A language learners’ forum

so let's pick back up from here

One thing I kept meaning to post is that if it's not a post-apocalypse scenario but just a routine situation you know in advance about, I highly recommend getting a reader with eInk. It needs very little charging and can carry lots of content ❤

Hahaha, nice way to tack on "and HTLAL" to this ongoing thread.

Serpent wrote:so let's pick back up from here
I highly recommend getting a reader with eInk. It needs very little charging and can carry lots of content ❤

I agree! My e-reader has been an extremely valuable language-learning tool for me. Although I must admit to being guilty of filling it with material and then hardly ever using any of it.

Spoonary wrote:Although I must admit to being guilty of filling it with material and then hardly ever using any of it.

Ah, "sample chapters", where interesting books go to be forgotten. At least my wallet is happier, though!

You mean despite the Internet and other distractions?

The only issue for me would be duration of lack of internet, and thus getting resources, especially if I wanted to pick up a new language. I have more than enough stuff in Irish (I just can't resist buying new/famous/"must read" books!) that, even if my Irish stuff on the Kindle were to run out I'd be good. I've also got enough literary stuff for French (my old high school got rid of their French program when the teacher moved; they allowed me to take copies of everything). I live near Spanish speakers, so I could use the few resources I have then interact with them. But, outside those 3 languages, I'm kinda done. It'd be a bit harder for me to get to a high level.

But, conversely, it'd be a whole hell of a lot easier to focus! Not as many distractions (i.e. Reddit and LLF) to stop me from focusing, though it also lowers my motivation a bit since I live in a rural area that is vastly more English speaking.


But, yeah, I definitely recommend an e-reader. I myself have a Kindle Fire, for the sole purpose of Scribd. It's like a Netflix for books, except you're limited to 3 a month outside their "Free Reads' pile... but your tokens roll over to a maximum of 9 at any one time. I absolutely love it because it has a fairly good selection of academic books, as well as every Irish language e-book ever published. I haven't really checked for other languages, yet, but I'm sure they're there; just depends on the ebook publisher. That said, you obviously need internet to install the app, but you can download the books for offline mode, and, if I've done the math correctly, you just need to connect to the internet once a month or so to refresh them. Not to mention Scribd's documents section, though, quite sadly, there's a lot of copyright issues with that

I've had a Kindle since 2012 and I've read thousands of pages with it, I'm a big fan! Before I upgraded to one with a touch screen it was a bit cumbersome to use the dictionary, but with the new one I've been reading more intensively. To get the most out of it I actually need internet connection though. For quite a lot of the words only the translation function makes sense of it and that one doesn't work without internet connection. Also, I don't take any physical books on trips anymore. I always have a good selection of French and Spanish books on my kindle and it's light.

By the way, I wouldn't want to go back to language learning without the internet. It's just so fantastic to have a whole library of books, movies and series in gazillion languages available, as well as a ton of free language learning resources. To think that my dad still had to learn to read Russian with a paper dictionary!

The Internet definitely revolutionised language learning. In the 1990s I subscribed for a time to a Russian newspaper to receive it by mail, and sometimes bought other L2 newspapers and magazines at newsstands or shops in London. But though I still occasionally do that, it is so much easier to click on a website.

I often have thoughts on how I might tackle learning a language without the majority of electronic devices (no internet, no smart phones, no apps, no computers...). Why? Well, I dont think easier is necessarily better. Of course I think it, but don't actually practise it, at least not at this stage. It can be done.

In the "old" days some of the students who studied a language in college and who wanted to become fluent spent a year abroad with a host family in the country where their chosen language was spoken. High school students could become "exchange students." Surely this is still done, but if you're not familiar with the idea, families of different countries would swap a high-school age child for a year. Along our Mexican border, I know some Mexican parents pay tuition to send their child or children to a school on the American side. Or such a child might live with a relative on the American side (not an infrequent occurrence, having relatives living on both sides of the border, I mean). Further, there are of course language schools.

I suppose not all languages can be learned in these ways, but frankly, for me anyways, all these methods seem more efficient and fun than learning on the Internet (but not HTLAL, of course ).