>What language(s) are you learning?
>Share language learning experiences!
>Ask questions about your target language!
>Help people who want to learn a new language!
>Participate in translation challenges or make your own!
>Make frens!

Read the wiki:
https://4chanint.miraheze.org/wiki/The_Official_/int/_How_to_Learn_A_Foreign_Language_Guide_Wiki

Useful links:
>Free language‐learning book archive:
https://mega.nz/folder/INlRkAQC#CthKI9-_kmDNyrOx12Ojbw
>Books on linguistics and language courses:
https://mega.nz/#F!Ad8DkLoI!jj_mdUDX_ay-8D9l3-DbnQ
>Assorted language resources and some nice visual guides:
https://pastebin.com/ACEmVqua
>Torrents with more resources than you’ll ever need for 30 plus languages:
https://archive(dot)ph/x0dFH
>List of trackers for most language‐learning packs:
https://files.catbox.moe/nmrn8x.txt
>Ukrainianon’s list of commercial courses from rutracker.org:
https://archive(dot)is/R2feT
>Russianon’s list of comprehensible input resources:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wXd0V32TjCFsr1-F_en_lA4MI-i7JtyYf26cWLtPRec
>Massive collection of textbooks on various languages, sorted by family
https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Books/Linguistics/
>/lang/ inpoot torrents
https://rentry.org/inpoot
>Refold Anki decks
https://rentry.org/refold

FAQ:
>How do I learn a language? What is the best way to learn one? How should I improve on certain aspects?
Read the Wiki.
>Should I learn lang Y so I can learn lang X?
No.
>What is the most useful language?
Check the PLI:
https://www.kailchan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Kai-Chan_Power-Language-Index-full-report_2016_v2.pdf
>What language should I learn?
German, Spanish, French, Russian and Japanese (in that order)

>>211994875

Hello, I am learning language.

>>212099231
Boring.

>>212099231
ўзбeк тили?

>>212098930 (OP)
nice kick! ;D

>>212091266
>Easily one of the greats content wise along with English and French
Everyone talks about this content to discover after learning French, but I don't see it. Maybe if someone is really interested in niche literature they will find something for themselves?

Bonan matenon al ĉiuj. Kiel vi? Mi komencas denove paroli/studi Esperanton post kelkaj jaroj neaktivaj.

>>212087675
Just watch "gay RTS" videos in your TL. All your time sink activities in English could be time sink activities in TL with a little bit of effort.

>>212099402
Well the greats have mostly been translated into English
So if you're motivated to learn a language for untranslated material then it's there but I don't really know that much about it
Anyway my favourite French authors are
>Maupassant
>Georges Simenon
>Zola
>Balzac
>Houellebecq
And those are just the authors I've read more than one book of, there are so many I haven't read yet or only read a single novel from
I don't really like Stendhal
Maupassant is my absolute favourite but Simenon is my most read, about 3000 pages
I am a francophile and so I can generate passion and excitement for French literature by merely thinking about France and so our situations may be different
Right now I'm excited about France, there are so many authors I need to read
I'm currently reading Montaigne in a modern translation and I really want to read André Malraux, Julien Gracq, Huysmans and some more André Gide although I didn't really appreciate L'Immoraliste that much
I need to re-read de Nerval again, read through the entirety of Flaubert, Proust and Hugo
I hope one day I can appreciate French poetry more like Baudelaire, Péguy, Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Vigny and Villon but so far I haven't read much beyond Baudelaire and Rimbaud
Idk if any of these would count as obscure
French film I don't really know much about
I've seen
>Pickpocket (top 5 film for me)
>À bout de souffle
>Alphaville
>Jean de Florette
>Manon des sources
>Amélie
But I hope there are a lot more, I'm worried that maybe there isn't but that's ok because I'm a francophile so I will watch French slop even as a language exercise

>>212098930 (OP)
Bu koroshite yaru

>>212018761
If this is how you feel, remember that the average normie is far more impressed when a fellow adult with a life and responsibilities and shit learns a second language than they are when a child does it. If you learn a language no one learns it's even better and you can probably SHOCK and AMAZE the locals with only ~1000 words and a few hours' practise putting them into sentences. Maybe this will encourage you and you'll stop caring about other people's abilities.

Guten Morgen

>>212099851
How long have you been learning French?
>3000 pages of Simenon
I’d wager that most people don’t read this much of anything in their entire lives

>>212099851
Great movies you listed. Check out: Les 400 coups, Taxi, 36 quai des orfèvres, 11.6, Conte d'été, Tais toi!, Nikita, Buffet froid, Le trou, Montecristo (1998), Les visiterus, Germinal, Le convoyeur

- it's really really easy to pretend to be fluent in a language, like 0.1-1% of the population speaks more than 3, and most actual real deal polyglots that aren't making youtube videos for money say that you can only maintain up to 6 to fluency and it requires a lot of daily effort. all of the youtubers are lying faggots trying to get Youtube money or "minor internet celebrity" pussy from their fanbase. every single one.

- anybody can say they know a language. there's no way to confirm or judge their ability. people aren't obligated to prove themselves. you can say you know a language at A2, and these faggots all do this.

- you don't know shit until C level. learning is actually really hard, and even after you reach fluency, you have to spend 20-30 minutes every day using it to maintain it for each language you know.

- people on here are probably using AI translators to LARP that they know another language, in this very thread even

>>212102710
and

You will never reach native level in any language unless you started learning as a kid. Period. even if you put all of your effort in and have thousand of hours, you will at best always have a slight accent, you will always use weird words that natives don't use and make the sentence sound weird, and listening to a group conversation will always sound like gibberish.

You missed the native boat. You will never make it. You can only ever reach Foreigner Who Put in a Lot of Effort Island. Native Island is a locked DLC that only people who learned as a kid unlock.

another day wasted inputting when I could be getting a gf

>>212102710
>>212102908
>>212103446
You're right, this is a stupid hobby. I quit.

>>212103499
it's not to say you shouldn't learn one, but you definitely shouldn't be learning one "for fun xP". You should be learning one that you plan on using daily of not at least weekly, because that's the only way you'll maintain it to any degree.

>>212103499
you are an animeposter, you never had a chance at getting a gf

>>212102908
skill issue

>>212103937
How many languages do you speak?

>>212103499
Lass dich von deren Miesmacherei nicht runterkriegen, Sprachenlernengenosse.

>>212104222
he's clearly a monolingual

>>212104247
But he must be a language master to be writing so confidently about what it takes to learn and maintain a language

Ok, I've decided to stop learning my TL. How do I get the thousands of hours I wasted on it back?

>>212105388
Don't give up and spend hours every day on it until fluent.

>>212102710
Well yeah even Alexander Arguelles doesn’t really claim to speak more than a few languages actively and he basically just studies languages as a day job, which is why his methods always leaned towards polyliteracy, which is far more achievable than being a competent polyglot.

>>212104420
he's not wrong though but I am fine with never reaching native fluency

rate my chengyu list. these are all the chengyu I've ever come across and that I'm learning

>>212102710
>even after you reach fluency, you have to spend 20-30 minutes every day using it to maintain it for each language you know
Skill issue. Once you get comfortable enough with the language (B2 or so) you can not use it in any way, shape, or form for months, and you will be just fine once you need it again.

>>212105519
I feel pretty defeatist right now. Learning languages makes me feel like shit, like I'm not enough
>>212105954
I haven't spoken in galician since I was 4 and I still can speak it perfectly. I don't have galician accent anymore but I never had any issues speaking it

i've neve met someone who started learning english as an adult actually be good at it, only people who started learning as kids.

>>212105648
Yeah an obsession with sounding native and acting like language learning is totally fruitless otherwise is literally just mental illness. No one learning languages for professional reasons thinks this way, and seemingly the only way to reach relatively native sounds is just patience anyways. The Japanese aren’t exactly going to be shocked if I as a tall blonde American don’t speak with a perfect obscure dialect and always maintain perfect pitch accent, so why should I be self conscious about who I am?

>nooo baka you have to think that I who am 6” taller than the norm and have a completely different skin tone, hair color. face, hip structure, etc. etc. have a perfect accent or I will kill myself because I learn languages as an outlet for schizophrenic/transgender urges

Also, if you aren’t at least reasonably happy in your home country you won’t be happy in a new one. Getting value out of living abroad comes in part from learning to appreciate your home, even if the new country is objectively superior. Stop hating your parents, your family, and yourself lol.

Also with Asian languages in particular I think a lot of online content is distorted because a lot of the “Americans” learning are actually Asian-American and will be judged comparatively harshly.

>>212106932
Asian-Americans who don't know their own languages should be honor killed by their families.

>>212106981
TRVKE.

>>212106932
Furthermore, there are major advantages to being a foreigner in Japan, especially an American, if you make the effort to not be fat and to be clean shaven, polite, and hygienic. For you, people are more easily impressed, and standards are lowered automatically. For example, the only non-native diet member is a British man who has lived in Japan for 30 years and even members of his own campaign staff would be consistently baffled by his ability to read. Some people find this demeaning, but if you can swallow your pride you can see how massively advantageous this can be. My read on it isn’t that they (by and large) think Europeans are too stupid to speak/read perfect Japanese, but that they are aware of how alien our two languages are to each other and know that there are few non-native Japanese speakers. Many of them also have broken English despite a lifetime of public school education so they will find your self-studied Japanese, even if somewhat halting and intermediate, fairly impressive.

