#maybe its different if you start learning a language from duolingo

[allinllachuteruteru]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

#duolingo #langblr #huge language rant feel free to skip #evolution of duolingo #luis von ahn #duolingo welsh course #language learning

[kumezyzo]

SAPNAP FANFICTION WHERE READER TEACHES SAPNAP GREEK? (reader doesnt have to be greek, maybe just knowing alot of greek from friends or taking a course like it in school) BC SAPNAP IN THE ANTHONY PADILLA INTERVIEW SAID THAT HIS GREEK IS SUPER RUSTY SO MAYBE THE READER COULD BE TEACHING HIM PHRASES BEFORE HE VISTS HIS FAMILY?? IDK SEEMS CUTE

i had this as an idea too ngl 😅 but i just wanted to squeeze it into a different fic, but here we are!!!!! i figured its easier to do this shit instead.

anyway, enjoy! or dont :) m.list

bf!sapnap who thinks its a little embarrassing that know more greek than him.

bf!sapnap who acts like a little kid when you correct his pronunciation. aka he lowkey throws a tantrum

bf!sapnap who loves hearing you speak the language he heard growing up. even if it were in brief instances when he was getting yelled at.

bf!sapnap who doesnt care if he actually improves or not. but thats just cause he likea seeing you get all worked up trying to help him. he also likes seeing you get angry when you realized he wasnt listening to you at all. he feels a little bad but he was too busy admiring you.

"nick, can you at least remember the basics? like how to say 'thank you'?" you ask, going through your notes app to find the first notes you took when you started learning. when he didnt say anything, you looked up to see him smiling at you dopey-eyed. "nick?"

"huh? oh, ευχαριστώ," he said, in a butchered accent. you pursed your lips trying to supress the laugh that was threatening to slip past your lips.

bf!sapnap who is very happy to introduce you to his dad and grandmother the next time he sees her. but then he realizes she might beat his ass for it.

bsf!dream who makes fun of him for not knowing the language that practically flows through his viens.

"how are you dating someone who speaks the language better than you!" dream laughed loudly.

"bro, shut the fuck up," he responded with an eye roll.

"i mean its cool, but they're not even greek!"

even his viewers think its kinda funny. especially when you post videos of you trying to speak to him and he has no idea what you said.

fun fact: i was learning greek before i even really watched the dream team. and especially before i even knew sap was greek. and knowledge extends to a few duolingo words and the ability to read most if it. i dont know what im reading, but i can read it and pronounce it. -nony

#sapnap #anon #sapnap x reader #sapnap x you #dteam #sapnap x y/n #sapnap fluff #asks #sapnap x reader fluff #sapnap x you fluff #bf!sapnap #dream team #dream team x reader #dteam x reader fluff #dream team fluff #fluff #sapnap x streamer reader

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

From David Sedaris via Bari Weiss and Free Press.

>>>>>

The New York apartment building Hugh and I live in isn’t terribly big. I wanted a nice view, so we’re on a high floor, the drawback being that we need to rely on the elevator—not for going down so much, but only my friend Dawn would carry a load of groceries up twenty flights of stairs. The building has doormen, so between me and the street there is definitely one, but more often, two or three occasions for small talk. Nobody likes this kind of thing. That said, there’s a definite art to it.

Not long after we moved in, I was heading to the lobby, and a neighbor I would later get to know as Tommy boarded the elevator one floor below mine. He nodded at me, and as the doors closed I raised a finger. “May I ask you a question?”

“Not if it’s about how much to tip the doormen at Christmas,” he said.

That was exactly what I was going to ask. Quick, I thought, think of a replacement. “Can you recommend a cobbler?” I asked.

Now it is five years later. I’m on my way to the lobby and when a woman boards at 14, I ask, “How long have you known your dentist?”

She thinks for a moment. “Fifteen years. Why?”

“Just curious,” I say. “I knew my old one for almost that long but then we moved to New York and I had to start over.”

“And where did you move here from?” she asks. And then we’re off, pleasantly conversing until we part ways on the ground floor.

How long have you known your dentist is such a good icebreaking question, a real keeper in my opinion. I didn’t make it up, it’s not mine, rather I found it on Duolingo, an app my friend Dave turned me on to. He’d been using it to learn Spanish. Me, I started with Japanese. It offers over forty languages, free with ads, and free of them for a pretty nominal charge.

Each program features the same cast of animated characters: the excitable little boy, the bored teenage girl with hair covering her face. There’s an athletic-looking blond fellow, Vikram, who wears a turban, and Bea, who, according to her profile, is of West African heritage: eleven in all, including a talking bear named Falstaff. Sometimes Duolingo will give me a sentence in English: “How many desks are in the room?” and I have to translate it into Japanese choosing from the menu of words written in hiragana at the bottom of the screen. Other times I have to read a sentence out loud and the characters will either accept or reject me, based upon my pronunciation. My least favorite is when they give me the sentence and I have to write it in whichever language I’m studying. If you’ve only ever learned English you maybe don’t know that in other countries, “I gave her the suitcase,” might go, “I gave to her the suitcase,” or “I had to her the suitcase gave.” You have to grasp a new word order. Then there’s the spelling to worry about.

