My experience: there's a quandary if you avoid face-to-face conversation because your listening comprehension skills aren't very good, because you need conversation and interaction to improve them. In conversation you can read body language and ask for clarity/to slow down/explain things differently. The pressure, heat of the moment etc forces you to really pay attention. It's easy to fall in to a passive listening trap watching movies, listening to songs, etc.
Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
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Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#22If you use subtitles, make sure they are also in Spanish. Also as petecox points out, Spanish varies wildly from country to country, so TV may not be the best, but I wouldn't avoid it entirely -- it's also a good source of cultural knowledge.
I'm personally very distrustful of language learning apps. Some may be better than others, but reading / translation based systems should come after you have a pretty solid conversational fluency.
What you really want is immersion. You need to form relationships in the target language. I'd look for immersion classes or just general meetups in hobbies of your choice. For example, Friday night magic :)
When in doubt listen to as much Spanish as possible.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#23My steps for learning French and Spanish were:
1) 1/2 months nonstop on Duolingo
2) Cartoons/books for kids
3) Spending free time with French/Spanish speakers
(gotta mention that I was lucky because my native language is romance and I lived in both France and Equador)
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#24I combined Pimsleurs, a one year coursebook, spaced reptition and 12 hours of training a day for 3 weeks to learn Mandarin. My listening skills were weak but reading and writing were strong. Got up to about 800 characters and 1300 words. This was enough to get around comfortably in China and add to my vocabulary.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#25I am learning a decent amount but I am struggling to keep up with the speed of locals talking.
You need to develop an ear for it. I have heard that listening to tapes while you sleep can help.
You are also probably being slowed down by translating to English as you listen. You need to learn to understand it without translating it.
One way to work towards that is to transliterate. This is a word for word translation that does not reorder words to create correct (English) grammar.
When I took Greek, we studied the Bible and everyone had an interlinear Bible that had one line of Greek and the English translation of each word below it.
Transliteration can help you get more comfortable with the grammar of the new language and can speed up your mental translation until you are more fluent and can understand the words as meaningful in their own right without translation.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#26Everyone here has some great suggestions but as far as I can see no one has mentioned the Michel Thomas courses. I have found his way of teaching quite smart especially if you speak English. I mostly listened to his course and practiced a bit with Duolingo(didn't find it that helpful but it was ok) before going to Spain, and I have to say Michel helped me a lot in recognising structures and phrases. If you combine it with learning some vocabulary it'd be really good.
But as most seem to say and I have to agree, the best thing to do is find people and speak the language as much as possible (native speakers, tutors, other learners).
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#27In my experience, the more exposure you get and the more variety you have - the easier it becomes to learn. 1) Use apps (Duolingo is my preference) 2) Read grammar books to learn and understand the underlying structures. 3) Read children's books when you have a big enough vocabulary from (1) and then advance to older books as you expand your experience. 4) Listen to media (Netflix, audio books, tv, radio etc). there…
Related to reading children's books - It can be pretty rewarding and educational to actually speak to children.
I moved to Finland two years ago, and I've found my level of language is good enough to communicate with 3-4 year olds. After that they know more words than I do, but still we usually make ourselves understood.
The best thing I've found for my learning is time though, I'm definitely better at hearing the difference between "o" and "ö" now I've lived here for a long time, and heard them spoken. Listening to Finnish (metal!) radio has also helped me out even though most of the vocabulary is unknown to me, just having people speak at "full speed" and hearing it is useful.
Immersion, I guess, is the key.
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#28I've been researching this a lot lately as I have a strong interest in learning Spanish, and came across this method: http://www.jonkenpo.net/method-listening-reading/ Basically you read a book in the language you want to learn, that also has your native language next to it (parallel texts) while _also_ listening to the audiobook in the target language. The original thread it was documented in from an old forum looks…
really neat concept. cheers!
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#29Years ago, I had a French class that used "French in Action". Video lessons were a pretty new thing, then, and it had 52 half hour videos that included a running story that kept the viewer engaged. I found that worked very well for me. I was supposed to learn one college year's worth, over about 7 weeks. Instead, they had to place me into third year French when I was done with that course. (Which, to her discredit, r…
Wonderful! Appreciate the resources and will for sure check out the music :) thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What is the best process to learn a new language?
#30Everyone here has some great suggestions but as far as I can see no one has mentioned the Michel Thomas courses. I have found his way of teaching quite smart especially if you speak English. I mostly listened to his course and practiced a bit with Duolingo(didn't find it that helpful but it was ok) before going to Spain, and I have to say Michel helped me a lot in recognising structures and phrases. If you combine it…
I second the Michel Thomas recommendation. What it gives you is a good ear for more complicated grammatical structures. There's no getting around putting in the work to build your vocabulary, but it really helps bridge the gap between the grammar rules you read in a book and recognizing and using them in conversation.