Duolingo

[Joseph K]

Is it worth paying and getting Duolingo plus?

[french frank]

Is it worth paying and getting Duolingo plus?

Dunno - what is Duolingo plus? It's not that thing where you can amass a huge number of points and whizz to the top of your league, is it? If so, No.

[Joseph K]

Dunno - what is Duolingo plus? It's not that thing where you can amass a huge number of points and whizz to the top of your league, is it? If so, No.

[gurnemanz]

One of the basics required for entry to the Prep school my father had booked me for at birth was an elementary grasp of conversational and written French and written Latin. I was sent to the Wetherby or Weatherby school, just off Gloucester Road in W8, where the French teacher, a middle-aged woman we addressed as "Madame" taught us 7-year olds the necessaries. "Madame" knew no English whatsoever - entire lessons were conducted in proper French; and it is to that that I ascribe my excellent pronunciation - of a standard of sufficient accuracy as to confound a French couple staying at a Zurich hotel where I worked in the late 1960s that I was myself French - though those abilities have probably become rusty in the meantime. They thought I said I was from Lourdes! My two 3-week stints in the South of France with a French family on a school exchange, between the ages of 14 and 16, would have not been the deciding factor in this, since young Patric insisted all the time in conversing in English with me, despite the admonishment of his parents. Getting any French accent "right" is especially difficult for an English person - the sole word Monsieur Saurat could find to test me being the Loire - the name for the French river, which even I found difficulty with the "woirrrrre" sound with its emphatic gutterals. Which leads me to conclude in rare agreement with my father that learning a foreign language, any foreign language, is best at a very early age, when the facial musculature seems more readily mouldable to the different physiognomical movements needed to be exercised - especially with Latin-based languages, as compared with Germanic ones with pronunciations closer to our own. Furthermore, this seems to prepare oneself for taking on other accents - one wonders how many early language learners have become good mimics !

Very interesting memories. I was a language teacher and certainly agree about the importance of establishing good pronunciation right from the start. Young pupils generally love making new sounds and voicing them loud and clear. Confidence is boosted by singing and chanting in chorus. As I remember, our French teacher in Year 1 of grammar school practised this and I also like to think that I ended up with a pretty good accent. In the first weeks it was only about phonetics. We sang a lot and not only French, also some Russian and German. I can still do the Marseillaise.. We did revert to traditional methods later but I'm sure his methods gave us a great basis. A few years later he taught me A Level and I owe him a lot.

[Joseph K]

I think I've reached a part of the Duolingo course where I need to go back to my text book ('Neue Horizonte' for anyone who's interested) and study. I've reached the Dative section and am very much bluffing my way through not knowing exactly which article matches the preposition, which gender etc... It's not too tricky bluffing one's way through previous sections e.g. the accusative where there is only one alteration, but this to me reveals the limitations of Duolingo - for me at least, though perhaps it is just as much my limitations because I chose the option at the beginning of someone who already knew some German. In any case, one can't muddle through the Dative case, as Duolingo would have it, simply by trial and error; it calls for some proper homework. I wonder if you select the complete beginner option it actually explains all the grammar, or whether Duolingo is instead just for practice, listening and speaking. I did actually tell myself that I'd split my time up allotted to studying German half between this app and the text book, but now it looks like I'll have to do that! So it's for the best. However, I am currently by some distance ranked first on Duolingo this week and am curious to discover what happens if I actually 'win'...

[Pulcinella]

I think I've reached a part of the Duolingo course where I need to go back to my text book ('Neue Horizonte' for anyone who's interested) and study. I've reached the Dative section and am very much bluffing my way through not knowing exactly which article matches the preposition, which gender etc... It's not too tricky bluffing one's way through previous sections e.g. the accusative where there is only one alteration, but this to me reveals the limitations of Duolingo - for me at least, though perhaps it is just as much my limitations because I chose the option at the beginning of someone who already knew some German. In any case, one can't muddle through the Dative case, as Duolingo would have it, simply by trial and error; it calls for some proper homework. I wonder if you select the complete beginner option it actually explains all the grammar, or whether Duolingo is instead just for practice, listening and speaking. I did actually tell myself that I'd split my time up allotted to studying German half between this app and the text book, but now it looks like I'll have to do that! So it's for the best. However, I am currently by some distance ranked first on Duolingo this week and am curious to discover what happens if I actually 'win'...

