Hold on, didn't realise you can study Dutch. Fantastisch. Moi, j'ai commencé à étudier la langue francaise. I can understand a lot but I'm uncomfortable with speaking.
― nathom, Sunday, 20 January 2019 18:41 (five years ago) link
One weird thing about the Dutch course, is that they seem to have recently introduced a female voice which clearly has more computer-generated artifact noise than the male one.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 January 2019 22:16 (five years ago) link
Please ignore first comma
Waarom weigert je om me te helpen?
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 20 January 2019 22:19 (five years ago) link
The worst computer voice I’ve come across on there is the one for Catalan.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 06:42 (five years ago) link
I can send you dutch sound files. However, my accent is rub: I'm from the West Flanders. Considered to be the worst sounding. Lol
― nathom, Monday, 21 January 2019 07:23 (five years ago) link
Also "waarom weiger je mij te helpen". If you put verb first, it is w/o the t. For example: je drinkt but drink je
― nathom, Monday, 21 January 2019 07:24 (five years ago) link
Thanks. Thought I got that sentence verbatim from Duo.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 07:35 (five years ago) link
“thought” or “though”? Again, it’s all about that extra t...
― breastcrawl, Monday, 21 January 2019 10:35 (five years ago) link
Lolt
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 12:36 (five years ago) link
:-)
― breastcrawl, Monday, 21 January 2019 12:52 (five years ago) link
Okay I found the original sentence- without the "t," thanks. Had to search within the Duo Discussion, Google search has deindexed almost everything but the Duo Dictionary. This one uses the listless vox generator I mentionedhttps://forum.duolingo.com/comment/28947790
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:24 (five years ago) link
"Waarom weiger je om me te helpen?"
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:30 (five years ago) link
She sounds like a scary bot.
Waarom weiger je om me te helpen James?
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:33 (five years ago) link
Ha, thanks!
Here is two year old discussion on Dutch voices: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/14870029/Is-it-possible-to-change-the-new-Dutch-voice-back-to-the-lady
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:37 (five years ago) link
(mine wasn't recorded w/a line-in mic btw, but in a noisy office space fyi)
A good voice makes all the difference in the world though. Why did they ditch the previous lady voice?
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:39 (five years ago) link
I'm not sure but I think maybe the lady voice on that sample is the previous one back in rotation.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:46 (five years ago) link
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/20701365https://www.textaloud.com/
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:49 (five years ago) link
The male Dutch voice I have been used to is clearly Ivona Ruben, as stated in the forum, not sure if this female voice is Lotte or not.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:52 (five years ago) link
Yes, just cut and pasted the new favorite example sentence and it is clearly her.
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:54 (five years ago) link
Here are some comments upon Ruben's arrival:https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/15611328https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/14870215https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/15388323
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 13:59 (five years ago) link
Eeek sometimes the french pronounciation seems muffled. I couldn't understand what she said. I got it wrong.
― nathom, Monday, 21 January 2019 16:25 (five years ago) link
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, January 20, 2019 10:42 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah i was doing the català for speakers of castellano a couple years ago and gave up because the voice clips were so bad
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 21 January 2019 17:44 (five years ago) link
Haven’t figured out where that voice comes from yet but I see that sometimes they use a TTS (Text To Speech), such as IVONA for Dutch and Welsh, sometimes HTS (Hidden-Markov-Model? To Speech), such as for Irish, and sometimes just a human voice: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/8859682/Uncover-the-secret-of-the-Esperanto-voice
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 18:26 (five years ago) link
Okay, Ruben is back on my Dutch course. Wat ruikt er zo lekker?
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 20:24 (five years ago) link
Wie wil er een potlood?
― Spirit of the Voice of the Beehive (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 January 2019 20:25 (five years ago) link
My kid is now doing duolingo too. Il y aura compétition entre nous deux. Elle gagnera, j'en suis sûr.
― nathom, Monday, 21 January 2019 21:48 (five years ago) link
Probeerde je mij iets met jouw dans te vertellen?
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 January 2019 04:00 (five years ago) link
I think it accepted that, although it’s preferred answer seems to be:Probeerde je mij iets te vertellen met jouw dans?
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 January 2019 04:01 (five years ago) link
The first sentence is in the “correct” hierarchical word order, and sounds slightly stilted, the second one is more conversational.tbh, that stiltedness also stems from the needlessly emphatic “jouw” where “je” would have been preferable (in both sentences).
