itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

i am learning welsh obviously (plus brushing up french)

the welsh is going badly -- french is telling me i am 24% fluent, which is a fib imo

should I install this and see how bad my German has become, y/n

(I'm already downloading it)

Duolingo is a great way to absorb language basics and grammar rules, but once you have that stuff down and are in the mode of adding vocabulary I found it kind of inefficient.

xp You will learn many duck-related German sentences ime

i have been surprised how much french i still know in terms of vocab: my grammar was and is terrible

polyphonic otm, I finished the French tree and have never gone back, currently use Memrise (and used Lingvist until I ran out of words) to build vocab

in welsh i have discovered nothing about ducks but i have encountered a DRAGON (draig)

I completed the Japanese Duolingo and it is good for absorbing things by wrote but I grew frustrated with never having any of the grammar explained to me. It’s provided a good base.

There’s some more discussion of Duolingo

Do You Speak A Second Language?
日本語は話せます 🇯🇵

pimsleur >> duolingo

well but Duolingo is free

honestly DL is more like a fun app that helps you read stuff in a foreign language

huh 46% fluent

not bad I guess

Was going to say, however tell me more about why pimsleur is good? Everything else I have been trying has been lower cost but really falls down on getting me to speak. I’d pay for some live interaction.

I used to be fluent in Portuguese but haven't used in 20 years - wonder if this could get me back on my bullshit.

Duolingo fluency shield suffers from grade inflation especially when you are progressing through, say, the first third of the course or have just taken the placement test. At some points if starts to drop off and decay and you may regret giving into your ex-clever schoolboy’s craving for this particular form of external gratification.

Think last word should have been "validation."

whenever i type "nos lau" (thursday night) it tells me i have a typo and that the correct spelling is "nos lau"

Did you type a lower case “el” (wrong) or a capital “eye” (correct)?

oh right that makes sense yes

That was really it?

Some of the answers in some of the courses are messed up so that it will tell you about an alternate answer or typo which seems to be dependent on some punctuation, or even some other “invisible punctuation.” There seem to even be cases where it is supposed to accept some letters from say, a standard English alphabet, without certain diacritical and just tell you to “mind the accents” but it gets into some looking glass world where it doesn’t accept the correct foreign alphabet letter. Feel like I️ saw this happen in Turkish, with the non-dotted i, the ı.

i haven't gone back in and checked but yes, it's quite likely tha:, since i realised when i read yr post that i was listening to DL's pronunciation of Iau and thinking "wow the initial i sound in front of those vowels is really like an L isn't it?" -- based on assuming my grasp of welsh pronunciation is actually worse than it is

(the pronunciation i learnt as a kid IS different to the version they're using: spoken welsh has surprisingly strong regional variation: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/13474058/Dialects-much-more-than-a-simple-north-south-divide)

(but it's not really the consonants that vary)

Ah, some weird keyboard autocorrect is now putting something strange when I type the letter capital “eye” I.

Speaking of which, at some point iOS seems to have added a Welsh keyboard, which may um, assist you in your answers.

"wow the initial i sound in front of those vowels is really like an L isn't it?"

or maybe the other way round, anyway i was struck by how different their pronunciation was than mine would be -- which is because i was misreading the letter

Sometimes wonder if the Welsh as taught is just some sort of approximation standard that is in fact spoken by no one at all, like Bokmål/Nynorsk, I️ think.

How is your pronunciation of the letter double el?

Ach, still the weird “ego problem” or “ego trip” with the capital eye. Think I️ need to delete my autocorrect dictionary.

Tom, delete ILX all my bookmarks my autocorrect dictionary now!

Ah, that didn’t seem to work. I’m stymied.

my double ll pronunciation is p good i think! the nearest large town to where we went on family holidays when i was a kid is machynlleth and i know how ppl who live in it say it

this was before welsh was actually taught in schools -- indeed, it was actively discouraged in schools back then, and i know someone who was made to leave school at 16 because he preferred to speak welsh (as did his entire family, of hill farmers)

(he became a mechanic and a builder, and is now very comfortably off and owns half the town)

Ah. I have never been in the presence of a Welsh speaker as far as I know, apart from John Cale at an instore.

I against I against I

(Had to chose the *RONG* spelling for each of those eyes to get the correct one)

Seems to me the pronunciation of Welsh, especially the “ll,” involves a lot more spittle than, say, English.

At one point I was having some problems with the days of the week with when to put the word for day in there, such as “dydd Iau.” Seem to have sorted it, can’t remember what the problem really was.

The other thing to remember of course about the “i” is that the word for Thursday starts with j for Jupiter-or Jove! do u see?! in most Romance languages.

https://www.duolingo.com/comment/14295031/Dydd-Mercher-a-Dydd-Iau

yes i haven't worked out when not to use Dydd yet!

(tho i also haven't yet been marked wrong on either, and have been assuming -- perhaps wrongly -- that they are effectively interchangeable, at least in this limited context)

ooh handy steer on the root of the day names, i'd spotted they were "a bit like French" but hadn't taken it any further

To throw a spanner in your welsh works - Memrise has a course in Belter Cant.