My friend Mike is learning Yiddish with Duolingo and one of the sentences it taught him is: “My uncle is a broken man.” I used its French program to freshen up before a trip to Paris not long ago, and was both surprised and not by the question, “What is he doing in our bed?”

I’m a dilettante, and always have been. Rather than really buckling down and mastering anything, I flit from one language to the next. Thus I noted how different Duolingo’s Japanese was from Duolingo’s German version. In the latter, the characters have definite opinions. “Your apartment is dark and ugly.” “I don’t like your sweater.”

They give the impression that German people are direct and judgmental, but also outdoorsy, generous, and sure of themselves. Thus such sentences as, “I’m sorry, but your doctor is playing volleyball today,” “I am giving one hundred toilets to my father,” and “Spain needs us.” There’s a lot of talk about witches, but no mention of them dating one another, this as opposed to Duolingo’s Japanese program where seemingly everyone is gay. “Is that your grandmother’s new girlfriend?” is one of the questions I was taught. Suddenly the guy with the headband on had a husband as well as a son. Even the bear was dating another guy.

I often complained about the last Japanese learning program I used, Pimsleur. So much of the talk was, as it is on their German and Polish and Romanian courses, about drinking. “Do you want a beer? Wine? Sake? Whisky? How many bottles? Should we drink at your place or mine? What time should we start drinking? Do you know what Tenaka-san drinks? Does his wife drink too? Have you ever had drinks with his parents?”

Pimsleur taught me a lot of practical things though, like how to make reservations and buy train tickets. “Which track do I leave on? At what time do we arrive? Is it an express train or a super express train?”

When it comes to icebreaker questions though, the type one might ask in an elevator, both Pimsleur and Duolingo pale compared to Teach Yourself Japanese, a book a woman in England sent me a few pages of. It was what her dad used back in the ’50s, and it includes the phrases: “What will become of us if father dies? Grandmother has turned blind. The man with small hands is my friend. I no longer take any pleasure in my work. Shall I kill myself tomorrow?” and “It is only the third bottle from the left which has poison in it.”

What age, I wonder, are these students? If you no longer take pleasure in your work I’m guessing you’ve been at it for a while, yet your grandmother is still alive, and newly blind? And just how small are the friend’s hands? I’m thinking of someone with the equivalent of raccoon paws, trying to open a bottle of pills he can kill himself with.

Depressing phrases or practical ones, you’ll never become fluent through an app or a book, no matter how many hours you devote to it. You have to talk to actual people. My friend Scott has tutors in both Japanese and French and is miles ahead of me in terms of conversing and understanding. He does his lessons once a week on Zoom. I suppose I could do the same, but I’m afraid I won’t like the tutor, and won’t know how to put an end to our relationship. It’s the same reason I don’t see a psychiatrist or hire a trainer.

Most of the doormen in my building are from Ecuador and one, Adrian, has, at my request, started speaking to me exclusively in Spanish. I took it in high school, so we didn’t have to start from scratch. The problem is that, because he essentially works for me, he’s not going to be as strict as, say, the French teacher I had in Paris. Not that I’m not progressing. Recently I learned that Adrian calls his mother Gordita, which means little fatty. It’s a nice bit of information to start your day with, though it leaves me wondering, and phrasing the question to myself in Japanese, French, German, and now, tentatively, in Spanish, “What does he call me?”

Image: Nobody likes small talk. Yet it is an art worth mastering. (Photo by Anthony Rizzuto/Anthony Angel Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

[A link to David Sedaris reading his essay below]

#David Sedaris #small talk #words and writing #reading and writing #languages #words

[corvid-language-library]

hello! what are the main things that you suggest learning first when tackling norwegian? and some habits that i can pick up early so that i don’t struggle when trying to advance?

i’m a complete beginner and the only way i’ve learned another language was when i was too little to remember. when i know a little more norwegian than just the bare bones i think i’ll test my hand at transcribing stuff from children’s shows but until then i’m unsure of how to structure the beginning stages of learning for myself.

Hi there!

Firstly, yay for starting out on your Norwegian-learning journey! It's a beautiful language and I hope you enjoy the world it opens up for you.

As for what to learn first: alphabet is the best place to start so you're familiar with the sounds and can match them more-or-less to the words you're reading. You don't have to start speaking right away (I certainly didn't lmao I was B1/B2 level in all my other skills before I even really touched speaking) but you should be able to understand what the words you're learning sound like.

Other things to learn are verbs in all their forms. Norwegian doesn't have a lot of tenses and they mostly overlap with English in how they're used, so you can start using past tense/present perfect/imperative very early on. Here's a post I made about it on my old blog.

About the most complicated grammar you'll come across at beginner level is possessive pronouns and definite articles. If you've got a solid grip on those and verb forms then all you really need to do is learn vocabulary and you'll be able to say a lot!

