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Resources for language learners
— stack.tilde.cafe/puntos/2024-06-07.false_friends.gmi
False Friends — Spanish is known for a certain similarity to English, with an estimated 20,000 words being similar enough. But this can bite you - some words are FALSE COGNATES! I put together a list of some I've come across, and it's pretty amusing: Some of my favorites are: CONSTIPADO - having a cold, and EMBARAZADA - pregnant! Some words amusingly reverse their meanings:...
💬 1 like · Jun 08 · 3 months ago
A Reverse Hack — Here is something that may be useful -- or at least a change of pace... I watch a lot of Spanish instructional videos, and listen to many podcasts, generally with native speakers instructing on how to learn Spanish. But the opposite is also useful: watching videos for Spanish speakers learning English! Since I know what they are trying to teach, I can focus on listening and learning how people explain things for real in their native language.
💬 2 likes · Jun 05 · 3 months ago
Yiddish and Shelta (the Cant) — anyone know where it would be possible to start with these languages? I speak a bit of German so I am hoping Yiddish wouldn't be entirely foreign to me and I am quite fascinated by it; it would open up a new world to me. As for Shelta / Traveller's Cant - again there is a fascination, and it would actually come quite useful to me in my setting. Any hints?
💬 5 comments · May 10 · 4 months ago
Ulster Irish — Been learning Ulster Irish seriously for the past month and a bit. Going to start keeping a list of resources and other content on my capsule.
💬 2 comments · 2 likes · May 10 · 4 months ago
Trying Rocket Languages, FluentU and LingoPie — Maybe I am wrong, but my approach to leaning Spanish is to avoid translation when possible, but instead try to internalize the language -- I want to feel rather than know. I think it's the key to fluency. And so, in addition to banging out DuoLingo exercises (which are surprisingly good at making their way deep into my brain), I decided to try out a few more apps, in order to get good enough to watch TV. Rocket Spanish They offer a free trial...
💬 4 comments · May 09 · 4 months ago
I started a gemlog for confusing Spanish concepts — [gemini link] As I come across Spanish topics that stump me, I will make little write-ups. These are mainly notes for me and my partner, but maybe they will help someone. There are many terrible long-winded and ever-more confusing explanations on youtube. I will try to keep it short, a paragraph or two if possible, for each topic.
💬 1 like · May 06 · 4 months ago
FluentU Has anyone tried this app? There are a few TV/movie/video apps with simultaneous multiple language subtitles; this one seems to go into great detail line by line... The Bob Eponja YouTube video is pretty good for beginners
💬 View post · May 01 · 4 months ago
Despues 60 dias de estudio... — Puedo escribir un poco, mejor que hablar. Me faltan vocabulario, pasado y futuro -- informacion clave! Duolingo es muy repetivo, pero util. Tal vez demasiado lento, en comparacion con la escuela. Sin embargo, en mi esperiencia, despues muchos anos en la escuela, mi francese es el peor! Ahora no soy joven, necesito mucho repeticion. Escribe sobre tus esperiencias aprendiendo un idioma.
💬 10 comments · 2 likes · Apr 16 · 5 months ago
ChatGPT para español — ChatGPT (3.5/version gratuita) es un buen profesor de español. Es muy paciente, y puedo hacer preguntas tontas una y otra vez. Pero en modo de voz, es demasiado verboso. Tengo que escuchar todo el discurso sin interupciones... En general, muy util.
💬 1 comment · Apr 12 · 5 months ago
Status Report: 30 days of Duolingo — I am actually on day 33 of my streak. Overall, I am pretty happy with Duolingo, which I've learned to really appreciate, in spite of my initial negative feelings. Ignoring minor UI issues and occasional lock-ups (very rare now that advertising has gone away), the curriculum is extremely well designed. New words and conjugations are introduced in a way that rarely overloads my brain, and the spaced repetition is perfectly worked out for retention. It's a...
