Learning languages with Duolingo

I have never tried Duolingo. Your thread has encouraged me to take a look at it, especially as it includes Gaelic in the options of languages to learn.

StarDreamer

Ailidh

Grammaretto

Tha mi gu math, tapadh leat. Tha an t-uisge ann!!☔

Tha mi à Peairt ach tha mi a' fuireach ann an Sasainn.

Cò às a tha thusa?

I'm good thanks, it's raining!!
I'm from Perth but I live in England.
Where are you from?

I like your kind style of including English translations for those of us who do not know the language. Thank you.

Meal do naidheachd!

You're welcome.

One of the things that catches me frequently still with Gaelic is that it has no indefinite article but does have a definite article.

I'm used to languages that have both (English, French, German) and languages that have neither (Russian) but one of each occasionally trips me up.

How long have you been learning Gaelic Ailidh?

Tha mi à crìochan na h-Alba ach tha mi a' fuireach ann an Sealainn Nuadh

(I live in the Scottish Borders but I come from New Zealand)
at least I hope that is what I've written

Blossoming

I have never tried Duolingo. Your thread has encouraged me to take a look at it, especially as it includes Gaelic in the options of languages to learn.

Thank you.

Noticing the interest in Gaelic I am thinking that I might well have a look at it.

JackyB wrote You have your hearts, OK I get them, you can't make more than 5 mistakes per lesson.

What happens if you do please?
And in this context, what is a "lesson" please?

I have found a heart symbol with a lighning bolt on it and a number below it. Is that the hearts? Is the number the number used up or the number left?

Oh dear, it looks like the number is how many mistakes I have made. The Welsh is on 5.

So what happens if I make another mistake please?

I have now found the following.

LINK > support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002887326-What-are-Hearts

It has the following.

> Hearts are currently available to Android and iOS users. We do not currently have plans to bring this to Web.

I am using duolingo on a laptop computer running Windows 10, so either that has changed or I am looking at something different.

Oh that's good, I click on the heart and it gives me a personalized sequence to have another go at what I got wrong.

Excellent.

Grammaretto

How long have you been learning Gaelic Ailidh?

Tha mi à crìochan na h-Alba ach tha mi a' fuireach ann an Sealainn Nuadh

(I live in the Scottish Borders but I come from New Zealand)
--at least I hope that is what I've written--

Thòisich mi o chionn 703 latha.
I started 703 days ago.

I struggled at first because I prefer a more structured approach, I Like lists of rules etc, but it's getting better now, and I can often express things straight into Gaelic without translating first. The sentence at the top of this post was Not one of those.....

Ps, you said you're from the Borders but living in NZ.....?

I've got just over 1000 days in my streak. Tha mi ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig (I am learning Gaelic) but am making heavy weather of it at the moment.

I'm concentrating on Dutch just now and like Mollygo I am very taken with neushoorn, although the number of rhinoceroses one is likely to encounter in the Netherlands is probably small.

By way of variety I have a few other languages on my list, including Polish, which I started with a DGC who had a Polish friend. It seemed very difficult to me, and the friend went to a different secondary school, so we both stopped learning it with sighs of (guilty) relief.

StarDreamer, could you be confusing the heart which allows you to practise previous mistakes with the hearts that those using the app get and can lose with mistakes? If you are, like me, using the laptop version, the hearts are the first kind (assuming you are on Plus) and the rewards are lingots, not gems as on the app.

Wheniwasyourage wrote StarDreamer, could you be confusing the heart which allows you to practise previous mistakes with the hearts that those using the app get and can lose with mistakes? If you are, like me, using the laptop version, the hearts are the first kind (assuming you are on Plus) and the rewards are lingots, not gems as on the app.

Thank you.

Yes, having read your post I think I am comfusing them.

Well, as for Plus, I got offered a free three day use of Plus today. Since then I clicked the "heart on a laptop" and got the chance for a specialised lesson to correc my earlier mistakes.

I also got offered, and took, a progress test.

Now, as I had not clicked on the "heart on a laptop" before getting the 3 days of plus, I don't know if that is or is not a Plus-only feature.

Also, I don't know if this three free days of Plus is a once only ever or if I might get offered one again as a reward for using duolingo.

But i have now done, without any mistakes, the first part of the first "circle" of Scottish Gaelic as a result of reading about it in this thread.

Ailidh tha do Ghaidhlig glē mhath.
My heart is in NZ and my ancestors were from here so perhaps I was correct after all?

Duolingo kept me going in 2020/2021! I polished up my conversational Italian and French but I have now lapsed. I look forward to starting again in the autumn once the darker evenings arrive. I had a bit of a competition with my DS2 and a couple of 'virtual' friends, which made it good fun.
The programme was very user friendly on my phone, and just as accessible on my Chromebook.

I found the Gaelic course really interesting. Once you get to grips with the structure of sentences etc, it all becomes a bit clearer - and I found the different place names fascinating. I may never actually need to use it (unlike Turkish) but sometimes just learning for the sake of it is worth it.

StarDreamer, it is a Plus-only feature, and so will disappear after your 3 free days unless you pay for it. Progress tests are the same. You may get 3 free days again when you complete a certain number of days in a streak - about every 100, I think.

Tapadh leat. Dank je. Thank you, Wheniwasyourage.

Love learning Welsh by Duolingo. It's taken me a while to get into it but it's fun - no pressure. I watch Pobol y Cwm [with subtitles] and get excited when I can hear words and phrases I'm learning. I also enjoy Welsh plays - some are far better than English ones!

There are a lot of Welsh programmes on BBC iplayer on the
S4C channel.

Also, live S4C

I did Spanish on Duolingo during covid and really enjoyed it as well as learning a lot but then I got to a point where I was making too many mistakes, mostly due to the fact that my Spanish pronunciation is rubbish. I lost all my hearts and would have had to pay to continue so I gave up but am now thinking it might not have cost very much to continue and perhaps I should have done that. Does anyone know how much?

Your hearts renew every day, so you can continue using the free version.

Also, if you click on the heart at the top of the page, you can do some exercises to earn an extra heart. Finding that tricky at the moment because I'm temporarily at the far end of my comfort zone recognising some of the verb tenses and the spellings of place names, but I can sometimes squeeze out an extra heart.

Cille Mheàrnaig = Kilmarnock?
Inbhir Àir = Ayr?

I am almost 900 days into the Spanish course.
I enjoy the method of learning. I just have two gripes.
Firstly it is American English.
Secondly it is Latin American Spanish. Not European Spanish.
This can be quite confusing as I also take Spanish lessons.
However I really enjoy the daily challenge.
One of my son's has a family package that I am part of.

I too have a family membership with my daughter, and we can celebrate each other’s successes. I have a streak if 1075 in Spanish. I do ok- I can write and understand most things. But when I go to Spain and try to converse I feel like a right plonker as no one seems to understand what the heck I’m on about! ? I enjoy the challenge though so I’ll just keep going…….

For the Welsh I have got an A5 notebook (from Tesco) and I write each word or phrase and its meaning down as it arises, and also an "Englishy" way of pronouncing it (of my own devising), which I put within quote marks.

I had a quick look at Japanese the other day, so I am going to wait to do any more until I use a notebook to draw the characters.

I like your attitude LadyGaGa ⭐️? and I’m sure you’re right - just keep going!

Yesterday, Saturday, I received a weekly report from Doulingo, my first.

It shows me as having done around 40 to 50 minutes each day, except a week ago today, at about twice that.

I wonder how they measure it, given that one might leave web page displayed mid-way though a session while one goes and gets something to eat.