itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

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.

It's okay, I don't really have any kind of system, mostly, just keep running though and trying things to see what sticks.

My rival seems to be slacking off today. Hasn’t even cracked a thousand XPs today.

i think i'll just be content to coast by this week

I have been going slow for the past few days which has been beneficial but I just found another possible way to rack up points quickly if needed.

oh????????????

Hm. Maybe not. But another way to practice.

Just click on the checkpoint castle.

There’s no speed or accuracy bonuses but the sentences seem less difficult or tedious and there are sometimes less of them.

i forget, what's the payout?

10 XP. So not a big payout, but seems like you can turn them around quickly if needed.

More like a simple, no-frills way to practice.

Like I just did the first castle checkpoint in one language and it only asked me two questions.

Hm. The next time it asked me seven questions

Then I switched languages, did the same. First time it asked me eight easy questions. Then the second time exactly one.

Then three questions.

Just now looking at the others on my leaderboard and see that everyone in the top five had at least one 1000 XP day.

Lots of people right above the demotion line- and a few right below - have about 440 XPs

Just checked and my buddy has one day each of 2K, 3K and 4K, two 1K days and two other days that average to 1K each. Sheesh!

Spoke too soon. He's headed for another 2K day.

Rounding third and he's headed for home

huh suddenly i got the option to do 'hard practice' (double the points) or 'regular practice' on my competed levels. seems the stories page has changed somewhat too, shows the points possible for the stories (which it didn't before). maybe the language update i accepted finally kicked in.

Hm, that's sounds interesting. What language?

franch

i don't know that the practice is much harder but it does seem to run through some more combinatorial stuff, which is an appreciated change of pace

When do you see that option?

when i tap on a skill, where you would normally see the option to read the tips or take a lesson/practice

Don't see it. Must be in A/B testing.

Or maybe it’s only for a Gold lesson, which I don’t usually bother with as stated earlier.

I have some on Dutch but don't see that option.

But I just read about it somewhere else.

it's only an option on un-stale skills. on the ones that are maxxed out but slipping, i can only practice (for 10 xp) to refresh.

I guess for me I haven’t cared for keeping the tree gold in several years or even red. I’d rather find either a lesson where I am interested in the grammar or vocabulary and can reinforce that lesson by non-Duo means, or find where the sweet spot of difficulty for me is located in the tree and do lessons there.

For some languages I shouldn’t really be doing Duolingo at all, unless maybe for laddering, like Euler is doing learning Italian from French. For others I should be using the hints way less often.

I am leg end.

Good job!
You finished #2 and kept your position in the Diamond League

Got 1200 gems out of that at least. Not sure what to use them for.

Do you pay for plus?

Yes.

On my current leaderboard I see there is one person who got 11KXP last week and another who got 8KXP.

Right now laddering from Spanish to Swedish. Maybe I can broker between Euler and unperson.

Most of the rest have under 2KXP or well under that. There is even a j. on my board this time. Although they are capital J., have 1.3KXP and are studying Spanish so I guess it’s someone different.

I got 1k xp this week

I figure that's a nice, safe reasonable number.

I guess my, um, point is you can check people’s past performance right away to see whether you should even bother to try to come in first or whatever, assuming that is something you even want to do.

Top person already has 900 XP after about an hour.

i wasn't going to try but since they were giving me so many more points i decided to do a little, but the third-place person woke up and made it impossible for me to crack that many points on a sunday night.

still, enough that now i have to compete in a diamond league to not get demoted. : / think i'll wait a day or two and see if i get a shittier league.

What do you mean by wait? Didn't it already assign you a league?

you don't get shown your competitors until you lodge some points during the new week. the screen says you're joining 'this week's leaderboard', but i read somewhere online that given the number of users you are being slotted into leagues at your level only if you begin to score points, not until then. i suppose it could be true that the league you will be joining is already predetermined, though.

trick is supposed to be to wait so you're not immediately vying with ppl who go hog wild on sunday night and ratchet up the competition for the rest of the week.

Right, exactly. You should know what league you are in: it either promoted you, or demoted you or you kept your place. Usually I wait until Monday evening to avoid the crazies but after last week I decided to dive in and try this new thing of looking at past performance. Maybe the best thing is actually to start as late as possible on Sunday night instead of waiting until Monday, then you get a good performance numbers but avoid the more obvious crazies.