Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, bits of French)

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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby rdearman » Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:40 pm

garyb wrote: spontaneously speaking in the "table topic" format - pick a random question (there are lots of lists of them online)

Ii had forgotten about these. It has been a long time since I went to a toastmasters meeting! But I've down gone deep down the table topics rabbit hole. :)
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:34 am

rdearman wrote:
garyb wrote: spontaneously speaking in the "table topic" format - pick a random question (there are lots of lists of them online)

Ii had forgotten about these. It has been a long time since I went to a toastmasters meeting! But I've down gone deep down the table topics rabbit hole. :)

It's definitely something that's helped me a lot! One for the "I should've got better at speaking my native language before learning other ones" bucket.


I met up with Italian friends a couple of days ago and, quite as expected, the pronunciation improvements hadn't exactly made their way into my real conversational speech and a lot of the old habits were still present. One of these, which I've also noticed at points in my spontaneous speech recordings, is just the tendency to rush at times. When I rush, the rest of it tends to fall apart, and conversely when I slow down a little I speak better. The recordings have proven that I can speak quite well when I do take my time, so I think that rushing is the most important thing to be mindful of when I speak, rather than focusing on the details.

As for the cause of the rushing, I think it's partly just habit and partly a subconscious and mostly inaccurate and counterproductive belief that if I want people to listen then I need to get my point across quickly and fluidly. That can be the case at times, especially in group conversations, but more often than not I do have time and in fact speaking slowly and clearly can help to keep people's attention, not to mention making fewer mistakes which also helps with the whole being-taken-seriously thing. And as with many physical skills, it can be better to get good at doing it slowly (albeit not unnaturally slowly) before trying to speed it up. And like in sports, real-life situations are always just going to involve a lot more variables and pressure than artificial training, but the value of training is making the skills more automatic for when you do use them for real.

I'm still pretty motivated for German so just hoping it lasts until after my trip. Not that it means a lot: motivation is temporary and talk is cheap. I can say as much as I like that I feel motivated, but action is what counts and what creates the habits that keep you going after the temporary motivation runs out. But I have been doing some bits of listening and study, and I'm trying more actively to listen better and rely less on subtitles.

Some of the Easy German live stuff is good for this, since the language is fairly simple and there aren't subtitles so there's no easy way out, but even with the normal episodes I find that if I try not to look at the screen too much and almost treat it like a radio show I get more out of it and can still understand a decent amount depending on how specialised the topic is.

I've also taken note of the anime dubs recommendation in sabotai's thread, since most native German TV is still way above my level. I can't stand dubbing for live action and will always choose subtitles if I can, but it's a lot less painful for animation.

I have been thinking about my other languages too. My past experience has been that all of Italy is hugely popular with French tourists, and certain parts have a lot of Spanish- and German-speaking visitors, so it's quite likely that I'll get to hear and maybe even speak these languages especially when I'm staying in hostels. Obviously it's Italy I'm going to so Italian is the main focus, but I've been doing a bit of listening to the others to sharpen them up a bit.

I've also discovered yet another new passion, or rather something I've been wanting to try ever since I was a teenager but as they say "life happens while you're making other plans": surfing. And the main European surf spots are in Portugal and Spain, which would be a convenient excuse to brush up on Spanish and pick up some Portuguese again at some point. There are a couple of beaches quite near where I live which I plan to go back to for more practice when I can, and Scotland as a whole is not to be discounted, but I feel that to really learn the basics well I'd need to go on a trip somewhere like that where there are consistent waves and I could focus on it every day and take lessons for a week or so. Which is sounding like a plan, probably for next year since it's a bit short notice now to get it in before the winter.

In general I'm grativating towards activities like that that get me out of the house and closer to nature, and they also make a good excuse to travel, especially outside of big cities. One reason I've not travelled to as many places as I'd like is that I just haven't had good reasons other than general sightseeing (and I confess that while I appreciate a good church or museum or monument, I'm not exactly crazy about them...) and language practice, but if I can combine these with an activity like sports or hiking then it's another reason to actually make the effort or just another thing to do when I am in a place.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:08 pm

I'm back, so it's time for my Campania travel report!

