Duolingo

[IdleRich]

Has anyone used this at all?
Before lockdown we were having some Portuguese lessons but that kinda came to the end, and to be honest, I was doing very well [EDIT - that should have said WASN'T]. But I really do want to learn properly so I've been trying this Duolingo thing - it actually seems pretty good I think. It hammers stuff home again and again, maybe too much, but I'd rather that it erred on that side rather than rushing ahead too fast. It's cleverly split up into bits so you keep thinking "ooh I could just do one now" in a way that I didn't with exercises I was set from my lessons. Or you can just do it while you're waiting in a queue or something which I never did before - I would have to psych myself up and sort of say "Right I'm gonna do an hour of Portuguese now".
One issue - I'm going through it, but I've never learned in this before, I wonder if it really does add up to anything. Will I get to the end and not be able to put it together as I wish? Hopefully not (signs are goodish at the moment) but I'd really reassured if someone told me they learned to speak fluent Navajo from it.
The other issue - I mention Navajo cos it keeps flashing up saying they teach it. Also it claims to have more people learning Irish on Duolingo than native speakers... but bizarrely (I think) they don't have Portuguese Portuguese, only the Brazilian version. And I know that as I get further into they will diverge a lot more than - say - US and English English.
But yeah any thoughts from anyone please. Oh yeah I'm doing the free version obviously, no paying for anything.

 

[luka]

im ranked number one

 

[woops]

stick at it lads

 

[luka]

bit late for rich. that was from 3 years ago. he lives in the country and still cant speak a word. meanwhile i already know most italian words and i only started this morning.

 

[woops]

bit late for rich. that was from 3 years ago. he lives in the country and still cant speak a word. meanwhile i already know most italian words and i only started this morning.

there are only about ten words in Italian

 

[luka]

According to the Ethnologue, Italian and French are the closest in terms of vocabulary of all the modern Romance languages, sharing an estimated 89% of words. This is because both can trace their origins back to Vulgar Latin. Quite often, the pronunciation is separated by little more than vocalised vowel at the end of the Italian term. For example:

 

[luka]

there are only about ten words in Italian

if you look it up italian has roughly 3 times more words than french.

 

[woops]

mamma, mia, ciao bella, giallo, amapiano, ferrari, gondola, vendetta, that's it

 

[luka]

you forgot pizza

 

[woops]

that's Turkish

 

[luka]

french words are all copied off english like television, chocolate, hotel

 

[woops]

french words are all copied off english like television, chocolate, hotel

a widely held misconception spread among comments section of duo linguo website.

 

[woops]

another little known fact is that France Portugal and Spain were all originally Italian speaking countries. but invented there own language when they realised how daft they sounded

 

[woops]

Italian was originally invented by Wagner to make notes on his music scores. and was adopted by the Italians after they spent too much time at the opera.

 

[luka]

 

[luka]

ive got 1007xp

 

[Benny Bunter]

Duolingo is alright I suppose but you won't get far if that's all you do. Best thing is to find a podcast that has transcripts of the conversations, and get some bilingual editions of books that you're actually interested in and have a go at reading.

 

[luka]

youve been living in seville for a decade and cant even order an olive!

 

[Benny Bunter]

My Spanish is probably better than my English by this point! Never had a single lesson, never used some crappy app.

 

[luka]

youve lived and 'worked'in spain for a decade! you have a spanish wife! ive learned all of italian in a day!