I had tried to learn some languages using online resources on the net(freely accessible ones tho). Didn’t actually commit to it with a plan.
Curious on how others went about it.
Do mention the resources that you liked/found useful.
Duolingo was mentioned.
But one of the good things about AAA games is that they’re often voiced and captioned in multiple languages.
So, after picking up some basics – give a new player + playthrough of something you’re already familiar with in a new language.
wait I’m not the only one who tried the video game thing? On my second playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn I decided to swap to my target language just because I thought it would be funny, but it’s actually been a kinda nice experience pausing during dialogue, tabbing over to a browser, and then looking up any words i don’t know
Any android/mobile games that you’d recommend?
PC gaming is rare for me nowadays, that too only Supertuxkart.
A quick glance says Stardew valley supports multiple languages – but honestly not sure as I’m usually around a PC.
I’ve been learning Chinese for about 6 months now. The key to learning a language IMO is that you need motivation (ie. a reason to want to learn), and something that immerses you in the language. For me it’s because I started dating a Chinese girl. I learn her language to help ease the communication between us, and to learn more about her culture.
Funnily enough, it started out as me doing the first few Duolingo lessons in secret to impress her between our first and second dates. But as our dates kept going well, I kept doing the lessons in my spare time. I didn’t originally set out to reach a point where I can have a full conversation with her over texting in Chinese, but that’s where we are now. Although to be clear I have to look up the stuff she says to me in my dictionary a lot. But then I can usually respond without needing to translate anything other than maybe some content words. The other day, I actually caught a typo she made and corrected her, which made us both laugh.
I used Dreaming Spanish, which uses natural comprehension and teaches entirely in Spanish, with no translation. It’s not as fast as some alternatives, but it matches my learning style, and has given me a neutral accent when I speak
Human languages or programming languages? (I find it amusing that there’s one comment here assuming the former and one assuming the latter.)
Human languages or programming languages?
Yes.
Actually, the former. But curious to know about both experiences.
For the latter, a good approach is to pick a project or idea and try to make it. If you’re familiar with the logic you can look up the syntax for the new language, but it you’re fresh off the boat then there is a bunch of good stuff on YouTube, Khan academy and stack overflow that are geared to newbies.
Some starting ideas:
- Make a text based tic Tac toe/card game
- Make a number guessing game
- Find all prime numbers under a number given by the user
Once you’ve got a decent grip on the logic involved, it can be quite effective to implement more complex approaches to the solution. Instead of guessing randomly, implement a binomial (1:N divided by 2) search algorithm, or have the game play against itself. Go back over how you wrote the solution, and add some good comments, improve the functions descriptions, even refactor some code to be more efficient and more readable. I learnt how to code through doing, textbooks are great for some people but my preferred approach is to make something, break it, and learn how to fix it.
I haven’t tried it yet but I read in a similar post about Language Transfer.
It’s FOSS and they have an app. The languages are limited in number but most main ones are there (except Italian!).
It’s basically recordings of lessons that you pause and repeat back, which sounds crap but seems to be done really well. The recordings are stored on several platforms for preferred access.
It has a music theory intro as well, which is why I’m sitting on it.
I used Language Transfer to get started on Spanish, and it was incredibly effective. He connects concepts between English and the target languages that help build vocabulary more quickly. He also explains verb forms in a way that makes more sense to me than the actual Spanish classes I took in school. Duolingo, Rosetta Stone, and others like those never cut it for me for some reason.
I’m now reading webcomics and listening to other podcasts in Spanish to get a feel for more natural conversations. I practice speaking Spanish at work with bilingual coworkers, with the goal to be bilingual myself, too!
(A similar teaching style that I found enjoyable and enlightening is the American Sign Language course by Bill Vicars on YouTube and lifeprint.com.)
I started the music theory course and it is very math-heavy at the beginning. It turned me off, but if that’s an interest of yours, it might be a good fit for you! It’s a course that is still in the works, so I’m waiting to see the next edition of it to see if I can connect to it more easily later.
Oh, music theory? How intro is it? I’ve wanted to learn some for some time, enough to maybe understand why my favourite songs work.
I took classes when I was a kid but wasn’t interested, several years later I was really into classical and jazz and I was able to play by ear but it literally takes me a minute to recognize notes on a sheet, nevermind recall notes. Some of the inside baseball stuff might as well be binary, too. Just incomprehensible.
