#lots of language learning apps

[puddingvalkyrie]

Learning another language is another one!

[eddis-not-eeddis]

How To Stop Killing Conversations

Talking is hard. People are confusing. Making friends is difficult, and interacting with coworkers is tortuous.

You want to make friends, you want to reach out, but it's hard and every time you start a conversation it dies, or limps along until both you and the person you're talking to are looking for excuses to kill it and put it out of it's misery so you can both escape the increasingly awkward situation.

As an introvert who has suffered a lot of social anxiety in my time, let me share a few tricks I've learned over the years going through hundreds and thousands of excruciatingly painful conversations until I found something that works. I've kind of distilled the process.

ALWAYS ASK A QUESTION!!!

The first thing is to always leave your partner an opening. You need to let each other talk for a conversation to get off the ground, but it's more than that, really. You need to actively encourage each other to talk. The best way to do that is to ask questions.

Here are two examples of an introduction: Example A

You: Hello.

Them: Hello.

You: Nice to meet you.

Them: Nice to meet you too.

Example B

Y: Hello, nice to meet you, how are you? T: I’m doing well, yourself?

Y: I've been really well. How are you liking the weather?

T: I'm so happy the weather's finally getting cooler, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice season. Do you like lattes?

Do you see how in Example A the conversation wasn’t going anywhere? It just kinda died, because there weren’t any openings for new topics, whereas in Example B, there were openings to keep the conversation going.

But what do you do if your conversation partner is as socially inept as you were two minutes ago and doesn't play along? All is not lost.

Example C

Y: Hello, so nice to meet you, how have you been doing?

T: I'm doing well.

Y: That's great, are you enjoying the nice weather, then?

T: Yeah. I'm glad it's finally fall, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice lattes.

Y: I love pumpkin spice lattes! Pumpkin spice anything, really. I recently got the best pumpkin spice candle at the shop down the road, have you been there?

Even if they don't leave you an opening, you can usually make one. It may be difficult, especially when they don't give you much to work with. This is where having a go-to script is a life-saver--me, I always default to talking about the weather, so when in doubt, you can do that.* The important thing right now is to keep fostering the conversation, so once you bring up the weather, segue into a question. When they answer the question, make a brief comment or observation from your own experience and build off of that comment or observation to ask another question.

"But I don't want to make it about me. Doing that's bad, right?"

This is why that questions are important. If you haven't been asked a question, you kinda have to make it about you, you don't have a choice. But to keep from being an attention hog, follow up your shared experience or anecdote with another question.

Example D

T: I love pumpkin spice lattes

Y: Me too. I had the best pumpkin spice latte the other day at the cafe down the road, have you ever been there?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again, and you aren't taking the limelight. Sharing an experience is so important, you're trying to show that you understand, that you sympathize, that you relate.**

This really is the most important element of being a good conversationalist. You have to keep asking questions.

The one other thing I will touch on is introductions. DO NOT get into turn based combat.

Example E

Y: Hello

T: Hello

Y: Nice to meet you

T: Nice to meet you too.

Y: How are you doing?

T: I'm fine. You?

Y: Me too.

This will kill any possibility of continuing a conversation. Instead, get it all out of the way all at once, if at all possible.

Example F

Y: Hi, it's nice to meet you, how are you doing?

This is good, but this is better

Example G

Y: Hi, nice to meet you, how are you liking the weather?

Don't ask how they are doing, or if you do, before they can answer, follow it up with your placeholder (weather etc.) so they have to say some thing like

Example H

T: I'm fine, and I'm really liking the weather.

or

T: Not so great, the weather sucks.

Either of those options are much easier to work with than your basic "I'm fine."

Usually, if you can get past the introduction, you can get a conversation going. And then, even if you don't end up hitting it off with the person you're talking with, you at least don't leave the conversation feeling like you've died a thousand tiny deaths.

In fact, if you get past that introduction, you may have just made yourself a friend.

Remember folks, basically everyone around you is more afraid of you than you are of them, and in this benighted age no one has been taught conversation skills, so we are all pretty much in the same boat. (Unless you were born an extrovert, in which case we are all deeply envious and would probably kill you if we didn't need you in our sad and lonely lives so much.)

Have grace for one another, and for yourselves because talking with people is difficult.

Go forth, and stop killing conversations.

*If you are one of those awful people who likes to brag about how you hate small talk and only want to talk about important and meaningful things, I have one question: Do you ever have a conversation that lasts long enough to become meaningful? I thought not. Small talk is an important skill. Develop it.

**This is how you deal with sad or difficult situations too. When you want to show you sympathize with someone going through a hard time.

Example:

Y: How are you doing?

T: Not very well. My dog died last week.

Y: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. My own dog died last year and I still miss her a lot. How are you handling it?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again. You aren't making it about you.

If y'all want, next time I can share how to extricate yourself from a conversation.

[wikagirl]

*shaking the dutch language by the neck* when het instead of de??? tell me!!!

edit: hey uuuhh this was just supposed to be a little haha funny vent post bc I got frustrated in the moment but everyone in the comments and reblog has been so nice about it and tried to help me?? 😭 thank you guys so much I honestly didn‘t expect this you are too kind

[dramatic-dolphin]

is that tag about a specific language and if so which one im intrigued...

faroese ���💖💖💖 a scandinavian language closely related to icelandic

as 2016 me said:

i still love it more than the normal amount to love a language but i was fucking OBSESSED with it for so long. and even now if i let myself think about it for too long i go 😊😊😊😊😊 hiiiii 💖💖🥰🥰🥰 <- completely normal way to react to Thinking About A Language

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I don’t get why people feel like the Duolingo owl is threatening, if I ever feel like he is I just get mad at him. I could fight an owl. I don’t know if I’d win, but I don’t think I’d lose (two things that can apparently coexist). I think I’d survive at least and that’s not really winning but also not losing.

