Becoming An Advanced Language Learner & The Problem With Advanced Courses | Robin Rants 

I have the exact same issue with advanced material. I think the reason is that language learners are a pyramid. There are 100 beginners who start the course, 25 who make it through intermediate, and 1 solitary person who would finish an advanced course. They have it so as to entice the 100 beginners, but they put very little effort into developing it. Minimally viable product, as they say in tech.

I agree with you 100% about "advanced" courses, Robin. For me, the best way to acquire more advanced sentence structures, vocabulary, and idiomatic expressions is to read books and listen to podcasts by natives.

True, some of these platform should really change their "Advanced" level to "Random" to be more accurate

I can't stop liking your videos! And that is not very common for me. You have such interesting and refreshing thoughts and analysis of the language learning process.

Funny video! It makes me think of two things: First of all, that I generally don't consider these kind of apps or online courses very useful. And at the more advanced stages their limitations became ever more obvious. They can help to learn vocabulary or simple structures, and in the case of pimsleur, to start short using everyday sentences in a kind of automatic way. But I always prefer coursebooks, and later on a combination of content + conversation classes + a grammar book to look things up when necessary. The second thing came to my mind when I saw the comment of "seoulsearch": I used to teach German and once had a student who thought it was a good idea to learn the dictionary by heart. Needless to say that it wasn't very helpful, but he had tons of fun with it and just could not be dissuaded. He couldn't say a single sentence in German, but always contributed information like: "Oh, yes, this word means 'to sew', but did you know that it is also used for 'to stitch up a wound'?"

I really enjoyed this rant! I currently teach ESL to adults, and it's a constant struggle to make sure that my advanced students are focusing on vocabulary words that are actually relevant to everyday conversations. Thank you so much for your insight! (Btw, I can't help but notice the copy of "Oh, the Places You'll Go" on your bookshelf. Love it!)

When you are advanced a good tip is to take a course designed for native speakers on a topic you are interested in. For example, if you are really interested in art and architecture or plumbing, find a course for native speakers on those topics. You will learn lots of advanced sentence structures.

After the intermediate level, you are on your own 😁. No courses would be able to help 😂

"I don't need to know how to say "carburettor" in Japanese, unless I'm a mechanic... in the 1990s..."

Honestly, I got riled up right off the bat because this has frustrated me so many times as well. Thanks for saying it

So true and practical!

Great topic !!

Hey Robin :) Wishing you an amazing weekend!

I think that 'why the hell are you trying to teach me to say laminate flooring?!' moments are what make weird words stick for me :') whereas the useful words fly away so easily! I enjoyed this rant it was pretty relatable haha

Very nice rant! :)

YES! More rants! this is amazing! and hilarious!

Loving your channel, it is keeping me inspired with my German studies. Your rant made me laugh and I agree that it is more important to learn all the connector words and sentence structure.

Totally agree! Very entertaining video. I can really relate to the 'broadcasting' thing, the specific vocab thing and even the road-rage thing :)

Oh man, this honestly made me laugh out loud and I really needed that.

Thank you! Exactly. Yes, more of this, please.

You hit the nail on the head. My languages are French and Russian, and beginner Scottish Gadhlig (which is facing language death on the UNESCO endangered list), so I'm hoping to acheive registered speaker status on that as soon as possible since it helps their efforts, and my background is very Celtic, as it happens (maybe you too, Mr. McPherson)? ;) I'm also enchanted with Japanese - I had a very good friend in high school who moved back to Tokyo, but I want to visit him and have at least an early intermediate ability to listen and speak. In your book when you mentioned being able to listen to Cowboy Bebop without subtitles, I was like, 'THIS GUY, YES, ALL THE WAY." Thanks for all your efforts. I wish there was more of a national standardized EFFECTIVE curriculum for foreign languages in the US. It feels like it's still 1950 out there. There was a brief surge in the 60s to teach kids actually younger than 13 (!) but it tragically died out by the mid 80s. Anyway, thank you for being awesome, and putting up fun, approachable, awesome content!

