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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
(I'm already downloading it)
― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:29 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
xp You will learn many duck-related German sentences ime
― JoeStork, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:32 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
in welsh i have discovered nothing about ducks but i have encountered a DRAGON (draig)
― mark s, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:38 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
pimsleur >> duolingo
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:39 (three years ago) link
well but Duolingo is free
― rob, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:44 (three years ago) link
honestly DL is more like a fun app that helps you read stuff in a foreign language
― rob, Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:45 (three years ago) link
huh 46% fluent
not bad I guess
― the Hannah Montana of the Korean War (DJP), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 19:45 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
Think last word should have been "validation."
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 November 2017 22:00 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
oh right that makes sense yes
― mark s, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 09:43 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
"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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
Tom, delete ILX all my bookmarks my autocorrect dictionary now!
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:15 (three years ago) link
Ah, that didn’t seem to work. I’m stymied.
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:16 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
I against I against I
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 10:27 (three years ago) link
(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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
Sut mae, Marc? Sut dych chi?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:13 (three years ago) link
Dych chi eisiau coffi?
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:17 (three years ago) link
Learning Dutch thru this atm and I like it.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:17 (three years ago) link
Hartelijk gefeliciteerd!
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 01:25 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
/too much time on Duolingo
― Bazooka Jobim (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 9 November 2017 02:50 (three years ago) link
"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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
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 (three years ago) link
I can recommend the ‘Human Japanese’ App for this.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Friday, 10 November 2017 20:29 (three years ago) link
Let me share my iTalki link
https://www.italki.com/i/DG6EeD
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Saturday, 2 January 2021 03:45 (two months ago) link
Ah, thanks, but I forgot about that and already signed up earlier.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 2 January 2021 03:54 (two months ago) link
I am assuming you are using it for Japanese. Do you have a teacher you like? Don’t feel like pursuing Japanese right now, but might change my mind. Can’t figure out how to follow you either, assuming you don’t mind me following you.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 3 January 2021 05:23 (one month ago) link
Hm, looks like I can follow someone through the posts on the community wall, but not otherwise.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 3 January 2021 05:30 (one month ago) link
I have a woman called aikiko based in Melbourne, she’s one of many young Japanese in Australia trying her best to dodge going home for ever. We mainly do conversation practice and read magazine articles, it works pretty well.
I’ve never posted anything on the community wall.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Sunday, 3 January 2021 07:53 (one month ago) link
Also trying to see the different ways to search for teachers, tried to find your teacher for example but couldn't.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 3 January 2021 18:27 (one month ago) link
Anyway, tried a lesson yesterday which was kind of interesting, tried to schedule another one for today, but that teacher didn't respond but yet another one did so we will see.
Okay I tried some more lessons. Think I found a really good guy for Hungarian who lives in South America thereby also teaching Spanish and is low-cost that I think I would recommend if someone is interested.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 00:33 (one month ago) link
A bunch of these people speak or teach multiple languages, so it is possible to do something like learn a new language and reinforce one you already know with the same person.
― Dog Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 00:34 (one month ago) link
I've never tried this. Only japanese.
All I can say though is everyone is crazy undercharging for the effort they put in.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 03:59 (one month ago) link
Yeah.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 04:02 (one month ago) link
Just compare it to what you would pay for, say, music lessons.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 6 January 2021 04:03 (one month ago) link
Ed, do you use the italki classroom? Or Skype? Or Zoom perhaps?
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 9 January 2021 20:44 (one month ago) link
Zoom typically, no teacher has ever been able to get the italki classroom to work.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Saturday, 9 January 2021 20:49 (one month ago) link
Ha, I think it worked for me once or twice but yeah.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 9 January 2021 20:54 (one month ago) link
How long of a lesson do you typically do?
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 9 January 2021 21:12 (one month ago) link
Normally an hour, sometimes I regret that as it’s scheduled after work and it can make for a long day.
I’m really using it for general conversation, and my fallback is to have some stuff to read together. Which can still be taxing, still not perfect with kanji.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Saturday, 9 January 2021 21:18 (one month ago) link
https://uusikielemme.fi/finnish-grammar/grammatical-cases/the-partitive-case-partitiivi
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 16 January 2021 03:30 (one month ago) link
Hey, so I just finished the Finnish tree.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 17 January 2021 18:25 (one month ago) link
cool! one run through? how many nodes are there?
