Duolingo 1 Month In
It's little over month and I have a 40 day streak going on Duolingo, I am pretty much Italian now and started to assimilate into my neighbourhood.
Jokes aside, it's been a fun ride thus far. I can now muster up some basic greetings and ask basic questions when I see some of my neighbours. I've been occasionally dropping a few phrases here and there with the older, first generation Italian neighbours and I think they find it amusing.
I don't think I have ever experienced such a fun and addicting educational app that keeps you coming back. I love the idea of the learning streak, this might be one of the most sticky features that keep learners coming back day after day. God forbid you break a streak, especially if you are on daily quest with your friends. There are a lot of hooks and strategies that Duolingo keeps you coming back, maybe a post for another time.
The biggest struggle learning as an adult is getting enough practice with speaking. My neighbours know that I am an English speaker, and they naturally switch to English to be more comfortable - even if their English is limited! It also takes guts from me to ask to practice in Italian. Not everyone might be interested in helping me learn and might want to get on with their day, or say what they have to say. Generally speaking, my neighbours are friendly and chatty, so I think we can work on this. Other than that, listening without subtitles and writing without aid is still a struggle.
I remember reading somewhere, you need around 1000-3000 words in a language to be conversional and perhaps fluent in a language. But perhaps only 500-1000 to survive a basic conversation. I think a lot of the early gains and intuition from Spanish and French has passed, and now it's a matter of time and dedication to get to the next level. I started listening to radio and watched some YouTube videos in the language, to my surprise - I am starting to pick up some words here and there.
I found out, the Duolingo language score/level that learners get is not just an arbitrary number. It's an approximation of your language level (A1, B1, C1 etc in CEFR). link. Although, I have to say, there are lots of gaps in my understanding of the language. You don't get into all the grammar and boring stuff right away - which is absolutely essential if you want to speak good and write good. Nevertheless, the app is meant to engage with the audience in a fun way, and gets you speaking, listening, reading and writing as quickly as they possibly can before you lose interest. Attention is limited resource these days.
Without this post sounding like an ad for Duolingo, I found there was drastic difference in terms of learning experience between free plan and premium plan. The premium plan has interesting features and there's significantly less friction in learning. Free tier was almost painful to work with. If you are interested, or serious about learning a language, I suggest joining a family group or trying it with friends. It’s a lot more fun and motivating, when you keep each other accountable.
I am slowly forgetting why I started on this journey in the first place. I think it was for fun, a way to connect with my neighbours, and as a challenge to myself to see if I could do it. Why not. I used to be a language nerd. Something about "you live a new life for every language you speak...", right?