What's the best way to (start) learning a language? (lemmy.world)

submitted 23 hours ago by vladmech@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I traveled to Japan for a few weeks last year and had grand plans to learn a bunch of phrases, but got lazy and punked out. I still had a great time, everyone was super kind, but it was embarrassing how well so many folks spoke English and I couldn’t even be assed to put in a bit of work.

My wife is half Mexican and we’re in California, and she gets a lot of people initially talking to her in Spanish, which she can’t speak beyond an ordering food level, and would like to change that.

What’s the best way for us both to get to a beginning conversational level in Spanish? I tried Duolingo a while ago and it was eh, and I’ve heard it’s all AI these days. Any other recommendations?

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[-] darklamer@feddit.org 3 points 22 hours ago

For learning language learning, I believe that this book currently is the best fact based resource available:

https://fluent-forever.com/book/

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

The “forever” part is hyperbolic, but I hear that it’s otherwise quite good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29tITqtnJU4

There's a new edition of Gabriel Wyner's Fluent Forever, and it's a perfect time to revisit. Will it make you fluent? Forever? It changed my approach to language learning ten years ago, and he's updated his approach with even more language learning tips. So if you're not sure how to learn a language, we'll talk about exactly what you can learn from fluent forever to become a polyglot.If that's your thing.

this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026

45 points (100.0% liked)

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