>watch documentary
>understand everything
>listen to a (fast) colloquial conversation between two natives
>understand everything
>watch animeslop from the 2000s
>barely understand half of whats going on

how come

>>212084336
Asking again
>Do indonesians/malaysians have imageboards?

>>212107222
Odd voices and obscure vocab? I figure talking about zoo animals or work is gonna line up with vocab lists better than “The Nyx Blade of Sorrow” or whatever bullshit.

>>212107397
its not even that sort of animeslop its just your average slice of life copy-and-paste slop

>>212098930 (OP)
Whats the best technique to tackle accent?
Not that I strive to sound like a native, more like fine tuning pronunciation to a more "bland" and "neutral" accent.

>>212107937
Shadow. Reference IPA (but don’t use it alone) if you really need clarification on something major.

>>212107222
maybe you're just not used to girls and teenage boys (also voiced by girls) talking?
I mean, I have several accents that completely blindside me, I can understand pokemon 100% in my TL for every character except for meowth, who I understand maybe 10% of.

Funky cartoon / anime accents can do that.

>>212099851
It is better to read the literature of any country in the original, even if you translate words that mean the same, they can carry a different emotional value. Here I completely agree. I also heard that the French translations are good, but you mentioned French right after Japanese, which has not been translated many things and have a very unique and foreign culture so I was excepting something like that.

>>212108086
thats true they do have some wacky accents

9ページ

Languages I wanna learn:
>French - 50% completed
>German - 0% completed
>Russian - 5% completed
>Japanese - 10% completed
>Chinese - 0% completed
Time limit: 2030
Let’s goooo!

>>212110388
>50% completed
what does that mean? what is your level and what level is 100%?

>>212110623
I can read letranger with a dictionary.
100% = 1 being able to read everything and understand human speech

>>212110745
I'm a native in Spanish and I still can't understand part of some songs or conversations.
your objective is unrealistic

>>212110623
He pronounce only half a word

ankigoon

>French: B1 -> C2
>German: A2 -> C2
>Japanese: Can read and write kana -> N1
Time limit: last digit of this post years from now

>>212111222
holy shit double trips, and no other number than 2 and 1. with that luck, I believe you can make it

>>212112313
I should have added some more languages. If this post is trips I'll add Icelandic, if dubs Norwegian

>>212111222
Litteraly my dream TLs. Guide me. Where to start? Usage: German, French, Japanese. Contentslop: Japanese, French, German

Those of you who aren't native English speakers, how did you learn English?
From school, from textbooks, from immersion in English TV and internet? A mix of everything??
What was life like before you understood English? How did it sound to you?
Also was it difficult for you to learn? Did it take a lot of hard work or was it pretty natural?
Thanks to anyone who answers any of these questions :3

Oh yeah, esperanto time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSZ7ZI0zVaw

this hobby is gay. you're only doing it because you goon to "NATIVES GET SHOCKED" and "watch me awkwardly flirt with native girls on omeTV" videos on youtube. stfu with the "le culture" rhetoric you dumb fags. you just want to flex on people who don't have the free time to waste on this gay hobby because they have lives.

>>212114769

>>212114242
Just inpoot bro

>>212098930 (OP)
Advanced English pop quiz: what did it mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNrB6--KBqs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRwUbSy7HnE

>>212114621
We started to learn English in school in our third year (so, in primary school) with a hand puppet named Penny Popcorn (really). It was a more playful approach. In fifth year (Gymnasium) it started for real.
I already had a lot of contact with English through video games, English TV and internet wasn't a thing back then in Germany, yet. I had this one game, Shining Force II, I loved and it was only available in English, so I played it again and again during the years, with dictionary in hand while I learnt grammar in school until I understood it. Around seventh year and three years of "proper" English lessons in school I started reading, that also was the time when the internet got some traction over here. After that, it was mostly immersion.
It wasn't very difficult, it came pretty naturally, probably because it just happened along the way. I can't really say how English sounded to me before I learnt it, I think I never had much contact with it before. That was over 30 years ago, the world wasn't as globalised back then as it is now.

>>212114910
no argument. i accept your concession. this general may now be banned.

>>212115633
>I think I never had much contact with it before.
Not to contradict myself: I mean I never had much contact with spoken English. It was different with written English, because of the aforementioned video games. Also, product slogans often were in English.

>>212102908
>You will never reach native level in any language unless you started learning as a kid. Period. even if you put all of your effort in and have thousand of hours, you will at best always have a slight accent, you will always use weird words that natives don't use and make the sentence sound weird, and listening to a group conversation will always sound like gibberish.
Sounds like you just got filtered bro. It all works perfectly fine on my machine.

>>212115855
99% chance you can't speak or understand spoken english

>>212115944
Can do both buddy, same for another language as well.

>>212116286
Post a Vocaroo™.

>>212116712
Send me a microphone boss.

>>212116918
concession accepted.

always remember nativebros, if these ESLs get uppity, just say
>vocaroo
and they'll make up some excuse like the website doesn't load or their microphone is broken et cetera. every time. none of you faggots actually know english. you know how to read and write memes on 4chan. that's it.

monolingual betas throwing tantrums again

>>212118378
the guy you stole that meme from is literally a homosexual manlet

>>212118452
who?

>>212114769
What filtered you? Gendered nouns? Cases? Conjugations?

>>212118523
https://www.youtube.com/@LanguageSimp

>>212117053
Bro
Go away

Hello.

My current strategy for rapid language learning as quickly as possible

>Hyper-intensive listening while reading full morphological breakdowns of the transcript of an entire video or song. Repeatedly rewinding and relistening to unknown sentences until they make sense intuitively without effort.
>Memory palace visualization mnemonics for initial encoding of new words into memory. Currently able to pass 50 new vocab cards per day in anki in around 20-25 minutes. Since I started using mnemonics I get the word right 98% of the time on inital passes, whereas it used to take me multiple reinforcements. I have a micro usb bluetooth controller and headphones and the cards are all audio so can do cards while walking, jogging, shopping, doing chores.
>After initial encoding do rapidfire word association in anki or babadum. Only 2 seconds per word, instant response, high throughput, if i dont understand the word immediately I fail it. This is because words need to be understood instantly and automatically in order to be useful in listening. And at this rapid throughput can easily burn through hundreds of cards in 30 minutes. Even if you get the answer 'wrong' the correct meaning of the word is still reinforced so speed is the highest priority.
>Cramming input into every spare moment. All games, entertainment in target language. Listen to target language in the background when3ver possible. Google searches and AI queries in target language. UI and apps set to target language.

>>212119464
That's cool, I just watch Peppa Pig in my target language

>>212114621
Memorized some basics at school but not much, then spent almost ten years as a neet and, while most of that time was spent doing nothing worthwhile, I still managed to get better at a couple of things: English is one of them.
For me the most efficient way of learning was reading large volumes of text, and doing that regularly. At first I read VNs, then books.
Even poorly knowing the language but spending 50 hours reading some translated from Japanese visual novel had drastic effect for me.
Wasn't that difficult per se but many things started to make sense only after years, mostly related to the grammar: articles, perfect tenses, etc, ...

>>212119537
*snort snort*

>>212119537
There's like 6 languages I want to be able to uderstand and I want to know them while im still young, not when im 50

Also fuck peppa and her penis-head family

>>212114621
Watched videos in English with Turkish subtitles, then moved on from that to raw English pretty early on. I also read pretty much everything I encountered and looked up what I didn't know. I started at age 7 or 8 I think, and was fluent by about 10 or 11. School and textbooks did absolutely nothing for me.
I didn't think about English at all before I started learning it, it may as well have not existed. Even me learning it was just a sort of accident where I found some stuff I wanted to see and it happened to be in English. The only things that really changed after learning the language were the places I frequent for discussion on the net, the media I consume, and the fact that I can now understand what's written in the games I play and am not stuck going off of basic logic/randomly doing things until I finish the current objective.
I didn't think it was difficult at all, and since I went 100% in on input there wasn't really anything like boring grammar study to displease me in the learning process. One thing I want to add is that I read an absolute fucklot of Chinese webnovels in the language shortly after learning it. I think it helped me a lot with properly internalizing the language and getting used to rarer ways of expression in it.

>>212098930 (OP)
>by whatever method, naturally come into contact with the 100 most frequent words
>extend this to covering the 1000 most frequent, meaning you've actually gone over thousands of words by then
>this brings you to B1-B2 level or more than 90%, (?) but mathematically actually more than 98% because the rate isn't linear
>C1 and above isn't even used much ordinarily as most natives aren't even at that level of education
is it really that easy?
extend memorization to 10000 for full fluency

Rolling on which one to focus today
1-3 German
4-6 French
7-9 Japanese
0 Python
Dubbs practice drawing instead

>>212119464
the fastest way to learn a foreign language is immersion plus a private teacher you see multiple times per week to keep you on track, instantly correct your mistakes, and progress fast. period.

>>212120353
you're learning all at the same time?

