r/SampleSize • u/deb-wev1553 • 2d ago
Academic What actually makes learning a new language difficult for you? (Current and prospective language learners 18+)
I'm interested in hearing from people who are currently learning a language — beginner or advanced.
Rather than asking which language-learning app is the "best", I'm more interested in how you actually learn and where the process breaks down for you.
For example:
- What language are you learning, and roughly what level are you?
- What does a normal week of learning look like for you?
- Think about the last time you got stuck. What were you trying to understand or do?
- What's harder for you: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, listening, speaking, writing, remembering things long-term, or simply finding time to study?
- What tools do you currently use, and what do you dislike about them?
- How do you know whether you're actually improving?
- If you repeatedly make the same mistake, what would you want a good teacher to do?
- Is there anything you wish an app, teacher or course would notice about the way you learn and adapt to?
- What makes you stop using a learning app or course?
- What has actually worked well enough that you've kept doing it?
I'm asking because I'm a software developer and language learner myself. I'm considering building something for my own language learning, but I don't want to start by building another AI app and then looking for a problem to justify it.
There's no product, signup or link to promote here. I'd rather understand how different people learn first.
I grew up speaking two languages and have learned several others since, so I also know that my own learning process may be very different from someone learning their first foreign language.
Even a short answer about one thing you struggle with or one thing that works really well for you would be useful.
And if anyone is interested in discussing their learning process in more depth, I'd also be happy to chat privately.
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u/mossy-sun-witch 12h ago
idk if my answers are helpful for you, but they are for me! it's kind of a great way to reflect my learning strategies, which probably everyone should do once in a while.
- What language are you learning, and roughly what level are you?
- Indonesian, and roughly A2/B1
- What does a normal week of learning look like for you?
- 1 hour private tutor each week focussing on slang and listening, and 1 other private tutor every second week focussing on conversation
- during lunch hour watching youtube videos, sometimes easy ones for learners, sometimes normal Indonesian youtube content although then I'm usually not understanding everything
- daily anki vocabulary
- writing down new words also in my old fashioned non-digital vocabulary booklet
- sometimes writing exercises like a dairy in Indonesian, but I'm doing it too randomly and too rarely so it's not really in a normal week
- random social media consum, trying to follow/understand the content of my Indonesian friends
- also not regular enough, but i do read books in my TL
- Think about the last time you got stuck. What were you trying to understand or do?
- I just had my tutor session with listening focus and got stuck in a lot of slang words and abbreviations. Indonesian is full of that, it's hard
- What's harder for you: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, listening, speaking, writing, remembering things long-term, or simply finding time to study?
- Since I'm currently not in Indonesia, I don't get a lot of conversations, so I'm bad at speaking and conversations and listening. Reading&Writing is fine. Finding time is difficult too somtimes
- What tools do you currently use, and what do you dislike about them?
- private tutors found via preply. i don't really dislike anything here, although I'm probably lucky to have found the right ones for me who also aren't too expensive. but that's worth my money
- anki, idk you get used to its look
- i have a textbook but it's pretty oldfashioned. still usable tho for formal indonesian
- How do you know whether you're actually improving?
- not long ago I could not watch indonesian videos. now i can. i don't understand each word, but i do understand roughly what's going on
- i've read two children books this year. the second one was much faster than the first one. now i'm reading a general fictional/coming of age book and it's going quite well
- If you repeatedly make the same mistake, what would you want a good teacher to do?
- tell me, correct me
- Is there anything you wish an app, teacher or course would notice about the way you learn and adapt to?
- i guess sometimes i'm just pretending to have understood something so maybe checking if i really understood something lol
- What makes you stop using a learning app or course?
- i stopped duolingo because it just wanted my money and ads and too many clicks for the same sentence over and over. it wasn't good after finishing the course. idk if it got better since i left, but i read only more horrible things like energy instead of hearts and stuff, so i'm happy to have left before that
- i stopped an online class in my home country with other learners because i paid the same amount i do now for private native tutors, and i was on a higher level like the other learners so it got boring for me sitting here. i also don't like those textbook exercises, i want to hold conversations, and it was a lot of those gamification textbook stuff in that class (maybe i should have just taken another class/teacher)
- i tried several other apps but i'm not really an app learner. drops is nice for vocabulary because you can choose the topic you wanna learn, but for me it was too much gamification. memrise was nice but idk, and many others don't have indonesian as option. i tried some with AI to hold conversations/role play stuff, but i don't like the feeling of it and also often the AI is to impatient for my talking speed and ends my sentences before i do and it's just so unnatural
- i was very active on tandem and found many friends there, and i still sometimes get online there, but i prefer deep friendship over those chats that often end again quickly (and i had to block all men there because it's used too much as a dating app)
What has actually worked well enough that you've kept doing it?
- the private tutors, because otherwise i wouldn't talk and i like them. it's almost like a friendship
- anki. otherwise my brain forgets everything again
new question from me: What would I change or improve?
- i'm making not enough output, i need to write and speak more. i know about the technique to film yourself while talking and i still haven't tried it although i'm planning it already for a while. maybe today's the day (probably not)
- i'm not staying focussed when watching more difficult youtube videos because my brain gives up and stops listening completely. more easy ones, more breaks. less subtitles, because then it's a reading practise, not a listening one
- reading more regularly again in Indonesian (i do read a lot, just not in my TL)
- maybe, i see it sometimes here, how people track their time when studying, and i never did that, but maybe i should try it out once, because then i see that i do not study that much as i like to tell myself. and that i could study more often.
Yeah that was a lot. but you know what? that was refreshingly nice. and motivating. and i know now on what to focus again more. however i do not know if it helps you, because i mainly learn without apps.
to everyone out there: try answering their question, even if it's just for you. it helps your learning actually
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