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?

The Paul Noble books/audio taught me more usable French in two weeks than in 34 years of being alive I really recommend them. No learning grammar by rote or useless words and phrases, just usable, conversational key phrases and building blocks that you can put together.

Oh, as this is on topic, does anyone watch laoshou on YouTube? (Not sure if I spelled the name right). His videos are awesome :)

Oh and he specifically tells you not to try memorise anything, there's just lots of repetition and revisiting and putting different sentences together so it sinks in without having to really try. I was surprised by how effective it was.

I like Duolingo for messing about on though when it's not practical to have the book with me or listen to an audiobook.

I'm not the best with languages but Duolingo works really well for me. I think if you stick with it for a while it starts to sink in.
I know from doing Portuguese and French that the further you progress, if you use the tips, revision cards, stories, podcasts, and flash cards etc as well as the vocab memorisation then it will sink in. I've "got" more from Duolingo and understand the grammar much much more easily than GCSE French!

Im doing duolingo and ive always been shit at languages. I remember the odd word here and there and thats it.

Another great Spanish podcast is Notes in Spanish.
Really helped me blow the cobwebs from my 30 year old but unused degree.

Language teacher here
I have students who do self study on various apps etc and I'm always interested what works
Lots like duo lingo but it will only take you so far
Some like memrise. I've had a quick look and it's similar to duo lingo but I think there's a little less guess work
Some like busuu. I've only had a quick look but I think this is decent
Some like babbel i haven't looked at this
Some like the Paul noble audio book. You can get this on free trial from audible so if you're doing this get the complete course
What I find works the least is self study with a text book. If you've never learnt what all the jargon is, this just makes it harder! I spent an hour recently going over all the terminology with someone who brought the book to the lesson and said I've had this for ages but I've no idea where to start!
Another option is a language exchange app. There's one called tandem. You put in that you're English native and you're learning whatever language and then you converse by text or voice message if you like in a bit of both languages and there is the option to correct each other. A modern version of a pen pal but instant.
Everyone learns differently. Find what works for you.

Duolingo is fine for fun but it's not actually teaching you a language.

Does anyone know much Duolingo costs? The free version is driving me a bit mad as I keep running out of lives! But I haven’t found online the price and it’s not clear on the app either

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!")

Mark! I’m going through the Coffee Break Italian podcasts, which are great. Although don’t have such a fun jingle.

Keep going with it! You might be absorbing more of it than you think. I’m doing chinese on it, I have a 200 day streak and nearly finished the whole course - yes I still forget some stuff when I don’t have those prompts there in the app, but that is normal when learning I think, whatever programme or method you use. The more you keep going, more it will stick - that’s if you find it fun. If it just makes you feel fed up with it and you don’t need to do it then no shame in moving on to something else either!!

I've been using Duolingo for Italian for a year or so. It's great for what it is. The forums are also helpful.

For me, I'm using it to supplement a proper paid for online course which is my main learning tool.

I think there's a very useful place for it. Just not in isolation.

Duolingo is shit. Nuff said.

I'm a languages teacher (French and German) and am currently teaching myself Spanish from scratch (started a couple of years ago and was meant to be doing an A Level this summer).

You can't really learn a language just by doing Duolingo. It is quite a clever app for vocab building, but you need to be listening, reading and speaking, and getting lots of solid exposure to the language, not just random sentences. Also it doesn't teach you the grammar properly. I listen to loads of podcasts and audiobooks.

But yes, having a decent memory for words is fairly essential for learning a language tbh. Doing little and very often is best at first.

My dc have recently started using it and so far I think it’s great.

Very appealing for kids. Ds 9 is doing Welsh on it and ds12 is doing Welsh and French. During ‘school’ they’re begging me to be allowed to do it for half an hour and they’ve both definitely improved.

I doubt it’s enough to reach full fluency but I’d say it’s a great tool to support dc when they’re already learning.

@Northernsoullover

Where did you find that? I could understand some of it! Flashbacks from Erasmus year

DuoLingo isn’t enough.

What I find useful is Quizlet. You can put a whole load of vocab in flash card form. Do 10 mins a day recall and aim to add 10 words a day.

Then spend a couple of hours a week on concentrated study, pick a YouTube channel (Spanish with Vicente is good) and study the grammar and vocab.

There are also lots of good (albeit cheesy and predictable) Netflix shows in Spanish: chicas del cable, ELITE.

Another really good idea is to pick a hobby or subject that you’re interested in anyway and search it up on YouTube. You’ll understand a fair bit of the vocab easier and its fun.

Good luck OP. Spanish is an amazing language.

Ooo yes I forgot coffee break Spanish (or other) and notes in Spanish

I love DuoLingo. I'm on day 100 today and I'm nearly finished level 2 on Scottish Gaelic. I'm really, really enjoying it. I have a fault good memory for languages and whilst it doesn't cover everything I have started reading children's books in Gaelic.

I’m doing Danish on Duolingo and am really enjoying it but I do get a bit frustrated at the lack of explanation of grammatical rules. I speak French and Italian, both started at school, and it’s still helpful to remember the basic grammar rules. I’ve just moved onto possessives in Danish and ended up looking at an external website to figure out why they were different in certain situations.

Duolingo is a foundational tool. I'm teaching myself French. I started using Duolingo a while back - then got out of the habit when I started reading French / Belgian comic books. (Which is why I want to have good French in the first place. I just want to read their comics. There are some seriously good books out there not just Asterix and Tintin. And SO MANY!) Anyway I would sit there puzzling out the speech balloons with a dictionary to hand. The context of much of it was obvious from the drawings and I slowly built up a smattering of a vocabulary and grammar - even if it was "Follow that car!" and "Take that, you swine!" "PAF!"

After a while I went back to books I had read months before and found I wasn't puzzling over them quite as much. Occasionally I would find myself actually reading instead of translating.

Daily I read the news on my phone in English and then go and read the coverage from France 24. It's doing it every day and getting it to be part of your life - not just setting aside time to learn it that has made the difference for me. Using the French versions of websites like eBay has helped too. Things like that.

Last week I went back to Duolingo again and was pretty chuffed to find I was way past where I expected I would be.

Try Pimsleur. Expensive, but very effective.

This is very interesting, thank you for all the input!

So I guess... INBU, I likely won't be fluent on duolingo alone.

But as suspected, having good memory and retention is a must and this is going to be my downfall. (Would love to know why on earth I still know 1-10 in French from primary though. I mean come on, Brain! Hardly essential!)

I'm going to continue because I'm enjoying it and its giving the dc and I a shared interest... but perhaps I'll ask their Spanish teacher if she will teach me also!

For PP. The app did randomly show me prices earlier. Was 6.99pm for 12mo.

As a languages teacher- you know what my best, top students do- and you can spot it straightaway with their range of vocab that they'll never find in any textbook; their fluency and their pronunciation....Netflix.

When I think of when I did languages at university- and we had an odd little room which was billed as cutting edge where we could hire foreign language films, or even when I started teaching 26 years ago...there was nothing out there except stuffy coursebooks, and now, it's fab.

In our house we've just sat and watched the same Netflix show in 3 languages. Dp is watching in Italian, I'm watching in English and DD has a Spanish exam in June so is watching in Spanish

It's also worth knowing about the tips on DuoLingo where it does explain about the different grammar. I think it's mainly on a computer not on a mobile.