>>212120322
Language isn't just words, it's words in the right combination, order, form, context... Memorizing the approximate English meaning of the most common is a good start, but you have to read/listen for many thousands of hours before you internalize everything else. Also, your math is a bit off, 1000 words is only enough to read an A1/2 graded reader, for B2 you'll want to have at least 5000 words if you want to have any chance at getting through everyday content without a dictionary. 10k for complete fluency is also probably pretty low, at least if you plan on reading novels and being able to discuss a variety of subjects (each domain can have its own set of common vocabulary that is "rare" globally).

Looking for tips
Started to learn German, know some words and stuff, basic things, how long should I spend per day and how? I'm using a textbook for proper learning with Duolingo for vocab

>>212120400
no my way is fasster

>>212120977
>how?
Memorize words with Anki and read/listen to content that's close to your level (at your level = you can understand most of it, or you can use tools to make it understandable).
>how long should I spend per day
At least an hour. There is no upper limit, the more hours per day, the faster you make progress, but only if you're actually paying active attention to the language, listening to shit in the background is basically worthless.

I changed my desired retention rate from 90% to 85% and my daily reviews have gone from 300 to 200

>>212120583
Yes, except Python. Dropped Spanish recently. I always want to focus on one language and the rest are on the side. I'm the laziest on Japanese

>>212121532
it gets exponentially harder every level. those FSI schools only go to B2/C1 because going to C2 is probably like 2x the amount of time and effort

the only hard part is picking the language. feels borderline impossible to pick one.

>>212121807
German

I believe it know.

do not learn Spanish

>>212122432
imagine you have to put a list of languages into a randomized picking machine.

whatever the machine randomly picks from your list, you are now contractually obligated to learn to fluency, or face severe fine and jail time.

what languages are you putting on the list?

>>212120322
no it is not. you also aren't b1 and def not b2 at only 1000 words.

>>212122686
definitely putting in
>italian
>japanese

probably putting in
>german
>french

maybe putting in
>mandarin
>arabic
>russian
>greek
>spanish

>>212121807
Spanish is insanely useful in the US depending on the job to be honest. It's the first one I went with and I don't regret it. Got me laid multiple times, got jobs I wouldn't have got otherwise, been super fun overall considering all the people I've met after starting to learn it serious 11 years ago.

>>212107160
Form a /lang/ party and run for the Diet. We can fix language education in Japan!

>>212122562
Ok, I'll learn Quechua instead

>>212124321
seems only useful in the lower half. i live the north and i've only ever seen spanish speakers walking around walmart and goodwill together as a group. i'm not exactly going to walk up to some random mexicans lol

1-3 Chinese
4-6 Japanese
7-9 Korean
0 Indonesian

>>212124718
Wtf?! I don't want to learn korean!

>>212124602
I've lived and worked in North Virginia, Philly, Seattle, and Chicago and used Spanish in all of them. Get out more or work somewhere where you can actually use the language. Even if you think a cashier speaks Spanish you could speak it. Don't limit your ideas for where to practice. Go to Latin clubs, Latin restaurants, Latin neighborhoods, talk to Spanish coworkers, whatever. Still a hell of a lot more useful overall in the US compared to anything else.

>>211965050
>Spanish
I had a pretty decent foundation in vocabulary, grammar, and simple conjugations because I had been messing around with Duolingo for a while before deciding to take language learning more seriously. I think I was near the end of the A2 section on Duolingo before switching to input-based learning. At that point, I was able to start watching higher beginner or lower intermediate content.
I began supplementing with Anki when I got bored with content aimed at learners. I finished the Refold deck and most of the Top 5K deck. I think that was helpful and sped up the learning process.

Hey if you're still around, what 5k deck would you recc? I finished the refold 1k but couldnt really find a good 5k one, or where to go next. I should probably mine but honestly I never seem to so Id rather just do a pre-made.

>>211965050

>Spanish. I had a pretty decent foundation in vocabulary, grammar, and simple conjugations because I had been messing around with Duolingo for a while before deciding to take language learning more seriously. I think I was near the end of the A2 section on Duolingo before switching to input-based learning. At that point, I was able to start watching higher beginner or lower intermediate content.
I began supplementing with Anki when I got bored with content aimed at learners. I finished the Refold deck and most of the Top 5K deck. I think that was helpful and sped up the learning process.

Hey if you're still around, what 5k deck would you recc? I finished the refold 1k but couldnt really find a good 5k one, or where to go next. I should probably mine but honestly I never seem to so Id rather just do a pre-made.

>>212120322
>this brings you to B1-B2 level or more than 90%
Knowing 1000 words doesn't even get you to A1. Levels have definitions, look them up.

Language learning is pointless

>>212126108
, he said, using a language

>>212126121
I barely learnt english

>>212114621
>how did you learn English?
Three years of classes in high school, but really almost all of the learning was through reading technical documentation (I wanted to program and everything serious is in english).
Then I started watching pirated tv series without subtitles (never liked subtitles) and in a couple of months I was able to go from not understanding almost anything to 90%.
So classes, then intensive reading, then extensive listening.

>What was life like before you understood English? How did it sound to you?
Literally this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU-wH8SrFro

>Also was it difficult for you to learn? Did it take a lot of hard work or was it pretty natural?
I learned it accidentally while trying to do something else, I never made deliberate effort towards it.

>>212126875
I learned Italian mostly through reading and stuff after teaching myself some. Can read it but aside from when I was in Italy and taking classes I didn't have many people to speak with because I'm the only person in my immediate family who speaks it

I also found out last month that I have living family in Italy, even if the guys I met were in their 70s them and their father (my bisnonno's baby brother) were looking for our side of the family

>>212120803
my logic was by the time you pick up the most frequent 100 and 1000, you would be forced from context and situation to acquire and have familiarity of several 1000
>>212126097
>>212122792
100 most frequent words ->50% of the used language
1000 most frequent words -> 90% of the words used
not just 100 or 1000 random words

>>212118724
felicitations, gentile. how are the pyramids

>>212126188
typical native eblnglish speaker humblebragging.

>>212120322
You're wrong but I cba effort posting over some dumb things. Here's the truth: practise using the language a lot in ways a native would (not duolingo shit) and see what other things you can do to help you git gud at using the language. Don't bother with elaborate theories.

Would anyone here like to recommend some German short story writers? The limited few I've read in translation are Mann and Kafka, but my power-level just isn't high enough for them yet.

>language has a different greeting for phone conversations

>>212130527
that's kino

Germans say auf Wiederhören instead of auf Wiedersehen when they hang up (hear you again vs see you again literally)

>>212126108
The "point" of a hobby is to pass the time and you do the activity for its own sake because you ultimately derive some kind of pleasure from it. People harbor too many illusions about language learning but it's no different than stamp collecting or playing video games. Yeah, maybe you get lucky and it opens some paths for you later in life, but this is a bonus, if you're not having fun learning languages, you're basically wasting your time.

>>212110835
This.
Dabblecucked.
>>212110388
>Splitting between 5 languages without getting really good at one or two specific ones
It's just not a good idea. The eternal dabbler will pay for his incompetence slowly over time by forgetting and having to re-learn basic things.
>>212111222
I just have to assume posts like these are a joke because of how ridiculous they are, if you think this is possibly you're A1 in everything at best.

>>212132413
How many languages do you speak?

>>212120322
>Naturally come into contact with
No it's not that easy, it's semi-delusional whatever you're talking about.
You basically need to anki-goon for the first 1,000 or 2,000 words, not naturally come into contact with them.

After that SOMEWHAT, but you're delusional on how easy it is and how much you know. You aren't mathematically at B1 / B2 at 1,000 words because that would just mean you could use anki for a week intensively to learn a language, completely delusional. - but you can actually naturally extend your understanding of the language by just reading.

There are studies on this. The zipf law applies to how common words are, and they know the rough number of words you must encounter - each level is additive, each "token" is just a word. To get to 9,000 words known, therefore, it would take 11 million tokens, or 92 books.
https://www.thelanguageformula.com/articles/learn-language-through-reading

And for those "first 1,000", or even the first few hundred, they're basic syntax words like "I", "go", "the", ect. and they won't let you read or have a conversation or anything, they are requirements but not any of the actual substance and you'll spend the journey all the way to 9,000 understanding their specific contexts.

>>212132563
More than you. You speak 1.

>>212132642
Wtf are you talking about?
Which languages do you speak?

>>212132680
>Ehrm, I will get to c2 in 2 languages and also N1 in japanese in a couple years
The mark of someone who speaks 1 language. Eternal dabbler. Completely delusional.

>>212132707
You still haven't answered my question lol. I'm guessing you aren't going to answer it.

>>212132791
I'm not going to, yup, not even a guess. No reason to even engage with someone so absolutely delusional who is A1 at everything.

redpill me on the Turkic languages

>>212132815
The logical assumption here is that you are a monolingual. If you knew another language you wouldn't be afraid to say so.
And as a monolingual you have no idea about language learning, so you should lurk more.

Why the fuck does English have so many vowel sounds?

>>212132889
I think so >:3

No argument presented, no more (you)'s will be given.
You're not reaching C2 in 2 languages and also N1 from nothing in a couple years, almost even delusional to say something like that for 5 years.

If you think this is possibly you know 1 language. No more (you)'s will be provided to the no-argument poster.