💬 1 comment · 1 like · Mar 22 · 5 months ago
Does anyone else feel icky when it comes to language exchanges? I'm selfish and just wanted to find Koreans who wanted to speak to me in Korean. How does one navigate exchanging a language when it feels more efficient to work for money and then exchange the money for language lessons 100% in the target language? But then, how does one find friends when one is only ever paying for the language and natives' time? How does it ever stop being transactional? I'm probably just way too jaded and...
💬 8 comments · 1 like · Mar 19 · 5 months ago
Translation Considered Harmful — I speak two languages fluently. The first one I learned like everyone does - with adults correcting and cajoling me along the way. When I went to school, I started learning English, but after 3 years I has learned next to nothing - alphabet, some grammar rules, some words. But I was unable to put a sentence together in real-time. I then moved to the US, when I realized that no, I could not understand anything, and what little I could say, the locals found very...
💬 1 comment · 4 likes · Mar 16 · 6 months ago
Fui a la cafetería, pero el café estaba mal — I went to the cafe, but the coffee was bad. True story. So after 24 days of intense duolingo, it is not possible to say simple things like this, without outside help. For some reason, all language courses I've seen focus on the completely unusable present tense for a long, long time. While it seems simple and perhaps not entirely unwise to learn to conjugate verbs in present tense, it makes it impossible to communicate even simple thoughts. The...
💬 4 comments · 3 likes · Mar 12 · 6 months ago
Whose robot ate my cake? — My other favorites: "I like swimming in the pool with my cat", "I work at the hospital. I am a cat from Mexico, but my wife is from Argentina" The occasional craziness of Duolingo makes me like it more...
💬 View post · Mar 10 · 6 months ago
I am now a fan of Duolingo — OK, I've completely changed my mind about Duolingo and bought a family 1-year plan. My bitching was mostly related to the ads in the unpaid version. Without ads the app is stable, and the experience is streamlined. Being on the spectrum, a constant distraction with mind-numbing ads just did not work. I've been completely addicted to the well-thought-out gamification, and I love the way things are presented without 'lessons' -- it fits my desire to learn...
💬 4 comments · 1 like · Mar 10 · 6 months ago
Video Games in Target Language — I’ve been playing Animal Crossing New Leaf for since January in English and decided today that I should switch the language the game is in to Spanish to expose myself to plenty of Spanish vocabulary and grammar. I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it’s been going in a few weeks or so 😎
💬 3 comments · 1 like · Feb 25 · 6 months ago
Duolingo gave me a 3-day ad-free trial... — Interesting. As I entered the 8th-day streak, Duolingo gave me a 3-day no-ad unlimited error upgrade. Does everyone get it, or is it because I've been putting in hours every day? In spite of its occasional crashing and now, occasional muting for no reason (only restarting the app fixes it), I still find it pretty useful, and it is just stupid enough to keep my brain occupied without too much hard work. This results in me picking up language basics...
💬 View post · Feb 24 · 6 months ago
Babbel -- has anyone tried it? There is no free trial or even screenshots or course descriptions. They ask a few questions, get your email and request a payment. A bit of wtf.
💬 2 comments · Feb 21 · 6 months ago
My Cat Is Learning Crowish — MY cat sat in the middle of the room making strange quacking sounds yesterday. I was a alarmed, thinking she was unwell, but then I saw that she was looking out the window at a bunch of crows. When she was little she used to make creaking and ticking sounds at bugs.
💬 4 comments · 1 like · Feb 20 · 6 months ago
Duolingo app is bad — Duolingo app is pretty bad... it actually crashes. It pauses for prolonged periods after ads, and sometimes never recovers, requiring a shutdown and restart. The quality is embarrasing... All crashes happen after ads, confirming my bias Had they offered a free set of lessons and a clean way to purchase the product I would have paid by now. But kind of glad I didn't. For free, willing to tolerate the shitty app, for now. Aside from crashing, I found problems with with...
💬 3 comments · Feb 19 · 6 months ago