I Learned French in 12 Months • Hacker News Board

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#11

Post by dbancajas » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

Cheyana wrote: post #7

Part of me is disappointed that there’s no link to the article in French. :(

Isn't the intended audience of the article non-french speakers? So he writes it in a "universal" language so you could apply it on "how to learn in 12 months" where X is your non-native tongue.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#12

Post by imtringued » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

Honestly learning french was incredibly easy when I did it in school. I just was too lazy to actually put in the effort. To learn vocabulary all I did was write down the french word and based on that say the translated word and then do the opposite. That's it. It just stuck in my head. Then when I decided to use Anki I added 350 words it didn't even take me a week to learn them. It was so incredibly easy that I just did 150 words per day. I can't say the same about Asian languages. Those refuse to stick even at a moderate pace of 30 words per day.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#13

Post by burlesona » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

I find the timeline believable but I’m impressed (and happy!) to see this worked with self-study. I lived abroad for a while and found I was able to pick up the local language pretty quickly because I was fully immersed in it, by 6 mo. I was comfortably conversational for day to day things. However, I would also caution for anyone wanting to learn a language at home, it’s a muscle and it does fade when you don’t use it. After a decade back in the states I’ve lost the majority of the language I learned since there’s no one around to use it with.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#14

Post by 38911BBF » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

Nice article, but just a headsup: The website certificate of runwes.com is only valid for the following names: www.github.com, * .github.io, * .githubusercontent.com, * .github.com, github.com, github.io, githubusercontent.com.

Everyhing is alerts and warnings when clicking the link.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#15

Post by knubie » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

Very impressive progress. I think it speaks to the author's commitment and dedication, as adding 50 new cards per day is a lot. Most people will burn out pretty quickly at that rate. I recommend something like 10-20 per day. I'm also one of those people that say you should make your own cards from material you're immersing in. When going through a predefined list of words like that I think you're bound to end up learning a bunch of words that you'll never encounter (at least not for a long time), and a bunch of words that you'll have no idea how to use correctly.

I wrote an article[0] about my own method for language learning, focusing mainly on the spaced repetition aspect.

[0] https://mochi.cards/blog/using-spaced-repetition-to-learn-a-...

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#16

Post by dudul » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

It reminds me a little of how I learnt English myself. Out of high school I was really bad and really wanted to change that. I switched all my video games to English, started watching 4 to 5 hours of TV shows/movies in English a day, reading books in English, etc etc. I definitely wasn't as intense as the author, but I think it worked pretty well considering that now I live in the US as a US citizen :)

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#17

Post by dvduval » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

I have achieved the same results in Chinese (HSK 5), but it took me 5 years. The resource I see that is missing is HelloTalk, with lots of opportunities to converse for free, and post your writing practice to receive corrections. Can also post your voice.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#18

Post by redis_mlc » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

If you live in Canada or Quebec, it makes sense to learn French. Note that conversational French only uses half of the 14 or so verb tenses, and people expect you to use the correct grammar and gender.

If you plan to write French for a living, that will be tough for a non-native writer.

But if you live in the USA, Spanish is more useful and you'll have the opportunity to practise it.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#19

Post by Brakenshire » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #13

I find the timeline believable but I’m impressed (and happy!) to see this worked with self-study. I lived abroad for a while and found I was able to pick up the local language pretty quickly because I was fully immersed in it, by 6 mo. I was comfortably conversational for day to day things. However, I would also caution for anyone wanting to learn a language at home, it’s a muscle and it does fade when you don’t use…

You could just watch French TV, films or podcasts, there's more access to that material now than there ever has been.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#20

Post by kshacker » Sun, Feb 16, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

jackschultz wrote: post #3

Whenever I read posts like this I'm much more impressed with the person's desire, motivation, determination, and strength to go an entire year focusing on one a single goal, not necessarily their learning ability. So many people, me especially, go through spurts of wanting to learn something new or complete a project, reach a goal, and yet I always seem to fizzle out because in the end, why bother? I'll argue it's in…

I am a 50 year old dude. Used Java in 1998-2002, but more as a JSP writer than anything serious. Then none till 2016. Then job changed and now I was expected to know Java. Tried to learn in 2017. Did not work out. Tried to learn in 2018. Did not work out. Then I enrolled in a community college. My job changed again and now I was not expected to know java. But I spent the 6-9 months to complete the courses and came out with much better understanding.

Why did it not work in 2017 and 2018 despite motivation? Distractions. Some external, but mostly internal.

Why did it work in 2019 without motivation? Committed to put in that effort in a non-distracting environment. Well phones are everywhere to alert us, but the constant deadlines and exams keep you grounded.

I think we all have the same issues.And if you/we have a wandering personality (In 2020, we all do thanks to our devices and subscriptions), we need some external tools to keep keep us focussed.

Do find something similar. For myself, I am thinking of 3 months on, 3 months off kind of learning in a formal setting (need not be college) so as not to be overwhelmed.