Totally agree on there is no shortcut for "hacking" languages. But at the same time "The quality and type of practice you do matters a lot" as you've said.

And also, for learning languages, one way could be significantly less painful than others.

I grew up in China, where almost every student struggles so much on English learning, every day. I found myself very easy to pass every exam and beating the average, without listening to the lectures or doing any homework - simply by playing video games (especially RPG). I was/am by no means excellent at English, but it was almost a totally free perk for me.

Basically video games are:

1. Designed to be both engaging and challenging, whereas schools suck at those so much.

2. Have specific and meaningful targets, if you failed to understand what's going on or what's the mechanism you're not likely to play along.

3. Including scenarios and plots. A lot of reading and listening activities. You don't have to appoint a teacher or native speaker to talk with you. You can start anytime you want (except I have intolerant parents so I have to play it sneakily).

4. Cheap.

I grew up in Eastern Europe and had the same experience, ending up speaking English near natively as a kid thanks to watching undubbed cartoons on BBC, Cartoon Network and Fox Kids, Hollywood movies and playing video games.

I thought this was the case across all of Europe but found out that in the rich part of Europe all entertainment is dubbed in the local language so youngsters there had worse English skills than I expected for such wealthy nations.

It's probably one of the reason so many US tech companies have opened up shop here, other than lower wages.

Many movies and series we get in the Netherlands are not dubbed either, only subbed. Whenever I catch a glimpse of TV in Germany I'm always bothered by the horrible dubs.

Dutch, English, French, and German are also all mandatory subjects in school for us.

I think the intent was to preserve ‘national’ culture but perhaps it was also thought out with brain drain in mind. At an individual level, knowing english fluently is quite empowering, your work opportunities expand greatly. At a wider level this could be quite devastating for a country and its economy if the smartest folks find work elsewhere.

Most of that is due to the strong push for promoting the local language as a sign of national identity during dictatorship periods in some of those rich countries.

E.g. the italian "Language Defense Law" (not sure of how to translate it to English but that's basically the literal translation of this Law) was established by Mussolini and later used as inspiration for similar laws in Spain, Germany and France.

The spirit of such laws were basically propaganda. It dictated that dubbing of all foreign media was mandatory, so it had to be done for everything, regardless of it being a cheap animation show for kids, or a big Hollywood production. Also it introduced the opportunity to review the contents of the audio and apply censorship when deemed desirable by those in power.

Quickly, make a language teaching startup that does so by creating a few genres of video games (that are comparable to others in those genres but also prioritize language acquisition) and actually lure good game designers over.

Then tell me when the product is ready so I can use it.

Having played some of the educational games as a kid, my Theory of Edutainment is: you have to make it a good game first, educational second. And then don't market the educational aspects at all. If the game is no fun, or playing it becomes a prescribed activity, it'll achieve no results.

I've always expected an Edu-Startup to crack this problem by pairing an existing hyper-addictive game to more traditional homework.

My parents used to make me do quick one page math worksheets. Each sheet which took about 60 seconds earned me 5 minutes of time with "Command and Conquer", and to this day I'm able to quickly do Math in my head that most people would need to put on paper. My abilities drastically drop off at past the Algebra level.

If kids today had to memorize 5 new phrases in French while they were stuck in an Overwatch lobby, or something equivalent to get than new skin in League of Legends I think it could be a very powerful learning tool and not require the hands on effort from the parents.

That's actually pretty brilliant. It wouldn't be a language learning game but it would augment more formal instruction by assisting in building vocabulary. You could probably build in 5-7 new words a week and show 3-5 old words a week as well. Then of course you can put billboards and graffiti in a game where appropriate in the language using words the game has taught (or will teach).

In the load screens/waiting rooms it could be pretty simple too, the game could show and say the word then give you a grid of like 9, 16, 25 words to choose from and make you pick the correct one. The first few times you'd probably struggle but if you were playing for an extended period in a session, or over a week, you'd get that reinforcement every round/match/zone and be able to quickly select the correct words.

Typing of the dead is a great example.

