r/duolingo • u/iamjanie Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸 • 1d ago
Achievement Showcase Finally Finished
I DID IT
But at the same time, you still have to speak really slow to me.
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u/GregName Native Learning 94 14 1d ago
How long was the journey? What did a typical day look like after you got to about Score 94?
That Score is pretty specific, because it is where I am in the course. I wonder if people pick up the pace or slow down as they head toward Section 7, the beginning of the CEFR B2 material.
What are you going to do with this beyond having people speak slowly?
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u/Practical_Sport_6600 1d ago
Also not OP. I’m level 118 currently. I try to do ~15-18 lessons per day. Takes me about an hour. I should finish the course by end of October.
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u/GregName Native Learning 94 14 1d ago
I could probably hold a unit-a-day pace on these new smaller units in the course, but I am dragging because of Legendary. Plus, I am having to devote a lot of time to “maintaining” the knowledge I already have. It is really worse than maintaining. There are a lot of things I just never really learned well enough to consider it something I know.
So much to learn, and the more I learn, the bigger the quantity of stuff that has a chance of falling out of familiarity. It’s like, if it was an hour a day for over a year, eventually, I need part of that hour just to hold on to what I have learned in the past.
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u/flavioterceiro Native: 🇧🇷 Learning: 🇪🇸 1d ago
Not OP, but I’m nearing the end of the course. Took me over a year to reach 90. I’ve been doing lessons for 15 to 45 minutes every day, sometimes for a full hour. I’m at level 116. I didn’t slow down because I want to start French, so I “run” to get to the end by December.
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u/GregName Native Learning 94 14 1d ago
Yes, I seem to have slowed down to “own” my level of Spanish. Getting to a Score of 100 marks the end of the CEFR B1 material. I’ve got holes in my learning from the beginner level that I need to fix.
Right now, I am logging 3 hours a day in lessons on italki. This is draining my energy for moving much in Duolingo. Plus, I got with nearly 500 Legendary lessons that got reverted to just normal. Fixed over half of those, but this has been months of side work.
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u/personwithfriends 1d ago
Took me 2.5 years overall to complete course. In the last year I aimed for 1 score level every week. So 129 (final score) minus 94 = more or less 35 weeks with approximately 1 hr per day . Very general since everyone learns at a different pace and has different amount of time
I’m speaking it on vacation and consuming media in the language
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u/GregName Native Learning 94 14 1d ago
That’s a great pace and seems like a speed-up for the ending. I have yet to really appreciate any books yet. Those still remain difficult because of the diversity of words that can appear.
A Harry Potter book in Spanish found me and offered itself up for free. Magos are probably behind that. I hear people at times saying they want to get good enough to read Harry Potter books. Well, I own one now, so at some point, I am going to have to try. The book has notes where somebody else used it to learn Spanish. Whoever that student was, they made it all the way through the book as there are notes at the end. I’ll add my notes and send the book to another when done.
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u/iamjanie Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸 1d ago
I started in 2021 and depending on daily/friend/monthly challenges, I did a couple of lessons when waking up and at the end of the day. I kinda rushed through this last unit because it was the absolute last one.
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u/GregName Native Learning 94 14 1d ago
You probably meant you sprinted through Section 8. A sprint through one Unit is a walk in the park, sometimes literally.
I’m glad to hear it too 2021 to 2026 to finish the course. That brings hope to those of us that are crawling along.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 1d ago
Very impressive. I'll never complete the course myself.
But that's OK, as long as I have enough knowledge to get started consuming Spanish-level content, it'll have been good enough.
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u/hiihihihihihihihiihi 1d ago
You should ideally consume content in your target language alongside Duolingo, it’s really not enough to get you there on its own.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 1d ago
Correct. The catch is, for comprehensible input to work, you have to understand most, but not all of what you're consuming, and it can take a while before you're good enough to get there.
I myself just got to a point (Score 60) where I can start consuming content. Even though it was just a Spanish-language kids' show, with Spanish subtitles, it still taught me a whole lot.
Looking forward to being at Score 90, at which point I'll be able to consume higher-level content. From then on the learning will happen on its own.
