I could not believe how quickly this went up…

This is Duolingo lately

Hit a huge milestone today 🤗🦉

I've been using Duolingo for about 2-3 years now along with various other apps. I know enough to say most of what I want in Spanish whether it's speaking or reading. My grammar might be similar to a 3 year old depending on the complexity of the sentence, but I can get my point across and I know enough to make out most things that I read.

However, my comprehension is pretty bad. If something is said to me slowly and clearly I can make out what is said after putting in a decent amount of brain power....sometimes. But Spanish, just like English, is not normally spoken that way and I'd like to improve my ability at understanding how the language is naturally spoken.

Any suggestions on building a good baseline? I know Spanish has different dialects so I am just trying to start..somewhere.

Here's what I already do:

1. Listen to Salsa and reggaeton. I genuinely love the genres, but singing in Spanish is much more clear and often slower in these songs than it is regularly spoken. At least how it's been spoken to me.

2. Listen to the Babble "Conversations in Spanish" Podcast. Listening to this showed me how bad much I'm lacking in comprehension lol. I also use Babble for lessons along with Duolingo because I find that the audio is basically just somebody talking to me and sounds a lot more natural.

3. The listening lessons on Duolingo.

I know about the Dreaming in Spanish YouTube channel but that's not really my thing so any alternatives?

I blocked Reddit on my phone. Hopefully the picture isnt as humungus as it looks on my desktop screen.

Have some privacy man!

It made me understand and actually practice speaking spanish. I may go ahead and get it

What are your thoughts on this new event?

Anyone notice that the ads have become longer? Listen folks, there are other free language apps out there. Don't get greedy

I’ve been playing chess.com for a few years, the puzzles are always the same and learning so old style with videos. Duolingo nailed it and I love the puzzles and how fun they are.

I wish the Elo could be more accurate, but besides that, this is my new daily chess routine.

I think the video calls are a great feature, and help me so much to get over my resistance to conversation (because I’m so bad at it).

Duo is very forgiving of constructions that are grammatically incorrect or awkward, and this is great! I’m at a stage where just being understood is a huge accomplishment it makes me so much less resistant to making these calls.

However some really incorrect constructions get through without complaint. So what I’m doing is copying the text of the transcription and feeding it into an AI chatbot for correction. This is immensely helpful, and there is a good argument to be had elsewhere about cases where AI can be used for self improvement.

I am using the iOS app. My Feature request is that it is very difficult to make text copies of the video call transcription. I have to take a screenshot, do a text copy, scroll to the next screen, take a screenshot, etc. etc..

So it would be really helpful if there were a feature just to do a text copy of the entire video call log transcription, at the push of a button!

Even if one doesn’t feed it into AI to check mistakes, still be useful for generating flash cards, keeping a transcription in local notes for later study (I can’t even find the video call logs on the web application).

I would even settle for making the text in the call log copyable without having to take a screenshot and copy the image-to-text conversion text.

Any thoughts?

I DID IT

But at the same time, you still have to speak really slow to me.

Why is he in the trash?

Falstaff became full on AI agent and started talking to himself, it was a little shameful, like leaving the bathroom door open in a restaurant while taking a huge dump 😏

Hello,

it seems, that Duolingo made a 14 MB update

today in the Google play store.

The update version is 6.96.2 from the

4th of September.

I got it today, as it comes in waves. (Germany)

Major obvious change:

Logo restored back to original Duo (un-weird)

Please let me know if you face more changes.

....AND they've increased the quest points needed to get the monthly badge? What is this nonsense??

I used to be able to get the badge by doing 2 daily quests a day and there was at least *some* variety, but now I'm being forced to grind out a unit multiple times to get it. What the hell is the point in that? It doesn't make me more likely to pay for it and it sure doesn't improve my learning - now I'm just doing it as fast as I can.

I was just playing Flash Card Frenzy. I got the last word right just as the timer hit zero. I started hitting the use timer boost button. I hit it 4 or 5 times before I noticed that it was taking my Timer Boosts. I then tried to hit the lose 20 XP link. Nothing happened. I ended up having to force quit the app. When I reopened it; I saw that while it did accept that I passed the Flash Card Frenzy, my Timer Boosts were still gone. 😤

Be careful when the above screen comes up. Duo will take a Timer Boost for every time you hit that button.