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Learning a new language?

So if I wanted to just learn a new language spontaneously. How do i go about doing it? Considering i'll be learning it on my own with no help.

For example i'm going on tour to Prague, Czech Republic next year. I told my friend and he said he'd teach me some Czech, he taught me a little but hasn't bothered since. So I've been meaning to learn on my own yet haven't got round to it.

So, if I want to learn any new language which I've had no past experience with, how do I do it?
Original post by minertommy
So if I wanted to just learn a new language spontaneously. How do i go about doing it? Considering i'll be learning it on my own with no help.

For example i'm going on tour to Prague, Czech Republic next year. I told my friend and he said he'd teach me some Czech, he taught me a little but hasn't bothered since. So I've been meaning to learn on my own yet haven't got round to it.

So, if I want to learn any new language which I've had no past experience with, how do I do it?


Try this.
Original post by minertommy
So if I wanted to just learn a new language spontaneously. How do i go about doing it? Considering i'll be learning it on my own with no help.

For example i'm going on tour to Prague, Czech Republic next year. I told my friend and he said he'd teach me some Czech, he taught me a little but hasn't bothered since. So I've been meaning to learn on my own yet haven't got round to it.

So, if I want to learn any new language which I've had no past experience with, how do I do it?


Depends on how seriously you want to take it. If it's a relatively common language then there will definitely be textbooks available which might be useful at least as some kind of guide of what to learn. There are loads of online resources. Depending on what language you're interested in, you may not even need a textbook. Have a search for "learn ____ online" or something like that and lots of resources will come up. There will definitely be a reddit community dedicate to any language you're interested in learning. Duolingo is a free website/app that allows you to learn the basics of a good range of languages so that's worth checking out. For memorising vocab, two resources I'd recommend are Memrise and Anki. They basically do the same thing but Memrise is simpler whereas Anki lets you do more stuff so see what works best for you. In terms of getting practice, see if you can find some reading resources (e.g. simple texts with translations). There's a great website called Lang-8 which allows you to write journal entries in a target language and get it corrected by native speakers, but unfortunately they're not accepting new members right now. However, the same company has an app called HiNative where you can ask questions to native speakers and get corrections so that might be worth checking out.
Reply 3
Original post by MrDoggyPants
Try this.


thanks, i'll check it out once i'm home


Original post by Plagioclase
Depends on how seriously you want to take it. If it's a relatively common language then there will definitely be textbooks available which might be useful at least as some kind of guide of what to learn. There are loads of online resources. Depending on what language you're interested in, you may not even need a textbook. Have a search for "learn ____ online" or something like that and lots of resources will come up. There will definitely be a reddit community dedicate to any language you're interested in learning. Duolingo is a free website/app that allows you to learn the basics of a good range of languages so that's worth checking out. For memorising vocab, two resources I'd recommend are Memrise and Anki. They basically do the same thing but Memrise is simpler whereas Anki lets you do more stuff so see what works best for you. In terms of getting practice, see if you can find some reading resources (e.g. simple texts with translations). There's a great website called Lang-8 which allows you to write journal entries in a target language and get it corrected by native speakers, but unfortunately they're not accepting new members right now. However, the same company has an app called HiNative where you can ask questions to native speakers and get corrections so that might be worth checking out.


Thanks, i'm probably gonna take it seriously
because 1) it'll look good on my CV or whatever if I manage to become somewhat fluent in the language. 2) I just find it interesting and i've always wanted to learn different languages

I'll check out those websites later, i've already used memrise for my french so i'll be sure to check out the alternative website

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