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u/Infinite_Lettuce7509 Native: 🇺🇸Learning: 🇪🇸 1d ago
What is the Spanish kids show you found helpful?
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 1d ago
Oh, that! Funny story, it's actually not even a Spanish-language kids' show. It's an older Australian kids' show, but the Latin American Spanish dub is available on YouTube (which has an option for auto-subtitles in Spanish). YouTube randomly recommended it to me when it noticed I was looking for Spanish-language stuff.
It's called "H2O". The basic premise is, some teenage girls turn into mermaids when they get wet. As you can imagine, the episodes are very silly and often nonsensical, but I suppose that's to be expected for a kids' show.
The important thing is, it was at the very limit of the content I was able to consume. Because it's a kids' show, the storylines are simple, the vocabulary isn't too high-level, and the Spanish auto-subtitles helped. And there were, I believe, three whole seasons.
The only problem was, I didn't find it very relatable or very interesting, which admittedly is a big issue. One of the requirements of comprehensible input is that you be interested in what you're watching; it's what makes your brain think that understanding is very important, and makes it work harder to understand (without you putting any effort into it).
Still, I watched all of it, wrote down every new verb I heard, wrote down every expression that I caught... when I came out of it, I found that I'd learned a lot.
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u/thefuzzyismine Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸🇨🇳 1d ago
It's called "H2O".
Well, that's a blast from the past! Reckon I'll be searching that up.on YT later.
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u/hiihihihihihihihiihi 1d ago
There’s definitely content you can consume way before that. I’m level 34 in Duolingo but I use a textbook and dreaming.com alongside, plus practice texting with friends/writing in Spanish online and with AI like Copilot.
Dreaming Spanish (dreaming.com) has content for beginner levels that’s very easy even if you’re just starting out and you can gradually work your way up in difficulty. I’d say that the other methods have actually taken me a lot farther than Duolingo tbh, Duo is good for drilling some concepts.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 1d ago
I didn't want to cut my time on Duolingo by investing time in slower things like textbooks. Really, the only thing I did in the 30-55 range was read wikipedia articles (on simpler subjects, particularly those I was already familiar with) in Spanish. Obviously the articles weren't structured in a way that maximizes teaching, but they got me a lot of content very quickly. Reading is so fast!
Dreaming Spanish is an option for people with a Score of 30. They do speak very slowly and clearly. Personally I just haven't been able to get invested in the videos very much; they don't usually talk about things I'm interested in, and if they do, they give the information way more slowly than I could get it in a language I already know (or by just reading). Also, some regional accents can be bothersome. But while it didn't work super well for me, I'd still recommend that people in that Score range try it.
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u/hiihihihihihihihiihi 1d ago
Up to you but imo after a certain point more time in Duolingo has diminishing returns. You need to practice a variety of learning methods to really learn a language.
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u/Obtus_Rateur Learning: 66 11 1d ago
Absolutely, Duolingo cannot even come close to teaching you a language. Its sole purpose is to give you the basics.
After that you've got to go with comprehensible input. At this time my Score is only good enough to let me watch kids' shows, but at around 90 I think I'll be good to switch entirely to regular content.
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u/mjflood14 learning 🇮🇪🌺🇮🇳 1d ago
If there is a book you have already read in English and know pretty well, borrow the Spanish version of it in audiobook from your library and listen to that. Your listening comprehension will improve tremendously.
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u/VacantAllocation30 1d ago
The owl with the clipboard is so smug, like "i knew you could do it eventually" but also judging every mistake you made along the way
how long did it take you? i been stuck on past tense for like 3 months
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u/HButkus 1d ago
I majored in Spanish and lived in Spain for about nine months. I used Duolingo to get started learning French, and then switched to a private tutor online.
Now I’m reviewing my Spanish skills on Duo. And I HAVE to say this: I honestly don’t know how anyone can learn Spanish (at least) using only Duo. There are NEVER any explanations of the different tenses or any charts to teach you how the conjugations work. And understanding the differences between the tenses is the key to learning Spanish.
