[Closed] Duolingo

Yep, started the spanish course a few months ago. Keeps me off Facebook as well.

It's pretty good but I'm not sure how much is going in!

For me, currently (at day 4), it's mainly revision, I know 95% of the vocab but have forgotten a lot of the verb endings, so finding it pretty easy to race through the lessons. At some point I guess it will all change when most of it is new to me.

Some of the Americanism are a bit annoying eg movie theatre rather than cinema, it won't except the (UK) English translation.

Yep on day 113 of my streak 😎

Think I’ve learned more french in 4 months of this than 4 years at school 😂

Agree the US English is an annoyance. Not gonna complain tho as haven’t paid a penny.

I coughed up the $60 or so for a year's ad free access, didn't seem that expensive and the ads every 5 mins were a bit annoying.

Yep on day 113 of my streak 😎

Top of the bronze leader board after 4 days!

Yep, been doing the Spanish one for a year or so. My phone has just reminded me it is time for today's lesson!

I have been doing the Spanish lessons for about a year, currently on a 130 day streak.

I'm learning Dutch, 203 day streak at the moment. It's very good for a free app but not perfect, however I know a native Dutch speaker to help fill in the gaps

Currently doing Scottish Gaelic. Already had the inevitable fall out with my (native Gaelic speeking) wife about both vocabulary and pronunciation.

yep, doing italian at present, find it good for just dropping onto for a few mins either on laptop or on phone.

not sure its very good at teaching you, i get that from books and internet instead, it seems to be more about just testing you.

EDIT: i find ollie richards very good, website 'iwillteachyoualanguage' i think it is. ive also got a few of his short story books in italian, that helps me a lot even tho i dont understand it all, i get by.....

GF had a streak of over 400 days with Italian. Her vocabulary is grand, but she lacks being able to converse.

When in Italy I seem to get by better with my random words and hand gestures as I'm not thinking about the correct article. Maybe that is just a difference between us two.

I tried using, but I don't rate it much if you're looking to get by on holiday.

If you want to learn a language immergin yourself in it is better, imo.

Currently have kids stories on a CD in the van and have a kids story book to read with explanations (in Italian) at the end of each chapter.

I only just discovered Duolingo a couple of weeks ago, and have started learning Portuguese as we are going there soon on holiday.

Amazing how fast you can learn the basics. It has a fascinating way of leading one question into another until within a few minutes you can string whole sentences together.

I'm just at the point where the grammar is getting tricky which had slowed my progress slightly.

Agree with the above comment that it perhaps doesn't teach you enough useful phrases early on, rather it's trying to practice perfect grammar. So for our holiday I might need to memorise a few important phrases to order food etc.

It's also highly likely that everyone we encounter will speak perfect English, and so I'll end up using none of it, but at least I've made a bit of effort this time!

I'm just using it in a browser and have not seen an ad yet. That's using Firefox with ABP which may well be the reason!

thanks didn't know anything about Duolingo. My 5 year old daughter and I have just had a basic french lesson - cant wait for the next level!

it won’t except the (UK) English translation.

Is "except" the American spelling of "accept", or are you just crap at English?

Been doing the Spanish course for about four months. It's a good use of  ten minutes that I would otherwise waste.

scotroutes
Currently doing Scottish Gaelic. Already had the inevitable fall out with my (native Gaelic speeking) wife about both vocabulary and pronunciation.

If she's from Harris, she's right. They always are... 🙂

Yes doing French in preparation for a year long trip with France and Morocco as part of it. Absolutely love the app and can't believe how much you get for free. 136 day streak in the obsidian league. It's certainly getting harder now but i feel like I've learned loads. I do think that i will struggle most with understanding real French being spoken to me but at least i will be able to ask for the basics and will be able to apologise for my incompetence and ask for people to slow down and keep it simple for me.

If she’s from Harris, she’s right. They always are… 🙂

Or from Lewis, their Gaelic is just weird, and different to everyone else's?

I've also been doing the Gaelic course, about a month now. So far, good fun, fairly basic, but probably useful as a bit of revision of vocab etc. There are a few different voices, so can get an idea of different pronunciations. Though some of the sound quality is not great.

Yes, some of the American English can be a bit confusing, eg pants vs trousers.

Worth reading the course notes for each lesson. That explains a lot of the grammar rules. Seems you can't get them in the app, but you can on the website (the little lightbulb symbol).

I'll have a go at the Dutch course as well, ready for a wee holiday.

Agree with the above comment that it perhaps doesn’t teach you enough useful phrases early on, rather it’s trying to practice perfect grammar. So for our holiday I might need to memorise a few important phrases to order food etc.

