Changing Your Phone Language / DOES IT HELP?

Does changing the language of your technology devices actually help you to learn a language? Have you changed your smartphone, PC, Mac, camera or bluetooth device to your target language? Does it actually work for learning the language?
Using any of these links for the services described really helps me out by making me feel like people care, and sometimes supporting me financially.
Music used for this video is from Soundstripe. Use this link and the code "LAMONT" to get 10%:
soundstripe.com?fpr=days-of-language
The tracks are: "Sapphire" by Falls
"The Cover of Darkness" also by Falls
LingQ is a great way to ease into reading in your target language:
www.lingq.com/en/frenchnswedish/
The native speaker tutoring shown in my videos is through iTalki. You can get $10 credit applied to your account when you make your first purchase, or you can just check it out for free using this link, which also helps me out by allowing me to take more language lessons:
www.italki.com/i/CHfEEb?hl=en-us
I buy my Swedish books, e-books and audio books through Bokus, which is simple, reliable and lots of fun to look for good deals:
adtr.co/UFCN4D
Do you like foreign language TV shows and movies? Check out the channel on which I review ONLY those shows:
/ @lamontmcleod2
Subscribe for more awesome language learning content: / @daysandwords
Language learning videos, tips and techniques!
• How To Learn Languages
Wow, you actually made it to the end of the description. The story behind this thumbnail:
I was using a free e-reading app and because I have now set Windows and my PC to Swedish, basically everything appears in Swedish, even if the app is American. Installing this software just looked BADASS in Swedish, even though all the terms were super normal computer terms, and it made me think how when installing programs in English, I am just a regular guy, but when installing them in Swedish, I'm like Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... So I wanted her to represent the "cool target language" person in the thumbnail. After that it took almost two hours to actually create.

[@RahulSharma-nv2fq]

You unconsciously remember words and get happy when you study about that later

[@Drafs2099]

True true

[@alexal8088]

I just get frustrated because I can't understand what's on my phone.

[@jasonjohnson6938]

@@alexal8088 keep studying/practicing/watching dubs, try again in a few months 😁

[@TheDasilva1]

I have been doing this for years. First for German before I dropped it. It was an interesting approach...until you desperatedly need something and you can't find shit. Then you go "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH".

[@zeral1317]

I think that being stressed about the language gives you some experience that you’re for sure going to use. Plus the repetition gives you some useful random words rooted in your brain. Lamont already made a video that you’re also learning through being uncomfortable. If you’re serious with the language you should be able to express yourself in most ways and at least trying to (in my opinion) really helps.

[@ker82ker]

100% my experience. I just memorized what commom buttons were and it didn't force me to learn a damn thing tbh. And panic did ensue when I really needed to do something critical. Edit: my target language is Japanese and lack of Kanji knowledge makes this especially difficult and not easy to look up when in a panic!

[@arunraman6630]

@@ker82ker Lol I did the same thing with Chinese on my mac. It's so stressful when you want to find something. Even help documentation on Apple's website defaults to Chinese. I was also teaching a class over Zoom with my friend but since the app was in Chinese, I couldn't figure out how to make him co-host and accidentally kicked him out. I will say though, that it taught me quite a few words such as the word for screen, window, restore, jailbreak, co-host, etc. Even though my mac is still in Chinese, I set my primary computer to Spanish as I'm already fluent in it and just need that extra revision so I don't forget it.

[@helingunes955]

O go type language in settings, change it back into native language. Find that thing i needed to find and then rechoose my target language :)

[@aliceinbath2850]

I personally found changing my device language to italian helpful but I wouldnt advice beginners to do this AT ALL. You might just get confused . It is also not a substitute for actual lessons and studying

[@vintageplantlover7983]

I tried this with Spanish a little while back, when my knowledge of the language was very weak. It was working out great until an important update decided to happen... you can only imagine my panic while trying to sort it out. Although it's back in English now, maybe I'll give it another go. Great video!

[@oldaccount746]

hey ur pfp was my screen background at some point!! it's called chintz in case you didn't know!! you have good taste ☆

[@giffiyt]

I actually changed my phone to my target language, didn't help that much i just used it through my muscle memory. But thing that i think actually helps is changing a game you play often to the target language. (atleast for me)

[@Falanu]

I found out borrar is to delete in Spanish without realizing it today!

[@CanalSDR]

Delete and erase.

[@nathanbolima4934]

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure borrador is eraser

[@Ryosuke1208]

@@nathanbolima4934 LMAO, Yeah it means eraser but also a draft.

