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Comment by gramie | Hacker News Reader

I speak English natively, and have learned French, German, Sesotho and Japanese with a mixture of books and immersion. Obviously immersion is the best way.

I used Duolingo to help me learn Spanish, and I was struck by how artificial it is. It may teach you to understand a language, but not to speak it.

Far superior, in my experience, is https://www.languagetransfer.org, which has free audio lessons to learn French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, and Swahili (and English for Spanish speakers). This is the most natural method short of immersion I have ever experienced, and very effective. Amazingly, it is all done by one man, and runs on donations.

There is an app, which is delightfully clean and usable.

Mihalis also has an introduction to music theory, which gets excellent reviews!

View on HN

I am just about to return to the US after 4 months in Buenos Aires. I lived in Peru for a year and a half leading up to April 2022. I'm probably approaching a B2 level of Spanish right now (based on my experience attaining a B2 and then C1 level of French once upon a time).

Interestingly, when I was starting out, I was in Peru with a Spanish speaking significant other, and using Duolingo as well as taking private lessons. I found as a few others have mentioned that Duolingo actually got in the way. I liked the gamification. It helped me practice, but there were so many exercises for each set of vocabulary. Due to the way their system worked, I had to go through a lot of exercises that weren't useful for me because I had picked up the content with other learning methods. You can test out of things, but if I wasn't ready to test out of the whole block I still had to go through a lot of material that wasn't useful (i.e., even testing out skill by skill, was tedious and time-consuming and counter-productive).

So as discussed in the article and here, Duolingo can't get you even to a low intermediate level, just the basics. And I found that it doesn't pair well with more intensive learning. Maybe other people have had a different experience, but I think it's good for the light hobbyist until they are ready to move on to something more serious, but that's about it.

I also worry that it's promises and gamification trap and frustrate people who could have done more. Maybe it makes up for that by getting a large number of people started who then go on. Maybe.

Thanks for recommending Language Transfer. I browsed the site a bit (I'm on mobile, at an airport) but can't quite figure out in what way it's different to other methods. If you could say a few words about your experience using it, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks!

Maybe easiest to compare: it is purely audio and relies on you playing along with the lesson you listen to. So somewhat similar to Michel Thomas but more modern. His main effort is to make connections between material that you already know and new material, this reinforcing both and building a network in your mind.

I did the first 30+ Greek lessons (each a ~10 minute audio which takes 15-20 minutes to complete as you pause to think and complete the answer). Then was forced to take a short break. l and struggle to get back in so I will restart a few lessons back.

I have to say that I've never had so many "whoa, cool I figured this out" moments in a language course.

Modernized learning a language with books on tape.

So I've been using Language Transfer English to Spanish.

The method uses your native language to scaffold the target language using patterns and rules. They constantly discourage you from trying to memorize or remember the word and instead encourage you to use your principles to "find it" or "think your way there".

For example, they teach you that virtually any English word that end in 'ation' will correspond to a Spanish word that sounds virtually the same, so for example:

- salvation = salvacíon

And the Spanish verb will be the Spanish word minus the "acíon" plus "ar". Since this almost always works, you can often use this principle to find a lot of common verbs you need. So if, for example, you want to say "save", think of the english "ation" word that is related to saving, so "salvation", Spanish "salvacíon", which gives us the Spanish verb "salvar".

So with that rule, and some rules for present tense conjugation and word order, you can soon you can say a surprising amount very quickly by "thinking through it" rather than memorization. So they "build up" your Spanish from these sorts of building blocks, and there are a surprisingly large number of them. "Don't remember it, find it" is the guiding mantra. And it really works well. Even as my Spanish advances, learning new principles continues to be helpful and kind of magical.

> used Duolingo to help me learn Spanish, and I was struck by how artificial it is.

I've had the same experience with Duolingo and long story short decided to experiment with what would be the best way to learn the language if you're not advanced enough to consume content for natives. I wanted to created something that would have the same value as content for natives (interesting and real), but would be comprehensible to non-advanced learners.

Just last week I opened up access to my app (with over 50 videos) to Beta testers. If anyone is learning Spanish and would like to try it out and give me feedback, I would appreciate it.

Obstino U is an app that mimics a real university where you take classes about the things you are interested in like climate change, the history of china, cognitive biases, diets, investing, etc, but you do it in the language you want to learn.

