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I also started learning French last February (as a hobby), and i'm now near B1 level. I used mostly the Tandem app (finding good ambitious people to learn with

by Tepix 5y ago

I also started learning French last February (as a hobby), and i'm now near B1 level. I used mostly the Tandem app (finding good ambitious people to learn with is the key), a grammar book and the DuoLingo app (free tier). When using DuoLingo, you will find very useful tips for every exercise on their website (but not in the app!). Without these tips, learning things other than vocabulary only on DuoLingo can be quite inefficient. I've very recently discovered that I downloaded the MosaLingua French app when it was free a while ago and am now using that as well (spaced repetition) but i find DuoLingo provides better motivation. Buying the french grammar book has been the only money I've spent so far and it's been a very enjoyable experience! Being able to understand texts and videos in a new language is a huge motivator. Being able to have a conversation is awesome, too. Some other resources that have been useful: - ThoughtCo language learning resources has some very good texts https://www.thoughtco.com/languages-4133094 https://www.thoughtco.com/languages-4133094 - https://deepl.com https://deepl.com - the best for translating entire sentences - https://defr.dict.cc/ https://defr.dict.cc/ - for looking up words and idioms at the PC - Reverso Konjugator - verb conjugation

maxFlow 5y ago
I tried Tandem for a couple of months without success. It's basically a dating site. I find it much more efficient to learn by myself. My go-to resources for language learning are: LingQ[0], Youtube, and Wikipedia (in the target language, evidently). You have to find what works for you, and what type of content you like, you don't want to be fighting the language, the content, and the platform. Saludos. [0] https://www.lingq.com/en/ https://www.lingq.com/en/
bayesian_horse 5y ago
It seems Duolingo goes quite far in terms of French. Not sure if there needs to be anything else to be honest. Anything else might be a waste of time, including conjugation apps. The exception may be actual grammar references which can sometimes be helpful.
- bscphil 5y ago
  The difficulty with Duolingo (free tier) is that it's so limited in how much you can learn per day. I have a streak of about 600 days and I'm only about a third of the way through the total program. I average about one lesson a day (5-10 min); in the beginning I was able to do a lot more, but now I will not-infrequently fail my first lesson of the day due to difficulty, and have to do a "practice" lesson (which are too-easy review lessons that don't require "hearts") just to keep the streak alive. I also didn't even realize until relatively recently that you could move on from one lesson after completing the first level, so I have apparently been inefficiently learning each lesson to level five this whole time. My recall of stuff from the beginning of the program is already faded... Maybe it's better if you pay for it just to be able to do more lessons, or alternatively maybe the desktop application described in the article is still active and doesn't require payment?
  - muffinman26 5y ago
    The practice lessons give you back hearts, 1 per practice plus another 1 if you watch a short ad afterwards. Starting a new lesson will sometimes also give you an opportunity to watch another ad for a new heart, so after doing 2-5 practice lessons you can go back to progressing the new material you were working on before. I actually prefer the free version, because it naturally creates spaced repetition by forcing me to review old lessons in-between new content.
  - hombre_fatal 5y ago
    Duolingo was more useful to me when you could fail until you got it right instead of losing your hearts and then getting bumped out of the lesson. I don't use it any more, but when they added the heart feature, I finally bought a subscription. Without it, Duolingo ends the lesson just as you're about to learn from your mistakes which is unfortunate.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      The hearts feature also encourages you to repeat the lessons more. It can be more tedious, but may be better. Also with the mobile apps there are these special XP challenges which you can use to repeat what you have learned before. I use these a lot, and it's more fun. I also notice when I'm too far in front of my skis, in that those exercises seem to difficult for the time allotted. That is a sign that I progressed too quickly through the lessons.

by Tepix 5y ago

maxFlow 5y ago

I tried Tandem for a couple of months without success. It's basically a dating site. I find it much more efficient to learn by myself. My go-to resources for language learning are: LingQ[0], Youtube, and Wikipedia (in the target language, evidently). You have to find what works for you, and what type of content you like, you don't want to be fighting the language, the content, and the platform. Saludos. [0] https://www.lingq.com/en/ https://www.lingq.com/en/

bayesian_horse 5y ago

It seems Duolingo goes quite far in terms of French. Not sure if there needs to be anything else to be honest. Anything else might be a waste of time, including conjugation apps. The exception may be actual grammar references which can sometimes be helpful.

bscphil 5y ago
The difficulty with Duolingo (free tier) is that it's so limited in how much you can learn per day. I have a streak of about 600 days and I'm only about a third of the way through the total program. I average about one lesson a day (5-10 min); in the beginning I was able to do a lot more, but now I will not-infrequently fail my first lesson of the day due to difficulty, and have to do a "practice" lesson (which are too-easy review lessons that don't require "hearts") just to keep the streak alive. I also didn't even realize until relatively recently that you could move on from one lesson after completing the first level, so I have apparently been inefficiently learning each lesson to level five this whole time. My recall of stuff from the beginning of the program is already faded... Maybe it's better if you pay for it just to be able to do more lessons, or alternatively maybe the desktop application described in the article is still active and doesn't require payment?
- muffinman26 5y ago
  The practice lessons give you back hearts, 1 per practice plus another 1 if you watch a short ad afterwards. Starting a new lesson will sometimes also give you an opportunity to watch another ad for a new heart, so after doing 2-5 practice lessons you can go back to progressing the new material you were working on before. I actually prefer the free version, because it naturally creates spaced repetition by forcing me to review old lessons in-between new content.
- hombre_fatal 5y ago
  Duolingo was more useful to me when you could fail until you got it right instead of losing your hearts and then getting bumped out of the lesson. I don't use it any more, but when they added the heart feature, I finally bought a subscription. Without it, Duolingo ends the lesson just as you're about to learn from your mistakes which is unfortunate.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    The hearts feature also encourages you to repeat the lessons more. It can be more tedious, but may be better. Also with the mobile apps there are these special XP challenges which you can use to repeat what you have learned before. I use these a lot, and it's more fun. I also notice when I'm too far in front of my skis, in that those exercises seem to difficult for the time allotted. That is a sign that I progressed too quickly through the lessons.