Comradeship // Freechat

I'd 2nd comrades suggestions below to try out dreamingspanish.

Also highly recommend reading this article written by them, about the comprehensible input method. I've tried a lot of other techniques over the years (apps, dictionary / side by side reading, flashcards), but CI is the only thing that works for me, and everything else wasted hundreds of hours of time.

I use the above site for spanish, and a few youtube channels for Mandarin, and am progressing faster than I ever was before with apps.

Some good advice in here already. I'll just add some thoughts about choosing media.

I had the most luck with translations of my favourite books. But only certain books. Books that use a lot of description are much more difficult. I really struggled with Gabriel Garcia Marquez because he paints such a detailed picture. E.g. you won't just see someone in a room with a glass, you'll see the furniture and jars, vials, dishes, etc. That's a lot of extra, relatively rare vocabulary. It slowed me down too much to enjoy. (I have heard that 'Nobody Writes to the Colonel' and some other of his shorter works are more suitable for beginners but I haven't yet read them and I want to really enjoy them all on my first read through, I'm waiting a bit before I get stuck in.)

Books that are a little more action-packed have been easier for me. Now I also enjoy books in my favourite genres (historical fiction, fantasy) by my favourite authors even if I haven't read that specific book by them before. It's still easier than reading new authors.

My main point is not to be embarrassed about putting something down and trying again later. Pick things you can enjoy most right now.

For Spanish, you can also change the language of many video games, Netflix shows, Disney plus shows, etc. Audible have a decent range, too.

To get a consistent accent, I started by only listening to one accent. Now I don't mind what I listen to. It limits your choices to start with but you often have both available on Netflix, Disney, and Audible.

Whoa was not expecting this many responses lol. Will try to respond as much as I can but thank you to everyone who has offered suggestions.

Check your community. My area often has language meet ups where you can meet other learners and native speakers. It is a great way to make connections with other learners and practice the language.

Check coffee shops, colleges, and religious listings.

You may also be able to help migrants learn your language while you learn theirs. I know many community groups help organize volunteers to assist migrants and refugees assimilate to their new home.

Watching, reading, and listening to stuff in your target language. You can start with stuff made for learners if you really need to, but the sooner you start consuming material made for native speakers, the better. And always be reading and watching things that are challenging. I read news articles and novels, watched YouTube and TV, and listened to podcasts and music, and took lots of notes and flashcards. All from when I was a beginner. You can use subtitles for video and just look up words that you recognize but don't know.

I improved so much more quickly, even when I felt completely lost, than I ever have rote studying. And everyone I have ever met that's actually good at English as a second language only got there by actually consuming native media. Plus it's way more fun.

Dreaming Spanish is amazing

I have a bunch of podcasts downloaded but I can't remember which ones were the good ones. I think Cuentame was the best for beginner iirc

So, I don't know about Spanish specifically (I've been focused on Mandarin myself), but I do have an idea you can try, that I've been experimenting with. There's an app called Tutor Lily and one called Univerbal, and both make use of a combination of AI text generation / languages models (for one side of a conversation) and some kind of "corrections" to point out mistakes in grammar or that kind of thing. Both have a form of trial or free use before you have to pay for anything (though with Univerbal, you might have to sign up for the full trial and then cancel in your store subscriptions if you don't want to get charged after it ends).

I haven't tried these for long yet, but I'm liking Tutor Lily more so far for just basic chatting and writing a message in the language every now and then during a day. And the main benefit I find is in getting me to use the language more flexibly vs. the set examples that course-based apps tend to have. In this way, one thing I do sometimes is I'll go find a grammar rule I learned in the past, then try to make use of it in the chatting app, within the context of the conversation. I reach for Google Translate a fair bit during this, as my understanding of Mandarin is still limited, but I know enough that it's not too painful.

The one main caveat here is, LLMs (large language models) can "hallucinate", as in confidently BS on things. Presumably, these apps are designed to try to confine the output to some degree and are (hopefully?) specially trained on grammatical corrections and the like to make them more accurate. But I still take it and its corrections with a grain of salt when conversing with it. So it's not something I'd recommend for someone new to a language who is very dependent on correct info, but at the level you're at, it might be a helpful supplementary thing.

Edit: Just noticed you said you have ADHD. I recommend trying this approach all the more in that case. I'm pretty confident I have ADHD too and the interactivity of this approach helps me stay engaged with it.

Some people find transcribing songs in the target language by hand can accelerate their learning significantly.

Get a workbook and pencil and do it a little bit every day.

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Okay, so, use Quizlet for flash cards and adding words. There's a good app version too.

Also, use Memrise and HelloTalk (HelloTalk lets you chat with other Spanish-speakers; they learn English while you learn Spanish, is the idea, and you can do this with any language).

Quora is... surprisingly good with you want more specific questions answered about the language, like about slang, but if you don't trust Quora (a lot of people don't and not entirely for bad reasons) then maybe use Stack as it has been expanding on other question-types for a while now. Otherwise, there are apps for asking questions from native speakers on their countries, how the language works, etc.

I would avoid Anki, even though many recommend it; it's not as good as Quizlet.

I’ve heard good things about dreaming spanish

Honestly, avoid Duolingo, even for Spanish.

Memrise is good for learning vocabulary and the Easy Languages channels on YouTube are also pretty good.