I know you want to learn “The hotel will be three blocks away on the right” right away, but languages are building blocks. However, a few readers said that there was method in this apparent madness, and I should trust the process. So I can do something useless, like say I have a brother and a sister (or order an apple sandwich…), but haven’t got as far as being able to direct a taxi driver to go left or right, or ask a kiosk to top up my metro card, or tell a clothes store my size. The main weakness, for someone like me, who wants to pick up just a smattering of the language, is that you get no say over the vocabulary you learn. My concern, though, was the usefulness of the vocabulary when it came to real-world tasks. The app claims I’ve “mastered” 4% of the course at three weeks I feel like I’m learning, I feel inspired to supplement the Duolingo work with other tools (much of our apartment is covered in Post-It Notes with the Spanish words for things), and I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I can already say. Friends have also reported great success with it.įor someone like me, who has a terrible track record at languages, it’s obviously hard to judge just three weeks in – but the very fact that I’m still using it on a daily basis is itself quite telling. My girlfriend has used it for years and is fluent in three languages and is currently learning two more. I know many people who have succeeded with it, and I was surprised by how well I progressed.įor those who have the ability to learn languages, it absolutely works. I’d been impressed overall, but did have one concern … I reviewed Duolingo last month and said then that the signs were encouraging, but the real test would come when I visited Buenos Aires.
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