Hey Robin! You're a big encouragement, mate. Thanks for the content!

I agree with you 100% and it has reminded me of what I should focus on and revisit in my language studies. I have been reading a lot lately in my target language and occasionally keeping a vocabulary list but I haven't been good about going back and reading the lists again. I've been watching tons of videos too everyday. It all seems passive somehow and not very structured. I know that I am learning a lot but I guess I really dont have any goals or objectives other than being exposed to the language.

Happy friday!

Wonderful video! I completely agree. I'm a solid intermediate level in Spanish, inching into the upper-intermediate level, and I'm feeling good about the breadth of my vocabulary. But as I engage with many learning resources for where I'm headed, it's often just about adding more obscure vocabulary, whereas I need more help and practice in putting together complex sentences, conjugations in various tenses and moods within the same extended thought, etc.--even if the vocabulary itself is fairly simple. Keep up the good work Robin!

Your channel actually motivated me to take up language learning again (have never learned many to a high level, particularly when it comes to actually speaking. Have always lacked the discipline or any degree of organisation/self-motivation...) Recently decided to learn again; am giving Notion a try now to learn Russian, along with Duolingo for the basics. I just find you a lot more likeable and relatable personality-wise than other language/polyglot channels I have come across, so - thank you for being you and for being an inspiration, even to a lazy person like me. 😬

I'm learing Spanish and Korean. And it's going great, I was able to make the process more interesting followig your tips. I especially liked Easy Spanish vids. Thanks for the helpful tips!

Spot on! But there is a need for balance learning utensils or plumbing or car related vocab. In my experience, learning Spanish through the French school system for 5 years, I was able at the end to comment on a Picasso painting but did not know basic words like : fork, knife, plate, hood, tunk, sink , basin (I had to think to remember this word). Yet they may come handy 😉

Wow, this video has lots of value.

Now I know what it looks like to my friends when I get into a heated, passionate rant about languages hahaha! Great video! I completely understand your frustration about advanced level content. There's also another side to the strange vocabulary that makes you doubt if you're really an advanced learner because you can't retain the irrelevant, rarely used vocabulary that's introduced in the advanced levels. My confidence in my language skills really suffered because of this. Since then, I've become a lot more comfortable with deciding what vocabulary is important to me and what I should just push to learn at a later time.

as an English teacher in Brazil, I'm a big fan of your work and I made a video where I mentioned you because you inspired me to talk more about sleep in the language learning process, that video was amazing, thanks a lot bro.

Definitely agree many apps have taught me vocabulary but if I want to learn how to put that vocabulary together with good grammar I have had to do more searching on the internet for people explaining certain grammar structures. Also by the way loved the vid you did a while back with you having a conversation in mandarin it felt good to see someone fighting through a conversation like I often have after getting more serious about learning Chinese. Overall thanks for the great content. Keep up the good work 👍

Beginner language learners seem like the most optimistic people because everything is either “good” or “interesting”! Sums up my early attempts at speaking pretty nicely.

I LOVED THIS RANT! NOT ADVANCED but it made so much sense what you shared.

Awesome video 😁 Not only did you make me laugh, you were spot on with the issues. I’m currently studying N5 level Japanese from a variety of resources and I’ve found that a lot of the apps and online courses I’ve tried in the past do exactly that, give you random vocabulary that is virtually useless for everyday conversations. 😂 Keep up the awesome videos. No matter if they’re full of hints, tips, language hacks or rants about language learning, they’re great to watch and I always pick up something new from them. Thank you for making them

Great video! I am on level 5 of Pimsleur German and has a somewhat different itinerary than the Pimsleur Chinese that you describe. Level 5 uses much more complicated grammatical structures than earlier levels but uses a mix of old and new vocabulary. In Levels 2 and 3 though, there was a lot of very specific 'business meeting' vocabulary which was very annoying to learn because it was obvious I would rarely/never use these words.