[@mergesviz]

I've had my phone language set to French for so long that seeing it in English weirds me out. For me, having it set in that language keeps French in my day-to-day (because I'm not great with studying consistently) and reminds me that hey, I am attempting to do this thing. Is it the best way to learn? Hell no. But now I don't even think about it and I can comprehend a good chunk of it even though I'm at a lower level. Great video!

[@k.5425]

Same here. My phone has been in spanish for like 3 years, it's weird seeing it in english

[@2254narken2254]

I tried setting my phone to japanese but either I already knew where everything was so I didn't read anything, or when I did need to find something new I couldn't read any of the kanji so I had no idea what I was doing, there was no middle ground

[@johnnyappleseed8270]

Holy shit, this is the most understandable australian english ever. Yes i have been studying english

[@josephscottlawrence]

My phone has been in Swedish for the last 9 years, ever since my time living there ended. It feels like just seeing it every day has helped me lose a lot less of the language over the years.

[@sararobinson5512]

I did that for Russian for a while when I was pretty new to it. It helped with a few aspects but obviously it isn’t a course. It mostly helped with days of the week and months since we need dates constantly. It also helped knowing some certain verbs but mostly tech related like delete, edit, cancel, etc. Oh and personally I didn’t find it draining, even though yes it’d take a little longer sometimes since I’d need to translate, but probably because I enjoy learning a whole lot so it’d didn’t bother me. ^and since I was constantly using translators for different languages, I quickly learnt what many languages were in Russian. Now that I’m actually taking a Russian class, some of those things (mostly dates & languages) actually come in quite useful

[@Backflipgal12]

Changing the language of your phone also changes all of your social media feeds and search engines... part of the reason why I changed it back. I felt it diminished my productivity in every other area with minimal improvement in my French itself, compared to setting aside dedicated time to learn.

[@daysandwords]

I wish my phone had Swedish, but it doesn't. But yeah I agree with you.

[@SprinkleMeNubCake]

10:00 shoutout and gratitude to all the Indians teaching tech!

[@athenagreen5390]

I did this a few months ago with french. However, there are a lot of similar words. I am in the middle of a college transition so just seeing the little bit of french everyday is helpful.

[@ariane4099]

all i know is that ill never forget the names of the months in french xD

[@karai5082]

I had my phone set to french and set it somewhere, i came back and someone managed to get into it, and whoever was on it had no idea what anything was, so maybe thats good?

[@danielbelmir0]

I did it to English like 6 years ago. It's really worth it if your target language os English, there's just so much content in English, and also if you get all the messages and errors in English it's much easier to find a solution for it. If your target language is not English by doing that you will make your life more difficult. I changed my phone's language to German just because i can quickly change it back to English if i need to.

[@user-vz7ug2bl8h]

198 likes - 0 dislikes. Now we're talkin'!

[@glorifyenjoy]

Makes all the difference in the world to me. Love my different keyboards.

[@thegreatsalad]

When I switched my phone to Portuguese, Google recommended a news article (in Portuguese) about a snake that had eaten a woman. So I got some portuguese content that I would never have searched for! So I highly recommend a phone language switch for intermediate to advanced learners, maybe not for beginners.

[@SomedayKorean]

If you are living/working in the country where your target language is spoken, changing your computer/phone language also helps get used to common tech/computer jargon that you might actually encounter. I work in Korea, and sometimes I have to use the shared computers at the academy I work at, and when you need to hurry up and make a bunch of copies of worksheets in between classes, that is not the ideal time to sit down and have a study session of copier settings vocabulary. That said, I've never actually changed any of my settings to Korean/whatever for more than a few hours at a time, because when I'm trying to use my phone/computer for stuff, I'm not in a "let's learn some new vocabulary!" mood, I'm in a "I wanna get this crap done ASAP" mood

[@michellesmirnova4471]

This is great! I think you learn a language relatively quickly while living in the country (compared to someone trying to learn it without spending time in the country) and, from what I’ve seen, some people trying to learn a language avoid changing their phone language and whatnot out of comfort, but I think it’s important to do that! The more you commit the sooner you’ll learn, especially when it comes to cultural things or “slang” that might be harder to pick up otherwise.

[@daysandwords]

I think people shouldn't feel pressure to do it even if living in the TL country. If you want to, good on you, but if you just need your technology to help you do stuff, then it might help you better in your NL. I have met about 80 Swedes living here in Australia and I have met ONE who sounded like a native Australian. Her phone was in Swedish and I asked her if there was any reason, because surely she must have done that deliberately, she said she just prefers not to deal with words she didn't grow up with and will rarely say.

