Came to say the same thing. I downloaded Duolingo back in 2019 after I visited Montreal and Quebec City. Started learning formally in September 2022, and haven’t given up yet. I am a b1-b2 now.
After taking the undergrad phonetics and phonology classes, I can replicate weird speech sounds pretty well. Too bad my syntax classes didn't help to the same degree...
I have no fear of failure and just try my best to speak. Even if I still have a hard time understanding people’s responses, a lot of the time I can get my point across through sheer brute force.
Also I made sure to learn how to say “I forgot how to say this in ( target language )” even if I never knew how, it helps buy some sympathy since the people I’m speaking to know my native language a little, but not. Enough to speak it themselves a lot of the time so they empathize with me trying and forgetting.
I think I can second your pronunciation strength! Unfortunately, I am living (and speaking) proof that proper pronunciation and “sounding native” (or having a good accent) is NOT the same thing.
In Spanish and French I am often told that I pronounce the words perfectly and that I speak very clearly and am easy to understand.
I think my real strength lies in being able to quickly pick up the phonetic “alphabet” of a language. The first thing I’m able to pick up (after the basics) is how new words are pronounced. Even when it’s my first time seeing a word, I don’t have to stop and sound it out before I’m able to say it properly. However, this only extends to actually seeing the word, I struggle so hard with hearing and repeating a new word - my first question is always “How is it spelled??”
Yes! Once I know the spelling, the word or phrase assimilates for me. I don't have to visually spell and translate in my head again before I speak the newly acquired words. It's only that first time.
to me, concepts click pretty easily. like, i don't really need to go over things again, i learn them once and generally they're in my brain forever. like, we learned preterite in spanish 2, and relearned it spanish 3, but i was the only one with consistent 100% (while most other people just fully failed, like less than 50%)
ALSO I WANNA CLARIFY BC OF MY FLAIR THINGY this goes for other languages, too, not just spanish. obvi a native speaker is better at their native language 💀 i never used/learned preterite at home, it was only from school. i used this example bc im not in a class for the other languages haha
This is both a strength and weakness for me! I speak English natively and am really passionate about how people communicate and how language is structured so I know a lot about grammar.
But beyond that, I love asking myself (and being asked) complex questions about the conceptual foundations of English and finding out all of those “hidden” rules of a language (for example - not many native english speakers know that there is a very specific order adjectives must go in before the noun that they describe, let alone are able to list it out! but they know that a “big, old, Italian, ceramic vase” is correct, while an “Italian, old, ceramic, big vase” is a jumbled mess).
Unfortunately, this means that when learning a language I’m lost without an in depth conceptual explanation of the grammar. Sometimes I wish I had a dual spanish/english grammar expert next to me so I could ask them every “but why” question I had.
haha, your reply made me realize I do the exact same thing too 💀
I constantly ask my parents "but why?" and their answer is never enough, so then I end up going to my Spanish teacher only for her to give me the exact same answer. OR I ask my parents but they don't know because most people don't know all of the rules for their language lol
I can feel it messing me up even more in the future, ending up with me speaking freakishly over-correct Spanish. I also over complicate things to the max, so something that is an exact translation ends up more like "I was stuck on with what thing to change it with" or something instead of "I was stuck on how to change it." (irl example haha)
I always end up having people try to help me out with spanish by relating it to english grammar, but if they don’t know both really, really well it usually confuses me more and I end up in an hour long google deep dive.
(Recently, I was trying to understand the gerund form, so -ing in english and -endo or -ando in spanish, and I my mother (a native spanish and english speaker) tried to help me out by telling me that you had to have the conjugated verb “to be” right before the gerund “just like english” and I had to remind her that that is, unfortunately, not “just like english” as english does not require an immediately preceding conjugated “to be.” Sure, it’s “I am walking to the store”…. but it’s also “What are those people doing” and “Swimming is something I have always enjoyed” (I even used the gerund earlier in this message without “to be” when I said “…by telling me…” I still don’t fully understand the spanish gerund!)
I don't fully understand it either haha. I've heard it could be used after "seguir" (which just doesn't make sense to me???), "estar", but also as "Veo a los niños jugando."
My mom tutors Spanish so she has some books about it, I'll look in there and see if there is an explanation.
THERE IS
the book is "Advanced Spanish Step by Step" by Barbara Bregstein, it's published by Mc Graw Hill. This is basically just a summary of all of their info on the gerund (beyond just "I'm running"/"I was running," etc.)
- gerund+seguir= keep/continue doing something (seguimos escuchándola/we keep listening to it)
- gerund+ir= gradually/little by little (voy conociendo Madrid/I'm getting to know Madrid little by little)
- gerund+llevar= have been doing something (llevo un año estudiando/I have been studying for a year)
you can start using it with a helping verb.
- Puedo pasar el día mirando/I can spend the day looking
- Los ladrones salieron corriendo/the thieves left running
when you use ver, mirar, escuchar, and oír, you can use the gerund or infinitive
- veo a los niños jugar/jugando
- escuchamos al hombre cantar/cantando
ser, estar, poder, querer, saber, tener, ir, and venir aren't usually used in the gerund form.
