All Questions
1,376
questions
2
votes
1
answer
34
views
What specialist/engineering/technical vocabulary Nordic-English dictionaries are available?
I am looking for vocabularies/dictionaries for the Nordic languages specific to engineering. These books do exist for some other fields, such as Danish-English vocabularies for law. I have been unable ...
3
votes
0
answers
71
views
Learning languages alone
I am trying to learn languages like French, German, Italian and others with the help of dictionaries and books from the English school that I went in the past. I think I have books starting from the ...
- 39
4
votes
0
answers
4k
views
How do I send gems to another user in Duolingo? [closed]
How can I send some gems to my friend in Duolingo?
Here they say there is a way, but I can't find a "send gems" button in my friend's profile.
3
votes
0
answers
19
views
Looking to get into Ancient Greek poetry in the original
I'm am currently an undergraduate in college studying Classical Languages. I know Koine Greek, and read through Geoffrey Steadman's edition of Plato's Apology, which I found a helpful introduction to ...
- 31
7
votes
2
answers
113
views
Are Swedish/Danish/Norwegian ever taught as a single pluricentric language?
Due to largely overlapping vocabulary and morphology, mutual intelligibility among the three Scandinavian languages is near-complete (and in spite of claims that “Danish is impossible to understand”, ...
user21126
5
votes
1
answer
106
views
Having trouble with English vowels
Being Turkish, I think my command of English phonology suffers from L1 transfer.
Consonants seem to be fine, in that I can produce them on command, and can transcribe others' production of them more ...
- 81
2
votes
0
answers
32
views
Are Asian-language-to-English word flashcards less effective than European-language-to-English word flashcards?
I personally find Chinese-to-English word flashcards generally ineffective for learning Chinese, and I attribute this to words having different (a) collocations, (b) parts of speech, (c) suitable ...
- 2,368
2
votes
0
answers
38
views
How are words divided to into syllables?
My question is more about the pronunciation of words like arbitrary, oblivion and experience. The way theses words are divided into syllables make them harder for me to pronounce them due to the lack ...
- 21
4
votes
0
answers
72
views
Are there any studies on whether it is more effective to study a language a bit everyday or have a couple longer sessions?
As with trying to learn anything, language learning obviously takes time and practice, but many people, myself included, have limited time to dedicate to a language learning practice. With limited ...
- 195
4
votes
2
answers
106
views
How to Know if a Movie/Show is Translated Well Enough to Help in Language Learning?
As addressed in questions like this, watching movies and shows in your target language can be a good way to practice your listening skills, while also being exposed to new vocabulary and spoken ...
- 195
4
votes
2
answers
207
views
What ways can ChatGPT assist with learning a foreign language?
I believe ChatGPT's strong linguistic capability would enhance language learning.
But I think it depends as ChatGPT may sometimes provide incorrect responses with confidence. and language learners may ...
- 259
1
vote
0
answers
27
views
CEFR-based assessment rubrics
Regarding action-oriented scenarios, I do not know how to create an analytic grid/rubric (that is, a six/five-point Likert rating scale) calibrating CEFR descriptors of the same level, say B1 (...
- 271
0
votes
0
answers
58
views
How can I relate HSK levels with university undergraduate and graduate levels?
People often underestimate the difficulty of Chinese, and think they might be able to pass e.g. the HSK5 in a year starting from scratch. Maybe this ultra-rapid progress is possible for some people ...
- 2,368
3
votes
0
answers
44
views
What level of schooling does it take for a native-Chinese speaker to understand CCTV news?
One of my iTalki teachers and I study China Central Television (CCTV) news. The hosts are noted for the extremely fast pronunciation (sometimes 280+ characters per minute) and their use of precise, ...
- 2,368
2
votes
1
answer
278
views
How does learning math differ from learning second foreign languages (L2)?
Peer-reviewed publications analogize learning math to learning a L2. But what are the DisAnalogies and CounterArguments? How can you distinguish learning math from learning L2?
Luciana Oliveira, ...
user13681
0
votes
0
answers
27
views
Learning Vedic Pitch Accent Sanskrit to Speak it - Methods
I wanted to know how best one can speak Sanskrit with the Vedic Pitch Accent -- the recitation of the Rgveda is used to preserve the accent but does not represent how it actually sounded:
https://www....
- 101
2
votes
2
answers
38
views
Where can I find a collection of synonyms with detailed explanations of their nuances or differences?
