Two Years on Duolingo

 

This past week I began my third year of language study on Duolingo! I believe that this is the longest I've committed to any activity that requires every day efforts and I am actually quite impressed by Duolingo gaming strategies which have managed to make me, a notorious quitter, stick to their routine.

Regretfully, I had to abandon my Spanish lessons completely. Unlike other polyglots, I am clearly unable to separate new to me languages and as my German grew, Spanish began to mess with my capacity to remember new words. I might return to it in a few years, if I get so ahead with German as to feel secure in my fluency in it, but I doubt it. Anyway, for now I've prioritized learning German and I still feel highly motivated.

My German routine lately includes about 45 min on Duolingo in the morning, while drinking my coffee and breakfasting, about 15 min on Anki flashcards (alas, I skip days and I sometimes skip adding new words - unlike Duolingo, Anki feels like a chore), reading Harry Potter in German and in parallel the Bulgarian translation (I'm currently on the third book of the series, but I'm moving with a pace of less than a page a day, so it's a slog), 15-20 min on Duolingo in the evening, usually revision exercises at the Legendary level and occasionally a grammar video on Youtube. It might sound a lot, but after 50, at least for me, language acquisition feels like a tango - a step forwards, two steps backwards, so I need lots of repetitions in order to retain new words. 

Despite the slow progress I am definitely recommending Duolingo to anyone, who feel they might spend their time on their phone more productively than simply scrolling through FB, IG and the likes. Needless to say, I wish I was paid by Duolingo for endorsing them, but I'm not :)))