I have a very dim memory (from O-Level back in 1966!) of six prepositions (durch ohne gegen wider um für) being grouped together for some reason that now escapes me: do they take the accusative?
As my foreign language option as part of my PhD requirement I took a course on Scientific German (thinking it would be fairly straightforward, given that I had my O-Level, albeit from a few years previously), but I now wish that I'd started something new from scratch, ideally Italian, which I'm sure would have been of more use later on.
Good luck.
One of my German friends joked (yes, he had a sense of humour!) when he had written up his PhD thesis that it was in two volumes: all the verbs were in volume 2!

[french frank]

Texts books are an essential resource if you really want an accurate detailed knowledge of the language. I found the (Welsh) course went "too fast" and with not enough time (or encouragement) to take it slowly. Most people want a "close enough" knowledge to make themselves understood when abroad. I was probably always too afraid of making mistakes in French, but I had a rough and ready knowledge of German.

I remember staying at a hotel in Switzerland/Ticino where I knew the owner from a previous visit - she was Italian-speaking but our 'common language' was German. I greeted her on the first morning with: "Guten morgen. Wie geht es mit Sie?" To which she replied "Sehr gut danke, und mit Ihnen?" at which I felt deeply embarrassed but consoled myself with the fact that she had understood, even without a dative.

If you keep winning, you'll end up at the top of the Diamond League, be Victor Ludorum and have lots of 'Lingots' as a reward. People will bow and refer all their linguistic queries to you as a trusted linguist

I think I've reached a part of the Duolingo course where I need to go back to my text book ('Neue Horizonte' for anyone who's interested) and study. I've reached the Dative section and am very much bluffing my way through not knowing exactly which article matches the preposition, which gender etc...

[gurnemanz]

I have a very dim memory (from O-Level back in 1964!) of six prepositions (durch ohne gegen wieder um für) being grouped together for some reason that now escapes me: do they take the accusative?

That rule is for prepositions which always take the accusative case and is often taught via the mnemonic "dogwuf". I will admit to doing so. A schoolmaster writes: Confusingly, the preposition is spelt "wider" (meaning "against"), whereas "wieder" as in Auf Wiedersehen means "again".

Re German cases. It takes a while but they do fall into place with plenty of practice. I can actually remember while doing O Level at school (also around 1964) that one day I came out with some utterance and realised with a great sense of achievement that for the first time that I was aware of I had used a dative preposition plus adjective and noun instinctively with the correct endings, without previously having to work it out in my head.

[Joseph K]

[Pulcinella]

That rule is for prepositions which always take the accusative case and is often taught via the mnemonic "dogwuf". I will admit to doing so. A schoolmaster writes: Confusingly, the preposition is spelt "wider" (meaning "against"), whereas "wieder" as in Auf Wiedershen means "again".

Re German cases. It takes a while but they do fall into place with plenty of practice. I can actually remember while doing O Level at school (also around 1964) that one day I came out with some utterance and realised with a great sense of achievement that for the first time that I was aware of I had used a dative preposition plus adjective and noun instinctively with the correct endings, without previously having to work it out in my head.

Oops!
I'll correct it.
Yes: we learned it as dog wuf.

[Joseph K]

Experienced a bit of a glitch in one of the listening tasks in Duolingo: I was told that what the person said was not 'Lehrer isst Apfel' but 'Der Lehrer isst Apfel', even though they clearly did not say the 'Der'.

[Pulcinella]

Experienced a bit of a glitch in one of the listening tasks in Duolingo: I was told that what the person said was not 'Lehrer isst Apfel' but 'Der Lehrer isst Apfel', even though they clearly did not say the 'Der'.

I'm sure that gurnemanz will tell us, but don't we need an article before Apfel too?
Maybe not if plural Äpfel?

[gurnemanz]

I'm sure that gurnemanz will tell us, but don't we need an article before Apfel too?
Maybe not if plural Äpfel?

Hard to resist trying to get the core of this matter ....
'Lehrer isst Apfel' would normally be 'der Lehrer' and, as pointed out, the plural 'Äpfel' would be more likely. Apfel in the singular without the umlaut could only be a non-count noun, ie apple as a substance as in, say: 'the child doesn't like apple.'

Footnote: German allows the word order object-verb-subject, so 'Lehrer isst Apfel' could be translated as the surrealist headline: 'Apple eats teachers'.

[Joseph K]

Yes sorry - it was the plural of apple.

[french frank]

Yes sorry - it was the plural of apple.

When it comes to the vagaries of the audio, I soon decided the best course was simply to learn the lesson (if the audio is faulty the written answer will be correct) and move on. People do tend to vent their anger - endlessly - on the discussion page against the technology, which is a waste of time. If you're public spirited, you can faff around trying to report it as a bug but …