Have you heard of Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis? [1] There are a couple of parts to it but it essentially says that linguistic competence (a fancy way to say your innate knowledge of a language) only increases when you take in input. If you talk all day that doesn't really make you any better (since you don't learn anything new) unless you use a process like deliberate feedback to be corrected. Personally I think it's much more useful to thus focus on reading/listening to start and then later move on to speaking/writing. I learned Spanish through normal school and while I can speak fast the fact that I haven't had much real input really shows since I'm generally just translating English -> spanish and I don't know if I'm using grammar right since I haven't heard it enough.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis

What of the folks who have watched countless hours of anime, but still can't speak Japanese? Input alone is not enough, at least not for adults wanting to become fluent from what I've seen.

The key is that the input needs to be comprehensible.

If you bootstrapped those people with a month or two of 1:1 lessons with a native speaker and then started them watching anime aimed at young kids with no subtitles, slowly moving them up to more complex examples, still without subtitles, they would end up learning to understand Japanese passably well after enough hours of it.

If you just dump them “countless hours” of complicated Japanese which they can ignore while reading English subtitles, then they’re going to end up learning a few words and phrases but not really becoming fluent.

If they started with poor English reading skill it’s not a completely useless way to practice that though. (Reading books would be better, but reading anime subtitles is better than nothing.)

When they do that, they are focusing on the English subtitles and effectively filtering out the Japanese. If they tried to hide the subtitles and only glimpse at them occasionally they would start to see gradual improvement. Many people won't because they'll find they suddenly can't understand most things and it becomes exhausting. by that that's what it's like when you are really learning.

That being said it's still a slower way to learn because the language in anime is quite removed from a typical real conversation you will get in to.

I believe Krashen's theory is easy to misunderstand. If you only take a brief look at it you may think it's over simplified. The theory isn't just input in the sense that you've at least got the language going in you're ears. The "comprehensible" part means that you are comprehending via the language, using context to fill in the blanks. I don't think you learn from outputting language, but outputting is essential for producing the ideal comprehensible input. For example, BTBurke's third point is to ask questions to a native speaker. Note that here, the native speaker is doing the speaking, and BTBurke is learning when listening, not when asking the questions. But asking questions to a native speaker like this and refusing to give up and go back to your native language engages the human brain in a way that simply watching some videos doesn't, and provides important context. Krashen calls this compelling input. In BTBurke's first point, they say production is essential, but I think Krashen would say this so-called production (talking to native speakers) is really just using production to get ideal comprehensible input from native speakers when you listen to them speak back to you. As for the 5 minute minute presentation. I would say that this 5 minute presentation is mostly just testing one's current ability, but the preceding the presentation there would be hours of looking up (and inputting) sentences that you wish to say rather than learning randomly, and that's where most of the real learning occurs.

I apologise for the "It's both right and wrong at the same time" kind of answer. In summary I believe BTBurke is a fantastic language learner, but if you look closely at what they are doing, you'll see they are providing themselves with plenty of comprehensible input, and the production/output as actually a more minor part that facilitates this input.

Ask pretty much any Croatian who was a kid in the 90ies and they will probably say that watching Cartoon Network as a kid on their satellite dish helped them learn English. Only 3-4 national channels were available on the terrestrial TV at the time, which made the huge variety of satellite channels novel and exciting for a kid. These foreign stations didn't have subtitles, so you had to try and pick up the language to follow the shows.

I don't doubt that a bit, children are amazing language learners! I'm curious as to whether adults could learn the same way.

Children learn language at the same time they are learning how to be little humans. Neurological connections are being forged, deep pathways for life. Watching my son go through that hyper growth stage was mind blowing. He's trilingual. His recall and attention to details is remarkable. In contrast I've got my head in the (internet) clouds.

So no, I don't think we ever have that same level of growth and rapid learning.

> I apologise for the "It's both right and wrong at the same time" kind of answer. In summary I believe BTBurke is a fantastic language learner, but if you look closely at what they are doing, you'll see they are providing themselves with plenty of comprehensible input, and the production/output as actually a more minor part that facilitates this input.

Language is not a one way street. Being able to manipulate another person's actions and words through speech is as much a part of language understanding as being in a position to have others manipulate your actions and words.

Part of knowing a language therefore is being able to speak and write it. In order to learn how to speak and write it, you are not going to get away without speaking and writing it.

