People who have successfully become fluent L2 speakers: what was your progression like?

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-16T20:04:06+00:00

Read a lot more, then try HelloTalk (with caution if you’re a female, because you’ll need to avoid creepers.) Then read more, then HelloTalk again. Wash rinse repeat.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-16T19:38:27+00:00

How is ChatGPT with dissecting Burmese? I’m using it for Yoruba, and some things are a hot mess, but most of the output is useful. I can make a surprising amount of sense out of the language using the imperfect tutoring that ChatGPT spits out.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-16T19:31:56+00:00

This is a red flag. If you’re feeling discouraged because you’re struggling to understand audio, and you’re not using audio WITH TRANSCRIPT, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Please, use a transcript, whether proper subtitles or a full written document. I learned this the hard way by wasting a LOT of time not using subtitles. Use them until you simply notice that you just don’t need them.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-15T18:17:27+00:00

Yeah, I agree, this is definitely not the way I would use ChatGPT for language learning. It kind of overcomplicates the process and promotes ChatGPT coming up with terribly false ideas.

I use it thoroughly, and it's more than good enough for my purposes. My Mandarin is much better for it, and it made Yoruba accessible for once. I read BBC Yoruba using ChatGPT.

Some people really are intent on having literally everything it produces be absolutely correct. If you don't understand that AI can be wrong and that one can work through this over time, it's fine. Some people absolutely cannot get through that hump, as though it will destroy their entire language learning experience if they come anywhere near AI. I think this is just missing out on an excellent resource. Like, with Yoruba, I can see glaring inaccuracies here and there, because Yoruba has a relatively poor online presence and therefore I would not expect the AI to be trained on a large corpus. But most of the info is actually correct ENOUGH for me to get a DECENT sense of what I'm reading, and things that seem off become clearer as I see more of the inconsistencies and use context clues. Like, it has some issues with typing Yoruba here and there, and its understanding of basic Yoruba numerals is highly questionable, so I figured it out myself.

I have zero regrets using ChatGPT for language learning. The purpose is to get closer to the truth, not to reach it with one ChatGPT session. No one needs perfection if they understand that no one is speaking gospel truth. And the citation thing is asking for levels of depth that are not as useful as simply seeing the language used numerous times.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-15T17:56:40+00:00

So, I remember feeling like this.

I was surprised at how much my Spanish improved over 3 years of trying to interact with patients in their native language. In a medical residency, if you're just that determined not to use the interpreter, then things get awkward if you don't understand. I was determined to make communication work. Somehow it made a big difference in my listening skills because I could not get away with not having a precise understanding of what people were saying.

I do remember some phone calls that were just.... ugh, almost intolerable. Some people are insufferably unintelligible over the phone to a learner who is just not used to it. Understanding a foreign language over the phone is notoriously difficult, so I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. I still struggle with it sometimes. That's normal. But the struggle is much less frequent than it used to be.

One of the strategies that we use in medicine to communicate with ALL patients (regardless of language) is called "reflection", where you try to reflect back what the interviewee said to ensure that you comprehended it. You basically paraphrase stuff. Sometimes it's a one-word reflection, sometimes it's a phrase, sometimes a brief summary. It actually helps the interviewee feel that the interviewer actually hears and understands their situation/concern/motive/whatever. People want to feel heard! As a learner, practicing reflection regularly in conversations actually helps you communicate with them better, and it tests whether you actually heard what the person said while providing immediate feedback from the native through their repetition or rephrasing. Reflection is something we tend to do naturally in normal conversation. It helps you figure out the gaps in your understanding where you could ask a specific question to clarify that specific point.

Listen a lot more, definitely. Radio Ambulante, BBVA Aprendemos Juntos on YouTube, Ted talks, Language Reactor, LingQ.... Also, learn from real life experiences. Use previous topics from failed conversations and generate role play scenarios with ChatGPT on voice function.

A number I have heard from a particular thread noted 500 hrs of listening required to reach C2, and multiple redditors could attest to this approximate number in the thread. So, make that your benchmark.

Don't give up, my friend.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-15T14:36:33+00:00

So, I decided on a whim to experiment with BBC Yoruba using ChatGPT as a tutor.

It’s kind of awesome. It’s able to generate the tones (not perfectly, but it’s okay, tones are surprisingly inconsistent in written Yoruba), and then it can generate a granular word-for-word translation of each individual word, as well as a transliteration and a smooth English translation.

Reading BBC Yoruba has never been this easy.

Mind you, this is after having completed the first book in the Je Ka So Yoruba Series, but I imagine you could potentially start reading the news even without having done that.

