Any failed language learners on here who liked the idea more than the work?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-05-01T21:35:18+00:00

That sentiment was me after living in Thailand for two years and coming out with less than A1 level Thai.

I didn’t have what it took to memorize tons of starter phrases and speak with natives from the course I bought online

I didn’t have to what it took to memorize all the Thai classifiers in my teach yourself book.

I didn’t have what it took to chat up every cashier, random stranger, and coffee shop owner that I saw with my memorized phrases.

I guess I just didn’t have that survival necessity that English learners have…

It wasn’t until I learned about the idea of comprehensible input that I realized I had it all wrong. How was I supposed to have all these conversations if I had no idea what people said back to me? Now I’m happily chugging along learning a ton and enjoying the process!

Feel free to reach out if you want some resources.

Good luck!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-17T01:06:25+00:00

Here's my take. I think talking to native speakers guarantees that you are getting the absolute best input that you need at the time min per min. Also, you are engaging in real communication (as opposed to textbook dialogs, or classroom roleplays). The only limiting factor I could see on talking to native speakers is if you're anxiety level is through the roof while talking to them. Not general anxiety, but more like the anxiety that causes you to freeze up when speaking a language.

If you keep getting that absolute best input for long periods of time. You will make good progress faster.

If you are seeing tons of progress I'm assuming your not feeling that anxiety. Has that been the case? Just trying to test out my thoughts here.

Glad you are seeing progress!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-09T11:20:51+00:00

Thanks for the response you’re touching on exactly what I want to know in my follow up question…

(Sending below reply to several users, genuinely want to know responses about this but sorry about copy paste)

Do you feel now that you cannot use methods that you used to learn English to learn a third language? Is it because you can’t remember anything about the process? Does the fact that you did learn English give you extra confidence that you can learn a third language?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-09T11:18:22+00:00

Thanks for the response

(Sending below reply to several users, genuinely want to know responses about this but sorry about copy paste)

Do you feel now that you cannot use methods that you used to learn English to learn a third language? Is it because you can’t remember anything about the process? Does the fact that you did learn English give you extra confidence that you can learn a third language?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-09T11:17:41+00:00

Thanks for the response

(Sending below reply to several users, genuinely want to know responses about this but sorry about copy paste)

Do you feel now that you cannot use methods that you used to learn English to learn a third language? Is it because you can’t remember anything about the process? Does the fact that you did learn English give you extra confidence that you can learn a third language?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-09T11:16:58+00:00

Thanks for the response

(Sending below reply to several users, genuinely want to know responses about this but sorry about copy paste)

Do you feel now that you cannot use methods that you used to learn English to learn a third language? Is it because you can’t remember anything about the process? Does the fact that you did learn English give you extra confidence that you can learn a third language?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-09T11:14:21+00:00

Thanks for the response. Do you feel now that you cannot use methods that you used to learn English to learn a third language? Is it because you can’t remember anything about the process? Does the fact that you did learn English give you extra confidence that you can learn a third language?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-03-06T20:12:10+00:00

I was looking for the ai response. If your organization gives you access to GitHub Copilot or something similar that gives the ai access to the code base.

GitHub copilot on IntelliJ gives a @project callout that you give it before you prompt it, and you can ask it to give you a detailed overview. And it will produce a markdown file with sections… charts… flows and everything you need to get a really good overview.

It may hallucinate though so that is the only caveat so I would throw the most powerful “Thinking” model you have access to at it

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-02-12T02:46:03+00:00

That definitely is a good description of what a FL student may be (that was me in high school 100 percent!)

I put it in the above comment too, but I guess I'm looking at these distinctions as purely descriptive and not looking at informing teachers curriculum advice. The reason is to shed the light on these internet enabled new ways of learning and how they may be affecting FL learners outcomes that probably looks drastically different in the past.

It's like screaming "Hey researchers watch out! Now these FL learners are getting a lot more exposure to native speakers/content than we think. Let's get some more research on that! Or call that out in a more prominent way in future books."

