Duolingo - TWO LANGUAGE-O

[Twig]

GOD MORGEN!!

I was angry about Duolingo not having Japanese last... Friday? Thursday? So in protest I started learning Norwegian.

 

Why Norwegian?

 

Why NOTwegian!

 

...

 

Anyway I'm four days in and I'm enjoying it. Having a few Norwegians in Slack to bug for understanding certainly doesn't hurt. U:

 

ARE YOU LEARNING A LANGUAGE TOO??? I DUNNO LET'S TALK ABOUT IT?????

[Erkki]

I'm learning Spanish, but replaced Duolingo with a human teacher after the first month.

[jennegatron]

I started taking german classes in high school in 2005, and took them all the way through my sophomore year of college. I had exhausted our German department's language series and would have had to switch to taking film or literature which I did not want to do. I've been back in the swing of duolingo every day for the past 2 months or so.

 

Pro tips: 1. if you're using an app version, be sure to occasionally log in to the website because if you feel like you want more information on a specific topic, you can get descriptions there that more explicitly lay out rules. 2. You can also turn on/off certain kinds of questions (like listening, microphone, etc) 3. I would recommend doing 2 things each day a. the next lesson and b. the little weight to strengthen you existing skills. It does a fairly good job of incorporating older lessons in the newer stuff, but it's hard to hold all the vocabulary in your head if you're not using it.

[Apelsin]

I keep trying to use Duolingo but I always fizzle out after a couple of weeks. It just doesn't stick for some reason.

Been trying both to refresh my middle-school French as well as going through the Norwegian lessons at quite a high pace to find the instances where it and Swedish don't quite match up.

 

I have to say that it feels a bit odd to be learning a new language through my second language rather than my first. Not a lot of alternatives that'd allow me to actually use Swedish as the base language though.

[Twig]

APPELSIN MEANS ORANGE!!!!!! (IN NORWEGIAN (I'M ASSUMING YOUR NAME IS THE SWEDISH EQUIVALENT (NOW I GET YOUR NAME/AVATAR COMBO (I'M LEARNING))))

 

(in norwegian it's the fruit tho, is it also the color in swedish?)

[sclpls]

I found Duolingo useful for vacations. Three months prior I'll start studying up using the app, and I've found I've developed enough of a vocabulary to cover the basics of what I need without needing to try and locate someone that speaks English. I've done this with Italian and Spanish.

[SuperBiasedMan]

APPELSIN MEANS ORANGE!!!!!! (IN NORWEGIAN (I'M ASSUMING YOUR NAME IS THE SWEDISH EQUIVALENT (NOW I GET YOUR NAME/AVATAR COMBO (I'M LEARNING))))

(in norwegian it's the fruit tho, is it also the color in swedish?)

Apelsin is indeed Swedish for an orange. The colour orange is actually orange, though I might have the spelling wrong.

(I'm learning Swedish with duolingo and I also struggle to stay consistent)

[Twig]

twig hears: boorah hooglay

 

dulingo sez: Bare hyggelig!

 

D:

[osmosisch]

As an English speaker you have no leg to stand on re: spelling vs. pronunciation I'm afraid.

[SuperBiasedMan]

He speaks American, not English.

[Apelsin]

APPELSIN MEANS ORANGE!!!!!! (IN NORWEGIAN (I'M ASSUMING YOUR NAME IS THE SWEDISH EQUIVALENT (NOW I GET YOUR NAME/AVATAR COMBO (I'M LEARNING))))

 

(in norwegian it's the fruit tho, is it also the color in swedish?)

 

Nice! Apelsin is indeed Orange (the fruit) in Swedish as well.

Orange (the color) is just Orange in Swedish. It used to be "Brandgul" (Fire yellow), but that has fallen out of use.

[brkl]

As an English speaker you have no leg to stand on re: spelling vs. pronunciation I'm afraid.

None of you have, ya Germanics!

[SuperBiasedMan]

It used to be "Brandgul" (Fire yellow), but that has fallen out of use.

 

This sounds like high fantasy nonsense, I love it.

[osmosisch]

Nice! Apelsin is indeed Orange (the fruit) in Swedish as well.

Orange (the color) is just Orange in Swedish. It used to be "Brandgul" (Fire yellow), but that has fallen out of use.

You can blame the Dutch royal house for that one

(also for carrots being orange)

[Twig]

i mean i ain't gonna argue that english pronunciations make sense, but at least it has the excuse of basically being a mishmash of a bunch of different languages

 

hyggelig!!!!!!!! HOOGLAY!!!!!!!!!!

 

(duolingo's one failing, for me, is that it doesn't teach the mechanics of the language directly (e.g., HOW PRONUNCIATIONS WORK) - it's all intuitive reasoning. that probably works great for some people, but i wish it was more explicit, personally.)

[brkl]

I don't know about pronunciation, but the website is more explicit about grammar.

[Twig]

I mostly use the website!

[tabacco]

Ooh, an opportunity to link to https://twitter.com/shitduosays

[Twig]

 

I forgot I actually saw this one hahaha.

[TheLastBaron]

hyggelig!!!!!!!! HOOGLAY!!!!!!!!!!

Is it safe to assume that that is the same as the Danish "hygge"? My sister went to university in Copenhagen and then lived in Denmark for a couple years so she speaks Danish and as a result I have somewhat of an understanding of what it is.

[Twig]

p sure norwegian and danish are super close, as is swedish

 

but i might be wrong

[Apelsin]

They are very close, yes. If you understand one Scandinavian language you'll be able to understand the others relatively easily. Especially in writing. Pronunciation can be quite different at times though. Swedes often have trouble understanding spoken Danish for instance, but can read it quite easily.

 

The fact that they are so close most of the time can be a bit of trouble when they are not. Especially in some cases where the exact same word has different meanings in the different languages.

An example of this is "Rolig". 

 

In Swedish "Rolig" means "Funny", while in Norwegian (and perhaps Danish as well) it means "Calm".
 

[osmosisch]

False friends are the best.

ex: worst in dutch means sausage. So I giggle whenever Twig says someone's the worst.

[atte]

Seeing "Home Video" in some VHS films as a kid was pretty strange because home means mold (the stuff that grows on spoiled food) in Finnish, and video is just video.

[Twig]

What can I say I'm a fan of sausage.