We really need more demoralizers in this thread if we have multiple people showing up saying they'll reach native level in multiple languages in only a couple years, or posting their 5-language long goal lists and trying all languages at once.

>>212130527
Do you ever really say "hello" when not answering the phone?

Reminder

ATTENTION LEAF ANON
>ATTENTION LEAF ANON
ATTENTION LEAF ANON
>ATTENTION LEAF ANON
I HAVE A SMALL REQUEST FOR YOU
You probably still lurk even if you don't want to be associated with us anymore which I can understand but how about you implement this in your program and never mention who gave you this idea.
There should be a mode to read texts (AI generated, imported by user, or otherwise) a few words at a time, or a sentence at a time, and the program randomly abruptly pauses and tells the user to repeat back the previous sentence or predict the following sentence. Both of these would force the user to pay close attention to the text and practise using the language while they read.

What would a D1 level speaker be

>>212133235
C2 is far below average native level so D1 would probably also be worse than native

>>212125710
I used this one: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/241428882
I'm sure there are better ones out there.
I didn't finish it though because I messed up by being too greedy and "learning" too many new words. The reviews got way too overwhelming after a few very busy days when I couldn't do Anki.
Mining and building your own deck would be more beneficial imo but I was too lazy for that lol.

>>212133666
Are the images in the deck that bad lmao

>>212133872
There are a few questionable ones

>>212133872
>>212134030

>>212127138
NTA but I'll just say that as a native speaker, I know 99 to 99.9% of words I encounter and it would be extremely obnoxious to know even only 95%. I'm getting stumped on evey 20 words? That's retarded. Saying 90% is only 1000 words isn't really saying anything.

>>212135006
Yeah. It just massively drops efficiency when you're inputting to not know 1 out of every 20 words, like, how often are those words gonna link up and make things completely incomprehensible (and if you can't understand it it's a waste of time)
Like those uncommon words are often used together even, knowing 19/20 would often leave you in situations where you're missing several words in a big block, and that big block makes absolutely zero sense to you. It would slow you down trying to understand it, and you likely wouldn't in the end, and this would happen several times every page of a book - let's say a book has 300 words on one page - you're talking about not knowing 15 of them. I get frustrated not knowing 3.

>>212134060
wtf

Fuck this "only 1000 words for 90%" nonsense. There is no shortcut, bros. You either learn the language or you don't. The polyglot shit is a grift and it's fucking gay. These people don't actually know 6-10 languages, and normal people don't give a fuck anyway. Get this retarded bullshit out of your head.

the american is right, it's over
i honestly dont even remember how i got memed into this meme hobby
what the fuck was even the thought process? did i just wake up and said "yep, im going to waste the next 12 months learning some useless foreigner monkey language"?
LITERALLY over.

>>212135502
its good that you acknowledge that russian is monkey speak

>>212135540
all foreigner speak is monkey speak. the lord chose italians as his chosen people for a reason.

grammar chuds getting burnt out and filtered AGAIN

>>212117053
based american chad showing ESL dogs their place

>>212132964
When I was a kid, my mom had us answer "last name's residence, how may I help you"

>>212135337
>"only 1000 words for 90%" nonsense
it's more than 1000 though, like 7000-8000 for 90%

IT'S OUT

>>212132867
brown
>>212135731
i see men more attractive than this thing on a daily basis

>>212135685
>not just saying "Speak"

>>212099851
>>Amélie
unironically kill yourself
possibly the worst movie ever made
it's bad even for the standards of french slop

>>212133354
I’ve known native English speakers that needed help filling out job applications because they had grown up in the hills and didn’t receive a proper education, so they had never encountered formal sounding written english even though they spoke English and otherwise were generally literate.

>>212135767
lol I actually answer my brother now with "What do you want?" everytime he calls me just to annoy him. It's become a running gag he does to me too.

>>212135765
>thinks men are more attractive than cute, french model

how do you say "I'm gay" in russian?

What's the oldest you can start a language if your goal is to be native level, say C1
I suppose it's different for different aspects. I hear you can't learn new accents after 12 or something

>>212135867
ya - pidora or algo
but if you actually think that thing is attractive in the slightest you are actually sick in the head, a faggot in comparison is a well adjusted individual

>>212135986
past age 9-12 getting to native is locked from you

>he cant even type in cyrillic

>>212135986
if you cant speak 5 languages by the time you're out of your mother's diseased cunt it's over for you
>>212136043
well i cant from the company pc

>>212135986
>native level, say C1
those are two different things and in either case the answer is that it depends on your natural ability

>>212136086
cope

>>212136115
you are brown

says the retard who chose to learn a goblin language

>>212135986
Native-like is possible if you have autism but its not very realistic. C1 is attainable at any age if you're consistent for long enough. Don't listen to the monolingual idiots in this thread.

>>212136183
im learning the quintessential white man's language
you're learning the quintessential shitskin language
we are not the same

>>212136266
germans are whiter than russians

>>212136385
russian learners are all fascist white chads.
german learners are all pozzed shitskin subhumans.
while russians themselves are yellow chinkoids, russian as a second language is the whitest choice there is.

>>212136452
Russia has a lot of muslim immigrants
The whitest choice would be a Baltic language

>>212136522
germlings have 100 mohammedians for every mohammedian immigrant in russia.

is your TL lang special? Mine is.

>>212136674
they capitalize nouns. not special.

>>212134030
>>212134060
Lmao
Well they're not wrong

>>212135685
I think my grandfather just said "what" lmao

>>212135867
Я пeдик

>>212135986
You can learn anything you want at any age until you're like 70
People just underestimate language learning takes fucking forever
Getting a native accent is possible it's just difficult and takes a lot of focus all the time for a long time

>>212136674
I'm still a beginner BUT
>Der Gefangene floh
Shouldn't it be "Die Gefangene flohen"?
>Der Junge sieht dir ungeheuer ähnlich
Shouldn't it be "Der Junge sieht dir ungeheuer ähnlich aus"?
>den Geliebten
Shouldn't it be "die Geliebte"?

>im learning the quintessential white man's language

Tbh it really is not that difficult to be "above-native" level in comprehension. Accent and many other things might take longer, but as far as comprehension and speaking ability you can be far above native at C2.

The point of language is to, uhhhh, share ideas. Turns out native people aren't particularly special in this aspect, you can actually have the same or better ideas and at C2 you can become better and better at sharing them.
There are so many scandinavian youtubers out there, for example, who are beyond-native level in terms of speaking ability. People act like every native is smart and intelligent or something, but the reality is I'm surrounded by retards and it doesn't really take a lot to be able to talk better than them.

btw, by learning a new language of a foreign country you're becoming a "citizen of the world", and this means you need to stop jerking off retarded stuff other countries do - you need to actually learn and be objective about things and realize it's not that crazy - or even something you would want to do - that every native has these little rituals they do that you don't need to do. You can just, like, not do the song and dance and instead do what you want to do.

>>212137386
>Shouldn't it be "Die Gefangene flohen"?
no, die Gefangene is singular and flohen is plural.
>Shouldn't it be "Der Junge sieht dir ungeheuer ähnlich aus"?
it works both with or without aus
>Shouldn't it be "die Geliebte"?
only if she's lesbian

>>212138091
>it works both with or without aus
What? Who talks like this? Maybe it's grammatically right, but no one says this

>>212138091
Thank you
>no, die Gefangene is singular and flohen is plural.
Then shouldn't it be "Die Gefangene floh"?

>>212136857
the most important thing is literally just patience.

>>212138035
Yeah the person I know with the most expansive english vocabulary is Chinese and has a thick (but totally understandable) accent

>>212138357
"Die Gefangene" is feminine, "der Gefangene" is masculine.

>>212139562
>der Gefangene
Thank you. Can it also be "der Gefangener"?

>>212139662
Curiosly, no. You can only say "ein Gefangener" with an indirect article.

>>212139808
Wtfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

>>212139939
I don't know either.

>>212139939
It isn't that crazy. Just think of the Gefangene in der Gefangene as an adjective and imagine a Mann after it. Der gefangene Mann, den gefangenen Mann, des gefangenen Manns, dem gefangenen Mann vs der Gefangene, den Gefangenen, des Gefangenen, dem Gefangenen.

Same with ein gefangener Mann vs ein Gefangener, etc.

>>212140298
That does make sense, sorta, but then there are words like Anfänger which don't seem to follow that rule.

new data

| Language (largest groups) | 2023 pop. covered1 | Pop-weighted sex ratio2 (males per 100 females, age 15-40) |
| ------------------------- | ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| Mandarin Chinese | 1 452 M | **113.1** |
| Hindi | 1 438 M | **109.2** |
| Arabic | 486 M | **110.4** |
| English3 | 483 M | **105.4** |
| German | 103 M | **105.5** |
| Japanese | 124 M | **104.5** |
| Russian | 173 M | **102.2** |
| Spanish | 485 M | **100.7** |
| French | 449 M | **100.7** |
| Portuguese | 293 M | **100.3** |
| Bengali | 171 M | **93.7** |

>>212140818
Anfänger and der Gefangene are two different sorts of nouns imo.
Take for instance der Geliebte and Liebhaber. Both are relatively similar: the beloved and the lover, but der Geliebte comes from the adjective geliebt (loved) where as Liebhaber does not have a direct adjectival corollary, but rather it is actually a nominalization of a verb, namely lieb haben, and that is also the case for Anfänger (anfangen). Conversely, Geliebte (as well as Gefangene) is a nominalization of an adjective, and in german that means, for whatever reason, it behaves like an adjective in terms of declension.

