itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

This looks useful: https://www.clozemaster.com/forum/t/new-feature-cloze-listening/12633

Been making some significant improvement by supplementing "book learnin" with watching YouTubes of native speakers. Mostly food/travel vlogs. Playback speed .75x for now.
2 advantages over book learnin: 1) subject matter is much more interesting and 2) get to hear native speakers speaking to a native audience, so get more exposure to idioms, slang, vernacular etc.

Seems like the dictionary feature has been deprecated and the related wordlist is now much less useful.

i know i am asking too much of this stupid app but i'm on a 21 day streak of norwegian and doing pretty well but cannot understand in possessive words when to say like "my book" vs "book my." both are used but in different situations and there is nowhere you can click to have it explain why. i wish there were like little instruction cards for these things. i could just look it up on my own i know!

This wiki page has some useful info though:
https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Japanese

Guess the dictionary is still here, even if not on language menu and not linked to word list:
https://www.duolingo.com/dictionary/ja

Have you tried the "discussion" link, harbl? There's usually ppl asking the same thing I'm wondering in there

Yes! I try to always look at the discussion link.

The one thing that was good about the way the dictionary used to work was that it gave lots of sentences with the corresponding audio.

Guess it still sort of works, although I have a feeling that that will be a temporary link.

Hmm. Works now.

i do use the discussion link but it's always after the question and i can never remember it later. i know where the difference is, it's definite vs. indefinite, but i still can't keep straight which way it goes.

Yeah, I find it useful sometimes for certain things like word order or pronunciation, but other times it goes in one ear and out the other.

I feel like I used to know that distinction in Norwegian but long ago forgot. I can look up in books I still have and post here if you like.

sure, go for it!

the discussion did help me learn to distinguish the spoken "barna" vs "barnet" which i kept getting wrong

Oh yeah.

Okay, book says noun first, broren min is "more oral, concrete and earthly,", whereas the noun last min bror is "more formal, textual and abstract." This is from Louis Janus's grammar book, which I recommend, it's pretty clearly written, although LJ the person was kind of difficult, at least in my online interacts with him.

ok so i'm right in feeling like it's not that easy to to understand. maybe beyond the abilities of duolingo to teach, too!

I tried to see how many google hits I got for each of those two but that didn't help me get a feel for it.

I got 4 million hits for "min bror" but only 260 thousand for "broren min." On the other hand "lots of broren min" in tatoeba but no "min bror" as far as I could tell.

Ah, there is more detail, as expected, in the book by the Strandskogens, also recommended.

I really enjoyed learning Norwegian but then I had some difficulties and it didn’t quite stick. I can elaborate if you like.

^ yes

i think i've figured out the possessive thing, it's just definite noun goes first, indefinite noun goes second. i can't get over the number of words for grandparents. bestparents, fathermother, mothermother, oldmother, something else. then grandchildren is childrenchildren?

Main difficulty was: it was easy enough, what with being closely related to German and English. But I couldn't find a context to use it and practice it. I used to be on a Yahoo Group, two of them actually, but it was usually more for absolute beginners. And then once I tried to write more complicated things and made a few mistakes it would freak out the some of the gatekeeper native speakers and such. Not a guy way to learn or speak a language. Now we have italki I guess.

Best thing to do if possible is to start speaking sooner rather than later but then you need an appropriate person to do that with.

Or course I should practice what I preach but...

yeah i would like to do italki. maybe another month or so.

the lack of speaking is why i can't speak spanish anymore even though i used to be quite good at it when i did talk to people. even though there are TONS of opportunities i could find easily, but i like new shiny things and i want to do a new language. also hate hot weather and want to visit a cold place.

It's complicated.

Certain languages call, and there is very little use in trying to ignore them for an "easier" language.

On the other hand Norwegian is just not a big enough language to concoct some kind of long distance immersion.

On another note: how’d you do on Oscar’s Duocon Keynote?

Got my Oscar's Duocon Keynote August badge successfully. Assume you did too JR?

i didn't see that, what is it?

Monthly challenge

oh, yes, i unknowingly completed the challenge

Just finished the October challenge over the weekend but my heart wasn’t in it.

Almost wish it would randomly choose a language for me to work on.

How’s the Norwegian going, harbl?

p good. 76 day streak. i was in diamond league then i got demoted. i don't do quite enough to get back there but it's ok.

I still have a soft spot for Norwegian for some reason.

Have you tried to read any of these yet?
http://runeberg.org/folkeven/

no, but looks useful, thanks!

Jsem zde cizí.

Czech is looking real good to me right now. Wonder how long this infatuation will last.

i am on a 100 day streak. i did forget one day but i had a streak freeze. i still think it's cheating but who cares it's a phone game right

No judgment necessary. Streak freeze is sometimes needed.

Still enjoying the Czech. Will see how long this infatuation honeymoon lasts.

ja, jeg vil gjerne kjøpe seks elefanter

Hah, that's one reason I am enjoying the Czech course, none of that BS.