And even if Krashen's hypothesis that input is ultimately the whole story were true (which by definition it isn't), production would still play a critical role in memorization. Every time you struggle to find a word and eventually conjure it, it gets reinforced.

Krashen never said that you can learn to speak and write just by listening and reading. He has said that it's a waste of time to speak too early, before you have understood a lot of input. You still have to produce a lot to get better at it. There's also a huge number of studies that show that people who read a lot in their native language speak and write better and studies that show the same effect when learning foreign languages. There's also the practical point that it's useless to be able to speak well if you can't understand the responses you get.

Most of the people who do this are reading english subtitles.

The input certainly helps which explains the divide between English levels in countries that subttle and countries that dub English language shows and movies.

I think that’s more of a lack of initiative to learn. They may not know how to speak Japanese, but they can listen to it and be able to discern words from each other and be able to grasp ongoing conversations. After years of watching anime and learning kana and even a number of kanji, Japanese doesn’t seem hard at all anymore. I just lack the initiative or immediate need to advance my skills since I live in America. Now French, they speak so freaking fast. I wonder if that’ll change after I watch enough French content.

I agree about lack of initiative, I just don't want people thinking if they just listen to enough music/TV/whatever they'll magically be able to speak and understand. That only seems to work in children (at least to seem like a native speaker to other native apeakers). It takes work for is adults! For French, it will seem slower after time, don't worry! French in particular has a lot of slurring, but it is predictable after learning the rules (and there are rules!). I recommend the book "The Sounds of French". The new "Ad Vitam" on Netflix is entertaining and you can hear some reasonable-speed modern French. I have some beginner book/audio recommendations if you want.

> That only seems to work in children [...] it takes work for us adults!

It takes a lot of hard work for children too. They just have no other choice, and usually some adults going way out of their way to help as much as they can.

> beginner book/audio recommendations if you want

Please! Anything with an easy level but appropriate subject matter for young kids?

I studied French in high school and would like to start reading some French kids books to my 3.5 year old, but I haven’t made the effort to find any yet.

Well, those little boogers sure don't make it seem like hard work :) As for a book with audio, I'd recommend "French Short Stories For Beginners" by Frederic Bibard (www.talkinfrench.com). It also includes audio downloads of normal speed and slow version of all of the stories in the book, so you can check your pronunciation. Content is kid-appropriate basic stuff like shopping, school, etc.

>I have some beginner book/audio recommendations if you want.

Sure, I'll take a look. Thanks!

Code Lyoko is available on YouTube. It's basically French anime.

https://youtu.be/QCGixQKvTpA

You’ll be a JCJ pro with that kind of attitude towards the difficulty of learning Japanese. You’re at the very, very tip of being a beginner with what you’ve said here.

"Output" only reviews information. Useful, but not sufficient.

> difference between intermediate and advanced is the ability to move from discussing only facts to making a coherent argument.

This is a brilliant point and never thought about it this way. I've spoken spanish for 5 years but i've always felt some things lacking when i've tried to make an coherent argument about politics for eg. One more thing i'd like to add is 'humor'. If you can make jokes or be sarcastic to natives in their language, then you've definitely crossed another barrier.

I learned Polish mostly by telling jokes and having people tell jokes to me. Fortunately both Polish and Dutch have a near endless repertoire of them. Many jokes rely on language skills in order to be funny you have to at least get to the point where it can be explained to you. And of course, the immediate pay-off is that you'll hear a funny joke which is good for short term motivation.

Beyond that humor is very much cultural and learning a language through humor immediately exposes you to the culture in a way that talking about current events would not.

And you definitely need to cross that barrier if your goal is to integrate in a community, for good. Otherwise you'll always be an outsider.

Thank you very much for this feedback. I'm estonished of the fact that you target an on the fly translation to your (presumably) native language. I mean, for me it seems like a far harder task than to note what you understand in the source language directly.

Actually, I often find that I can fluently exchange with someone speaking English (which is not my native language), but if a third person ask me to translate, it's really a higher level of complexity to find the relevant expressions.

I understand that at the start, one feel more at ease to use its know point of reference in languages already known, but at some point this scaffold is only an additional layer that slows down your expression flow, isn't it?

