Learning German

[jackjanderson]

I was posted to various places in Europe when I was in the RAF and I picked up a smattering of lots of languages - I've got a little French, Spanish, German, Italian and at one point even a little Polish but I can't remember any of that any more.

lucymorningstar introduced me to a website called Duolingo which she's started using because she wanted to learn German. After some practicing of my various language skills and what I remember of them, I've decided to join in as well.

I've signed up for the website (https://www.duolingo.com/JackJAnderson), I've downloaded the app. I've found my old German dictionary and I've got two notebooks (one for vocabulary and one for grammar) and pens for colour coding (masculine, feminine, neuter). Lucy is laughing at me because she's literally just using the website but I know how I learn so lets see how this goes.

Wünsch mir Gluck?

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

I'm doing Duolingo German too. A word of warning, it is all vocabulary and doesn't explicitly teach grammar. I'm trying to brush up on a long-ago year of German I took in college and it's not helping me with "what the articles change to in accusative case" or anything. Obviously you can look that up online or whatever, but I thought you might like to know how Duolingo is.

[jackjanderson]

Ok, thank you for letting me know. I'll see if I can pick up a grammar guide on Amazon or somewhere.

[angelofthenorth]

sounds like you're well organised - I do that with Welsh...

[jackjanderson]

I try! I don't know how well it will last but good intentions and all that

[fairytalewitch]

I'm studying Esperanto and waiting (with lots of other people) for DuoLingo to make Latin available. My strategy is to go through it with just the app the first time then go back with notebooks and colored pens.

[katiedid717]

I was using Duolingo a couple of years ago to brush up on my Spanish; it's a fun app! I meandered into the Italian section as well (since I had Italian housemates at the time), but I didn't dedicate enough time to even become conversational.

[badfalcon]

I'm using Duolingo for Italian and I have a notebook too, for vocab and verb endings - I learn better by writing so use it how it works for you

[sparkythegeek]

Good luck! I've tried using Duolingo to refresh my French and Spanish, but never have time.

[catness]

Good luck! I used to love Duolingo, it's a fun way to learn a language. But upon completing the skills tree (I had completed two trees - German and Swedish) there's not really anything to do, because it forces you to repeat the same lessons ad infinitum, which is really boring and tedious. And it leaves you still very far from being fluent... one has to move on, to more advanced studies, but so far I haven't found anything as fun as Duolingo. :(

Recently the devs have revamped the site and added more exercises, but apparently it's just more basic, repetitive stuff.

I think you'll be fine though, if you treat the learning so seriously, with the notebooks and all... at least it gives you the base, and then you can continue with the textbooks or something. They do provide some grammar info, btw, at least in the web version (not in the mobile app), but they don't really "teach" it, you have to absorb the rules from the sample sentences.