I had a great time, and I got really lucky with the weather: there were some thunderstorms when I was in Naples last week, a place with plenty possibilities for indoor activities as well as outdoor, and then beautiful sun when I was in the coastal areas this week. It can be a bit of gamble at this time of year, and I'm glad that it wasn't the other way round!

It turned out to be a very active holiday, with lots of walking (I think I'm a bit traumatised by stairs now...), some sea swimming, and standing up on packed buses going around very narrow winding roads. In fact I'd only really recommend the area, especially the Amalfi Coast, to people who have a decent level of physical fitness because it's so hilly and you can't really avoid all these steps. And you also need the patience to deal with these buses whose schedules are a guideline at best. Fortunately I have both, but I saw some people really struggling to get around. If you're skilled and fearless on a scooter or motorbike that's probably a good way to get around all the towns and avoid some stairs, but that I am not...

Naples: Three days there were plenty. In fact two (including a half day at Pompeii) felt like enough, but on the third day I did visit the archeological museum which really impressed me, and I say that as someone who's not usually big on these sorts of museums.

Naples wasn't a place I really felt at home in or I could see myself living in, but that's part of its charm: it feels quite authentic and unique, like it still belongs to the locals rather than to tourists and investors, although visitors are of course welcome. It was enjoyable to visit, mostly felt quite safe and relaxed to me apart from the areas near the station and ports, and the food was excellent and reasonably priced.

Positano and the Amalfi Coast: As expected I found Positano itself was quite overrated and overpriced, but it was still nice to look at, pleasant enough to stay in, and it's as good a base as any for exploring the coast.

I visited Sorrento, Amalfi, Atrani, and Ravello, and walked the Sentiero degli Dei. Some people describe it as less of a hike and more of a gentle walk, but again these people are clearly fairly fit as it does have a fair few climbs and descents whichever way you do it.

Procida was again as expected: beautiful, less expensive, and a good place to chill out for a couple of days. Maybe even too chilled: even by this time of year, many places were already closed and there wasn't much going on at night. But that's what I needed after an active week.

I didn't make it over to Ischia, but I passed it on the ferry and it looked lovely and it apparently has some nice thermal spas, so it's one for the future. Capri also seemed worth a visit although less my kind of scene, and I might have done so if I had had an extra day or two, but I wasn't too fussed.

But enough travel reporting; we're here to talk about languages!

Unlike previous trips where I've already known native speakers in a place or I've had the fortune to meet some, this time my Italian use was almost entirely limited to customer service interactions. There were a few opportunities where I maybe could've got chatting to people if I had been a bit more confident and outgoing, but I wasn't, and I did kick myself a bit for it later. Less for the language practice aspect, more just for the social one and potentially getting a bit off the tourist trail. Oh well.

On that, the trip did make me think a lot about interactions with people and social confidence in general. Much like how I've managed to shed a lot of unhealthy attitudes towards language learning in the last few years and I'm now trying to figure out what healthier ones to replace them with and where the right balance is, there are parallels to that for other things in life like social interactions and the balance between being comfortable with myself and getting out of my comfort zone. But that's a subject for another place, like my private language-practice diaries.

I have acknowledged that my "day-to-day" Italian ability is a bit weak since I don't live there and hadn't visited for a few years so don't get or need to use that type of language much, while I do keep up the "more advanced" B- and C- level stuff with my Italian friends here, so it was a good thing to get some practice with the A-level language. Still, it's a shame that there wasn't much chance for my Italian to really shine or for me to use it to connect with people while I was there. I could've easily accomplished everything I did in Italian just with English. But I still think that being able to understand what was going on around me made a huge difference.

Well, there was one situation where my comprehension ability did make me the hero of the day! On one of these packed buses, the driver shouted to everyone to ask if someone was willing to give up their seat for an older lady who was recovering from a hip fracture, and I was the only person offering and in fact probably the only person who even understood the request since other than her group it was all tourists on board. And the amount of respect I got from the group was unreal: for the rest of the journey they were praising me and telling me how nice and kind I was.