Hi there Robin, I fully agree with you. I have never thought about it in so many words, but it has been my experience as well with Spanish. I really wish for the day to come when academics (or course developers and teachers) catch up with polyglots and their methodology. Because the latter is what really works. Blessings and hugs from South Africa.

I consider my level of spanish B1 or B2 quite a happy place to be. I'm sitting in the middle of the see-saw. I can't forget what I know but I'm happy to slide down the other side learning extra stuff at a comfortable speed. Great rant Robin ! I'm gonna have a general rant today in Spanish !

Lol, kitchen appliances when learning a language. So true, when I learned Portuguese as a beginner, I think I don't remember them now. Although I prefer in-person courses where we talk on universal and random topics and revise grammar, I'm looking at you subjunctive in Portuguese

I enjoyed the "rant"!:) I agree that the advanced level should indeed include review and while specific vocab is fine, it depends on the learner's needs. Interesting you would mention plumbing vocab because, I work for a plumbing supply company. and on occasion interpret (Spanish) for our customer service reps who only speak English.

There is a text written in 1657 to teach children Latin called "Orbis Sensualium Pictus", and it is an extremely egregious example of this. The sentences are all short and simple, but the vocabulary is extensive, covering the sounds of animals, different kinds of birds, book printing, different kinds of wagons, etc. There is even a chapter on the various methods of torture and execution. It is a strange and sometimes fun read, but very difficult to actually learn anything from

As an English advanced learner, I actually learned "vestibule" thanks to that memorable scene in the first season of Friends

Thanks for this interesting video. I'm learning English for more than 30 years now, I read many books in English and know quite a complex vocabulary from my field of interest (military history), but I didn't know the word vestibule - I had to check its meaning in Google Translate ;) I fully agree with you that many words that are introduced in courses are unnecessary! In German, I didn't have any advanced courses, so I quickly switched from basic stuff to advanced military vocabulary. So I can speak about parts of the cannon easily but struggle with a reading of a menu in the restaurant. But, the parts of a cannon are what I need much more ;)

Another excellent video. I am not yet an advanced student neither intermediate, i am a begginer but i like very very much what you do for us, your followers. I have the same opinion about the levels of a language, it is important to become confident, natural, to be able to manage the structures, different means of the words, ecc. It's not important to know all about everything...in fact, it's impossible to know everything about medicine, mechanic, engineering, ecc.

I've been frustrated with these random words even at the beginner level. I wish I was more like Robin and "not good at" being angry. I have this skill 😬. Ranting is good sometimes!

Yes, but on the other hand.. you never know when you might need to tell someone that a duck is eating a beetle 😁. But seriously.. I completely agree. I think LingQ seems to the right idea as regards allowing you to select and import learning materials that interest you (though I'm still working through the short stories). However, I wonder if an app couldn't take that principle further, and allow you to import specific adjectives, nouns and verbs so that you could create your own Duolingo- like exercises to help you learn how to express your specific thoughts and opinions about the topics which interest you. Hope you understand what I'm trying to say here... I hope I do too 😂

that was a truly enjoyable Robin Rants. You so made me laugh because you are so right. By the way, I still haven't found a usage for my first French sentence back in school, l'autoroute est à péage. Beginner and advanced courses are just too often filled with I don't know what in superfluous tralala.

I started watching your videos a few weeks ago, and I've been finding them really useful and inspiring. I've been trying out your three-tier prioritisation system recently, which has been so helpful, as I can often feel a bit overwhelmed by all the languages I want to study and maintain! These are my language-learning plans for this weekend... My Tier 1 language is Chinese (which I moved to Taiwan to study). This weekend I'll be watching some TV series to practise extensive listening - I'll watch a couple of epsiodes of 糖糖Online on Netflix, which is fun, and maybe also re-watch an episode of 想見你 on LineTV, which is amazing, and one of my favourite TV series in any language! I'm also going to try getting going on doing some extensive reading by reading a story or two from 極短篇, a collection of micro-fiction stories by 侯文詠. The stories are all only a few pages long, which makes it feel not so intimidating... (I also have a bit of a backlog of vocab to review on Anki!) My Tier 2 language at the moment is Classical Tibetan, which I'm starting to bring back up to speed after a period of neglect by going through a couple of introductory textbooks to refresh my knowledge of the grammar and basic vocab. My Tier 3 languages are German (Beginner), French (Intermediate) and Esperanto (Advanced), so I'll probably do a few German lessons on Duolingo and then maybe translate a few paragraphs of an HP Lovecraft story into Esperanto and/or listen to an episode of Journal en français facile. Thanks so much for all the tips and motivation!

