itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

Finnish!

Wow

Kiitos

Could be fun, I spend a lot of time there.

At first glance this looks better than the dreaded Hungarian course.

Also if my Swiss Diamond Duolingo rival really wants to put in another 3K XP day today to improve his English he can have the number one spot this week.

Enjoying starting this Finnish course. Let’s see if I can pace myself and balance it out with Drops and such so I can remember what I learn/pvmic

Always kind of a weird feeling going through a new course and not seeing any comments

My friend finished the day up 4K XP.

i'm just aiming for 15

I actually have my daily goal set to 10

i have mine lower too but i still gotta try for perfection

Convenience link:
http://tasteoffinnish.fi/

Inspired by yourself and Euler I'm managing 100XP a day this week so far.

Good luck! Don't burn yourself out!

This guy was the real deal: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/science/robert-laughlin-preserver-of-a-mayan-language-dies-at-85.html

Guys, remember when they used stock photos instead of um, cartoons, for some of the images?

I do not

I found one in a screenshot the other day

Here is an old thread discussing this from before our Duolingo time.

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/307067/What-is-UP-with-the-images-photos

I had a streak of over a year and used it most every day from fall 2013 to spring 2015. But I just don't remember pictures or not.

Depends on which course you use, I think. French course gets a lot of attention and was updated enough times that the stock photos may have been gone already.

Having come back after a long pause, I'm happy that they removed the gradual decay of competence in the nodes. That element made using it stressful enough that it was a relief to finish the tree & quit. The leaderboards aren't as stressful, because I don't care, especially since bots seem to be involved.

Oh I hated that decay, you are otm about that. Right, leader boards you can take or leave. I wanted to win that one badge, now that I have it I can walk away.

Was reminded recently that there were some languages that had their half-life set way too aggressive because I saw that I have a ton of points in Portuguese and Welsh from back when I was taking the Keep the Tree Gold advice seriously. I am still only a few checkpoints in on the latter language.

yeah ugh

I finished Swedish and now it's just asking me to review stuff, so I've switched to Norwegian.

can you converse in Swedish yet? probably depends on whether you have swedish conversational opportunities but

I can form complete sentences in my head with relative ease, and read the Swedish Twitter accounts I follow and other written things.

nice

You should do the Swedish tree from Spanish now!

Hi James Redd,
Thank you for suggesting “Mi lacas ege post la maratono sed mi fieras ke mi sukcesis” as a translation for “I am extremely tired after the marathon, but I am proud that I succeeded.”. We now accept this translation!

Duolingo keeps getting better thanks to language lovers like you. We really appreciate your help!

—The Duolingo team

Will be interesting to see if you can keep the Norwegian and Swedish straight or start mixing them together.

About the Finnish course: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/39838113

I recommend the Norwegian Folktales (eventyr) by Asbjørnsen and Moe.

A little more about the Finnish: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/39846411

I'm happy that they removed the gradual decay of competence in the nodes

did they? where the skill declines and the icon cracks back open and the gold ring slides down? i just got a course update the other day, with as yet unknown effects, but i have been having skills decline and iirc still declining after the update.

Oh really? I’ve only been back for a bit more than a month, maybe not long enough for decay?

What? Since the old system was replaced with the Crown system, I don’t see them decay, unless maybe you maxed out at level 5, which I haven’t done too often.

I took basics 1 to 4 today, that’s the only one I have above 3. Not worth going that high ime

I tend to agree and I have observed that it makes me feel weird when I do so.

Course updates a different story, completed lessons will become undone, yes.

There are a forest of forum posts on this topic, here is the original crown announcement, I think: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/26739837/Crowns-FAQ

yes, it's only level five skills that i see decay. but i've been getting all my skills to that level, so the decaying is obvious. sometimes it's idiotic how they decay, too, like you can make sure they're all practiced and then two days later one will slip again. or, maybe like that link indicates—uncertain—the rate of decay depends on how often words in a skill are seen anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4HLHuS3hkw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XcKBmdfpWs

I only started Duolingo in 2016, but I feel like I remember the stock photos in the Spanish course. Do you know when they phased them out?

Not sure, think they fully disappeared in the last two or three years.

Maybe I really do remember them then. Heading for my fourth anniversary in August.

I found some screenshots from May 2018 which have them.

Now that I backed away from the XP madness and am practicing my regular way again, I might share a few things that have helped me if you like.