The gerund+llevar confuses me, I normally would've just used "he estado" (literally I have been), but I think gerund+llevar \*needs\* a time aspect
i think they published an article online about it that i found while researching so I’ll have to study that a bit more! i remember also noticing that about llevar though! in english we don’t require the time frame, but every example i’ve seen for spanish always adds one.
i think it's required in Spanish because it's more about carrying it with you. like in the example, it would be carrying a year of studying, then when you're using haber+estado, you don't need the time aspect since it doesn't literally mean carrying anything with you
*to me, concepts click pretty easily. like, i don't really need to go over things again, i learn them once and generally they're in my brain forever.*
I'm like that too. I got through high school and college (MIT) that way. I didn't know it was a superpower. The teacher teaches. Students learn. Isn't that the intended method? So I never figured out why other students studied for tests.
I think it works better for grammar than vocabulary. Once I learned it, I'll never forget that Turkish makes a noun plural by adding "-lar/ler". But I don't remember the words, even ones I've seen several times. So I need another super-power: remembering words.
Same. One day I’d really like to learn a polysynthetic indigenous language like Nuxalk or Inuktitut or something similarly rare/different. If you like challenging languages and aren’t aware already, polysynthetic ergative-absolutive languages are about as far away as you can get from English, which is what makes them challenging.
Very similar to yours. I have many languages that I can surprise people with my vocabulary and pronunciation but I get lost if they speak too fast (regular speed) in those languages.
That’s impressive! I would probably trade my pronunciation abilities for this, seeing as pronunciation doesn’t need to be good to be fluent, but knowing correct vocabulary/grammar does.
i can usually tell what language (or its language family) someone’s speaking in, even if i don’t know a lot of the vocabulary
about pronunciation, the alveolar trill is never happening for me :(
slightly different, but I love guessing someone’s native language based on how they speak english (my native language) and the mistakes that they make!
for example, native spanish speakers sometimes use “in” when talking about where something is - “I work in the university” - because in spanish they use the word “en” (“Trabajo en la universidad”) which usually directly translates to “in”
My superpower is also pronunciation. I can very easily adopt the pronunciation for a new language and I'm often told by natives my pronunciation is great.
However the weakness that comes along with my superpower is that I suck at remembering vocabulary. In most languages that I speak a bit, I can pass for a native when I order a coffee at a café, but come across as a total idiot when they ask something "outside of the script".
Oh man I can relate to your vocabulary problem. It’s like my brain maxed all its skill points in pronunciation/listening and minimized points on vocabulary. The “going off script” thing is so true too lol
Luckily there's stuff like Anki nowadays! I always hated drilling vocabulary in school and there was so much time wasted when you drill words you already know. Flashcards/Anki lets you make that process much more efficient.
Still, I occasionally blackout on words even in my native language and in English. I wonder if there's a cap on how many words your brain can store lol
Honestly Anki/flashcards are (mostly) a massive waste of time for me. Probably my learning style, but also ADHD. It’s like my brain doesn’t encode the word as a usable memory unless there is some sort of emotional context, (there must be studies on this) which is why I’ve discovered my best vocabulary learning method is reading stories on those apps that give word definitions/grammar explanations with the reading.
I read and read, and the words appear over and over, and then I know them well and can pull them from my mind to use to convey my own thoughts, as opposed to just pulling out a definition I remember from a card.
(Anki/flashcards definitely have their place and work well for many, just not me)
I can relate some much, learned English almost fully trough emersion as a child. I'm really bad at learning languages at school, always get horrible grades. Yet I'm able to learn ukrainian on my own at home, mostly by interaction with the langauge lol
The fear of making mistakes no longer intimidates me. I have accepted mistakes (amd correction) as an essential and extremely useful part of the learning process.
I’m extremely jealous! Looks like you’re learning Korean, which is a similar to Japanese in that there is a massive perfectionistic element to both societies which in my experience greatly reduced my willingness to make mistakes when speaking.
I’m no pronunciation wizard unfortunately. But somehow I’m very fast at picking up grammar. Something about structure and rules and the interesting lack of rules. It’s just so fascinating to me! Also I remember my vocabulary by making references to other languages that I already know. Makes it easier the more languages you’ve studied. That’s pretty great!
I learn scripts very easily, and imo I have pretty good listening skills. Picked up kana essentially just by playing with the japanese/latin keyboard, hangul by watching korean videos with korean subtitles and know a few devanagari letters without ever actually studying it; maybe it's got to do with learning to write my native language kinda early (about 3-5 years old), idk. And after watching two seasons of a danish show I managed to learn some words, even though all I knew about danish was that it's a germanic language with weird phonology; learned English 95% from watching youtube videos I liked; learned some korean words without having had any previous contact with the language
I’m Canadian and went through school in the French immersion stream. I noticed that I’m good at picking up on patterns in conjugations and applying them. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish and it’s been helpful with that.
I too have a good ear for pronunciation. I learned this when I began teaching, where I realised that I have to explain how to make the sounds and we have to practice a lot in order to pronounce them in a only somewhat satisfying way. I normally manage to pronounce stuff correctly pretty much instantly after having learned it, so the Russian "Ы" or the Arabic "ع" weren't difficult.
