I'm still persevering with Spanish on Duolingo, but it's so rote nowadays that I've little to say on the experience.
I'm very keen to start learning some Basque, but that will be a whole other (non-Duo) kettle of fish!
― brain (krakow), Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:29 (five years ago) link
look forward to trying the Hindi one!
― niels, Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:39 (five years ago) link
Think it may turn out to be one of the more useful courses.
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:43 (five years ago) link
I did a few lessons in the Catalan course, but the audio was quite poor, some first generation speech generator.
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 4 August 2018 17:50 (five years ago) link
There are certainly some internet resources and even a few apps (I think, I've not tried them yet), but, unsurprisingly, resources do seem a bit thin on the ground, especially if you want to learn from English. This discussion has some pointers: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/13783730 I've found a few additional things (potential online courses, apps), but haven't had a chance to collate them into a list yet.
I'm doing a wine course this month, but hopefully before the end of the year I'll be able to start a little Basque on top of my Spanish. Ideally I'm hoping I can find someone in Glasgow who can give me some basic lessons because I know it'll be a very tough language.
― brain (krakow), Saturday, 4 August 2018 18:03 (five years ago) link
As an aside, I took the Duolingo English Test again last week and my level has dropped 17 points - from 97 to 80 :(
It remains a pretty interesting model for how they could monetise the company going forward, and potentially for how learners of languages other than English could get some ‘currency’ for all their hard work should they extend it in the future, but it’s still the most fundamentally flawed test I think I’ve ever seen.
They’ve professionalised elements of it - there is a browser lockdown for security and the passages of text are no longer copy-pasted from Wikipedia, as far as I can tell - but the most repeated item type remains telling ‘real’ words from ‘fake’ ones, which is a ridiculous way to check language proficiency. Other parts of the test (describe image, gap-fill of text) are so obscure or badly done as to make it extremely difficult for even native speakers to respond properly.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 5 August 2018 06:38 (five years ago) link
I’d like to believe that the team writing that test has little or nothing to do with the teams writing the courses.‘Real’ vs. ‘fake’ sounds more like a test for dyslexia than a proficiency test.
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 5 August 2018 06:54 (five years ago) link
Mijn naam is haas, ik weet van niets
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 11 August 2018 12:21 (five years ago) link
OderMein Name ist Hase, ich weiß von nichts.
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 11 August 2018 13:26 (five years ago) link
https://youtu.be/kbgWk5Nl4hw
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 11 August 2018 19:18 (five years ago) link
Hartelijk dank!
― Suspicious Hiveminds (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 11 August 2018 19:45 (five years ago) link
Dank yo!
― F# A# (∞), Saturday, 11 August 2018 19:47 (five years ago) link
Niks te danken!
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 11 August 2018 20:31 (five years ago) link
Graag gedaan!
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 11 August 2018 20:32 (five years ago) link
En: graag de tekst uit je hoofd leren voor maandag ;-)
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 11 August 2018 20:46 (five years ago) link
Hindi (grammar) notes and tips start one lesson before the first checkpoint and end with the second checkpoint.
― Blecch, where is thy Zing? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 12 August 2018 18:07 (five years ago) link
So they finally added Tips (&Notes) to the app, although I can only see for Spanish and Chinese. Although App Store says that they also added Tips for French but I can’t find those.
― The Great Atomic Power Ballad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 2 September 2018 11:41 (five years ago) link
Indonesian seems to have shown up recently
― St Etienne Is Real (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 September 2018 22:00 (five years ago) link
Jaké jsou tvoje cíle?
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 11:08 (five years ago) link
Finally finished Hungarian.
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 6 October 2018 00:51 (five years ago) link
Waarom zijn de bananen krom?
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 04:35 (five years ago) link
Dutch Duolingo appears to radiate a definite 70s vibe for some reason:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RyRRjl39rI
― breastcrawl, Saturday, 20 October 2018 09:25 (five years ago) link
Ha! They also hadHeb jij ooit een rechte banaan gezien?
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 10:24 (five years ago) link
i have been so bad at this for so long
the owl sometimes waves sadly at me from my phone but i ignore
― mark s, Saturday, 20 October 2018 10:29 (five years ago) link
We miss you, Mark S. Do you still want to learn Welsh?
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 10:44 (five years ago) link
i still want to learn everything! maybe when my book is out in the world and out of my head (just a few more weeks i hope) (i also haven't played the piano all year!)
― mark s, Saturday, 20 October 2018 10:46 (five years ago) link
We haven’t seen you in a while. Take a 5 minute lesson now!
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 13:31 (five years ago) link
Rome is niet op één dag gebouwd.
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 14:37 (five years ago) link
Hm, stopped working this afternoon
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 17:53 (five years ago) link
The iPhone app, that is. Desktop is fine.
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 18:51 (five years ago) link
Just reinstalled, seems to work again
― Harper Valley CTA-102 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 20 October 2018 18:53 (five years ago) link
Snězte tu žábu!
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 October 2018 16:32 (five years ago) link
Sorry, what I really saw was just Snězte jablko!
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 October 2018 16:35 (five years ago) link
Ik zag de astronaut in een zwart gat vallen.
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 22 October 2018 19:48 (five years ago) link
For once, I can’t tie a 70s song to that one, but I’m eagerly awaiting Duolingo serving you “Als het gras twee kontjes hoog is”!
― breastcrawl, Monday, 22 October 2018 19:59 (five years ago) link
arabic launching next year, which I've been waiting for
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 22 October 2018 20:18 (five years ago) link
Nå må dere hoppe i loppekassa!
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 October 2018 16:18 (five years ago) link
Smi mens jernet er varmt!
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 October 2018 16:32 (five years ago) link
Er du tospråklig?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 October 2018 16:43 (five years ago) link
haha, very good James
― niels, Wednesday, 24 October 2018 06:16 (five years ago) link
Har vi mødtes før?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 11:46 (five years ago) link
nej, det tror jeg ikke...
― niels, Wednesday, 24 October 2018 12:59 (five years ago) link
Falsk alarm
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 24 October 2018 14:31 (five years ago) link
Some of the tones are wrong in the Mandarin course which can be slightly annoying. For the most part course seems pretty nice though in its current form.
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 30 October 2018 13:48 (five years ago) link
Started French on dis ting. Never learned another language before (apart from a D at GCSE). About a quarter of the way through - I presume the easy bit. I'm gonna be an expert in talking about dresses and ducks. I'm supplementing my Duolingo by watching Star Wars in French, listeing to l'equipe's football podcast when I go to bed, and I've ordered a dozen Asterix books.
― closed beta (NotEnough), Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:03 (five years ago) link
I am still confused about the crowns and new levels but at least I restarted the spanish and french and trying to power completely up again.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:17 (five years ago) link
In the end think crowns are an improvement on the prior system.
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:30 (five years ago) link
Took a couple of months off but have restarted Swedish. My reading and writing is pretty good, but I would never dare speak the language out loud to anyone.
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:32 (five years ago) link
I prolly wrote about this above, but I studied french for 6 months on duolingo and then did some skype sessions on italki to practice my conversation. By the end of the first 30 minutes I was soaked in sweat.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:43 (five years ago) link
I want to get back to my Italian tree. It's in bad shape. I've mostly been wanting to work on French, where Duolingo isn't so useful for me anymore - what I really need are more opportunities for conversational practice.
― jmm, Tuesday, 30 October 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link