Aspiring Polyglots Here? Woot woot!

I use Flaming Durtles 3rd party app for my wanikani on my Android and it allows me to stop & resume pretty freely and quit a session if I don’t want to save wrong answers/typos (I hate this keyboard…its autocorrecting everything wrong as I write this but I can’t seem to get autocorrect to turn off!! Help with this would also be appreciated).

I have an English keyboard, Japanese Romanji, French, Spanish, and Russian on this Android.

WaniKani is very productive for my Japanese. When I study on Duolingo, I barely need to even think because they just GIVE you the answers. I hate that but thats then only way I get anything that builds actually sentences.

With Russian I rely on Lingvist because like WaniKani, it uses the multi-tier algorithm to make sure you know a word before shelving it for a while. You have to plug it in. No multiple choice. Love that…despite how Russian has seven cases for every freaking…word…damn Russian grammar.

But when it comes to my French? I haven’t found jack that challenges me at all. And yet I can’t follow films as well as I used to because of the lack of immersion. For Spanish I just watch films. I don’t really care to learn it. I just happen to pass intermediate proficiency. But it would be nice if I found an app that challenged both my French & Spanish.

This month I’m learning the Korean alphabet. I am not actively learning Korean, but are there apps for Japanese speakers who are learning Korean that are particularly effective the way wanikani is for English speakers? (I decided to learn Korean on my left hand so it forces my mind to store it with my more creative side where all the KPop is located anyway). So creative solutions are appreciated.

Basically… when you are learning multiple languages its like playing several games of chess at once. You take a break from one game to pick up another and something about the switch gives you a rest even when you aren’t actually taking one. (My husband is multilingual chess candidate master… So he says thats how it is for him. Sounds solid enough). But challenging yourself to think in an easier or rather… better established language while studying primarily for the third seems to be what Koichi means when he talks about Maximum Efficiency in the Most Minimum amount of time. Lord knows I need every minute I can get (I’m way behind in my mathmatics studies and until I get my ducks in a row I cant stick it back in rotation).

Life is so shitty. I never thought fighting with autocorrect everyday let alone ever be stuck with this crap Android to study would be my life narrative, but I’m doing the best I can with what I have. I have a home, food and no Covid so I’m grateful. I just know I could do better.

If any fellow aspiring polyglots have some tech advice and language learning advice I’d love to hear it. My great great uncle spoke 8 languages, but he got to SEE these places. I have to create and simulate those sort of social interactions for myself. I accept that I probably will never get to see Paris again, or eat Borsh in Moscow, or farm in Hokkaido, but I dare to let my mind dance past the confines of my quarantine, and past the confines of this human experiment on Planet Terror.

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This Covid stuff will end eventually. Unless you’re 80 years old, odds are in your favor that you’ll be able to travel the world like you want. I know 2020 was a pretty doomsday like year, but this will come to pass with time. (Probably except for us Americans. Since, you know, wearing masks and believing in science is bad. So we’re likely screwed forever XD jkjk) Point being: don’t despair! It’s virtual now, but it’ll be real one day.

As for the polyglot stuff, I would definitely love to get there one day. I’m both following advice I’ve heard from other polyglots and also doing what works best for me, which is doing one language at a time. From what I’ve been told, it’s best to get to an intermediate level with a language first before moving on to your next one. This helps ingrain things in your mind to make you less likely to forget later. But it’s a never ending journey, you’ll constantly have to go back and practice or else you will lose it regardless. For me, I’ve gotten my wires crossed when learning two languages in the past, so I’ve been focusing only on Japanese until recently, when I’ve dipped my toes into Russian.

My language goals at the moment though are Japanese, Russian, and ASL. Probably Spanish after that, as it’s practical for where I live. (The States, if you couldn’t guess already :stuck_out_tongue: ) Chinese one day could be fun too, but I don’t wanna think too far ahead, that’s already a lot x’D

But for Russian, I was following the advice of a book I read recently–Fluent Forever. Was curious about his method and wanted to give it a try. I’m still early in the process, I’m taking it super slow, but it’s been fun so far pointing to various things and saying what they are in Russian to my partner (native speaker).

Have you looked into Anki? They might have what you want there. I know I was surprised when I found quite a few Russian->Japanese and vice versa decks on there. You can also build your own decks, which is what I’m doing with Russian.

If you’re looking for a challenge though, apart from going to these places directly, I would recommend Italki. (Hello Talk too, but Italki might suit you better.) You can put yourself on the spot to speak live to native speakers. I’ve been using it myself and it’s a lot of fun and definitely pushes me. You can learn a lot and pretty quickly too. I’d check it out if you haven’t already :slight_smile:

Best of luck though, you got this! ^^

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I will learn every language.
Nothing will stand in my way.
MY LANGUAGES WILL PIERCE THE HEAVENS- (wat)

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On my Android I was able to turn off spellcheck by following these steps:

Settings:

General management:


Language and keyboard:

Select Spellcheck: turn OFF

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I may be misunderstanding your question or pointing out the obvious (or likely both), but Korean uses an alphabet so there is no need for mnemonics or other creative solutions to learn the writing system. Alphabets don’t usually take very long to learn.

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Thanks for your vote of confidence Conan, but since I am an environmentalist, social activist, and an African American woman married an absolutely Brilliant White Man in post BLM/Standby America…no… I am not hopeful. I went from a person who owned land, a cabin, three cars and a boat to homeless drowning in hospital debt because of Agent Orange and his sycophants. If it wasn’t for my yoga, my running, my meditation and my KPop, I don’t know what I would do. I take it one day at a time. One kanji at a time.