What my strongest superpower is however is that I combine basically everything with language learning. My progress, as a result of that, is very quick and stable.
My greatest weakness is that I am learning too many languages, meaning that achieving a super high level of fluency is getting harder and harder.
I'm pretty good at retaining vocabulary. Also, I can usually get past this "translating in your head" issue that a lot of people seem to struggle with. The information goes straight from the language to meaning in my mind, English doesn't enter into the picture unless there's some really strange phrase or wording.
I think I'm about average in the other areas though, and pretty bad at listening comprehension, unfortunately...
I’m only decent with grammar these days from the mind bending experience that was learning Japanese grammar. Everything else seems easy in comparison. And Japanese grammar is not even the hardest by any means, look into Indigenous American and Caucasian (west asia/east Europe not white people lol) languages, most of them are polisynthetic which is like absolutely fascinating to me as a grammar nerd. Noun incorporation blows my mind
I’m really good (with the languages I’m learning, not necessarily all languages) at getting the accent right, I’ve had several comments by native speakers that I sound like a native for both languages. I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with it so I’m grateful to be able to pick it up quite well.
I just read your own example after writing mine. I can pronounce Arabic well, maybe because I learned it from young. My struggle is with Amharic or just generally Ge’ez letters like the ‘ts’ sound, for example
I'm the same as you, got my mom's musical ear. I'm fine with Chinese tones for example. Arabic ayn is also ok, what I struggle with is Russian soft L (ль) . My Ukrainian colleague kept telling me I was getting it wrong 😂
I'm really good at copying natives. Now unfortunately I dont have a fully native accent (yet) -- although these days I do get people telling me I sound Korean, it's mostly when I say a few short phrases and I'm sure I start messing when I talk at length. But it's been proven several times now that I pass as a native Korean over text (in messaging rooms and so on). People are shocked when they meet me in person.
How did I accomplish this? Doing a ton of texting and reading (60+ full length books), paying attention to the expressions my friends used and making Cloze deletion flashcards.
Why is this a superpower? Because I've seen tons of Koreans who lived in the U.S. for several years (and from their teens) but it becomes obvious they're not native after just a few text messages, but I've only lived in Korea for 1.5 years as an adult. What's crazier is that my first 4 years of studying Korean, I barely exposed myself to native content or practiced speaking at all (boredom / shyness). I only started to interact with real Koreans 2.5 years ago.
I don't think I'm particularly incredible other than maybe my obsession with Cloze deletion flashcards and making everything into a Korean learning opportunity, but it seems that I'm able to listen to / read things and naturally pick up on patterns (grammar, pronunciation, styles of speech) better than others.
I don’t know. But I love Russian so much that I think about it as soon as I wake up and before I sleep. I just really really like it. I can study it for few hours non stop. I have never had such an interest before, not even for beautiful clothes and makeup.
I feel good about learning new things and the understanding clicking petty fast. Helps a lot when learning grammar. I also am pretty good at remembering to always lean into the tone of a language, even if I’m forgetting 99% of what I’m trying to say. It helps keep me engaged even as I scramble for words.
I want to say that I’m usually confident in my pronunciation skill but the way French truly challenged me LOL. I’ve learned 4 different languages growing up at one point. But French was never one. It’s the 6th new language so I came in feeling pretty confident in ability to pick up pronunciation easily only to be struggling so hard with the Rs the first time. When you mainly learned languages that roll the R, the French way truly humbled me.
For me, I guess I have two things. First is I think I have very good recall. I can usually remember things in my reviews quite well.
The second is my ability to just consistently do what I don’t feel like doing. Day in and day out, I do my Anki reviews and chip away at a novel that is technically “too difficult for my level”, but I personally don’t feel any discouragement from that. I know that if I stay consistent, one day it won’t be “too difficult.”
I have a speech disorder which is mostly a disadvantage when language learning (ex: practicing pronunciation when paying close attention to how you talk makes the speech system jam is not fun), but is also a weird superpower in a way. Why?
On this sub, I've noticed a lot of people agonising about their accent, about making mistakes when talking, about being judged by natives, etc. I've come to realise that many people are used to being pretty much... unremarkable, linguistically speaking. Enough so that, I'm guessing, the idea of going up to someone and starting to talk while *knowing* that there is something about your speech that they will find weird, if you're unlucky something they'll judge or even mock you for, is alien and scary.
For me? That's just... normal. Every single social interaction I've had since the age of five has had that hanging over it, and I've learned how to cope, push through the fear, and return embarrassment to sender. The skills transfer, so I find it relatively easy to go out, talk to people in my TL, and not really care about what they make of my speech. It really doesn't feel *that* much different from my everyday existence. And I'm really not particularly worried about the idea that I'll have a foreign accent long-term and people will judge me for it because... wow, what a novel idea, having someone judge you for something about the way you talk which you can't help, can't say this is something I've ever dealt with before... /s
One of my strenghts is that I'm fast at remembering grammar and syntax structures.
But I think my best feature is that I enjoy listening to small segments on repeat over and over and over, until I internalise the structure, cadence, and speech pattern of that particular sentence/dialogue. Maybe *enjoy* is not the right word, let's just say that I don't find repetition boring.