― breastcrawl, Thursday, 24 January 2019 09:07 (five years ago) link
Urgh I even have a problem with word order in dutch and it's my first language! And I really need to say gewoonte (habit) instead of gewente which is RONG (and dialect). Wonder if they use dutch pronounciation in duolingo (as opposed to flemish, which sounds much softer). I'm at ten days now. Getting progressively harder. But j'aime apprendre le francais. C'est pour utiliser dans ma profession.
― nathom, Thursday, 24 January 2019 10:10 (five years ago) link
Thanks. Yeah, seems like the first word order is more, um, Germanic.
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 January 2019 11:57 (five years ago) link
Actually just found this in German grammar book
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES sometimes follow the verbal bracket, especially in colloquial speech.
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 January 2019 12:06 (five years ago) link
So same thing, I guess
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 24 January 2019 12:07 (five years ago) link
I’m learning Japanese, which is unsurprisingly hard though I’m making progress! I’m actually grateful for the repetition so I can get the sounds and characters down.
I also have Irish, but more to improve on what I already have? The Irish woman on there is from Donegal though and her spoken Irish throws me :(
― gyac, Thursday, 24 January 2019 12:37 (five years ago) link
Does it have kana and kanji??? Jealous. Nihongo wa muzukashii deshoo neeee
― nathom, Thursday, 24 January 2019 13:08 (five years ago) link
Not sure yet but assume so. Think they start you with hiragana so you can understand the importance of syllables.
― gyac, Thursday, 24 January 2019 13:12 (five years ago) link
Can you switch between languages? Want to brush up my japanese too.
― nathom, Thursday, 24 January 2019 13:18 (five years ago) link
You definitely can - have three I switch between.
― gyac, Thursday, 24 January 2019 13:26 (five years ago) link
Hurrah. Nihongo benkyo shimasu!
― nathom, Thursday, 24 January 2019 13:43 (five years ago) link
Ganbatte kudasai! (That's 50% of my Japanese knowledge right there, so any excuse to post it)
Is the Irish course Donegal dialect content-wise or is it just the audio accent? Someone complained in the comments that it sounded like an English person speaking Irish and I wasn't sure if that should bother me, as an English person hoping to... well, not speak Irish so much as look at Irish words and make a decent guess at pronunciation. I wish there were audio clips for more of the words.
(I also wish Duolingo had more guidance about accents and regional variations in general. If I learn Portuguese via the Duolingo course with a Brazilian flag on, would I then sound weird in Portugal? And so on.)
I don't seem to get on very well with learning whole new languages on DL, though. I've abandoned about 5 of them. Still plodding away at German, and I think it's good-ish practice for genders and word order and maybe vocab too, but not sure how much I'm actually learning.
― a passing spacecadet, Thursday, 24 January 2019 14:03 (five years ago) link
Other people have complained about the Irish content previously not accepting other ways of writing things, so I’m unsure. I’m not sure about how they teach it because sometimes they ask you to write something and I know that writing this word will now have a h as opposed to the standard spelling, but then you’ll get it wrong if you’re a beginner because you don’t know that.
― gyac, Thursday, 24 January 2019 14:08 (five years ago) link
Arigato!
― nathom, Thursday, 24 January 2019 14:09 (five years ago) link
De hoeveelste is het vandaag?
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 January 2019 12:49 (five years ago) link
De vijfentwintigste. Waarom vraag je?
― nathom, Friday, 25 January 2019 13:54 (five years ago) link
Because I just learned the word “hoeveelste.”
― The Life-Changing Magic of “Tighten Up” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 January 2019 18:31 (five years ago) link
I love that word! Wonder how you pronounce it. I lost my ten day streak due to being sick. J'avais mal à la tête. Atama itai da yoooo
― nathom, Sunday, 27 January 2019 09:57 (five years ago) link
Dommage!Some Dutch things I recently came across that I found interesting or amusing, not through Duolingo:The wordspaalwoning and maggiblokje®The word order in the sentence Ik ben de stad in gefietst.Interesting French locution I just came across in Le Petit Robert: Inconnu au bataillon
― Only a Factory URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 27 January 2019 16:03 (five years ago) link
Another fun Dutch word:Pinksteren
― Only a Factory URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 27 January 2019 16:51 (five years ago) link
Duolingo is a bad place to start learning Japanese and I don’t think the course is very much cop. LingoDeer isn’t a bad place to start though. You need more explanation of the mechanics of the language and LingoDeer has that. There are however a bunch of tools that are way worse than Duolingo; tools that try to shoehorn Japanese into a European language template - so bad.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Monday, 28 January 2019 00:59 (five years ago) link