Other than that, just try to learn the most common words. Here's a list I made on my old blog of all the resources I've used (and some I haven't) to learn Norwegian. Check them out and see what you like! (I no longer recommend Duolingo though due to its reliance on AI and just general lack of ethics these days)

Regarding habits to pick up...

The most important habit to pick up is interacting with the language daily imo. You don't have to study every day, per se, but have the radio on as background noise or listen to at least one song or just write the date or something small. Last year @chenopodiumlang started a "no zero days 2023" challenge and honestly by the end of the year I forgot I was even doing a challenge because it's become so ingrained in me that I need to interact with each of my languages every day that I don't think about it; I just do it.

With Norwegian there's a severe lack of material for intermediate level. You'll find plenty of stuff for beginner level and maybe a couple of textbooks that go up to intermediate level, but it's not like more popular languages where there are lots of graded readers, intermediate-advanced textbooks, online exercises etc. So I recommend interacting with native media relatively early on so the transition's less intimidating. Listen to the radio often so you get used to the sound of the language and different dialects. When you hit intermediate level, it'll be just a little bit easier to start watching TV with Norwegian subtitles. Regularly browse the headlines of NRK and see if you can pick out a word or two here and there (don't worry about understanding them all, don't even worry if there are days you can't understand a single word). Eventually you can graduate to reading the first paragraph of a news article, then maybe a short article etc.

Hope that helps! Best of luck with your Norwegian-learning journey 😊 Feel free to ask any questions!

#what does the jay say #nutcracker norsk

[spanishskulduggery]

I hate studying spanish these days. Can one reach a high level just by reading and watching tv while looking up words or grammar you don’t know? I still like to do duolingo and drops so that’s some studying…

I'm not sure if I'm really equipped to answer this since I learned Spanish mostly from school and then watching TV and reading came later

I think it's certainly possible to learn Spanish without formal classes, though you might learn some grammar out of order (like seeing past tense before you master present tense), but it can be done

If anything, you'll likely start to lag in aspects of conjugation and more minute grammatical details like when to use y vs e or you'll come across imperfect subjunctive but not necessarily understand how it's being used

That's true of any language though; I know people who learned English by just being involved in fandoms or just being on the internet, and they learn a lot of slang and more complicated parts of grammar that sound more natural, but then sometimes they struggle with which form of a verb to use. Sometimes it happens that they are better at reading their target language than they are with reproducing it, or might miss some context clues regarding certain idioms or verbs

That's not to say it can't be done, just that you'll have different gaps in your knowledge and you'll really need to get good at looking up things, and I suspect that you'll learn many things but sometimes lack context for them and that can sometimes be harder to look up; you'll gain a good idea of what looks right and sounds right, though it might be more difficult to understand exactly why

Spelling and writing will also be something you'll want to focus on if you go that route, because subtitles are generally very correct but you may find yourself more confused by stem-changing verbs or conjugation patterns and maybe end up misspelling certain things especially if you're going by just what someone says and not written subtitles

And if you go that route I would also recommend to look up certain parts of speech - subject, object, reflexive, gerund, participle, infinitive etc. It will help you understand what exactly you're looking at and whether you'll want to use a pronoun yo or its object me or when you have to use mí ...without knowing the specifics you'll probably be able to deduce that it has to do with first person, but you won't necessarily have full context

#asks #but it also does depend on your current level too since if you have more of a foundation in Spanish it helps

[ev-n-learning]

2023 year stats!!! Wow its been a year since ive shown u one of these... amazing

anyways not too much to say here i don't think! Although can you believe its been almost a year since i stopped learning ukrainian.... weird

something thats interesting to me is that i've spent more time on czech this past year than ukrainian the year previous... and just on duolingo, somehow?! There's no way I'm 2 months away from finishing the czech tree!!!

I suppose the courses could have been different lengths to start out with, but I do blame the redesign they did... I still don't like it, lol. (Other factors could be: czech has No Cyrillic so i cant read it as well)

As far as the other languages go — I really can't believe it was only this year I finished 50languages?! Year so long... but anyways, after that i will be honest with you: most of my active belarusian studying has been solely anki and (mostly) daily search of the wordle. The other most is People I Follow On Tumblr and tiktok (theres belarusians on there)

Russian is about the same as I've been doing. Slogging through 5,000 words of top 10,000 on memrise still. Probably about 2,500 of the way through. Probably at LEAST 2 more years of slog...

Maybe it doesn't serve much of a purpose, but i'd feel weird having the extra time. Like, no, i'm supposed to be Doing Something at 14:45,,, and, yknow, sometimes i encounter these words in the wild. (Not so much anymore though)

Doing my best to keep up with polygloss for russian, too! It's fun but I never know how to describe the images so a lot of matches get sent into the ether... oops 😅

As for marathi, well................................. nanowrimo happened. Is putting it shortly - actually, I started doing something else in november, and with that, languages, and nano... it was a lot! So I did not do much marathi in november specifically because of that. The rest of the year, well... hmmm. The less said the better?