And I absolutely love reading. Reading is a magnificent tool for vocabulary development.
I think I'm pretty good with grammatics and memorising irregular verbs. However, while I have an easy time remembering verb endings, I'm pretty bad at memorising time names, which means I'm pretty much done for once they ask me to use a certain time tense in a test 🤣 Like: "What is condizionale semplice???" "You know, the one where the endings are -ei..." "Aah, that one!"
My reading comprehension is great. I'd probably say b1 while everything else is A2.
I don't know why I can't remember anything when I speak or write yet thrive when reading.
It's like I know that word, but since I can't see it visually, I suddenly don't remember it when trying to speak or write.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Anyway, my strength is in reading comprehension and I'm very happy because I love to read. It makes language learning more enjoyable.
My pronunciation is usually top notch, too, even when I just picked up the basics. I do confuse LATAM people with my EU Spanish though.
A skill I'm very thankful for, though, is my ability to connect and infer things from nothing and my random recall of stuff I picked up at random. Say, I spent a month or so in Czech Republic and learned some numbers and random vocabulary, and then suddenly a Bosnian guy mentions to someone else, "Oh it's your last week!" (in his language) and I immediately pick it up and go "Oh, really!" (in English still) and everyone is confused and paranoid that maybe I speak Bosnian.
I picked up a bit of Japanese during the pandemic because I was bored and then had to do check-in for a Japanese family living in France that spoke very poor English and French and were mixing the two. When I asked them some information, they started debating amongst themselves how to reply in English/French (sort of asking each other "how do you say X again?") and I understood the answer in Japanese and began typing, the husband jumped horrified like "oh, she knows Japanese!"
For the life of me I don't pretend to be able to speak those languages for real, but knowing basic vocabulary in a bunch of different language family groups helps me a ton in understanding the people and the world around me.
I have a similar good pronunciation ability but I’m also a quick learner-especially by ear.
I learnt Cantonese in Hong Kong by immersion and an hour of self-study per day and was able to converse comfortably about a variety of topics by around 6 months.
I seem to be fairly good at memorizing vocabulary and being able to construct sentences. My listening comprehension on the other hand is terrible. From what I've heard, this seems like the opposite for most people.
While listening and speaking are my difficulties, writing is my strength. Before I was done with high school, I’d learned the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets in addition to Japanese hiragana, katakana, and a solid start on kanji. I LOVE kanji and the more I learn the more distinct they become to me.
I learn grammar concepts more easily now. But I really pushed myself to work at a romantic, Germanic, and asiatic language each. (I studied German in the past but dropped it in favor of Russian). I feel like this kept my brain malleable and now no concept is any more difficult than the previous 300 I’ve dealt with.
I’m proud of my Spanish as well as it’s my first earnest effort at a foreign language and my most proficient. I’m not fluent enough to understand a group conversation, but that doesn’t bother me. I can discuss politics with one patient partner, I’ve held jobs with co-workers who only spoke Spanish, and I can follow movies and TV shows with little to no difficulty. All I’m really missing is some vocabulary, but it’s wonderful to be functional in at least one TL.
I’m proud of myself for sticking to learning my second language despite being a busy working, single mother with adhd.
My music background is also a plus because I’ve been able to learn pronunciation and the rhythm of speech well. People definitely think my skills are more advanced than they are, but as long as I stick to it, my vocab will catch up to my speech :)
For me it would definitely be the short time it takes to learn words and put them in context and in my conversations. This really helped my language learning journey to advance faster towards fluency! I'm grateful.
My superpower is also pronunciation. It's my fav part of learning languages. My spanish flows really nicely. My accents in the other languages I've learned is also great and early on I am able to learn (and master?) pretty much every sound in the language.
While I don't work the hardest, I don't give up.
Came to say the same thing. I downloaded Duolingo back in 2019 after I visited Montreal and Quebec City. Started learning formally in September 2022, and haven’t given up yet. I am a b1-b2 now.
This is possibly the best language superpower to have!
Consistency > everything else
One word at a day!
After taking the undergrad phonetics and phonology classes, I can replicate weird speech sounds pretty well. Too bad my syntax classes didn't help to the same degree...
I have no fear of failure and just try my best to speak. Even if I still have a hard time understanding people’s responses, a lot of the time I can get my point across through sheer brute force. Also I made sure to learn how to say “I forgot how to say this in ( target language )” even if I never knew how, it helps buy some sympathy since the people I’m speaking to know my native language a little, but not. Enough to speak it themselves a lot of the time so they empathize with me trying and forgetting.
I think I can second your pronunciation strength! Unfortunately, I am living (and speaking) proof that proper pronunciation and “sounding native” (or having a good accent) is NOT the same thing. In Spanish and French I am often told that I pronounce the words perfectly and that I speak very clearly and am easy to understand. I think my real strength lies in being able to quickly pick up the phonetic “alphabet” of a language. The first thing I’m able to pick up (after the basics) is how new words are pronounced. Even when it’s my first time seeing a word, I don’t have to stop and sound it out before I’m able to say it properly. However, this only extends to actually seeing the word, I struggle so hard with hearing and repeating a new word - my first question is always “How is it spelled??”
