Language-learners' chat

PipneyJane

@Cherryfudge and @PollyWollyDoodle Duolingo have launched an extra feature, which theoretically gives explanations, but it costs.  It’s a price point above DuoPlus.  (I say “theoretically” because I’ve read the blurb but haven’t signed up.). 

It also has a facility which allows you to converse with an AI.

- Pip

Mistral001

Cherryfudge said:

I hadn't even heard of it, @Mistral001, but I'm interested. I had a quick look online and it looks as though you can chat with other users which is now missing from the basic Duolingo (I don't know if it's on a paid version). It was really useful. I might have a further look later and see if it helps.

I do not think you can chat on Busuu as in one-to-one texting or chatting on Skype.  As you learn you will be asked to do exercises which you send to "the community" which menas other members who speak the language you are learning.  They will correct your exercise.  You do the same with members who are learning English as a foreign lanuage.  You get points for doing this which count toward you progressing to more difficult lessons.  You can make "Friends" while doing this and then you will have the option of sending you exercises for correction to those friends and built up a sort of language-learning relationship with them. You can do this with the free version.  

The free version has adverts and 15 sec delays between lessons and limit the number of lessons you can do as you progress. I find the sending of exercises for correction function really tests your real knowledge of the language.   I used to use Duolingo and even progressed to about B1 level, but I was not learning much at all as in reality I was hardly at A1 level.   

Cherryfudge

Thanks @Mistral001, that really sounds like the sort of thing I would benefit from. (Today the struggle with pronouns has continued...)

I have a busy couple of days but I need to return to that.

One thing I do like with Duo, however, is the positive outlook: when I run through all my lives it still tells me I'm an awesome mistake corrector. It doesn't even rub in that to be such, I had to make the mistakes in the first place. My French teacher could have taken lessons there.  

Cherryfudge

For those on Duolingo, have you seen the mini essay in the blog on numbers? Fascinating. I'd never even noticed that the numbers 11 and 12 are linguistic oddities, but they show how it's a pattern linked with the development of certain societies which originally had to count on their fingers (hence base 10) but then had to add something when they ran out of fingers! It's the same in many languages, but not all.

florianatwobob

Dropping into the chat as I’ve started learning Danish. I’m currently on Day 47 and at times find myself translating via German and, only slightly surprisingly, a number of words that share a root with words in the Cumbrian dialect. My dad was from the Lake District so I grew up with an interesting selection of Cumbrian words and Royal Naval slang. 

Cherryfudge

florianatwobob said:

Dropping into the chat as I’ve started learning Danish. I’m currently on Day 47 and at times find myself translating via German and, only slightly surprisingly, a number of words that share a root with words in the Cumbrian dialect. My dad was from the Lake District so I grew up with an interesting selection of Cumbrian words and Royal Naval slang. 

I'm guessing you already have German and the two are similar? I have some French and find it both helpful and confusing when it comes to Italian, where many words are clearly from the same roots but there are also things that look identical but aren't.

I wonder whether the Cumbrian words have Viking origins?

florianatwobob

I have some remaining GCSE German Cherryfudge. German came far more naturally to me than French. Apparently I speak German with ‘northern German accent - location unknown’ and my very little French with a Parisian accent. 

The Cumbrian words do have Viking origins and I’m sure I read somewhere that Cumbrian also derived from Northumbrian. The obvious example is ‘home’

Danish = hjem 

Geordie/Northumbrian = hyem

Cumbrian = yam

Although my dad would’ve pronounced it with a slight leading ‘h’ so more like hyam and with a short clipped ‘a’. 

So with a southern mum and a northern dad my vowels can roam……

Cherryfudge

florianatwobob said:

So with a southern mum and a northern dad my vowels can roam……

I'm another with a southern mum and a northern dad! I still hear myself say 'I' as 'ah', which came from Dad (from the Fylde) but I've lived in Yorkshire a long time so I'm quite the mixture too.

I used to get confused by my Mum's French as she learned it in the south of France so her vowels were different from mine which, like yours, are apparently 'Parisian'. I wonder if that's standard school French? Dad's was learned at school and far easier for me to understand (it's quite likely, of course, that we both spoke it with English accents).

Those Danish/Geordie/Cumbrian links are very clear. I wonder whether you would understand bits of Viking speech? I used to think the Viking invasion was a long time ago and then they went away, but of course what happened was they put down roots and their descendants are very much part of modern Britain in their DNA (there are still concentrations of redheads in certain Viking-invaded areas, and my friend's husband has a hand condition that's linked with his Norse ancestry) and also in our words, especially place names.

PipneyJane

florianatwobob said:

Dropping into the chat as I’ve started learning Danish. I’m currently on Day 47 and at times find myself translating via German and, only slightly surprisingly, a number of words that share a root with words in the Cumbrian dialect. My dad was from the Lake District so I grew up with an interesting selection of Cumbrian words and Royal Naval slang. 

German is my default second language, too, @florianatwobob.  I learnt it for four years at school.  (Ditto French, but that never felt natural.)

Cherryfudge said:

florianatwobob said:

So with a southern mum and a northern dad my vowels can roam……

I'm another with a southern mum and a northern dad! I still hear myself say 'I' as 'ah', which came from Dad (from the Fylde) but I've lived in Yorkshire a long time so I'm quite the mixture too.

I used to get confused by my Mum's French as she learned it in the south of France so her vowels were different from mine which, like yours, are apparently 'Parisian'. I wonder if that's standard school French? Dad's was learned at school and far easier for me to understand (it's quite likely, of course, that we both spoke it with English accents).

Those Danish/Geordie/Cumbrian links are very clear. I wonder whether you would understand bits of Viking speech? I used to think the Viking invasion was a long time ago and then they went away, but of course what happened was they put down roots and their descendants are very much part of modern Britain in their DNA (there are still concentrations of redheads in certain Viking-invaded areas, and my friend's husband has a hand condition that's linked with his Norse ancestry) and also in our words, especially place names.

“Parisian” French is the standard, but it’s not typical. Your mum’s French is probably more authentic than the French you learned at school. You know how we were taught that, in French, you don’t pronounce the “e” at the end of a word?  Well, as I learned from my colleagues from Le Havre, in modern, Norman French, they do. (It’s more like an aspirated “eh” than anything else.)  That’s one thing I like about Duolingo: every character speaks with a different accent.

A few years ago, there was a brilliant BBC report about British dialects and how different regions would have talked in the 18th century.  As an Australian, what I remember are the number of words and phrases that are spoken in Australian English, but that I never hear spoken in the UK.  (I wish I could remember more details.)

- Pip

florianatwobob

Funny that you mention that Cherryfudge as my Granny (dad’s mum) came from a little village that was in a 90s BBC documentary about the distribution of ‘Viking DNA’ in modern Britain. Apparently it was a little concentrated pocket! They were only testing the chaps at that point due to DNA development but Granny (via Dad) has passed on Norwegian DNA to me. No Swedish or Danish via Dad (plenty of Scots too so there’s probably Nordic DNA there too just less clearly defined.) All my various cousins on that branch/side of the family can be identified by the Norwegian DNA influence.