Simply put, you learn things you are interested in and in the process, you learn language mostly subconsciously.

We use simplified language, gesticulation, and drawings to convey powerful and rich stories so that even beginner students can understand them.

https://www.obstino.com

EDIT: This is an iOS app only for now.

EDIT 2: I just added a sample video we make on YouTube in case you don't want to install the app but want to take a look: https://youtu.be/N2fiVLUJGvM

Why is this an app at all as opposed to a website?

Why should it be a website as opposed to an app?

Making it a website would allow people to use it on platforms other than iOS.

In short, Develop once, use by everybody everywhere.

It's not everybody's first thought. My sister was working with local university to build content to support access and awareness of accessibility resources (mostly for parents of disabled children) . She couldn't even parse the notion of making a website as opposed to an app. Who doesn't use an iPhone these days?? Who uses a computer to do stuff??? Ironically, it kills so many screen readers too. Plus you need specifically iOS developers instead of generic web developers. And redevelop multiple times if you want multiple platforms. Plus some people are wary of installing apps so there's an overhead loss there.

Just... A massive amount of unnecessary constraints if your goal is simply to get information out there. But apps are many people's default way of thinking, and certainly many companies are pushing it due to lock in benefits.

Edit : the original post now has a "here's a YouTube video if you can't / won't install an app", which, y'know, exemplifies it perfectly :).

Now, this looks like a labour of love so more power to author to use whatever method of getting it out there that they are comfortable with. But app has drawbacks over a website as well as benefits, is all :)

> Why should it be a website as opposed to an app?

Is this a serious question at all?

For starters, websites provide the lowest barriers to entry, and don't expect users to grant intrusive access to their personal systems.

I use very few apps, even on my phone. For most things I prefer the website. And most apps aren't substantively different than the website version anyways, in which case I will never use the app.

Man I wish I could automurder every single website dialog that tries to get me to use their shitty app for "the best experience"

Not the creator, but I did download it to try it. One feature it has is a custom video player that displays Spanish subtitles and you can tap on any word in the subtitles show the English translation of the word. I’ve never seen anything like this before and there’s probably no web standard for this. Complex touch interactions might be easier to add to an app.

Also, I’m not sure if this app has notifications yet, but notifications and badges are a good way to get people to come back to your app every day. I think websites can do push notifications now, but not badges.

This website does something similar

https://3ears.com/

Also, Duolingos useless and constant notifications made the app worse then it already was.

Also, how can a website not have badges? It's just a table that gets updated with pictures when a user performs a task.

This gamification stuff is rather annoying because it seems to forget that the user has to want to learn the thing they want to learn.

I was excited to try this out, but the pace of the videos are way too slow for me.

This is probably good for first time learners, but for me, it was painful

Maybe there could be a speed control? Of course it changes pitch of the sound, but aren’t we already used to listening podcasts on 2x speed anyway

Yes, so far we’ve made videos for beginner and intermediate students. None for advanced.

It sounds like you would be a good fit for advanced videos or perhaps you should start watching content made for natives (real podcasts, Netflix etc)?

Speed controls don't normally change the pitch of the sound, eg https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLMediaEl...

I don't understand why people speed up podcasts.

"Consume more, faster!" - yeah, screw that. If I'm listening to something, it has my full and undivided attention, and I want to experience it at the pace it was created for.

I listen to them sped up because my comprehension is the same if not better. A lot of content is paced very slowly which is distracting/frustrating.

That's fine for you. I do not have the same experience.

Right.

So that's precisely why variable speed is important - otherwise a recorded lessons will work for one type of learner only. It's crucial to recognize exactly what you mention - different people's experience and preferences differ :). Ability to vary speed doesn't remove your option to listen at default speed, all it does is provide options for others who may have different preferences and different natural pace of speech or listening :).

>>"I don't understand why people speed up podcasts."

If your goal is to actually understand others, then fwiw, my own thoughts: I personally normally far far prefer articles to podcasts. I can go at my own speed and enjoy the way I want to. If a video or podcast is the only way for me to learn something or experience something, variable speed is the price of entry for me. Podcast or video is NOT a quiet relaxing interesting night with friends, (and most of them are not precisely planned artistic endeavours whose brilliance will be missed at different pace:) . I don't get a say, I don't get to ask questions, to interrupt, to change topic, to go on a tangent. The very basic agency affordance therefore is speed - whether slower or faster. It's not about "consume more faster". It's about pace that works for me the consumer

For lessons specifically, typically they are recorded far slower than holds my attention. Think of all the udemy classes - at recorded pace, I mentally check out after 3 minutes on average :( . So for recorded lessons, if I don't have control over speed, I'm extremely unlikely to make it.

