Update on my language learning strategy

So, as you are aware, I am working on learning ALL OF THE LANGUAGES! ALL OF THEM! … but it is not something you can accomplish by staying awake for an entire week drowning in books. That is mostly just effective in causing various mental health disorders

Nimrod was a freaking little bitch… gonna learn ALL THE THINGS including all the things added as punishment for learning all the things. Then I will learn all the things added from doing that! Yeah, Nimrod ain’t shit!

You need… a tactical approach. As well, I also want to learn all other things as well

Taking a Break from French

“Don’t we all wish we could take a break from the French?” — Daniel von Wondershluctsh, Musings for the Villainous Vagabond

So, I’m thinking I’m nearly at the point in French where a break about be something that would help stuff out. The current point in taking a break from French will be once I get my DuoLingo French to 25lvl

I’ll then switch my DuoLingo to working on Latin and Esperanto on altering weeks. Hopefully the Latin tree has been updated (Trees generally update once a year on DuoLingo). If it hasn’t I haven’t decided if I will work to a 3lvl crown tree or a 5lvl tree crown on Latin

Even then, I will likely just work on those two for a few months — and then switch to Spanish

Why Spanish? Well, there are two languages on DuoLingo that you can only study as a Spanish speaker. I’m one of those assholes that has to have ALL THE FLAGS next to my forum posts on DuoLingo. Yeah… only certain sorts do that stuff — unfavourable sorts

The ultimate goal is to have ALL THE 25LVL FLAGS! ALL OF THEM! Next to my forum posts… so I can indicate what kind of total twat I completely and totally stand to be

A Defense of DuoLingo

“Look, is it too much, that by spending five minutes a day, I should master something in less than a month?” — Kelleyixie Glenba, Ideal for a pixie

DuoLingo is a very good tool for getting your foot into the door for a language

Yes, it is best for learning Eurocentric Languages as an English Speaker… but pretty much all language learning tools are best in that direction

People want things to be an all in one solution hat does everything and will make things perfect. Which is irritating that people keep doing that. Maybe it is because my Father is a stereophile. And from an early age I’ve heard to go from things component by component. All in one solutions are okay for a cheap stop gap — but for proper stuff you want to do parts and pieces and assemble them together

Yes, half an hour a day will get you to be an “expert” at one thousand hours. Well, not really expert, so much as “got a decent idea of how to do stuff”… expert would likely be ten thousand hours

This is true… but for the first major landmark, that will take about six to seven years. Most people look at stuff for the one thousand day streak for stuff. Which, you will have a good notion of how to do stuff if you do get to the one thousand day streak… but if you are doing ten minutes a day… you are only one sixth of the way there by the one thousand day streak

Now, doing something that gets you to something at one year would require about four hours a day

DuoLingo cannot rationally be done for four hours a day on a single language

Now, LanguagePod101 can be done for four hours a day… but… the thing with learning languages is you need to bump start to get movie. DuoLingo is the bump start to other language learning methods

In the case of it “it sucks for non-English speakers”… that puts it on par with every language learning suite. This doesn’t mean it is right… but it also means you cannot really blame DuoLingo for this

Language Learning is about as young and needing improvement as Exercise for how we know and understand it as a concept… and well, most methods are far from the ultimate. They are just the “ultimate” method we currently have access to — if even that can really be said

Heck, with Altaic Languages we have lots of issues with those courses — as they tend to be very front loaded. With the front loading being a major road block for anybody who isn’t a bit of a lunatic. Sure you might know somebody who knows Korean, Japanese, Mandarin or Cantonese and learned it as an adult who claims they aren’t crazy… but that is exactly a claim a crazy person WOULD MAKE!

Wait… isn’t Finnish and Turkish both Altaic Languages… >.>’ xD

Personally, I like the notion of using Esperanto, Dutch, Interslavic and Latin for helping learn the various Europe Centric Languages. As that is a tool that doesn’t get employed that often

Heck, I kind of want to work on learning how to do stuff with the “Proto-Altaic” language… not because it actually is a real ancestor to the various languages of East Asia… but as a conlang that works to get a bit of a foundation in place to build knowledge of the other languages on top of it

But to defend DuoLingo… yes, half an hour a day (or even just twenty minutes a day) will work towards the “one thousand hours of generally having a good idea of the topic”… but again… do a bit of math for how many years that would be

This on top of how much of a mess being a polyglot kind of is right now

Other Language Stuff

“MWAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BEHOLD MY FANCY BED! IT IS THE MOST LUXURIOUS BED!” — Bradlen Grahang Hayesm, Ideal for a Dragon

So, I will be looking into LanguagePod101 after I’ve gotten a bit of a break from French. Which will be done in French. Being Canada, I do have some exposure to French — and the work on DuoLingo will have added a bit of a good foot in the door… or rather I suppose I should get use to the term “bump start” for other stuff

I’ve also been grabbing language learning books from other places. Involving worksheet books. I’ve nearly got a satisfactory amount of stuff to keep me more than busy for the spring. Just a little bit more and I’ll be there

I’ve also got some ASL Flash Cards. 500 of them in fact. Working on shuffling them. Uh… they have colours on the side to note what letter the card is. So I can know fully well they are only slightly shuffled, but still generally in approximate ordering… which irritates me so much more

I should be able to spend several hours on multiple languages a day for the next bit

It should be noted that the reason I am working learning languages is to improve my concentration skill. In 2017 all my stats were dropped to zero from an illness I had caught. Turns out this includes my concentration that I can put onto things

Learning languages works to improve the concentration points I can put stuff onto stuff. Like pain tolerance, heat tolerance, cold tolerance and just being able to focus on stuff

So, if I do learn these languages that is a plus… but my main goal is the improvement on my concentration stat. Essentially… I’m doing an exploit on the game of life