I also found it confusing, but the good news is eventually you just get it. Idk hopefully the explanation helps a bit, but again you eventually just internalize it.

>>212141543
Method (in case you’d like to audit or extend)
Sex-ratio inputs

Used your CSV from Our World In Data (OWID) which gives single-year male-to-female ratios for every country and year.

Calculated each country’s “15-40” figure as the mean of the age-15, 20, 30 and 40 columns for 2023.

Population weights

Took mid-2023 total-population estimates from the UN World Population Prospects (2024 revision). The public summary table is reproduced on Wikipedia and is current through July 2023
en.wikipedia.org
.

A country’s weight = its 2023 population; this is enough for a close approximation because the 15-40 cohort is a nearly constant share (~47 %) across countries.

Language grouping

Assigned each country to the single language that the majority of its residents speak at home or that is overwhelmingly dominant in public life.

Sources: the CIA World Factbook and the Wikipedia Official-languages-by-country list
en.wikipedia.org
.

Example: Nigeria is not in the “English” group because no single language predominates; China, Taiwan and Singapore form the Mandarin group; Brazil, Angola, Mozambique share Portuguese, etc.

I performed the calculation in Python (code available on request).

Reading the table
113.1 for Mandarin Chinese means that, across China, Taiwan and Singapore, there are ~113 males aged 15-40 for every 100 females, once you weight each country by its population.

93.7 for Bengali reflects Bangladesh’s comparatively female-heavy young-adult population after decades of narrowing gender imbalance.

Languages with highly urbanised immigration (e.g., English) land close to parity.

I've advanced to working out while getting comprehensible input at the same time....

>>212141676
If I am walking/driving/shooting basketball hoops, then I am listening to french with almost no exceptions. I've yet to make the jump to french during runs though. I need my hype music too much.

I do think it is kind of funny when I am shooting around with other guys while they're listening to rap, etc and I'm listening to the news in french on repeat.

>>212141584
That does help a lot, thanks.
What's annoying is reverso which is my main dictionary that I use just because its the most convenient for me doesn't make this very clear at all and it's actually kind of misleading.

>>212141543
to confirm these numbers for yourself, you can use https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio and look at the cart. it has all age data for all countries up to 2023.

>>212141543
added more

| Malay / Indonesian (Indonesia + Malaysia + Brunei) | 316.8 | **105.8*
| Urdu (Pakistan) | 247.5 | **104.8
| Persian/Farsi (Iran) | 90.6 | **104.5
| Italian | 59.5 | **104.6
| Polish | 38.8 | **104.4
| Turkish | 87.3 | **103.6
| Dutch (Netherlands only) | 18.1 | **103.2
| Czech | 10.8 | **105.4
| Hungarian | 9.7 | **105.3
| Greek | 10.2 | **106.3
| Thai | 71.7 | **102.6
| Vietnamese | 100.4 | **100.6
| Russian | 173 | **102.2
| Spanish | 485 | **100.7**
| English3 | 483 | **105.4**
| Swahili (Tanzania + Kenya + Uganda + Mozambique + DR Congo) | 310.0 | **98.4*

country | 15-40 sex ratio

Tonga 84.3
Mayotte 85.1
Macao 85.3
Central African Republic 86.7
Hong Kong 87.3
Guadeloupe 88.7
French Guiana 89.6
Saint Kitts and Nevis 89.6
Nepal 90.2
Martinique 90.4
Saint Helena 90.5
Saint Martin (French part) 90.5
Zimbabwe 90.9
British Virgin Islands 91.8
Saint Barthelemy 92.3
Wallis and Futuna 92.5
Reunion 93
Bangladesh 93.7
Mauritania 94
Sint Maarten (Dutch part) 94
Malawi 94.1
Cook Islands 94.7
Mozambique 94.7
Kiribati 95.2
Tajikistan 95.9
Moldova 96
Bahamas 96.2
Turks and Caicos Islands 96.5
United States Virgin Islands 96.9
Sudan 97
Anguilla 97.1
Falkland Islands 97.1
Guyana 97.1
South Sudan 97.1
Armenia 97.2
Lebanon 97.2
Mexico 97.2
Lesotho 97.4
Rwanda 97.4
Aruba 97.8
El Salvador 97.8
Namibia 97.8
Dominica 97.9
Palestine 98.1
Eswatini 98.4
Sao Tome and Principe 98.4
Angola 98.5
Puerto Rico 98.5
Uganda 98.5
Antigua and Barbuda 98.6
New Caledonia 98.6
Democratic Republic of Congo 98.7
Tanzania 98.7
Burundi 98.8
Guinea 98.8
Sri Lanka 98.9
Vanuatu 98.9
Nicaragua 99.2
Serbia 99.2
Zambia 99.3
Fiji 99.4
Kyrgyzstan 99.4
Samoa 99.4
Eritrea 99.5
Micronesia (country) 99.5
Kenya 99.6
Cameroon 99.7
Haiti 99.8
Peru 99.8
Cambodia 99.9
Djibouti 99.9
Barbados 100
South Africa 100.1
Guinea-Bissau 100.2
Ireland 100.2
French Polynesia 100.3
Gambia 100.3
Liberia 100.4
Burkina Faso 100.6
Somalia 100.6
Vietnam 100.6
Georgia 100.7
Guatemala 100.7
Tunisia 100.7
Chad 100.8
Jersey 100.8
Sierra Leone 100.8
Congo 100.9
Ghana 100.9
San Marino 100.9
Cayman Islands 101
Madagascar 101
East Timor 101.2
Portugal 101.2
Colombia 101.3
Monaco 101.3
Brazil 101.4
Ethiopia 101.4
Niue 101.4

>>212142796
North Macedonia 101.4
Botswana 101.5
Comoros 101.5
Benin 101.6
France 101.8
Philippines 101.8
Tokelau 102.1
Bolivia 102.2
Ecuador 102.2
Russia 102.2
Syria 102.2
Laos 102.3
Venezuela 102.3
Senegal 102.4
Belgium 102.5
Dominican Republic 102.5
Togo 102.5
Australia 102.6
Bermuda 102.6
Grenada 102.6
Thailand 102.6
Kazakhstan 102.7
Belize 102.8
Chile 102.8
Costa Rica 102.8
Iraq 102.8
Montenegro 102.8
Panama 102.8
Mali 102.9
Myanmar 102.9
Israel 103
United Kingdom 103
Afghanistan 103.1
Azerbaijan 103.1
Cote d'Ivoire 103.1
Gibraltar 103.1
Jamaica 103.1
Paraguay 103.1
Canada 103.2
Netherlands 103.2
Nigeria 103.3
Trinidad and Tobago 103.3
Uruguay 103.3
Turkmenistan 103.4
Yemen 103.4
New Zealand 103.5
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 103.5
Honduras 103.6
Liechtenstein 103.6
Turkey 103.6
North Korea 103.7
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 103.7
Belarus 103.8
Morocco 103.8
Albania 104
Argentina 104
Denmark 104
Egypt 104
Spain 104.1
Isle of Man 104.2
Austria 104.3
Niger 104.3
Mauritius 104.4
Poland 104.4
Solomon Islands 104.4
Switzerland 104.4
Iran 104.5
Japan 104.5
Saint Lucia 104.5
Italy 104.6
Indonesia 104.7

>>212142864
Suriname 104.7
Cuba 104.8
Pakistan 104.8
Uzbekistan 104.8
American Samoa 104.9
Gabon 104.9
Luxembourg 104.9
Croatia 105
Marshall Islands 105.1
Latvia 105.2
Norway 105.2
Ukraine 105.2
Hungary 105.3
Algeria 105.4
Czechia 105.4
Mongolia 105.4
Slovakia 105.4
Libya 105.7
Finland 105.8
Germany 105.8
Guam 105.9
Romania 105.9
Papua New Guinea 106
Estonia 106.1
Sweden 106.1
Faroe Islands 106.2
Nauru 106.2
Taiwan 106.2
Bonaire Sint Eustatius and Saba 106.3
Greece 106.3
United States 106.5
Bulgaria 106.6
Jordan 106.6
Andorra 106.7
Curacao 106.7
Guernsey 107.6
Greenland 107.7
Cyprus 107.8
Iceland 107.8
Lithuania 107.8
Bosnia and Herzegovina 108.8
Northern Mariana Islands 108.9
India 109.2
South Korea 109.2
Cape Verde 109.4
Slovenia 109.5
Montserrat 110.5
China 113.2
Singapore 114.3
Malaysia 114.5
Malta 115.6
Tuvalu 117
Equatorial Guinea 117.1
Bhutan 117.3
Brunei 117.9
Western Sahara 120.6
Vatican 125
Palau 126
Seychelles 134.9
Kuwait 150.5
Saudi Arabia 157
Oman 164.4
Bahrain 167.6
Maldives 175
United Arab Emirates 175.7
Qatar 229.7

>>212141543
>>212142623
>>212142796
>>212142864
>>212142902
so basically the extremely rare bangladesh learner will enter brown pussy paradise

Bro please use pastebin

good project but you really don't know women lol

>>212141543
the sex ratio is irrelevant because you compete with other foreigners not natives

>>212143443
hmmmmmm.....that's a good point but I assume the number of foreigners are going to be extremely low.

