LW - How to be an amateur polyglot by arisAlexis

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How to be an amateur polyglot, published by arisAlexis on May 10, 2024 on LessWrong.
Setting the stage
Being a polyglot is a problem of definition first. Who can be described as a polyglot? At what level do you actually "speak" the given language? Some sources cite that polyglot means speaking more than 4 languages, others 6. My take is it doesn't matter. I am more interested in the definition of when you speak the language. If you can greet and order a coffee in 20 languages do you actually speak them? I don't think so.
Do you need to present a scientific document or write a newspaper worthy article to be considered? That's too much. I think the best definition would be that you can go out with a group of native speakers, understand what they are saying and participate in the discussion that would range from everyday stuff to maybe work related stuff and not switching too often to English nor using google translate. It's ok to pause and maybe ask for a specific word or ask the group if your message got across.
This is what I am aiming for when I study a specific language.
Why learn a foreign language when soon we will have AI auto-translate from our glasses and other wearables? This is a valid question for work related purposes but socially it's not. You can never be interacting with glasses talking in another language while having dinner with friends nor at a date for example. The small things that make you part of the culture are hidden in the language. The respect and the motivation to blend in is irreplaceable.
For reference here are the languages I speak at approximate levels:
Greek - native
English - proficient (C2)
Spanish - high level (C1) active learning
French - medium level (B2) active learning
Italian - coffee+ level (B1) active learning
Dutch - survival level (A2) in hibernation
Get started
Firstly, I think the first foreign language you learn could be taught in a formal way with an experienced teacher. That will teach you the way to structure your thought process and learn how to learn efficiently. It's common in Europe and non-English speaking countries to learn a second language at school. This guide is not about how to learn formally though. It's about how to take up new foreign languages without a *permanent teacher (I will expand later).
One of the most important things when learning a language is motivation. You either love the culture, the language itself (how it sounds and reads), a loved one or you are moving there or doing a long term stay. If you hate the language, it is mandatory that you learn it but you'd rather not then none of this will work. I found that to be the case with Dutch where while I did like the culture, I found the language pretty bad sounding (almost ridiculous hhh-hhh sounds) - sorry if you are Dutch.
That resulted in me learning the minimum in 7 years while I picked up Italian in a summer. Now that you found your calling let's proceed.
Methods & Tools
I wholeheartedly recommend Memrise as an app for learning. It's vastly better than Duolingo and much less repetitive and boring. It reminds you of words you have forgotten at regular intervals utilizing the spaced repetition learning techniques. It's much more focused in everyday interactions and their unique selling point is videos of random people. It's genius that they are asking native speakers on the street to pronounce words and phrases for you.
Having a visual reference makes it much more engaging and sticks. In my experience, trying to learn a new word takes maybe 10 fictional time units and if I am in a real conversation and someone corrects me, it takes just that time and I will forever remember the face of the person correcting me and the place. In a smaller degree that's how memrise works. But we need to be a bit more structured. After learning everyday phrases ...