Learning a language online

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Has nobody yet brought out the gadgets that the Star Trek people used umpteen decades ago to talk to aliens from far off planets?!

Or a Babel fish?

But that would take away the fun from learning the languages. And lead to further dumbing down of society. Ladies - keep up learning your languages for the sake of your sanity and metal health, even if you never use them!

Has anyone done the opposite of what the OP asks? Teaching English via a chat line online?

Openlearn ( Open University) have free language courses as well as many many others.. excellent materials and support

Well done everyone who's learning, however they do it. I can dimly (!) recall getting enough French to pass an O-Level, about a million years ago (but failed Spanish - kept getting them mixed up!). And that was a struggle when I had a young receptive brain.

Now we see the French version of Maigret (Cremer) being shown on 'Talking Pictures', and I feel a sense of triumph if, just now and again, I can recognise a phrase without the subtitles! I find I can sort of make sense of a written passage, but trying to understand people speaking at their pace (much too fast!) is just overwhelming.

Has nobody yet brought out the gadgets that the Star Trek people used umpteen decades ago to talk to aliens from far off planets?!

DH struggled a few days ago with the word for foot and mouth disease in French. He knew it wasn't^la maladie du pied et de la bouche^, but no way could he get to^la fièvre aphteuse^. That's when you know whether you are fluent or not as I have no idea where I dragged it up from to help him out. I'm sure I never actually learnt the expression.

I’m almost fluent in Spanish but have let it slide since returning to the uk. I decided to revise on Duolingo and it’s going well. My son is fluent and has the pronunciation because I chucked him into a Spanish village school aged about 12. After two years, we could see he was unhappy and transferred him to an English private school close to the village. He now needs Spanish in his day job and it has come in very useful. When he holidays in Spain, he generally goes inland and only uses Spanish. His fiancé is Polish but is fluent too as she lived and worked in Barcelona. I think language is a bit of a thing in our family. My husband is Middle Eastern and I get by in Arabic. I studied Greek as worked for a shipowner. I’m not ashamed to say my Spanish is not great and the revision on Duolingo is recommended. I always had the accent but this is teaching me grammar.

Mojack26

Duolingo...I do Italian. It's free but stupid scenarios...lol but I enjoy it and have learned quite a lit

My snail is going hiking this weekend!

I can say that a treat in German, amongst other useful phrases on the Duolingo app.

The app is ok for learning the basics and vocabulary but doesn't explain errors in grammar unless you pay.

I'm learning Welsh using Duolingo. It's hard but I'm sticking at it as my granddaughter is getting married in August and her fiance has a few Welsh speaking relatives and I want to try it out if I can. I'm happy to say a few words to them but will I understand their replies???????

Apologies Momac55, didn’t read Cath’s post properly. 🙄

I think this is on the wrong thread Momac55.

Surely it is up to them. If they join the chat line willingly they are offering to give up their time you are not asking them to do anything they haven’t already offered and signed up for !

Hi, is hellotalk free

I teach a lady who has been using DuoLingo for a few years. She came along with a full ring binder saying she couldn't use half the stuff she'd learnt because the grammar hadn't been properly explained to her. At least she can ask me about all the complexities she doesn't understand, and we then explore the grammatical rules.

I tried Duolingo for Welsh but found it a bit patronising. Might give it another go though for a different language.

I have been learning Spanish through DuoLingo for almost 5 years. The trouble is they are going faster than I would like. They are not repeating the words often enough for me to retain them. I am 78 and want to continue but I think I would do a lot better if they slowed up a bit. I still get over 75% right each day and occasionally 100% I have been known to use the dictionary 😏

I was learning Polish with Duolingo but stopped when they changed the system. It's about Progress, not Perfection? No thank you. I need to get this stage right before I can move on.

I do think that the idea of a free chat line is not really a good one though. If it is what I think it is. You are asking someone to give up their time so that you can learn from them. Unless you are reciprocating and teaching them English in return it's not really fair.

Hi, yes, I’m using Duolingo for Spanish (European), French and Latin. Am using the free version. I do buy the occasional ‘gem’ but need to ignore their advertising!

Some of the other suggestions sound very helpful, thank you.

Thanks so much I will have a look of them all.
I just want to brush up Spanish after I did an exchange visit many years back when I was a teenager

Duolingo definitely

Mojack26

Duolingo...I do Italian. It's free but stupid scenarios...lol but I enjoy it and have learned quite a lit

I enjoyed the haunted hôtel section.
I can confidently talk about strange noises, screams, frightening men or scary women and announce that I want another room, or say I’m going to another hôtel subito!

Duolingo...I do Italian. It's free but stupid scenarios...lol but I enjoy it and have learned quite a lit

Thanks for reminding me that I must get on with Spanish on Duolingo, free if you can put up with the ads.
I gather that Spanish is the best language on Duolingo, as it's the second language in the US. But for French and German, Babbel is said to be better, not free but pretty reasonable.

I use Duolingo to learn Spanish. It’s really enjoyable and also free.

I don't know what you mean by a chat-line, so my answer may not be of use to you.

I find deutsch.info very good indeed.

I'm doing Russian with duolingo. Vocab coming along a treat, but its not that helpful for grammar as far as I am concerned........my grandson, who is doing Russian for GCSE signed me up. Now done 460 days. Finding it hard! But as its free, you could try any language, and give it up if you can't get on with it.