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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[-] myszka@lemmy.ml 5 points 19 hours ago

Check out Dreaming Spanish. They are using Automatic Language Growth method which imitates the way children learn their first language. Instead of learning the mechanics of the language, you naturally absorb it by immersing yourself in native content supplied with lots of context such as gestures, sounds, images etc. The end result is supposed to be developing an intuitive sense of the language and reaching a near native-like level of competence in it.

this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026

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