[@SomedayKorean]

@@daysandwords I definitely agree with you that nobody should feel pressure to do one way or the other. In general, I think that changing the language settings causes more harm (frustration and slowing down the speed at which you can accomplish anything on the device) than it is beneficial for your language learning for beginning/lower intermediate learners. While watching your video, it just occurred to me that in this one case (encountering that language at work) it might be beneficial to do an investigative study session where you change your phone/computer settings (even just temporarily) and explore some of the language in programs you use at work.

[@SpaceMonke99]

I remember after subconsciously glancing at the button numerous times, 'aviseringar' came out of nowhere when I needed it in conversation and I was super happy. Person I was speaking to didn't quite understand why I was jubilant to begin with though.

[@prepre73]

Recently set my nintendo switch to Dutch because I didn't feel like I was at the level where setting my phone or other devices made sense but I felt slightly guilty about spending some time playing video games and not leaning more about my target language. The cool thing I have found about this is that most nintendo games use more child oriented sentences / phrases and in most cases they highlight the important words. This is cool because even if you understand next to nothing of the sentence being able to add two or three new words to your vocabulary is nice

[@iguanacheese]

I just resubscribed just on the basis of that ‘welcome to KZbin’ 😆

[@5ar_]

Yes, it helps. I did this for German. Learned a lot of new words for things I use every day.

[@EasyFinnish]

Wow! Your channel has grown a lot lately. I tried it first, perhaps after one month learning, but didn't work for me because it wasn't comprehensible for me. Now from 1,5 years learning French I have changed KZbin, NETFLIX, Facebook etc from Finnish to French. So now I get French content on KZbin and NETFLIX has audio and subtitles in French. But I'm amazed that what has happened to your channel, wow! You definitely deserve this all. Take hat off! Jag gillar din kanal och studerar också svenska lite, men inte dagligen eller varje vecka, haha! Jag studerar bara franska. Men alla finländare kan talar lite svenska, för det är obligatoriskt i skolan. Tack so mycket och vi ses, adjö!

[@aksentish3236]

Another good video! Great advice!!

[@kupferknochen]

Your advice is invaluable as ever, love your videos!

[@SanderJanssenBSc]

boy o boy I was legit thinking about this last week and just as I was wondering about it more and more you posted this! Thanks!

[@rosebarbaro461]

Thank you very information.

[@MidosujiSen]

I just sentence mined all the menu words to make it easy to navigate

[@carloscorona3143]

Do you know if there's a premade deck for japanese ?

[@glorbnorgaborg37yearsago10]

@@carloscorona3143 for what? For vocabulary?

[@carloscorona3143]

@@glorbnorgaborg37yearsago10 Yes For menu/interface vocabulary

[@glorbnorgaborg37yearsago10]

@@carloscorona3143 I doubt there is one for basic apps like KZbin, twitter, Reddit, and etc. I know you're question was for premade decks but I really think you're better off making your own deck.

[@SmithTivoli]

I did this for a few weeks and found it really helped. Thanks!

[@learner247]

Thanks for giving such a well-thought-out discussion of the subject, and for drilling into your own use for illustrative examples.

[@kolab5620]

personally, i already know the words for left and right in my target language. so i keep the language on my phone changed so my gps doesn’t interrupt me with random english words while listening to podcasts.

[@OHYS]

I find it very effective. When I first set my phone to French, it was hard because I hadn't actually learned (any of) the language yet, so when I desperately needed to find something it was frustrating. However, now that I have been studying it for a while, I can get by quite easily and I know what most of it means, and can navigate everything. I spend most of my free time on my phone. This has put me in a position of constantly learning because I can't escape the language, and I have to depend on it at least when using my phone. It also means I still have to look words up in wordreference, even when I'm not studying

[@annanelson4934]

As someone who’s studying Norwegian (it’s going to be a years in November) and has their phone in Norwegian, I only recommend it if you’re intermediate and above (phone only) Having a computer in your target language isn’t necessarily recommended (in my experience, at least) because you still need it for daily usage. I’d probably recommend it for those in upper intermediate/advanced

[@chrissye9720]

Thanks for this video. I think on some level, I was always aware of this, but this video helped make it more obvious to me. I'm a beginner in learning Serbian and I will often watch Serbian vlogs on youtube and count it as "listening" practice, but it's really not, because I understand basically nothing. It's a far better use of my time to watch something like a children's TV show.