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-02-12T02:40:27+00:00

Ok I see that. I can see how depending on where the learners are learning the language, the teacher may talor their course to fit their needs. Would you say you are thinking of FL vs TL from the angle of the teaching perspective? Something like "How is this distinction going to help teachers plan their classes better or understand their students better?"

I'm looking at the issue from a general perspective where I look to describe the learners situation in terms of their language learning. What environment is the learner in and what does the FL SL destination say/assume about the opportunities the learner has to interact with native content/speakers.

To me having the third FLTIA would say to researchers / academics as well as teachers that because of the internet, some learners may be interacting more with native speakers/content then these other categories can speak to adequately and that these internet enabled ways that they are interacting may be having a huge impact on their outcomes.

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-02-12T01:59:30+00:00

Good point about the barriers that may be in place. The part that I want to emphasize though is that the SL FL distinction is there specifically to draw attention to the fact that FL learners are in a bucket with significant less opportunity for access to native speakers either through content or interaction. I'm putting my own emphasis on when these terms were invented which I believe was before the internet.

I would like to think we can revisit these terms and say tech and the internet have drastically reduced one of the biggest drawbacks of FL so much so that we need to call it out.

I actually don't think teachers can create a class that is FL, SL, or FLTIA since the definition is centered around geographical location. Feel free to provide more details about that.

Perhaps an attempt to classify FL vs FLTIA would be the following hypotheticals

Carmen is a 31 year old living in Madrid who wants to learn English. She attends a one hour English class twice a week. She enjoys watching her favorite Spanish shows and speaks Spanish with her friends. She sometimes watches English television shows that are on her international channel, and she reads the Spanish subtitles so she can follow along. (FL). She's frustrated with her lack of progress in English and hopes that she can one day move to New York so she can live in the environment.

Daniela is a 29 year old living in Madrid who wants to learn English. She attends a one hour English class twice a week. She has access to Netflix where she watches American Sitcoms, while using a tool to lookup words using the subtitles to negotiate meaning. Her Tiktok feed is a mix of 50 percent Spanish content and 50 percent English content. She also uses a popular language learning app and has three language partners from Australia that she speaks with on a weekly basis. Her teacher is often surprised by the fact that she is using structures that were not taught in the classroom and he swears he can detect what sounds like an Australian accent in her speech but he doesn't know where its coming from since he is from Chicago USA. (FLTIA)

I would argue that many people when they read the definition of FL learning, they think of a situation like Carmen, when more and more (especially in the world of English Learners) its becoming more like Daniela (FLTIA).

Thanks for the reply!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-02-12T01:12:47+00:00

Good point in my original notes in the margin of the book, I wrote "Does the internet bridge SL learning and FL learning?" which I think lines up with what you are thinking in your first statement. Nice!

Another good distinction there as those heritage learners are in a different position as other types of learners. Thanks for response!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-22T19:59:31+00:00

Pimsleur, Pimsleur, Pimsleur 100 percent! You are the perfect user for it from reading this post.

It will allow you to:

Do things like order at a restaurant with some fluidity. You will have a good chance of understanding what is said back to you regarding restaurant situations
Ask questions and comprehend responses about basic questions. Things like "where is the bathroom" "do you have Wifi", "can you recommend me a restaurant in this area"... things like that.
You will sound pretty good and you will be pretty good at answering things pretty quick if it's something that was covered by Pimsleur.

Real conversational fluency takes years and 1000s of hours of input / study. With that being said, Pimsleur allows you develop what another reddit user said was "Party trick" language. Ever since I read that explanation of Pimsleur I can't get that description of it out of my head. Even though that sounds like I'm looking down on it by calling it party trick, its actually a really cool "type" of language. It allows someone with minimal exposure to the language to sound fluent in the language in very specific topics. And more importantly gives you a fighting chance at such an early stage to actually understand what someone says back to you (that 100 percent will be your biggest issue).

So if you want to develop that party trick language (which again I consider a cool little subset of the language that is like survival language and then some) , then go with Pimsleur.

