itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

So Vietnamese has six tones, like Cantonese.

high tone, falling tone, rising tone, dip, neutral - what's the 6th? (i knew some mandarin, back in the day)

Good question. I don’t know enough, well I don’t know anything, to know what they are called. Think Mandarin has four tones.

One of the very first lessons discusses the six tones, namely the second lesson: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/vi/Alphabet-1/tips-and-notes

The Glossika guy is an old hand at Asian languages and has a big overview of tones that I can't understand - yet!
https://ai.glossika.com/blog/introduction-to-tones-in-asian-languages

Are you using Telex to type or something else?

ICYMI: http://spanishlinguist.us/2013/07/a-lovely-thought-about-language-learning/

Bạn là người đàn ông

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/32322904/La-tortuga-azul-est%C3%A1-en-la-cuna

Trying to learn Italian so tested out a bunch of apps. Downloaded full versions of Duolingo, Memrise, and Buusu.
Duolingo is the most like playing a game, but it's too easy. Too much multiple choice, and not enough explanations of grammar, syntax, etc. I guess it's a little better to use the website version but that's inconvenient.
Memrise is cool for having the video clips of native speakers for most words and phrases. Doesn't hurt that some of the Italian women are molto bella.
But Buusu is the best. It's more like a traditional course, which, along with the name, keeps it from being as popular as other apps, I think. Not perfect by any means, so that's why I'm supplementing with the other 2. Plus a podcast, a workbook, and a book of short stories for beginners.

thanks for the quick reviews! i'm about a month into Duolingo, and although I know it's not the highest quality instruction, it's really integrating well into my life, as a daily habit. it's a bit embarrassing but i kind of need something to be gamified for me, to keep track of my scores, to put me in a pseudo "league" with others. i really do care about keeping my practice streak up, and about finishing in the top 5, so it's good for me!

but i really want to check out those other two. buusu in particular seems like it would be a good supplement (or even the main thing, with duolingo gaming as the supplement). hope one or both has vietnamese!

Unfortunately they do not :(

A thing that made me go "wow I'm living in the future" is Google Translate's feature where you point your phone's camera at something and it quickly superimposes a translation, in the same font as the original text and everything. Vietnamese is an available language with that. I've been watching Italian cooking youtubes which have English subtitles, trying to follow along whole checking the subtitles as infrequently as possible. Then use that Google translate feature to check my translations of some comments. Obv you'd need to use a laptop or tablet in addition to a phone.

memrise sort of has vietnamese! it's not one of the officially supported ones, though.

i'll have to check out that google translate thing. i had no idea, and yes that does sound futuristic.

Another neat thing in Buusu is native speakers will grade your little exercises at the end of some lessons and give feedback. Such as "describe what you're doing today", either in writing or speaking. You can return the favor and grade people learning English. The inner English teacher in me enjoys it. Cool to help random people on the other side of the planet learn your language.

Euler, are you still doing the Italian/French Connection? I just went back to that to finish off the week and learned a common locution between the two languages for an April Fool.

I am! I have been in diamond league for two weeks now. I'm never going to be near the top, because my 700-1000xp doesn't hack it, but I should avoid relegation; thus, the league aspect is practically over for me.

I'm in the final set of lessons now, past the last tower or whatever; it's the biggest sections and I'm doing the imparfait & it's gotten much harder for me.

May I ask what if anything in particular makes it so difficult?

Actually I am at the exact same point in that tree, although I already finished that particular lesson and am onto the next two.

I guess any kind of past tense is always where it gets interesting.

It's not really the imparfait that's difficult, it's that the sentence structures have gotten harder, and I keep messing things up with word orders that I'm not sure are even wrong. Like I can write "nouveau" before or after a word as a modifier. It can change the meaning a little but c'mon, duolingo shouldn't be *that* sensitive. Basically I just keep messing up little things but ON IPAD it's annoying because I have limited stars & I end up "playing" less than I want to, because I don't (yet) want to pay.

Ah yes, sentence structure and word order issues, know exactly what you are talking about. You can always complain and maybe they will (eventually) accept your answer, but doesn't really help in the short run.

Yes, though sometimes I'm in the wrong. But I found it annoying yesterday when I had to translate "bambina" and I just gave "enfant" and it wanted "petite fille" and that's not a good translation, since "petite fille" generally means "granddaughter" and not just "little girl". Bleh.

I’ve gotten tripped up by something similar- can’t remember in which language though;) What about the de=di/da confusion, how is that treating you?

Hm, just looked at that node. I was unfamiliar with this usage of stare (stava) to mean to go out, or leave (with).

Also this is tricky: “da bambino” without a verb, translating to “quand j’étais petit. »

“Stare” one of those all-purpose verbs that does a lot of work

BTW, today will be my 1000th day of my current Duolingo streak. Although I did have to use a streak freeze every once in a while along the way, such as last week.

Yeah, that lesson is a drag, at least for getting things right without having to learn special expressions.

I'm not having too much trouble yet with da/di, but that may be luck.

I should have posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMlpqOsc2BU
yesterday

Hm, no obvious crazies in my cohort this week.

Here’s another another expression from the lesson that will mess you up: non vedere l’ora.

Not sure if it's overkill but maybe we could start a separate thread for that project.

for which project? just learning italian? this thread isn't particularly active, I think it can stay here, but I dunno

Yeah, learning or improving Italian. Probably best to keep it here as you say.

Just noticed that the reverve tree, from Italian to French, recently got an upgrade.

Some new lessons maybe but hardly any tips or notes it seems.

I don't ever read the tips or notes, if I don't just absorb the grammar from playing then I'd rather work through a more structured text. I choose duolingo for the former.

I used to do the same, but at some point started forcing myself to read them more often. I also almost always click through the speech bubble to read any discussion or get any extra audio.

So what does don't green the time mean? Don't waste it?

Duolingo left me pretty bewildered by prepositions but then I got to them in buusu and they make total sense

I feel like I'm mocking an Italian accent by bouncing on the double vowels, but that's just how you gotta do them huh

It's "vedere" not "verdere."

This is kind of hard and not a lot of fun. Going back to my other languages.

Started the Spanish a little over a week ago and loving it. Like others have said, I'm a little surprised that the gamification aspect apparently works so well on me.

It's stupid, but in the set 6 story "Need Help?", the way the narrator says "Nnnnecesita...ayuda!?" cracks me up every time.

I only just started German a few weeks ago, but I feel like I'm taking to it faster than any other language I've ever tried. It's really fun.

wow, they just updated the french->italian course, and most of my "progress" is erased? I don't care, it's not like "finishing" the older course would have signified anything in particular re. competence in the language, but it's still striking. at least the undone levels are easy again!

Oh, yeah, it's all gone purple

But on the other hand I am much further along in the tree.