Because most content has people speaking way too slow and it is boring, leads to distraction and hurts comprehension. It costs significant effort to concentrate on something that is too slow, which can easily be avoided by speeding it up. It's not about consuming more, it's about matching my comprehension speed and avoiding distraction.

> Obviously immersion is the best way.

I disagree with this dogma. I, like many, have heard this for years and took it as gospel. I tried it and didn't get great results. At the time I questioned where I had failed with a method so successful.

But the thing is, immersion only works if you're a relatively extroverted person (IMHO). Immersion turns language learning into a social activity. If you're more introverted, you won't get that social exposure. Worse, you may avoid that social exposure because way more because you have such difficulty communicating.

Immersion is not strictly the best way.

Immersion is an important step that is often a "must do" in the process of acquisition.

It is not always necessary, but: are you planning to visit the country where this language is spoken? Immersion exercises may signal to you whether you are capable of making that leap.

I've been bilingual in Spanish since high school, but not until 2008 did I encounter a situation of immersion. I've worked in a bilingual office setting, and I found that it was often easy to communicate face-to-face with Spanish speakers, because I could lip-read, and make gestures, and fall back on occasional English expressions that they are capable of knowing.

But when I traveled to Catalonia and we went off the widely-travelled tourist areas, I was required to know Spanish, and even Catalan, for the road signs, businesses, menus, etc. So it was as much immersion as I could get, and even then, I had a native for my guide, and she was an English teacher, and so she was very good at whispering in my ear about when waiters were simply being rude or prejudiced about my silly Mexican dialect.

So yes, it depends on your use cases, and I can see why it would depend on introverted/extroverted personality whether you can handle it, but when learning foreign languages, consider whether immersion will be a foreseeable situation, and try to experience it beforehand, because it can be diagnostic, if not helpful.

As a catalan waiter with a silly mexican accent, I do want to apologise for my homeland rudeness

Catalan independence is a bit of a ongoing issue there, and some rural areas might frown upon spanish (mexican or not), or whatever!

Hope it didn't make you don't want to comeback

No no, it did not bother me, and I had been extensively briefed on the differences and issues with Franco and beyond. My fiancée was a supporter of Catalan Independence. BUT, as I met her family, they were kind enough to speak Spanish in my presence so that I could understand better. I had briefly studied a phrasebook of Catalan to get down the standard pleasantries, but I figured I would get by in Spanish easily enough.

I believe that mostly, the prejudice was from me being American, or accompanying a beautiful native woman. I also got dirty looks because of the prepaid debit card I was using for everything.

The rude waiter was in a little restaurant in Manresa, and not in Barcelona proper. So, definitely off the beaten path of tourism.

And as far as returning, I would definitely love to; I loved the Sagrada Família and other such shrines; the scenery was gorgeous, and I was struck by how much older it all was in comparison to American structures and institutions. Yet, it was high technology (I had always had this mistaken belief that Europe was behind the U.S. in computers and electronics) and I amazed my fiancée by photographing the back of the TV, the circuit breaker box, things like that.

I would definitely return to Europe, but outside the influence of my ex-fiancée, I am unlikely to return to Catalonia; I'd love to see Italy, the Holy Land, more of England, but especially Ireland. It's all on my "bucket list"!

Sagrada familia ,is modern in every way. In fact almost the entire city is. They choose to build different, but Barcelona had a tiny population and size in 1900.

A factoid that was once uncited in Wikipedia claims that the main buildings in Manresa are all built from rubble, the reason being that Napoleon and his troops demolished and burned the city as they retreated, and so it was literally rebuilt in place from the remnants. I could definitely see that was a plausible story, too.

In the Southwestern United States, we don't have any buildings that were built, let alone demolished, in the early 19th century.

Most of Barcelona dates from long after Napoleon. There are some really old buildings, but the city exploded after 1900. Most of what tourists go to see is Gaudi who worked after that.

