A language learning thread for all abilities!

[Christmasandallthetrimmings]

I'll start!

I'm on Duo Lingo and trying to learn French, Spanish and Turkish.

Turkish is my biggest love after living there for a few summers, however it's also the hardest, so I try and balance it out with some Spanish to make it a bit more easy on myself and keep up learning.

I don't get loads in as find it hard to focus and get bored easily of the same app, but planning to have a clear out, make some mental space and get some text books to mix it up a bit. I watch a lot of Turkish shows on Netflix which really helps me practise what I've learned and keeps the love going.

French is because I started a degree in it and didn't finish. I always forget the little things like gender of nouns, sentence structure etc and it's been so long since I dropped out of that degree . We didn't do much actual French learning, just lots of literature, so I know a lot of unusual words but not much depth of the grammar, which I hope to go deeper with. I find Spanish the easiest of the three but then I feel guilty when I do that instead of my great love language and my degree language. Silly really 😂 I'm a single mum so don't have time for classes at the moment but hope to when DD is older.

I'm learning French on duolingo, mainly because I want to understand the bits of French I sometimes come across in books (like Agatha Christie books) and to keep my brain active and learning.

I'm also constantly learning Finnish (not on duolingo, already finished the tiny Finnish it has ages ago) but through immersion living in Finland. But immersion doesn't teach me grammar really and that's the area I struggle in.

Ah wow that's amazing...are there any grammar books you can find on Amazon or anywhere?

Wow, three languages at once😱🥳

Well done OP! It certainly keeps your mind active.

I am learning Spanish too, but on the Transparent Languages app via my library membership. On a 86 day streak now.

DH learning Japanese on his Duo Lingo app. As are three of the children!

I have a couple of textbooks that they use for teaching immigrants Finnish and I've borrowed grammar books from the library but it just doesn't stick in my head for long. I need to get people at work to correct me when I make errors but they probably don't want to do that.

I’m learning French on duo. I started in lockdown so have a 4 year streak now! Last year I switched to lessons at my local adult learning centre but due to lack of students and a cut in council funding, this enjoyable course was axed.

My French teacher offered on line private classes but there was not enough interest at my level so she suggested I try her more advanced conversation class. I started in September and I’m definitely the worst but I am just about keeping up and the others seem to tolerate my many grammatical mistakes. It’s all on zoom.

I did Erasmus in the 90’s in Spain and kept my Spanish going so my Spanish is very good. I do struggle with mixing phrases with French though when speaking which is frustrating. The whole reason for picking up French again (have an ancient gcse) was because in lockdown we decided we wanted to buy a house and live there when our dc finish GCSE’s.

I also have conversation Dutch because I married a Dutchman.

So regarding languages, I enjoy them and can get by in a few but am not totally fluent in any🙃

Sounds like we have similar abilities in our handful of languages we have dabbled in. It's nice to have the skills though, for getting around when travelling and reading stuff here and there :) I've got relatives who have thrown themselves headfirst into languages and come out completely fluent and I wish I had that dedication!

Ah thanks although each is more of a trickle of learning, so not feeling like I'm mastering any of them 😂 I need to do multiple to stop my brain getting completely bored of the learning. I've not heard of that app, I need to look it up. Japanese sounds very challenging, must be great for the kids when they're older!

Ah that's a shame, can you scan some of the texts into chat gpt and get it to test you Duolingo style? It might stick then, in your head. Or chat gpt might already know Finnish grammar.

I started Italian on Duolingo when I retired and I’ve now finished the course. I do the revision lessons now and have also started Spanish, which I’m finding very easy because it’s so similar to Italian. I also do the Duolingo maths to score lots of easy points when I don’t have much time.

I’m trying to learn Spanish on the Language Transfer app. Early days and about 10% completed. I want to learn a reasonable amount of conversation by October when I plan to visit Spain.
It’s harder than I expected and I think once I’ve finished Lesson 10 I will go back to the start. It’s audio and I’m not sure if duo might suit me better.

I started an Italian evening class but it was hard going, 2 hours without a break in the evening. The teacher only spoke in Italian and it was too difficult although supposedly for beginners. People dropped out and it stopped after two terms. I started italian in lockdown and have done it everyday ever since. Unfortunately I have not really taken it seriously enough so don't really know all the different tenses but get the gist when reading Italian. Very far from any fluency but I enjoy it and is similar to French which I did 50 years ago! I made a point of having a holiday in Italy last year so I could practise. Main reason I chose Italian was I liked the sound of it when both my children did it for GCSE and they would get me to test them.
My streak is 1667 days!

Oooh I met the guy who created that app when I was in Spain and he was promoting his stuff at meetup...ended up being a guinea pig for his Swahili beginners course, but I still want to conquer my other languages before diving into anything new. He's brilliant!