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kraitI started Duolingo!
It seemed like a good way to practise both the languages I know a bit of, and then in a wild fit of optimism I started on Russian as well.
(It's a running joke of mine that I ought to learn Russian because it becomes relevant to my life about every third fandom. Yuri on Ice, CA:TWS, Eroica Yori Ai o Komete...)
In the languages I'm not starting from scratch on, I'm cruising right along!
My main complaint is that between Russian and Japanese I feel like there could be a much better balance with introductions. The Hiragana lessons are dragging on e n d l e s s l y (I already know this! Why didn't the placement test ask this, so I could skip it?!) but Russian so far hasn't shown me how to pronounce or write a single letter. The "Alphabet" section launched straight into Дима, это Тим without bothering to so much as list the alphabet! What is this nonsense.
There needs to be some kind of swap system so I can trade some of these neverending hiragana lessons for a Russian alphabet overview. :D
It seemed like a good way to practise both the languages I know a bit of, and then in a wild fit of optimism I started on Russian as well.
(It's a running joke of mine that I ought to learn Russian because it becomes relevant to my life about every third fandom. Yuri on Ice, CA:TWS, Eroica Yori Ai o Komete...)
In the languages I'm not starting from scratch on, I'm cruising right along!
My main complaint is that between Russian and Japanese I feel like there could be a much better balance with introductions. The Hiragana lessons are dragging on e n d l e s s l y (I already know this! Why didn't the placement test ask this, so I could skip it?!) but Russian so far hasn't shown me how to pronounce or write a single letter. The "Alphabet" section launched straight into Дима, это Тим without bothering to so much as list the alphabet! What is this nonsense.
There needs to be some kind of swap system so I can trade some of these neverending hiragana lessons for a Russian alphabet overview. :D
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Date: 2019-04-16 02:47 am (UTC)But yeah, as I mentioned above, the Russian is spectacularly bad about this. Дима, это Тим - Duma, eto tum? Shouldn't the 'Alphabet' section actually mention, y'know, the alphabet? As in, what the letters look like and how to pronounce them?
German is probably bad about this as well but I have much greater facility with German (and they only appear to have four vocabulary words; if I have to write das Maedchen again I might hit something) so it's not as apparent. It did kinda boggle me that they dinged me a point for putting the article with the noun, though - that's how I learnt genders (a thing Duolingo has yet to mention!) and that's pretty much how everyone learns genders, AFAIK. You don't just say "Junge," you always say "der Junge" or you'll never remember later! But it dinged me for answering "der Junge" for the prompt boy.