Hi, I’m trying to learn Japanese and I believe an app like Duolingo is not good way to start for me as I tried it before and it didn’t teach me anything beneficial, would love to hear tips and ways of studying/starting.
all i did to learn english was using translation to learn words’ meaning , and take example from other peoples’ sentences to form my own
I learned english through school and slowly turning everything into english, from watching things with english subtitles to now watching english things without any subtitles
Unless you pay for Duolingo, Duolingo is kinda one of the worst of the big language learning apps, but it still does a pretty okay job. I think the best learning apps would be Rosetta Stone or Babbel, but you have to pay for those too.
My recommendation, based upon what I’ve been doing, would be to use Duolingo as a sort of guide. For example, when I was learning the days of the week in Spanish, I did the first couple problems on Duolingo when it came up then I looked up a YouTube video and the video was way more effective. Afterwards I finished the problems. I’d also recommend subscribing to at least one YouTube channel that talks only in the language you want to speak. For me I’m currently subscribed to a food YouTuber who goes around Mexico and tries out their local food. It helps with your listening comprehension and how the language is supposed to be pronounced. Lastly, there are quite a couple of YouTube videos out there that are like 4 hours long that go over all the basic foundations of a language, which is something Duolingo lacks in.
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yes this is basically how i learned english
Mother language with english subs->english with Mother language subs->english with english subs->english without subs
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I played roblox without translation to learn english
yes
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I moved to a different country when I was 8 and I was fluent after about a year of living here. The school I went to at that time was specifically made for emigrants, and they only spoke the national language to us. At the first day I obviously didn’t understand anything, but as time went on I got to understand more words and I learned how to form sentences.
It’s my third language now, alongside English and the language they speak where I come from.
My school uses a similar learning strategy with French. At the start, they only spoke French at us until we understood what they meant. The teacher speaks French to you during the lesson. You read things in French. When you see and hear the language, learning is much more effective. I do much better in French than German, because Germanis more learning words from a book and very specific grammar. I have a basic understanding of French now but I’m still not really confident in forming sentences.
So to conclude, if you can, get a daily exposure to the language and it’s culture. Hearing the language and seeing how it’s written. Maybe make a friend from Japan and try to communicate with them. Moving to Japan is obviously not really a possibility within the blink of an eye, but if you hear the language and try to talk in it, and you do that everyday, you will eventually make a lot of progress.
And don’t try to do that by watching anime in Japanese, because it will go way too fast and you won’t make out anything at the start.
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I have learned English by playing Roblox 
(don’t ask how that works, my brain’s built different.)
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Got fluent in english by watching youtube when I was a kid
The usual list of minecraft youtubers that raised our generation and filthy frank instead of allat skibidi gyat schizo brainrot these days
Currently learning farsi
I speak both English and Tagalog and I can speak both with each to their own challenges. The best way to learn I would say is to have conversations with others who speak the language, even if you suck at it they would tell you what you could improve and do wrong (English speakers in particular love to point out mistakes).
Otherwise I learnt English through American cartoons and Tagalog from day to day conversation.
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Thx for everyone who submitted a msg, I’m learning via Duolingo and listening to songs and educational videos, will upload an update in the future.
sklibilnio tolioet 
okay so i just got N2 this summer, and trust me with this.
watch anime, like, a lot of anime, only subbed at the very least. while you’re doing that try to memorize the 50(it’s 46) hiraganas and katakanas. then its grammar and kanjis.
i cant help with kanji since im native taiwanese.
I learned english by watching series in english since I was 7
Funny thing is that duolingo’s japanese section does have a dedicated hiragana/katakana/kanji section so you can focus on memorizing those specifics
A lot of people use Duolingo but neglect to focus on Duolingo’s supplemental materials, which focuses on tips: it’ll offer explanations for why you’re learning a specific grammar piece or ordering of words, or how the language functions differently than the ones you know, usually focused on specific concepts for specific units, loaded with plenty of examples
usually the tips appear when you start a new section in a language, but they’ll also appear when you press on a notebook button
overall, Duolingo can be used as a main language learning app, but there are definitely better ones out there, since Duolingo has pretty repetitive lessons and requires a heavy time sink before you feel like you’re getting anywhere
oh but also Duolingo updates pretty regularly, adding a bunch of new features sometimes, so you can check in monthly to see if it adds features you want
Yes Duolingo used to be garbage tbh but I downloaded it yesterday and it improved a lot and honestly I don’t what other thinks of it but it might just be one of the most effective ways to start from what I’ve seen.
Damn why is the Japanese keyboard on mobile so damn detailed
I’m trying to learn korean
so far I… can’t make a single sentence 
all I can say is random 2 syllable gibberish like gaga (가가) and stuff