#glossika

Also i am still dealing with Fear that glossika is not teaching correct grammar. Lol. Again, i do NOT recommend a total beginner use glossika. I recommend, if you're a beginner AND you really want audio lessons that play on their own (which is what I wanted) then use either: japaneseaudiolessons.com free lessons (i know the maker's human translated it with a native speaker and they have extensive grammar notes for free on the site), japanesepod101 (or its FREE Full version through your library which is called Innovative Language Japanese 1-9... the downside or upside depending on perspective is the lessons are classroom paced so a bit slow for me - but it goes in depth explaining well), or find the OLD cd audio glossika japanese at your local library (or free files online if you dig) as while i do think the old course had errors it was more like 5% of sentences versus the new app course's 20% sentences having errors (flaws being that the old cd course doesnt explain grammar just gives examples).

The new glossika japanese app course should not be $16 at its current quality. Clozemaster is cheaper, if you really desire an app SRS sentences experience. And Anki japanese decks are sometimes MUCH better (and free). I just... really wanted some lessons that play audio english/japanese sentences and autoplay, and autoplay my review sentences on the right day to study (per SRS), because i like hands free listening study i can do while im busy. And listening works really good for me. But at this point the quality of glossika app is irritating me so much im just trying to get done as much of it as i can in spite. I want to be able to make a very informed review of if it can even get a learner where it claims: a1, a2, b1, b2, and i know sure as hell its not getting anyone to C1 like it claims.

heres a diagram for the points (or place) of articulation (speech organs you use to create speech sounds)

the manner of articulation is simply the way you make the speech sounds using the speech organs. take letters P and B (for english). these are plosive bilabials bc of the plosion of the consonant (manner) and bc you use your upper and lower lips to articulate (points/place)

i wont go into all of it bc its going to be a long post but heres a detailed ppt that explain all of this pretty well (i suggest starting at the slide titled "the articulators"):

https://studylib.net/doc/5711887/speech-organs-and-articulation

for pronunciation help, glossika phonics on youtube has a lot of videos (with word examples) for pronunciating different letters/sounds but the video titles are a bit jargon-y. i suggest looking up "(ipa symbol) + glossika phonics" example: ʔ glossika phonics

heres an ipa chart for russian:

https://easypronunciation.com/en/russian-letters-pronunciation-ipa-chart

heres a cool video for russian letter pronunciation:

and a video for reading russian (this touches stress as well):

hope this helps <3

While Glossika has paid courses on their site, they also offer a few of them for free for languages that don’t have as many resources.

These languages are: Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka (Sixian), Hakka (Hailu), Wenzhounese (Wu), Kurdish (Sorani), Catalan, Manx, Welsh, and Gaelic.

It’s a language learning website that offers 7 day free trials and me being the owner of an irish language blog I had to see if it was any good. Well. In a word, no. 

The Irish placement test had a fair few spelling errors ("buus" for bus lmao and a few others I actually can't remember unfortunately but some were really confusing) as well as one question that had no right answers (the Irish question contained "na daoine seo" ("these people") and the "correct" English answer said "...three people...". 

That, combined with the fact that I tested out of it I think 19/20 (a whoops moment on like A2 level I believe), 20/20, 19/20 (the “na daoine seo” question), and 20/20 I don’t think they had a whole lot more to offer me as I never got to questions where I felt challenged at any point? At the end they said basically, great, we’ll start you off at B2. 

Do you remember your first sentences in another language? You'd come away beaming like a kid at Christmas after creating pearls like "I do not like pizza, I like eating salad".

As you learn more in your new language and increase your levels, you want to go deeper, talk about future, past, conditionals, things you've read and things you've thought.

It's like in this Bible verse (oh yeah! Quoting this big book is a Fluent first!):

When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

In language learning, it can feel just like that: You want to talk like a grown-up, your self-assured and intelligent self. And what's more frustrating than the reality, where we stutter and stumble over words, and leave....lo o o o o ng...um....gaps in sentences?

This week on the show, I'm answering a listener question from Elisabeth who is stuck in that dilemma. She says:

My tutor says I'm very close to B2. I've been hit with a puzzle though. (..) I have a lot of vocabulary but there seems to be a disconnect between my thoughts and my speech. (..) I stutter and pause a great deal when I speak in my target language.

Will this go away as I continue my speaking practice or should I be concerned? I just assumed that B2 would feel easy breezy beautiful when I talked and while I'm not there yet, I can't believe I'm close with all this difficulty connecting word bank to mouth.

