i don't understand duolingo

[badger2005]

sorry about no caps - am recovering from arm op! i thought i'd use the time to brush up my ancient gcse french by using duolingo. but i'm a bit confused. i did a test, and now i'm doing lots of lesson things. do i do a topic till i get a crown with a '1' in it and then move onto the next topic? or should i keep going on the same topics to get more crowns for them? i'm enjoying it but i just don't really get the structure...
any advice gratefully received!

I had a phrase come up in 2020, ‘I have forgotten what normal life is’; it has stuck with me

I’ve been doing French for a couple of years - the legendary bit is newish, so I’m now going back to the start doing the legendary levels which is acting as a good refresher .
I’m also doing Dutch as I did a bit years ago, but it doesn’t have the grammar tips for each subject so I’m not finding it as user friendly.
I
I love all the passive aggressive sentences that it uses!

Danish duolingo taught me the ever-useful 'the polar bear demands that the liver pate leaves the room'

I'm nearly at checkpoint 5 in Spanish on DL. I tend to have 2-3 chapters running at a time and then move on to the next one. Then intersperse with the stories. I feel DL has made me a great reader of the language but not speaker which is more what I probably need.

@Summersdreaming

I'm doing Spanish and I'm sick of Juan and his obsession with apples *@Abra1d1*

They feature a lot in the Polish one too

The Polish Duolingo liked apples too.
I did months if it but find it really hard so slipped back to French as it's easier to spell and say.

@Summersdreaming

I'm doing Spanish and I'm sick of Juan and his obsession with apples *@Abra1d1*

I'm learning basic Italian and lots of apples there too

The silly phrases are deliberate

blog.duolingo.com/how-silly-sentences-can-help-you-learn/

German had "the holy potato," Danish seems to be duck and turtle heavy.

Oh yes, of course, lots of bears in German. How could I have forgotten. I haven't got to the holy potatoes yet. I look forward to it.

@Abra1d1

I enjoy Duolingo but they sometimes seem to get fixated on vocabulary that mightn't feature much in everyday conversation. I wanted to learn some Italian for a short holiday there last week. I spent a lot of time on whales and dolphins.

Duolingo is very eccentric. A friend of mine is always posting crazy things it's taught her like 'Norsemen lick frost from ferns every morning' or 'Some seahorses have serious attitude problems,' or similar silliness.

I love the animal stuff, the person I'm most likely to converse with in Danish is my 3 year old niece so knowing the word for unicorn, turtle, lion, rhino etc. Is quite useful :-)

I think we should have an MN Duolingo meet-up and speak in Duo phrases only.

I’ve been doing Spanish for 47 days now DD is doing Spanish GCSE this year and as I didn’t do Spanish at school I’ve finally decided it would be nice to be able to join in with her a bit more.

I’m onto unit 2 now - not so many apples but I’m sure they’ll keep popping up

@Abra1d1 Well it just so happens that my bear is indeed a very good artist - so I can definitely contribute :)

[quote thecatneuterer]@Abra1d1 Well it just so happens that my bear is indeed a very good artist - so I can definitely contribute :)[/quote]
It will be a wild higher with all the bears, snakes and whales competing for apples.

Wild NIGHT

I like duolingo and the being able to bounce between subjects keeps me and my hates languages brain (and not very good at it brain!) vaguely intrested! but I do think it would benefit from some explanation of the grammar

Sadly I’ve lived in Denmark for 18m and not once have turtles or polar bears have come up in conversation, duo lingo gave me false hope!

I love duolingo but have found it a lot easier to brush up languages I know a little already rather than learn one from scratch. I tend to jump around between the subjects to keep me interested. Love the crazy sentences too which in German seem to focus a lot on the habits of bears and dogs! My favourite sentence today was "Why is Hans' ex-husband sitting between me and the dog?"

am loving hearing about all these weird phrases! so far in french it's been very ordinary - a lot of getting up early or late, turning left or right, preferring these trousers to those etc...

i'm intrigued by the little cartoon people - do we all have the same ones? there is an older woman, a little boy, a grumpy woman who does sarcastic clapping, a man who celebrates my success by drinking coffee, a downbeat bear... i don't think i'm hallucinating these...

I am doing it as my children are, kinda in support but not really bothering to really concentrate. It is amazing how much sticks in with only 15mins a day

So glad English doesn’t have masculine and feminine words. Such a pain in the butt hole

Norwegians and Danes both obsessed with turtles and chickens though only seem to drink water and eat bread.
For true surrealism you want the Greeks. Pink. Obsessed with pink they are. I know how to say the pink mini-market and the pink avocado. Often in the same sentence.
If I feel the need to burst into Latin, I can tell everyone that sisters are studying at home while brothers are sleeping in the city and surely there are no universities in Philadelphia.

The Italian one has lots of "i miei pantaloni rosa" - my pink pants - not a phrase I ever say in real life!!

I've been doing Spanish over 3 years now. I get every topic to gold before moving on.
When I started the purple legend thing didn't exist so now I use them for revision/points grabbing.
I love the stories which are often funny and use a natural sounding spoken language.

Lyserød : Danish for pink, Duolingo is working on some level.🤣