Grim up North Heath

Category: Duolingo

  • Finished German

    The other day I reached a Duolingo rating of 80. This means that, after about five years of concentrating on German, I’ve finished the course.

    From now on there’s a series of daily refresher lessons so I don’t get rusty. And I’m still talking in German with our younger daughter as she completes her A level. And after all that learning I still cannot remember which ‘the’ to use or when I should use ‘ihn’ and ‘euch’. Clearly, a different type of tuition is needed if I am to go further.

    What next? I could revisit Danish, but no I no longer work for an Anglo-Danish company I don’t know if I want to. Or French would make sense since we go to France quite often. Or maybe Scots Gaelic – I grew up hearing this on telly occasionally1, though Thurso wasn’t in the Gàidhealtachd and I have nobody to practice with. I’ll decide soon.

    1. Grampian (north Scotland independent telly) would have a few hours of gaelic programming including the children’s programme ‘Cuir Car’ which showed life in the Islands and songs by Runrig. ↩︎
  • Duo at 2600

    Duo at 2600

    It’s now over seven years since I started my Duolingo steak. Today I hit 2600 days!

    I’ve concentrated on German for the last few years, partly to help our youngest with her German and also as a good intellectual exercise. I’ve also done quite a bit of Danish (hvorfor har du ikke bukser på?) and tried Scots Gaelic, though I struggled a lot with that.

    Am I fluent? No. Can I ask for things in German? Probably. I still struggle with grammar, especially declension, which is usually a guess. I mean, why do they need so many words for ‘the’? How does such a thing even come about? That’s a linguistics question and there’s no Duolingo for that.