Duolingo

GoingMobile, I'd narrowed it down to four options, the others being Indonesian, Samoan, and Miskitu (spoken on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua; I got hooked while watching travel videos during Covid, and I did meet one guy who spoke it.) Miskitu was just too obscure, I couldn't find lessons anywhere. Haitian Creole ended up seeming the most practical. Higher chances of meeting someone who speaks it. Might give me a better crack at a decent volunteer gig. And I would love to visit the Dominican Republic someday (and there's a slightly bigger snowball's chance in you-know-where that I could actually afford it, compared to Samoa or Indonesia), and Haiti is just around the corner from there.

Plus you don't have to conjugate verbs or memorize whether every single noun is male or female. And a lot of words sound vaguely familiar because they're based on French. (In fact, I keep thinking "yeah, why don't the French spell it this way? It makes more sense." Don't tell any French people that I said that though .)

Morgana, small world, I actually know someone who speaks some Miskitu. She's a professor of public health at Tulane University in New Orleans. She had worked in Central America during the 1980s, still has connections to the area and visits to do research.

GoingMobile, so jealous.

Just came back to this thread to report that I have now been studying Spanish with Duolingo for the past 36 straight days. I've learned more in that month than in the 37 years I've been married to a Spanish speaker. Thanks, Morgana!

kklowell said:

I have now been studying Spanish with Duolingo for the past 36 straight days. I've learned more in that month than in the 37 years I've been married to a Spanish speaker.

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Felicitaciones -- disfrútalo!

Gracias!

Morgana said:

So has anybody here tried learning a language using the free version of Duolingo.com?
I just signed up a few days ago, and I'm more impressed than I thought I'd be. It's cute, and humorous, and nonthreatening, and stuff does seem to stick in your head after.
I'm not being very ambitious about it -- just doing the basic few minutes a day -- but I figure it will add up eventually.
And it's one way -- if you've had to temporarily cut back on seeing the world due to Covid, gas crisis, inflation, war, or whatever -- to have a bit of the world come to you. There's a ton of different languages to choose from.

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Yes, I'm studying Spanish, along with the other women in my family. I started with the free app, until my daughter got the family plan for us all. I really enjoy it and I'm learning. I would learn faster of course if i had a live human to talk with, but since we live in 4 different states .

" I would learn faster of course if i had a live human to talk with, but since we live in 4 different states ."
You could talk to each other using facetime, or whatsapp or any similar application.

Gypsy Jane said:

I would learn faster of course if i had a live human to talk with,

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...and you can find such live human easily.

Google for "language exchange" where you, English speaker hoping to learn Spanish,can talk to a Spanish speaker hoping to learn English.

There are many such exchanges, I am occasional paying member of the https://mylanguageexchange.com/ . It has a "freemium" business model - one of the pair has to be paid ("gold") member, which is $24 for a year.

I'm trying another thing now. Toucan is a free add-on to a browser that replaces some of the on-screen words with Spanish words. If you don't know a word you can click on it for a definition, but if you know the word and take no action, Toucan apparently learns that you know that word and doesn't give it to you in the future. I'm going to see if it helps me learn and I'll report back.

OK if you start waving back when the little green bird waves at you it's probably time for a break right?

I had thought of moving to Mexico, inland somewhere away from the tourist crowds. I know several spanish words, mainly alcohol or food related. I've tried books, audio books everything I could find at the library, but nothing that I could actually use for conversation. I'd really like to own another Vespa Ape, I still have the engine from the '57, but soon after I took the engine out, to rebuild it someone stole the vehicle. I'd like to build a mini class C out of one.

I would like to add that I tried duolingo to learn Spanish a while back. I have a very high opinion of their approach, and it's ease of use.
The fact that I gave up says more about me than the program. I live in Southern NM in with a very large percentage of Spanish-speaking people.
It seemed like a great idea when I started. Then I got lazy and quit. NOT THE FAULT OF THE PROGRAM.

So, I give it a big plus mark!

wanderin.pat said:

I live in Southern NM in with a very large percentage of Spanish-speaking people.

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These borderlands people with their perfect bilingualism are just humbling. I could study my brains out forever and not be that good.

