Thanks for the insight! I thought a bit about what you said, and the fact that my goals seem to change from week to week, and I've actually decided to change my yearly goal from 300 days of Tagalog to 300 days of languages. It's a much easier, more attainable goal, and less likely to lead to that lack of motivation that you describe. I've definitely experienced that before, and I've seen it with Duolingo and my husband. Once the streak was lost, it became much more of a chore.Brun Ugle wrote:I’ve found that for me, streaks are counterproductive. I get so stressed about losing them that the only way to lose the stress is to lose the streak, but then I don’t have motivation to do whatever the thing was. I have that problem with Duolingo. I had a long streak once and it made doing Duolingo almost painful. I dreaded it every day and after I lost the streak, I’ve never done it for more that about ten days in a row at most.
Now, if there is something I want to make a habit of doing most days, I make sure not to keep track of streaks. I might reward myself for having done something for ten days, but I don’t worry about them being ten days in a row. Of course, if they are very far apart, it takes longer to get the reward, so there is still an incentive to do it regularly.
We were really lucky because we were able to combine both language learning and backpacking. I feel that each one positively influenced the other. The backpacking was better because of the study, and the study was much better because of the breaks provided by backpacking.garyb wrote:Great to read more about Guatemala! That kind of trip seems like a much better option than normal backpacking if learning the language is a priority. I'd love to do something like that one day.
I agree with Brun Ugle about streaks. That's what put me off DuoLingo even though it's an otherwise useful resource.
I don't know how I feel about Duolingo anymore. I kind of like it, but I'm bothered by the constant L2 > L1 translations. Especially in Italian, my receptive skills far outpace my productive skills, so Duolingo is too easy for me right now, despite the fact that I struggle to string together a sentence.
Yes, absolutely! Her name is Carmela. She's a really warm, friendly person, and I love that her main focus is teaching Tagalog, rather than English. I haven't worked with her in over a year, and I'm really looking forward to getting started again. Good luck with your studies! I love when we get new Tagalog learners here!cheng8907 wrote:Hi, I'm studying Tagalog too and I'm also using the elementary Tagalog textbook, can you share with me the italki tutor you've mentioned in your post?