Level 6 Portuguese

Level 6 Portuguese!

Level 17 Dutch

Level 17 Dutch!

Last time I leveled up on the web version, Duolingo didn't give me a screen with a medal, so this time I knew that the best I would get is the "You've earned 17 lingots!" screen.  The Dutch flag is at the top, which is at least some indication of the language.

Level 9 Greek

Level 9 Greek!

Yester-day I got two more encouraging messages in Greek, but like the one I got about a week ago, I don't understand what they mean because I haven't gotten very far in the Greek course (I got to level 9 after doing the second lesson in Food, which is only the sixth skill I've started).

Welsh (& My Language Practice Schedule)

This is just a short post to note that I've abandoned my initial method of learning Welsh, which was to do Duolingo lessons exclusively during television commercials.  Over the last week or so, I simply haven't done any lessons, and even before that, it seemed that I only practiced skills I'd already learned rather than learning new skills.

I'm still interested in learning Welsh though, so I've added it to my practice cycle.  I don't think I've really explained this on this blog yet, so here's my language practice schedule:

I have a list of languages I practice every day, and these fall into three categories:  languages I've completed the Duolingo skill trees for* (German, French, Italian, and Dutch), non-Latin alphabet languages (Russian, Hebrew, and Greek), and the language I'm currently trying to complete the Duolingo skill tree for (Norwegian).  The other languages I'm studying (Danish, Esperanto, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and now Welsh) I have on a cycle in which I practice one a day.  Because there are currently seven of them, it works out that I practice Danish on Sunday, Esperanto on Monday, and so on.  If I happen to see one of these languages "in the wild," I refresh a skill.

That's my language practice as far a Duolingo goes, but I also have some other methods.

Since August 2014, I've been (ever so slowly) going through Wheelock's Latin, the textbook I used in my Latin course in university (fall 2011 and spring 2012 semesters).  Since August 2016, I've also been going through Dr. Stephen Beall's Teach Yourself Latin in 24 Hours (again, extremely slowly).

Since March 2015, I've been translating a German novel at the rate of roughly a sentence a day.  There's a separate blog for that.

Since October 2016, I've been subscribed to Daily Dose of Hebrew and Daily Dose of Greek.  Recently, the Daily Dose of Greek provided some suggestions "to take your Greek 'to the next level' this summer," so for the last two weeks, I've been writing out the daily verses in Greek.

With all of these schemes, I use at least ten languages a day (provided I'm not behind on anything).

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*My German and French skill trees are completely gold, so I just maintain those.  While I've completed the Italian and Dutch skill trees, neither are completely gold; that's what I'm shooting for.

Level 14 Norwegian

Apparently the Duolingo website was recently redesigned, and after I got to level 14 Norwegian, it didn't display a medal or ask if I wanted to share my achievement (which I did).  In lieu of that, here's a screen clipping showing that I'm on level 14 Norwegian now:

Φανταστικό!

On the mobile version of Duolingo, sometimes Duo pops in after a certain number of correct sentences in a row and offers some encouraging word.  In the past, I've had "Your hard work is paying off!" "You're working hard and learning new words!" "Hard work always pays off in the end" and various others.  When I did a Greek lesson this morning, I got one of these messages in Greek!

Unfortunately, I'm not far enough in the Greek course to really understand what Duo is saying here.  I can understand "Φανταστικό!" because it's a cognate with fantastic and sounds essentially the same (just with an -o at the end).  I think "σειρά" is related to series.  There's the numeral "10," and I've occasionally had Duo say something like "Congratulations on getting 6 sentences right in a row."  The bar at the top indicates that I got ten right in a row, so I'm assuming the Greek is something like "Fantastic!  You got 10 sentences right in a row!"

After getting this screen in the Greek course, I did a few lessons in Norwegian to see if Duo would pop in and say something in Norwegian, but I had no luck with that.  I got a significant number of sequential sentences right, but I didn't even get a congratulatory message in English.

Level 12 Danish

Level 12 Danish!

Level 14 Spanish

Level 14 Spanish!

Level 8 Welsh

Level 8 Welsh!

Level 11 Hebrew

Level 11 Hebrew!

Level 11 Esperanto

Level 11 Esperanto!

Level 5 Swedish

Level 5 Swedish!