But overall I believe I spoke more Spanish than Italian! At least qualitatively, if not quantitatively. I met quite a few South Americans in the hostels I stayed in, and there were a lot of Spanish and half-Spanish-half-English coversations going on so I had some good chances to speak that and go much deeper than just tourist subjects. That reminded me that Spanish is absoutely a language worth keeping working on: it's very handy when travelling (probably second only to English) and since it's spoken in lots of different countries there's less of a sense of ownership and of uninvitedly invading someone else's culture like there can be with Italian. With Italian, the standard first question I'm asked is why I learnt it, while with Spanish it's usually where; its utility as a second language doesn't need to be questioned.

I heard a lot of German. In the hostel in Naples there were a couple of big groups of young Germans, and there were quite a few German-speaking tourists around in general. But the groups mostly kept to themselves, unlike the South Americans who were alone or in small groups and mixed a lot more with other guests, so I didn't interact with them much. I did overhear a few Italian tour guides speaking what sounded like quite good German, which was interesting just because Italian-accented German isn't a combination I had heard much before.

Some French too. Not much in the hostels, but plenty when out and about. Yesterday I had lunch in a restaurant and was next to a mixed French and Italian group who were speaking a mixture of the two between themselves and with the waitress and mostly understanding each other quite well.

Onto the big topic: people switching to English...

When I spoke Italian, I'd say it was pretty much half and half for replies in Italian to replies in English. Which for a very touristy area in the South is actually not bad at all. I'm still of the opinion, and even more so now, that someone who wants to practise their Italian in Italy is best going to the North (except Veneto), but as I say that wasn't exactly the purpose of my trip.

It was often one extreme or the other - insisting on English although they had clearly understood my Italian perfectly, or continuing in Italian like it was completely normal - although there were also some of classic permutations:

- Saying the "important" things in English (especially numbers for prices), which can seem condescending but is probably just based on past experience with people's Italian attempts;

- Repeating a few words here and there in English after saying them in Italian, which I can't really see as a bad thing and just seems like a gesture to show that they do know a few things or they're willing to accommodate;

- Or seeming unconvinced until I explicitly say that I "parlo italiano", as if the fact that we had just been speaking Italian perfectly fine for the last minute or so wasn't enough proof, which is just amusing really.

I'm sure I could've been more insistent with the switchers, but like I said a few posts ago, I've got bigger battles to fight and better things to save my energy for so I didn't mind just letting it go. There are always different ways to interpret these situations, from the negative and victim-mindset-y (they really don't have time for my crappy Italian and see me as a stupid foreigner) to the perhaps-ingenuously positive (they're just trying to be kind and helpful), and it's hard to tell although their attitude can sometimes give you clues. Really though, non-Italians who speak Italian well are rare and I think that alone can explain most behaviour.

People could quite clearly tell that I wasn't a native speaker. Most likely because of my accent, but sometimes it could be other factors like appeance, body language, and confidence, and sometimes they could tell before I even opened my mouth. And that's just fine because I'm not one and I'm not pretending to be one, although I'm sure that at times I could've done much better at appearing as the confident and competent non-native speaker that I am, or should be with my level. I did possibly fool one museum staff member though, who just gave me the information leaflet in Italian rather than asking which language I wanted it in as she had done with other customers and staff at other places had done with me.

(For what it's worth, whenever I was given the choice of having a document or a menu in Italian or English, I usually chose English because, again, why make life more difficult: things like historical information and types of fish or vegetables can be tricky. But it did inevitably sabotage the possibility of continuing the interaction in Italian. Again I didn't mind, as there'll always be more opportunites to speak it!)

I didn't get a single compliment on my Italian, and only one genuinely friendly and curious person asked about how I had learnt the language. I suppose these are positive things: when you're actually good, people don't need to tell you so or ask you why, and the best compliment can be no compliment and just treating you normally.

Unlike on previous trips, I didn't get any real impressions of xenophobia or tourist hate this time, although it's hard to tell if the ones I did get in the past were genuinely that way or I just saw them that way because of my own unhealthy mindsets at the time. To truly figure that out, I might need to go back to Rome, as that's where I had felt it the most...

So I think I did have a much healthier and more balanced attitude towards the language than on previous trips: I did always make the effort to use it, but I didn't stress out too much about it or get too upset when people didn't cooperate. It would be a lie to say I never felt frustrated about switching - it can absolutely feel like an insult when you've been learning the language for around ten years and worked pretty hard for a lot of that time, and it's perfectly normal to feel that way - but I didn't dwell on these feelings or let them get me down.


