itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

I am still in first by about 500 XP but I see my current nemesis sitting there in third place waiting to bust a move tomorrow.

I keep falling out of the top 10, whatever, I'll just keep up my normal pace of about 150-200xp per day and see what happens.

Just as long as you don’t want those badges it’s fine.

the badges are the things for which you occasionally get lingots? I want the lingots, don't care about the badges otherwise then.

Truth be told, I was actually getting kind of a buzz from accumulating all those XPs. When I actually settle down to study properly it's noticeably more painful.

Guy is still hanging back. What discipline!

And now he is 2XP behind me, believe he is about to make his move.

But really came to post that I am trying to go really slow with Finnish. Currently it says I have studied two hundred words. Maybe if I go slow I will actually end up remembering those two hundred words, as opposed to, say, the 1100 in Scottish Gaelic, the 2700 in Hungarian or the 3200 in Dutch.

i've got a bunch (well way more than is useful) of french books to read but i got the genius idea of ordering a french translation of wittgenstein to learn on, since i will know it so well i will be able to figure out individual words i don't know yet just from what i know the original says, and now i'm so looking forward to it (it's coming all the way from france so sloowwwwwwwly) that i don't really want to do anything else until i can get mired in les recherches

Cool! Of the Tractacus?

That's a good one to read in German actually.

Just found this crazy thing: http://tractatus.gitlab.io/

And this: http://people.umass.edu/klement/tlp/tlp.html

no, the PI (PU actually hem hem). they're both something to read in german but i don't know that the tractatus would have been ideal to try (first) at the stage i was at—too many short disconnected paragraphs whose sentences just link together abstracta. but the PI is very conversational in sentence/paragraph structure yet has the virtue of most philosophical writing, a small (manageable) vocabulary.

part of the point of 'grammar' is that words' meanings are structured by the kinds of things done with them / the kinds of circumstances in which they're meaningfully used, which is not much different from the language-course-designer's principle of grouping together various topic words, so the PU is very gentle about giving language-learners a glimpse of what other words might be associated with a focal one like 'rule' (zum beispiel)

i've read that something like this is reflected in W's spelling dictionary, but it's been years since i've seen a copy of it

Cool, j! Is there a contemporary French literature on W you’d like to engage? I am sorta in one such crowd but not at all on the grounds of being a W scholar, more because of connections with him and math/proof theory.

I thought you might now something about that - I was tempted to watch one of your lectures the other day- but didn't want to call you out.

xp no, i'm not that engaged. but cavell's translator/defender into/to the french sandra laugier has been publishing a lot, not all of it into english, on olp-related topics. might be nice to have better access to bouveresse's stuff too, i found it was not all super available 10-15 years ago when i was curious.

i'm just advocating for reading books you already know intimately when learning new languages. but there aren't so many french books that i originally learned in english and know extremely well, so i have to go the indirect route. : )

know not now

Ha yes Sandra is exactly who I meant, she’s my colleague and friend. There’s a regular W seminar at my soon-to-be former uni that’s gone zoom that you could join in the fall when it restarts if you want.

James I’m not sure which lecture of mine would be best to watch, don’t think anything recent is on yt but what’s there is still relevant to current work. I’m talking on proof theory by zoom to Australian in November I think, maybe they’ll post that

Thanks, Euler.

Still tilting at the windmill of trying to learn Hungarian. It’s been interesting.

Agglutinative languages, why are they so bad and hated? so logical and yet so difficult!

So I am now right past the edge of where the Finnish tips end and have 277 words in my list. Think I will just beef up related vocabulary in some other apps.

i am trying to learn vietnamese (likely the latest in a series of soon to be abandoned projects), and it's unsettling how much the gamification (the leagues, the rankings, etc) work on me. with that said, i am #4 in my league and I plan to come roaring into what I assume will be the Silver league. i don't know who these people are, but i will learn how the little boy wants the mug and the bee bites the man and how the dirty glove is at the train station until i defeat all of them

not sure how to follow people but i am https://www.duolingo.com/profile/weinventyou

probably commented on ad nauseum itt but the differences between the website and app are interesting. in a weird way, the app is better despite (and maybe as a result of?) the ads

i think a modern thing that people don't acknowledge enough is the feeling of "am i actually a top performer among this random group of 50? or do i just have more free time? or, am i being manipulated by an algorithm or just straight up lying to believe that i am one of the top 3, so that i'll be excited and continue to use the app and eventually decide to pay for it?"

^otm, truth bomb, new borad description etc.

I see that I hacked my way to the first castle in Vietnamese about a year ago, although I remember nothing at all. Feel free to try and refresh my memory since I have no discipline I am always up for a linguistic challenge.

how do i do this challenge? let me think...

CHALLENGE!!!

"That is mine."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWDjr9Yejpo

Co áy la cua anh áy

:-O

xin lỗi

...con dê là của tôi

:-O

You have won this challenge! +15 XP

I am Foghorn Leghorn.

Good job!
You finished #3 and kept your position in the Diamond League.

You earned a 1000 gems!

Keep making the top 3 to win rewards

You earned a 1000 gems!

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.