Well, anyways, it's because of having to spend the same amount of energy almost on czech at the same time, *and* because of the Something Else i've been doing. So - I do want to learn it! Spending time on marathi would be great, actually! I am just Busy. And thus it has been relegated to anki only for the better part of the year if i remember right 😔 someday...

Sidenote, at the rate I'm typing this will be posted after midnight..... well, i wanted to put it out there yesterday night, but i couldn't decide what to say, lol. January 2nd is still New of new years, right??

To be honest, I haven't really thought about any language plans for this year... i know russian and belarusian well enough to read posts & such, and I have the mental fortitude to read books i understand maybe 25% of, but listening and talking I'd say are probably where I need the most improvement. (Writing, well... I'll get back to you once i can learn grammar effectively). With everything as it is now, I'm not sure there's much to be done about that, but maybe I'll figure something out here sooner or later... maybe.

I know I want to finish the czech tree on duolingo, and then I'll pick another language from my duo list and the cycle shall begin anew... and then in 12 years either duo will be dead or i will not wish to learn languages any more (a scary thought). OR i will speedrun every language on my list to the best of my ability and then never touch duo again (no streak, no badges... i think monthly badges are like the Only duo thing that actually works on me because i Need To Collect. ah, fomo...)

As for marathi, if I can manage to pull it out of hibernation alongside all that duolingo nonsense, then by god i'll do it 🫡 if i learned* one language by being exceedingly slow at it I can do it again!!

*referring to russian so perhaps its not accurate to say "learned" still but my point stands

...

Anyways yeah!!! Idk how to end this so з новым годам (late) to u all and good luck & wishes for the new year <3 things may never be perfect but at least i can hope they will be better 👍 🎉🎉🎉

#alt text #stats for cats #langblr #learning languages #languages #year in review

[eelingo]

I'm Eli, also Eel or El, and im currently learning seven languages because its part of my special interest in flags and maps :)

In order of how well it's going, I'm learning French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), and Arabic. I'm gonna use this blog to log my progress and use duolingo's advice on writing down what I remember after each lesson 🤓

Each day correlates to a different language, so each post will start with the day of the week, the language, and the date, (so eg Monday, arabic, 13/02/23) and then just what i remember from each lesson and any thoughts i have on it!

Its gonna be super fun for me at least, and anyone is welcome to follow even if you're just nosy about how duo teaches a language or, even better, if you want to add your own input on anything i might have wrong because I'm going into these with no input other than the green bird and maybe netflix subtitles/dubbing

#langblr #langblr arabic #langblr norsk #langblr french #langblr portuguese #langblr dutch #langblr spanish #langblr polish #this is also to keep me accountable because i *will* forget otherwise #lets see how long i can go before i lose my streak hehe #currently at a six(?) day streak? seven? #six! this will be very fun indeed hehehe

[fancyshooting]

epaulettes anon here, thanks so much for such a comprehensive answer!! I had wondered if perhaps the design process went something like "ok this guys a kgb spy so I'll put kgb on his uniform" > "oh shit they're not meant to KNOW he's kgb" > "quick change it" haha. a mystery for the ages, much like the choice of the captain design instead of the one for majors.

I really appreciate that diagram of the uniform too, since my (admittedly only cursory) searches of an actual historical example of that navy uniform has been pretty barren.

Trying to research a foreign country's military special forces and find out what was true during a very specific time period before digital archives is pretty hard, apparently! I appreciate all the effort you've put into this.

Do you speak Russian? I imagine id find much more information if I knew what keywords to search, but if you don't know the language its like... where to start lol. Definitely didn't download duolingo just to learn because of revolver ocelot. definitely not

no problem ^___^

I learned the cyrillic alphabet and did a tiny bit of duolingo too hehe..... but no I don't speak russian. I think it was on the mgs fandom wiki that I read about his uniform but finding pictures is quite difficult. I can't say for certain but it looks like it was actually a wwii uniform. there's nothing I can find to confirm that ocelot wearing that uniform in 1964 is period accurate but there's SO much information to wade through and tbh I don't have any interest in doing that :| all the different branches and years and battles and ranks... it confuses me LOL. it's such a massive topic but like... niche at the same time so I'm grateful for hobby sites and the like that make it slightly more digestible to the common ocie researcher. my knowledge does NOT go beyond the scope of ocelot I promise

searching Морская Пехота (marines in russian) might wield better results. there's a site on the very first page with these pictures:

the only thing about these is that they don't seem to be wearing the same trousers or boots as ocelot:

had to give him an undeserved angelic glow to show this sorry but his are much baggier, like riding breeches. they're called galife/galliffet/галифе and are worn with jackboots. the guy in the diagram before was wearing them, so maybe the unforms in the irl pics are from a different era or something. maybe the design of ocelot's uniform was a combination of multiple uniforms. idk but that's the best I can do right now o7

#ask #sorry for making you wait one billion years btw #the russian marines are apparently known as the 'black berets' #but ocelot's is red because it's a spetsnaz beret #would LOVE to know everything that went into major ocelot's design #and character #dear mgs3 team can you please send me every file every sketch every sticky note related to ocelot ty <3

