From my own experience, I realise there's a difference between being interested in how languages work and being good at learning them. Inspired by Zompist's essay on the topic I was therefore wondering if people here have had any interesting experiences learning a second (or third) language in practice. What worked for you, and what didn't? And was there anything you wish you had known from the start?
In my own case, learning English lies too far back for me to remember how exactly I did it, other than by going to class - and by watching a lot of movies, I guess. Much later, I learned German while living in a German-speaking country, and that did give me some thoughts on the topic:
- Learning intensively with other learners is great in the beginning, because one can make as many mistakes as necessary without feeling any dumber than everyone else.
- Speaking of the "embarrassment factor", I made friends with quite a few people with whom I spoke English from the outset, and in retrospect, I wish I had just tried getting to know them in German. Once you are comfortable talking to someone in a language you're confident in, it will be really hard to switch to a language where you feel like an idiot.
- Maybe this is obvious, but learning by immersion is so much easier and more effective than classes/excercises/etc. The only languages I know, I have learned by being surrounded by them for a time. On the other hand, I feel that formal "correct" grammar takes longer to really stick when learning through trial and error.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on the topic!
Language learning experiences
Re: Language learning experiences
I'm afraid the only additional language I ever managed to learn reasonably well is English, and as with you, Flau, I started doing that so long ago that I don't really remember it that well. Later attempts to learn Latin (in school) and Verdurian (on my own) eventually just fizzled out.
I agree that exposure is very important. If you keep hearing and reading more and more texts in a language produced by native speakers, and if you also have a bit of a knack for learning languages, then sooner or later, you should, without even intentionally trying to, develop a kind of instinct for how that language works, what kinds of things speakers of that language usually would or wouldn't say or write, and how they would or wouldn't express themselves.
But there's absolutely no guarantee that this will work. On the internet, I've seen English-language posts written by native German speakers who had apparently been learning and using English for a long time and still did things like using "make" in place of "do".
Speaking of which, part of what motivated me to seek out original English materials instead of translations - and I'm sure that that improved my English at least somewhat - was a frustration with German translations of English texts which had apparently been written by translators who, in order to get their jobs, first had to prove that they had never heard of the idea of False Friends. Or gotten the idea that ways of expressing something that sound perfectly normal and natural in one language might sound awkward, stilted, and artificial in another languages. Really, it did sometimes happen that I heard or read a German text which had been translated from English, I did not have any kind of access to the original English text, but I still thought I had a reasonably good idea of what the English version had said, and how, in my not so humble opinion, it might have been translated better.
I agree that exposure is very important. If you keep hearing and reading more and more texts in a language produced by native speakers, and if you also have a bit of a knack for learning languages, then sooner or later, you should, without even intentionally trying to, develop a kind of instinct for how that language works, what kinds of things speakers of that language usually would or wouldn't say or write, and how they would or wouldn't express themselves.
But there's absolutely no guarantee that this will work. On the internet, I've seen English-language posts written by native German speakers who had apparently been learning and using English for a long time and still did things like using "make" in place of "do".
Speaking of which, part of what motivated me to seek out original English materials instead of translations - and I'm sure that that improved my English at least somewhat - was a frustration with German translations of English texts which had apparently been written by translators who, in order to get their jobs, first had to prove that they had never heard of the idea of False Friends. Or gotten the idea that ways of expressing something that sound perfectly normal and natural in one language might sound awkward, stilted, and artificial in another languages. Really, it did sometimes happen that I heard or read a German text which had been translated from English, I did not have any kind of access to the original English text, but I still thought I had a reasonably good idea of what the English version had said, and how, in my not so humble opinion, it might have been translated better.
Re: Language learning experiences
Thanks for your input!
Also, I am surprised to hear that good German translations are hard to come by, with German and English being so widely spoken. Maybe the good translators are just expensive?
Good point - I guess one can accidentally teach oneself some bad habits that then take effort to unlearn. It reminds me of when I did an exchange semester and picked up some weird grammar (e.g., I started saying "I didn't went" instead of "didn't go") from hanging out with a lot of other non-native English speakers.Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2026 1:23 pm I agree that exposure is very important. If you keep hearing and reading more and more texts in a language produced by native speakers, and if you also have a bit of a knack for learning languages, then sooner or later, you should, without even intentionally trying to, develop a kind of instinct for how that language works, what kinds of things speakers of that language usually would or wouldn't say or write, and how they would or wouldn't express themselves.
But there's absolutely no guarantee that this will work. On the internet, I've seen English-language posts written by native German speakers who had apparently been learning and using English for a long time and still did things like using "make" in place of "do".
Also, I am surprised to hear that good German translations are hard to come by, with German and English being so widely spoken. Maybe the good translators are just expensive?
Re: Language learning experiences
I'm mainly talking about my memories from the 1990s and 2000s. I don't consume enough translations these days to judge whether my impressions from back then are still valid.