>tfw ran out of money for a PussyPoppers Platinum™ subscription

I need help learning German , I can’t afford courses :( too expensive. And I don’t know how to begin… is DW Nico weg worth it ?

>>212141891
I like dict.cc alot and they have app too. Also, you can easily switch to de/other lang, which I like to do with french sometimes. As you can see in pic related they do a better job of indicating it needs to be declined like an adjective

>>212103446
>go on HelloTalk
>buy premium
>filter by gender
>filter by city
>free cute foreigners trying to learn your lang
problem?

>>212143950
>I can’t afford courses
you don't need to pay for anything see >>212121138

>>212143950
if you can't afford teachers, just get a good textbook and go full immersion mode for the rest of the day. a teacher just gives you instant correction which is pretty important but you can bug natives about stuff if necessary

>>212144117
Yeah but you need to speak, listen and write … :( I mean, I don’t even know HOW or if I can self learn a language, especially German too. But every single social media language teacher ask you to pay 35 euros just to speak to them. I am wondering if Italki is worth it btw , but seems as you need some basics before you find a tutor, idk

>>212144263
nigga just write and talk

>>212144183
Exactly : I’m “scared” about self learning, especially a language… there’s tools, but it’s the talking, writing and how to do homework yourself, correct it and not getting remarks or comments from a native. Sucks to be poor

>>212144324
you're not talking or writing in the beginning. you're just figuring out reading and listening first.

>>212144324
I don't think anyone here is paying for a course
There are many free resources online
You can ask ChatGPT or other LLM for corrections

>>212144057
Ty

>>212144387
> Ask AI for corrections
It’s still 0% recommended though, that’s the thing. Even deepl is horribly bad in German, I used it once for a email never will. ChatGPT and Duo aren’t good for German it has tons of mistakes and generates weird sentences.
So I have some books that are said to be good but even the A1 are in German. All the good textbooks are. If there’s a free book with exercises and with the answers I’ll take it. The ones with the audio I would need to order the actual book probably , so that’s minimum 50 $. I will download Anki , see if it works for me. That’s my first step.

>>212144387
>I don't think anyone here is paying for a course
I'd pay for one in Germany if I could stay there for a month just for the speaking practice, but otherwise I can't see a good reason other than perhaps socializing/meeting people. In my city only spanish courses are available though, so not really an option anyhow.

>>212145181
Yeah nobody speaks German here either so I kind of have to find a friend or at least someone to speak or correct me. AI isn’t always right and creates mistakes that don’t reflect native speaking/phrases etc

>>212144063
yes, the problem is that all the cute language learners are in madrid and the list is blank in my city

IDK, my progress has progressed rapidly. All I had to do was read books several hours a day.
Before I was watching videos all the time, listening to the radio, basically any input method you can think of that wasn't reading was my primary, even listening to multi-hour podcasts while paying attention and understanding all of it.

That didn't really improve that much for me, my listening got a little better but it feels like the couple weeks of intensive reading I've done (like probably 4 or 5 hours a day) have done significantly more than the months of listening.

>>212143443
If this were true then you could just look at L1 vs L2 populations per language and calculate the ratio, though it's really hard to get natives vs real actual foreigners and not just "ukraninan person who knows russian" tier results:

| Language | Native L2 ratio (L1 ÷ L2) |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------- |
| English | **0.34 : 1** |
| Mandarin Chinese | **5.10 : 1** |
| Hindi | **1.31 : 1** |
| Spanish | **6.54 : 1** |
| Modern Standard Arabic\* | **0 : 1** |
| French | **0.31 : 1** |
| Bengali | **5.63 : 1** |
| Portuguese | **14.71 : 1** |
| Russian | **1.34 : 1** |
| Indonesian | **0.42 : 1** |
| Standard German | **1.31 : 1** |
| Japanese | **62.0 : 1** |
| Italian | **21.0 : 1** |
| Korean† | **≈162 : 1** |
| Turkish | **14.17 : 1** |
| Vietnamese | **7.82 : 1** |
| Iranian Persian | **3.82 : 1** |
| Tamil | **9.88 : 1** |
| Swahili | **0.05 : 1** |
| Tagalog | **0.61 : 1** |
| Urdu | **0.46 : 1** |

\* Modern Standard Arabic has no native speakers; all figures are for second-language learners.
† Ethnologue reports “< 1 million” L2 speakers of Korean; ratio calculated using 0.5 million as a midpoint, so treat it as an approximation.

All L1 and L2 counts come from the **Ethnologue 2025** table of languages with ≥50 million total speakers

>>212146845
mandarin, vietnamese, spanish, bengali, italian, korean, japanese, turkish, tamil, and portuguese learners pounding pussy all day

>>212146845
expanded and sorted

### Native : L2 speaker ratios — **sorted from highest to lowest**

Language | Native L2 ratio

Wu (Shanghainese)** | ≈ 166 : 1†
Korean** | ≈ 162 : 1†
Bhojpuri** | ≳ 100 : 1†
Yue (Cantonese)** | 85 : 1
Japanese** | 62 : 1
Italian** | 21 : 1
Levantine Arabic** | 19 : 1
Portuguese** | 14.7 : 1
Turkish** | 14.2 : 1
Gujarati** | 11.6 : 1
Tamil** | 9.9 : 1
Vietnamese** | 7.8 : 1
Spanish** | 6.5 : 1
Telugu** | 6.4 : 1
Bengali** | 5.6 : 1
Mandarin Chinese** | 5.1 : 1
Marathi** | 5.2 : 1
Egyptian Arabic** | 2.4 : 1
Iranian Persian** | 3.8 : 1
Kannada** | 2.9 : 1
Hausa** | 1.6 : 1
Russian** | 1.34 : 1
Standard German** | 1.31 : 1
Hindi** | 1.31 : 1
Amharic** | 1.4 : 1
Thai** | 0.61 : 1
Tagalog** | 0.61 : 1
Urdu** | 0.46 : 1
Indonesian** | 0.42 : 1
English** | 0.34 : 1
French** | 0.31 : 1
Swahili** | 0.05 : 1
Nigerian Pidgin** | 0.04 : 1
Modern Standard Arabic** | 0 : 1 (no native speakers) |

\* Ratios are calculated from Ethnologue 2025 L1/L2 counts (Wikipedia revision 26 Jun 2025). ([en.wikipedia.org][1])

† Ethnologue lists L2 for Wu, Korean, and Bhojpuri only as “< 1 million”; the ratios use 0.5 million as a midpoint, so the true values are at least as high as shown.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers?utm_source=chatgpt.com "List of languages by total number of speakers"

>>212144700
Bro, you shouldn't use ChatGPT to let it translate stuff for you. Ask it to generate exercises in German for you, according to your level, then ask it to correct them and if you don't understand something, ask for explanations.
You can also ask ChatGPT to converse with you in German. It works, because.... Germans talk to ChatGPT in German, too.

>made it through HSK 3
Now on to HSK 4
Surely once I get through this and HSK 5 I will be very competent with chinese

>>212147728
korean is 162:1 because it's the difficulty of japanese and chinese with none of the benefit. japanese you get the iconic culture, chinese you get the massive population and their diaspora are everywhere. SK has a small population and their culture is shit(girls get plastic surgery as highschool graduation presents so you never know if you're dating some uggo or not, they have no cool cars or anything just some gay pop music and TV shows)

>>212147728
>>212146845
>>212141543
you don't take into account the attractiveness of languages. For example, in the US you'd be more likely to impress an American with your knowledge of French or Spanish with a Latin American than with Turkish with either of them. You should also add language learners and XSLs. There are more women in Italian classes than in German classes and there is more FSL than French native speakers.
>>212146991
rollin

what's anki but with putting in actual output, writing in words tl to english, engish to tl?
i feel like i'm cheating flashing the cards yeaaaah sure i know about that one, can we move to the next one that i also know
NO dupolingo tho

>>212148597
that's all holistic though. i can't fucking calculate that.

anki

>>212135337
what do you think of the idea that most native speakers aren't even at C1-C2 level because they aren't at that level of education
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Common_reference_levels
C2
>differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.
...'severally-folded' textual and contextual elaborations upon a scene of an anthropomorphized cartoon bear sordidly uttering the phrase 'bear with me' in front of a mirror after stopping to chuckle briefly.
ask '19/20' english natives for a definition to anthropomorphosis what do you think the response will be,

>>212149380
well yeah, when I see people learning english and they're at C2, they have a better vocabulary, but they aren't as fluid as a native and their accent isn't good, and they don't understand colloquialisms. sometimes they use a weird word somewhere. stuff like that. C2 doesn't really mean anything

>>212149460
heh heh 'bear with me'

>>212132587
this is some kind of communication problem
>for the first 1,000 or 2,000 words
>You aren't mathematically at B1 / B2 at 1,000 words
>"first 1,000"
the 1000 MOST FREQUENT words not just words. as in, by the time you have gotten that far you will have by force necessarily gotten several thousand, but that the 100 and 1000 are most crucial. take for instance this post, mostly top 100 and 1000 words. pic related not to scale by the time you get to 100 and 1000 radius strongly you end up picking up however many several thousand

>>212148132
Yeah but is it as accurate, though ? Then let’s say Italki real human ? I’ve heard things about chatGPT and German and it doesn’t seem that reliable

>>212150380
Ur drawing is shite, mate.

