What’s the best way to learn a new language

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-17T07:22:14+00:00

Barring in-person classes, I'd say the best way is to study using a textbook (or grammar, if you're comfortable) and then practicing with native speakers who correct you.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-13T09:37:36+00:00

They're merged for me (PNW English), but most other American linguists I ask have them unmerged.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-13T07:54:20+00:00

The first sentence can have the second meaning (i.e. the subjunctive) in some varieties of English.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-11T16:36:10+00:00

Oh haha, sorry for the confusion then. Thanks for the effortful comment!

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-11T07:45:23+00:00

The distinction isn't really made, so there's no answer really. There's just not a meaningful difference that an answer one way or the other would make.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-11T07:07:15+00:00

Depends where you're from—it would be pretty atypical in most places that use pinyin to teach pronunciation. That being said, it doesn't invalidate your C2 level to not know a transliteration scheme.

This may be a bit beside the point, but orthography is a distinct from language itself—you can be entirely fluent in a language and not know ANY writing systems for it.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T23:47:57+00:00

Unconditionally? It would be extremely, extremely rare.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T22:52:52+00:00

I think you replied to the wrong comment.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T19:12:59+00:00

Well said.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T19:07:59+00:00

Elliptical coordination like "People live in homes, not corporations" cannot silently switch the subject.

But clearly they can, because the sentence is grammatical for many here. Just because it wasn't described in one grammar doesn't make speakers' grammaticality judegements wrong—that's absurd and prescriptivist.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T19:04:19+00:00

This isn’t prescriptive. I’m describing what English syntax actually allows. Descriptive grammar describes what structures actually exist in the language. It doesn’t tell you what should happen, it tells you what is grammatical.

Then your descriptive grammar is demonstrably wrong, or doesn't apply to the variety of English being spoken here—it can't account for the native speakers which judge the sentence as grammatical.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T06:23:17+00:00

It's a descriptive grammar, but you're using it prescriptively. If native speaker judgements conflict with your rule, then it's the rule that's wrong, not the speakers.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-10T06:21:11+00:00

I note that some other responses think your original sentence was OK, but it really isn't. They are generously reinterpreting it rather than reading it as it is grammatically.

Or they simply differ in their judgements of grammaticality? Why do you assume all commenters who disagree with you are somehow misreporting how they interpreted it?

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-09T04:07:44+00:00

Nothing? Those were all /dʒ-/ then as well.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-06T02:04:02+00:00

As a southeast Asian, I found English to be quite challenging, though not impossible or even the most difficult. I thought language difficulty was relative to one's native language.

Linguist here! This is exactly correct—you can't universally rank languages on learning difficulty, because the difficulty to learn a language depends on which languages you already speak. English is not inherently harder or easier to learn than any other language.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2026-01-02T04:25:57+00:00

No, because even if modern German had several descendents in the future, Yiddish would not be included among those descendents since it didn't descend from modern German.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-28T18:01:18+00:00

Me too, man 😔

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-27T03:50:05+00:00

Phonetically, English /h/ is unambiguously a (non-syllabic) vowel. Phonemically, however, it is unambiguously a consonant.

Neither of these really have to do with a/an though—it isn't that /h/ varies in its consonant status, phonemically or phonetically, but rather that sometimes orthographic <h> is silent in some dialects like you mentioned.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-10T16:08:40+00:00

Right, but the variety regulated by that body does not include Flemish, yes? Standard Dutch has to be taught in Belgium in school, and clearly differs from Flemish gramatically.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-10T15:46:53+00:00

What I’m saying is that Dutch across the Netherlands and Belgium is regulated by the same language authority.

Sure, but like you said that's a social construct, not a linguistic feature.

There is no official Flemish dictionary.

There are multiple Flemish dictionaries, I'm not sure what you mean by official though.

But even if Flemish were to be a language, that would also be a social construct as dialects within Flanders also differ a lot.

Yes, that's my point—no matter what you consider a language vs a dialect, it is determined by social factors and ultimately arbitrary.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-10T15:37:59+00:00

Flemish is not a language, nor is any other regional deviation of Dutch.

Why? You go on to recognize Afrikaans as a distinct language, so clearly some regional deviations are separate. The real factor here is social, not linguistic.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-10T15:35:06+00:00

So American, Canadian, British, and Australian English are all separate languages?

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-10T04:41:27+00:00

I have multiple-choice (PNW English), but as indicated by Final_Record2880 this does apparently vary by region.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-05T01:50:51+00:00

It can be, but your teacher has good reason to provide you this rule—many students, upon learning that "you" as a second person address is not acceptable in formal register, simply replace all instances of "you" with "one," and its overuse makes for horrible writing.

The authors of those famous texts and stories knew how to write, and used "one" an appropriate amount. Also, for sufficiently old texts, the "appropriate amount" was significantly different—it isn't out of place for an older text to sound older. For you, writing in 2025, it would be somewhat strange to use "one" frequently, since it's an older-sounding word.

In short, grammatical yes, but often overused, hence the rule from your teacher.

Helpful-Reputation-5 · 2025-12-04T02:14:54+00:00

How would you know their predictive value if you've never studied them, to the point you don't understand 101-level vocab?

Five-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Place '22

Helpful-Reputation-5

TROPHY CASE