I used duolingo to learn spanish for few months. I know some words and sentences (most important: donde esta una biblioteca?) But one day I got bored and stopped but it was kinda fun.
Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
241–250 of 252 posts
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I’m trying to learn German now and I keep failing lessons because I screw up gender and conjugation stuff. I wish there was a way to tell the app that I don’t give a shit. Even if I learn all the genders perfectly, I’m still going to be fumbling over words in an American accent. A few incorrect “der”s are not going to make me unable to be understood. And I can correct that later.
To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order mistakes are much worse than occasional spelling mistakes in English. The phonology is similar enough that /k/ for /x/ (Loch "hole") shouldn't be a problem, for example. This differs of course with languages that have a completely different speech riddim and p…
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Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I’m trying to learn German now and I keep failing lessons because I screw up gender and conjugation stuff. I wish there was a way to tell the app that I don’t give a shit. Even if I learn all the genders perfectly, I’m still going to be fumbling over words in an American accent. A few incorrect “der”s are not going to make me unable to be understood. And I can correct that later.
Getting gender right is something any competent in person course will force you from the start. Having American accent is something to be expected and fine. Using wrong gender causes pain in listener. It really pops up great time. Gender in gendered language matter, unfortunately. The best advice I heard is to always memorize the word with its gendered article. (assuming language has articles)
What you just wrote had a few mistakes on the order of a gender error, and several worse, but I understood you just fine. What matters is that you were able to communicate with me, in my native language; and I'm grateful to you for making the effort. There was no pain involved on my part.
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you correcting GP's 'bathroom'? Americans call the public facilities (e.g. in a restaurant) that or 'washroom', despite there (typically!) being no bathing or washing devices. Fwiw, like 'toilet', 'loo' can be either the room/facility or the... 'appliance' itself.
I think they mean that in French, they call the bathroom WC.
Are you joking? I've seen the abbreviation in France, de temps en temps, but never spelt out, it being obviously not French. WC is an English term.
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest, if you don't get the agreement right I simply won't bother listening to you, unless in a good mood. This is a two way street. A couple word order mistakes are much worse than occasional spelling mistakes in English. The phonology is similar enough that /k/ for /x/ (Loch "hole") shouldn't be a problem, for example. This differs of course with languages that have a completely different speech riddim and p…
Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integ…
> Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German
No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English.
> I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany
Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an article in the Economist 10-15 years ago about the prevalence of English throughout the world and the typical explanations for it were listed: the British Empire followed by post WWII American economic and entertainment hegemony. But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly.
>But they also pointed to an unsung advantage - no one really cares if you speak it poorly. Surely this is just a consequence of that fact that the majority of the world's English speakers speak English as a second language. As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized.
Not only bad English, but regional varieties that I as ESL have trouble understanding, which might formally count as own languages if held against linguistic standards. I just broswed Green's dictionary of slang so I feel I know what I'm talking about.
> As a native English speaker you're constantly hearing people speak bad English, so you're naturally somewhat desensitized
Reading middle and old English, I feel the onus is on you because it changed so much :')
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you correcting GP's 'bathroom'? Americans call the public facilities (e.g. in a restaurant) that or 'washroom', despite there (typically!) being no bathing or washing devices. Fwiw, like 'toilet', 'loo' can be either the room/facility or the... 'appliance' itself.
I think they mean that in French, they call the bathroom WC.
No, I meant etymologically. l'eau is apparently a real hypothesis for the loo. I shouldn't expect anyone to figure out word origin on the spot in a restaurant situation, especially if it's less likely than other hypotheses. But I encourage you to integrate etymology as a method in language learning and as its own effort.
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, this is one of the problems Germany has. Lots of moaning about immigrants failing to integrate, no real effort on the part of the bulk of the existing population to help them integrate, including such luxuries as "talking" and "listening". Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in Germany. I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integ…
> Your attitude would be unthinkable in the UK or the US but is everywhere in German No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English. > I can see why communities like Turkish one are often considered as having failed to integrate in Germany Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
>No, it's the same. I'll just switch to English.
No it's not the same. My German girlfriend is consistently asked in Germany where she's "really from" despite being born there and living there her whole life (and her parents too!). That would be scandalous in my country, and the US too. The intolerance of imperfect grammar that can realistically only be attained by natives is adjacent to this issue. It's naive and simplistic to just state all Western countries are the same in terms of social progress. The English-speaking and German-speaking worlds are not the same.
>Das ist kulturel bedingt. Duolingo hätte jedenfalls nicht viel geholfen.
For sure. German culture will either change of I am sure that these waves of immigrants will not integrate properly and there will be strife. One of the benefits of immigration I hope is that Germany will change and become a friendlier and less inward looking society.
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I’m trying to learn German now and I keep failing lessons because I screw up gender and conjugation stuff. I wish there was a way to tell the app that I don’t give a shit. Even if I learn all the genders perfectly, I’m still going to be fumbling over words in an American accent. A few incorrect “der”s are not going to make me unable to be understood. And I can correct that later.
A lot of the language learning methods out there really are built to be graded/measured. Books, courses, duolingo, anki - they all kind of seek to answer this question ‘how can we measure your language and make sure you’re progressing through it’. There are a few applications out there that are far superior for me, that don’t focus on this two way feedback. Language transfer is amazing, glossika used to be amazing (s…
I worked on a product for nearly 4 years that seems very similar to what you're describing. I would love to tell you all about it and what we could have done better, worse, etc... How can I get in touch?
Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not an app - but Dreaming Spanish has really improved my ability to learn Spanish by leaps and bounds.
I've seen quite the positive impressions. I gave it a brief try and I'm not sure it's for me. I went through a number of superbeginner videos and was just feeling more and more frustrated at how much I didn't understand. I like the idea though and I'm sure it works for other people. Maybe with some adjustments to the concept it might be more palatable to me, I don't know.
Get a basic understanding of the language first with something like Duolingo such that you can watch the videos without struggling.
What I have found successful (aka maximizes my development) is when I am watching the videos and only about one out of every thirty words is a challenge to understand from context.