Learning languages with Duolingo

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!

Tapadh leat. Dank je. Thank you, Wheniwasyourage.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.....?

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.

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 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?

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

Seriously SD I think that’s enough. I’ll just leave the thread thanks. Nobody “had a go “ a couple of people thought you were a bit patronising is all.
Surely we don’t need to continue. Please.

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.

I usually assume that people know more than me, especially on here.
And I’m usually right.
I’ve learned an awful lot just chatting with folk on here

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?

Mollygo

Actually SD
Link: dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/patronize
Sorry about the z instead of s.
It does come across like that. A foreign language app thread - a good thread. Perhaps if you asked, “Do you know, or have you heard of Duolingo? instead of announcing what Duolingo is and then telling GNs to “discuss” you would probably have got just as many posts. Asking “How many people know about using a and an?” (which come under the broad heading of ‘determiners’) would share the info and allow those already educated, not to feel patronised.
One of my B-i-L speaks to us in the same way-as if we know nothing till he tells us.

I like Duolingo and have a 2311 day streak learning several languages, with varying degrees of success or failure and the word neushoorn is engraved indelibly on my mind, although I’m unlikely to need it.
Whilst we’re on the subject of foreign languages apps, have you heard of Memrise. That app actually has real people talking on it and you can learn the Portuguese that is spoken in Portugal rather than the Brazilian version.
As with Duolingo you can do it free, but at the moment there is a half price offer of £2.91 per month, although you have to pay for the year upfront.

Thank you for the link.

I understand now.

I don't do that.

> instead of announcing what Duolingo is and then telling GNs to “discuss”

I did not tell anybody to do anything.

I wrote as follows,

>> This thread is to discuss duolingo please.

which is not the same at all. It is just a statement of the purpose of the thread and a polite invitation to participate.

> One of my B-i-L speaks to us in the same way-as if we know nothing till he tells us.

I neither write nor speak as if people know nothing until I tell them.

I do not assume what they know, so for completeness, in conversation I explain each step, guided by feedback and any prior knowledge that I have of the person's understanding, so as to try to "lock on" to the appropriate way to communicate with the person. In writing for publication it is different as I do not know the level of prior knowledge of everbody likely to read what I have written, so I tend to take that into account so as to improve communication. Sending an email to someone is somewhere between the two.

Ailidh
Ciamar a tha thu?
(Tha mi gu math)
Cò às a tha thu?

I used Duolingo to learn Spanish for a few years. I liked the practical mixture of speaking / listening / reading / writing. I did find it useful on visits to our family in Spain and it was especially nice to be able to talk to my co-grandmother.
Then I did a U3A course here in France where the teacher taught entirely in French. I was listening in French, translating to English and then to Spanish and got extremely confused. His teaching style was amazingly old-fashioned and I really didn't think we needed to be able to recite the imperfect subjunctive at this stage in our lives.

Grammaretto

I have been trying to learn Gaelic on Duolingo for well over a year now. Can't say I could carry on a conversation.
I also attend a class on zoom each week with a real life teacher and I tune in to the Alba TV channel occasionally.
I have an unbroken streak of 100 days but am in danger of losing it. I had better do my 10 minutes.
Mar sin leat

Halò a Ghrammaretto! Bruidhinn rium!

Bidh mi a' bruidhinn ris na coin agam ann an Gàidhlig - ach cha bhi iad a' freagairt.....

(Hello, Grammaretto! Speak to me!

I talk to my dogs in Gaelic - but they don't answer.....)