itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

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.

same here. & I don't mind doing easy things, to boost my basics. & the lessons are different now, for instance I don't remember "pronto" being introduced in the old lessons but now it's in like basics 1.

Had that a few times in my Spanish tree and I'm always glad now, as it means more content, so I can keep going ad infinitum!

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.
― jmm, Tuesday, August 4, 2020 4:20 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

come to the german thread !

The German language

I'm going to reset my german this week/next - might lace in some duolingo work as a novelty

I was going to reset my Italian through French tree and then try to place out of all the purple but then I just went to the last castle instead.

I'm back grinding the French tree after my lessons finished for the summer. Allez!

a Beatles fan at the Duolingo office must have snuck this one through

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDes5A_g1ap/

Heh

Today I discovered a person who does Duolingo at least twice as much as I do that I know in real life.

That’s...probably too much?

Ha, he admitted as much himself. But he has been quite helpful in assisting me in learning his language, so it has worked out okay for me so far.

I see that I have mentioned Babel No More on other threads but not this one, a very interesting book about the possibilities of language learning.

How did everybody do this week?

stayed put in diamond, nowhere near the top obviously since I'm never gonna grind like that. just chugging along.

The Hungarian word for fish is great: tintahal.