Online sources, like some sites, and books both are OK. (English vocabulary)
To clarify, I'm not asking for a method to search for synonyms. Rather, I'm finding some sources which I can browse in my ...
user13474
1
vote
1
answer
37
views
Are there any good resources where I can listen to very casual real English conversations among native speakers?
When watching a video on Netflix or Youtube, I can usually easily understand English conversations.
However, when it comes to real conversations among native speakers, I sometimes cannot even ...
- 11
3
votes
0
answers
48
views
how to acquire a certain sound which lack in my mother tongue?
In my mother language, there is a lack of the N sound as an initial consonant. Every time when I say English words like nature, new, it will naturally or unconsciously be pronounced as lature, lew.
...
- 131
4
votes
2
answers
73
views
Finding direct translations for foreign words in English
Is there any tool or method of searching for the direct translations of foreign words that have made their way into English? Google translate and other translation services will translate the meaning ...
- 161
4
votes
0
answers
46
views
How to go about learning a heritage language that I lost as a child?
I used to be bilingual in French and English when I was very young but when I began school in Australia, I stopped speaking French so I could get better at English and now at 16 I can understand the ...
- 41
0
votes
0
answers
73
views
Does immersion actually work?
I’ve heard people say constantly that “immersion is great and you’ll learn a language that way”. Some even go as far as saying that immersion is the only way to learn a language. But is it really true?...
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
59
views
Polish learning roadmap
I'm at the beginning of learning Polish. Currently I know Russian and Ukrainian, but I don't have an experience of learning a new Slavic language as an adult. I have learned English and swedish, yet ...
2
votes
2
answers
50
views
Online Portuguese [PT-PT] language course
Duolingo has Portuguese in its program, but is built for [PT-BR], Brazilian Portuguese. I’m looking for quite a while to find an online language course in European Portuguese [PT-PT].
In general, ...
- 123
3
votes
0
answers
30
views
How does the proportion of Chinese-language students who learn handwriting change with level?
Many students of Chinese as a second language opt out of learning handwriting characters. My impression (from my personal experience) is that the proportion of beginner students who learn handwriting ...
- 2,368
3
votes
4
answers
97
views
How can I practice speaking English by myself?
Currently I'm learning by myself with videos but mostly with textbooks. I have no much people to speak with and I'm trying to find some ways to practice conversation. Do someone have any hint?!
4
votes
1
answer
70
views
Are there effective ways to improve oral English or a platform which emphasizes students' improvement?
Am I the only one who feels that these English-teaching websites are just a way for teachers to make a few bucks here and there?
It seems that the majority don't really focus on the intricacies of ...
4
votes
0
answers
95
views
How many words give 98% coverage in Mandarin?
For Chinese characters, Jun Da's dataset implies 1566 characters gives 95% coverage, 2285 characters gives 98% coverage, and 2838 characters gives 99% coverage. I'm wondering if there's a similar ...
- 2,368
1
vote
1
answer
143
views
Is it Worth Trying to Learn a Pair of Languages at the Same Time?
Good day, I am focusing on learning Arabic ... but I see that there are many similarities with Hebrew. Would this be a good pair to learn at the same time? If so, why? If not, why not? Thanks.
- 13
2
votes
1
answer
78
views
Are word translations adequate when starting to learn a new language?
Being a native Spanish speaker, I've learnt English as a second language since I was a child, starting at age 5, (I'm 23), and when I was 14-15 I started to learn German at a language school, with ...
- 21
3
votes
0
answers
39
views
Is the HSK exam easier outside of China?
It's been known (at least in Confucius institue in my country) if you take HSK test outside of China, it's easier and the grading is pretty lenient.
u/Marizza_Tan, comment on "hsk 6", Reddit ...
- 2,368
4
votes
0
answers
60
views
Is this a good way to learn English?
In the anime Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai, there's such a scene of a notebook.
As you can see in the picture, it's almost barely a list of vocabulary, I mean, there's no example sentence. Besides, ...
user13474
7
votes
1
answer
144
views
How to learn a niche language, i.e. Kazakh?
I am learning Kazakh.
There are maybe a total of 10 teachers of this language with a curriculum and none of them know grammar past declension.
Google translate is no help either.
I've had to use ...
-1
votes
1
answer
64
views
Is it possible to learn Hebrew or Greek without a teacher or an online course?
My first is a latin-based language, and I know just the latin script, I have no experience writing in cyrilic script, greek script, and hebrew script. Is it possible to learn Hebrew or Greek from ...