[@Trillvil1]

I’m not gonna lie I’ve learned Spanish well still learning. It’s been 7 years now of learning Spanish n my first 4 years was wasted on flash cards n having my phone in Spanish still didn’t understand a thing. I started listening to audiobooks more n watching Spanish shows more n I got to where I’m at today with Spanish. Now I’m learning French n Turkish right now using Stephen Krashen comprehensible input ONLY no flash cards no grammar rules and it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done. Comprehensible input is the key fellas. More movies, shows, books and kid stories.

[@LanguageExplorer]

Great points! I'm an incoming 3rd year student in the university (major in French, minor in German) and I used to switch the language settings of my gadgets to French (almost everyone in the department do it, after all! LOL) but then, it sucks when you need to immediately find something on your phone or especially, when there's an agreement you need to read before clicking. Lol besides, I think it would be useful if I'm techie (which I'm not), so I switched it back to English =)) As for the benefits, at least, it helped me with some techie vocabs (like camera, messaging, inbox, spam, etc.). Finally, just want to say that I'm glad I've discovered your channel. Your content is sooo helpful!

[@elisabethherzog9369]

I’ve had my phone in Spanish for the past four months and I think it’s helped me some. My iPad is still in English just in case I really need something and I don’t understand. More than anything it’s limited my screen time. Sometimes when I just completely don’t understand something I will just give up so I end up spending less time on my phone. It doesn’t replace actual studying but it does make me happy when I do know something and there are definitely some things that I’ve learned.

[@carleindegasoline8704]

man... you r awesome... keep it up

[@daysandwords]

Cheers.

[@carleindegasoline8704]

@@daysandwords ;)

[@The3Sees]

I've had my phone set to German for past year. The engagement point was quite relatable. I know my phone's interface very well and that pressing X will lead to Y. Therefore, I dont find myself regularly engaging with the onscreen German.

[@languagecomeup]

This is a topic that I consider every now and again. I have my devices set in Spanish and while I now know the vocabulary for the operations I have to do. Very basic ones, because that's just the way it is. I really don't end up learning that much. I had my phone in Russian a few days, it was cool because I could see the words that were used for those general operations but when I really had to do something important, it wasn't worth the time to mess around with it. At home, it was kind of fun, but in the real word when I really needed it, not the case. However with Spanish I haven't had this problem, so yeah my phone is back in that language. Nice video Lamont!

[@languagecomeup]

Caleb in an ideal world

[@Wilde-Cat]

감사합니다 I just switched my phone language I know basic words so this is ok for me to do this because it’s easier

[@michellesmirnova4471]

Thank you so much for making this video! This is exactly what I’ve been wondering for a while. I did change the language of my phone recently to my target language, and I wouldn’t say that it has helped me immensely, I mean it has confused me a lot before, but I still think it’s worth doing. Whenever I google something, it comes up in French (which naturally is my target language) and that forces me to read in it. And well, as others in the comments have mentioned, you get a couple words into your head really well without having the headache of trying to read a book or watch a show. Assuming you’re familiar enough with your phone to not end up doing something really dumb while being unable to fully read your target language, I think it’s worth a shot, especially in the more-beginner stages of learning a language (not ACTUAL beginner because obviously you won’t understand anything that way, but I just mean that it’s not very effective to somebody who can already read a full novel in their target language for example)!

[@daysandwords]

Honestly a native English speaker in French will generally be fine, so yeah, French itself is an exception. Glad to hear it's going well for you!

[@helingunes955]

Changed my phone into French and it helped me :) I learned "modifier", "parametres" , "écran", "commentaires" etc. It's not that difficult since i know the language a bit, i passed A1. Would recommend beginer/intermediates if your target language is in latin. Chinese or arabic would be so much more difficult.

[@breakawayfromme]

Great video, thanks for the insight This is kind of random question but is that Noomi Rapace in the thumbnail?

[@daysandwords]

Not at all a random question, I'm glad someone finally asked. I was kind of trying to make a joke in the thumbnail that didn't really work because the photo isn't obvious enough as to who it is - the joke being that Lisbeth Salander is a cool hacker (and a Swedish one at that), and that with my PC set in English I'm like the loser on the left (stock photo) and with it set to Swedish I'm like Lisbeth Salander. Even though I could see that no one would "get it", I still thought it looked pretty cool because she looks in control whereas the guy on the left looks controlled by his phone. I needed a more iconic "girl with the dragon tattoo" pic, one with the spikey hair and dog collar thing, but she's never on her computer when dressed like that.

