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When I did the full Spanish tree from zero about 5 years ago studying ~1h per day for 3 months it didn't get me very far. I then moved to a Spanish speaking cou
by aeyes 4y ago
When I did the full Spanish tree from zero about 5 years ago studying ~1h per day for 3 months it didn't get me very far. I then moved to a Spanish speaking country and started taking 4h of language classes per day immediately. I felt that I could have learned about the same in two weeks there instead of using Duolingo. Some people came in with 0 knowledge and could speak a little after 2 weeks, Duolingo never got me to speak real sentences.
Another problem is that you just repeat without understanding why the words are arranged in a certain way. For adults it is probably more effective to study some grammer rules and to then apply these rules. Learning grammar is really a shortcut and Duolingo doesn't teach you anything about grammar rules. Also, at a certain age you just can't learn grammar by reading/listening and repeating. It takes kids years to learn, you don't have years. I have lived here for over 5 years, took well over 1000h of class in school and still make many grammer mistakes. Other mistakes continue to happen because nobody corrects me, usually we correct kids at least a little bit when they say something wrong.
Back in the day Duolingo was already a very slow progression repeating stuff you already knew endlessly. I recently tried it again to pick up another language and they put so much monetization on it that it is now basically impossible to learn at your own pace - unless you pay.
I see it as a tool to learn vocabulary. This is very important in the beginning, once you learn 500-1000 words you can rapidly progress on your own. But honestly, to pound vocabulary into my brain, Memrise is a much better tool. I also used grammer tools like conjugator. Another good resource is the free Coffee Break podcast series, Spanish is probably their most complete course and it helped me a lot.
I have seen some good suggestions I didn't know about in this thread, I'll definitely try them when I try to pick up my next language.
- simlevesque 4y ago> Back in the day Duolingo was already a very slow progression repeating stuff you already knew endlessly. This is the only way to learn. You repeat things you know many times to commit them to your memory.
- aix1 4y ago> This is the only way to learn. You repeat things you know many times to commit them to your memory. Mindless repetition is not the only way to learn. For many types of things, understanding the rules or knowing the patterns is far more efficient and effective. We were just talking about German noun genders and plurals elsewhere on this thread. Of course, one can memorise the gender and the plural of every noun in isolation, by rote. But simply knowing a few common patterns would save an incredible amount of effort.
- aeyes 4y agoI said "stuff you already know", there is no point in repeating vocabulary which you already know. Some words or phrases are easier to learn, others are harder. Duolingo has no way to only work on your weekness. It's more time effective to put them on a piece of paper and to go through them a couple of times.