[fractallogic]

so i realized that when I'm going through a medium-strength depressive episode, I want to learn languages and do vocabulary and stuff like that... so i turn to duolingo, usually

unFORTUNATELY, duolingo also makes me mad because everyone's like "oh duolingo is awesome, it's the best, you *really learn a language* with duolingo" and I'm constantly finding errors in the languages I know and inconsistencies with the languages I don't and it's only a small part of any given language pedagogy and it's just so FRUSTRATING, and possibly more so because they didn't fucking hire me to highlight and fix any of these problems any of the four times that I applied and did the initial interest interview

and now they're really going hard on "we teach ENDANGERED languages" when the navajo course is seven units long and the fucking high valyrian course is 29 units long. you don't learn shit in seven units. like idk if the hawaiian course is any better!! and there are, in all likelihood, issues with getting additional approval from tribes, etc. to share their language, and issues getting native or very good speakers to record stimuli, and honestly I started the navajo course because I wanted to see how they dealt with navajo morphosyntax (so far: not well) and that's probably also a stopping point... but you can't tell me you're going to Teach Me Navajo in any meaningful way, which imo is even more disrespectful than just like... not having it.

and THEN you even compare western european courses like french/spanish/german to, idk, finnish, and the former courses all have these extensive "guidebooks" for grammar, they include notes and conjugation tables, etc etc etc, and finnish has ... a list of some of the sentences and phrases that you learn. is it LIKELY that someone's learning finnish from english as their very first non-english language? no, probably not (and i KNOW duolingo's research scientists have the data that can back that up). would it still be USEFUL to have those same tables and notes and so on? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY. is it useful to have cultural elements like a finnish instrument called a kantele and being able to say "matti is a finn with sisu"? YES. but do they fucking bother to explain what either of those things are? NO.

and like, the thing about duolingo is that they make these extensive claims and it's used in classrooms now (?!) and they're seen as this super high-prestige program among language nerds, and it's just WRONG, and it really pushes my buttons. memrise doesn't make the very strong claim that you use it to learn a language; it really bills itself as more of a vocabulary practice tool (which both of these are), and i'm happy with that. there are memrise-made courses and user-made courses, and they're like "here are certain guarantees we can make about the general quality of the memrise courses, which we cannot make about the user-made courses", which I am also very much fine with. memrise hides some of its stuff behind a paywall, which, fine (caveat: I paid for a lifetime memrise membership—which is a big reason why I'm so !!! MY ACCOUNT WAS STOLEN !!! about the whole thing), but there's so much free content that imo the paywall is really just a nice bonus and not actually the necessary things to have. more and more it feels like duolingo's paywall is blocking some of the necessary stuff (like a personalized practice session, which I feel like is simple enough to program in and not necessarily worth a whole-ass paywall) and is also really expensive, AND without any options for a lifetime membership/single-pay model, afact.

maybe I would feel differently if i worked for duolingo. i would definitely feel differently if i was just a language-learning enthusiast instead of a linguist who literally specializes in how people learn words and word pieces in languages that are different from their primary language. duolingo is just TOO BIG FOR ITS BRITCHES and self-important and it needs to be knocked down several pegs.

[mcrmadness]

hmm, when did you start learning german? ^^

Roughly around 2009/2010, I think! I started learning it first on my own, I found an English website talking about the grammar and I copied everything into notebooks, translating the English sentences into Finnish and trying to see a connection there.

Then I think it was in 2010... in Autumn when I enrolled on an actual German course. In Finland you can study upper secondary level courses in schools as a "course student" too (and free of charge) and I actually went through all 8 courses of German there. That is 3 years of studying, and at the same time I was doing the same course online because it had a different book and exercises and I was extra motivated :D I could have taken the A-level exam from German, but I felt that I was not good enough yet so I never did. Slightly regretting that now, tho :D

Anyway, I am still not fluent. Maybe around the level B1 or B2. So I am still learning, it's just difficult to find good learning sources as most free courses are for beginners only and I don't want to pay for something that I don't know if it's still challenging enough level for me. Duolingo is pretty much the only thing I use right now, altho it has its problems, mostly the use of weird English sayings I have never heard before so it's really difficult to learn your target language in your second language if you can't even understand what the second language is trying to say. I'm anyway using it mostly for the vocabulary.

Oh and yeah, there is also this one voice on Duolingo that just makes me so irrotationally angry that it makes me fant to shove my computer out of the window. It sounds like it's mocking me with every cell of its body on every letter of the words, and it's really ruining the learning experience for me :D It sounds so pissed, and I mirror people's emotions VERY easily. Even if that was just a, idk, robot voice. It still sounds so annoyed that I get annoyed too.

Thanks for the ask! ^^

#theydoctor #ask games

[leshitshow]

Well this is fucking freeing...

"

SOFA 🛋 Start Often Finish rArely

Start Often Fuck Achievements

SOFA is the name of a hacker/art collective, and also the name of the principle upon which the club was founded.