[@breakawayfromme]

@@daysandwords Ah sadly my brain didn't get that deep but I get it I love the millennium trilogy so anytime I see anything related it pleases me very much

[@graceverdon8835]

My favourite thing about changing my phone to french is if I google something/someone then I’ll get the bio google puts together from the french Wikipedia. Also a side benefit is if I want to know if a book has a french translation (which I found weirdly difficult to find out when my phone was still in English) I can just google the English title and it’ll come up with the french one. The only time I can remember it ever tripping me up was when someone asked me to check what was on in the cinemas and my film knowledge wasn’t strong enough to guess what the original titles were based on what they’re called in french lol

[@ceciliag2176]

I completely agree! I personally don't like this method, for me it is more annoying than helpful, though I get why people do it

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

Especially when you have a language like Chinese or Japanese where words have entirely new symbols, I never understood this method

[@arunraman6630]

@@FlowUrbanFlow It isn't too bad with Japanese as most things are in katakana. However, I can say from personal experience that with Chinese, it's absolute hell.

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

@@arunraman6630 Most things are in katakana? Maybe in manga, but most Japanese is kanji, followed by hiragana that modifies it. Katakana is only used for loan words and sound effects, which, while they are common especially today, don't do anything for the language. Hiragana does most of the grammar and kanji do most of the meanings.

[@arunraman6630]

@@FlowUrbanFlow I mean on the computer. I've set my computer and phone to japanese before.　For instance, the start menu on windows says スタート. Even on mac, the menu bar is mostly katakana: ファイル, etc. You don't need that much kanji either. I know about a 1000 and I can navigate just fine.

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

@@arunraman6630 Those happen to be too few words that are loan words. ファイル refers only to computer filing, and スタート is usually referred to a computer program or video game beginning. 始める/始まる and forms of them are frequently used in Japanese language everyday

[@ackoonsgaming]

I love the sudden Bane references

[@fuumaxkamui]

No matter what language you set your phone to, one of the first words you’ll quickly memorize is “cancel” 😅

[@maxbenson9982]

I only learned Spanish I'm high school for 6 years. Admittedly I was decent at the time, but I slowly forgot after time. After getting a job in a primarily Hispanic community, I had to keep speaking Spanish to talk to certain customers when my 1-3 coworkers weren't around to translate. I decided to swap my phone over to Spanish and I was using words at work that I picked up from my phone within a day in a half. I would say that this is an effective strategy

[@Josh-ie1yh]

I agree it is probably better to wait until your language proficiency is a high level before you really consider changing the language. I am still at a beginner level in French and really I did not understand I simply had memorised where my programmes were on my OS however if I had an issue where I could not understand a message there was a phase of panic where I hoped I could find the language settings to change it back! But certainly something to consider when I am more proficient. Also Lamont, do you use a PC/Mac with a keyboard with Swedish layout?

[@daysandwords]

Yep, PC keyboard set to Swedish - so the punctuation moves around a bit. The only two alt codes I've had to learn are $ and @ - the rest of the symbols I have found the positions of, and then of course i have ö, ä and å - but I also think that the apostrophe being up where the backslash key is on the US keyboard is quite handy, it's actually really nicely under the pinky (even though it's been placed there because Swedes don't use it).

[@Josh-ie1yh]

@@daysandwords That's interesting, I never realised that the Swedes don't use the apostrophe and assumed they did. I'm learning french and they've chosen to go in the opposite direction with apostrophe's, my laptop is on Linux so I used the Windows key as my hotkey to use for accents the only issues I have is pressing the letter and the accent at the correct moment or i get " `e " and also I have to go CAPS LOCK, win key, shift and then a well timed a and ^ in order to get a lower case â, much easier on my android phone of course. I see you have the Pimsleur courses in the background, I have been using it for two weeks would be interesting to see you do a review of what you thought of Pimsleur.

[@candacep1117]

It is a privilege to have these options. As a Persian learner, you don’t get this luxury... and it extends to so many other digital resources, too.