Fantastic video - I couldn't agree more with this - I think that the people who design those courses have never tried to learn themselves a language to an advanced level - and this is valid for many language teachers as well, who are often teaching useless things during their courses

Humorous yet instructive. I had a beginner Russian teacher who lived her first 28 years in Russia. She had us spend two weeks on obscure fruits and vegetables that grow in prats of Russia. It drove me crazy.

Definitely i accord with that Big like

Hi Robin, I totally agree with you. People should focus on the words that are interesting for them and not think about just acquiring a massive amount of vocabulary. My native language is German, but I did study in English and also studied one year abroad and now living in an English speaking relationship plus working for a UK firm. Up until last year I didn’t even know most of the vocabulary in a household because it was not necessary before. Probably all words were already in my passive vocabulary but never made it into my active vocabulary. Focus on what you need, I had no troubles what so ever.

Great video Robin. To me, being an advanced learner is a matter of reading a lot daily in our language of choice.

Quite funny, great video :)

The 日用品 were the LAST things I personally learned in Chinese! In the Mango Languages Japanese course, I learned how to say “annex” (別館), I’m not even conversational in Japanese yet, and I didn’t even know what an annex was in English!!

C'est trop drôle! J'aime bien cette vidéo, merci!

I was thinking exactly the same thing when I got to 4th level of Italian on Pimsleur. The vestibule of my story were painter and magazine.

This was so spot on. Teaching advanced courses is just a huge problem and I haven't seen any companies overcome it -- at the moment it's best just to start engaging with as much native material as possible once you get to the upper intermediate/advanced levels.

¡Has dado en el clavo, estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo! En nivel avanzado se suele incidir en vocabulario absurdamente difícil, específico y alejado de la realidad del hablante. Yo pensaba que era algo "positivo", que esa "como debía ser". Pero tienes razón en que quizá es un mal enfoque, sobre todo a la hora de aprender estructuras gramaticales complejas.. ¡Gracias por tu vídeo! Saludos desde Cartagena, España.

I think you're right on in your assessment. I would rather have the real conversational structures to practice, rather than odd vocabulary you'll never, or rarely, encounter in real life. I like the idea of creating a learning environment based in real life, useful examples of how people speak.

I do agree with you, by the day.

Your ranting comes at the best time for me. I'm also angry, just struggling with the last chapter of Duolingo English for Germans. But in my opinion the problem with this course isn't too much useless vocabulary, but confusion with the German and English grammar. Might be that both sentences are okay, but one isn't the translation of the other - and there are other contradictions, too. Before I'm going to have my fight with Duo, I always start my vocabulary trainer. What means not only repeating words, but writing a lot, reading out loud and other activities. I have two interesting new projects in there: One, I type sentences in from novels and make a new vocab of every new word. I'm just working this way with two books. One of them I read without looking up words first (Philip Roth: I married a communist) and the other I'm just reading (Mary Brown: Playing the Jack; a colourful history novel). I was totally excited when I discovered that the unknown words in novels are mostly all the useful words I missed when I wanted to express myself! Take this: "On a hawthorn twig above my head the robin, careless of my probable fate, sang his song to the patch of blue sky that showed between the heavy clouds moving away to the east." (M.B.: Playing...) I always liked plants and animals and their names. For me I would never feel bound to the world in a language without them. It would be as if I would step into a world where they don't exist. But in this quotation there are other words Duo don't teach me: probable, careless, fate, patch. I think they order words to themes - but the most useful words are generalists! The other project is using whole sentences which are typical for everyday conversation, but I can't describe yet what I'm going to do with them. I still have to work a little on the concept. Doing things like that, reading, writing, watching videos is more fun and I learn much more from that than by using the app. But starting a new language without an app or organized course seems almost impossible to me.