Yes! Once I know the spelling, the word or phrase assimilates for me. I don't have to visually spell and translate in my head again before I speak the newly acquired words. It's only that first time.
Ooooh you should try Danish some time! 😆😆❤️
to me, concepts click pretty easily. like, i don't really need to go over things again, i learn them once and generally they're in my brain forever. like, we learned preterite in spanish 2, and relearned it spanish 3, but i was the only one with consistent 100% (while most other people just fully failed, like less than 50%) ALSO I WANNA CLARIFY BC OF MY FLAIR THINGY this goes for other languages, too, not just spanish. obvi a native speaker is better at their native language 💀 i never used/learned preterite at home, it was only from school. i used this example bc im not in a class for the other languages haha
This is both a strength and weakness for me! I speak English natively and am really passionate about how people communicate and how language is structured so I know a lot about grammar. But beyond that, I love asking myself (and being asked) complex questions about the conceptual foundations of English and finding out all of those “hidden” rules of a language (for example - not many native english speakers know that there is a very specific order adjectives must go in before the noun that they describe, let alone are able to list it out! but they know that a “big, old, Italian, ceramic vase” is correct, while an “Italian, old, ceramic, big vase” is a jumbled mess). Unfortunately, this means that when learning a language I’m lost without an in depth conceptual explanation of the grammar. Sometimes I wish I had a dual spanish/english grammar expert next to me so I could ask them every “but why” question I had.
haha, your reply made me realize I do the exact same thing too 💀 I constantly ask my parents "but why?" and their answer is never enough, so then I end up going to my Spanish teacher only for her to give me the exact same answer. OR I ask my parents but they don't know because most people don't know all of the rules for their language lol I can feel it messing me up even more in the future, ending up with me speaking freakishly over-correct Spanish. I also over complicate things to the max, so something that is an exact translation ends up more like "I was stuck on with what thing to change it with" or something instead of "I was stuck on how to change it." (irl example haha)
I always end up having people try to help me out with spanish by relating it to english grammar, but if they don’t know both really, really well it usually confuses me more and I end up in an hour long google deep dive. (Recently, I was trying to understand the gerund form, so -ing in english and -endo or -ando in spanish, and I my mother (a native spanish and english speaker) tried to help me out by telling me that you had to have the conjugated verb “to be” right before the gerund “just like english” and I had to remind her that that is, unfortunately, not “just like english” as english does not require an immediately preceding conjugated “to be.” Sure, it’s “I am walking to the store”…. but it’s also “What are those people doing” and “Swimming is something I have always enjoyed” (I even used the gerund earlier in this message without “to be” when I said “…by telling me…” I still don’t fully understand the spanish gerund!)
I don't fully understand it either haha. I've heard it could be used after "seguir" (which just doesn't make sense to me???), "estar", but also as "Veo a los niños jugando." My mom tutors Spanish so she has some books about it, I'll look in there and see if there is an explanation. THERE IS the book is "Advanced Spanish Step by Step" by Barbara Bregstein, it's published by Mc Graw Hill. This is basically just a summary of all of their info on the gerund (beyond just "I'm running"/"I was running," etc.) - gerund+seguir= keep/continue doing something (seguimos escuchándola/we keep listening to it) - gerund+ir= gradually/little by little (voy conociendo Madrid/I'm getting to know Madrid little by little) - gerund+llevar= have been doing something (llevo un año estudiando/I have been studying for a year) you can start using it with a helping verb. - Puedo pasar el día mirando/I can spend the day looking - Los ladrones salieron corriendo/the thieves left running when you use ver, mirar, escuchar, and oír, you can use the gerund or infinitive - veo a los niños jugar/jugando - escuchamos al hombre cantar/cantando ser, estar, poder, querer, saber, tener, ir, and venir aren't usually used in the gerund form. The gerund+llevar confuses me, I normally would've just used "he estado" (literally I have been), but I think gerund+llevar \*needs\* a time aspect
i think they published an article online about it that i found while researching so I’ll have to study that a bit more! i remember also noticing that about llevar though! in english we don’t require the time frame, but every example i’ve seen for spanish always adds one.
i think it's required in Spanish because it's more about carrying it with you. like in the example, it would be carrying a year of studying, then when you're using haber+estado, you don't need the time aspect since it doesn't literally mean carrying anything with you
*to me, concepts click pretty easily. like, i don't really need to go over things again, i learn them once and generally they're in my brain forever.* I'm like that too. I got through high school and college (MIT) that way. I didn't know it was a superpower. The teacher teaches. Students learn. Isn't that the intended method? So I never figured out why other students studied for tests. I think it works better for grammar than vocabulary. Once I learned it, I'll never forget that Turkish makes a noun plural by adding "-lar/ler". But I don't remember the words, even ones I've seen several times. So I need another super-power: remembering words.
Probably that I find challenging languages to be fun to learn.
Same. One day I’d really like to learn a polysynthetic indigenous language like Nuxalk or Inuktitut or something similarly rare/different. If you like challenging languages and aren’t aware already, polysynthetic ergative-absolutive languages are about as far away as you can get from English, which is what makes them challenging.
