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Re: "Fui a la cafetería, pero el café estaba mal"
To add onto what others have said, Duolingo is fun but _really_ slow. It's hard to expand out into new avenues of learning when you've been doing the same thing for a long time, but here's a few that have helped me:
- YouTube content, like you said. Find teachers you like who will walk you through the basics and explain the answers to questions you have.
- Passive listening. One YT teacher I watched explained that you should be doing three times as much passive listening as active, meaning having the language on while you're not paying attention. He recommended finding QVC Italia (home shopping network) on YouTube and just leaving it on. I'm sure they have a QVC españa. It's 24/7 and they're always talking. It's good for active listening practice as well.
- Reading children's books, watching children's TV. Peppa pig is on Netflix in a ton of languages!
- Watching movies or shows (or playing games) you already know completely, but in your new language. I cannot bear to think how many times I've watched the Harry Potter movies over the years. Once with English subtitles, again with Italian subtitles, again with no subtitles, at different points over the years. But I knew those movies and stories like the back of my hand already, so I could just let the language wash over me and never feel lost.
- Actually talking to a native speaker. This one is tough, but there's sites like italki which will accommodate any skill level. But at some point the rubber needs to hit the road, better sooner than later.
Duolingo is great because it opens up people's mind to the idea that they can actually learn a new language. But I think the gamification aspect holds people back in the end; it makes you want to avoid being wrong or not knowing something, but that is the very essence of learning. Especially when learning a language, when you can't possibly know everything and for a long time you're really just trying to catch the gist of what's being said.
Mar 14 · 4 months ago
Fui a la cafetería, pero el café estaba mal — I went to the cafe, but the coffee was bad. True story. So after 24 days of intense duolingo, it is not possible to say simple things like this, without outside help. For some reason, all language courses I've seen focus on the completely unusable present tense for a long, long time. While it seems simple and perhaps not entirely unwise to learn to conjugate verbs in present tense, it makes it impossible to communicate even simple thoughts. The...
💬 stack [mod] · 4 comments · 3 likes · Mar 12 · 4 months ago