Yes, some say its good to get to intermediare level on one language before moving to another. Most polyglots don’t count a language unless they are at least intermediate Level at it. I am a native English speaker, passed advanced proefficiency on my French while in the military, Russian I am advance to intermediate reading, writing, and listening, Japanese… intermediate,… I don’t like Spanish but I can understand a lot. I find those language exchange talk apps to be a waste of time. So many people are desperate to learn English so they say they speak French…Russian…Japanese… But its their second language so they try to just wing it from what they remember from classes. I met a Taiwanese person who did that with Japanese… many Romanians and Turks did this with Russian. And West Africans post fake white girl photos and are obviously not a native French speaker. With Spanish I can only assume this is multiplied by the various dialects. But I wouldnt be surprised if a Brazilian would try to fake even that… So… when I try to discuss advanced topics like indepedent films, politics, climate change and… Even play a game a chess WHILE we talk… The truth is very disappointing. There’s only so many times that I can answer the same boring introductory questions…hi…where are you from?..why are you learning _______? Do you have any pets, spouses, offspring? Sigh.

I had an account with Tiny Cards through my apple icloud. I uploaded soooooo many flashcards. (LNC_Morrison: lorenswan@aol.com) but without my apple phone I cant get access right now. But it is free to the public if you would like them for your Russian. Both my husband and I both took ASL in college. Neither one of remember a damn thing. lol. And my brother (he is studying Spanish & Korean) suggested Language Learning with Netflix? Is that a thing? I haven’t gotten around to checking it out.

I am thinking about doing this Memory Improvement Course. It’s based around constructing “Memory Palaces”… a physical place in your mind to recall data. Sounded interesting but if its between that and food…I think I prefer food for the month. I never did get my stimulus check and it sounds like Drumptf is holding the nation hostage on the next one.

Your wife is a native Russian speaker? My husband speaks so well people think he’s native! I’m so jealous of both our spouses. Russian is so hard for me, but I love the challenge. Ummm… pointing at random items around the apartment? The cat is on the table. The dog is sleeping on the bed. The cupboard is full of potatoes and onions. Meh… Lol. Hard pass.

Anni? Wanikani is enough! No more flashcards in Japanese!!! I want to read some simple sentences. Hear it spoken. That sort of thing. Eventually I will get used to the Yoda like order of words.

What I want is a way to cheat even more with Korean as I intend to be super lazy. Only the very basics. Pimsleur taught pronunciation by demonstrating English words in the target language. If I can do that to start? I’d be gold. “Learn Korean the laziest way at twenty minutes a day.” Thats my goal. Alot of Korean is based in Chinese and since Korean is purely phonetic it should be a cake walk…better than a cake walk… an ice cream cake walk. Hmmmm…ice cream…

Thanks again Conan

Yeah, day 2… I learned all the consonants. I realize that now. Lol.

I sometimes find myself thinking I’d like to learn another language, but then I think that I’d rather spend my time continuing with Japanese.

I have a hard time imagining starting a language without mastering it as a goal. Just personally. Guess I could just get over that.

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You never “master” a language. You are always learning. I am a writer that was classically trained and the English language, my native tongue, is always taking me deeper, reminding me of Latin days and summers snuggled up with Shakespeare. If thats the only reason…

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I feel like this too, but at the same time I sometimes just get the urge to start a new language project and the only way to get it out of my system is to just do it. Often I quit within a month, but it’s put me in the situation where I now study Japanese, French and (Mandarin) Chinese on a daily basis…

I hope I manage to find some sort of comfortable state, where I don’t need to put that much daily effort into it, with one of these languages eventually otherwise it’ll become pretty unsustainable…

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That’s why I can’t start another one. Because I’ll never “finish” Japanese.

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Well not all languages are as hard as Japanese so keep that in mind.

The challenge is one of the things that keeps me motivated.

I would strongly consider a Chinese language, simply because that lets me continue with kanji (hanzi) and I could feel like I’m simultaneously digging deeper into Japanese.

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You might enjoy Clozemaster. It has both an app and web version along with free and premium study. You can test your vocab knowledge for free with fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice. Premium has grammar practice by category. The sentences come from famous movie lines, speeches, etc. I enjoyed using it when I was studying French at an advanced level, but I stopped having free time and now I’m devoting my time to Japanese study and it’s too advanced for me to get much use yet.

Sounds like you might like Japanese Clozemaster as well.

I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family will at least stay safe with everything going on.

Italki is a tutoring program, primarily. You can partner up with a native speaker of another language for free, but I only use it for the paid aspect. And my experience with HelloTalk has been rather positive. If I ask a question, people answer. If I make a post, people typically correct it. You give back, of course, since it is an exchange thing. But you might find Italki more worthwhile in that case.

I was just explaining my experiences, not saying you had to do what I’m doing. I just started learning, that’s the extent of my abilities so far xD

Anki has those, or you can make your own. I can’t recall the website right now (Lang8??), but I know HelloTalk has this feature, where you can request native speakers to read what you’ve written aloud and you can implement that into your deck.

I haven’t found anything faster/cheat-like than SRS, but if you do, feel free to let me know. :slight_smile:

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I would argue that mastering a language does not mean knowing everything about the language.

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Unless you’re Nicolas Cage

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Mastering would be, I would think, when you can read just about anything or hear anything in daily life and understand or be able to talk about it. Like you would a native language.

I’m an English native speaker. There’s plenty I don’t know, but I don’t need to know. It doesn’t affect my every day life.

That’s my opinion.

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Clozemaster… Yes… Aha! Thanks so much this is great!

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I guess we have a different definition of “master”. Lol.