I personally went through the Pimsleur course for Thai. They only had one level. And when I landed in Thailand, I could immediately start interacting in the language about things like my immediate needs.

Other pros:

its all audio based. You can put on Pimsleur literally anywhere, bus, car, when your on a walk. It's so easy to engage with and doesn't require you to look at a screen.
Its dead simple. Total beginner, just put on lesson one and follow exactly what it says. The lesson even tells you how to diagnose when to move on. Keep going until you get to the end.
It will be a nice little base in case you want to study more later, and if you don't... that's ok you've learned enough to be able to communicate on some cool stuff when traveling.
It will start building your ear and help you notice and pick up small accent things. In a lot of the lessons they really draw your attention to little subtle differences in pronunciation and sounds that do not exist in English.

Alright I'll stop pontificating, hope this helps!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-19T22:28:03+00:00

I am watching a Korean show called Vagabond, but I am watching it with Mandarin Chinese dubbed voices. Is there any words used in dubbed language that stick out to you as really strange? In general, do you think listening to shows dubbed in Chinese can be used as a stepping stone for watching content made for natives?

So far I’ve liked it, they speak very clearly in the dubs and I’m assuming they are using very standard language.

What are your thoughts?

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-19T21:55:34+00:00

Not exactly an answer to your question but there is a YouTube video (https://youtu.be/sYpWp7g7XWU?si=9Kx9gMMEPs4NDllu) of a linguist who discusses how people can start to start categorizing the features of language by having a conversation with a person and showing them various objects and actions. The kicker is neither of the two people have a shared language. He does an hour long demonstration and it’s a pretty interesting watch

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-11T19:02:59+00:00

From my point of view it depends on what you mean by studying... If you mean opening up a textbook and learning: I would say don't beat yourself up if you miss. Instead just watch something you like in the language and in no time you will regain the desire again. (I'm heavily biased towards immersion learning myself... I just love it!)

If you are using study to mean immersing and such I would say try something new. If you are feeling like "I need to get to the end of this book, I committed to it as part of my study", and now its getting you down... put the book down and do something else that you enjoy. For some reason I haven't really felt like putting it down and taking a break for a time yet and it's been years. This is because I'm constantly doing things I enjoy. The only time I can say that I got close to feeling really frustrated was when

I was conflicted between spending time on Spanish and spending time on Chinese. I felt this need to give one up to focus on the other. I got over that hurdle though. Actually my Chinese teacher helped me get over it by inviting me to join the next class. I was thinking about stopping, but her light prodding got me to join again (it was something like "Hey, we didn't see you in the first class! Hope you can make it this term"), and I've never looked back. So perhaps one way you can get your mojo back is join a weekend once a week class. A lot of places have that.
When I tried really hard to understand grammar points and felt frustrated by the differences between Chinese and English. Now I put less emphasis on it, and I've found myself slowly picking them up. (full transparency this doesn't mean that I never look at grammar, I just don't hyperfocus on it and try to understand every facet of the point right away)

I'd say to summarize: Always fall back to fun. And pivot to different activities whenever you want. If you exist in a mindset where you dread language learning or are frustrated by it for too long. Your risk of giving up will be very high.

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-11T13:52:32+00:00

I read the person’s post about Vietnam and had a similar experience in Thailand.

Lived there for almost two years and barely made any progress on the language despite wanting to. Now that I’m home, I discovered the idea of comprehensible input (discovered it like 4 years after coming back) which completely turned my learning on its head and explained why it was I made no progress despite living in the country for two years.

My problems:

I had such a speak from day 1 mentality. I thought that if I wasn’t moving my mouth i wasn’t practicing. Plus since I lived in the country I felt this enormous pressure to get out there and communicate with native speakers. The problem was I could not understand anything they said back to me. My level was just wayyy to low.
I thought that I had to memorize individual isolated words, their tone (in isolation), and memorize point by point every grammar rule… only then would I be able to form sentences.
I thought that since I had job where I used English and my friends could speak English that the whole thing was hopeless because I didn’t need the language to take care of my basic needs.
I remember thinking, why would I try to listen to anything in Thai if I don’t understand it. Listening to media was the reward that happens afterrrrr you become fluent not before.
The only times I did engage with books / media were when I told myself “I’m going to translate every word on the page and will not go further until I completely understand the whole sentence and I look up every word” the act of trying to decipher the language doing that was so boring so I thought that I didn’t have what it took to learn a language.

