Duolingo

[Fruitdeleloop]

AIBU to think I'll never be fluent or am I just thick as shit.

It's fair to say I struggle with retaining info. I don't know how much this is just the fact I have no brain space with the mental load of work and kids and life. I work in a role that is quite science based but despite being excellent at my job with great results, I'd be hard pushed to remember the facts/figures/research papers etc if put on the spot for example. I just cannot retain this stuff. It's like my brain filters what I need in life and sacks off the rest instantly. I'd love to be one of those super brainy remembers everything off top of their head types.

2 weeks ago I started using Duolingo for Spanish.
But It seems to me more like a remembrance test! I can match the words, guess what the sentence is with some familiarity of the words that are in front of me etc.. but without the english/spanish translated words below to prompt I don't think I could and when I'm not on the app I can barely remember anything off the top of my head except the very bare basics.

I'm spending about 15-30m per day on it. I appreciate it's early days but it's reminding me of the time I was 8 and learnt to the recorder from watching and memorizing the finger coordination.... 7 months later I was screwed at a recital as I hadn't admitted I couldn't read music and the teacher was furious!

This just isn't going to happen for me is it? Am I just stupid?

No idea. I thought you were talking about Dua Lipa whose name I only knew a week ago from hearing a song of hers and being informed she’s currently popular. Never heard of DuoLingo. I couldn’t name a Dua Lipa song either so if you’re thick as shit from not knowing Spanish then I must be the maggots in that shit as I don’t know Spanish either apart from hola and adios 😬

My kids are using this. My dd knows apple in Spanish. That’s about it

Ronnie I don't know why but reading that (several times cos my tired brain says no to everything by 9pm) has really cracked me up Thank you for a much needed chuckle.

I found it incredibly slow and repetitive concentrated on vocabulary rather than sentance construction and conversation. I gave up as I found it mind numbingly boring.

Duolingo is a great website, but I don't think it's enough on its own to learn a language from scratch.

To learn a language from the beginning you need to learn by rote. There's no way around it. Duolingo doesn't teach by rote - it teaches by exposure and memorisation.

I would recommend getting a Spanish textbook that will take you from the beginning, and make you memorise the conjugations and word endings. Once you have a good foundation (you know the present tense of all 3 verb endings off by heart, adjective endings, basic sentence structure), you can use Duolingo to practise forming sentences and translating.

It's been a long time since I studied Spanish but I found Duolingo amazing for practising what I had learnt - not for learning new material.

I gave up on Duolingo, I found it jumps ahead too quick and doesn’t teach any grammar.

I switched to a different app and I’m doing better

I use it and I'm getting on quite well but I am taking a Spanish class too (moved to Zoom now of course). I think you just have to keep practising.

Oh interesting.

NC for this, but I work for one of their rivals, and all we hear about is how great they are, though our tests are more about adaptive testing and conversation than just memorisation.

Always interested to hear what people are saying about the general ideas of learning languages.

Stick with it OP! You are definitely not stupid!
I’ve been using it on and off for about 2years now, I’m learning Czech, Welsh and just started Gaelic, and all at the start felt like I was just memorising words and sections of phrases, but as I’ve progressed through them all, it does start to feel like it’s sticking and I could make my ‘own’ sentences.
I have the app on my phone and it doesn’t let you type words out very often, more often you have to select the words in order don’t you? But I’ve found using the desktop site a much better way for me to learn as I can type it all out, although I appreciate that might not be for everyone.
Another reason to stick with it, is some of the randomness that you will no doubt encounter! Czech is often good for this- had one lesson that was about blood, bodies and suitcases!

I am on day 130 and half way down checkpoint 2. I feel I could hold a tourist style conversation but not sure about fluency going to be achieved by the end. Learning Spanish too

I used Babble a few years ago and felt exactly the same as this. Feel like I could've typed this myself.

Daretotiger, is it babble or memrise? Both have been separately recommended.

I think duolingo is helping bolster DS who takes Spanish lessons once a week.

Yes I'm tripping up on grammer and the female/male variants.

Though judging by my understanding of DC2 English pack (KS2) maybe I ought to be taking flipping English!!

I've just done 79 days in a row in French.

I honestly thought I was terrible at languages, but honestly wanted to learn. I love it and my only regret is that I actually paid for rosetta stone first which I got bored (and I didn't read the small print of a monthly £16 charge in addition to my three months) . There's been days where I haven't wanted to do it but I still did it and that's all you need. I'm a casual learner so less than 5 mins a day and I've still picked up a lot but I've not just doing DUO but also lots of youtube videos, audiobooks and watching netflix in french with a extension so I can get two subtitles at the same time.

I think most people just get frustrated easily. Like a child I'm giving myself around 18 months before I can expect myself to talk.

I've used it to revise French and German, which I studied at school, and it was helpful.

I am now learning Welsh. I'm over 1/3 of the way through the tree (doing all levels of each topic before moving on to the next), and I do feel like I am learning things.

I can't always remember words I've studied in previous topics off the top of my head, but it comes back pretty easily when there's a revision topic.

And I am learning grammar/sentence structure throughout, even if not explicitly (I never read the info in advance of each topic).

So I'm going to complete the tree, and by then I feel like I will at least be able to compose and understand basic sentences, and then do regular practice.

Might also start listening to Welsh radio or something then too. Though listening is my worst skill, as I have issues processing speech. Reading will be fine though.

I've just started using it to learn french, mainly as I did German at school but my dcs are doing french, and am struggling to help them with homeschooling. I am quite enjoying it, but not sure if anything is really sticking yet.

I also have a separate grammar book!

It is good for vocabulary, but I don't think it really helps form a sentence. As others say it is good in conjunction with other learning methods. It has improved my reading vastly though.

No idea about your question. DuoLingo keeps email me asking how learning Scottish Gaelic is going. I have never expressed any interest in learning Gaelic!

It's good if used in conjunction with other things.
I watch films and cartoons in my chosen language on YouTube. Films I have seen before, so I understand most of the context, and kids cartoons for the simplicity.
I can read and understand most things now. Speech is harder, because I've nobody to practice with!

Watch something called Extras on YouTube. Its cheesy as fuck but its excellent

I'm doing Norwegian on it, and it's fun for ten minutes or so, but nobody is ever going to be able to speak a language by reproducing sentences on an app. It's a tool, among many and it's certainly more functional than some of the others, but it's really just rote learning and a memory test at the end of the day.
It has its place, but to be able to speak a language you need something more wraparound.

I think I've the same sort of brain as you- and had the same problems! I ended up listening to a podcast called 'coffee break espanol' which has the added entertainment of being done by a Scottish bloke and has an excellent jingle ("learning Spanish is dead brilliant!") I liked the pace and format of it much better- even though I'm not usually a verbal learner, they make you say stuff after them and that really helped.
2 babies later and I don't remember any of it!

I did it for six months before I moved to Germany and I found it gave me a foundational sort of level of skill in terms of being able to have a sense of what a sentence should sound like and what should go where etc. So I was able to in a very rudimentary way use words like building blocks to communicate what I mean.

By spending time actually in the country and using the language I picked up more vocabulary and everyday phrases etc and that has got me to a level where I can have a basic conversation, get through everyday interactions etc. But I can't get any further with duolingo, and I think I will need to go to a class to improve now. I don't understand any of the grammar.

The sentence reproduction is quite clever if German is done like the other languages, in that they give you bits of language you can mix and match and that's useful, IMO. Much better than learning specific conversations by heart like you tend to at school or in textbooks.