Five Golden Trees

[lavengro]

I am proposing to engage in what will strike some as a relatively trivial pursuit: completing and maintaining five languages on Duolingo, with the eventual goal of having five completely gold trees at the same time within three years. Those who duolingo* will know that a reference to a gold tree relates to maintaining one's knowledge for that particular language; essentially, this involves fairly regular review. I anticipate the five languages will be Italian, Spanish, French, German and either Japanese or Czech (the latter two of which are still in development).

I started Italian on Duolingo a couple of weeks ago, and am going to have to divert to Spanish at some point in August, as I made a promise to someone I would join them in an evening Spanish class (Beginner 2), which states as a prerequisite that one has a certain basis level of Spanish. Not sure whether I can study Italian at the same time as Spanish. I have tinkered over the years, but not for some time, with Spanish as well as French and, briefly, German, so not a true absolute beginner.

All just for fun, with no real expectation of conversational ability at the end. I'll post from time to time, mostly just for my own reference.

lavengro (not my real name)
*duolingo - yes, it is now a verb as well as a fun learning site, courtesy of Lavengro

[Xmmm]

The only tree I ever finished and kept gold for a while was Spanish.

I feel like if you want to learn to read a foreign language, it is a great tool. I hope they have Duolingo Latin some day.

But ... Talk about lopsided. I ended up a B1 in reading and an A0 in everything else.

I seem to remember it took four months at at least one hour a day. And keeping it golden took time too ... 15 or 20 minutes with rarely a day off.

[Xenops]

Welcome to the forum! I've thought of using Duolingo for Turkish as a false beginner. Here's some links about the effectiveness of Duolingo (the first link in particular): https://www.duolingo.com/research

[lavengro]

Thanks Xmmm, four months for a completed and gilded tree sounds like a pretty good clip, I have heard of some taking a year or more just to complete a tree, and I have read about the amount of maintenance required to keep the gold shiny and polished. I had poked around in the past with French on Duolingo, but did not get beyond level 10 or so.

I am planning on spending about an hour to 1.5 hours per day on languages, which I am satisfied from past experience is reasonable provided the learning environment is fun. I have gone the FSI route before, and am not overly-interested in revisting that arid waste land, no matter how effective the FSI approach and materials may be. I am dividing my time between Duolingo and Memrise at present. I am working methodically through Duolingo - lots of review, take notes, follow some of the related discussions out of interest, all to maximize its utility rather than just see how fast I can race through.

Completely agree about the asymmetry in language skills that Duolingo presents. I am hopeful however in having Duolingo assist with my listening skills - I go over the audio clips often and sometimes avoid looking at the printed word to emphasis listening skills.

Duolingo Latin? who knows, although they have a lot still in the hatchery, including Klingon!

[lavengro]

Thanks Xenops, much appreciated! I will give those studies a look, wasn't aware of them before. What I gleaned from a quick scan of the first is that there are study participants who only managed two hours of study total within a two month period - so now, I no longer have to feel poorly about my own occasional frequent lazy periods!

[Brun Ugle]

Welcome back! I personally can only do one Duolingo tree at a time and even then I usually end up getting sick of it and taking breaks. Still, I've managed the Spanish and Esperanto trees and most of the German one so far. It's a helpful supplement, but I don't think I would get very far with Duolingo alone.

[Whodathunkitz]

From my log.

"Recently did duolingo Spanish in 5 days (testing out) and wlingua A1 in 9 days."

Previous language learning limited. Spanish was probably 1000 words via Memrise plus first 8 language transfer / thinking Spanish. Plus cognates from English, cebuano and Esperanto.

Duolingo allows testing out. From memory you do a test on each level. I think for 2 levels I had to do two tests and for one I did three. The rest were first time (from memory). But duolingo Spanish might be especially guessable.

Then I went a bit manic and from memory it took another 9 manic days to make it gold. Nowadays 3 sessions a day keeps it gold but that's after a 109 day streak.

The problem was in the early days when it might take 25 sessions a day to have it a bit more gold than the day before (but for different levels). That's a lot. Some days I lost count but above 35 sessions.

When I first goldened it I started from the end and went backwards to the start.

Now I always golden from the lowest level.

Five languages at gold are probably possible in my view but you'll have days when all five are looking a bit sad. You just have to plough on.

You might have to do 20+ sessions a day. Probably better to ignore how gold any are and just concentrate on a high Workrate.

Then the aspect of interference which I have limited experience of.

I tend to learn one language at a go. I maintain cebuano badly by speaking with my wife but it is getting worse.

I'm concentrating on Spanish until I can get to a B2 or C1 level which I understand from others (with more knowledge and experience) is then easier to maintain.

Strangely I'm still more likely to think cebuano than Spanish.

[jeff_lindqvist]

If you do it one skill at a time, you just improve that one. If you choose Strengthen skills, and Timed practice, it feels more like an SRS algorithm, and you're likely to improve up to two or three skills depending on how much they've rusted. I just did it twice for in Irish (which I've completed a long time ago, and nowadays just maintain). After the first one (7 points) one skill got golden again (from 3/5 to 5/5) and the same for two other skills after the second round (13 points). It took me at most five minutes (I even answered two text messages).

For German, I just got 15 points (out of 17) but only improved one skill (which however got from 2/5 to 5/5).

[lavengro]

Thanks Brun Ugle, good to be back, and thanks Whodathunkitz, Morgana and Jeff.

I am under no real illusion as to how far Duolingo (and Memrise) will take me. Mostly just having fun in several languages and hopefully establishing a base for eventually moving forward.

Having said that, thanks to Dulingo I can already communicate in Italian the following:

"The horses eat apples" (probably won't come up a lot, but who knows)
"I write in the sugar" (again, don't imagine using this a lot, but good to have in one's back pocket)
"I am a woman" (really don't see using this ever, at least not in a convincing way)

[lavengro]

If you choose Strengthen skills, and Timed practice, it feels more like an SRS algorithm, and you're likely to improve up to two or three skills depending on how much they've rusted.

I love Timed Practice! There is a small but non-negligible chance the stress that arises when frantically typing with only a few remaining seconds is going to give me an ulcer or similar, but I am prepared to risk it.