[@helingunes955]

It works best with latin alphabets. I made my phone french i also want to learn kurdish (turkeys kurdish its latin) due to my heritage but its not available

[@moymo6125]

I set my phone to Spanish and it’s become useful, I’m in college 2 days a week and do an hour on online a week so I have a lot of spare time to learn a new language... I think it’s useful if you have a lot time on your hands to look at the words and process then not jsut use your phone as normal

[@andreferrer9350]

Anyone that uses Bane scenes in their videos, get my like and respect! Also love Karppi

[@daysandwords]

Have you seen my Drops review that I only just uploaded? Go to about the 10 minute mark of that, I think you'll enjoy it. In fact, Bane is becoming a bit of a theme in my videos. Several references in "I studied a language for 57 hours in a week" too.

[@andreferrer9350]

@@daysandwords haha will certainly watch soon! First I am looking for videos pertaining to Spanish, don't know if you have those

[@SergeRychkov]

Have you read Karlsson på taket by Astrid Lindgren? It's super popular children book in Russia and last year I read it in German and had lots of fun.

[@daysandwords]

Nej, I will be reading Ronja Röverdotter (finally) a little later this year I think.

[@seasons8bit]

Really good video overall, I think the constant clips from movies in the first half was a bit off putting though, personally I think they should be used more moderately

[@daysandwords]

I am trying different things, but unfortunately, one does have to play the retention rates a little bit - and they are higher on this video (probably due to the clips).

[@lightvoid7089]

This is kind of racking my mind. Good video as always, but with this line of thinking, it's more optimal to just spend the time continuing to learn the language than watching the rest of this video.

[@daysandwords]

That is fair, and honestly a real struggle for me, which is why I rarely recommend more videos at the end of my videos (and even in this one jokingly).

[@rahuldeswal4894]

Excusez-moi, Lamont mais à mon avis ça devrait être la première étape ( changer de la langue de votre téléphone portable ). Est-ce que vous savez pourquoi je dis ça ? Laisser moi essayer de vous expliquer : Quand on change de la langue de notre téléphone portable ( Surtout "KZbin" ) petit à petit on commence à obtenir des suggestions plus relatives dans la langue cible ( Target Language ). Parceque KZbin c'est un outil intelligent qui suit tout ce que vous faites ( Je crois que vous déjà savez ça ). Par exemple : Quand j'ai changé mon portable en français j'ai commencé à obtenir des suggestions pour les chansons ou n'importe quoi en français. Et bien, j'espère que tout va bien chez vous. Encore une fois, je vous remercie pour tous que vous faites.

[@electricant55]

"well actually sometimes they're in hindi" As a software developer, this is my personal circle of hell

[@croiguette5165]

Quick note about the word fält and the English word Field, we actually use the exact same word for the fields in a form, or did I misunderstand you here?

[@ak5659]

This reminds me of years ago when I used Opera as my primary browser. This was back when it was an independent Norwegian product. I was online in the early morning hours before work which started at 7am. An update became available so I downloaded it and all was well. I did notice that I really had to stare at some of the words before they clicked in my head. I chalked it up to sleeep deprivation and ignored it. A month or so later a friend was using my computer and asked me why my browser was set to German! For the record the language was labelled (en) even though it clearly was (de). This is more retrospective, but I think it gives evidence that setting software to the target languahe does more good than harm, PROVIDED you're comfortable with it and use it without really thinking about it.

[@daysandwords]

Yeah it would have been FREAKIN'annoying if it was Ukrainian or something. I have heard of Chrome defaulting to Russian on a lot of Americans' computers, I never found out why though.

[@ak5659]

Days of French 'n' Swedish lol, my grandfather'd have had no mercy. He told me there were cousins who wrote in Polish using Cyrillic when he was younger. He always threatened to lay that on me. I never got bit with that though. Thank god.

[@Shay45]

What do you think of the RapMonster (BTS Member) of learning languages? His parents had him watch the tv show Friends a couple of times in his NLanguage then had him add NLanguage subtitles with TargetLanguage words then took off the NLanguage and added TLanguage subtitles.

[@samc7734]

Hi, I am learning French using Busuu and I have been spending at least 30 minutes on it daily for over few months. However, after all these months, I still cannot do the french R smoothly, especially when there are are multiple Rs within the same sentence. This problem significantly deteriorate my fluency/language fluidity. Can you please give me some advices? Thank You!.

