So, today is the first day of my fifth year on Duolingo and of those four years I have about three years and four months of studying German. Of course, everybody knows, that period of time, per se, means nothing when it comes to learning, what matters is the method, intensity, actual time, spent with the language, passive learning( acquisition) vs active usage, etc.
If these three years and several months had been spent in an intensive German course, I should have been fairly fluent in the language. On the other hand, were it not for Duolingo, my knowledge of German, as it is, would be non-existent.
Duolingo is firmly a part of my daily routine, and I can assuredly say, of the happiest of it - my morning coffee. I'm not a fan of sleeping, although I have a very strict sleeping routine, and my first thought when I go to sleep at night is "I can't wait for it to be morning!". The thought of drinking my first morning coffee and opening the Duolingo app makes the beginning of the day so welcome, whatever that day may bring :)
During my fourth year on Duolingo I finished completely the German course and the English course, which contained German translations. This was a bummer, as now my use of Duolingo is much less productive - the revision exercises, which the app provides, are extremely repetitive and I already know the limited set of sentences and stories by heart.
I am pushing on with the English course, but it's a slog, as I have to consult with external apps, like Google translate and DeepL. Still, I think the effort is worth it, as it requires very intense active use of the knowledge of the language, instead of passive filling in of words or arranging a set of given words in a sentence, as is the intended use of the app. Actually, I believe a lot of people have little or barely noticeable progress with Duolingo, because they use it very passively and with an accent on the game and competition aspects of the app, and not so much as a teaching tool. For instance, instead of listening to a story in English, I turn off the sound, read the English sentences and translate every line of the story into German, checking with the hidden translation, which is revealed when you click on an English word. Meanwhile I write down all of the words and phrases I find interesting and new. Then I do the revision (Legendary level) of the story, without the translation. And I use this approach for every exercises on the app.
I also listen to a lot of German podcasts and audiobooks and I read books in German. I'm still behind on my vocabulary - both passive and active, I find German words very, very difficult to remember and distinguish. Some sources I could recommend:
Super German - a podcast with essays on various topics. I find it extremely useful, as the vocabulary is more or less at my current level, a lot of phrases are clearly explained and it provides a useful structure for expanding on a topic in German.
Matthias Zehnder - a Swiss author and media expert. I like listening to his book recommendations, but I should acknowledge, that the language level of his podcast is quite above my current level, so I grasp the general ideas, but miss the details, so far.
Learn German Relaxed with Gabriel - I think I recommended this channel earlier and I still enjoy listening to it, it is easy and understandable for me and has plenty of useful phrases and idioms in German
I recently heard that Duolingo is preparing the launch of the next part of the German tree, I can't wait for it! Meanwhile I continue with the English tree plus a lot of revisions of the previous levels. Maintaining the acquired vocabulary is a big part of going forward :) Language learning, especially past the childhood years, is a red queen race - you have to run as fast as you can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that. :)
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