Not long ago I was living proof that you could live in Mexico for 5 years, be fluent in reading/writing Spanish, yet be unable to understand native speakers.

I could understand deliberately slow Spanish like "Español con Juan" (https://www.youtube.com/@espanolconjuan) but immersion did nothing for me because I just don't have the personality to make it matter. I would have done better using Italki or whatever from anywhere in the world.

Even my Mexican friends and Mexican girlfriends spoke English because, well, that's how I met them. Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.

Finally, I don't get the problem with Duolingo not teaching you how to speak. I learned how to read and write with Duolingo which is useful on its own. Now you can read articles and books in Spanish and at least partake in the culture. Duolingo just doesn't compete with, say, Zoom conversations because the latter is 1000x the effort.

Yet on HN people talk about Duolingo as if people would be spending their Duolingo time chatting to Spanish speakers if Duolingo didn't exist. Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.

>Not long ago I was living proof that you could live in Mexico for 5 years, be fluent in reading/writing Spanish, yet be unable to understand native speakers.

Same here. I've spent years in school learning Spanish, a semester in Spain, a decade of passive learning with audio books and reading novels, and dozens of trips to Latin America.

I can read an adult novel in Spanish fine. I can speak well enough to accomplish any basic task. I can understand the news and very slow Spanish e.g. the link above.

But no matter how much I practice, my brain will not process regularly spoken Spanish well enough to understand it with more than 25% accuracy.

I used to think I needed more immersion. Maybe, but not likely as I don't think it's possible as an adult to teach my brain the "rhythm" of Spanish language.

I also lived in Germany for a year. And with no prior German lang. experience, I was able to understand spoken German after that year better than I can Spanish after 20 years of learning. The German language seems to flow in my brain the same as English, but Spanish is just on a different frequency.

> Yet on HN people talk about Duolingo as if people would be spending their Duolingo time chatting to Spanish speakers if Duolingo didn't exist. Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.

This observation might be good for Duolingo's stock price, but it doesn't fit reality. Duolingo is not the only way to learn languages online, nor is it known for being effective.

For example, to me Memrise was far superior to Duolingo to expand vocabulary, and pretty much any YouTube series on learning language X is far better than Duolingo. Even browsing newspapers in language X paired with Google Translate is a far more productive experience than grinding on Duolingo.

The only selling point of Duolingo is that it sells you a false sense of progress and provides you a positive feedback loop that keeps you optimizing on local optima that are awfully unproductive.

Just sounds like opinion slated as something more. Duolingo was superior to Memrise for me. Memrise moved too slowly with no options to jump ahead back when I used it. At best, it's the same app.

> pretty much any YouTube series on learning language X is far better than Duolingo. Even browsing newspapers in language X paired with Google Translate is a far more productive experience than grinding on Duolingo.

How do apps like Memrise/Duolingo compete with things that require far more effort like reading articles? How many people using Duolingo while they poop were ever going to open up BBC Mundo and look up every 3 words with Google Translate?

I don't see how that makes sense. It's like saying Duolingo is worse than enrolling in a 6-week immersion program. Okay.

> Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.

That's not immersion then.

Not that convo, sure. But speaking English to some of my friends in Mexico (or my mother on Skype) doesn't mean I wasn't otherwise immersed, either. The point is the challenge of immersion and how immersion tends to be codeword for a very specific type of person + experience.

Speaking in Spanish would last about 1 minute until we transitioned back to English because it was more effective.

"You need better friends, man".

Actually, what you need (for immersion to work) is friends who will meet you halfway. That is, who won't mind slowing down a bit and coaching you occasionally so that you can at least stretch 1 minute into 5 or 10.

That - and one simply needs to try harder to make it through at least normal everyday interactions (at a cafe, while shopping, etc). You definitely do not learn anything significant from a purely passive approach to immersion. You need to take literally everyday as a learning opportunity - and prep accordingly.

Nah, they'd be doom scrolling.

Agreed, that seems to be the market DL was designed to serve.

And hence, is about as useful as one would expect.

I got good enough to read Harry Potter from Duolingo, so Duolingo seems pretty helpful to those who stick with it. I've watched plenty of friends over my time in Mexico do nothing but Duolingo until they were good enough to be entertained by Youtube videos.

Just like any other prong of a language learning strategy, only a fraction of people are going to stick with it. Else language learning would be easy. I doubt people who couldn't stick to Duolingo would have stuck to the boring advice HNers have like reading grammar books and watching in-depth Youtube videos that require much more attention.