How true is this AI generated answer ? That would mean 1/2 years only ? Knowing the grammar, gender rules and so on ? Plus learning by yourself, no way it can take you only 2 years…

>>212150380
indonesian flag upside down from the northern hemisphere! didn't make it! european indonesia!

>>212150380
doesn't matter. you need to know 99% of the words you encounter to have a smooth experience

Here

>>212150507
No idea, I talk to ChatGPT in German and English daily, and it gets slang, memes and stupid lines down pat. I can joke around with it in English and German alike and often write in mishmash with it. I never had a line in German from it that sounded off.

>>212150682
whoops wrong post
>>212150533
indonesian flag upside down from the northern hemisphere! didn't make it! european indonesia!

>>212150507
I've seen it come up even with incorrect English collocations. If you don't know a subject well, you can easily ask the wrong question and have it generate incorrect stuff that sounds 100% legit

>>212150716
Okay Schatzi,
So I can buy or find a free textbook and translate it probably. If it can correct as you say

>>212150768
Exactly which doesn’t help let’s say if you want to do a language proficiency exam. I’m very and still skeptical

So is there a guide to learning Korean like there is for Japanese? Core 2k, input etc

>>212150842
If you can afford it, a teacher on italki is a good investment imo

>>212150787
I haven't said you should use it to correct your translations, I said you should ask it for exercises and to act as your practice partner in conversations.

For example, I asked it to generate a couple of exercises in German, around level A2 and did my best to answer with a mix of correct German and common mistakes learners do. It corrected everything I did wrong with a short explanation and even remarked my use of "Lichtspielhaus" for "cinema" as being old-fashioned and advised to use the word "Kino" instead.
That only was a sample, of course. But if you ask it for the grammar behind its corrections, you can always double-check with a grammar book yourself (and probably should).

>>212098930 (OP)
what does يفلص and التشتش mean? I heard the first meant pinching and the second was something sticky but idk

>>212151166
>I haven't said
Ask chatgpt if it can tell you're german just from this 1 sentence

The original language of ChatGPT is American English. No matter what language you speak to it in, It will ALWAYS look up American English sources or at least fall back on them. It doesn't even consider using british english.
I asked it about the meaning behind a line from The Transformation and it told me in german, the opinion of an American writer. Chatgpt can't even find Korean books translated into german. Die Legende vom Tränenvogel was translated last year from Korean (it doesn't have an english translation) and it couldn't find it. It only listed stuff available in English

Chatgpt, why can't I find a dokebi wife

>>212151517
IN SHORT: YOU CAN'T FIND A "DOKKAEBI WIFE" BECAUSE DOKKAEBI (EHH) ARE MYTHICAL CREATURES IN KOREAN FOLKLORE -NOT REAL BEINGS-AND THOUGH SOME STORIES DEPICT THEM MARRYING HUMANS, THESE ARE MYTHOLOGICAL OR DRAMATIC TALES, NOT REAL-LIFE POSSIBILITIES.

BOTTOM LINE

YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING THAT EXISTS ONLY IN IMAGINATION AND STORYTELLING. WHILE BEAUTIFUL AND COMPELLING IN CULTURE, MYTHOLOGY, AND LITERATURE, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A DOKKAEBI YOU CAN "FIND" AND MARRY IN REAL LIFE. BUT FORTUNATELY, THEIR STORIES- RICH WITH MAGIC, MYSTERY, AND CULTURAL RESONANCE-ARE AVAILABLE TO ENJOY THROUGH FOLKLORE, DRAMAS, AND BOOKS.

TRVTH NVKE TRVTH NVKE TRVTH NVKE

>>212150981
K thanks Luigi , but yeah, not cheap either. At least you can talk to an actual person. Thing is , like I have said before, you can’t be at level 0 you need prior knowledge so I can’t anyways now

>>212151166
Not to be annoying but, I’d like to ask you what grammar books/textbooks etc you used. There’s too many I can’t decide. Also did you buy one with audio or just a plain book ? Thanks,

>>212151260
ChatGPT thought I was French or Spanish, but also said it's perfectly valid British English, opposed to "I didn't say", which is American English.

>>212151697
I'm a native speaker, so I can't really help you with book recommendations, sorry.

>>212151741
No :( sorry Jannick. You talked about A2 so I thought you were a learner…

>>212150722
Why are you crashing out? You're not gonna be the da Vinci of new Zealand, it's fine bro.

>>212151636
Yeah, I understand what you mean. With my TL I started with duolingo to build up a little confidence, then I looked for a teacher on italki.
However there are teachers able to help you from zero, but the first lessons are going to be slow. I'm experiencing that with a 2nd TL I started out of curiosity recently.
The price also varies a lot depending on the language, for example I've seen that French teachers tend to be more expensive on average.

>>212151707
>said it's perfectly valid British English
It's not. "I haven't said...." Can only be used in specific situations. Eg "I haven't said anything" "I haven't done nothing mate" etc. Followed by "you should" sounds unnatural.
t. Brit

>>212151925
I heard duo is not good for German at some point which is why I stopped. I used this app where you hear words (sorry forgot the name) and you just hear natives repeating the same sh*t all over again. German on Italki is usually not cheap unless it’s not their first language, I remember. And being in NA the time slots aren’t the best…
Makes me want to download the app again, ty ty

>gave up learning russian
>Months go by
>Suddenly smexy coworkers who only speak russian arrive
Fucking kill me

>>212152043
JUST FUCKING WATCH TV, EVERYTHING IS DUBBED, EVERYTHING IS SPOKEN BY NATIVES, EVERYTHING IS NATURAL. THE MASHLE DUB WENT FULL YOUTH SLANG

>>212152091
The mob psycho dub added in original jokes, it's actual pure kino

>>212152091
I already listen to ZDF and ARD stuff I don’t understand with no subtitles, so my brain is a bit used to the sounds… useless but it makes me more into the language which helps. When you want : better.
Problem is I am 26 so my brain is old af

>open YouTube
>Book in German Hörbüch
>YouTube to MP3
Woah is that 9 hours of pure clear German input?

>>212152043
The Easy German channel shills Seedlang and it doesn't look bad, but I'm not learning German, so I can't tell you for sure

>>212151517
Deepseek is much better at Asian languages. Idk how it does with Euro languages, but in general Deepseek is less English oriented given that it was created in China.

>>212152207
There’s a whole subreddit about YouTube channels to watch, but I’m at level 0. So I need to learn words somehow. Procrastination because I just graduated and can’t find a job.
I’m native French, a language with terrible rules and exceptions so I HOPE I will manage the grammar in DE. That scares me a lot

I remember why I stopped coming here. This place is full of twats who see language speakers as animals in a zoo. Fuck students and degree havers

>>212152357
Lol what

>>212150716
ChatGPT's German sounds a bit odd though, doesn't it? I think Gemini would be better to be quite honest but lemme hear your take

¿Dónde está el baño?

>>212151517
Was it worth reading though?

>>212150380
Problem is that whatever you're saying is so delusional that no amount of clarification makes it less delusional
>NO, I mean the first 1,000 MOST COMMON words!
You won't know thousands of words then, you're most likely to see the most common words, as they are the most common you see them the most common, and this follows the zipf law.

The most frequent word is literally twice as common as the second-most-frequent word, or even more. When everyone says "the first thousand" this is literally what they're talking about, as the first 1,000 learned in any natural way (like you said) would be the 1,000 most common due to zipf's law.
By the time you've gotten to the first thousand most common you're likely to know AT BEST several hundred other words, as the less common words are really significantly less common than the less common words that came right before them.

Basically your theory falls apart from the start due to the basics of how linguistics works.

>>212155153
common

>>212150657
>>212150699
Look up FSI guidelines for hours needed.

Basically FSI guidelines are based around AMBASSADORS (110-120 IQ assumed) who have gone through college and the like and are experienced in their particular field, and it's a work guideline.
The FSI also tracks only "guided hours of study", so if this is CEFR levels - and it looks like it is, issued by the FSI - you would assume that they are doing these 1,100 hours of guided study in a classroom and an EQUAL amount of study at home - that is what this particular metric was designed for.

So double that hour count, and assume from day 1 that you study as well as a focused college student who is literally getting paid to study for your job. The AI answer just copied some other answers it found online with no elaboration or anything.

>>212155225
yeah well I mean look at that completely natural native-level paragraph, the most common word was like 10 times more common than the second most common word, By Far.

