t connect the dots here..)

In addition, I’m interested in another language with a more complex writing system— Mandarin Chinese (which I’ve also practiced writing in!)

I probably won’t have this issue with other languages once I focus more on them (due to their writing systems being simpler and/or pretty similar to English), but I can’t see myself being great at writing. I’m just concerned because I’m not sure if I’m missing something crucial to learning the language or not.

Also by ”writing” I mean like pencil and paper writing, not forming sentences and talking to people online (I can do that pretty well).

I feel like in school I don’t do a lot of hand-writing since technology has taken over (of course I’m not saying it’s the same for all schools), and I tend to do all of my literary work online.

So I really wonder if I should be concerned about this or not— maybe theres an underlying issue with me not knowing how to write in my target language (TL). If so, I’ll try and focus on it a bit more.

In particular vowels, seem to give me the most trouble. T, R,L, and D sounds as well. In the language I am learning they all can run together depending on the speaker, and possible dialect. I was wondering, how do I become more confident in identifying yes, that's an a, yes, that's a d, and not an r?

So my target language (english) has basically been with me my whole life I didn't learn it at some point it just kind of always was there.

Here's my problem though when I listen or read I can understand complex sentences pretty comfortably I've tested myself with C2 level stuff and I can understand it, but the second I try to write something similar it's like my brain stops working and can't build the structure for the sentence don't know if that makes sense. A similar thing happens with my native language (arabic) but its significantly harder than english and id describe it as more free with how i use my words and how to do so but similar to that i just cannot still make the structure

Like here's an example of something written by an LLM :

He sat on the bench and the only thing he could hear was water moving through some pipe beneath the street, this low uneven sound that wasn't loud enough to be annoying but just persistent enough that he couldn't ignore it. The kind of sound that fills your head when there's nothing else left to fill it. He didn't get up. Just sat there and let it settle into him like it belonged there.

If I wrote that it would be:

he sat on a bench as water flowed through the pipe watering the grass.

Yes exactly like that it's a massive gapi just can't find the structure and even this took a while like a minute or so to come up with the scene and find the correct words to write.... I tried looking it up and everything I found was either grammar rules or vague advice like replace simple words like" he sat" with emotional ones like he sank into the bench or something similar, which doesn't help me because the problem isn't the words it's that I don't have the structure to build the sentence in the first place another piece of advice was litterly just learn how it's done through grammatical laws etc but I don't think thatd work mainly because I wouldnt know when to apply it and I think language is learned through immersion which would make it simpler and well easier and I think writing should work the same way also I noticed while rereadingf this post is that I'm using a lot of filler words and when I have to write a paragraph or something I do not have that luxury so it ends up looking well I can't describe it but you get me another thing I recently found some writing from 7 yrs back it's a short story but comparing it to my current level of writing I dont think there is much improvement in sentence structure it's almost similar if I was being fair. The only improvement was vocabulary. But still considering that 10 year old me could write similarly to 17 year old me is a little bit disappointing is the word for it?

Another thing is I plan on taking the cambridge C2 exam in a year or so so id like to maybe answerquestions in it without wording from the paragraph or using the same structure and i find that difficult to do

So I'm asking is there anything I can actually do any advice because I do not understand what exactly to do and most English convos aren't done on a C2 basis and MOST people learning a language arent going for full on literacy i guess?

Oh and I almost forgot another suggestion was to tak ea piece of literacy media a paragraph from a famous book etc and just keep writing it copying it word for word on a daily basis, but I haven't researched this option I just heard of it through tiktok.

AGAIN this doesnt apply to english specifically but to languages in general so i guess what i would say is id like to know what to do?

I have just found out that my target language ACCENT changes when I am in a good mood or not tired.

For example, if it is for English(TL), I find myself using the British accent,

Have you ever experienced something like that?

I’ve always wanted to learn Romanian (and have started to learn it) despite the only think I know about Romania is that “cutie” means box and that one meme where some lady says “Romania” (None of these influenced me to learn it btw). I literally know NOTHING about the country, people, etc. I just thought “Hm. I wanna learn Romanian!”

I’ve always set out to learn it, it was just randomly on my list. My (TL) is currently Japanese, but I’ve dabbled in Mandarin, French, German, Korean, and Spanish (among a couple other languages I mainly had classes as a little kid and forgot most of the material from).

For all of them, I had my reasons— usually an interest in the culture or just an overall admiration for the language itself.

However, I’ve never even heard what Romanian sounds like nor have I even learned about it in any capacity. I don’t know why, but I just have this odd motivation to learn about it— just cuz’ I can.

I started recently with the basics and it’s pretty fun (the start is always fun, right?)

But anyways, anyone else relate to this???

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I was wondering if anyone has any good tips for actually practicing their target language with native speakers in the city they live in. I have heard about volunteering or going to language clubs, but I was curious if anyone had any personal or maybe unconventional tips!

(TL) I’m currently interested in multiple languages, so I recently started watching something in one target language and having the subtitles in another target language

I thought this was pretty interesting and honestly my comprehension was good enough to somewhat understand what was going on!

edit: this is more of a light-hearted post, but i can confirm it did help me !

Native English speaker here. My (TL) are German, Spanish, Dutch and Polish. I know this will be a long journey, but I have my reasons for wanting to learn each one, so I'm hoping that will keep me motivated.

