@arcana@fedi.layer02.net Started up duolingo before enrolling in mandatory spanish class. Duolingo is retarded and will never ever work.

So I did Duolingo and then paired it with German podcasts, music, and slow speaking videos (weather & news) That combined helped me learn a lot of German, but not having anyone to practice with made me give up 🫠 I also watched anime in German but it was too fast for me to understand.

@madison@nicecrew.digital @arcana@fedi.layer02.net @Hyperhidrosis@shitposter.world So I understand something to the effect you described is the best way to go about it. Your brain will do all the hard work decoding the language with enough exposure, something like duolingo or preferably an Anki deck just acting as supplementary learning to help piece together things you've figured out naturally into context you understand.

Do you study any languages? I'd love to master many languages someday. I know a fair amount of Spanish, my grandfather is Spanish so he speaks it as his first language. But he never taught my father because he's American

@madison@nicecrew.digital @arcana@fedi.layer02.net @Hyperhidrosis@shitposter.world All I have is a 3 year old's understanding of Japanese and Korean (I was in Korea for a couple years). I at best can follow what is happening at a basic level in a clip without subtitles but not enough to clarify specifics or even really read anything. Learning a language is hard and the asian languages are doubly so for the fact of their structure being different from english. Knowing what I've learned about picking up a language, I might try and get a hold on spanish again. Would actually be useful on a day to day level unlike the ones I'm basically learning as a hobby lol.

I spent two months in Japan and leading up to that trip I studied Japanese using the Rosetta stone. It didn't really help me learn the language, and I also half assed it so I'm sure that didn't help. The little I learned I was too embarrassed to speak so I just told everyone thank you and such. Do you watch children's shows and such to help you with understanding? Or I guess reinforcing it? I used my Spanish a lot when I lived in Arizona and worked fast food as a teen. So many people came in only speaking Spanish! But it's been 10 years since then.

@madison@nicecrew.digital @arcana@fedi.layer02.net @Hyperhidrosis@shitposter.world Childrens shows are good, but you should also be fine with watching anything remotely slice of life or sit comm esc, since they generally talk about simple concepts related to what the characters have physically going on around them. The way I understand as the best way to watch episodes with intention to learn the language from them is to do it once with subtitles to have a solid context for what is happening in the episode, and then you watch it again without it to force yourself to at least try and parse the language at a basic level. From there you can add it to a list of things to put on as background noise to let your brain run over it again as a refresh of the words and phrases used in it. Paired with whatever flavor of review site you're using, things like Duolingo, those BNR Language Apps, an Anki Flashcard Deck which is probably what you should use, you work to slowly convert things you've worked out through passive comprehension into something more concrete which reinforces it and makes it easier to catch and understand in later exposure.

@suquili@poa.st @arcana@fedi.layer02.net @madison@nicecrew.digital @Hyperhidrosis@shitposter.world I now work in a somewhat customer facing position so being able to learn spanish would probably reduce some of my stress at work involving dealing with customers. Also if you want to learn more reasonable japanese then like I said watch more sitcom esc live shows. You'll pick up more natural sounding japanese there.

When I was in Japan my husband was working during the day so I hung out in the hotel room and watched Japanese television. Weird ass game shows, I bet if I paid better attention it would have been helpful in my learning 😂