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1396 questions
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Online course or resources on speed reading in Chinese
In a comment to my previous question about the transfer of speed reading skills to other languages, someone wondered whether this would be affected by the writing system. This is very plausible. In his video on learning Russian, Steve Kaufmann says…
Tsundoku
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French subtitles
I have been watching a lot of French-language shows on Netflix lately but with French subtitles. I find that the subtitles rarely match what is actually being spoken!
For example someone will say, "bien sûr" orally, but the subtitles will say,…
Cloud
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How can I improve my Arabic accent?
I am an Arab born in Europe. Unfortunately, this has affected my Arabic language skills. My accent sounds "broken", in other words: it sounds as if a foreigner is speaking Arabic.
I can have a basic conversation in Arabic, but can't go any further…
That's me.
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1 answer
Does anybody know why Lang-8 stopped accepting new membership?
I've heard a lot of good things about this language exchange site called Lang-8. I was going to check it out for myself, but was rerouted to this thing called HiNative. Later, I learned that Lang-8 stopped accepting new enrollment/subscriptions in…
Lisa
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When using spaced repetition, do I learn less when tired?
If I use Ankidroid in the evening, I am tired and don't perform very well. If I use it in the morning, my performance is better.
Does better performance also imply I am learning the content more effectively?
Since this is quite difficult to answer…
Tommi
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9
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Standardized Phonemes and Pronunciation
I want to start from the most fundamental and hard problem to me (and maybe to everyone).
Two years ago, I had started a project to teach English to non-natives only in English.
Before, lots of them had suffered from ill-linked relationship between…
Beverlie
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What is my first and second language?
First, let's take a look at the meaning of first language by Wikipedia:
A first language, native language or mother tongue (also known as father tongue, arterial language or L1) is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth or within…
user3576
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1 answer
What are the steps to native language acquisition for children?
I've been trying to find literature that talks about steps taken to typically learn a language. I know that based on what I've read that children start from a one-word stage to multi-word stage. What I'm asking is, is there some kind of…
stevestark
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Research on benefits of writing by hand when learning foreign languages
In the past, I sometimes did Chinese grammar exercises using pen and paper, and sometimes using a computer. In both cases, I wrote out the entire sentences (not just the answers) and had them reviewed with a native speaker of Chinese. Based on that…
Tsundoku
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2 answers
Why can't I think of anything to say when someone asks how many languages I can speak?
There is this fairly common thing I've noticed, when a multiglot is talking to someone about languages, and they say "say something in x", suddenly all words in that language leave my head and I can't think of anything to say. I've noticed more than…
Amadeus
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Are there any accurate online resources for learning to write Devanagari?
I recently looked at several YouTube videos that teach you how to write Devaganari, the abugida writing system used by languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Maithili and Sanskrit.
What struck me as someone who has previously learnt Chinese (for a while)…
Tsundoku
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9
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1 answer
How effective is induction as a language learning technique?
According to the Encyclopedia of Language Development,
Induction is a type of reasoning that involves deriving general principles from specific examples.
Induction is most often used to acquire language skills by young children, who learn basic…
fi12
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Identifying cases by rephrasing to a question – is this any useful for language learners?
Background
The German language has cases, but for many words some or all cases are identical.
However, interrogatives are distinct for each case.
Therefore native speakers often identify the case of a word in context by rephrasing the context to a…
Wrzlprmft
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Research papers on improving speaking fluency?
I'm currently looking for scholarly research papers that discuss how speaking fluency is developed, especially for people learning English.
If there are any recommended readings, please share them here.
I'm interested in reading about scientific…
user229302
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2 answers
How to handle learning a language at the same time as learning its writing system
I'm learning Mongolian, and part of my goals is to be able to read printed Mongolian Cyrillic and write cursive Mongolian Cyrillic, as well as learning some vocabulary and grammar.
I'm trying to be "diligent" and not use the Latin alphabet to…
Golden Cuy
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