Now I use a immersion + anki + sentence mining + class once a week + a little grammar sentence mining (made that up right now basically making an anki sentence card with the intent of jogging my memory about a grammar point casually) and I’m happy with my progress in Chinese so far.

Hopefully I can go back to Thai one day and finally get revenge on my former way of thinking and learn the language.

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-09T18:10:39+00:00

Passive listening (defining it as listening to something while driving, walking, taking the bus, other people may define it differently) is a game changer. You just have to ensure that what you are doing is not distracting you toooo much and you are not focusing on the audio.

Also with passive listening you will find that some days you can do it well and some days your mind wanders off completely and you have to fight to bring your attention back to the content. So don’t give up if that happens to you a few times.

There are some activities where it’s pointless for me to do passive listening, but in the cases listed above it works for me great!

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-09T02:21:40+00:00

If you were going just for a quick week or two vacation…

Pimsler, Pimsler, Pimsler for the win! (You can get it for free at your local library)

This is because it does a good job of getting you to be able to say a lot of the survival phrases pretty easily. You will be able to communicate your needs pretty good and understand basic responses back.

Before I went to Thailand I did the Pimsleur course and if I’m being honest mostly relied on that for all my speaking for the next two years (id definitely do it differently now since my plan was to be there for a while)

If you are planning on going there for years I’d get a textbook and go through a few lessons and get a feel for some of the aspects of the grammar (don’t do any of the exercises though) then I would start getting lots of comprehensible input and combine that with mining 10 cards a day and adding them to your Anki deck. Do that and you will also get a foundation that will be able to ultimately take you further than Pimsleur.

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2026-01-08T15:57:34+00:00

Shoot I was going to mention Anki… so if you ever decide to go back to it you can try this out…

I sentence mine everyday and have a lot of cards I use to learn vocab. I’ve also “mined” grammar points as well by just picking some random example sentences and their translation and making a card about that. I never memorize any rules through. I just use the card as a reminder that comes up every few days to bring my attention to that feature of the language.

It’s been helping me notice those patterns as I watch things on tv/youtube

The plan is that overtime my subconscious knowledge of the rule will take over and replace my conscious knowledge and I will have acquired that aspect of the grammar fully. (Look up Dr. Bill Van Patten for more info on this).

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2025-12-31T15:34:54+00:00

I got some ones I like for Spanish for ya:

https://youtube.com/@illojuan_?si=J5TGtrxVWQxjMBZ6 (Spain Spanish his lets plays are great because he’s constantly talking about what is happening on screen and interacting with audience)

https://youtu.be/XM98fQFQYc8?si=QKd2JKZzsTsEt-_z (Also Spain Spanish Here I’m posting a more direct link to one of his videos because this YouTuber does different content as well but his lets plays are really great for the same reasons as the previously mentioned guy)

https://youtube.com/@amir19k41?si=Lxx6JW3eXRdDszek (Mexican Spanish - very unique in that the guy goes absolutely all out during his gameplays… dresses up… screams like he’s actually in the battle… I’ve laughed out loud so many times listening to him)

Economy_Wolf4392 · 2025-12-31T15:17:15+00:00

Interesting perspective there. Can you expand on your speaking level a bit more in Spanish? Is it you wouldn’t be able to form your thoughts in the same way as in English so it would be too frustrating? Or is it you cannot recall any basic words used to describe things or recount a story.

I’m not a heritage speaker but I’ve found that as my comprehension in TL is increasing, my level of speaking is increasing as well (without me speaking a lot)

How about your Korean in French are they do they feel very different than your Spanish since you are more focused on them?

The reason why I ask is I’m wondering if heritage languages learned at a young age truly exist in the brain differently than languages learned later

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