From https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/14phpbq/how_is_it_possible_that_roughly_50_of_americans/

Question above is pretty blunt but was doing a study for a college course and came across that stat. How is that possible? My high school sucked but I was well equipped even with that sub standard level of education for college. Obviously income is a thing but to think 1 out of 5 American adults is categorized as illiterate is…astounding. Now poor media literacy I get, but not this. Edit: this was from a department of education report from 2022. Just incase people are curious where that comes from. It does also specify as literate in English so maybe not as grim as I thought.

  • griffen62@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    That’s really impressive, I do wish I took learning another language more seriously when I was younger. Everyonce Ina while I try to dig back into it but lose motivation for one reason or another.

    What did you find to be the most helpful starting out?

    • FiftyShadesOfMyCow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      For a start, consume exclusively English (or whatever other language you might want to learn) media! Try to minimize consuming media in your native language and focus only on the language that you’d like to learn.

      English is one of the more beginner-friendly languages to learn and should be a breeze for you to master if you regularly consume English media, such as YouTube, TV-shows, books and, most importantly for me, games!

      Do this and you’ll significantly improve your English skills in a year to a few years. Happy studyin‘ ❤️🫘

      • griffen62@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Thanks for the pointers! For context, English is my only language, but the premise applied to other languages is the same, so thanks!

    • Linssiili@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      With English, finding the motivation is easy, since pretty much all media, be it movies or games, is in English. I learned the basics in school, but most of my vocabulary is from games.

      I have been thinking of learning fourth language, but it’s hard to find a good enough reason for it. Maybe I should just change games to appropriate language? At least it would improve replayability, since 90% of the plot would be missed.