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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tangleweeds Groupie United States Joined 3519 days ago 70 posts - 105 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Irish, French | Message 209 of 212 14 May 2015 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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I got into learning Irish via Duolingo also, when I heard the course had been released
early this year, and it led to joining this forum, taking up French again, and much much more. Later I found Memrise's learning algorithm to work better for me, so I've been using that more recently, but I'd love having a buddy to motivate me to finish Duolingo Irish. My username at Duolingo is "tangleweeds" just the same as here, if you'd like to look me up. Reading your log, I got the impression that you might be like me, in enjoying computer- mediated learning. If so, you might also enjoy trying out Memrise's Basic Irish series of courses. Here's the link to Basic Irish 1. I also find Irish to be quirky, and have found that getting a couple of different perspectives on the grammar makes things clearer. I use the same username there too, if you (or anyone else reading) enjoys recognizing a familiar name in the score boards. Edited by tangleweeds on 15 May 2015 at 12:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 210 of 212 27 May 2015 at 10:35am | IP Logged |
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Merci! I might check it out, if I get the time. I keep track of language resources in OneNote, and I'm putting the information in there.
I'm chugging along down the Irish skill tree, although my main push right now is to finish German. My main goal for Irish at the moment is to keep the tree gold and maybe do one new lesson (not skill) per day. If I have extra time, I'll do a skill. I'm still at the point though, where I'm delighted if I can translate a sentence with minimal hints. I'm only a few skills into the French tree, and I don't work on it regularly, but I can often do those lessons without hints. Irish is so different though, that it takes a lot more work. With Spanish, I'm keeping my full tree gold, doing immersion (I'm trying to average 1000 points a day for an XP contest I'm in), and taking the Spanish A2 course at University of Salamanca online. I took a test the other day here that estimated my grammar, vocabulary, and reading at B1, and my listening at A2. That's the best test that I've scored yet... perhaps the test is different than the ones I've taken before, but it probably has to do somewhat with the practice that I've been getting with Duolingo. In a few weeks, hopefully, I'll continue with Los Juegos del Hambre; although I could read the book before, it may be easier now that I have gotten a little more grammar practice in. I expect to be done with the German tree by the end of June. This is estimating doing about 5 lessons per day... which is around 1 skill per day, except I'm giving myself two days to do the skills that are 9 or 10 lessons long. Even then, I'd have it done before the end of June, but I'm giving myself extra time. I was looking around on Amazon.com and found my old Middle School German book. It was only 8 cents plus $3.99 shipping, so I decided to get it. I remember liking that book. I found out that there's a sequel to that book too... maybe I'll get that one too, if I still like the first one. After I finish German (the Duolingo tree, that is), I'll put more effort into Irish, and continue with French. I've wanted to learn French since Middle School. I like the way the language sounds. My daughter is learning French with Duolingo, and it would be very useful to her learning if I was able to say things to her in French, like I do with my son in Spanish. I watched a documentary on the Gardasil vaccine the other day. It was in Danish, with English subtitles. Sigh. Now I want to learn Danish. It seems to have a lot in common with German, so I don't think that it will be too difficult to learn. I'll wait though. The good thing about Duolingo though, is that it's very easy to learn a language to a very basic level... and should I choose, I can later go back and increase and perfect my knowledge of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4178 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 211 of 212 27 May 2015 at 10:40am | IP Logged |
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Hehehe, that urge to watch Danish having seen a movie (or lots of movies in my case) in
it. I wouldn't dare to even work with Duolingo though, because I think it might interfere with my weak weak Swedish. And also because I need more motivation. Good luck if you take it up ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 212 of 212 07 June 2015 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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I'm a sucker for a language challenge... soo...
Someone on Duolingo put up a challenge to do the tree of a brand new language for the summer. So I started Danish earlier than I was planning to, with the hopes of finishing the tree this summer. I started with the first lesson of Basics 1 this evening, just to get my feet wet. At least it seems much easier than Irish. It even shares some words with German... I didn't even have to look up what du meant. So I'll probably just slow down the pace that I'm working on Irish to do this language. That might be a good thing, since Irish is more difficult to me. I try to keep all of my trees gold, at least Spanish, German, and Irish, so if I continue to only do one Irish lesson a day, plus strengthening skills, then I'll get a lot more practice as I slowly work my way down the tree. Which I need. Probably more than I'm going to need extra practice in Danish. I'm still on track to finish the German tree by the end of June. I've been looking at my new German book (well, it's pretty old, since it was my textbook in Middle School, but still). I've been enjoying going through it so far. It will be useful as a reference, I think, but other than that, it's a book that I can read through. There is a lot of vocabulary in it that I either haven't seen in Duolingo yet, or have only seen a little bit, so it is a useful supplement. This book was made in the 70s (it was already a little old when I used it in Middle School). It is really interesting to read the notes and stuff in this book. In a way, it's almost like a cultural history lesson. Like this note: "In German-speaking areas, use of the telephone has become more widespread in recent years. Having a telephone is, however, relatively expensive, so people usually try to avoid unnecessary calls and are careful not to talk too long." I'm sure that this is not true today. It's strange to think that the amount of years between the time that this book was written and World War II, where Germany's infrastructure was probably decimated, is less than the years between this book's publication date and today. The Internet wasn't around either. So I don't believe the cultural notes in the book, even though they're interesting. It's easier today to learn about German culture than it was when I originally took German... all you have to do is go on YouTube or read online German magazines and such. So I'll be challenging myself with languages this summer. Sure, I know that finishing a tree in Duolingo isn't going to make me fluent, but it will give me enough to have a basic understanding of a language. For some languages, that might be enough (for now). If I regularly visit the languages and attempt to keep them gold, then at least I won't lose whatever level I end up getting to. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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