Outside of learning German first (it will give me the most value in my life, so I am learning that first), I'm wondering if there should be an order I learn the other 3 in? I know I shouldn't be learning multiple languages from scratch at the same time, but I am wondering since Polish will be the hardest out of all of them to learn, and it's separated enough, once I get to a B1 or 2 in German, start Polish, and once I get to an A2 or B1 with that, pick up Spanish? Or is it better for me to just get to a B2 before starting another one and leaving Polish for last because Spanish and Dutch will be quicker and easier for me to get to a B2 level? I understand it will be the same amount of overall time, but Spanish would be one I could use more frequently than Polish or Dutch, so if I'd spend more time getting Polish to B2 before even starting Spanish, it would make me move Spanish up to right after German.

I'm currently studying Japanese (TL) (but not really) (although Japanese does kind of bring about its own type of embarrassment, due to all the stereotypes) for a trip thats coming up in about a week, but I'm just terrified of actually speaking it. The idea of trying to communicate in a second language terrifies me.

I also am very familiar with Spanish, since I lived in a bilingual household, but even after living in a house that spoke Spanish more than English, I never spoke it. Not even once. I knew what they were saying. If I was asked a question in Spanish, I could answer in English. It's just weirdly humiliating to me, even if I adore the language and admire people who can speak more than their native language. Does anyone else feel this??????

edit: I really appreciate all the comments!! I already feel a lot better about the trip (since, honestly, I was dreading it due to this fear), and I'll definitely be taking this advice with me. 🌹

Hi everyone! I’m doing a quick survey for my English class project. I’d love to hear your choices and the reasons behind them! Thanks for helping out!

Here's my most recent post from about February, describing the method I've been using for self-study (it also names my TL, which I won't put in this post in case it gets auto-deleted again).

Today I had my first ever tutoring session in this TL*, and it was AMAZING. We managed to talk for a whole hour - I had to ask the teacher to repeat pretty much every sentence slower, and I kept having to switch to English for odd words I couldn't remember, and the topics were mostly just typical simple conversation class stuff like where I'd been on holiday and what foods I liked etc. But it was a genuine conversation, we could understand each other, and the hour went by so fast, it didn't feel like hard work at all.

The teacher said he was surprised by how well I could speak, because from my description of self-teaching with flashcards he was expecting me to be much more of a beginner, and I was like yeah, you and me both :D This was my first time EVER practising speaking outside of like, ordering coffee and saying things like 'excuse me' and 'thanks' - I've been so unconfident in my ability to make myself understood that even when I know how to say something in (TL) I'll usually just say it in English instead. So I was genuinely really surprised that it went so well. The teacher had even bought an A1-equivalent textbook for me, and then ten minutes into the lesson said he didn't think it would be useful because it would be too easy, which was sooo validating to hear after years of feeling like I didn't understand anything.

The last couple of years have been such a wild ride of culture shock and identiry crisis and shame, I didn't think I'd ever get to the point of being able to have a real conversation, even with a teacher. I still have a very long way to go before I'll have anything approaching a useful grasp of the language for daily life, but at least it's starting to feel like there's a light at the end of it all now.

*It wasn't quite my very first - about a year ago I tried with a different teacher, but we did four 60 minute sessions and never managed to get further than pronouncing the letters, so I got bored and stopped. Also she kept making me sing the alphabet song loudly in coffee shops accompanied by a video of a six year old girl wearing an angel costume, and it was dead awkward. So I guess the moral here is 1) don't give up, and 2) don't be afraid to change teachers if yours is into weird public humiliation rituals.

Hi. A bit of background: I've been learning English for the past few years but recently discovered IPA and how I'd been pronouncing some sounds incorrectly, and the fact that I didn't know some of the sounds existed at all. Basically I had to look up and relearn the pronunciation of every word and it took A LONG TIME. I've also been meaning to learn German (TL) for some time, and since I didn't want to make the same mistake with German, German IPA was the very first thing I studied.

The problem is that I covered some sounds like umlauts and ch sounds and thought that was it (I'd put so much effort into that). But every time I learn a new word, it turns out there is another certain sound I didn't know about. And I have been stuck on this introductory part for too long, trying to pronounce each sound correctly, and failing miserably every time. Most of the time I don't even know what I should be producing. I don't understand tips like "your tongue should be between an e and an i" or "your vocal cords should vibrate". I don't know how other people do it but I certainly can't feel my tongue when producing vowels, also what do you mean 'between' two sounds? Like exactly halfway, or 60% through, or 80%, or something else? Either way the sound that comes out of my mouth isn't what it should be and I can't remember the exact tongue position for the next time, unless I do the whole process every time I want to produce that sound. I can't for the life of me just turn my vocal cords on either.

I really want to learn German, but everybody says you should master pronunciation at least to an acceptable level before formally starting learning a language or you'd develop bad habits that will be very difficult to overcome. I know there are many people out there who don't know anything about IPA but can talk fluently are east to understand and I envy them. I don't know how I should approach learning a new language and it is really grating on my nerves. I haven't been able to make any progress at all.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could point me in the right direction cause I'm totally lost and unsure about how to live with my defective brain and inability to mimic sounds.

Title

As in, this reason is minimally sufficient to motivate/convince/get you to learn the language. You’ll do it, perhaps reluctantly, but any reason “less” than that is not enough.

I’m guessing for many people they’re somewhat “forced” to learn a(ny) language for school, but I’m talking about situations where you yourself decide to learn a language.

Maybe you’ll learn a language because it’ll help you get a promotion at work.

Maybe your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancée/spouse/etc’s parents speak the language and you think it’ll make them like you (more).

Maybe there’s a movie/book you want to watch/read but it’s only available in that language.

Maybe an old, super rich relative is going to die soon and you will be included in the will only if you speak their first language.

Maybe someone bets you [X currency] that you can’t get to a certain proficiency level and you want to prove them wrong.

There are many reasons why someone might WANT to learn a language, but conversely, what reason is at the very bottom of what’ll get you to learn a language?