Plans now that I'm back? I don't really feel desperate to dive back into language studies, and if anything the trip has just given me even more perspective on how there's more to life than languages and above all it's just made me want to start travelling more again (although it's also been a reminder that I really dislike flying, between the environmental impact, the early morning or late night timing of most flights plus the delays, and just the whole airport and on-board experience, so I want to do fewer longer trips rather than more short ones and even this 10-day one felt too short). And I want to keep up with the outdoor activites and general relaxation, here and elsewhere. The things I enjoyed most about the trip were just the walking, the views, being near and in the sea, and simply having time to do what I wanted and take things easy. All things I can also enjoy back home, to an extent.

I do want to keep improving my Spanish, but at this stage I think I just need to keep up the input and practice, no need for formal study. I'm ambivalent about Italian - this trip hasn't exactly inspired me to perfect it, and while I'm keen to visit or revisit other parts of Italy, there are destinations higher on my list - so I think it's just back to maintenance and maybe another push on pronunciation and revising some everyday stuff whenever I do plan to return there. German feels more like a "nice to have" than a "must have".

However I did just come back yesterday, I've not settled back into a routine yet, and I'm aware that these feelings are largely just immediate reactions after the trip and would probably be quite different if, say, I had interacted more with locals or not spoken with the South Americans or had more chance to meet the Germans. I need to give it a few days to really see where I am.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:26 pm

garyb wrote:.
I did overhear a few Italian tour guides speaking what sounded like quite good German, which was interesting just because Italian-accented German isn't a combination I had heard much before.



Let me introduce you to just one of a million cheesy pasta adverts…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBTxq5fFlAQ

(We also had a lovely gelato shop run by an Italian family when I was studying in Germany, but when I think of Italian-accented German, it’s these commercials that come to mind.)
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Cavesa » Sun Oct 09, 2022 5:04 pm

Sounds like a wonderful journey! I remember that archeological museum in Napoli, it is beautiful and really amazed me, when I was a kid. I must take my husband there some day!

Well, one of my main issues with switching to English hasn't really been mentioned: it doesn't make things easier, because vast majority of people speak it atrociously. I cannot understand them without a lot of extra effort. It is not just about them humiliating me, damaging my experience, etc. They don't care, they care about efficiency, which makes sense in theory. But their English really makes communication harder, less efficient, and also much less pleasant. They are defeating their own purpose.

About the unpleasantness of it: We were vising the Genova lighthouse, and the safety measures surprised us. Turned out it was a military object first, touristy second. Ok, this happens. But they were playing a recording of the rules all the time, like every 5 or 10 minutes. In normal Italian, and than in bad English. With mistakes in the English. One huge grammar mistake, several big pronunciation mistakes, and an overall very notable accent. Really, they couldn't even get a good English speaker to record the message in one of the biggest attraction of the city. And most random people you meet in shops, touristy places, etc, are much worse than even that.

So, it is not just about damaging my experience and humiliating me just based on prejudices. Their "English" really makes the communication much less efficient.

I agree that "parlo italiano" works. But "No parlo inglese" works much much better. It is sad to lie, but it removes any prejudice based evaluation of my skills out of the question (and therefore saves the native's time and dilemma on whether they are providing a good service), and it simply stops the problem. But yeah, this lie would be impossible for a couple or group of English natives. :-D

Lying is controversial. But given the very often bad English, it is not that far from the truth sometimes :-D

But I love your description of the Spanish usefulness. Your experience really matches mine, it is a very useful language. I hope to get back to it next year. :-)
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sun Oct 09, 2022 5:51 pm

Cavesa wrote:Well, one of my main issues with switching to English hasn't really been mentioned: it doesn't make things easier, because vast majority of people speak it atrociously. I cannot understand them without a lot of extra effort. It is not just about them humiliating me, damaging my experience, etc. They don't care, they care about efficiency, which makes sense in theory. But their English really makes communication harder, less efficient, and also much less pleasant. They are defeating their own purpose.
Oh yeah, I've definitely had this experience in the past in France, Spain, and Italy, and written about my frustrations. I didn't mention it because it didn't happen this time though: all my interactions were either basic enough that bad English was sufficient, or with somebody who did speak it well enough (which I've consistently found to be more often the case in the south of Italy than the north, contrary to what one might expect based on the stereotypes). I'll just put it down to luck, and to not enough interactions.

