47

I dropped Spanish which was the only language offered during my high school years. I regret it, and now I'm embarrassed to start learning as a uni-aged guy. I want to learn Mandarin because then I would know English and Mandarin which would cover like 50% of the populations speaking abilities.

Basically I just feel like a dumb American and being a Marxist I need to know another language.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 10 months ago

Do Duolingo, the Spanish course is the most complete one and there's also a room in the Matrix space for Spanish. You can ask me if you have any doubts, too. Mandarin is good, although it will be a little bit harder as your first second language, but you can do it if you put enough time into it.

[-] TeezyZeezy@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 10 months ago

I'll check it out. I've heard that Duolingo is a supplementary learning tool as opposed to primary, is that true? Are there any better resources? I know I've pirated Pimsleur courses in the past.

Mandarin does look hard as fuckkkk.

[-] QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 10 months ago

Yeah, duolingo is not great for fluency, but it can help build your vocabulary. I recommend the Language Transfer course in addition.

[-] GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 10 months ago

check out the pinned threads on /c/learnspanish@lemmygrad.ml

[-] sovietsnake@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Everything is supplementary, there isn't the one tool that will teach you, but it doesn't matter, Duolingo makes it easier to start and you will learn stuff, the things it doesnt teach you, you can ask them elsewhere, immerse yourself in the language and so on.

LanguageTransfer is a really cool podcast so that also helps, i havent used many other platforms for indoeuropean languages.

[-] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Any category 5 language is hard if youre starting from a english speaking background (chinese (mandarin and canto), arabic, japanese, korean)

With cat2 languages. You can learn them on the side. Cat5 languages require active studying and maintaining to effectively learn them.

Of the cat5 languages, Koreans probably the easiest due to having a very modernized alphabet (to get you from not being able to read to be able to read(not necessarily understand) is the easiest due to having a significantly shorter alphabet(hangul)

this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
47 points (98.0% liked)

Comradeship // Freechat

2124 readers
148 users here now

Talk about whatever, respecting the rules established by Lemmygrad. Failing to comply with the rules will grant you a few warnings, insisting on breaking them will grant you a beautiful shiny banwall.

A community for comrades to chat and talk about whatever doesn't fit other communities

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS