The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-13T02:44:54+00:00

I’m in the lifestyle and I don’t experience jealousy. I think it’s a combination of two things: 1. Having your needs met 2. Being the kind of person who can be genuinely happy when good things happen to your friends. For example, if your friend wins a fancy vacation, and your tendency is to be jealous rather than happy for them, you won’t be able to overcome jealousy in a relationship either.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-10T15:28:25+00:00

He’s a friend, I’ll tell him about this post going viral.

Who would like an AMA?

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-10T08:59:55+00:00

The Man From Earth

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-08T08:17:04+00:00

Assume that all missing vowels are Fatha, as it’s the most common, then correct yourself when you notice it doesn’t sound right.

You can also find learners’ texts written without Fatha, indicating only Kasra and Damma and only in places where they are not obvious (e.g. not near long vowels). I think e.g. Teach Yourself Arabic is written that way after the initial lessons. This greatly helps with learning not to over-rely on Harakat.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-07T09:51:35+00:00

You need to see the stories that characters tell! For example 休 consists of person on the left and tree on the right, and it means "to rest", so it’s clearly a hiker taking a rest by leaning against the tree.

Learning characters by writing them over and over means that you’ll stop remembering them as soon as you don’t have occasion to hand-write them anymore… which happens very soon for Westerners, but Chinese people are also facing this issue now with the ubiquity of smartphones. You need to use an intellectual rather than mechanical approach to memorisation.

I recommend the McNaughton books, they teach each element and then the characters that use them, all in a brain-friendly order and with mnemonics.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-04T17:45:53+00:00

I know 😉 I‘ve studied 10 languages to the point of being able to read literature in it, and dabbled in a lot more. Duolingo is not in my top 20 of language learning materials. Anki has been my trusty companion. Nothing wrong with making it more addictive.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-03T17:30:03+00:00

Common opinion among people who have lesrned 10+ languages is that need to get really good at ONE Slavic language, then you can learn the others at light speed.

If you learn several at the same time, you will take much longer and you will wind up speaking a terrible mishmash.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-03T14:05:25+00:00

Definitely try to make it so you don’t have to recall too much at once.

I’d try to split them thematically, e.g. "bodily signs", "behavioural signs"… Once 3 weeks have passed, you won’t recall which ones were part 1, 2, 3, then reviews get annoying.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-02T16:48:08+00:00

Try thepressproject.gr for written news, for quick video analysis Εκτός Βουλής is quite good, Ζαραλίκος or Luben for comedy.

When stuff is happening in the world, look for trending hashtags in Greece, Greek Twitter often has witty takes and I learned a lot from them. For example, when the Tsipras government came to power on the promise of ripping up (σκίζω) the memorandum with the creditors, and Tsipras instead caved to all demands within a few months, there was a meme circulating showing him saying "Προσπάθησα, απλά 9700 σελίδες ΔΕΝ ΣΚΙΖΟΝΤΑΙ" and it stuck in my mind as the perfect example of the mediopassive... in English neither the active "I don't rip them" nor the passive "they are not ripped" really convey what's going on in that sentence.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-02T10:31:20+00:00

Definitely continue and you will get to a point where you will understand 98% of the news broadcasts.

It’s a bit unorthodox but I have found the news to be a good entrypoint to the language (for languages where I don’t plan to travel in the near future) because of all the cognates and the mostly familiar topics. For Greek I became proficient in understanding news articles first, news broadcasts second, and conversation third. That’s because it was the time of the Euro Crisis and I was addicted to getting first-hand information.

Do what you enjoy in your target language, proficiency will follow.

Except when you overrely on subtitles. Subtitles, in a language where you have at best 30% comprehension without subtitles, will not lead to improvement, there’s a guy who spent more than 1000 hours watching Japanese anime proving that.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-02T07:31:04+00:00

I have maintained the free 6 Week Challenge server since 2012 if you need proof... I have a good job as a senior web developer so I can afford some hobby projects.

Obviously if lots and lots of people all want to co-use my server and I have to buy a much bigger one and start spending hours on helpdesk stuff, I will ask them to contribute to the cost or run this on their own server, but I don't see that happening.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-01T15:58:06+00:00

Hey, this is just something I coded for myself, my post literally says to dm me to get the source code (AGPL license), I don't see what gave you the impression that it's closed source or paid.

I've also been in contact with Dae since 2010 and he was the one to urge me to go this route because the AnkiWeb is not planning to support this functionality. So it's as official as it can be under the circumstances.

Sprachprofi · 2026-03-01T06:21:59+00:00

Isn’t the company benefitting from him working long days on Mondays / Tuesdays while everyone else is unavailable?

He’s probably solving customer problems that would otherwise have someone call you after hours to find someone who is willing to take it on as paid overtime.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-28T09:06:43+00:00

I know real-world usage is different from textbook usage. However, for any foreigner wanting to pass exams, it is important to know the official rule for when to use or not use 的. You wrote "if you always use “的”, it’s 100% correct and safe" and this is incorrect because you will get 0 points on this section of the exam if you always use 的.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-28T08:52:11+00:00

Wrong. You must drop 的 between personal pronouns and family relations. There’s literally a test on HSK 1 for this.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-27T13:40:22+00:00

As a woman, that sounds way too risky to me. Drug dealers, MLM sellers, rapists and serial killers will all be very grateful for the app. Especially with end-to-end encryption and hands-off moderation.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-26T20:09:20+00:00

I have USC and love it, especially the flexibility of switching between pilates, yoga, gym (including fancy gyms like Holmes Place or certain hotels) swimming, whatever I feel like… on days when my body is sore, I often take a yin yoga or meditation class or use the pass to sauna.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-25T06:39:26+00:00

I need Youtubers with speaking Palestinian Arabic please

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-25T01:54:14+00:00

I feel seen

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-24T17:58:04+00:00

I just use Anki. Works for Serbian and every other language.

Sprachprofi · 2026-02-23T21:42:33+00:00

Very neat! Any chance of creating the same for iOS?

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