Greetings from Ukraine)! My plans all about English learning on weekends, I continue my input through watching videos plus books. Have good language results these weekends!

Yes! Specialized vocab is sometimes important but never when presented randomly as in "the eggplant vestibule." It's all about choosing your vocab "islands" thoughtfully. I work at an art museum and I know all the Klingon art and painting words. I do not know the several dozen physics words that I don't even know the English meanings of! and that is all by design!

Great video. I'm halfway through the Nicos Weg A1 (German) course and I'm gotten frustrated with how much it focuses on learning random vocabulary (e.g. "automotive mechatronics engineer") and how little it focuses on constructing sentences.

totally agree 👏👏

For my Spanish learning, I plan to go through most of Dreaming Spanish and Olly Richards content and then move my way into Native content for my advanced stages. Especially reading much more when I'm advanced. I want the crutches of learning materials to lead me to enjoy and live the languages and let the formal learning stuff go when I graduate from the intermediate levels.

I'm on day 10 of my German learning today. I'm A2 in Spanish right now, but I'm taking a break to start German. My girlfriend is German. Just trying to see if I should prioritize vocab and grammar or pronunciation. Thanks for your vids!!!

I'm at elementary level Spanish and the app I'm using now offers me sentences about business transactions and stuff you'd find in a scientific papers. I'm giving up on it now I've heard your rant!

I’ve switched to Norwegian from German, all of a sudden yesterday. Too many frustrations to mention, but I’m no more clueless there than from what I can recall off the top of my head with German. It’s actually going super well--but I’ve always been able to read knitting patterns in Norwegian (not a single clue how; I only learned my first word in it a year ago and hadn’t progressed much farther before this morning). I haven’t taken any of my German labels down from around the house-just added Cherokee and Norwegian to them. And I’ve still got my language notebook system. Idk if it’s the formal Cherokee lessons. The cadence of the tones is fairly similar between Cherokee and Norwegian, IMO. Idk if that’s from the Scots Gaelic influence on Cherokee or not (for example, Principal Chief John Ross in 1832, at the time of the Removal, was 1/8 Cherokee). Whatever it is, I’ve never made such good progress in a language in 24 hours. And I may have found a PhD program that fits what I’m looking for, at Norwegian Science and Technical University. Hmmm. 🤔 We’ll see! I live within walking distance from a Sons of Norway lodge (not that they’re having any meetings or fundraisers these days), and there’s a Norwegian-USA university 20 minutes from me in the next town (with a daughters of Norway lodge). I certainly had speaking opportunities with German to get back up to speed (incl a German church service) ... my brain has just objected. 🤔🤔🤔

😅😅😅 I loved it!

I so agree with evrrything you say. I am an ex language teacher with 5 or 6 languages. After total immersion in a country, with no access to speakers of one's own tongue, extensive reading is, for me, by far the best way, at all levels. Fiction is best because of the 'story' element, which is a very natural way to learn language. Joining phrases, verb tenses are way more useful than complex vocab. Also, telling your own life story in different languages and talking about your intersts and job makes what you learn relevant to your own life. Great channel btw.

