Comment by rainydaybook | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rainydaybook | Hacker News Reader

I've always found Duolingo too boring and it didn't help me at all.

I was able to learn 7 languages using different routes. I already knew Russian, I've learned English the usual school + moving to the country route, and I've learned Spanish, French, German, Italian and Latin by mostly reading books and watching online videos and movies.

Having bookstores nearby (especially the Strand) with a lot of interesting books in Spanish, French, German and Italian were key for me. I completely switch 100% of all book reading to the language I'm learning.

I would not be able to learn anything without a steady supply of interesting books.

For Spanish, most movies on netflix and disney will have subtitles and dubs.

For French, there's Arte Karambolage and the newer Disney films are available in french.

For German, there's also Arte Karambolage and newer Disney films and 'Dark' on netflix.

For Italian, there's a great youtube channel by Iliana Zodiaco with interesting book discussions and reviews. Again newer Disney plus films have Italian. And italian is just very easy in itself.

Latin is a lot tougher because there's not as many books in it, and they tend to be not as easy. I've only read Caesar's Gallic wars and Winnie the Pooh. And the grammar is hard. I recommend checking out Lingua Latina Per Se, and youtube channels on Latin Grammar (there's one really good one, 'latintutorial'). Still, this is by far my weakest language. I've started Cicero orations against Catiline, but it's tough going!

I didn't learn to speak in any of these because I don't have daily contact with native speakers, but once I do, it will be fairly easy.

At what point do you start reading a book in a new language? Do you already know say 500 words? Otherwise I'd imagine you have to look up almost every word on the page

I only know English but am in the middle of studying Latin and I've found that the pain of having to look up works makes them stick in my mind pretty well. Once you can understand a decent number of words you can construct the meaning surprisingly quickly just based on context and the endings of words.

I really recommend interlinear editions for Latin. And also again want to mention Lingua Latina Per Se. If you are ever in NYC there's East Village bookstore that has a lot of interlinear editions in Latin at affordable price. Other than that, you can also get Winnie the pooh in latin on amazon and another edition in english and read them in parallel.

There's also wizard of oz in latin which is a lot longer than Winnie the pooh (and more interesting), but it's hard to find and expensive, alas.

Depends on the book. I usually used Alice in wonderland, through the looking glass, and wizard of Oz as my first books in these languages, (except latin), and though I don't know the exact starting word count, I think a couple of hundred + familiarity with the book is enough for me. Some other easy and interesting books to consider are Tom Sawyer and The Hobbit, and Peter Pan.

For some languages, there are books written with restricted vocabularies (500 words, 1000 words, 1500 words, etc), called "graded readers."[1]

There are some really nice graded readers out there, with the entire vocabulary defined at the back of the book, and any word outside the restricted vocabulary defined in a footnote on the page. I've even seen editions that come with a matching audio book, so you that you can practice listening as well.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graded_reader

huh, I've learnt 8 languages, mostly through conversation

Which languages and how well did it work for you to transition into reading books?

the Scandinavian languages + English, German, French, Spanish, Italian

I don't really read books much but in general it's easy to read once you've learned to speak and listen

That's cool, the same languages as me, aside from Scandinavian!

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