Level 4 Swedish!
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Saturday, March 18, 2017
New German Skills!
Like what happened with Norwegian a couple days ago, when I went to practice my German on Duolingo to-day (much later than when I usually get to it), I got a notification that there are new skills:
German is my first foreign language, and I've been studying it for over a decade now, so I don't think I'll have too much trouble getting through these new skills. I already breezed through three (one in Phrases and two in Intro), and I don't think I even learned anything new.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
New Norwegian Skills
When I did my daily Norwegian lesson on Duolingo to-day, I noticed this box:
Duolingo has "updated [my] skill tree to teach [me] Norwegian (Bokmål) more effectively." I'd gotten through thirty skills (the last one I completed was Adverbs), and I think in all of those skills, there are only two new lessons: one in Family and one in Jobs.
It seems that most of the new skills are further down in the skill tree. I don't remember what skills there had been, but I don't remember seeing skills like Dessert, Shapes, and Bugs. (I'm excited to learn some of those, but they're so far away!)
This Duolingo blog post mentions that German and Norwegian are the two longest skills trees. Since I've already completed the German skill tree (it was the first one I completed), I decided to make Norwegian a priority (rather than Spanish, which was next in line as far as when I started the languages). But since they just added a bunch more skills, it looks like it will take me even longer....
Duolingo has "updated [my] skill tree to teach [me] Norwegian (Bokmål) more effectively." I'd gotten through thirty skills (the last one I completed was Adverbs), and I think in all of those skills, there are only two new lessons: one in Family and one in Jobs.
It seems that most of the new skills are further down in the skill tree. I don't remember what skills there had been, but I don't remember seeing skills like Dessert, Shapes, and Bugs. (I'm excited to learn some of those, but they're so far away!)
This Duolingo blog post mentions that German and Norwegian are the two longest skills trees. Since I've already completed the German skill tree (it was the first one I completed), I decided to make Norwegian a priority (rather than Spanish, which was next in line as far as when I started the languages). But since they just added a bunch more skills, it looks like it will take me even longer....
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Level 2 Portuguese
I neglected to take a screen clipping of the "You earned two lingots for reaching level 2!" screen on my phone, so I had to take a screen clipping of the activity feed on the web version:
Level 2 Portuguese!
I turned on the mobile notifications again, so periodically throughout the day, Duolingo tells me to practice various languages. I have my own schedule of language practicing, but I've been trying to accommodate the notifications too. They seem to be pushing Portuguese more than Swedish (which I started the same day), which is why I'm on Level 2 Portuguese now but still only Level 1 Swedish.
Level 2 Portuguese!
I turned on the mobile notifications again, so periodically throughout the day, Duolingo tells me to practice various languages. I have my own schedule of language practicing, but I've been trying to accommodate the notifications too. They seem to be pushing Portuguese more than Swedish (which I started the same day), which is why I'm on Level 2 Portuguese now but still only Level 1 Swedish.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
New Languages!
For a while I've been tossing around the idea of learning more languages than (apparently) Noah Webster learned while writing the dictionary (26). And it seems I'm taking this more and more seriously.
To-day, I started two new languages on Duolingo.
Swedish (which for ineffable reasons, I'd been avoiding):
And Portuguese:
Part of the reason I started both of these to-day is just so I can honestly claim that I started learning sixteen foreign languages before I turned twenty-five.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Imperfect Tense in Italian
For months, I've been practicing Italian daily on Duolingo in an attempt to get my skill tree completely gold (I completed it in September). Recently, I practiced the "Verbs: Past Imperfect" skill again, and I realized something about the verb forms.
Here's a chart from the back of my Italian dictionary comparing present tense and imperfect tense (with mandare, to send):
There's a bit of a variation in the 1st person plural form, but otherwise, the difference between the present tense form and the imperfect tense form is the "-av-" infix between the verb stem and the endings.
After I realized this, it made the imperfect tense much easier because I was already familiar with this structure from Latin. Here's a chart with the Latin verb forms for present and imperfect tenses (with laudare, to praise):
Where Italian inserts "-av-" to form the imperfect tense, Latin inserts "-ab-." (My Latin textbook says, "-ba-," but since there are As on both side of the B, I think it could be considered either way.) The first person singular form is a bit different, but this change between present tense and imperfect tense clearly demonstrates that Italian derived from Latin.
Here's a chart from the back of my Italian dictionary comparing present tense and imperfect tense (with mandare, to send):
There's a bit of a variation in the 1st person plural form, but otherwise, the difference between the present tense form and the imperfect tense form is the "-av-" infix between the verb stem and the endings.
After I realized this, it made the imperfect tense much easier because I was already familiar with this structure from Latin. Here's a chart with the Latin verb forms for present and imperfect tenses (with laudare, to praise):
Where Italian inserts "-av-" to form the imperfect tense, Latin inserts "-ab-." (My Latin textbook says, "-ba-," but since there are As on both side of the B, I think it could be considered either way.) The first person singular form is a bit different, but this change between present tense and imperfect tense clearly demonstrates that Italian derived from Latin.
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