Listen to my language speaking tips on the podcast:

Let's start by looking at what's causing you trouble.

The Causes Could Include:

1) Through your reading practice, you are acquiring a lot of new vocab, storing it, but not using it quickly enough after it goes in. This can lead to the word getting very comfortable in your passive vocabulary store, but locking the door behind walking into there so it can't come out when you look for active vocabulary.

2) As you are speaking, you may also be letting your mind freak you out with unhelpful thoughts. Maybe you slow down or pause, just to hear yourself slow down and pause, then to think "Oh no! I'm doing that thing again! I'm so much worse at this than I thought!"...which then affects your focus.

3) You're trying to speak about a wider range of topics than you expected before you start, so you're hitting unknown areas of vocabulary a lot quicker.

4) Your practice is lacking sentences and complex constructions, so you can understand a sentence with conjunction and three objects, but making one still grinds every single gear in your brain as if someone just dropped a bucket of sand in there. This is often where learners say they're "translating in their head".

It's helpful to remember this is just the level you're at and consistent practice will improve things.

But if you want to focus on strategies for your speaking skills, here are three ideas:

What To Do So You Can Improve Your Speaking Skills

Strategy 1: Say Way More Sentences

Practice and activate a set number of words IN SENTENCES. Write sentences about them, for example defining their meaning or finding five different ways of using the items you have learnt about. In those sentences, focus on one new way of saying something and transform your sentence.

You can do this yourself, even make a prompt sheet:

Sentence

"I heard that.." + Sentence

Last week I met my sister in the shop and she said that + "sentence"

"Next weekend" + Sentence

Question + Neg/Pos Sentence

"Would you...?" + Neg/Pos Sentence

I'm loving Say Something in Welsh for this type of practice, and the mass sentence methods of Glossika and Speechling will also help.

Strategy 2: Target Your Negative Thoughts

Before you start your language exchange or tutor session, have a word with yourself about pauses and decide what they mean. Your thoughts determine how you see the world and also how you perform, and so your thinking strategies can help you get through the uncomfortable gaps.

For example, consider whether a pause could be a great sign that you're about to remember a word, or a signal to try and approach the topic from another side.

Some learners find it helpful to practice filler phrases like Hang on, let me consider this..., It's on the tip of my tongue, or I want to summarize

Strategy 3: Go Deep With One Topic

It's easy to get lost in a conversation if you're entering it without clarity about the topic. Luckily, most tutors and exchange partners are pretty obliging and will allow you to steer them towards what you want to talk about. So the key is: Prepare! Look up all relevant words relating to your topic, write them down in advance, practice what you might want to say.

You don't have to script a whole conversation, but even bullet points will make a huge difference.

If you feel like a challenge, practice a 5-minute presentation on a topic you care about...don't script it, just work from your bullet points! You'll feel the boost from speaking for so long, and your tutor can give you valuable feedback and work on improving your phrases.

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Episode Links

1 Corinthians 13:11 — Bible Quote. Boom.

Accelerate Your Speaking Skills with Speechling: In-Depth 100% Honest Review by Fluent Language

Glossika Review: Powerfully Effective Language Training by Fluent Language

The Michel Thomas Method – The Natural Way to Learn a New Language

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Have You Felt Stuck When Speaking Another Language?

My usual conclusions on pimsleur stand though: based on what other pimsleur users said (that the whole course only covers the material Genki 1 has), and that it has around 20 words taught each lesson, with around 2500 words if you do ALL lessons, then its not the particular program i'd choose. Its good if youre a beginner, and intend to do all 5 levels. If you are not a beginner, it may only review words you know. If you're learning on your own, consider how much you study: if you want to learn 2500 words within a certain time frame (like a year) then make sure you complete pimsleur lessons frequently enough to finish the lessons in a year (or whatever your goal is). 2500 words, or Genki 1 and 2 book's 1700 total words (which pimsleur was compared to by a pimsleur user), are useful. But they arent intermediate, theyre words you'll want to learn as a beginner and then PROGRESS TO NEW MATERIAL. Do not dwell on pimsleur for 4 years, if your goal was to learn beginner words in 1-2 years and then move on to intermediate material (but if you are okay with it taking 4 years then of course go through lessons at the pace that works for your goals).