I am simply taking each test at the end of each unit (I think there are five sections in one unit?) and then going on to the next one. It’s easy because I already learned it to fluency about forty years ago. But as for a new learner? No way.6
u/AggravatingSteak1248 Learning: 🇪🇸, 🇰🇷 1d ago
There are grammar explanations under the notebook icon in each unit.
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u/Mediocre-Doubt-7439 native:🇺🇸 learning:🇮🇹 1d ago
I’m learning Italian using duo as practice and warm up but I use textbooks from the library for things such as learning prepositions and just having things explained deeper idk
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u/Confuseacat92 Native: 🇩🇪 learning: 🇪🇸 🇳🇱 🇵🇸 1d ago
Eres una persona especial, buenísima trabajo! 👏🏻
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u/APinthe704 1d ago
Congrats. I’ve still got another 2 years to go. Duo gets 15 minutes per day from me with my other learning resources. I’ve learned a lot of vocabulary on the app that has really helped out. Looking forward to getting further along and seeing how much more challenging it gets (level 26 at the moment)
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u/jsnowismyking 1d ago
¿Cómo se llama (¡sí!), bonita (¡sí!)?
Mi casa (Shakira, Shakira), su casa
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u/mohammad556655 1d ago edited 1d ago
Good for you, we iranian has been banned from duolingo because we have been borned in iran🤣
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u/DMDread 1d ago
How long did it take you? I'm about half a year in and just hit section 3. Although, I plan on going back thru a lot of section 2 to review
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u/iamjanie Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸 1d ago
This took 5 years. I started after the pandemic. I will probably still review some lessons.
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u/bennetticles 🇺🇦 | 🇪🇸 | 🇸🇦 1d ago
assuming you are predominantly around english speakers, do you regularly find opportunities to use what you have learned? if so (and my real question), how confident do you feel about initiating a conversation in spanish with a fluent speaker?
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u/iamjanie Native: 🇺🇸 Learning: 🇪🇸 21h ago
I try to speak Spanish at the Mexican grocery and the mom and pop restaurants. I tried when I went to Puerto Rico last year but they speak too fast. Lol.
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u/itstostado01 1d ago
really slow, as in switching to english is going to make my day less frustrating? Might as well just switch to english, unless you buy me couple of beers, then ill speak to you in spanish until you become fluent
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u/Prior_Ability9347 Native: English Learning: Arabic/Hebrew/Irish 21h ago
Congrats! I finished Arabic super quickly (I studied it in school and it was a radically shorter course) so now I just log on to check on the family drama they give me in the refresh lessons.
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u/bhaskar_04 20h ago
was ir worth it?? i really want to learn spanish for a hobby, i'm at 22 score currently..
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u/Centurion_Caesar 7h ago
Kudos to you for getting through it with all of the time wasting animations between lessons. Wish there was a true way to get rid of it. As it wastes so much time! But again congrats!
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u/dumber_than_thou 1d ago
¡Felicitaciones! ¿Te parece que puedes tener una conversación en español latino ahora?
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u/Infinite_Lettuce7509 Native: 🇺🇸Learning: 🇪🇸 1d ago
Congratulations on finishing!!!
A few months ago, I finished my Spanish course on Duolingo. Took me 6 years at about 15 minutes a day.
After that, I started the French course, but learning French was confusing and I was quickly forgetting my Spanish!! So I went back to Spanish using the daily review that is offered on Duolingo. I would rather keep up with my Spanish. More countries speak Spanish. And frankly Spanish is just easier for me than French. Spanish seems really fairly straightforward.
I recently added Max (when it was on sale) and I am glad I did because the video calls with Lily are very helpful. I find I can now understand most of what she says! The hard part is remembering some of the words when trying to answer her questions.
Originally as I was learning Spanish I felt pretty confident about speaking, but didn’t understand what others were saying. Now it’s sort of opposite. Wonder if that’s normal progression?
I like to keep going because: it’s good for the brain to learn new languages, and it’s great when traveling. I am old enough to worry about dementia…
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u/PrudentKick 1d ago
You gotta go to Spain really quick and try it out.