[@richardhartung1576]

Tried the same with my phone, but then my "smart" home made a sync and suddenly everything was in chinese. It was a little bit too stressful for me, so i switched back (for now~) lovely greetings from germany

[@ByMagdaYT]

In my opinion if You have certain level of language and "daily" contact with it, it's really helpful to put the phone in the language you aim to learn, mostly if you use social media apps because there is stuff that You can use in daily life and also your phone will ask You to translate captions for the language your phone is so You can read it in the language You understand and than put the translate button and now you can enjoy it in the language you learn in. On the other hand I don't recommend changing language at computer unless you know it really good because if there is some problem/pop up window you may not be able to understand it and it may be important 🙈 but that's just my point of view - I have my computer in English (I'm polish) and phone in Italian as I live here 😌 Good luck everyone and have a nice day 💪🙌

[@r.m.l.5487]

This made me finally put Facebook and Instagram in Japanese. Turns out I can read way more than I thought and I just learned the word for 'advertisement' 😂

[@kcammo2344]

Have you heard of Fluenz or Speed Learning Languages? I'd be interested to know your thoughts on these programs

[@DanClapp]

Tried switching my phone for a while, but it wasn't as helpful as when I switched the time to 24hr in order to get used to it. Maybe I'll try it again when I'm further along.

[@calvreaugruesome3579]

Changed my phone language to French. Didn't know how to tell if I was improving by doing it. Also, I think I'm too hard on myself for not being fluent. What is fluency anyways..

[@aqsam9104]

Days of French 'n' Swedish I signed up to italki using your link but I’m not sure how to go about the $10 off to get a free lesson in the language I’d want to practice in.? I think it still requires me it make a payment to get the $10 off a lesson, I’m not sure I understand the “free” concept. Thank you very much.

[@yasma5781]

I've had my phone in english for so long time (I'm a native Portuguese speaker) that when i see it in Portuguese i feel really weird. When i see other people's phone in Portuguese i also feel weird lol I'm just used to devices in english When I was studying Spanish my phone was in spanish too but i couldn't stand it lol i felt like there was something wrong so I changed the settings to english. I don't feel like it's useful to have my phone in spanish anymore, cause i kind of gave up on this langauge.

[@tomate3391]

Well, at the end of the day, I think it doesn't matter. I only changed my Skype to Spanish, because it is easier to communicate when I know what my Spanish language partner sees. As I started to learn Spanish I, bravely as I was, changed my browser to Spanish, and tried to book flights with the pages in Spanish. Well, I came to the conclusion that it is too dangerous (e.g. I was often confused by _apellido_ and _nombre,_ and that should be right on your flight tickets ;) ) and switch back to English or German, my mother tongue. Nowaday I also can use the pages in Spanish (and I do), but I know already the most things. So, actually I am not learning something new, at least not that much.

[@xader9109]

What's the name of the movie in the background?

[@daysandwords]

You mean Burn After Reading? With Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand... in the gym? There's also The Dark Knight Rises but I assume you know about that.

[@franciscofuentes8916]

I remember trying to learn German. When I realized I didn't have the motivation I switched back BUT some apps never changed back to my native language or English and just assumed I was German and wanted that. It was annoying so just make sure you master that language's vocabulary already.

[@daysandwords]

I had that for French. It turns out that Firefox has "Languages" and then a tricky little hidden setting of "Preferences" which is like a hierarchy, and for AGES everything important was appearing in French and I couldn't work out why.

[@silk1440]

does anyone know any good swedish songs for people who are learning

[@daysandwords]

Goliat by Leila, or any of her Swedish songs.

[@silk1440]

@@daysandwords thanks :)

[@kallewangstedt]

Jag har en liten variant på det hela: på Mac och iOS så kan man rangordna språk. Det vill säga att jag har svenska först, sen tyska, danska, italienska och sist engelska. Då påverkas programmen så att finns inte en svensk översättning så används tyska, men finns heller inte tyska så används danska osv. Det innebär att jag byter ut enbart de program som ändå inte finns på svenska från engelska till något annat språk. Jag förstår att det blir ogörligt om man har engelska överst, men kanske det kan inspirera någon annan som inte har engelska som modersmål.

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

What if you're learning something like Chinese or Japanese where you can't read new words unless you know how they are pronounced?

[@michellesmirnova4471]

Tbh I think that, in cases of alphabets that are vastly different from your own (for an English speaker that would be most asian languages pretty much, and well vice-versa for Asians who don’t speak English I’d assume), it’s not very useful. Because, more likely than not, you won’t bother actually learning the words but you just get used to “how they look” if that makes sense. To me it seems like it would be more of a headache than anything. With these languages I think it seems pretty useless.

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

@@michellesmirnova4471 The main issue is that while Japanese has two alphabets, they're useless without kanji. Chinese is only kanji, so I assume that every word is practically a new lesson within itself.