I was volunteering up by Del Rio a couple of weeks ago (finally had one good volunteer experience, yay! but sadly brief) ... one of the other volunteers said "I always think my Spanish is pretty good till I come here" ... I could help people with simple things but every 5th person or so, I'd realize I was about three sentences behind and my brain would just freeze. and the words would keep piling in and all I'd get is NOT COMPUTING, NOT COMPUTING ... and then I'd turn them over to the local ladies and they'd say ta da da da da da da m'ija ta da da da da and everybody's happy. and then they'd turn around and speak equally rapid fire to me in English. They must think we're a bit slow lol.

wanderin.pat said:

Then I got lazy and quit.

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Hey, nothing stopping you from starting again!
I keep mine set for the absolute minimum per day. That way I'm sure I can keep the "streak" going

it feels like five days, not five months, since I started this thread, but

that's with the absolute minimum setting, so if I get busy I can get it done in 10 minutes.
I'm not sure you can really "learn a language in 15 minutes a day," but you can learn enough to give somebody a good laugh, and that's a start....
It's fun. I recommend.

Morgana said:

it feels like five days, not five months, since I started this thread, but
<snip>

that's with the absolute minimum setting, so if I get busy I can get it done in 10 minutes.
I'm not sure you can really "learn a language in 15 minutes a day," but you can learn enough to give somebody a good laugh, and that's a start....
It's fun. I recommend.

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How are your lessons coming? I tried Duolingo for a couple weeks and liked it, but I started forgetting my daily lessons.

I follow a guy on YT who speaks maybe 30 languages and now when I watch him I think of you, lol. Wondering if you have seen his channel. It's Xiaomanyc.

Still coming along! The language I'm learning (Haitian Creole) is "in beta," which makes it a bit frustrating sometimes, but overall it's much more positive than negative. Lots of little positive reinforcements. I've set it to the lowest possible time commitment so that on busy days I can do the minimum and still keep my "streak." I think I'm about 2/3 of the way through the program. It's pretty amazing for a free resource.

I combine it with the Anki https://apps.ankiweb.net/ memorization app, which is also free. I don't think one or the other alone would work for me but together they're great.

I hadn't heard of Xiaomanyc (thanks for that) but I did enjoy Benny Hill's Fluent in 3 months . He's got a TED talk here:

Morgana said:

it feels like five days, not five months, since I started this thread, but

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Estoy un poco celoso, that's a very impressive streak. I've been using Duolingo for the past few months in preparation for a visit to Oaxaca this winter. My 'streaks' are shorter, but I keep coming back. I'm probably at a Spanish III level currently. Since I'll be at a language institute for two weeks while I'm there, I'd like to be as advanced as possible BEFORE I visit .
It still kind of bugs me that it uses "The Queen's" Spanish, with it's softer lisps, etc, than the Mexicano I'm used to hearing.
But then again - it's free!

Gussie said:

My 'streaks' are shorter, but I keep coming back.

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That's more real-life, I think. Coming back is the important thing. Keeping the streak going is kind of a game.

Gussie said:

I'll be at a language institute for two weeks while I'm there

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Now I'm the jealous one.

Gussie said:

It still kind of bugs me that it uses "The Queen's" Spanish, with it's softer lisps, etc, than the Mexicano I'm used to hearing.
But then again - it's free!

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Yeah, free is good!
If you want more accents I recommend soap operas and YouTube travel blogs. Here's a Mexican travel blogger I like a lot. He hasn't been posting much recently, but there's a lot of backstock and he's probably done some on Oaxaca:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTJTpwrK4a-ajXs4-Wry09A
Another blogger, from Honduras, who's slightly less polished so you get more challenging listening practice; super enthusiastic and personable --
https://www.youtube.com/c/JoelSeoane/videos
There's tons more where those came from.
I've also been watching Argentinian soap operas, starting with this one:

They talk really fast, so that's good practice. Kind of a virtuous guilty pleasure. A lot of it goes right over my head but then again the plots are not complicated and there's lots of facial expressions and gestures
Here's a fun Mexican soap opera starring William Levy (who acts a lot in English too) and Ximena Navarette (who I think was Miss World at some point):

So are you going to stay with a "host family"? That was the best part of Spanish school for me (though I gathered from some of my fellow students that it was somewhat luck of the draw). The meals OMG ...
disfrútalo!

PS no idea why some of these links show a graphic and others don't ...

I just want to sing Despacito!