Language-learners' chat

PipneyJane

Afternoon All.

How are your languages coming along? I hit 999 days of French on Duolingo today:



While I am a thousand times better at French than I was after 4 years of school, it still doesn’t come naturally.  Only a week or so of lessons to go before I start French Foundations III.  It seems to have taken forever to get this far.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

Fantastic achievement @PipneyJane!

I suppose language learning can never really be complete so we can't judge ourselves by that. I did it at school as well and I'm surprised how much has changed, especially in terms of technology but also some things that either Duo doesn't bother with or that are no longer norms.

Perhaps someone with good French can tell me if it's no longer a faux pas to wish someone 'goodnight' as opposed to 'good evening'? I'm sure we got told off for it at school! We were also told we could translate 'because' either as 'parce que' or as 'car', but I've never come across 'car' on Duo.

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

Fantastic achievement @PipneyJane!
……

Perhaps someone with good French can tell me if it's no longer a faux pas to wish someone 'goodnight' as opposed to 'good evening'? I'm sure we got told off for it at school! We were also told we could translate 'because' either as 'parce que' or as 'car', but I've never come across 'car' on Duo.

Thank you.

@Cherryfudge, I remember being shocked when my French colleagues referred to “le weekend” and used other English phrases while conversing in French to each other.  When I queried it, one said “Sshhhh!  Don’t tell l’Academie Française but we do it all the time”.

If I remember, I will ask your question when next I see someone from that project.  It’s nearly 12 years since we finished, but I occasionally see them when in France.  (Not been since before Lockdown of course.)

- Pip


ETA:  they are one of the reasons I decided to start relearning French.  Their English put me to shame. 

Cherryfudge

Thanks @PipneyJane, I would be interested to know. I have a feeling my French is partly modern and partly quaint!

Christmasshopper2

May I join in please? 

My daughter recently moved to the Netherlands. I felt so rude when I went to visit her and couldn’t even say hello or thank anyone in a shop. So as soon as I got home I downloaded the Duolingo app to learn Dutch. I am on day 18. Some of the things I first struggled with are starting to fall into place and now I have new things to struggle with. 

Cherryfudge

Christmasshopper2 said:

May I join in please? 

My daughter recently moved to the Netherlands. I felt so rude when I went to visit her and couldn’t even say hello or thank anyone in a shop. So as soon as I got home I downloaded the Duolingo app to learn Dutch. I am on day 18. Some of the things I first struggled with are starting to fall into place and now I have new things to struggle with. 

Hello and welcome! I visited Amsterdam and Haarlem a few years ago and was very impressed with the fluent English all around me (though I realise this may not be the case away from tourist centres). I'd agree it's good to be able to greet people and say thank you as well as all the useful things about asking how much something is or where the toilets/station/famous attraction are.

Personally, I'm finding I need to trust the process and some of the difficult things gradually start to sound right without my knowing why. However, I also google if I'm getting confused: it's so much easier now we aren't relying on one teacher and one text book!

Does your daughter speak Dutch? 

Christmasshopper2

Cherryfudge said:

Does your daughter speak Dutch? 

My daughter’s boyfriend speaks Dutch, so he has taught her a few useful phrases. But she tends to use him like Google Translate. 

Cherryfudge

Christmasshopper2 said:

Cherryfudge said:

Does your daughter speak Dutch? 

My daughter’s boyfriend speaks Dutch, so he has taught her a few useful phrases. But she tends to use him like Google Translate. 

Sounds like the sort of thing that might wear thin, perhaps? Unless he really doesn't mind.

He could be useful if you need to check anything!

diminua

I've started picking Italian up again - it's been almost entirely French until this point, and I'm on 1025 days streak (although I do keep my streak freeze topped up and the odd day has been missed).

I'm also off to Amsterdam in May, but last time I went there everyone seemed to speak English so I haven't considered learning Dutch - rude of me really. I should at least try learning 'hello' and some basic things like that. 

Keiths_Mum

Can I join this thread?

Started learning Italian on a language App, currently on day 193, unit 19, not sure if that's good or not. I am only able to devote about half an hour a day to it.

Why Italian? I've  been to Italy a few times and plan to go back again, would like to be able to ask for the bathroom or order food, etc in Italian. Also when I've been to Italy have found it reasonably easy to pick up a few words, unlike French which they tried to teach me at school, but I always found very difficult.

My weak spot is definitely pronunciation, I'm pretty rubbish and need to practice a lot more, it's no good knowing the language if no one can understand me!

Finally not sure this will be helpful to anyone, but I listen to podcasts in slow Italian, which I can do whilst doing other things like housework for some subliminal learning and I watch TV programmes such as inspector Montalbano with the subtitles on.