I did come across plenty signs and other written information where reading the Italian was easier than trying to understand the bad English, though :lol:

I agree that "parlo italiano" works. But "No parlo inglese" works much much better. It is sad to lie, but it removes any prejudice based evaluation of my skills out of the question (and therefore saves the native's time and dilemma on whether they are providing a good service), and it simply stops the problem. But yeah, this lie would be impossible for a couple or group of English natives. :-D
I have considered the "non parlo inglese" approach, and I smiled when I read about it in your recent log post, but as an English native speaker it just feels like going a little too far :D And as I say, these days I'm not really bothered enough to put up a fight. But I suppose it's one to keep in mind in case I ever need to bring out the big guns, like in the cases just discussed where their English is so bad that it makes the whole interaction much more difficult.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Thu Oct 20, 2022 4:31 pm

I said I'd give it a few days and see where I am, so I did... And I still don't a whole lot of motivation really. Especially not for Italian.

I believe a lull in motivation is quite normal after some time in a target-language country. After my big trip to Spain and Italy a few years ago, I certainly went off language learning for a few months. I suppose that after being surrounded by the language it's normal to want a break from it, and as mentioned the trip did take me back to reality in a way, making me question whether the results are really worth the effort. But as always, the interest is still there and I doubt I'll stop learning languages any time soon even if I have phases of being more or less into it.

I've not done any proper German or Spanish study since my return, but I have been gradually getting back into the input, with Tatort and some of the usual Spanish podcasts.

I still like the idea of being able to speak (or even just understand!) German; again not sure how much I like the process of getting there, but I'm just about keen enough to maintain what I've learnt so far. I think I will get back to at least a bit of active study soon, but I'm not forcing it. With Spanish, I see the utility and still feel that if I just keep up input, writing, and occasional speaking I will keep slowly but steadily improving.

(EDIT: I just had a quick thought on the "at least understand" part... I wonder if it's worth mostly just focusing on receptive skills for now, just to reduce the pressure a little, and since I don't have any need to speak German now or in the foreseeable future? I don't think that actually changes much at this point in terms of activities; language is language, you can't entirely separate receptive and productive skills and work on one usually supports the other, and at my stage it's still vocabulary and to an extent structure that hold me back from understanding as much as speaking and proper study on top of input sure helps with picking them up. It's more just a slight mental shift: understanding as a main focus feels like a much more short and manageable intermediate goal, and means I don't need to work so hard on things like word endings just yet.)

The bigger picture also needs to be considered though. Getting back into routines always takes a bit of time after a break, there's a lot of other stuff going on (time is passing and I'm quite behind on my work studies, for example), and I've mentioned being more interested in active/outdoor pursuits and wanting to get away from the computer more. That doesn't leave a whole lot of space for languages.

I saw a YouTube video the other day with someone talking about life having different chapters; knowing what you want from life is a big and difficult question with often contradictory answers, but considering what you want from the current chapter is much easier and resolves a lot of the apparent contradiction (for example, wanting something but not wanting it or having any desire to make space for it right now). The idea probably sounds trite and stating the obvious, but it resonated a lot with me and took off some of the pressure to figure everything out.

Anyway right now I'm at home with a cold so that does give a bit of time (if not energy!) for input and maybe a spot of study.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Sun Nov 06, 2022 7:58 pm

Not too much to report since last time. I've got back into the work studies and have also committed to getting a certification by the end of the year. I don't think it'll be too hard since the material overlaps a lot with ones I've already done, but even the revision is quite time-consuming.

My motivation for languages is coming back, especially for German but for all of them other than Italian really, and I feel like I'd much rather be studying German or Spanish than doing all that work stuff. But as I said before, motivation doesn't mean much unless it leads to consistent action rather than just talk, which so far it hasn't. I did have one proper German day a couple of weeks ago, with a good chunk of listening and textbook work, but it turned out to be a one-off.

