It's your duoversary - image of the duo owl celebrating

It’s my Duoversary

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

A year ago today I signed up to Duolingo and started studying German on a daily basis, and occasionally played with other languages. I complimented this with listening to podcasts in German almost daily and making other attempts to learn languages.

I went from trying to get fifty experience points a day per day for months before a conference broke my streak as I was too exhausted by the end of the day to continue learning. Life got in the way. It was more important to spend time with people.

Since then I have kept up the streak for what will be my one hundred and sixty-first day in a row when I complete a lesson today. My goal is ten XP per day, i.e. one lesson but some days I get to one hundred XP and other days I do the bare minimum.

Every so often I hit walls. I want to study and I want to progress further but I just feel lost and just keep making mistakes. It’s at moments like this that I revise what I have already learned, in the hope that with consolidation I make progress sooner.

When I was in Spain over December I took a break from studying German to study Spanish. You might as well study the language of the country where you are at that moment.

After a year of practice, I have learned a theoretical 1600 words but I still feel like a beginner. The app is great at getting you to learn specific words and phrases but it is of limited utility to learn a language properly. First I was going lesson by lesson until I got to five stars before moving to the next and then, before I hit the wall I tried lessons up to level one before moving on and that’s when I hit a learning wall. I struggled with phrasing and word order.

On the plus side, I can understand more and more as I listen to news podcasts although the percentage of words I understand still needs to go up before I can understand half of what they’re saying.

When I took online tests to see what my German level was I am still classed as a beginner and it is frustrating after a year of effort. If I had continued with doing five lessons a day then I’d be further along.

It isn’t the first time that I try to learn German. As a teenager, I had German lessons but I found the teaching method was boring compared to how Spanish was taught. I was given extra English lessons instead.

This second attempt at learning German is going better but I feel that I should work to make more progress. After a year of effort, I should be further along. In two or three weeks I’ll be taking formal lessons and expect smoother progress.

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Yesterday my 770 plus day streak on Duolingo was broken because I was too distracted to take a lesson. I wanted to break that streak. I didn’t want to break it intentionally. I wanted it to be by accident. I accomplished that goal. Now I am free to reset and work on creating a new routine that is better suited to the new goals. The focus will be web development, whether JSON-LD, JS, WordPress, or more.


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I sat that I broke my Duolingo habit. I didn’t. I replaced it, over time, with the habit of writing a blog post every single day for months now. this is an acceptable switch.

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So far I have only played with part of the fundamentals course. You don’t need to write much code. You can select which function and variable you want to use, rather than typing lines and lines of code.


This is the type of app that you can use almost anywhere, and anytime you have a few minutes free.


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With such a simple app you don’t need to set anything up. You can play with code, see what it does, and then try something more complex. You can familiarise yourself with the language before you install a development environment on the machine you use.


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Using Duolingo daily

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Duolingo is a mobile phone app that allows you to learn a number of languages whenever you have a few minutes. In so doing you can learn several minutes at a time, when commuting for example, or you can learn as a focused 20 minute session.


The Variety of learning options


Listening


There are two methods of learning by listening. The first option is that you hear a word or phrase and you have to select the correct one from a list. The second version is that you write the correct word with the correct spelling. This can also include listening and writing it in English


Images


Images are shown and you have to select the one that corrects to the word that you are looking for. It allows you to familiarise yourself with the word and the associated image. This is useful for beginners


Pairing Words


With this option you see German words and English words. The aim is to pair the English and German word together. When you do not know a word you can do this by a process of elimination, removing the words you are unsure about and then confirming them as the last pair. Conversely you can also pair a word you just learned, to push yourself.


Typing Phrases


In these situations you will either read the sentence in English and type it in German, see the sentence written and type it in German, or see it in German and write it in English. I find this one useful because it forces you to remember both the spellings and the conjugations of words.


Pronunciation


Finally, we have the pronunciation exercises. In this case, you see the sentence written down and you hear it. You then repeat the sentence you heard and you see the translation appear.


The Game


As you practice you will make mistakes. With this app you have the opportunity to make five mistakes before you have to take a break. The hearts replenish at a rate of one every four to five hours. You can replenish your hearts either by “practising” what you have learned or by watching an advert. Practice sessions are fun compared to watching adverts. These practice sessions help consolidate what you are learning.


Another aspect of the game is that it encourages you to practice every day by offering badges for consistency, getting a certain number of options right in a row and more. It also allows you to compete against friends by getting more “xp“.


Web Interface


The web interface is simple and intuitive to use. It’s a quick and simple way of getting through the modules efficiently. It also reduces the amount of adverts that you see. I found the web interface much faster to use.


Playing with languages you know


I played with French as an English speaker and English as a French speaker and I became frustrated. As a native in both languages I know that phrases would be understood by anyone I converse with. It expects you to give a specific sentence or phrase. With AI and a broader range of correct phrases this problem could be resolved.


