Hi all,

I want to try to learn Spanish on my own, right now I barely know anything. Asking in the libre culture community because I know a common answer is duolingo but I don’t want to install an app store other than f-droid.

  • Jack@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    As far as apps, people sometimes use Anki and get a card pack (commonly the most used words or phrases), but that is more of a supplementary tool.

    Duolingo also has a website, if installing the app is an issue. Just use adblock in this case.

  • pancake
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    1 year ago

    Ask anything you want. I can help you on Spanish specifically.

    • Christian@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Hi! I feel overwhelmed with getting started and would like a pointer on a resource I can use as a jumping off point. I’ve made efforts in the past using wikibooks or reading written Spanish media then running through a translator, but I never really made significant progress beyond learning a tiny bit of vocabulary.

      I imagine that once I get even just good enough to read and string together basic sentences it will be a lot easier to make progress, it’s the baby steps I’ve had trouble with.

      • pancake
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        1 year ago

        I think you could first install Anki, which is open source, and get a card collection for Spanish. Take special care with verbs, you might want to find a table of regular verb endings first, so you can look them up.

  • Auster@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Duolinguo feels more like a very annoying ad than a learning tool, often under-explaining what it tries to teach while heavily penalizing and shaming the user for getting things wrong.

    What I would suggest, other than hiring an actual teacher, would be to immerse yourself in works from their language, such as music, comics, books, movies, and so on. Also, Spain’s Real Academia Española has a dictionary+conjugator site that is VERY helpful, even for “dialects” such as the Latin America variations (link for the tool is dle.rae.es). Finding someone to try to talk to in Spanish may also help, although getting to know some of the grammar beforehand is advised.

    Now, as for either free or FOSS programs specifically for learning the language, sadly, I’m not aware of any.

    • Fermion@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      Your complaints about duolingo are valid but can be mitigated to an extent.

      Setting up an ad blocking dns on your phone greatly improves many apps.

      As far as being too penalizing, you can get rid of the heart restriction by creating a classroom in duolingo and adding yourself to it. This has to be done in their browser interface, but once done will remove hearts in the app as well.

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I took a year of ไทย classes after work & that was enough to go out & start conversations with strangers. Classes where they speak your native tongue can be invaluable since you can ask very specific grammar questions most native speakers don’t how to answer & the class puts a social pressure on you to keep up. Speaking with natives & listening to media can help a lot.