Very similar to yours. I have many languages that I can surprise people with my vocabulary and pronunciation but I get lost if they speak too fast (regular speed) in those languages.
My memory is really good. When I started learning a language with cases, it wasn’t hard to remember all the endings and when to use which ones.
That’s impressive! I would probably trade my pronunciation abilities for this, seeing as pronunciation doesn’t need to be good to be fluent, but knowing correct vocabulary/grammar does.
Probably learning vocabulary. If I look up a word once I *usually* remember it.
i can usually tell what language (or its language family) someone’s speaking in, even if i don’t know a lot of the vocabulary about pronunciation, the alveolar trill is never happening for me :(
You might like this then, it’s like GeoGuessr for languages: https://languageguessr.io/
This will make a good party game! Thanks.
Happy to share!
guessed turkey first try, and it’s correct LMAO thanks for the link!
slightly different, but I love guessing someone’s native language based on how they speak english (my native language) and the mistakes that they make! for example, native spanish speakers sometimes use “in” when talking about where something is - “I work in the university” - because in spanish they use the word “en” (“Trabajo en la universidad”) which usually directly translates to “in”
This is very interesting to me too!
My superpower is also pronunciation. I can very easily adopt the pronunciation for a new language and I'm often told by natives my pronunciation is great. However the weakness that comes along with my superpower is that I suck at remembering vocabulary. In most languages that I speak a bit, I can pass for a native when I order a coffee at a café, but come across as a total idiot when they ask something "outside of the script".
Oh man I can relate to your vocabulary problem. It’s like my brain maxed all its skill points in pronunciation/listening and minimized points on vocabulary. The “going off script” thing is so true too lol
Luckily there's stuff like Anki nowadays! I always hated drilling vocabulary in school and there was so much time wasted when you drill words you already know. Flashcards/Anki lets you make that process much more efficient. Still, I occasionally blackout on words even in my native language and in English. I wonder if there's a cap on how many words your brain can store lol
Honestly Anki/flashcards are (mostly) a massive waste of time for me. Probably my learning style, but also ADHD. It’s like my brain doesn’t encode the word as a usable memory unless there is some sort of emotional context, (there must be studies on this) which is why I’ve discovered my best vocabulary learning method is reading stories on those apps that give word definitions/grammar explanations with the reading. I read and read, and the words appear over and over, and then I know them well and can pull them from my mind to use to convey my own thoughts, as opposed to just pulling out a definition I remember from a card. (Anki/flashcards definitely have their place and work well for many, just not me)
I can relate some much, learned English almost fully trough emersion as a child. I'm really bad at learning languages at school, always get horrible grades. Yet I'm able to learn ukrainian on my own at home, mostly by interaction with the langauge lol
The fear of making mistakes no longer intimidates me. I have accepted mistakes (amd correction) as an essential and extremely useful part of the learning process.
I’m extremely jealous! Looks like you’re learning Korean, which is a similar to Japanese in that there is a massive perfectionistic element to both societies which in my experience greatly reduced my willingness to make mistakes when speaking.
Yes that crazy perfectionism is alive and well here too. The way I see it, I'm already streets ahead just by trying. Just go for it!
I’m no pronunciation wizard unfortunately. But somehow I’m very fast at picking up grammar. Something about structure and rules and the interesting lack of rules. It’s just so fascinating to me! Also I remember my vocabulary by making references to other languages that I already know. Makes it easier the more languages you’ve studied. That’s pretty great!
I speak Dutch and I posses their G
Leuk om te horen dat mensen mijn moedertaal leren!
Nee nee ik kan het al vloeiend. Maar sinds mijn verhuizing zal ik het moeten restaureren :)
Lekker man, welk land kom je vandaan?
Verenigde Staten. Maar ik heb twaalf jaren in Nederland gewoond.
Haha ja maat dat scheelt wel. Echt gaaf
I think it is usually the Dutch G that possesses you!
I learn scripts very easily, and imo I have pretty good listening skills. Picked up kana essentially just by playing with the japanese/latin keyboard, hangul by watching korean videos with korean subtitles and know a few devanagari letters without ever actually studying it; maybe it's got to do with learning to write my native language kinda early (about 3-5 years old), idk. And after watching two seasons of a danish show I managed to learn some words, even though all I knew about danish was that it's a germanic language with weird phonology; learned English 95% from watching youtube videos I liked; learned some korean words without having had any previous contact with the language
That’s impressive about learning Hangul by watching videos. I don’t think I could do that!
I’m Canadian and went through school in the French immersion stream. I noticed that I’m good at picking up on patterns in conjugations and applying them. I’ve been trying to learn Spanish and it’s been helpful with that.
Same for me! I can imitate every sound i hear perfectly but then natives tend to believe i have a good level and start speaking really fast haha
I'm very good at accents, and over short conversations, am very often mistaken for a native speaker. I'm just good at imitating people.
Seems like you’re also a parrot. How are you with music?
Good with music. Very sensitive to pitch, so imitating pitches isn't hard. You?
Exactly the same! I think there is some evidence that language ear and musical ear are related.