A very valid point. Vocabulary when at superior levels is so wide that one neccesarily goes into specifics, in those fields the person is interested into or relates to professionally, hobby-wise, etc. That's why in my opinion reading on those topics that relate to you is what will bring you to those levels. There is no such thing as language fluency across all the language spectrum, not even for natives as no one knows every single word of their language. We specialise at superior levels, with those terms and expressions that relate to us. The current structure of those courses is faulty because their approach is trying to give you a bit of everything.

ive had a slump lately, but i brought myself bak at it this past week, i feel guilty from my lazyness, but im just happy that i kept at it. I'm barely A1 (700 word that i know...) and never trained my speech (other than voicing them alound to myself) .... I feel like a failure right from the strat, i calculated from the pace that i have, i might be B2 in 12 years, yeah.... long journey, I hope to have a breaktrough at some point lol

This is way I do programs such as assimil and glossika at the end. But yeah, this stuff idealy should be around real life and vocab that one actualy will need. All other specific vocab one can pick up from context when immerging latter on and if relevant.

LingQ is what works best for me. I love their approach. Just subscribed there.

I'm not familiar with any applications, but I find good textbooks quiet useful in mastering the language at advance level. You have lots of topics to speak about, reading with good vocabulary, the topics are more like comparison of previously learnt grammar. Maybe they lack dialogues, but upon the whole you can learn a great deal there. Sadly on your own it's much harder. The books I'm speaking are like Headway or English File.

I think there are 2 aspects of being an advanced speaker. First is being able to comfortably produce complicated sentences with the appropriate grammatical structures. You gave a good description of it with examples. The second is vocabulary. An educated adult native speaker will have a vocabulary of at least 15,000 words. If you want to be an advanced listener and reader you need to develop a (passive) vocabulary of at least 5,000 words. If you want to be an advanced speaker you need an active vocabulary of at minimum 3,000 words. In both cases your goal should be 8 - 10,000 words. But you only remember vocabulary that is relevant to your life. An advanced course cannot know what is relevant to you, so an advanced course cannot teach you vocabulary unless there is a course for each domain that you might be interested in. So, I agree completely that the only thing an advanced course should address is the first part.

Yes.

I really listen to ur opinions and tips very carefully. My German level increased in a very short time, I became more comfortable and confident 🥺🧡 Ich bin sehr glücklich. Sie sind ein Juwel 💎 Vielen Dank für Ihre Hilfe und viel Erfolg.

The takeaway from this video is that Robin hates vestibules.

Este fin de semana quiero empezar un libro nuevo en Espanol. El libro es "Crimen en Barcelona" por Paco Ardit. Es un Graded Reader por nivel b2 en Espanol. He encontrado que leyendo en Espanol es muy divertido asi que voy a continuar a leer como mucho libros tan puedo.

Omg so true. I know all the nouns I need to in french. I need nuances, the things I can’t learn on my own by pointing at something and saying what’s that called?

I had the same experience as you with Pimsleur for Portuguese. Level 1 and 2 were great and level 3 was ok. Level 4 and 5 were just so frustrating. Loads of sentences about places and foods from areas of Brazil I’ve never been and don’t plan to go. And yet now as I get further into intermediate level, there’s grammar structure and verb tenses that Pimsleur just completely ignored

Yeahhh! I really agree with you. In my country, Brazil, English teachers (youtubers) speake in Portuguese and when they teach something in English you realize it's a slang which just surfers use. It's something for some specific people....you know, your video made me think about those teachers. Maybe they just want followers

Thanks for the video! Which of your videos would you recommend that contains what you SHOULD do to get from a high intermediate to an advanced level?

5:00 - when learning another language why would I need to know the equivalent of ‘vestibule’? I’m a native English speaker...and, I had to look up ‘vestibule’ in the dictionary!🧐

In my first foreign language course ever, Arabic 101, our instruction was split between two text books: the first textbook, Alif Baa, was liked by everyone in the class. It taught basic verbs that everyone wanted to know-to drink, to eat, to sleep etc.-, basic counting, and constructions like “I must do x, we should do Y.” We finished that book inside of 8 weeks and then went on Fall Break. Upon returning, we moved on to the “more advanced book”, Al-Kitaab. Everyone disliked this book. It taught us the words for United Nations, الأمم المتحدة, and “my father specializes in translation”, “والدي متخصص في ترجمة.” Guess some of the words it took me years to learn following this method? Spoon, ملعقة، Fork, شوكة، Good night تصبح على خير. My Arabic is a little rusty right now, and I recognize that I never truly got to an advance or even intermediate level. Nevertheless, my frustrations with learning that language led me down the rabbit hole that is language learning. I’m studying Spanish and actually enjoying myself.