>>212155323
these FSI numbers are easily the best case scenario. nobody here has a native teacher they're seeing 25 hours per week.

unironically you should double that doubling, so the easy 600hr ones you double to get the REAL number they had to go through, and then double it again to get what any of us IRL would need. so more like 2400hrs for cat1 for a normal person without a teacher

>>212150380
>>212132587
Tagging this post again btw because it was a perfect answer that you didn't actually read or understand
>>212132587
Actually read the post, you didn't need to argue or anything, you're fundamentally confused by what I was saying and just didn't read it. He didn't include the first 1,000 words because it was impossible to do anything significant that would entertain an adult without them, he just used spaced repetition for them.
Now, this post shows the number of "tokens" (these are words of any kind) you need to encounter to go up in the level of most frequent words - you need to see each word a certain number of times, and because as the word becomes less common it becomes harder to hit this number you'll have a harder and harder time finding those less frequent words, so there it is.
>2000-level
You need to get 170,000 tokens.
>3000-level
AFTER you have obtained those first 170,000 tokens to reach the 2,000 level you now need to get an additional 300,000 tokens
>4000-level
Now AFTER you've gone through the two previous levels you need to get an additional 530,000 tokens after all of that.

This basically perfectly illustrates why you were fundamentally confused and you didn't even read the post, as words become less common you see them less and you're less likely to remember them - it becomes harder to hit that magic number of times seen where you'll remember the word, and so by the time you know the first 1,000 most common words you actually will only know a couple hundred other words through natural acquisition. You might have built some pathways to the other 8,000 words you should know, but you aren't remembering a significant amount of them by the 1,000 mark.

>>212132587
>You basically need to anki-goon for the first 1,000 or 2,000 words, not naturally come into contact with them.
NTA and not even part of this conversation but this sounds weird. you're saying you can't just naturally come into contact, you HAVE to use stupid anki in order to get the most common words? isn't the point of them being common that they're easy to learn via daily normal interaction?

>>212155526
Yeah, more or less. I've never really liked the "categories" in terms of hour counts or even difficulty because they're so poorly used in so many ways, and they were made for that specific thing.

At the end of the day if you're self-taught I think there's a similarity in "hour counts" needed for all languages - that is, the similarity is that it will take an extremely long time, and in that extremely long time the difference in them breaks down - to learn Spanish to C2 at home with no professional teacher with no professional study I don't think it would take four times as long for Japanese, the simple "doubling" probably does not apply entirely to the hardest ones, mostly just that the simpler ones are not that simple.

>>212155578
>Now, this post shows the number of "tokens" (these are words of any kind) you need to encounter to go up in the level of most frequent words - you need to see each word a certain number of times, and because as the word becomes less common it becomes harder to hit this number you'll have a harder and harder time finding those less frequent words, so there it is.
oooooooooh....i'm >>212155614 btw not who you're replying to lol. wow. so this is why anki is actually better than doing it naturally?

>>212155614
Here's the problem though, you restrict yourself the less you know to more simple content. If you don't understand most words you're hearing the listening is less effective. So are any other ways of natural acquisition.
Basically if you're missing 50% of the words in a conversation you're missing the entire narrative, and without a narrative to follow you can't really learn by association as rapidly. On top of this it makes the content much more boring, as you're struggling through something that feels impossible.

Now, there are beginner materials made to compensate for this. Those are generally even more boring than something like anki, as they have to keep it simple and they're extremely restricted in what they could be about - basically children's media, with the caveat that a 5 year old will know 2,000 words, so if you don't have 1,000 words you're not at the level of a 5 year old yet. This means for an adult it's BORING to watch literal baby content for hours.
>>212155648
>so this is why anki is actually better than doing it naturally?
Yeah, one of the big reasons. For word frequency it's a big boost. The other reason is spaced repetition - anki is made in a specific way that it spaces out how you see the words - in this way it's significantly better than your standard flash card.

>>212155643
i probably agree with that. the FSI numbers are a different thing than what we're doing.

there's a guy that went to FSI for spanish and he says that the programs are all different too, some use input and others are more focused on grammer. recommend people read this post to see what these FSI numbers actually mean:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Spanish/comments/wqusu3/24_wks_1300_hrs_of_spanish_at_fsi_what_ive_learned/

also he says these were 2-5 person classes and that when it was only ONE other person it was much more helpful. if WE were to use a teacher, it'd be private on iTalki or w/e and would theoretically be superior to what they have at FSI, yet another example of how it's different.

it's just way different. i wouldn't even use them as a guide T B H. i'd just look at what normal people are doing, how they learned, how many hours per day, and how long it took to reach fluency. FSI stuff is nice and simple but it's not useful.

>>212155715
so basically your redpill is that you should spam anki for the first 1000-2000 words so you can escape Tutorial Island and get input from adult stuff you actually might care about instead of literal baby books and Peppa Pig

my only problem with Anki is that there's no context. you don't want to learn to solve flashcards. you want to learn to use a foreign language. IDK if that's a real problem but it's my intuition. i've never seriously tried to learn a foreign language so i have no actual experience.

I see articles that say things like
>if you study your language for 8 hours a day every day of the week, you will reach relative fluency in months.
>but this obviously takes lots of focus and dedication.
But isn't there a limit to how much you can study in a day? Don't you need mental relaxation in order to process and absorb the things you've learned? I don't know of anyone who studies 8 hours a day

>>212155878
yes. there's a lot of research that shows even professionals at a really high level in other fields can only really do hard work/practice for about 4 hours per day. that's basically the limit for Study™. input though? idk, you can probably do that for as long as you're awake.

>>212154494
Idk, it's in my stack. It looks interesting. 눈물을 마시는 새 is the Korean name. But it might just be young adult slop. Im probably looking at it from a wow that's so different eye tho. Which is not good. But omniscient reader had dokebis n that and they weren't really that special

>>212135765
central asians don't look that brown

>>212156037
The Kyrgyz can get pretty dark

>>212156030
4.5 stars with 155 reviews on Amazon

>>212155834
Yeah, more or less. 1,000 or 2,000 words won't take you far, but it will take you to some news and wikipedia articles and the like - another big thing I did was getting good in ONE field, which for a while was reading certain news articles. Those news articles tended to have a shared vocabulary set, so even if in the general language you use 10,000 words you might have only 500 extremely specific hard words for that set - and so if I stuck to one area that interested me for a while I would pick up that one set and therefore be able to read at a relatively high level compared to my general ability level - this has its drawbacks but it's a neat trick.
>you don't want to learn to solve flashcards. you want to learn to use a foreign language
Very true, but I'll refer back to the previous posts, you'll spend more than ten times longer with those first 2,000 words compared to the harder ones, you WILL be learning the language once you start inputting, because of how common those common words are you'll hit them all the time and you'll assimilate their meanings. It can be a problem if you don't input enough, but those most common words just eventually stop being flash cards and become actual words you know - of course, at first they are flash cards, but once you memorize the flash cards you move onto big boy stuff, and with that stuff you'll naturally the most common words anyway so often that they'll quickly become natural to you anyway.

The "memorizing flash cards" thing is much more of a danger for more rare words, but then that also happens in my NL when I find rare words while reading anyway.

>>212156087
so as long as it's a common word, you'll get the context from input 24/7, but with rare words you won't get much context through daily input so learning them with a flashcard isn't very effective

makes sense

and that idea that you can suddenly use certain media because they use the same words regularly is good too.

>>212155878
Back when I was reading for 8 or 9 hours a day (and this from zero hours of reading physical books) (I did this because I had no phone or internet or anything at the time, only a TV with an antenna that only played good stuff for 2 hours a day)
What I would do is have two books going at a time, one was a fiction, one was non-fiction. I'd use the one to relax and the other to learn and focus. Like this I was able to do something that was mentally taxing for 8 or more hours a day - basically I had something simpler to fall back on that was still out of my "comfort zone." I'm aware it wasn't "real studying" (whatever that means), but it was still something I wasn't used to doing at all, and I managed it by having something easier to fall back on whenever I got too fatigued. For the thing to fall back to I wouldn't really care if I wasn't paying attention either, when I was tired I'd just lean back and relax and maybe take a nap and eat something, then I'd start again.

>>212134030
>>212134060
Holy shit, this is hilarious.

>>212150699
This is effectively how the Mormons do it but it helps that they primarily limit conversational practice to talking about God. It’s full 100% 24/7 immersion with partners for accountability to ensure you never use English for months.

>>212157533
>>212157533
>>212157533

>>212155323
Keep in mind this is for diplomatic usage. I.E. conversing about high politics and a wide array of other advanced topics, and at the highest levels of politeness and culture about sensitive topics with world leaders. Basically, you can’t be allowed to fuck up, and the FSI’s standards are very high. It’s totally different even to some “white guy shocks chinks with perfect ping pong” because it turns out you don’t need much to comfortably talk about the weather and buy fish vs arguing full speed with the Chinese trade minister about patent law homogenization policy.

Essentially, the lesson from FSI numbers is 1. Measure your expectations and don’t be a perfectionist 2. Be patient

>>212155153
>By the time you've gotten to the first thousand most common
we'll say thats 90% of used words
>you're likely to know AT BEST several hundred other words
which are in the domain of the 10% least used words. the bottom 10 percent of frequency of words. probably not at all unlike the bottom 10th percentile of iq, probably not very useful
of course, words =/ language. but you can piece together from context.
the defeatism is a cope

>>212158175
words probably not in the 1000 most common in this^ post
defeatism - 'defeat'
percentile
frequency
but if you're romance first or previous language even those might not occlude you
actually what if we added main easy concepts as well