Has anyone else discovered (and become addicted to) Duolingo?
I stumbled on it 83 days ago am busy learning German (new language for me), and reinforcing Spanish (not studied since high school, but its amazing how much I remember). I opted for German for the challenge but Spanish has now become my language-learning equivalent of a comfort food… it is so much nicer to me than German. But I love the program and the exercise it gives my brain. Nice to be learning something entirely new at my age.
Anyway, I was just curious at to whether any other CC parents were doing the same.
I started using it after learning about it while traveling on a business trip. I had been fluent in Spanish at one point but am very rusty. Unfortunately I was in a different time zone, so after I returned home I would get my reminders to use Duolingo when I was going to sleep. I got out of the habit but might try it again sometime.
We did some Duolingo before a trip to France last summer - it was helpful to refresh some of my memory and for my D2 who knew no French to learn a bit. It’s a fun little app.
I enjoy languages - I’d rather conjugate irregular French verbs than do puzzles like Sudoku. I’ve used several on-line programs for learning or reviewing French, German, Spanish, Italian. Duolingo is fine for a free program, fairly easy, but good practice for pen and paper. For better, free learning there’s a podcast series - Coffee Break ---------- (fill in French, Spanish, German - this one is weaker than the others). This series is run like a course with English explanations and you can also buy materials for the program.
I have Pimsleur tapes in my car for whatever language I’m reviewing or working on and listen and respond to those as I drive. The challenge is to have one language in one car and another in DH’s car. I feel the mental effort when switching which I hope is a good Alzheimer’s preventative!
Something is going odd on CC. the line in the middle should be a simple fill-in-the-blank indicator - or at least that is what I typed. Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Spanish, etc. I can’t edit the line - the edit function isn’t working correctly either.
Duolingo is the best I’ve found for language apps, gentle, makes it a game. Though I have a very good one for Korean as well. Though no time for it these days, and they stopped the daily reminders. I was working on French. Coffee Break is very good on line.
I’m looking for Cantonese if anyone has any ideas. I have a Pimsleur, but haven’t much on-line other than Youtube. Youtube’s quality varies incredibly depending on who thinks they can teach the subject.
@great lakes mom, if you want Mandarin for the car, I know Pimsleur has one. Our local schools offer Mandarin for middle school, if there’s not a good on-line app now, I’m sure there will more coming in the next couple years.
If you have the basics of the language, you might find foreign broadcasts helpful. I listen to Spanish radio stations in the car and sometimes, I can find a French Canadian station in the evenings. Youtube is good with some foreign news broadcasts. I’ve found French and German that I can listen to. Doing some reading in the language is also helpful. I had a number of YA books in Spanish when I was working on that language. Helped with the vocabulary and usage.
I switch back and forth between languages, so am frequently reviewing rather than moving forward, but that seems to solidify things for me. Some languages have become much more automatic.
I took it to learn Spanish and to refresh my French. Once I finished the trees, I did the reverse and triangulated by learning French as a Spanish speaker. Definitely a challenge and improve my Spanish a great deal.
Duolingo is good for building vocabulary, but not so good for listening and pronunciation skill. I also took an online Edx class run by Madrid University and I can barely follow the speakers. IRL, the natives talk fast and not necessarily enunciate the words clearly. There is also a difference between Latin Spanish and Spain Spanish.
@ccreader, do you have a link or name for the Madrid course? I first learned Spanish with a Castilian accent and prefer that. I took adult two courses at our community college - one teacher was Mexican and the other US. I felt I was getting too much Mexican accent and South American usage for my purposes. I am much more likely to spend time in Madrid and environs than South America or Mexico. It’s harder in this country to get Castilian courses which is understandable, but I find frustrating.
I am not sure what’s the etiquette to post link on College Confidential, but if you go to edx.org, look under tab Course/Language you will find “Learn Spanish: Basic Spanish for English Speakers”
I used to be addicted to Duolingo but mostly stopped when courses started up again :(. I need to start using it again!
I use it to brush up on my Spanish and I was learning German. It’s a great little app and really can be quite addictive! I’d say it’s more for learning how to “get by” with the language than attempting to achieve any type of fluency- but I’m sure those who have invested more time into it can correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t think it could possibly get to fluency … but they’ve now added a Russian course (I think still in beta) and I’m going to suggest it to my daughter just as a way to brush up her skills. She returned to Russia on vacation last summer, but other than that she wouldn’t had much opportunity to practice since returning from her study abroad in 2009. I’m surprised at how quickly the Spanish comes back to me, given that I haven’t studied it formally since about age 15.
I have no particular need to learn another language, so I don’t think I’d have the time or motivation to do a formal course. The short lesson format of Duolingo is just something that I have time for, and obviously is a more productive use of my “down” time than most computer games or apps.
I personally don’t think I will have too much real life opportunity to use any language other than Spanish, but I do often have to read material in other languages. I rely a lot on machine translation – but I think a better understanding of the basic structure of the language will definitely be an improvement.
I think my main motivation is just to exercise and challenge my 62-year-old brain. I’ve always wanted to learn French so I’ll probably add that when I finish my Spanish tree.