[@daysandwords]

Yep, well, that's the thing. I think a lot of people think they'll just force themselves to learn it but in reality they might learn which buttons do which thing, or they'll end up hating Chinese/Japanese.

[@FlowUrbanFlow]

@@daysandwords Not hating your target language is a skill within itself

[@uniquechannelnames]

Do aussies pronounce analogous as anala-juss? I always pronounced it anala-guss

[@daysandwords]

I have been investigating this because someone else said I was pronouncing it incorrectly... but the thing is, I must have heard it pronounced that way, and to me it makes sense. But I think even among Aussies, I'm in the minority.

[@jasonjohnson6938]

No such thing as bad contact with the target language.

[@clintusa]

Back in the days of Microsoft Select we would get a box of Microsoft Office in every language under the sun so the boss will allow us to take any language as long as it was not one of the English languages. So years before I thought of learning Spanish, I installed Office in Spanish. Yes, I clicked on the blah-blah that I knew did a certain thing. The first time I saw Windows XP was entirely in Japanese - it took me 10 minutes to completely orient myself in Japanese- no pun intended. It is too easy just to ignore the opportunity to learn and you just hobble your ability in the environment.

[@Tchock00]

1:03 lol if there's one thing I learned from a my few months abroad in Sweden Swedes when they say anything else in English: (indistinguishable accent) Swedes when they say "Swedish" in English: SwVyÈëËdIsH

[@jan_Masewin]

Even better - play games in your target language where you see the names for a lot of different things. Once you’re used to it, you get a leg up on watching streamers who spend most of the time talking about the game.

[@japanrain7436]

I have my phone on japanese because it looks aesthetically pleasing to me

[@MrC0MPUT3R]

Jag har KZbin på svenska, men inte min dator.

[@SitahTaylorsversion]

I changed the language of my phone to Norwegian but each time I tried to type in my native language it kept changing words and it was just super annoying to write 😂

[@SprinkleMeNubCake]

If you have an android phone, you can add two languages to the keyboard and switch between them.

[@SitahTaylorsversion]

Timothy Gaines thankyou! (:

[@Flauschbally]

Oh boy. I tried this in Dutch and Croatian. It just drove me nuts. I watch all my movies without subtitles because I can’t find any in Croatian, that gives me the permission to have my phone in German 😂

[@daysandwords]

Yeah like I said, I don't think it's that helpful at lower levels. I would have thought that Dutch would be OK for you, but not Croatian? Like, it sounds like your Croation is OK but in such a far removed language, and you've only been studying for a year... It's still pretty early to switch your phone. I wish my phone had Swedish... it actually doesn't, although Google is in Swedish so that's about 1/4 of the things I see on my phone anyway.

[@run2fire]

Non-language question: Have marathons/half marathons resumed in Australia?

[@daysandwords]

What? I dunno haha, just Google it. I would doubt it.

[@learodrigues3108]

Instagram in English : AlCoHoL hElPs YoU tO sPeAk SwEdIsH? Instagram in Swedish : How about banning single use plastic? 🤣 But the video is very interesting indeed. Input should be comprehensible and useful to a certain extent to your own use of the language. I get much more from watching shows and listening to music in my target language then from my Dutch Google maps telling me to go links or recht.

[@wanderingdoc5075]

Doesn't really help for Traditional Mandarin for instance.. you see a bunch of words you don't know.. and you have no way of knowing how they are pronouced, so therefore you can't even look up their meaning.

[@Eruptor1000]

Bruh I've had my phone in French for the past 2 years. 0 trouble.

[@daysandwords]

With French it works fine because all these kinds of words are basically just an alternative English word, or the same word. French is at one end of the scale while Japanese/Chinese is at the other.

[@Eruptor1000]

@@daysandwords Yeah different alphabet wouldn't be logical when you literally just started.

[@daysandwords]

But even Swedish/German is further removed than French in this setting. Like "manage permissions" - in French must be something like "Diriger les permissions" or something, whereas in Swedish it's "hantera behörigheter", and the word "behörig" is pretty rare otherwise.

[@jboops6664]

excuse me, do you think it's acceptable not to upload a new video?

[@daysandwords]

Yes.

[@jboops6664]

@@daysandwords duolingo would never abandon us like this

[@chciken]

second time I heard you mispronounce "analogous"

[@daysandwords]

Ha. I also "mispronounce" the word "appreciate" (deliberately). "Analogous" is legal "penalise" - either way that you say it, it disagrees with one of its mates, "penal" or "penalty".