Ive been learning French for about two years now. Consuming media in the target language is good but… there is no substitute, none, for actively having conversations in the target language every day. Seek out a conversation partner! Personally, I moved (coincidentally, lol) to a Canadian French city about a year after I started learning the language. I regularly speak French with people I’ve met there.

I’ve seen many polyglots practice speaking languages on ome(dot)tv, though I can’t personally say whether it’s effective.

I started learning Korean as a hobby during the lockdown. I was able to get a TOPIK 2 but the jump from lower-intermediate to medium-upper intermediate is rough with adult (😅) life coming in the way.

Still, I’m doing it just because I enjoy watching K-Shows and found that Korean was fun to learn!

Plus, you never stop learning a language and even if I already achieved a C1 in English, I’m still discovering new words and grammar forms every day.

PS: I’d like to be informed if a language-learning community is created or discovered!

Sounds good overall. You should definitely also compose some more texts, I think this will teach much more than consumption. Maybe join some communities and discussions over here at feddit.de ;-)

Not so much on German, but I’m working on learning Japanese. I find that the drill based apps (duolingo) works well for raw memorization and word recognizing, but they really have limited impact with long form media unless you’re already deeply immersed with other speakers or media.

I stared to supplement with things like todai and satori reader which provide translations for news and articles/books. I find that this gives an extra push to really help understand the language.

YouTube is good to supplement, but make sure you don’t go too deep and end up frustrating yourself 😉

I’ve used duolingo for a while and I’m not really a fan, at least for japanese. They keep removing kanji and adding kana which isnt great for learning(especially when Furigana has been a thing since forever). I’ve moved to Hey Japan and am really only using Duolingo to maintain the streak. Hey Japan has more kanji and more diverse learning methods and less word banks. Eventually i want to add in Genki 1 but there’s some personal things in the way there

maybe try to find graphics novels, or manga translated into German. as a early french learner I’ve found the format to be easier to digest rather than reading full blown novels.

I started learning Japanese in early 2020, and gave up on Duolingo a couple months ago because of changes that made it a bit less helpful to me.

Otherwise your method seems pretty similar to mine: a couple sources for grammar points, Anki for vocab, and J-dramas and YouTube for listening practice.

I also try to write a little bit every day, even just a sentence or two to fill up blank space in my planner. (I can barely speak, but I have word-finding problems in my native English too, so I suppose there’s not much to be done about it.)

Sounds like you’re doing great! I majored in German in college, it’s such a fun language to learn. Others have already mentioned these points, but they’re definitely the next step for you, if you’re looking to expand your current practice. Language accusation has 4 major components. Reading comprehension and listening comprehension (passive) and writing and speaking (active). Having a practice buddy that can speak with you on a regular basis will move you forward in leaps and bounds. Same for actually immersing yourself in an environment where the language is spoken can also move you sooo far forward. But if you keep on as you are, you’ll definitely still learn a lot :)

I just started !deutsch_lernen@feddit.de, come join us :)

And for your other question, input has worked for me at least. Learning German this last year, I’ve almost become a full believer in the input hypothesis. I think as long as you just consume a shit ton of content, at the right level, you will get better.

In my experience, hunkering down to just read books (on my level!) has helped my fluency way more than outputting has. Reading is awesome, because it is simply the fastest way to consume content, reading is faster than listening after all.

I have been learning Dutch for coming up on four years. I finished Duolingo, although I’m still in a half-way abusive relations because of my 1341 day streak that I cannot let go of*. I read books, such as Duin door Frank Herbert, and listen to Dutch radio. One fun thing I do is go on Google Earth street view, and wander around in Dutch cities. It really lets me know I’ve actually learned something.

• • I was hospitalized for a week and still kept my fucking streak going.

Linking the two duolingo communities I found:

• !Duolingo@lemmy.ml
• !Duolingo@lemmy.world