- 11
2
votes
0
answers
33
views
Vietnamese children's stories with audio and text
I'm looking for children's stories (stories with an easy vocabulary) in Vietnamese, with the text and the audio, so that I can listen to the story and follow the words on the text.
An example would be ...
- 121
1
vote
3
answers
138
views
Is Mandarin and character writing easier for people who know Japanese?
I've been planning to study basic Mandarin for some time. Today I had to write neko (the word for cat) in Japanese using Kanji.
I just noticed that Simplified Chinese uses the same characters to ...
user1801060
0
votes
2
answers
129
views
What is the most efficient set of languages needed to easily become proficient in any language?
I’m not familiar with the terminology to ask this question properly, so I’ll do my best in laymen’s terms.
I’m a native English speaker, so I find certain elements of other languages particularly ...
- 117
-1
votes
1
answer
87
views
What is the output-equivalent of the term "exposure"?
We often discuss how many "exposures" we need to learn a word (and depending on your style and definitions, it could be 8 to 12 or even 50+). My impression is that we typically envisage an &...
- 2,368
2
votes
0
answers
40
views
How long between each TOCFL level for learning Mandarin?
This is the same question as How long between each HSK level for learning Mandarin? but for the Taiwanese test rather than the mainland one.
A common question among language learners is how long will ...
- 121
0
votes
2
answers
53
views
Where to learn Français with certification?
Bonjour,
I want to learn Français because my Université requires B2 level Français, I have done a ton of searches and found the following details:
Language Levels
A1, A2 - DILF
B1, B2 - DELF
C1, C2 - ...
user13359
1
vote
2
answers
106
views
Does the usefulness of Anki vary between languages?
This question is motivated by this Reddit comment where the author has had success learning Spanish via Anki:
I've been using Anki for about a year (the time it took me to reach C1 in Spanish from ...
- 2,368
5
votes
1
answer
81
views
How can a YouTuber demonstrate that they are actually fluent in a language?
There's a bunch of YouTubers nowadays who claim to speak fluently in some second language. Some can; some can't but pretend to. I've noticed some YouTubers use a lot of techniques to inflate their ...
- 2,368
-1
votes
1
answer
100
views
Swedish vs Norwegian vs Danish. What the easiest language to learn for a native-Russian speaker with C1-level English? [closed]
Swedish vs Norwegian vs Danish, What's the easiest language to learn, overall?
I am native in Russian, but pretty good at English (C1).
The purposes of learning new language would be to be able to ...
2
votes
0
answers
24
views
Controversy & Debate in SLA: Can I ever get concrete takeaways?
I learned Mandarin in high school and later in life (now) started becoming interested in how I was able to acquire it, i.e., the study of SLA.
My goal: As of now, I hope to have concrete strategies ...
- 455
1
vote
1
answer
29
views
How can I improve my native language skills as someone with an immigration background?
My parents immigrated to Germany in the 70's and I was born and raised in Germany. Although I attended German schools like any other German child and even studied in Germany, I do not feel confident ...
- 111
1
vote
0
answers
14
views
Is there research into the phenomenon of "increased skill leading to decreased attention" for L2 learning, and what can a student do about it?
User phills at chinese-forums.org describes their experience learning Chinese through listening to audiobooks:
Paradoxically, I couldn't do these other things before when I was worse at the skill. I ...
- 2,368
-1
votes
1
answer
31
views
Where can I find "categories" which I can use for L2 practice by listing words in those categories?
A Reddit post has an exercise of listing 5 different things in each category:
A1: colors
A2: rooms of a house
B1: sea creatures
B2: chemical elements
C1: ways to cook an egg
C2/impossible: ...
- 2,368
1
vote
0
answers
17
views
Is it common for teachers to take standardized language tests in order to memorize them and post YouTube videos giving their contents?
In preparing for the Chinese HSK6, I stumbled upon videos such as these: 1, 2, 3. In these videos, Chinese teachers take the HSK6, then upload videos describing its contents and giving answers. ...
- 2,368
3
votes
1
answer
43
views
Is studying speeches by e.g. Kevin Rudd especially beneficial for improving one's Chinese speaking skills?
On YouTube you can find speeches in Chinese by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd (Chinese name 陆克文), such as this and this and this. Now I'm tossing up whether or not this (or some similar ...
- 2,368
1
vote
0
answers
63
views
How does Anki vocabulary relate to reading vocabulary?
Sometimes I see people online say they have an e.g. 15000-word vocabulary on Anki. It sounds impressive, but it's not clear to me that such a student can utilize that vocabulary for actual reading. ...
- 2,368