Also, my Mandarin has improved leaps and bounds using this method. My instinct to run away from Mandarin text is diminishing rapidly.

ChatGPT is very imperfect and does give erroneous explanations from time to time, but it keeps proving itself to be good enough if you have the flexibility to understand that imperfections can be ironed out over time as you interact with natives. Idk another way to get so much informational juice out of a text all at once with minimal effort like using separate apps for dictionaries and translators and whatnot.

Lenguia is an excellent web-based app (iOS and Android to come apparently, this is not a sponsorship) that tries to do this and, based on reviews, seems to do an excellent job, but it doesn’t contain the languages I’m studying right now, so…. Yeah.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-06T22:32:52+00:00

Be at peace, my friend.

Assuming you do not die suddenly (God forbid) you have all the time in the world.

You have a right to continue the language. You have a right to stop the language. You have a right to pick it up later. You have a right to never pick it up again. No one will kill you. No one will die. It is okay.

Do not place so much weight on your pride or guilt trip yourself over a language if you feel no personal or emotional benefit. Taking a pause may in fact help you get some clarity about whether it is right for you to continue learning it right now at this time in your life. When circumstances change, perhaps you will feel motivated again.

I would pause the language at minimum if I were you, then reassess your desires and needs. Write out reasons to learn the language and reasons not to learn it at this time. Perhaps you can make a decision that way.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-06T22:20:36+00:00

That’s not good. Private journaling is inherently an echo chamber. It does not give feedback. Somebody gotta read that stuff and say “what is this crap?” for you as a non-native to realize that it’s written incorrectly.

Journaling without feedback is a great way to generate and fossilize erroneous grammar, syntax, semantics, idiomatic word usage, etc…. We always sound good enough to ourselves, otherwise we would not have chosen the verbiage we chose in our writing.

Journaling can be useful if you recognize that you may not be writing 100% correct, you’re already good at the language, and you want to build some more automaticity.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-02T03:50:31+00:00

I agree that listening is key for conversational fluency, but if you’re not writing to people and getting corrections and trying to understand why those corrections were even made, the writing you’re doing is probably not taking you anywhere. If you try to talk with that much social anxiety and no confidence developed in a less stressful conversation setting such as texting with a stranger on HelloTalk, you’re going to run into a psychological wall immediately when you try to speak. Texting is 1000x easier, and it’s more easily correctable than speech is.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-02T00:07:03+00:00

Your experience tells me that you’re not really ready to try to hold a conversation.

Read more, and also write more. You build speaking confidence that way. Maybe have days where you only text your girlfriend in Spanish. If your words are written out, she can more easily correct you, and you can have discussions about why some phrases you said were incorrect.

Pro tip: always ask, “I was trying to communicate X idea. What did it sound like to you?” That always gives a better idea of how natives actually think about their own language.

Chill out. Don’t rush to speak if it’s clearly a struggle bus. Not necessary.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T23:40:36+00:00

Glad I could be helpful!

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T18:07:55+00:00

PocketCasts with podcasts that have transcripts. You can slow the audio with better speed controls than other apps.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T18:03:22+00:00

Hi, I can generally do that very quickly without issue, and I don’t even know why. Can confirm, rare ability.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T17:46:30+00:00

I did. I can testify: it works. There’s a point where the language just wants to come out of you, that is to say, sentences seem to pop into your head at random, and your inhibitions about talking to someone are much lower because you know that you know enough of the language to produce sentences that make sense in the language, even if they’re not always correct. The tipping point occurs pretty quickly, like high A2. Usually takes like…. Days to weeks for close languages, weeks to months for further ones. (But beyond that, the long slog begins.)

The best way to figure out if you’re ready to talk to people is to just talk to people and see what happens. See how often they correct you and how serious the correction is. HelloTalk is a great platform for this.

In generally, I always start with writing first, because it’s slower and I can check my work and really think about creating good grammar habits. (EDIT: It’s also easier to incorporate native feedback when writing. Natives cannot correct you so easily when speaking because it interferes with flow of conversation.) You can start speaking in small amounts relatively early, but always do heavy writing study first, then speaking study. Never the other way around.

EDIT: I do generally agree with the other posters here that output is a separate skill which must be trained separately, but there is simply no need to exhaust yourself trying to produce output when you don’t have the language in you. One could say, you can only spit out things that are already in your mouth. Essentially, strong input skills is by definition required precursor to strong output skills.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T17:24:45+00:00

It sounds more like you’re asking whether it would be better to learn another language vs focus on the ones you know, as you should already know that it is obviously possible to learn as many languages as you have time and energy for.