Playing with languages you are unfamiliar with.


I tried Romanian, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Polish and other languages that I am unfamiliar with. With these languages, I really struggle. I find that many of the words are hard to remember. They do not sound like words from other languages. With time and perseverance, you could build your base and progress from there.


Progress Quiz


I started writing this blog post two or three weeks ago and since then I have progressed with studying the German language. I find that I can do entire lessons without making mistakes on some occasions and keep making mistakes in others. With lessons, you feel you’re getting to know a language but thanks to the progress quiz you get a true appreciation of whether you have learned a module or not.


I felt that I was learning German and that I was starting to understand a lot more but there is a considerable gap between what I understand and what I can express. Taking the quiz demonstrates that I still need to spend more time practising, and learning.


The Words Tab


The Words tab shows you the words that you have practiced and how fresh they are in your memory. With this tab you will be advised on when to practice words once again. if you practice one or two modules at a time then this word tab would be useful. I made the mistake of spending hours a day going through modules and as a result I see that I should practise specific words but I don’t remember which lesson tree they’re under.


I’d like to be able to click on a word and see which lessons those words are in. It would make refreshing my memory easier.


Conclusions


I started writing this blog post several weeks ago and wanted to play with more features from the website. I have now been using the website and app for about two months and I feel that my understanding of German has improved. I find that I am now in the habit of praciticing for an hour every single day. I supplement this practice with listening to Echo Der Zeit, a Swiss German current affairs news program, broadcast daily.


Learning via this website is about persistance rather than speed. You can rush through every module on the tree to boost your vocabulary but I found that in so doing the word tab becomes useless as you forget which word is in which module. I am now working my way through methodically, trying to get the modules to stay within my mind, rather than be forgotten within a few days. It’s easy to do from anywhere, including when waiting for a train (which I haven’t done in months) or waiting for food to be ready, which I have done. I like the app and website enough to be using it two months later.

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I am approaching Day 180 in a row of learning German and I finally progressed to the emerald league on Monday. In my previous post, I wrote of the futility of striving to achieve the Apple Activity challenges. I see the Duolingo challenges in a different light.


When learning a language it’s easy to hit walls and it’s easy to lose enthusiasm and drive. Starting a new module entails making a lot of mistakes and this discourages you from spending time on it. Life also gets in the way, with its distractions.


For a while I studied at the end of the day, just to keep my streak and to stay within the league I reached. The decision to revert to revising modules I had completed has helped.


Revision and consolidation


I went back through and revised the modules that it told me to revise, and when my confidence grew enough I went back to trying new modules and learning new words. Eventually, I revised some modules so much that I don’t need to look up the words. I don’t need to listen to a phrase three or four times to get every word. I am at the point where I hear the phrase once, and I can write it down.



Last week I earned around 658 XP, with 58 lessons completed, 33 words learned, and three hours and fourty two minutes spent studying. This excludes the one or two podcasts I listened to while doing other things. Yesterday when I listened to a podcast I noticed myself understanding more words.


The League Tables


Position 12 in the Emerald league with 236 XP so far today.


League tables encourage you to study harder. On the first day you study to place yourself in the top ten, and that means up to ten lessons at a time. Now amplify this by seven and you’ve got the motivation to complete 70 lessons or more per week. That’s an investment of three hours per week to learn a new language. Contrast that to the 50 XP per day daily goal. That’s 35 lessons. The encouragement has doubled.


Checkpoints


I am now working through Checkpoints Four and Five. I am consolidating my knowledge of the words within that checkpoint. I am also working my way through learning new words in level five. It’s a slow process but I want to ensure that I learn the words properly. By going too fast a few weeks ago I overwhelmed myself and had to go back and revise, to continue. I am moving forward again.


Note-taking


I have started to keep notes by day. When I struggle with certain words or phrases I copy them to the Day One app. I can refer to them any time. I can revise these phrases more frequently. With repetition, these words or phrases will sink in.


The Web App


I liked to use the web app for a while. With the German dictionary, it made learning easier. I would start typing the word I wanted and it would auto-complete. With an update, the link between the app and dictionary was broken. This resulted in predictive text inserting mistakes. It went from being a comfortable mobile phone app to being a nuisance. Learning a new language is hard enough, without the predictive app adding an extra layer of difficulty.


With the web app I don’t have any such issues. It’s simple, effective, and when I struggle with a phrase I can copy and paste it into Day One for easy access.


Summary


It’s easy to install an app or start using a website and within days or weeks forget about it. In 2015 I installed the app but forgot about it. I started using it properly in February 2019. Since then I use it almost daily. My streak is at 178 days. I’m tempted to experiment with Babbel, in parallel because you get certificates for modules completed.

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