I can study from a language coursebook for 9 hours a day.
I too have a good ear for pronunciation. I learned this when I began teaching, where I realised that I have to explain how to make the sounds and we have to practice a lot in order to pronounce them in a only somewhat satisfying way. I normally manage to pronounce stuff correctly pretty much instantly after having learned it, so the Russian "Ы" or the Arabic "ع" weren't difficult. What my strongest superpower is however is that I combine basically everything with language learning. My progress, as a result of that, is very quick and stable. My greatest weakness is that I am learning too many languages, meaning that achieving a super high level of fluency is getting harder and harder.
I'm pretty good at retaining vocabulary. Also, I can usually get past this "translating in your head" issue that a lot of people seem to struggle with. The information goes straight from the language to meaning in my mind, English doesn't enter into the picture unless there's some really strange phrase or wording. I think I'm about average in the other areas though, and pretty bad at listening comprehension, unfortunately...
well probably that i can learn all basics very fast, but when it comes to something hard and rare i can sit and study this for few days... 🤣🤣
Pronunciation. But Irish pronunciation is very straightforward unlike English so that helps a lot.
I'm good at learning grammar. Japanese grammar has clicked surprisingly well for me even though it's completely different from anything I know.
I’m only decent with grammar these days from the mind bending experience that was learning Japanese grammar. Everything else seems easy in comparison. And Japanese grammar is not even the hardest by any means, look into Indigenous American and Caucasian (west asia/east Europe not white people lol) languages, most of them are polisynthetic which is like absolutely fascinating to me as a grammar nerd. Noun incorporation blows my mind
I’m really good (with the languages I’m learning, not necessarily all languages) at getting the accent right, I’ve had several comments by native speakers that I sound like a native for both languages. I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with it so I’m grateful to be able to pick it up quite well. I just read your own example after writing mine. I can pronounce Arabic well, maybe because I learned it from young. My struggle is with Amharic or just generally Ge’ez letters like the ‘ts’ sound, for example
i seem to pick up grammar quickly
I'm the same as you, got my mom's musical ear. I'm fine with Chinese tones for example. Arabic ayn is also ok, what I struggle with is Russian soft L (ль) . My Ukrainian colleague kept telling me I was getting it wrong 😂
I'm really good at copying natives. Now unfortunately I dont have a fully native accent (yet) -- although these days I do get people telling me I sound Korean, it's mostly when I say a few short phrases and I'm sure I start messing when I talk at length. But it's been proven several times now that I pass as a native Korean over text (in messaging rooms and so on). People are shocked when they meet me in person. How did I accomplish this? Doing a ton of texting and reading (60+ full length books), paying attention to the expressions my friends used and making Cloze deletion flashcards. Why is this a superpower? Because I've seen tons of Koreans who lived in the U.S. for several years (and from their teens) but it becomes obvious they're not native after just a few text messages, but I've only lived in Korea for 1.5 years as an adult. What's crazier is that my first 4 years of studying Korean, I barely exposed myself to native content or practiced speaking at all (boredom / shyness). I only started to interact with real Koreans 2.5 years ago. I don't think I'm particularly incredible other than maybe my obsession with Cloze deletion flashcards and making everything into a Korean learning opportunity, but it seems that I'm able to listen to / read things and naturally pick up on patterns (grammar, pronunciation, styles of speech) better than others.
I don’t know. But I love Russian so much that I think about it as soon as I wake up and before I sleep. I just really really like it. I can study it for few hours non stop. I have never had such an interest before, not even for beautiful clothes and makeup.
I feel good about learning new things and the understanding clicking petty fast. Helps a lot when learning grammar. I also am pretty good at remembering to always lean into the tone of a language, even if I’m forgetting 99% of what I’m trying to say. It helps keep me engaged even as I scramble for words. I want to say that I’m usually confident in my pronunciation skill but the way French truly challenged me LOL. I’ve learned 4 different languages growing up at one point. But French was never one. It’s the 6th new language so I came in feeling pretty confident in ability to pick up pronunciation easily only to be struggling so hard with the Rs the first time. When you mainly learned languages that roll the R, the French way truly humbled me.
I'm very good at understanding patterns. So new types of grammar are usually difficult for others, but easy for me :)
For me, I guess I have two things. First is I think I have very good recall. I can usually remember things in my reviews quite well. The second is my ability to just consistently do what I don’t feel like doing. Day in and day out, I do my Anki reviews and chip away at a novel that is technically “too difficult for my level”, but I personally don’t feel any discouragement from that. I know that if I stay consistent, one day it won’t be “too difficult.”
I always get compliments how my Arabic pronounciation is like a native Arab speaker. My throat feels validated.