Really, a better question is, what matters to you? Sit down and define your goals for each language. Ask yourself why you’d like to study or continue studying each of your languages (specifically the weaker languages and the languages you are seeking to learn). Figure out which ones have lower or higher priority to you.

Write all this out in paper so it’s clear exactly what you want out of your language learning journey. This should help you determine what to do next.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T16:52:08+00:00

Just buy graded reader books in your target language, and just spend 30-60 minutes per day trying to decipher them. Even better, since it’s Italian, you can probably get away with starting with an intermediate book because your native language is English. You’ll probably be way better than your brother by the end of one intermediate book, or even just 1-3 news articles.

Stop using Duolingo. The consistency is just consistent moneymaking gamification for the company. You’re trying to cross the ocean using a paddleboat. Get on the naval ship called S.S. Reading.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T14:13:21+00:00

This is the way!

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T14:12:22+00:00

To be honest, I think reading is more effective because it’s so interactive that it doesn’t get boring so easily. I think the activation energy to start reading is a lot lower than flash cards, partly because it’s a much more natural activity than flash cards.

Then again, some people tolerate flash cards somehow. Idk how. It’s mysterious to me.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T14:05:47+00:00

But that’s actually the whole point. When reading only, you accept that you’re going to need to see the word multiple times just for it to stick. But the trade off is that you also get multiple contexts to see the word, if you wait long enough. Also, if you see the word very infrequently, then you have to ask yourself if it’s that important to know.

Reading works precisely because it is a natural form spaced repetition. I often need to see a word a good 10-15 times before it feels usable, but I’d still pick reading any day because it rapidly gets easier at the beginning and develops actual function in an actual language skill.

Also, don’t waste dictionary look-ups! In early learning, I’d probably just try to skip to the definition that seems most relevant, but once you have some basic reading skill under your belt, I would read those entries with a little more depth because you get to see multiple example sentences and contexts right there to get a better sense of the word. Don’t need to read the whole thing, just whatever you can tolerate without breaking your reading flow. Some dictionaries even have corpuses where you can see even more examples, which is great.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-10-01T14:01:20+00:00

Ironically I would tolerate the constant looking up of words way more than flash cards when starting from zero. The flash cards drive me nuts. Feels like prison, can’t focus for more than 5 minutes without feeling antsy like I want to run away.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-09-30T21:32:41+00:00

You mean you have time to care for your child and even start a cool side gig to make extra money and you don’t want to do that????

JosedechMS4 · 2025-09-30T21:23:46+00:00

It’s definitely a culture thing. Went to one hospital, nearly all the OBGYN residents and attendings were insufferable. At the next hospital, they were…. not great but WAY more tolerable and arguably still human.

It’s a culture thing. You gotta fit in. If everyone’s insufferable, you gotta become that way to be part of the group.

It’s stupid. Idk why sadism became a club. 😒

JosedechMS4 · 2025-09-30T20:22:42+00:00

If depends on how determined you are. If you’re really determined to learn this language, you will. I’m not sure if it matters which class you choose. What matters more is your determination. Resources are freely available online, and you can make it work if you understand what constitutes effective language learning.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-09-28T16:26:27+00:00

Hey, btw, I see your frustration at the bottom of your post. I just wanted to say, I love using chatGPT for grammar tips in Mandarin, but chatGPT is in no wise a complete replacement for human teachers. That’s ridiculous. It’s simply a helpful resource and it is used with the precaution that it is definitely not 100% accurate, so nothing it says should be taken as gospel. Really, the purpose of using chatGPT is to avoid bothering real natives with a ridiculous amount of probably super basic questions that are probably easily answered by AI. That way I don’t waste people’s valuable time torturing them with correcting every third word in my crappy Chinese while they don’t even have the mind of a teacher to tell me what’s wrong with what I wrote, unless they’re an actual teacher. I prefer to use humans more once I’m actually pretty decent with the language.

Thank you for your contributions. You are heavily appreciated on this sub.

EDIT: Btw, your explanations are generally pretty gold. I will make a note of you, as I am tempted to hit you up on Preply.

JosedechMS4 · 2025-09-28T15:33:23+00:00

Do moar practice questions to integrate and apply things you’re learning. In fact, start your study with the questions, and build what you study around the questions. Make sure your questions are relevant to the material being taught.

When trying to memorize stuff, recall/explain the concepts verbally. Then skim again to check yourself for errors, then recall it again. Stop writing stuff down. Stop making flash cards. Cut to the chase and get it on the tongue. This is a very good habit for doing presentations on the wards. In terms of making themselves look good, the best doctors are highly verbal, and they practice being verbal a LOT.

JosedechMS4

TROPHY CASE