“The streak” made learning French so much harder in the beginning.
Having a decent grasp of Spanish (Castellano), I thought French would be in the ballpark of difficulty. Well, it’s not. It’s way more nuanced in vowel sounds, and constantly cutting off the ends of words and then cramming the remains together in to sentences. Such a PITA.
In the beginning I badly needed rest and repetition days, but chasing a streak just made the whole thing so frustrating that I gave up for months at a time. Finally I’m able to keep up a streak, but it’s really just a side-effect of how I learn now.
Method: start up a lesson and do a single step. If in the mood, keep going. If not, put the phone down or use another app. Later, if the mood hits you, do another DuoLingo step. Repeat. Result? Somehow my streak keeps rolling on, and I’m actually completing more lessons per day now.
Another tip…you can do a practice lesson where you regain hearts, but I use it just as a stand in for keeping my streak on days I don’t want to do lessons. Which is most days tbh. I need a Spanish speaking buddy to practice with 🥲
¡Claro que si! Lo mismo aqui.
IMO the practice lessons are underrated and awesome. I mean, while yeah they nominally replenish your hearts, they also re-drill earlier stuff that might otherwise start to drift out of su cabeza.
So much of locking in a language is about immersion & repetition, and it seems to me that stuff like Duo’s practice lessons genuinely help replicate immersion.
Anyway, good luck on finding a practice buddy!
One thing I’ve learned is to not try to hop between Spanish & French, since it’s a great way to get it all jumbled up. :S
Dumb tip: you can totally cheat a missed streak by setting your device’s clock back a day and doing a lesson. You can even go back several months and do it. You can also just continue your streak after months of inactivity by doing a single long-ish lesson, so streaks are generally pretty damn pointless.
I do a single lesson a day. Slow…but I give me the time to learn. Additionally I added other sources and apps like memrize, that use video with native speakers and don’t fuck up the pronounciation like duo’s bots. Also Junior’s voice. Fix Junior voice it feels like I’m high by just listening to that.
don’t fuck up the pronounciation like duo’s bots. Also Junior’s voice. Fix Junior voice it feels like I’m high by just listening to that.
Which language are you talking about?
With French, there are indeed some differences in the bots, but I figured that was a feature, not a problem. I took it to represent regional differences, of which there certainly are differences in French.
“The streak” made learning French so much harder in the beginning.
Having a decent grasp of Spanish (Castellano), I thought French would be in the ballpark of difficulty. Well, it’s not. It’s way more nuanced in vowel sounds, and constantly cutting off the ends of words and then cramming the remains together in to sentences. Such a PITA.
In the beginning I badly needed rest and repetition days, but chasing a streak just made the whole thing so frustrating that I gave up for months at a time. Finally I’m able to keep up a streak, but it’s really just a side-effect of how I learn now.
Method: start up a lesson and do a single step. If in the mood, keep going. If not, put the phone down or use another app. Later, if the mood hits you, do another DuoLingo step. Repeat. Result? Somehow my streak keeps rolling on, and I’m actually completing more lessons per day now.
Another tip…you can do a practice lesson where you regain hearts, but I use it just as a stand in for keeping my streak on days I don’t want to do lessons. Which is most days tbh. I need a Spanish speaking buddy to practice with 🥲
¡Claro que si! Lo mismo aqui.
IMO the practice lessons are underrated and awesome. I mean, while yeah they nominally replenish your hearts, they also re-drill earlier stuff that might otherwise start to drift out of su cabeza.
So much of locking in a language is about immersion & repetition, and it seems to me that stuff like Duo’s practice lessons genuinely help replicate immersion.
Anyway, good luck on finding a practice buddy!
One thing I’ve learned is to not try to hop between Spanish & French, since it’s a great way to get it all jumbled up. :S
Dumb tip: you can totally cheat a missed streak by setting your device’s clock back a day and doing a lesson. You can even go back several months and do it. You can also just continue your streak after months of inactivity by doing a single long-ish lesson, so streaks are generally pretty damn pointless.
I do a single lesson a day. Slow…but I give me the time to learn. Additionally I added other sources and apps like memrize, that use video with native speakers and don’t fuck up the pronounciation like duo’s bots. Also Junior’s voice. Fix Junior voice it feels like I’m high by just listening to that.
Which language are you talking about?
With French, there are indeed some differences in the bots, but I figured that was a feature, not a problem. I took it to represent regional differences, of which there certainly are differences in French.