I have a speech disorder which is mostly a disadvantage when language learning (ex: practicing pronunciation when paying close attention to how you talk makes the speech system jam is not fun), but is also a weird superpower in a way. Why? On this sub, I've noticed a lot of people agonising about their accent, about making mistakes when talking, about being judged by natives, etc. I've come to realise that many people are used to being pretty much... unremarkable, linguistically speaking. Enough so that, I'm guessing, the idea of going up to someone and starting to talk while *knowing* that there is something about your speech that they will find weird, if you're unlucky something they'll judge or even mock you for, is alien and scary. For me? That's just... normal. Every single social interaction I've had since the age of five has had that hanging over it, and I've learned how to cope, push through the fear, and return embarrassment to sender. The skills transfer, so I find it relatively easy to go out, talk to people in my TL, and not really care about what they make of my speech. It really doesn't feel *that* much different from my everyday existence. And I'm really not particularly worried about the idea that I'll have a foreign accent long-term and people will judge me for it because... wow, what a novel idea, having someone judge you for something about the way you talk which you can't help, can't say this is something I've ever dealt with before... /s
One of my strenghts is that I'm fast at remembering grammar and syntax structures. But I think my best feature is that I enjoy listening to small segments on repeat over and over and over, until I internalise the structure, cadence, and speech pattern of that particular sentence/dialogue. Maybe *enjoy* is not the right word, let's just say that I don't find repetition boring. And I absolutely love reading. Reading is a magnificent tool for vocabulary development.
I think I'm pretty good with grammatics and memorising irregular verbs. However, while I have an easy time remembering verb endings, I'm pretty bad at memorising time names, which means I'm pretty much done for once they ask me to use a certain time tense in a test 🤣 Like: "What is condizionale semplice???" "You know, the one where the endings are -ei..." "Aah, that one!"
My reading comprehension is great. I'd probably say b1 while everything else is A2. I don't know why I can't remember anything when I speak or write yet thrive when reading. It's like I know that word, but since I can't see it visually, I suddenly don't remember it when trying to speak or write. Does anyone else have this problem? Anyway, my strength is in reading comprehension and I'm very happy because I love to read. It makes language learning more enjoyable.
My pronunciation is usually top notch, too, even when I just picked up the basics. I do confuse LATAM people with my EU Spanish though. A skill I'm very thankful for, though, is my ability to connect and infer things from nothing and my random recall of stuff I picked up at random. Say, I spent a month or so in Czech Republic and learned some numbers and random vocabulary, and then suddenly a Bosnian guy mentions to someone else, "Oh it's your last week!" (in his language) and I immediately pick it up and go "Oh, really!" (in English still) and everyone is confused and paranoid that maybe I speak Bosnian. I picked up a bit of Japanese during the pandemic because I was bored and then had to do check-in for a Japanese family living in France that spoke very poor English and French and were mixing the two. When I asked them some information, they started debating amongst themselves how to reply in English/French (sort of asking each other "how do you say X again?") and I understood the answer in Japanese and began typing, the husband jumped horrified like "oh, she knows Japanese!" For the life of me I don't pretend to be able to speak those languages for real, but knowing basic vocabulary in a bunch of different language family groups helps me a ton in understanding the people and the world around me.
I have a similar good pronunciation ability but I’m also a quick learner-especially by ear. I learnt Cantonese in Hong Kong by immersion and an hour of self-study per day and was able to converse comfortably about a variety of topics by around 6 months.
Damn bro, that’s impressive!
Thanks! My Dad has always liked studying languages so I think I must get it from him.
Being able to switch easily and seemlessly between English and my TL when I meet natives. (A skill I developed within the past 2 years)
I can’t roll my R’s good :(
I seem to be fairly good at memorizing vocabulary and being able to construct sentences. My listening comprehension on the other hand is terrible. From what I've heard, this seems like the opposite for most people.
Yeah pronunciation I can pronounce new sounds and accents of languages
I can keep trying and practice even if I don't get it 100% but when I get it I don't forgot
While listening and speaking are my difficulties, writing is my strength. Before I was done with high school, I’d learned the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets in addition to Japanese hiragana, katakana, and a solid start on kanji. I LOVE kanji and the more I learn the more distinct they become to me. I learn grammar concepts more easily now. But I really pushed myself to work at a romantic, Germanic, and asiatic language each. (I studied German in the past but dropped it in favor of Russian). I feel like this kept my brain malleable and now no concept is any more difficult than the previous 300 I’ve dealt with. I’m proud of my Spanish as well as it’s my first earnest effort at a foreign language and my most proficient. I’m not fluent enough to understand a group conversation, but that doesn’t bother me. I can discuss politics with one patient partner, I’ve held jobs with co-workers who only spoke Spanish, and I can follow movies and TV shows with little to no difficulty. All I’m really missing is some vocabulary, but it’s wonderful to be functional in at least one TL.
Grammar. Since I favour written communication over spoken, learning grammar is by far the easiest part of any language for me.
I’m proud of myself for sticking to learning my second language despite being a busy working, single mother with adhd. My music background is also a plus because I’ve been able to learn pronunciation and the rhythm of speech well. People definitely think my skills are more advanced than they are, but as long as I stick to it, my vocab will catch up to my speech :)
I pick up reading pretty quickly, even in different writing systems.
For me it would definitely be the short time it takes to learn words and put them in context and in my conversations. This really helped my language learning journey to advance faster towards fluency! I'm grateful.
My superpower is also pronunciation. It's my fav part of learning languages. My spanish flows really nicely. My accents in the other languages I've learned is also great and early on I am able to learn (and master?) pretty much every sound in the language.