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Resources for language learners
I started a gemlog for confusing Spanish concepts — [gemini link] As I come across Spanish topics that stump me, I will make little write-ups. These are mainly notes for me and my partner, but maybe they will help someone. There are many terrible long-winded and ever-more confusing explanations on youtube. I will try to keep it short, a paragraph or two if possible, for each topic.
FluentU Has anyone tried this app? There are a few TV/movie/video apps with simultaneous multiple language subtitles; this one seems to go into great detail line by line... The Bob Eponja YouTube video is pretty good for beginners
Despues 60 dias de estudio... — Puedo escribir un poco, mejor que hablar. Me faltan vocabulario, pasado y futuro -- informacion clave! Duolingo es muy repetivo, pero util. Tal vez demasiado lento, en comparacion con la escuela. Sin embargo, en mi esperiencia, despues muchos anos en la escuela, mi francese es el peor! Ahora no soy joven, necesito mucho repeticion. Escribe sobre tus esperiencias aprendiendo un idioma.
ChatGPT para español — ChatGPT (3.5/version gratuita) es un buen profesor de español. Es muy paciente, y puedo hacer preguntas tontas una y otra vez. Pero en modo de voz, es demasiado verboso. Tengo que escuchar todo el discurso sin interupciones... En general, muy util.
Status Report: 30 days of Duolingo — I am actually on day 33 of my streak. Overall, I am pretty happy with Duolingo, which I've learned to really appreciate, in spite of my initial negative feelings. Ignoring minor UI issues and occasional lock-ups (very rare now that advertising has gone away), the curriculum is extremely well designed. New words and conjugations are introduced in a way that rarely overloads my brain, and the spaced repetition is perfectly worked out for retention. It's a...
Does anyone else feel icky when it comes to language exchanges? I'm selfish and just wanted to find Koreans who wanted to speak to me in Korean. How does one navigate exchanging a language when it feels more efficient to work for money and then exchange the money for language lessons 100% in the target language? But then, how does one find friends when one is only ever paying for the language and natives' time? How does it ever stop being transactional? I'm probably just way too jaded and...
Translation Considered Harmful — I speak two languages fluently. The first one I learned like everyone does - with adults correcting and cajoling me along the way. When I went to school, I started learning English, but after 3 years I has learned next to nothing - alphabet, some grammar rules, some words. But I was unable to put a sentence together in real-time. I then moved to the US, when I realized that no, I could not understand anything, and what little I could say, the locals found very...
Fui a la cafetería, pero el café estaba mal — I went to the cafe, but the coffee was bad. True story. So after 24 days of intense duolingo, it is not possible to say simple things like this, without outside help. For some reason, all language courses I've seen focus on the completely unusable present tense for a long, long time. While it seems simple and perhaps not entirely unwise to learn to conjugate verbs in present tense, it makes it impossible to communicate even simple thoughts. The...
Whose robot ate my cake? — My other favorites: "I like swimming in the pool with my cat", "I work at the hospital. I am a cat from Mexico, but my wife is from Argentina" The occasional craziness of Duolingo makes me like it more...
I am now a fan of Duolingo — OK, I've completely changed my mind about Duolingo and bought a family 1-year plan. My bitching was mostly related to the ads in the unpaid version. Without ads the app is stable, and the experience is streamlined. Being on the spectrum, a constant distraction with mind-numbing ads just did not work. I've been completely addicted to the well-thought-out gamification, and I love the way things are presented without 'lessons' -- it fits my desire to learn...
Video Games in Target Language — I’ve been playing Animal Crossing New Leaf for since January in English and decided today that I should switch the language the game is in to Spanish to expose myself to plenty of Spanish vocabulary and grammar. I’ll be sure to let you guys know how it’s been going in a few weeks or so 😎
Duolingo gave me a 3-day ad-free trial... — Interesting. As I entered the 8th-day streak, Duolingo gave me a 3-day no-ad unlimited error upgrade. Does everyone get it, or is it because I've been putting in hours every day? In spite of its occasional crashing and now, occasional muting for no reason (only restarting the app fixes it), I still find it pretty useful, and it is just stupid enough to keep my brain occupied without too much hard work. This results in me picking up language basics...
Babbel -- has anyone tried it? There is no free trial or even screenshots or course descriptions. They ask a few questions, get your email and request a payment. A bit of wtf.
My Cat Is Learning Crowish — MY cat sat in the middle of the room making strange quacking sounds yesterday. I was a alarmed, thinking she was unwell, but then I saw that she was looking out the window at a bunch of crows. When she was little she used to make creaking and ticking sounds at bugs.
Duolingo app is bad — Duolingo app is pretty bad... it actually crashes. It pauses for prolonged periods after ads, and sometimes never recovers, requiring a shutdown and restart. The quality is embarrasing... All crashes happen after ads, confirming my bias Had they offered a free set of lessons and a clean way to purchase the product I would have paid by now. But kind of glad I didn't. For free, willing to tolerate the shitty app, for now. Aside from crashing, I found problems with with...
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