Worth reading the course notes for each lesson. That explains a lot of the grammar rules. Seems you can’t get them in the app, but you can on the website (the little lightbulb symbol).

I can't get tips on Android.

I wish this app existed when I was at school, I'm sure I would have done much better with languages than I did.

Probably depends on the language. Seems some have notes in the app, some don't.

I completed the Portuguese version a few years ago. I should start again, it’s good to talk/read/write but I found listening and responding it was not so useful for. Especially when people start talking in slang, I found I was speaking, they responded I translated the Portuguese into English and back into Portuguese then replied. Which is clearly not how a language works. Unfortunately I don’t think I have the computing power to learn fluently.

Actually what was also fun was I kind of hired a Portuguese teacher to help, but as we were a similar age we became friends and I got invited to loads of Portuguese events and went to her wedding last year near Lisbon.

Or from Lewis, their Gaelic is just weird, and different to everyone else’s?

This. Textbook Gaelic is Skye Gaelic, apparently.

When in Italy I seem to get by better with my random words and hand gestures as I’m not thinking about the correct article. Maybe that is just a difference between us two.

My wife is/was fluent (French degree) but is much more reticent to speak French, whereas I'm quite happy to use my 1980s O level french and just see how far I can get before having to resort back to speaking very slowly and loudly in English 😉

Random Q, but what is your strategy, do you try and get to level 1 on as many subjects as possible and then go back to the start and work up to level 2 on them all; or go up to level 5 on each one and then work to the next one? Or a hybrid.

No real idea which is best...

I level 5 each one before moving on.

I mix it up and also use the stories.

I'm doing the Gaelic course too. It's pretty good for revision. My girlfriend is threatening to campaign for a Doric course on the app. 😊

Hay muchos gente aqui, y todos estan aprendiendo otras idiomas, pero el hilo es totalmente en ingles!! 😆

Would it not be good to have a thread where people can come and ask questions about their respective languages and everyone can help each other? Or even just attempt to practice and converse away! Best way to learn is to make a billion mistakes and get them corrected by someone! A STW language learning thread?

I know my minimal and dodgy Spanish could do with a lot of help. 😆

Random Q, but what is your strategy, do you try and get to level 1 on as many subjects as possible and then go back to the start and work up to level 2 on them all; or go up to level 5 on each one and then work to the next one? Or a hybrid.

i go to level one on them to unlock the others, so ive got as many options as possible. f'rinstance, i want to practice more future tense, but its still 2 or 3 subjects away, so im trying to blitz my way through conjugations level 1 or whatever so i can get to it.
every now and then ill look back and think ah, ill have a refresher on possessives or whatever. theres just more options if youve got them all opened up to you.

get them corrected by someone!

You new here? - that'll never happen

186 day streak for Swedish here, but using it effectively every day for the last two years. It put me from zero to B1/B2 in that time.

Using to learn German. Currently on a 265 day streak.

French, Vietnamese, and Arabic. I think it would be hard to use some of the sentences in a real-life situation, but I like it because its 15 minutes where I concentrate on the language, which if I pick up a book I find hard to do.

I need to find a real Arabic speaker to talk to now I think in order to progress as the Duolingo course is much smaller than some of the other languages.

I mix it up and also use the stories.

Only just found those yesterday, I even found them funny!

I've used it on and off for a few years to tray and learn Danish, it does work to a degree but a couple of things could be improved. 1- When having to write and answer in the language spelling needs to be 100% correct, I'd prefer a margin of error. I want to learn to speak not to write it perfectly. 2 - There is no option to slow the phrase down, half of the letters in Danish words are not pronounced so it's really difficult to get the distinction between words in some phrases.
I should really pick it up again as it was good for keeping my brain working if nothing else.

1- When having to write and answer in the language spelling needs to be 100% correct, I’d prefer a margin of error.

The French does let you off accents and the odd spelling mistake, but not noun or verb endings which must be correct. I can't be arsed to type accents, so just leave all those off.

It also seems reasonably tolerant over some translations into english, but intolerant on the French as in only accepts it's preferred version.

anyone finding the phrases a little er.... interesting or is it just italian?

had a particularly cheery session the other day.....

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and a particularly delightful one....

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that brought up some interesting answers in the comments, from downright disgust to "i remember when learning a language was so much more lighthearted, the only thing that died was the ant in the sugar" 😀

They updated it for the age of global warming and the next mass extinction!

So, when it asks you to say something, if I speak super slow it seems to be able to score it on the phone, but if I speak at anything like normal pace it seems to pause and take about 30 secs to decide if it was OK.

Anyone know why? I'm guessing it gets sent off somewhere and queued for a human to grade it; hence the long wait...