Since he is a diplomat I expect that the ability to translate is sometimes more important that his own understanding. He doesn't directly have power to make decisions, he needs to bring everything back to the leaders of his country. (of course he will know what the goals of his country are and what compromises are acceptable, but his decisions are subject to review)

We do a lot of on the fly translations. In meetings, we may have to translate for an Ambassador or senior official that doesn't speak the language. Depending on the topic, it may not be appropriate to bring a professional translator, so we do the best we can.

We also meet with a wide variety of people and take copious notes. I personally take notes in a mix of English and the local language, but mostly in English because I have my own shorthand to help me remember what is said. It's hard to develop that kind of shorthand in a foreign language without writing everything and that is too slow for a normal conversation.

Before learning a language it's essential to enumerate your goals and determine not just the level of fluency that you desire but what part of the language you wish to learn. A diplomat is going to need to learn a different vocabulary and register to someone who is e.g. a chef. A diplomat or businessperson is going to need to speak formally and correctly, whereas others might find it more useful to learn slang terms and the informal register.

Same as with learning anything I guess. Deliberate learning (or specify what part you want to learn) is much more effective than learning broadly without any aim or specific goals in mind.

Can you write a bit about how you found HN? It’s a source of slight fascination when non-tech people stumble into this world.

In case he doesn't reply, based on the profile in his bio looks like he has a degree in E.E. and used to manage technology projects for the government.

I was an engineer, served in the military, and programming is now a hobby.

Not all diplomats are political science or economics majors. Policy touches so many sectors that it's useful to have people with backgrounds in many areas.

It's not uncommon to have prior software engineers, teachers, etc in the foreign service.

Very good inputs, but these may not help with languages like Latin which aren't actively spoken or used in present day communication.

There are some great spoken Latin programs out there. See https://latin.org/ and https://www.paideiainstitute.org/, for example.

Could you expand upon this? How many hours a day do you study? Are you learning in structured classes? What curriculum are you using? Do you study while residing in a country that speaks the language?

Are you saying it takes a year and a half to reach fluency if you take it on as a full time job?

We have a foreign language institute outside Washington DC where they teach about 70 languages.

It's an organized class for 5 hours a day in small groups with a native speaker as the teacher.

There is usually an additional 2-5 hours of independent study/homework depending on the complexity of the language.

Professional fluency takes between 24 and 88 weeks depending on the difficulty of the language. Spanish is 24, Mandarin would be 88. "Hard" languages like Finnish and Estonian are in the middle at 44.

We test with native speakers at the end to determine our level on a 5 point scale. Each of our embassy jobs has an associated language requirement, usually 3/3, which means professionally fluent in speaking and reading.

> check your comprehension by translating their answers to English

Why to English?

I assume he means "to your native language", not to English, specifically.

I've seen computational biologists , mechanical engineers , non-programmjng entrepreneurs but what does a diplomat do on HN?

Alan Mustard, former US ambassador to Turkmenistan and trained in agriculture, is a well-known OpenStreetMap geek and quite familiar with GIS issues. Diplomats can have hobbies, you know.

I myself am a linguist and translator, no professional background in the hard sciences or IT at all, but I have still been involved in Free Software for many years and so HN is a natural news channel to read.

And Allan Mustard is now Chairperson of the OpenStreetMap Foundation Board of Directors

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board_Member_Bios

Programming is now a hobby and I still do some open source stuff and push out various side projects for fun.

Eventually I'll have to retire and so I always hope some of my side projects will take off to supplement my retirement income.

Why can't a diplomat have a tech-related hobby? Most people outside tech have hobbies that are unrelated to their daily job.

Heck, I work in tech and my hobby is history. I would have probably majored in history if it didn't lead to a crappy career where I'm from.

It could be someone who was in tech or was educated (formal or by oneself) on tech but switched to being a diplomat on seeing opportunities to make a better difference with their skills. Depending on the area of work, diplomats could highly benefit in today’s world by understanding tech better. We have allowed tech to dictate policies for too long and playing catch up. So any diplomat who understands tech well would be a great asset to policy makers and decision makers.

>but what does a diplomat do on HN?

Learn things? I'm none of the things you listed, nor do I do anything remotely related to computer sciences, but I still frequent HN.

Tech news with hacker directed filtering.