i am learning welsh obviously (plus brushing up french)
the welsh is going badly -- french is telling me i am 24% fluent, which is a fib imo
― mark s, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:23 (five months ago) Permalink
should I install this and see how bad my German has become, y/n
― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:28 (five months ago) Permalink
(I'm already downloading it)
― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:29 (five months ago) Permalink
Duolingo is a great way to absorb language basics and grammar rules, but once you have that stuff down and are in the mode of adding vocabulary I found it kind of inefficient.
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:29 (five months ago) Permalink
xp You will learn many duck-related German sentences ime
― JoeStork, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:32 (five months ago) Permalink
i have been surprised how much french i still know in terms of vocab: my grammar was and is terrible
― mark s, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:33 (five months ago) Permalink
polyphonic otm, I finished the French tree and have never gone back, currently use Memrise (and used Lingvist until I ran out of words) to build vocab
― rob, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:35 (five months ago) Permalink
in welsh i have discovered nothing about ducks but i have encountered a DRAGON (draig)
― mark s, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:38 (five months ago) Permalink
I completed the Japanese Duolingo and it is good for absorbing things by wrote but I grew frustrated with never having any of the grammar explained to me. It’s provided a good base.
There’s some more discussion of Duolingo
Do You Speak A Second Language? 日本語は話せます 🇯🇵
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:39 (five months ago) Permalink
pimsleur >> duolingo
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:39 (five months ago) Permalink
well but Duolingo is free
― rob, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:44 (five months ago) Permalink
honestly DL is more like a fun app that helps you read stuff in a foreign language
― rob, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:45 (five months ago) Permalink
huh 46% fluent
not bad I guess
― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:45 (five months ago) Permalink
Was going to say, however tell me more about why pimsleur is good? Everything else I have been trying has been lower cost but really falls down on getting me to speak. I’d pay for some live interaction.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:51 (five months ago) Permalink
I used to be fluent in Portuguese but haven't used in 20 years - wonder if this could get me back on my bullshit.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 20:27 (five months ago) Permalink
Duolingo fluency shield suffers from grade inflation especially when you are progressing through, say, the first third of the course or have just taken the placement test. At some points if starts to drop off and decay and you may regret giving into your ex-clever schoolboy’s craving for this particular form of external gratification.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 21:49 (five months ago) Permalink
Think last word should have been "validation."
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 22:00 (five months ago) Permalink
whenever i type "nos lau" (thursday night) it tells me i have a typo and that the correct spelling is "nos lau"
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 09:20 (five months ago) Permalink
Did you type a lower case “el” (wrong) or a capital “eye” (correct)?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 09:42 (five months ago) Permalink
oh right that makes sense yes
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 09:43 (five months ago) Permalink
That was really it? Some of the answers in some of the courses are messed up so that it will tell you about an alternate answer or typo which seems to be dependent on some punctuation, or even some other “invisible punctuation.” There seem to even be cases where it is supposed to accept some letters from say, a standard English alphabet, without certain diacritical and just tell you to “mind the accents” but it gets into some looking glass world where it doesn’t accept the correct foreign alphabet letter. Feel like I️ saw this happen in Turkish, with the non-dotted i, the ı.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 09:56 (five months ago) Permalink
i haven't gone back in and checked but yes, it's quite likely tha:, since i realised when i read yr post that i was listening to DL's pronunciation of Iau and thinking "wow the initial i sound in front of those vowels is really like an L isn't it?" -- based on assuming my grasp of welsh pronunciation is actually worse than it is
(the pronunciation i learnt as a kid IS different to the version they're using: spoken welsh has surprisingly strong regional variation: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/13474058/Dialects-much-more-than-a-simple-north-south-divide)
(but it's not really the consonants that vary)
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:04 (five months ago) Permalink
Ah, some weird keyboard autocorrect is now putting something strange when I type the letter capital “eye” I.Speaking of which, at some point iOS seems to have added a Welsh keyboard, which may um, assist you in your answers.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:04 (five months ago) Permalink
"wow the initial i sound in front of those vowels is really like an L isn't it?"
or maybe the other way round, anyway i was struck by how different their pronunciation was than mine would be -- which is because i was misreading the letter
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:06 (five months ago) Permalink
Sometimes wonder if the Welsh as taught is just some sort of approximation standard that is in fact spoken by no one at all, like Bokmål/Nynorsk, I️ think.How is your pronunciation of the letter double el?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:12 (five months ago) Permalink
Ach, still the weird “ego problem” or “ego trip” with the capital eye. Think I️ need to delete my autocorrect dictionary.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:13 (five months ago) Permalink
Tom, delete ILX all my bookmarks my autocorrect dictionary now!