> "You need better friends, man".

Well, it depends on the friendship. Some if not most people want to be your friend and communicate with you, not be your error-correcting language teacher. You have to be pretty good at the language to be fun to talk to.

Until you're good enough to not be a burden, I think it's far better to pay for immersion than expect it from friends.

Fwiw, I am fluent in Spanish these days.

I doubt people who couldn't stick to Duolingo would have stuck to the boring advice HNers have like reading grammar books and watching in-depth Youtube videos that require much more attention.

It seems that people just like ... different things. Some people actually look forward to curling up with a hot, meaty grammar book, for hours on end. And find that both apps and videos (unless done very, very well) just drain their batteries.

I feel like to be immersed you must be living in a household speaking that language otherwise your concern is rather valid but, is that immersive?

If you struggle socially, try language speaking clubs that use a structured approach to partners and topics to encourage more equal participation. 2-4 hours a week in that environment, perhaps.

You may call it dogma, but I can’t see why you wouldn’t want to practice a high quantity of the language in a somewhat unpredictable setting and to be exposed to idioms you want to speak yourself. Whatever you can do to make yourself ready to take that step will help.

Language is an intrinsically social tool. If you’ve decided that you’re incapable of socialising properly, then you’re not going to succeed at learning a new one. The real barrier isn’t introversion, but pride. If you want to learn a new language, you have to be willing to routinely make yourselves look foolish while you constantly make mistakes and ask others for help understanding things. All you really need is humility.

> Immersion turns language learning into a social activity

Not necessarily - it's the bombardment of the language on billboards, radio, television, the labels on products in shelves, about asking for a coffee or what time the bus leaves, that helps. You can still socialize or talk to your family or colleagues in your native language.

> immersion only works if you're a relatively extroverted person (IMHO). Immersion turns language learning into a social activity. If you're more introverted, you won't get that social exposure

I'm a native English speaker, but I live in a country where the native language isn't English. This means I have to speak that other language every single day, not because I'm an extrovert, but because I have to if I want people to understand me.

To me, that's the incentive you're looking for.

That's exactly true. In Sweden, because everyone speaks English and will switch to English at the first sign you're having trouble with the Swedish language, it's nearly impossible to learn even after many years here. If your job forces you to speak the native language, you will eventually learn, but many jobs, like mine, are fulltime in English.

Right, my advice to implants here in Norway is to enroll into communal language courses. It's endemic among the tech folk to assume they'll ace it by osmosis. Years later all they can do is to smile at social functions.

Not impossible. You just need to be a bit cocky.

And start shutting them down when they start switching to English on you -- by switching seamlessly back to your hobbled Swedish, no matter how bad it is.

>I'm a native English speaker, but I live in a country where the native language isn't English.

Emigration is not an option on most people's plate, specially when discussing topics such as learning a new language. Also, some people try to pick up languages for fun, which would be ridiculous to format your whole life around.

I might disagree. Though I am very introverted I experienced how much Chinese I could learn and have as actively known vocabulary in just 3 weeks being in China travelling. Simply because I needed it. And I did have to force myself to speak in some situations to immerse myself. You could for example go into a modern shop and buy food silently, or you could get something great from a streetfood vendor, asking prices, understanding answers, telling them what you want to buy, possibly negotiating the price a little. Or you could walk around for an hour trying to find a place, or ask a local and get there in a few minutes.

You have to take classes while you are immersed. You can't just be immersed.

Living in a place where the locals don't speak English you only have two options: 1) gesticulate and talk in English, 2) make loads of mistakes while trying to learn the language. I guess you chose option 1.

To me, your literal argument doesn't make sense. It's like saying "ThrustSCC isn't the fastest car, because I can't use it as I don't have one." Immersion might not be a method that you want to use, but I bet that also introverts learn faster when they (accidentally) end up immersed than by any other method. Plus, there are schools that use this method, so you could avoid social interaction except with a handful of teachers. Pretty expensive, though.

However, immersion is often not available. When you want to study a language before going on a trip, you often can't find a suitable class, let alone a socio-cultural environment for that language. It might also be financially prohitive. Then you move on to the next best method.