Sut mae, Marc? Sut dych chi?

Dych chi eisiau coffi?

Learning Dutch thru this atm and I like it.

Hartelijk gefeliciteerd!

Both the Dutch and Welsh courses have been spruced up in the past few months, so you guys are on the cutting edge.

/too much time on Duolingo

"The grapheme k was also used more commonly than in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.[3] The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of William Morgan's Welsh Bible, whose English printers, with type letter frequencies set for English and Latin, did not have enough k letters in their type cases to spell every /k/ sound as k, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth";[5] this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage."

"why doesn't welsh have the letter k?"
"we ran out that one time and never restocked"

grrrr i am just as bad now at grammatical gender in french as i was aged 13: le cheval but la souris whyyyyyyyyyyyy pourquooooooiii

some rules and patterns here (but of course no clue why le cheval but la souris):
http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/le_or_la_in_french.shtml

my devoted year+ on duolingo french got me enough of the basics that I was able to get a civil servant job in France where I speak French full time. it helped that I was living in France most of that time and that I'd already spent a lot of time reading french (or trying to, with much dictionary use) and that I already spoke Spanish pretty well (son of a native speaker but didn't grow up speaking it, only learned it in school). so I am yay duolingo!

I spent some time on the japanese tree earlier this year as I learn that language next but I'm going to need more than just duolingo to do it because I don't have a great sense of the grammar whereas learning a second romance language, I already grokked the main structures, what I really needed was enough confidence in applying those structures to go ahead and speak it irl.

although I think the japanese accent is easier than the french accent, so duolingo may be ok in that regard (japanese mostly sounds like it looks, unlike french)

I'm doing German which I'm already sorta conversational in as my Dad is from there. I wasn't raised speaking it though and what I do know is only what I've picked up listening to him speak with friends and relatives and the times that I've spent there. I'm really enjoying it so far though and am excited to improve :).

i just discovered the chats-with-bots feature (after several days of just ignoring the you-have-mail signal): i like that it goes "excellent response!" after what is (in another, more accurate sense) a pretty basic not-actually-rude response

I spent some time on the japanese tree earlier this year as I learn that language next but I'm going to need more than just duolingo to do it because I don't have a great sense of the grammar whereas learning a second romance language, I already grokked the main structures, what I really needed was enough confidence in applying those structures to go ahead and speak it irl.

I can recommend the ‘Human Japanese’ App for this.

But Brazilian Portuguese seems much more accessible and available here for various reasons, maybe mostly due to music but also those Netflix shows people keep recommending

Having said that, if I were to use an app, I would probably prefer to focus on European Portuguese since that accent is much more challenging for me

Hopefully you would be able to answer any questions I might have assuming I ever pursued that line of inquiry;)

Somebody told me this was a good (paid) resource for European Portuguese: https://www.practiceportuguese.com/

Right now trying to wrap my ears around Cazuza’s weird accent.

Seems like he was Carioca but I never heard or noticed certain vowel sounds in others

Pronouncing final a like ai

But Brazilian Portuguese seems much more accessible and available here for various reasons, maybe mostly due to music but also those Netflix shows people keep recommending

Yes, again I want to be very clear I understand Brazil has a bigger international profile and am happy to see ppl learn Brazilian Portuguese, it's just my wife is learning to speak to ppl in Portugal and it'll be a bit bizarre once she picks enough up for a convo. Imagine your love interest in the US is learning English to talk to your family and then comes in all "'ullo luv, you all right?".

There are some Portuguese shows on netflix too, though I can't vouch for them. sarahell was watching Glória iirc.

Kinda resent they only have Brazilian Portuguese. Totally understand way more ppl speak it, certainly they should have it as an option, but give ppl a choice ffs.

Do they have British/Australian/New Zealand English as a choice? What about all the Spanishs?

― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 24 August 2024 19:25 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

There's only one option for Spanish, which is broadly Latin American rather than Castilian, I believe.

I've not done more than few lessons of the English lessons, but I'm pretty sure there's just one choice there too, and I would assume it is American English since it's an American app.

Yes

Daniel, despite its popularity and addictive quality, Duolingo not necessarily the the best way to learn a language anyway. Practice Portuguese doesn’t seem cheap but maybe cheaper than, say, an iTalki tutor every week, but I dunno.

Anyway that site/app was the only specific recommendation I got so far.

I haven’t found Duolingo to be much help. For one thing, it tests the words that I never ever miss way too much, words I’ve known for years and would never forget. Another problem for me is that after a while the disjointed sentences and vocabulary feel like they don’t add up to anything. Ok, now I know how to say I’m taking the dog to the airport or give me back my peanut or whatever, then I’ll move on to some totally unrelated lesson, and it never seems to build to real conversational skills even in languages where I already have some conversational ability.

had to delete duolingo because of the icon. anyone know of similar apps that aren't run by psychos?

