Self taught myself Japanese and not the “self taught watching anime” but with actual textbooks. Living in Japan for a while really helped solidify a lot of it for me, now I can understand most stuff I’m interested in but technical stuff will still absolutely ruin me. I’ve also given up learning to write, if I can read I can type it out anyway.

One of the things I learned while in high school in Japan was that old Japanese is absolutely cursed and as a foreign kid with like conversational Japanese at best it was impossible to understand. And then I also was left in the dust in math when only years later did I realize I was in a calculus course for first years and I only like 3 years away from calculus in the US as a senior.

Then there was the fun when I’d respond with hm? To clarify a question and the people around me would take it as me agreeing since un counts as a yes.

So many things you take for granted with culture and language that you learn about when learning a new language. Honestly was probably my first step towards who I am today and leaving behind my reactionary teenage self. My world expanded, though not good, trans existence was more acknowledged in Japan to a degree even back when I was there though people would still misgender and be shitty, it helped just seeing people exist. Then one night the family I was staying with started talking about how pretty I’d be if I was a girl and yeah…

Everyone’s learning Mandarin lol. I’ve been on and off for a few years but should get back into it, 亡羊补牢！

I’ve tried to learn the Arabic alphabet a few times but I just can’t keep track of the dots. Are there other ways to group the letters that help learning?

I’ve been working on Spanish for 4 months or so now and can speak about simple concepts and can get the gist of most everyday conversations.

I’m using Dreaming Spanish which uses comprehensible input- just listening no studying grammar or vocab. It was a bit of a slog in the beginning because I could only understand things so simple that they were uninteresting. But after two months at three hours a day I started watching dubbed shows (usually kids shows) like Avatar and Pokémon and could mostly keep up with it. I think a few more months and I’ll be able to have a decent conversation without tripping up. If I keep my responses somewhat simple I can already do a lot. I have a lot of Spanish speakers at work and they have said my pronunciation is very good, and sometimes don’t believe I’ve only been at it 4 months.

The method is really great IMO. I’ve tried Duo and other traditional methods in the past and never got even close to this far. It definitely helps my listening comprehension miles better. With the other methods speaking and reading seem like math problems where you’re trying to conjugate and put things in order… to me some things just sound “right” and I’m not sure why/couldn’t quite explain it.

But now I’m hitting that intermediate plateau where it seems the more I learn, the more I know that I don’t know. If that makes sense. A lot of work ahead.

IDK about everyone else, but in my experience if you live in a place that only speaks one language, learning languages is mostly a decadence for rich people who can afford to travel to places to practice speaking. I’ve put a ton of energy over the years to learn languages but without ever getting to speak any of them with any regularity it all just becomes tears in the rain and those hours could have been put into learning something else.

Spanish- Primary language

English- Also Primary and taught it from a young age

Portuguese- 8 years. I speak it somewhat fluently. It was a little easier to pick up with it being a Latin language. Occasionally I’ll find myself slipping into Spanish in order to fill the holes.

Mandarin- 10 years of learning and speak it fluently with very good pronunciation. My writing is the complete opposite and is pretty pitiful to look at.

I can read Arabic script mostly correct now, but I still can’t speak it well.

I’m ok at Japanese, but largely illiterate. There’s too many kanji. I’ve gotten back into Mandarin too. I learned a lot of Old English (anglo-saxon) in college that I still retain for some reason. Possibly the least useful dead language that’s still taught.