Language transfer is great, but it is 80 9 minutes long videos. That alone is NOT enough to learn and practice language, not even close. You get walkthrough grammar, sentence structure and smallest vocabulary needed for that.

You don't get nearly enough practice or anything that. Nor enough of vocabulary. Like, it is great, but not replacement in any way and just like with duolingo, you need to supplement it with other resources.

How did you learn Japanese? And does this overlap with living/work, or do you learn languages as a hobby? I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I don’t have the time to learn Japanese while also pursuing an unrelated career and another serious hobby.

Give Duolingo a try. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, it will at least get you started. The hiragana and katakana practice is nice.

I wouldn't recommend this advice. I learned Japanese before trying Duolingo and thought, 'how does someone learn from this?"

Good for rote memory training though

> how does someone learn from this?

Duolingo has brief explanations of the grammar for each unit. It's not even close to a textbook by any means but it's not impossible to learn. Now that I think about it, my mental algorithm works like this:

  1. Observe the words
  2. Observe the order they were used in
  3. Have their meanings in english as reference
  4. Use this information to puzzle out the meaning of the sentence

This is pretty much the same process I used to learn english when I was a kid. Only I used video games and natives on forums instead of an english course.

I’ve been using Duolingo for Japanese and at the level I’m at it’s not even providing any more explanations. It’s just “here’s some phrases, remember them”. The now locked comments sections (which is where the real learning seems to happen making it all the more frustrating that they disabled this functionality) is filled with complaints about the same.

It also has a really aggravating focus on idiomatic translations for phrases that don’t really map to the real meanings.

It was fun to start but now it’s become increasingly frustrating with its focus on remembering things without understanding them. I definitely don’t see myself renewing my subscription when it runs out later this year.

I agree. It's probably better to switch to more complete material once you're advanced enough. What unit are you at? I'm at unit 19. Just want to get an idea of when that transition is gonna happen.

> It also has a really aggravating focus on idiomatic translations for phrases that don’t really map to the real meanings.

I agree with you there. I suppose that's a problem inherent to any "translation based" learning?

In any case I do make an effort to avoid that problem. I try to understand sentences mentally without translating them at all. I look up the words and kanji and study their etymology. I even tried to study the individual components of each kanji, figuring that there was some logic to them, but I'm told that's a dead end more often than not.

> Duolingo has brief explanations of the grammar for each unit.

Last time I checked, those were only available through their website, not on mobile.

They're definitely available on mobile. There's a textbook icon next to each unit. I just opened my course, I'm at unit 19. The guidebook explains how to ask someone not to do something in japanese: verb nai de kudasai. There's also key phrases for shopping at convenience stores and talking about classes.

With Ukrainian and cyrilics, I did learned tho.

> Give Duolingo a try. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, it will at least get you started.

I don't think this is good advice. There are myriads of ways to get you started, so Duolingo doesn't provide additional value in that regard.

The question is: why use Duolingo at all instead of any conceivable alternative out there? What's the upside to Duolingo? Is there any, whatsoever?

> What's the upside to Duolingo? Is there any, whatsoever?

Uh, it's easy? You install the app, select the course and just start learning pretty much immediately. It got me from "I want to learn japanese one day" to actually learning japanese.

I really have no idea why people are so skeptical about duolingo. Nobody's claiming it should be the only resource but claiming it provides no value whatsoever is just false.

The experience of writing Japanese characters by hand was magical for me.

I learned Japanese by going there to work as an English teacher in 1993. I learned Sesotho by going there (Lesotho) to work as a volunteer teacher in 1988. I learned French in school and doing French immersion courses in Quebec in 1980/81 (free to any Canadian students, and still available!).

I have a chemical engineering degree, but have worked as a software developer for the past 25 years. Yes, learning another language does take time and dedication, no way around that.

If you learn Japanese, forget about learning to read or write (except katakana and hiragana, which you can learn in a week) and concentrate on spoken language, which is not that difficult to get to a basic fluency in.

Thanks for the pointer!

FWIW, it looks like it also teaches German.

EDIT: I just noticed this comment: "Please note: Complete German remains unfinished. The course will be either continued or remade by a new teacher directed by Mihalis."

Reminds me of the Michael Thomas method.

Thanks! It feels a lot like the Michel Thomas method from the quick look

I couldn’t select a language on iPhone from the scrolling icons.

Thanks for sharing, I’m going to give this a try!

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