You didn’t like the melting face? 🫠

Interesting XP update recently

I got to the end of the German lessons, really disappointed. I tried signing up for online language cpurse (with no human) from the Gorthe Institut for $99 but it’s a bit disappointing. It only allows you access for three months but doesn’t warn you when your time is up, nor do they even try to sell you another three months. I know it’s not a for-profit business but they could hustle a bit more. The interface was very “internet circa 2001”, too and—similar to Duolingo doesn’t explain concepts very clearly. I guess I should go for live lessons or find a local stammtisch.

GOETHE Institut, you uncultured barbarians

Almost done with Section 1 of the Klingon course. Totally into it right now.

had some initial success with the Gotye Institute, but now German is just a language that you used to know

More like goatse institute

Did the Friends Clash go away?

Dark mode is no more apparently. Not that I used it.

love duolingo but also... fuck duolingo

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/duolingo-will-replace-contract-workers-with-ai/ar-AA1DQhsP?

Thought this had already happened tbh

Someone hacked my daughter's Duolingo account yesterday, changed pwd, knocked all her family users off it, etc etc. She finally got it back today. WTF does someone hope to get from hacking Duolingo?! Revenge for being knocked back down to the Pearl league? Idgi

https://www.tumblr.com/dedalvs/782189789018456064/hey-friend-i-know-youve-been-a-pretty-serious

I got to 90 days (90 Day streak!!! Fuck i hate gamification...but @look@ 90 day streak!!!!) And then it gave me this paragraph to decipher and it was really fucking hard. Like i'd never seen 85% of the words before. And ofc i get it wrong.

And then it does that "let's correct those mistakes" grinning fucking thing and ofc i can't. And i'm all oh no my 90'day streak is ON THE LINE.

So in the answer box i type "FUCK YOU SOFTWARE PRICK" and delete the app.

...and the next day it sends me an email saying "Your 90 day streak is froze"

I guess it wanted me to upgraded

i just cancelled our january auto renewal b/c after three years. it's only gotten worse over that time. give me a dedicated conjugation practice section, bring back some basic "explain my mistake", ditch the radio call in thing, etc, etc. at best i'm spinning my wheels. sucks, b/c it was really good at jump starting but i don't even know if it's good for that any more. and the owl has gotten annoying -- the unicorn thing, the owl that pops out of the owl, the owl with the owl butt...stop!

https://status.duolingo.com/

Yeah I thought it weird I wasn’t getting a million nudges a day

Well, this has gone quiet.

Fuck the owl, fuck the other characters, especially fuck the new 'energy' system.

Has anyone got any recommendations for Latin American Spanish?

I like Falstaff :(

Outage is finally over

For me at least

Yeah, the new energy system can get to fuck. Can't even do 3 lessons before it runs out, even if you get all answers correct

Spite-paid for lifetime of Babbel. I like it so far. It's not infantilising.

I just got a sentence in a Norwegian lesson that was a quote from The Go-Between.

Found out this week I’d accidentally been paying for Babbel for three years. Annoying that you can’t switch languages with a paid license.

Haven’t really been following the DL share price slump as closely as I should but it sounds like they’re doing ok on revenue but spending a lot on AI, as well as investing for ‘long-term’ gain, which has upset investors.

Annoying that you can’t switch languages with a paid license.

Oh.... that sucks. I was hoping lifetime meant all languages they have?

One might expect that, yeah

I've managed to not hate Duolingo by only doing it on my laptop (e.g., I don't know what the energy system is; I get 5 hearts every 24 hrs) with an ad-blocker. But lately it feels like I'm running into the AI: there's a higher frequency of unnatural sentences that "work" but are off. One today: "I downloaded a very nice application" (where "nice" = "sympa") and "This is a special TV show today."

It's entirely possible there's no AI involved at all and these are just bad legacy sentences or even things a French speaker might say but the Eng translation seems odd, but that's why using this tech is so insidious from the user perspective. Anyway maybe this is the year I finally pay for something more useful. I'd kill for something actually tailored for le français québécois

use one of the online services that pairs you up with a native speaker to practice (particularly useful in your scenario where you're looking to learn a specific dialect), Duolingo is a fun game but will never get you beyond the beginner stages of language learning

oh yeah I'm under no illusions about its overall efficacy, but I do like having something I can do on a daily basis that at the very least reinforces learning I've picked up in more formal educational settings. And yes I slot it alongside my daily wordall.xyz or spellbee play -- it just feels like the game is being degraded

I still use it, but mostly for underserved languages that still have good Incubator courses. I also am on certain Discord servers where I can ask questions and, in particular, some of the creators and/or ex-Duolingo forum managers of those courses are available to help.

my favorite Duolingo sentence was from a couple years ago in the German course: it translated to “I am
lying on the ground eating bread and crying”

see now that has the distinct stamp of a human writer

The whole official Duo line of "nutty sentences are more memorable and the research proves it" is very problematic.