Engrish, Polish and French. I do watch movies in other languages. I stopped watching Hollyweird a while back.
By the way, learning multiple languages is very racist. Just so you know.
Listening to music worked for me. I know inglush and frog.
I have a mate at work who also speaks frog so we kind of speak it together for shits and giggles.
Wouldn't say we are super fluent but know enough to hold a light conversation.
Maybe get your Mrs (if you have one) to learn it too so can talk to each other in it
ribbit ribbit my maximally melanin-ed friend
Use ChatGPT to practice. On demand any language helper/tutor.
that is a great idea!
Native English, high level in French and Korean, basics in Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese.
Reading is the best way to retain unless you live in an area where the language is used. These days, there's always a way to get an ebook in the original language. If you're low on cash, LingQ likely has free reading sources for your language.
"Pen pals" always fall away so I've learned not to rely on that. Otherwise you'll be starting over with new people too often, which is a pain.
I just dig into speaking and reading on day 1. I don't like virtually any learning apps including Duolingo and Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur is good to land in a country walking with usable language and accent, but doesn't get you to an intermediate level you're talking about. Ideally the best way is to talk with someone every day or so, trying to use what you learn over and over and not relying on notes (they quickly become a crutch, though grammar explanations are fine). If you have the sense for it, use a movie that doesn't have "screenplay" dialogue and watch it bit by bit until you learned everything and then you got it for listening practice if you want.
I attempted to learn two languages before learning the saxophone. It was an incredible effort done almost entirely academic. I could read and write and speak plenty however it was like machine often working incredibly slowly, in particular for sentence formation.
When I learned the saxophone I realized how similar learning an instrument and language are. Really they are exactly the same. You’re ear training for sound. Learning sound phrases. I learned you learn by practicing it and I’m absolutely sure learning a language is the same.
You don’t learn an instrument academically although it does set the foundation for actually learning it through practice.
I have now had a near 1.5 year break from playing the saxophone after getting very good at it for two years. After getting back into it you’d think I’d be rusty. Although I’ve forgotten memorized songs my ability to play after just a few sessions of tarnish polishing has put me in a place questionably better than I left off.
Just stick to live real practicing of the language and try to move from needing to be perfect and practicing with people who won’t practice with you unless you’re perfect. Get some raggedy people to practice with.
need me some of them raggedy folks
Native English and studied four others over a spectrum of methods and timeframes. Most fluent in Spanish though. Have studied Irish Gaelic, German, and Japanese. Methods have included years of school (including immersion classes), Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, and Pimsleur.
If you don't need to read/write then Pimsleur is superb.
I want to learn Russian and Lithuanian - the latter has one of the longest histories of any language!
I like learning languages because it demands discipline and keeps the mind flexible/growing - anti-aging...
I did the first few lessons of Pimsleur Mandarin and thought it was kind of funny that it was basically about how to pick up a Chinese girl. I even still remember most of the phrases years later despite only using them once irl, so it's effective I give it that.
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