Duolingo discussion/friend exchange

[asadderandawiserman]

Thanks folks! I'm gonna be honest, I have a bad record at sticking with this sort of stuff, but hey, that's no reason not to keep trying to make something stick for once. Both your points are pretty intimidating at the moment, but it's good to have something to work towards.

Do you lot find it helpful to try and read out sentences as you're translating them, to help pronunciation and the like? Or does duolingo make you do that sort of thing later?

[kjeks]

Thanks folks! I'm gonna be honest, I have a bad record at sticking with this sort of stuff, but hey, that's no reason not to keep trying to make something stick for once. Both your points are pretty intimidating at the moment, but it's good to have something to work towards.

Do you lot find it helpful to try and read out sentences as you're translating them, to help pronunciation and the like? Or does duolingo make you do that sort of thing later?

I am quite happy with duolingo, especially as you can repeat the sequences and try to speak them as they do. Also I like the slow version, swedish provides. Though it has gotten easier to understand what they say in the quick sentenced. If Lars ever finds a mike some vocaroo impressions might be nice. Ruth put it some tongue-twister on the vocaroo thread, her pronounciation is neat

[Solovei]

Thanks folks! I'm gonna be honest, I have a bad record at sticking with this sort of stuff, but hey, that's no reason not to keep trying to make something stick for once. Both your points are pretty intimidating at the moment, but it's good to have something to work towards.

Do you lot find it helpful to try and read out sentences as you're translating them, to help pronunciation and the like? Or does duolingo make you do that sort of thing later?

I know certain languages DO include speaking exercises  (French does, for instance) but others do not. Seems like its up to the team that originally worked on the course whether to put them in. I know for a fact that Swedish doesn't include it for various reasons (such as that it's easy to fool the system and that it's much more useful to practice with real people than trust a computer to check if you're doing it right.)

[asadderandawiserman]

I know certain languages DO include speaking exercises  (French does, for instance) but others do not. Seems like its up to the team that originally worked on the course whether to put them in. I know for a fact that Swedish doesn't include it for various reasons (such as that it's easy to fool the system and that it's much more useful to practice with real people than trust a computer to check if you're doing it right.)

Ah OK thanks, I can see that that would be better, it's just a) difficult to find a native speaker, and b) a little bit terrifying to be like, "Hey can I practice my Swedish with you?" And if they said yes, I'm not entirely sure how exactly I would do that... By the way, at some points in these posts I start talking to myself, so I'll never be at all offended if you don't reply! I can really ramble sometimes, it just sort of happens.

[Solovei]

Ah OK thanks, I can see that that would be better, it's just a) difficult to find a native speaker, and b) a little bit terrifying to be like, "Hey can I practice my Swedish with you?" And if they said yes, I'm not entirely sure how exactly I would do that... By the way, at some points in these posts I start talking to myself, so I'll never be at all offended if you don't reply! I can really ramble sometimes, it just sort of happens.

Yeah, I agree it can be really intimidating! I'm working my way up to that by trying to carry on a conversation through text first! Also, I heard some people talk about this site: http://www.italki.com/partners
Havent tried it myself but it might be useful?

[ruth]

Yeah, I agree it can be really intimidating! I'm working my way up to that by trying to carry on a conversation through text first! Also, I heard some people talk about this site: http://www.italki.com/partners
Havent tried it myself but it might be useful?

i've done a couple exchanges with folks there. it was pretty fun, and i felt like i learned a lot, but i had a lot of trouble aligning my schedule with folks living in europe. it can be surprisingly difficult!

but conversation via text is definitely easier, and i think it's a lot "safer" in the sense that you can kind of work through it without having to process it all at once like speech. definitely kind of shocking going from typing only to trying to speak! it was a little bit of a sobering experience for me, i'll say that much.

[Solovei]

but conversation via text is definitely easier, and i think it's a lot "safer" in the sense that you can kind of work through it without having to process it all at once like speech.

Or sneakily look up words you don't know yet in a dictionary... _{Not that I do that...}

[ruth]

Or sneakily look up words you don't know yet in a dictionary... _{Not that I do that...}

who would ever do that? _{definitely not me either...well, maybe a little...if a little means "a lot"...}

[asadderandawiserman]

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely give some of that stuff a go when I'm a little further through. I doubt anyone on there would be much impressed with my "Jag dricker vatten."

[Solovei]

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely give some of that stuff a go when I'm a little further through. I doubt anyone on there would be much impressed with my "Jag dricker vatten."

Everyone starts somewhere! What I particularly like about Duo is that instead of just teaching you phrases (like a lot of Teach-Yourself-Some-Language! books I've seen) they break down the grammar and teach you the building blocks so you learn to form sentences quicker, I think...

[kjeks]

Everyone starts somewhere! What I particularly like about Duo is that instead of just teaching you phrases (like a lot of Teach-Yourself-Some-Language! books I've seen) they break down the grammar and teach you the building blocks so you learn to form sentences quicker, I think...

they do that pretty well. Sometimes there are some grammar things that are "only" explained up to 99% BUT, it is free and search engines totally help for the last 1%.

Also I like the chases Duo encourages

[Nimphy]

they do that pretty well. Sometimes there are some grammar things that are "only" explained up to 99% BUT, it is free and search engines totally help for the last 1%.

Also I like the chases Duo encourages

Hmmm, yes. I still don't uderstand akkusativ and dativ.

[Sigrid Marie]

I have a duolingo user, but I almost never use it (I joined the site to keep working on my Spanish during summer vacation, but after school started again I kind of... stopped). I think I'm going to start being more active there, though. My username is _sigridmarie_ (wow I am so creative with my usernames wow), which is incidentally excactly the same as my instagram username because usernames are impossible cx

I've never heard of memrise before, but I'm going to make a user there, because it has Japanese courses and duolingo doesn't

[JoB]

Hmmm, yes. I still don't uderstand akkusativ and dativ.

Do you mean, the very concepts?

Accusative = who something is done to (think "I accuse you")
Dative = who something is given (lat. dare) to

Of course, further concepts like interpreting the fact that you're washing your own hands as being a service you give yourself - as German can do, thus resulting in "ich wasche mir die Hände" - is where things get interesting.

[kjeks]

Do you mean, the very concepts?

Accusative = who something is done to (think "I accuse you")
Dative = who something is given (lat. dare) to

Of course, further concepts like interpreting the fact that you're washing your own hands as being a service you give yourself - as German can do, thus resulting in "ich wasche mir die Hände" - is where things get interesting.

I already tried to explain her that it is different type of objects. But I swore to look up italian grammar before starting the next attempt, because I see no way in explaining that to an english person. Except that "with" is a good marker for dativ?

best way to learn it seems to learn wich case is required by some words.

to like = jemanden mögen (akkusativ)
to talk to someone = mit jemandem sprechen (dativ)
to catch someone = jemanden fangen (akkusativ)

and so on.