For those looking to learn Spanish, find her:

https://youtu.be/G3R4-lj4aaQ

Language Transfer is free with no ads or intrusive permissions needed. The material is presented in a way that makes learning the language more natural feeling.

https://www.languagetransfer.org/

Im still not great at Spanish because I dont practice frequently but these things helped me:

1. Learned alphabet.
2. Learned examples of conjugation of verbs with real life examples.
3. Started with children level books and increase difficulty to read and comprehend what is being said.
4. Listen to music in that language and learn what its saying.
5. Watching telenovelas with English captions and try familiarizing words
6. Final phase I think is visiting a country who’s primary language is that language.

need an excuse , time and place to learn one.

Duolingo + language learning Books

I just had to learn French in middle age, and it’s been fun. They key takeaways from my experience:

1. Contact is everything. The longer you spend listening, reading, speaking, just in general interacting with the target language, the better. Doesn’t matter what you do - Duolingo or PeerTube videos, novels or comic strips.
2. Communication is the goal, not fluency. You can get the gender of a word wrong and people will still understand you. You can use the wrong tense and that’s usually okay. Don’t try to “sound more like a native” or “learn slang words that everyone uses,” because heaven knows nobody is going to take you for a native. But if you can get the point across and can understand what people are saying, you win.
3. Speaking is 10x harder than listening or reading or even writing, because it involves not only forming sentences in an unfamiliar language, but also saying them, which involves your muscles. At first, it’s really hard to say the sounds of the language that don’t exist in your own language, and I found that very frustrating.
4. Language and culture are different, but interconnected. You don’t really speak a language if you don’t understand the culture it’s attached to. For instance, at first I didn’t know what the cashiers were asking me at the checkout, until I learned that they want to see the bags you brought from home to make sure they are empty. The problem with missing cultural references is that everybody around you knows them, and they don’t understand why you don’t, or what there is to explain.
5. One of the very few great use cases of LLMs is, in fact, talking with a chat bot. You give it a good prompt (look for them online) and you are forced to talk in the target language. If the bot can understand you, a native speaker probably will, too. A good tip is to try an AI conversation on the topic of something you are about to do in real life, like applying for an apartment or having a conversation about cheese.
6. Personally, I found that my language skills drowned completely under certain, specific circumstances. For instance, for the life of me I cannot understand voice messages, at all. Even phone conversations are really bad for me, both in talking and listening. I can have a perfectly fine conversation with someone, but when I have to talk with them on the phone, it’s like I never learned the language.
7. The tool you use is not as important as the time you spend. Duolingo was really meh: too much useless vocabulary, not enough grammar and pattern recognition, lack of ability to specify areas of interest, down to always on animations even when you had them all turned off. But, despite the heavy focus on the words, “chouette” and “trousse,” I sort of learned French to the point where I can follow everyone along and can speak and be understood. Took a year to the day and the entire tree.

The absolute best way is immersion. Full on survival, sink or swim, daily brain exhaustion to cram information in that you will use, over and over.

Short of that, finding ways to practice using the language is the key. Listening to videos is fine, but you need to simulate thinking and responding to make the language part of what your brain goes to. Find people online to talk to via Zoom or discord. I like to think of conservations I have and translate them in Google and re-run the interaction 4 or 5 times in the second language.

For numbers, find videos online that are things like lottery draws.

Bon chance!

Start dating a native speaker of the language :D

But seriously, find a method that works for you. Start by learning common vocabulary, learning grammar rules, and finding a place to practice a language. That could be an instructor, class, online community, or pen pal. There are sites for the latter. Read books and newspapers in your target language and add their subtitles to the films you watch.

I read many great approaches here. One thing that I have the impression it was not mentioned is song lyrics. It’s like syntax and vocabulary get somehow absorbed or something. And it’s fun!

If you are coming from another language, say C or Python, try https://tourofrust.com/

“The book” is always a good option. I like the variaton of Brown University: https://rust-book.cs.brown.edu/title-page.html

(I know that’s not what they meant, I am just preaching the ghospel, here)

As far as I can tell, nothing beats persistence. Ideally persistence out of necessity, like immersion, although that might be hard to achieve.

It’s not really a thing you can shortcut.

I’ve been learning languages for the past 10 years or so, including English, the language I’m writing this message in, which is not my native language.

I certainly don’t know what the “best” way is, but what I do is get a lot of input, review vocabulary with Anki (spaced repetition software), and slowly make my way through the pile of grammar.

I use flashcard apps such as Anki.

This can depend on your personality type and self-discipline.

If you’re a methodical introvert who likes reading, go for a vocab-focused app with spaced repetition, and continue by reading actual newspapers or books (even children’s books) as soon as you can.

If you’re an impulsive extrovert with a short concentration span, you’re going to need a more human experience, if possible 1-to-1 tutoring.

In all cases, don’t get hung up on grammar and (especially not) phonetics at the start. Vocab is the key that will unlock the rest.

FWIW I speak multiple languages fairly competently and I’m a qualified English teacher.

I’d say it depends on the time you’re willing to spend. If you have all the time in the world, I would use a full immersion method, that’s what works best for me. Put in as many hours of movies, podcasts, tv shows and Youtube videos as you can, in your target language, even if you don’t understand a single word at first. Combine that with daily grammar lessons so you can get a grasp of that language structues. Comprehension will slowly grow day by day. With this type of method I was able to learn italian in 2 years, and japanese in 3 years, both at a very high level.

If you don’t have much time to learn, you can always use a more traditional method. Find a course where you can practice 2-3 times a week with a teacher, and combine with 20-30 daily minutes in an app like Duolingo so you can also stablish some vocabulary. With this route you should achieve a decent level in your target language in about 4-5 years, at least based in my personal experience, as this is how I learnt english.

Remember learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint, and the only way of making progress is practicing almost every day. The single thing I would advice against is to study using ONLY apps like Duolingo or similar. They will award you with a false sense of progression, while in reality you will only be learning premade sentences in a vacum, that won’t make you improve in real conversation enviroments. An app will always be lackluster in comparison with a real teacher or course.