I've also had a few weekends away recently and I have another in a couple of weeks, and these tend to derail most good habits, so it feels like as soon as I get into any sort of rhythm I crash again and have to rebuild it.

Plus with the work studies there's a bit of the classic treadmill effect. I say that once I have the certification and perhaps get a better job or promotion next year I'll finally be able to put more time into languages and music and other activities, but what is much more likely is that work will just become more demanding and I'll immediately start thinking about the next step. So if I really want to do things, I should make time for them now rather than someday. But then it comes back to the usual question of balance and burnout, and I do feel like I'm going back into one of my "I want to do everything now!" phases, which is about as sustainable as it sounds.

Anyway I felt like another Murakami book so I grabbed Kafka en la orilla in Spanish and made a good start on it during train journeys this weekend. And I just saw that season 4 of Babylon Berlin is finally being shown; if that doesn't get me back into German then I'm not sure what will!

I would love to finish my A1 German book before the end of the year, just so I can feel like I'm getting past the absolute basics, but that's very much what they call a stretch goal.

I've not even been on DuoLingo for so long that I just opened it today to see that there's been yet another redesign. I'll need to give it a proper try before giving proper thoughts on it, but my first impression is that they've removed what little element of user choice there was and made the path completely linear. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a beginner resource; in fact one thing I like about structured courses is being told what to do and not having to waste valuable brainpower on decisions. Decisions can come later, once I have the foundation. The new structure also seems to have moved away a bit from thematic units and towards ones based around accomplishing things in the language, which again is a welcome change. But the problem with these restructures is that they tend to also change the order of the material, so you can end up repeating and/or skipping previous material.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby garyb » Tue Nov 08, 2022 3:45 pm

I had a near-ideal day yesterday: I got all my standard German routine done (TV, Duo, Spektrum) as well as the other good stuff like exercise, music, work study, and a little Spanish reading.

My secret? Having a day off work without any plans! And resisting computer games*. Ideal time to kick-start things.

Unfortunately that doesn't happen every day, although I do try to keep at least one weekend day fairly free, and as I said I do have some time off coming up this and next month. So I suppose it's a good and realistic benchmark of what I can do in a single free day when I do have it.

I am only two-thirds of the way through Spektrum A1 though, so that end-of-year goal might have been a bit ambitious. Still probably possible if I prioritise it a bit more and make at least a small dent in it a few days per week, but I'm not going to feel guilty if I don't manage.

I have managed to repeat the German routine today thanks to a bit of dead time at work, but again that's not going to happen every day. The studying seems to be going well now and I'm building sentences more easily than ever, but am still quite lacking in vocabulary. I feel it's still too early in the learning process to concentrate on anything in particular, such as vocabulary over grammar; as I said in the last post, choices can come later.

My feelings on the Duo changes are still positive after having done a couple of study sessions. The real big win, which wasn't obvious at first, is that the "practise" feature (the dumbell icon) now gives much more appropriate exercises mostly on things I covered a few months ago and could do with brushing up on, rather than going back to the very basics like hello and good morning like it used to, so it's now actually useful and makes the app much more suited to its true purpose as mostly an accessory for extra practice. I'm quite sure there are some completely new words in there too, but I'd just blame that on the content reshuffle. It does get repetitive, but I think that's just a case of it giving me the work I need rather than the work I want!

*: I'm still playing Hitman in Spanish, and I've genuinely picked up some new vocabulary from it, especially for objects like tools. I came across a couple of things in my book that I recognised, like palanqueta (crowbar), a useful tool for opening locked doors to get closer to your assassination targets. But especially since it's just English audio with Spanish text, the amount of input hardly justifies the time spent, especially when that time is all too easy to lose track of, so I'm considering it as a leisure activity with a small linguistic bonus.
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Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3513
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French, and now German!)

Postby Le Baron » Tue Nov 08, 2022 5:51 pm

I just logged into Duolingo after a little time away and saw the revamp. Did an eye-roll, thinking 'another re-shuffle!' But it seems okay and indeed has some useful things like the stories in the learning 'tree' (is it still a tree now?).
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