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Do any studies show what the effect is of skipping daily language practice for one day?
Most language teachers that you talk to strongly recommend daily practice. Some applications, like Duolingo, add incentives to encourage users to practice every day.
Is there actually evidence that daily practice makes that much of a difference? …
Nathaniel is protesting
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How to speak a language that makes phonemic distinctions between /a/ and /aː/ if you're having trouble with /a/ and /aː/?
Title says it all. I'm talking specifically about Central Yiddish אַ = /a/ vs. ײַ = /aː/. My native language is American English.
user5487
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Learning Indonesian (bahasa Indonesia) on my own
I have decided to try to learn Indonesian on my own, so I have a couple of questions. For starters, what (ideally free) resources are available to one who wants to learn Indonesian to college class level fluency? I am currently paying for college…
DigitalOddity
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What sequences of learning kanji characters, their readings, meanings, and related vocabulary tend toward longest retention?
In Japanese, many words can be written both with just the kana (phonetically) and with the kanji (Chinese characters).
For example, the character 年 (ねん - "nen") means "year". In other vocabulary it appears like so:
去年 （きょ・ねん - "kyo・nen"） - last…
Hatchet
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How to practice honorifics?
Japanese has honorifics (敬語 - "keigo"), a feature of which my native language English is devoid. For example, there is different vocabulary and grammar to use when speaking to a social superior, about a social superior, etc. Sentences may still…
Hatchet
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Which Arabic dialect is most similar to Modern Standard?
There are several major dialects of Arabic, including Gulf Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, and Maghrebi Arabic, as well as many more smaller dialects. Which of these dialects, if any, could be considered "closest" to Modern…
AML
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IPA usage and the deaf
[Note: I initially asked this at the Linguistics community, but was suggested to try here.]
I have an adult friend who was born deaf. While I am very slowly learning sign language, we generally communicate (in Japanese) by writing messages to each…
Dono
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Graded readers for Hindi?
Extensive reading or reading for pleasure is an excellent way of getting a lot of "comprehensible input" in a foreign language. Graded readers provide this type of comprehensible input.
Hindi is one of the biggest languages in the world by number of…
Tsundoku
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Collaborative translation
I'd like to improve my language skills by translating, if possible with feedback from others on my translation. Therefore I'd like to know whether there's a community for carrying out collaborative translations, just like there are for creating…
GJC
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Learning language by singing songs?
Learn languages by memorizing rhymed poems is about pro/cons of using poems to learn a language.
What about using songs? Songs might use more modern language, avoiding the cons mentioned for poems.
Wikipedia suggest the earworm effect exists, and…
Peter M. - stands for Monica
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Where can I find graded readers for Russian?
Graded readers are a good type of material for extensive reading. But how do you find graded readers in Russian?
The English Wikipedia article graded reader has no link to the same concept in the Russian Wikipedia (see the "Languages" section in…
Tsundoku
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Is there a typing tutor for Modern Hebrew?
Is there a typing tutor program for Modern Hebrew on the PC that is friendly for Hebrew learners?
I would like to learn to type on the Standard Israeli Hebrew keyboard layout, the one that starts with ק, then ר , then א (roughly, Q, R, A). My goals…
Robert Columbia
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Grammar and language learning books/software for Irish
I am currently learning Irish with the help of the Android application "Duolingo". It doesn't teach me the grammar; it works with translating sentences. I don't think the app is very useful; I tried it in German, my mother tongue and I often find…
Féileacán
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Why is Hungarian considered 'hard'?
I've looked it up a few times, just to try to get a better understanding of an agglutinating language, and I really fail to see what's so hard about it. Though I'm kinda desensitized to 'hard'; the first language I ever tried to learn was Japanese.…
user3892
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How to teach someone to correctly pronounce tones in tonal languages such as Standard Chinese?
I regularly meet with a small group of other learners of Standard Chinese. They have been learning Chinese for several years, though not as long as me. One of their problems is pronunciation, especially pronouncing the tones correctly. For example,…
Tsundoku
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