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:15 (five months ago) Permalink
Ah, that didn’t seem to work. I’m stymied.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:16 (five months ago) Permalink
my double ll pronunciation is p good i think! the nearest large town to where we went on family holidays when i was a kid is machynlleth and i know how ppl who live in it say it
this was before welsh was actually taught in schools -- indeed, it was actively discouraged in schools back then, and i know someone who was made to leave school at 16 because he preferred to speak welsh (as did his entire family, of hill farmers)
(he became a mechanic and a builder, and is now very comfortably off and owns half the town)
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:18 (five months ago) Permalink
Ah. I have never been in the presence of a Welsh speaker as far as I know, apart from John Cale at an instore.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:25 (five months ago) Permalink
I against I against I
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:27 (five months ago) Permalink
(Had to chose the *RONG* spelling for each of those eyes to get the correct one)Seems to me the pronunciation of Welsh, especially the “ll,” involves a lot more spittle than, say, English.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:30 (five months ago) Permalink
At one point I was having some problems with the days of the week with when to put the word for day in there, such as “dydd Iau.” Seem to have sorted it, can’t remember what the problem really was.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:39 (five months ago) Permalink
The other thing to remember of course about the “i” is that the word for Thursday starts with j for Jupiter-or Jove! do u see?! in most Romance languages.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:47 (five months ago) Permalink
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/14295031/Dydd-Mercher-a-Dydd-Iau
yes i haven't worked out when not to use Dydd yet!
(tho i also haven't yet been marked wrong on either, and have been assuming -- perhaps wrongly -- that they are effectively interchangeable, at least in this limited context)
ooh handy steer on the root of the day names, i'd spotted they were "a bit like French" but hadn't taken it any further
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:50 (five months ago) Permalink
To throw a spanner in your welsh works - Memrise has a course in Belter Cant.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 11:01 (five months ago) Permalink
Sut mae, Marc? Sut dych chi?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:13 (five months ago) Permalink
Dych chi eisiau coffi?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:17 (five months ago) Permalink
Learning Dutch thru this atm and I like it.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:17 (five months ago) Permalink
Hartelijk gefeliciteerd!
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:25 (five months ago) Permalink
Both the Dutch and Welsh courses have been spruced up in the past few months, so you guys are on the cutting edge.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:27 (five months ago) Permalink
/too much time on Duolingo
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 02:50 (five months ago) Permalink
"The grapheme k was also used more commonly than in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.[3] The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of William Morgan's Welsh Bible, whose English printers, with type letter frequencies set for English and Latin, did not have enough k letters in their type cases to spell every /k/ sound as k, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth";[5] this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage."
"why doesn't welsh have the letter k?""we ran out that one time and never restocked"
― mark s, Thursday, 9 November 2017 09:46 (five months ago) Permalink
grrrr i am just as bad now at grammatical gender in french as i was aged 13: le cheval but la souris whyyyyyyyyyyyy pourquooooooiii
― mark s, Friday, 10 November 2017 11:06 (five months ago) Permalink
some rules and patterns here (but of course no clue why le cheval but la souris): http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/le_or_la_in_french.shtml
― mark s, Friday, 10 November 2017 11:07 (five months ago) Permalink
my devoted year+ on duolingo french got me enough of the basics that I was able to get a civil servant job in France where I speak French full time. it helped that I was living in France most of that time and that I'd already spent a lot of time reading french (or trying to, with much dictionary use) and that I already spoke Spanish pretty well (son of a native speaker but didn't grow up speaking it, only learned it in school). so I am yay duolingo!
I spent some time on the japanese tree earlier this year as I learn that language next but I'm going to need more than just duolingo to do it because I don't have a great sense of the grammar whereas learning a second romance language, I already grokked the main structures, what I really needed was enough confidence in applying those structures to go ahead and speak it irl.
although I think the japanese accent is easier than the french accent, so duolingo may be ok in that regard (japanese mostly sounds like it looks, unlike french)
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 10 November 2017 15:55 (five months ago) Permalink
I'm doing German which I'm already sorta conversational in as my Dad is from there. I wasn't raised speaking it though and what I do know is only what I've picked up listening to him speak with friends and relatives and the times that I've spent there. I'm really enjoying it so far though and am excited to improve :).
― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Friday, 10 November 2017 16:03 (five months ago) Permalink
i just discovered the chats-with-bots feature (after several days of just ignoring the you-have-mail signal): i like that it goes "excellent response!" after what is (in another, more accurate sense) a pretty basic not-actually-rude response
― mark s, Friday, 10 November 2017 16:14 (five months ago) Permalink
I can recommend the ‘Human Japanese’ App for this.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Friday, 10 November 2017 20:29 (five months ago) Permalink
lol i "took a break" before xmas and have not yet got back on con ngựa as they say in vietnam
― mark s, Wednesday, 27 December 2017 16:18 (three months ago) Permalink
Just made up a bad bilingual joke and am feeling compelled to post it here.
― Steely Rodin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 29 December 2017 01:12 (three months ago) Permalink
Doesn’t quite work though, so never mind, I guess
― Steely Rodin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 29 December 2017 01:17 (three months ago) Permalink
Okay, it was something to do with someone offering Steve Martin chocolate covered ants in Paris and Steve raising his hands and saying “Fourmis”?
― Dr. Winston ‘Merritone’ Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 31 December 2017 20:32 (three months ago) Permalink
« Fourmis? »
Almanca dilinde artık %35 oranında akacılığa ulaştın!
― Dr. Winston ‘Merritone’ Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 31 December 2017 20:35 (three months ago) Permalink
I am augmenting my Duolingo practice of Swedish in two ways in 2018:
- signing up for MHz Choice, an Amazon Prime channel that offers tons of international TV shows with English subtitles for $7.99/month; they have tons of Swedish crime shows- reading Swedish crime novels with a dictionary close at hand; I've been able to find cheap paperbacks on eBay
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 1 January 2018 15:56 (three months ago) Permalink
Cool. Maybe you should start standalone thread for that. But maybe not
― The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Blecch (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 January 2018 16:52 (three months ago) Permalink
Anyone else still doing this? Also, what’s with the crowns?
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 6 April 2018 16:56 (two weeks ago) Permalink
I'm not doing it at present. My wife's been doing German though. I'll ask her about the crowns.
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 6 April 2018 17:32 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Oh I see
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 6 April 2018 17:48 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Yep, still using it. Currently on a 590 day streak and have finished both English to Spanish and Spanish to English courses. It bores me, but I can't stop now!
Sí, todavía lo estoy usando. Actualmente tengo una racha de 590 días y he terminado el curso de inglés a español y tambien el curso de español a inglés. ¡Me aburre pero no puedo parar ahora!
― brain (krakow), Friday, 6 April 2018 18:42 (two weeks ago) Permalink
so close!
"también"
― F# A# (∞), Friday, 6 April 2018 18:46 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Okay, I see the purpose of the crowns is to add more material, but with its implementation two useful features seem to go missing from the iPhone app:1) when simply reviewing, it doesn’t tell you anymore what skills you have improved2) When clicking on a skill it no longer gives you the list of weak words
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 6 April 2018 23:15 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Wow, randomly checking in German I see that one of these Crown levels has 30 lessons.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 00:03 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Abs. Obs. 4, Level 3
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 00:05 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Are these actually new questions or is this just a different way of counting the same old questions, I wonder
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 00:11 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Perhaps this new format will inspire me to finish the last ten leaves of my Turkish tree
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 00:42 (two weeks ago) Permalink
¡Gracias ∞! Normalmente no recuerdo los acentos perfectamente, necesito practicarlos más.
― brain (krakow), Saturday, 7 April 2018 11:03 (two weeks ago) Permalink
I got the Crowns feature a couple of days ago and it looks like it could be just what I was needing to keep going on Duolingo after finishing both forward and reverse trees. Will see how it goes as I switch to revisiting the Spanish tree for the first time since starting and finishing the reverse.
― brain (krakow), Saturday, 7 April 2018 18:08 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Was wondering about that myself for trees I had long ago completed and left, asking myself whether the crowns just a way of putting a positive spin on the similar old process of keeping the tree gold. Perhaps that little semantic shift is enough to motivate. Seems like at least they finally got rid of the funny Fluency percentage.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 20:36 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Three leaves to go in Turkish
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 20:58 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Slowing down, perhaps due to some Zeno’s paradox effect.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 21:38 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Wonder if I will be able to say Zeno’s Paradox in Turkish when I reach the end.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 21:39 (two weeks ago) Permalink
I will be able to say “owl” though, if not “golden owl.”
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 21:45 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Oh good. This might be what I need to go back and redo all of French and Spanish again. The big crown on the right is how many lessons you have done in total?