Some information on Glossika Japanese: the current 2024 course has around 6,400 sentences and teaches a bit over 5,000 words. I had this information given to me by an official glossika representative. Unfortunately, they did not know how much vocabulary was taught in the original audio-only Japanese glossika course, which was around half as big. Their current course seems to teach to N4 (maybe N3), as the representative felt a learner could go from the modern course glossika to simple anime like Shirokuma Cafe and learn words from immersion onward. The representative also stated glossika doesnt explicitly explain grammar, so if you are NOT a complete beginner then you'll have more success. Alternatively, if you are a complete beginner, reference a Grammar Guide (tae kims grammar guide, imabi.com, Genki textbooks etc) or use another source for beginner lessons like japanesepod101.com which has explanations. My rough guess would be that old glossika audio lessons taught between 2000-3000 words, because all old courses used the same base english sentences translated, and I remember for most languages that resulted in around 3000 unique words used. So old audio lessons Glossika will teach a bit more vocabulary than pimsleur, and significantly more than pimsleur by around 2000 additional words if you use the new glossika online courses. Increased vocabulary is a plus, but the end result will still be upper beginner/lower intermediate knowledge when you're done. I'd recommend glossika over pimsleur because more vocabulary is great in a language learning product.

FREE OPTIONS:

These are what I actually recommend a learner start with. Because they're free. And they work.

Go on the Hoopla library app, or install Hoopla if you don't have the app yet. Register with one of your library memberships on Hoopla, it will give you access to tons of ebooks and audiobooks to check out. Now find: Japanese 1 Innovative Language. I personally found the audiobooks, Innovative Language has at least 9 levels of lessons from beginner to advanced. Unfortunately, I am having difficulty finding how much vocabulary all their lessons combined teaches. (A lot of language programs call some lessons Advanced when really you're only learning say the 1000-1500 most common words in them, which is still beginner level in terms of knowledge being studied or if you compare to textbook levels or language certification test levels). I am not sure if these lessons are the same as japanesepod101.com, but these lessons are similar, and they have a good amount of explanations so you can get grammar and cultural information as well as vocabulary - this means the course is more in depth than glossika or pimsleur, but it does teach a bit slower as there's more time that english is spoken. If you're a total beginner, or a beginner/lower intermediate learner who is looking for audio lessons with explanations, I recommend these. Theyre free! Theres a ton! Innovative Language also has a TON of lessons in multiple languages on Hoopla app, so browse.

Watch this video from 3:30 onward for a take on Glossika that's both informative, and I agree with a lot.

My particular brain just CAN'T focus on it. So unless some fucking how I do 100 hours in the app before the next subscription payment, I'm probably cancelling it. It costs too much for something I only used 128 hours in a whole year the last time I went through a course on there.

For posterity's sake, this is what I achieved when I went through the Japanese Course:

40k reps! I did not realize I did that much. I only listened when I went through the Japanese course, and I rammed through all new stuff first because I wanted to see how many truly unique words the course actually had, then did some reviews once in a while.

(My review in short was: it does have 6000+ sentences, but I think different conjugations were counted as unique words, because I feel if all verb and adjective forms were considered the same word... the app has around 4000 unique Japanese words. A good foundation, but less than I personally hoped. Also, I personally sucked at using the app, so I only did 128 hours which felt so not worth the cost for me. If you could actually do it 1 hour+ daily, and speaking is a priority, its a useful enough app. For Japanese, I felt the old audio cd course - which I got free - was just as good as the new paid course, and around the same amount of words. And I like 1 time payments, not subscriptions, so I personally prefered the old cd course version. But the app does have quiz features if you want to use glossika more like flashcards than audio drills. But... anki is free, and better for flashcards...)

I have recently realized something I didn't know before. Glossika's GSR files (glossika spaced repetition) do have built in spaced repetition pacing for reviews. So if I just listen to "day 1, day 2, etc" in order, I'll be getting some spaced repetition review as I just autoplay my audio files playlist. Which HEY means no need for me to think about when to listen to new stuff versus old stuff! AWESOME. I'm over the moon, now that I have learned this. I dug around and found the old Glossika cd audio files for Mandarin. So if I quit my glossika app subscription, I can just use those files for shadowing/review.

(I am very bad at remembering when to study new stuff versus review. That's why I do best at consistently learning when I just stick to reading or listening to new stuff. That's why I can never stick to using anki, even though I recognize it's super useful IF you can consistently use it).