I'm in the latter part of my third run through the French->Italian tree. still having more fun with French->German, but I have a lot more context for German in my work, so a lot of words & even grammar are like, oh yeah, people argue about how to translate that word into English from Kant.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 18 January 2021 13:06 (one month ago) link
34 nodes maybe. Think I will spend some time on this with Clozemaster next. I hear you about German.
― Next Time Might Be Hammer Time (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 January 2021 20:50 (one month ago) link
Wirklich!
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 18 January 2021 21:02 (one month ago) link
Just looked at Scottish Gaelic and there was a huge update which seems to have started rolling out in December.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 18 February 2021 03:35 (one week ago) link
There are a lot more languages with English than with French!
I'm on my fourth round through the French->Italian tree. It's getting routine. This is good, but not always much fun. But I am a devoted student.
I'm probably 1/3 through my first run through the French->German tree. It's very much not routine. But it's more enjoyable now than Italian, because every lesson is an a-ha! moment. It will become routine too I imagine.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Thursday, 18 February 2021 14:27 (one week ago) link
Do you guys have any Instagram pages you like to follow for languages?
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 16:05 (one week ago) link
My friend likes dw_deutschlernen for German.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 February 2021 16:07 (one week ago) link
I don't use instagram. I've ordered a German children's book, having asked a German friend for something her child enjoys, because right now that's a level of German I'm striving for. I read cooking sites in German (chefkoch.de) and Italian (lacucinaitaliana.it) because I like to cook.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 22 February 2021 16:53 (one week ago) link
Greek just got a major update.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 February 2021 03:32 (three days ago) link
I like Deutsche Welle too. Not instagram, just their website. They've got a little educational telenovela where every episode is just a few minutes long, and the News in Slow German is good as well. I should get back on learning German; I've really been letting it slide during the pandemic.
― Lily Dale, Saturday, 27 February 2021 03:57 (three days ago) link
Recent courses I just discovered: Esperanto from FrenchFrench from Dutch
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 February 2021 12:04 (three days ago) link
Greek course seems to be an improvement
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 February 2021 12:22 (three days ago) link
thanks for the Deutsche Welle reference !
― All cars are bad (Euler), Sunday, 28 February 2021 11:01 (two days ago) link
I follow a bunch of Japanese stuff on Instagram but it’s not language learning, it’s just content in Japanese that I’m interested in, it make me read.
― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Sunday, 28 February 2021 11:07 (two days ago) link
So the word “Mezzogiorno” came up on another thread. Do you know how to pronounce the “zz” in that word, Euler?
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 14:54 (yesterday) link
zz like in pizza no, with a bit of t ?
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 1 March 2021 15:29 (yesterday) link
btw I finished #1 in my Diamond division this week! first time I've finished #1 in any division, let alone the top division. I ended with just under 4500 points. Usually Diamond takes 6-8k points to win. I got a good draw this week. But I also had a more active week than usual for reasons independent of my ranking (had to stay up late with other people & grinding through this was a way to stay happy). Now I don't have to think about that again.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 1 March 2021 15:31 (yesterday) link
no, common mistake
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 15:41 (yesterday) link
more like a dz in this case
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 15:58 (yesterday) link
https://forvo.com/word/mezzogiorno/
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 16:30 (yesterday) link
ha, oh well. my Italian friends will correct me. already, one told me that I have to stop using a castellano accent for Italian.
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 1 March 2021 18:09 (yesterday) link
heh
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 18:14 (yesterday) link
Think I finished #1 in Diamond League twice so far but of course the only time that really mattered was the first. Believe I got relegated once but then it was impossible to stay relegated so I try to wait a little bit after the reset before hitting Duolingo directly- I do some other review instead- to avoid at least some of the crazies.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 18:35 (yesterday) link
I really wish the Words feature was better, have probably complained about it before.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 18:36 (yesterday) link
Like I wish it didn't list the super basic words I just practiced, only the harder ones, many of which seem to go missing. At this point I don't really need to know I just practiced the word for "a" or "the" or "no" or "and."
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 19:48 (yesterday) link
What is the words feature?
― All cars are bad (Euler), Monday, 1 March 2021 19:59 (yesterday) link
The ones that the lesson is actually about.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 19:59 (yesterday) link
Click on the three dots in the middle of the menu at the top of the webpage, to the left of the flag.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 20:00 (yesterday) link
Should sayEventsDictionaryWords
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 20:01 (yesterday) link
Think it’s more useful in the beginning, when you haven’t done too many lessons.
Probably better to just use the dictionary feature.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 1 March 2021 20:02 (yesterday) link