― Yerac, Saturday, 7 April 2018 21:48 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Something like that. Each leaf goes up to five crowns, afaict
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 21:57 (two weeks ago) Permalink
I went into one leaf of German and pushed onto level 5. Didn’t really see much new material, I have to admit.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:05 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Still wondering how it will let you know when you need to review
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:21 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Unless you have five crowns, that is
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:22 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Got up to level five in the first 5 categories on the Spanish tree. It seems like there are a couple new words but not really much added content, especially considering how many exercises you have to complete to get to level 5. So far the best part is that as you level up the voices speak faster.
― Fetchboy, Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:25 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Ah, haven’t noticed that.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:28 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Or did I?
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:48 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Two Turkish leaves left
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 April 2018 22:53 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Altın baykuş var
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 April 2018 00:23 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Now to forge ahead on the Turkish to EnglishGerman tree
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 April 2018 17:31 (two weeks ago) Permalink
I'm at no more than level 3 anywhere on my Swedish tree, even for levels where I'm shown as having passed milestones. So I'm starting over at the beginning, basically.
― grawlix (unperson), Sunday, 8 April 2018 17:50 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Three seems to be a default inherited high level, wouldn’t necessarily call it “(just like) starting over.”This release seems to have fix some annoying problems with offline progress being lost. *Fingers crossed* that this is indeed the case.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 April 2018 21:45 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Also what do you mean by “levels where I'm shown as having passed milestones”?
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 April 2018 21:46 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Peeked at my French tree, which I haven’t looked at in ages. Seems like there was recently a lot of modification, for some leaves I don’t even have level 0 completed now. Sill have La chouette d’or at the bottom though
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 April 2018 02:55 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Oh but I completed two lessons and it sent me right to Level 2
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 April 2018 03:00 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Seems to be a new leaf called Gallicism
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 April 2018 03:05 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Okay, one more thing. On most trees, for those lessons I had placed out of I was assigned three crowns, whereas for other lessons I had to work at one by one I got one or two crowns.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 April 2018 03:46 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Some explanation of these kind of things here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/26739837 in particular....
"We went one step further and actually used how many times you’ve seen the words in a skill and how many times you got those words right to determine whether to place you at Level 1, 2, or 3. Since levels get harder as you go up, we didn’t feel comfortable placing anyone at Level 4 or 5, since the old system didn’t give hard enough exercises to place into these levels. Of course, if you already know the language very well, this may not be the right level. But, it is still more challenging than what was offered before."
― brain (krakow), Monday, 9 April 2018 08:09 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Thanks. Had seen that but needed go reread more carefully. Interesting that that spaced repetition, which seemed to be the shibboleth, or perhaps the backbone of this and other systems, has now been pushed way into the background. In my experience, it works great until it doesn’t, so that’s okay I guess.
― Rudy’s Mood For Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 April 2018 10:35 (two weeks ago) Permalink
the french tree got completely made over about a week before the crown system took effect
― maura, Monday, 9 April 2018 13:46 (two weeks ago) Permalink
Thanks, maura.
This Dutch continuous tense is interesting .
― Made in the Shadow Blaster (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 13 April 2018 02:27 (one week ago) Permalink
moved to Portugal in late September and have been doing my best to learn Portuguese:
- Completed all the Duolingo courses (didn't reach 100%, but it seemed to me I finished the game)- Had private classes, 10 lessons, 60 minutes each- Read all the Harry Potter books in Portuguese (as ebooks on my phone, easy to look up words using Linguee)- Spoke a lot of Portuguese with new friends
Where am I now? I am able to read a novel, currently reading "My Brilliant Friend" in Portuguese and I can follow the plot, although there are of course many words I am unfamiliar with.
There's a big difference between reading and verbal communication though. Yesterday went to a restaurant to celebrate a friend's birthday, conversation was all in (Brazilian) Portuguese and if I was to put a number on how much I was able to follow, I dunno, I'd probably say somewhere around 75%. I understand what they're talking about, most of the time also what they're saying, but the details often escape me - especially if I don't pay close attention (and I find it surprisingly easy to zone out when listening to a foreign language). And I still feel quite limited in my powers of expression, telling stories is a big challenge.
All in all, ~6 months in I feel I'm doing pretty well. I did not know any Portuguese going in, but I've always been good at learning languages and I had a good grasp of Spanish and French before attempting Portuguese (similar grammar, lots of similar words). I hope to reach fluency within a year, but let's see how it goes. Learning a new language is truly difficult and any ad/book/course that promises to teach you a foreign language in a month is an obvious scam.
― niels, Friday, 13 April 2018 06:56 (one week ago) Permalink
Yup
― Made in the Shadow Blaster (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 13 April 2018 10:58 (one week ago) Permalink
Yeah it’s a journey
― droit au butt (Euler), Friday, 13 April 2018 11:57 (one week ago) Permalink