You wanna be so threatening? Da bør du drepe meg!

[oodlenoodleroodle]

Watching Super Sketch Show 2 for Yu Hewei, end up falling in love with this bald asshole XD

[neristudy]

The Good: I've found a way to train my German Speaking, and it's kinda good, at least in the way that it lets me yap in German and create all of those juicy connection in my brain that will help me one day yap good on the exam and in life in general.

The Bad: I really don't wanna yap while my mom is nearby. Partially because of being shy, partially because I really don't think she deserves to know my hobbys, my dreams, and so on and so forth, not after all the years she was fucking horrible to me.

Oh well. you win some, you lose some xD

The app is Tutor Lily btw x) If you'll manage to find one that has similar working stuff and is not a freemium pls share I'll ove you one.

[perfectlyoongi-main]

hii! how did you learn english?

hello <3 so when i was at 5th grade (so like i was 10 or so) english started being a subject in schools and it was pretty much until my 12th grade (17yo), so i have some basis coming from there

but honestly, i used to watch my older brother play lots of game and all of them were in english (and my brother wasnt the nicest so i was forced to learn a bit if i wanted to know the story lol). that and the fact that i love movies and in my country only the cartoons are dub, every time i watch a movie or so it was in english, and since i am a slow reader (even w sub) i tried to catch some sentences and expressions here and there (also watching international youtubers !!)

so all of that combined made me understand english. and then i went to university and i major in english studies (and since we had ppl from all over europe our classes were 90% in eng) which solidified everything :3

[nazumichi]

wow learning languages is so fun and exciting what’s a premium haha

[coffeeworldsasaki]

Day 2 of trying to recover from the state of panic that rage and overworking have reduced my body to. I guess I'm feeling slightly better, my chest hurts just a bit now

[heathen-beast]

Just gonna add LingoLegend makes language learning more of a game where you can get energy to basically play Farmville or go on adventures. Languages: Spanish, French, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Italian, German, Portuguese, Dutch, or Russian

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[headspace-hotel]

Y'all

Im not on tiktok and never have been, but I downloaded RedNote just to see what is up, and I am witnessing something truly amazing

The Chinese user community is giving the American tiktok refugees an overwhelmingly warm welcome, meanwhile the American users seem to have collectively agreed that not only will they not let the app be taken over with English and they will provide Mandarin subtitles for everything, they are LEARNING MANDARIN. Ive scrolled through so many videos of Americans offering greetings in Mandarin to try to acclimate to the new environment and be respectful, and speakers of both languages are posting lots of tutorials on language basics and internet slang in Mandarin

My God, there is an AMAZING outpouring of curiosity and delight among everyone to learn about each others cultures and daily lives. People are posting videos of landscapes, cities, towns, and natural areas in USA and China, posting recipes and traditional foods, vlogs of everyday life, and reaching out to find people with similar hobbies.

And it's not just young people! There are loads of videos from middle-aged American guys who have come to post about fishing or motorcycles and are now happily chatting with Chinese users sharing the same interests using Google translate

One American guy who was like. in his 60's had a comment on one of his videos that was like "Red Neck?" and he replied "Yes!" and I just about fucking lost it

Also the Chinese users love, and I mean LOVE, Luigi Mangione. He is apparently broadly adored in China. There is SO much fanart and SO many edits.

There are many threads initiating Chinese users to ask questions of American users about the USA, and vice versa, and everyone on both sides is clearing up a lot of misconceptions. Some of the questions I saw a lot from Chinese users were: "Is it true that American parents kick you out of the house as soon as you turn 18" (not often, but sometimes) "Do you all really wear shoes in bed" (NO!!! Apparently a lot of characters in American sitcoms are shown lying in bed with shoes on which I never noticed before!) and "are there really guns everywhere" (yes).

For the most part Chinese content creators seem just overwhelmed by the sudden influx of hundreds of followers that are super enthusiastic about what they're doing. A lot of them have made posts about how initially they thought the uptick in follower count was some kind of error, or that there was some kind of joke or prank, but then they realized the interest and enthusiasm was genuine and now they're welcoming all the newcomers.

I found several posts by Chinese users saying that this felt like a really profound historical moment, where these previously separated worlds are suddenly smashing together and suddenly there is freedom to learn about each other's cultures and connect. One of them said something along the lines of "This is a 21st century Tower of Babel and even though I'm an atheist I hope God lets this tower stand." OUGH MY HEART.

The app itself works a little bit like a video-based version of Pinterest. It's not really my thing so I probably won't be on there long term but it's been amazing to see what's happening.

[su1cidoll]

i’ve had multiple uber drivers ask me if i’m russian based on my facial features and i awkwardly have to say “ahaha no, but i am ukrainian on my dads side :)” and then they start speaking ukrainian at me and i have to stop them and say i don’t know the language or anything cuz my dad only found this out and told me a few years ago and they always seem so disappointed DHSJFJJDF LIKE. IM SORRY???? I GUESS😭😭

[neverendingford]

.

[semisentient-entity]

Man I wanna practice my Greek but the only people who speak it are my family and I don't like talking to them

[foxmulderautism]

ngl i didnt understand what comma splices were until like very recently also i regularly forgot because i keep forgetting what a clause is. i've always just put commas wherever it's felt sexy and right