OMG. The French Pimsleur course covers carburetor and other random car parts, some of which I have no idea what they are in english either.

A little summary: 1. problem: most language learning apps try to teach intermediate stuff just with random words we often don't use. You might need real life experiences to memorize them (plumming words) 2. problem: Knowing specialized vocabulary isn't that important when it comes to being an advanced speaker Estimating someones level/ points to focus on: *How comfortable are they expressing theyself? _intermediate: making obvious mistakes+ broadcast them on their face, making many pauses) _advanced: really good at it *General Use of Language _Advanced Using a variety of different grammatical structures and being able to use them, know lots of ways to describe sth, uses contecor words _Intermediate; just clean and short sentences

It would be cool to have advanced/any courses structured around hobbies/reasons people learn. For example, the literature, film, music or living in the country. But I guess there isn't a big enough market. Some of the native texts I use have a lot of language I don't need about dealing with landlords and home keeping, but I realized that it's probably super helpful for the refugees.

I have the exact same pet peeve!😂

Great vid as always. Agree with the points but not sure about the levels. Pimsleur 5 is upper beginner/lower intermediate, isn't it, really? (Which makes your points all the more valid). Well, I've never got to level 5 but I'm finishing 4 in Japanese at the moment with 5 ready to roll and I wonder what the total vocab introduced so far in Levels 1 to 4 is (but I'd be surprised if it's over 2000 words). At C1/C2 you have to start knowing things you DON'T need. That's one of the marks of an advanced learner, in my book, though totally not the most important one :))

Preach! 🙌 Dropping truth bombs everywhere. 👏👏👏 When I got to the advanced level of Japanese in college after getting through beginner - intermediate levels, I was so shocked. Literally Me 📖 👀... 📖... 😶 and then I had to write essays like wait whuuut? I went from "how do you say... in Japanese" and "translate this to English" to "write a 600 character essay in 40 min... with perfect grammar and kanji script" 😆 Don't get me wrong I tried my best and succeeded regardless. But it was a bit of trial by fire. Sadly because I learned so much vocabulary that I just didn't use or saw in my immersion I don't remember anything from those final semesters. It definitely seems like once you get your footing in the language, at that intermediate level, you're better off just going about it on your own. You learn vocabulary that you want because you'll use it and learn about subjects you're passionate enough in that you'll want to talk about it. That said, even though I don't remember the vocabulary and all the grammar learned from that textbook, I learned a lot about what I wanted, and what I was capable of. Not for nothing, writing that quickly could be considered a precursor to speaking. I always "think" I can't speak, "I'm not ready," but I could if needed (and didn't have that added stress). Additionally I do miss writing, and thinking about subjects I normally wouldn't consider, just not the intensity of the practice.

Estoy de acuerdo cien por ciento.

Yes, I am still at a beginner level but sometimes I find myself wondering, "Are there multiple ways to structure this sentence? Can we play with them more before we move on?" because I really like playing with my native English and I'd rather know several ways to say something like "I felt kind of down yesterday, and then I watched a movie and felt better!" or something relatable rather than - as you say - talking about enchiladas and then moving on to touring mexico. I have a textbook that showed me three ways of structuring the same sentence but it was kind of a footnote, not a major point of focus.

Can you do the Shadowing tutorial you mentioned earlier?

I feel like you should make an app yourself tbh I’d be interesting

I used Busuu up until their self described 'B1/B2' levels in Italian, then stopped because after that it was awful. Random is a good word for. At the time, I was thinking that the upper levels was what new interns put together. They do themselves a disservice because now I might not ever going back to to Busuu.

These unused words are still useful If you have ti Pass any kind of exam, These apps still reasonate in old terms of exams and school classes.