Please delete this if I’m in the wrong sub to ask this!
I’m looking to learn a new language without relying on data harvesting apps. Is there a privacy friendly platform I can use, or a FOSS app (android)?
Babel mini app in delta chat ;p
Man I love those apps in Delta, finally some functionality that’s actually useful for once.
Buy a book and learn with a compiler that was built before the spy craze.
Most privacy-friendly way would probably be using a textbook.
Thank you. Feel a bit stupid for not thinking of this. Don’t suppose you have a recommendation for a book on learning Spanish?
Not really, my only period of interaction with the language started and ended in high school. I’m sure you’ll find tonnes of recommendations in language-learning communities on the internet though.
My partner is quite a fan of the Ollie Richards story learning books. I think they have a couple of those for Spanish.
Go to your local college or university bookstore, see what they’re using, then go and find it cheaper somewhere else.
you can’t learn how to pronounce correctly through a textbook. You need hispanophone connections, environments withWhom/where you can’t speak english
A book you get from your local library.
Local libraries require ID if you wanna borrow them. Better read in the premises or buy one with cash
For when you want to learn something, but with the thrill of dealing crack.
Textbooks and teachers.
Anki
Try to decide what your threat model is. A language learning app (except harvesting traditional device id and such) doesn’t reveal very important info to anyone.
The only know which language you learn and your approximate level. Sure that’s better if there’s a more private way of doing it, but the core principle of learning a language doesn’t reveal very much.
Anki is an offline-first flashcard program that I use along with other methods.
I will look into this, thanks for taking the time to make a recommendation :)
Anki + Yomitan is the goat. Download some dictionaries of your target language, load them into Yomitan, and now you can search words on any website with selectable text and instantly make a flashcard out of the word. Watching a video in browser? Use asbplayer to load subtitles onto the video/movie and select the text from that too. Wanna watch not in browser? Use mpvacious with mpv.
Find yourself a card format you like and some cute addons (I use Ankimon [Pokemon]) for Anki so you don’t fall into that “it looks so dull!” trap because the SRS system it uses is no joke. I have years old vocab on there that I still remember, and medical students aren’t joking when they say it saved them.
I just love this app so much.
fmhy.net should have resources
Date a native speaker of that language for a while.
Actually not bad advice if they are into you badly speaking their language to them at first 😂
I tried, but my wife put a stop to it.
A real course with a real human teacher.
Wouldn’t this require sharing information with the school that organizes the course and any vendors that support them? Schools, payment processors and student information systems eventually sell or leak data.
A book with CDs to listen to.
Find a local special interest group that gets together to practice. Check meetup.
That, or enroll into some local class, if you live nearby some campus check if there aren’t students offering private tutoring for their own native language.
Also, if you already speak French, get an Assimil book for whatever language you want to learn. The older the edition the better (pre-80s) but even the more recent ones remain a good self-learning method, they’re just not as great as the older editions which were really great. Those books can be purchased (with or without accompanying audio recordings, highly recommended) or they can be had for much cheaper on the used market (also, most people have no idea how much better the older editions are so they can be found for even cheaper but the audio files (LPs) will often not be available). These books are 100% privacy-respecting: you’re alone without any tracking happening, there is no ‘login’ required either. Just you and your book (plus the audio files, if you want them)
You can also try to find some kids shows in the language you’re interested in. I’m sure sesame street has been dubbed into many languages by now.
That made me curious! Muppet Wiki says 70 languages and some dialects on top.
I have a suggestion that is not FOSS, but it is privately held so the pressure to be profitable each quarter is not at all the same as publicly held companies.
Check out the privacy policies of LingQ and Rosetta Stone. Idk if they’re good, but I know they’re the most efficient language-learning apps right now. They require the least amount of minutes using them to achieve the highest scores in standardized language tests.
They require the least amount of minutes using them to achieve the highest scores in standardized language tests.
What’s the source of this info?
Thanks! If I’m reading that second link correctly, they rank “Babbel” with a higher score than LingQ and Rosetta Stone?
Yeah, the green number shows the improvement, and Babbel users improved more. What the green number doesn’t tell you is how much time it took to get there. If you look at that, Babbel is more inefficient than LingQ and Rosetta Stone.
