simpletailor [he/him]

Thank you!

Can you direct me to more information? I’d like to know more.

Allonormativity is what you’re talking about. Amatonormativity is the assumptions related to romantic attraction/relationships.

See Chen’s book Ace for a primer on asexuality https://www.angelachen.org/ace

If you haven’t already, start by communicating that you need more and different kinds of emotional support from your partner. They deserve a chance to develop this skill. If they’re not able or willing to meet your needs, you’re not a good fit. I learned this the hard way. But you deserve someone who can meet your emotional support needs.

As far as the other non-romantic relationships go, you don’t have to cut people off, but you should find other, more empathetic people to lean on. I have very close friends that I know will be there for me when I need emotional support. I also have other good friends who aren’t as good at it, and we get along just fine and bond over shared interests.

You are right insofar as rote memorization not being an ideal way to become a fluent language user, but “language acquisition model” is not a theoretical framework. Language Acquisition is a sub-field of linguistics.

“Comprehensible input” is an untestable hypothesis from the 1970s by a researcher named Krashen. Immersion methods are perfectly fine ways to acquire language–both grammar and vocabulary–but a massive benefit to already having a first language means that you can leverage your existing linguistic schemata (e.g., mappings for abstract concepts onto words, grammatical categories, etc.) to jumpstart your second language competencies.

With structured instruction and ample opportunities to practice speaking conversationally, a classroom learner can achieve the same level of conversational fluency as someone who learned the language immersively.

Further, a purely conversational course would not lead directly to improvement in the domains of reading and writing. There are some synergies, but these are separate skills that need to be targeted by specific pedagogic interventions. This is why children learning their first language still need to go to school to learn how to read, of course. And a major benefit of learning to read is then reading to learn.

The primary issue here is classroom time. Language instructors need to focus on a million different things. Here’s a no comprehensive list off the top of my head: the domains of reading, writing, speaking, and listening; compositional modality (e.g. presentational speech, colloquial speech, presentational writing, genre-specific conventions for persuasiveness/humor/storytelling/etc.); general vocabulary and grammar; specific vocabulary and grammar (e.g. for home/academic/professional/etc domains); social norms (again by domain); cultural literacy (again by domain); etc.

And then divide the instructor’s time by the number of students.

A learner needs to integrate within a speech community and continue practicing these skills within the appropriate contexts, or they atrophy. The foreign language context (i.e., the target language is not commonly spoken in daily life near the learner) is terrible at this, because it means that the learner does not have easy access to others with whom to practice and from whom to learn.

Tldr; use your other languages to help you speed up the baseline memorization and pattern recognition skills that are fundamental to contextual application, find a community, and do language with them.

My bona fides are a PhD in the subject and a decade of language teaching in US public schools and universities

Language acquisition research on a “critical period” for language learning is inconclusive. Neuroplasticity may make it easier for a child to acquire/differentiate specific linguistic information (e.g. sounds that exist in one but not both of the languages) but being socialized into a second language discourse community /also/ means that they’re getting far more time practicing the language.

That stood out to me too. If I’m thinking of the same Star Trek context you are, it was a character in Discovery whom we’re not supposed to like because

For those going on to grad school, they would need to submit official transcripts indicating they have been awarded their degrees.

Hi, I am a linguist who studies how people learn languages. Duolingo isn’t terrible, but there are better uses for your time.

Here are some reasons:

• it’s basically just flash cards + gamification. Not terrible for rote memorization, but it’s not the whole picture of learning a language.
• the sentences are decontextualized. Language is meant to be used in context, so ideally you want your language practice to happen within a conversation (or story–this is why I recommend the Duolingo Stories)
• the computer scientists who founded it didn’t know that language acquisition was a field of research, despite there being world-class scholars at the same institution.
• Duolingo employs some linguists now. Some launder the reputation of the company by publishing research (mostly A/B design UX research on how to retain users).
• Many Duo linguists work on the Duolingo English Test (meant to replace the exams universities use for international students), which means their research is centered around assessment practices. Not on its face a bad thing, but this influences the kind of research done.
• other Duo linguists oversee the revolving door of underpaid contractors who produce content for their lessons. The company is currently working on AI to replace these workers.
• Alphabet owns them

As others in this thread have pointed out, it’s also much better for Western languages with the Latin alphabet. Duo started with Spanish and French, and I’ve heard through contacts that work there, French is their archetypal/flagship course. The computer scientist-oriented solution for expanding to other languages is to assume typological similarity between languages, which means languages that are farther from French in grammar, writing system, etc. will all be contorted to fit the shape of their system.

My suggestions for anyone looking to learn a new language:

• practice rote memorization on your own, and prioritize communicating with others in authentic contexts.
• find a community of language learners to practice with. This can be formal classes or informal meetups, but keep each other accountable to using the language. You will all help each other improve.
• find a community of people who already speak the language. Practice with them as much as possible.
• focus as equally as possible on reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. These are all different skills that synergize with each other but don’t correlate 1:1 (i.e., being good at reading helps you get better at writing, but if you only practice reading, you aren’t automatically improving your writing)
• do not be afraid to make mistakes. It’s okay to use the wrong word, pronounce something weirdly, or use incorrect grammar. People make mistakes in their native languages all the time. You’ll learn from the mistakes and get better in the future. The most important thing is putting the time in. Automaticity comes from practicing.

I could literally go on for days. Happy to answer specific questions anyone has.

LLMs are okay if you already know the answer, because they don’t have a basis for truth or a bias for source; they prioritize frequency of co-occurrence of words in the training data. They can produce very convincing and completely made-up text, or propagate “common wisdom” that isn’t actually correct.

Using ChatGPT is pretty much the same as trusting one of the random AI-generated blogs poisoning the search results–which other people in this thread are complaining about the uselessness of.