The point of SOFA club is to start as many things as possible as you have the ability, interest, and capacity to, with no regard or goal whatsoever for finishing those projects.

The goal is acquiring many experiences. The side effects include entertainment and increased skill.

Here are some ways to get starting with SOFA:

Start reading lots of books. If you don't like a book you're reading, stop reading it and put it down. Maybe give it away. Start a new code or art project. Get at least as far as writing a detailed README[1]. Maybe you complete the project, or maybe you never get further than that. It's fine. Start learning a new language. Spoken or computer. Just start, you don't have to commit to mastering it. Open up duolingo[2] or exercism[3] and just do a few practice exercises. Here's the secret sauce that makes the whole thing work:

You can be finished with your project whenever you decide to be done with it. And "done" can mean anything you want it to be. Whose standards of completion or perfection are you holding yourself to anyway? Forget about those! Something is done when you say it is. When it's no longer interesting. When you've gotten a sufficient amount of entertainment and experience from it. When you've learned enough from it. Whatever, whenever. Done is what you say it is.

And here's why it works:

Nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent, and nothing lasts. This is true of all things, including your ideas of self and identity. Want to be somebody who knows how to cook, or code in Lisp? Or somebody who knows how to rollerblade, or only eats plants, or worships the moon? Just start doing those things and then, poof! Now you are that person.

If you find out your new self doesn't suit you, just stop being that person and be someone else.

Be as many different people and do as many different things as you want. Start often. You don't have to commit your entire life to any one thing. Finish rarely.

Here's the final bit about how to finish things:

It can be hard to end things because of societal pressure to stick to things until the bitter end. Traditional marriage is the ultimate form of this ideal. You're supposed to stick to it until you die, no matter what, come hell or high water, even if it makes you and everybody around you miserable. That is neither sane nor healthy! That is not the SOFA way. Done means what you say it means. And ending something does not lesson its value. Just KonMari[4] that shit: have a moment of gratitude and appreciation for the experience and the things you learned and the ways in which you benefited from it. Thank it with conviction for having served its purpose, and then let it go and dismiss it. There. Done.

Now get out there and start doing stuff! And then stop doing stuff, so you can do more stuff! Do as much stuff as possible! Never stop doing stuff! Always stop doing stuff!"

#thanks tilde town #sofa

[markfaites]

HELP IM BACK, somewhat- hehe i didnt post in a long time cause my phone was dying.... so i had no memory storage to.... download... this app again- AHEM ANYWAYS!!! fed myself with tons of deltarune-related stuff to prepare myself for the chapter 3(it would be so fun if it will be released right on my birthday lma)

uhm sooo what do i say here after being gone for a year or so?...

helo. im happi...ur..hea...reedink fhis.🤓!!

I HAVE IMPROVED AT NY DRAWING SKILLS... ASTRONOMICALLY. somehow. your buddy Mark wasnt slacking off the whole year now was i👹

it feels like october is ALWAYS a big month of some big events, waiting for THREE funny thingies to come!! drones, deltatraveler section 3 and delta..rune... chapter 3- hold up did the deltatraveler creators do this... intentionally???? COME ON!! oh, now im just writing my thoughts out-text here, like i always do.... well, some things never change‼‼

oh yeah also QAITING FOR MYSTER SKULLS FINAL EPISODE TO COME OUT... the last one came out in october.... holy... moly.... dont tell me all of those 4 funny thingies will... JUST BLAST ME UP ON MY BIRTHDAY!??! NOOO THIS WILL BE TOO MUCH FOR MY POOR LITTLE FANBOY HEART TO TAKE!!! and yeah i am into murder drones cause N is my exact doppleganger... even if he is yellow(i hate yellow. grrrr....) but hey!! he even has an angsty teen half emo half edgelord mega cool and very lovable gf!!! i cannot argue with that! its like the one who designed N's personality... just... traced it from meee.... hmmm... EH i dont mind being stalked by some animation studios, knowing my kinn list is taller than the biggest skyscraper in the world, i could say i am used to this. AND YES I HAVE ALREADY DREW MYSELF AS A DRONE!! and even if i dont like violence or murder or anything like that because it makes me sick, robo-me is... a murder drone. cause hey!!! N is also one and he is my robo-copy!!

alsp im studying japanese with duolingo now. is that a good idea? will i be able to learn fluent japanese from there? idk, but i hope i will get to a level high enough that would help me start self-educating myself in japanese, just like i did with....other...languages.....AHHEM...... phew! anyways, maybe when the times get even better, i would be able to find what to post! and yeah i have quite a ton of drawings that piled up over the years.... but its all private stuff! its all people that i know or something very VERY personal that i dont share with... anyone!!!! maybe i could cherry pick some stuff from there to post over here like robo version of myself or... maybe other stuff. but the half-realistic ralsei drawing will DEFINITELY go here! whow, i love drawing my kinns. theyre just so... me that.. its just an urge at this point. isnt it also this way for you too? you just see a character that you either heavily relate to, or theyre just outright your copy, pasted in a different looking body with a slightly different voice (LOOKING AT YOU PEOPLE!! N, RALSEI, ARTHUR, DAve, papyrus, steven, simon... AH JEEZ I HAVE TOO MANY STUPIDLY IDENTICAL TO MYSELF CHARACTERS THAT I HAVE A VERY HUGE URGE TO DRAW BECAUSE THEYRE LIKE ME! well, im like an extroverted version of simon muhehe) and you just... go "damn... this is... just me but in another coating! i wanna draw them. i relate to them." I AM HORRIBLE AT EXPLAINING!!

#idk man #idk what im doing #yippee #silly goofy mood

[goremet-chef]

im drawring. also im thinking of learning another language cuz thats fun

sometimes i feel embarrassed that like... i mean lots of people are born and are taught 2 from a young age and i guess i just feel embarrassed that that wasnt me? but theres no shame in learning a new language thats actually a really great thing KSFJS idk i just feel ashamed if im not immediately good at something 😔 it feels like im not doing the language justice ykwim? like ive been doing great with spanish on duolingo but i stopped because i got to a part where id need to roll my R's and id rather learn how to do that than do it half assed, you feel me? like. IDK im

being mixed is weird man. i know a LOT of mixed people have complicated feelings with their race and culture, im the same. i feel robbed? i feel robbed from culture that wouldve been so beautiful and fun, because my family never let me see my dads side. like ever

i see them every now and then but i wish it was more. if i spent more time with them id probably be different, id be more like them, i wish i was more like them! because i dont like my moms side. bunch of old racists, i dont belong with them bro they fucking suck. plus my aunt????

i remember my sibling he had they/them on his work outfit (goes by he/they but used they for simplicity sake) and my aunt saw and was like "oh. are you a they/them? thats alright thats alright if you are" and i was. fucking SHOCKED. id always thought okay.. when i start transitioning, most my family wont love me anymore and i have to accept that id probably never see them again. but she was cool with it? it made me almost cry like i couldve come out right then and there if i had the nerve (it was on my bday too so maybe it wouldve been easier)

like they just seem so much more accepting over there i wish we were together more often.

so tired of hearing right wing rants from my mom, while she seemingly pledges her support of me and my siblings. bitch if yr on their team, yr not on ours!!! i think shes slowly learning that like.. oh theyre taking trans peoples rights away, and my kids are trans

i hope she learns at least. i sent her a bunch of articles about that sorta thing cuz she asked me to, most likely cuz she didnt believe me, but its real and its happening. exhausting

[theworldofdog]

5 Ways To Stay Happy and Healthy With Your Pet in 2023

In 2023, I think we can all agree that we want to do our best to keep our pets Happy and Healthy. But we need to make sure we’re extending ourselves the same courtesy. That’s why we’ve come up with five things we can do with our pets in the coming 11.5 months to stay fresh and curious. Yes, there’s some (mild) exercise, and you’ll need to visit the doctor. But maybe learning a new language or routine could make you both happy? know more about how to stay Happy and Healthy with your pet, for more details, visit us at the world of dog. Here’s what we’ve got — with help from a pair of experts:

1. See the Doc (Both of You)

Taking your pet to the veterinarian was part of our 2023 resolutions, sure, but we’re always going to harp on how important it is to take care of your pets’ health. You and your dog or cat need to head to the vet once a year at the very least. (Extremely young pets as well as older ones need to visit more frequently. Ideally, the regular visits will ensure that your vet can catch any potential health problems early and that your furry friend is up to date on all their shots. “It’s just a good idea,” says Steven Appelbaum, founder and president of the Animal Behavior College. But you need to hold up to your end of the bargain, too. What would your pet think if he knew you were skipping out on your regular checkup or physical? Make that appointment. Get to know more about how to stay Happy and Healthy with you pet.

2. Learn Some New Skills — Maybe a Language?

Sure, you can start off 2023 by teaching your dog the basics — or you can even try something more advanced, like nose work. You can attempt the training yourself, but make sure you’ve done your research and employ the proper methods, says Ben Bennink, chair of The Association of Professional Dog Trainers. If that’s too much, then you can hire a dog trainer or attend a group training class. But what about something you can learn, too? Perhaps a new language? You might not want to spend a ton of time on Duolingo or Babbel, but teaching your dog new cues in a different language can have its benefits, Bennink says. For example, if you normally speak English but teach your dog’s cues in French, you no longer have to worry about tossing “sit,” “stay,” or “walk” around in normal conversation. Bennink says you can also save the alternate language for your dog’s “emergency cue” — the one word you use to recall your dog to your side right away. That can eliminate confusion when your dog needs to come to you fast. Need a shortcut? Teach your dog’s — or cat’s! — cues with hand signals, too. Dogs learn through hearing or seeing, but Bennink says they’re more likely to follow the hand signa

3. Embrace the Special Routine

This one is a favorite of Appelbaum, and many of us probably have one. You know, those weird rituals you and your pets have developed over the years. For him, he used to play a game of “find the treat” with his basset hound and Labrador retriever. The self-explanatory game took about 10 minutes, and the dogs — forced to use their brains to find the hidden morsel — loved it. My family had something similar. For years, my poodle Riley would beg for her dental treat each night, and each night my mom would get her to bark, turn around in circles, and then execute several flying leaps into the kitchen. After basically long-jumping two or three times — to great applause — she would very smugly trot back into the living room with her chewy stick. Anyways, all this is to say you and your dog or cat should find your own special routines. Maybe you can jazz up meal times or turn a few morning minutes into hide and seek. Your pet will enjoy it, and you’ll enjoy watching your pet have fun. Win-win. Please visit us at dog’s food if you want to know more information regarding how to choose a dog’s food.

4. Walk — and Smell — More

Speaking of routines, walking more with your dog or cat is good for everyone involved. For us, walking daily can help regulate our weight and keep us healthy. For our pets, dogs especially, it might be even more important. “Giving them opportunities to engage in their natural environment is huge,” Bennink says. Most of our dogs are primarily stuck in a house — maybe with occasional time out in a yard — so walks offer the perfect chance for physical and mental stimulation, especially if you give them plenty of time to sniff. Dogs experience the world through their noses, so be ready to linger on the sidewalk as your pup tries to figure out who’s peed there so far that day. It’s good for his mental health, and some fresh air won’t hurt you, either. Exercise can also really help dogs with behavior issues and boredom, Appelbaum says. A consistent walk — maybe even just three or four times a week — offers an outlet for energy that could otherwise turn destructive.

5. Just Do What Your Pet Likes

This is abstract, but you know your pets better than anyone. You shouldn’t do any of the activities listed above unless your pet enjoys them. (Well, except for the vet one. Our pets definitely need to see the vet whether they like it or not.) Bennink says you shouldn’t force your pets into activities they might not like. If you try a new activity and your pet clearly doesn’t like it, that’s fine. Just go back to the enrichment your dog or cat knows and loves, whether that’s a food puzzle or the flopping fish. This, in part, is why you should always be conscious of what’s going on with your dog, Appelbaum says. Not just likes and dislikes, but watching their pee, poop, and behavior will make sure they’re doing OK. They’ll do the same for you, after all.

[videostak]

am considering getting an english  rom of portopia serial murder case cause it looks like smthn i’d like. the gfx look really really cute and ive never really played any games in that genre b4!

#i have no interest in buying an nes cart since its not rly smthn i feel like i have to play on original hardware or anything #and i think itd be well suited to play on a computer imo #also am considering to try to learn japanese maybe in the future cause i think i am exposed to enough japanese stuff daily to like actually #retain what words mean and to not forget everything ya know? #like its easy to forget a language if you arent exposed to it often #and if i learn japanese i could do alot more and it'd be nice to know #it'd be really nice one day to be able to buy and play famicom rpgs and not have to worry abt language barriers when buying games.... #but its def a lot to learn #if anyone has any good ways to learn languages pls help lol #i guess i should download duolingo soon then but also wanna try to learn in different ways too #i think i should get a notebook and start writing kanji and romanji for words i kno #ill see i may just completely forget to follow up on any of this like a week from now lol

[agendratum]

i was talking to my colleague recently and i was like, “yeah, i’ve been learning chinese for a couple of months now” and was struck by a fucking lighting mid sentence, cause no, IN a couple of months it will be a YEAR since i started to learn chinese

so now i’m trying to digest this information and also that fact that i

you know

actually acquired some knowledge, and, even if it’s not much in total, but i do understand way more than i did a year ago (i kinda really want to rewatch cql with only chinese subs and see the difference now). and i gotta say, i’m proud of myself. when i just got the idea to start learning, i stopped myself, cause i had countless attempts to start learning a third language before, all of them would cease to exist in like a month after i would start, if not in a couple of weeks. the thing is - learning language is hard on your own, out of any academic environment, especially when you have trouble with managing your time and routine. so i waited for 4 month to make sure that the desire to learn chinese wouldn’t disappear, and then i was like, “ok, i still don’t trust you, but lets start with a couple of apps”. and i can trust myself now. it’s been almost a year! and i’m making progress!

but making progress means that i’m done with hellochinese course. oops. there are still some things i can do in that app, but, alas, i completed their course in its entirety.

which means that i need to move on to something else. you know. to an actual physical text book that’s been lying on my shelf for last half a year at least. and also to that fairytale book i bought for light reading (cause, you know, for a beginner it might not be the smartest idea to constantly try to read the excerpts from the danmei novel people post on this website. i mean, my limited knowledge can’t stop me from trying, but i still need something closer to my level aklsjd)

i also took the test on duolingo, and apparently unlocked 44% of their course. which means that if i wanted to give duolingo another go (we have  history, ok, we go way back and i don’t trust that bird), it still has a lot to offer me. the only problem is, they only have chinese course for english speakers, which isn’t that big of a problem, i guess, but a little bit overloading for my brain. so i’ll be looking for maybe some other apps too. or i’ll just finally pick that textbook up.

#personal #oooof many words many letters