|
Post by lagatta on Aug 20, 2019 15:45:36 GMT
I was studying a bit of Dutch with Babbel, but am very annoyed that when they talk about national days, customs etc they always talk about US ones. I don't really have to learn about our neighbours - I want to learn about Dutch, Belgian, perhaps Surinamese and South African customs, days etc. Are any others better in that respect?
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 20, 2019 16:39:10 GMT
LaGatta, check out what youtube might have to offer in that regard. It can be useful for hearing the language while learning about customs, etc. if you can find one in the language of the country. Otherwise, there are tons of videos showcasing various aspects of different countries.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Aug 20, 2019 18:23:55 GMT
Well, I watch cooking shows, but that is mostly in Spanish and Italian. Sport fans would probably enjoy watching matches in the language they want to learn - with great emotion!
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Aug 21, 2019 14:13:35 GMT
I sometimes watch cooking shows on the Turkish television channels that I have. I don't understand a word they're saying except for the ones adopted from French or English, but I start drooling anyway.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 21, 2019 16:18:41 GMT
It's good you have a handy explanation for the drooling.
|
|
|
Post by rikita on Aug 23, 2019 10:42:27 GMT
hm, never noticed them talking about US holidays or customs on babbel, nor about German ones - in the courses i did, it were the ones of the country whose language i was learning ... or are you speaking about the newsletters they send out occasionally? there indeed i get quite a few about German, too, but i think they aren't directly related to the language you are learning ...
as for rosetta stone, i only did their test lessons, and the concept is interesting, but seeing some people who did it for a longer time, it seemed pretty boring for me, same with pimsleur. i guess it is a matter of preference - a lot of people complain about babbel's focus on spelling (though you have the option to switch to "speaking" instead of writing at least in vocabulary practice), but i like that. i never want to just speak a language, i want to read and write, too, and when i know the pronunciation rules, then pronouncing gets easier if i know how a word is written ... i also like to have learn grammar in some kind of orderly fashion, though what i miss at babbel at times is more cross referencing and grammatical overview, like when i learn about past tense to have a link going back to present tense to compare ...
heard about duolingo before but never looked at it, will look now ... they don't offer many languages if i have German as the teaching language, but if i set it to English, there is more (i guess it is always preferable to have explanations in your own language, but on the other hand, a lot of materials are easier to find in English).
|
|
|
Post by rikita on Aug 23, 2019 10:54:00 GMT
k, i tried duolingo just now, with four different languages (native, fluent, very small basic knowledge, no knowledge at all) - in some cases taking the test, in others just starting as a beginner (like in German) - my impression is kind of mixed. i think i will add it to one of several tools i use for languages i want to learn (and especially if Babbel doesn't offer them, like for Arabic - for duolingo i just have to remember to set my profile to that of an English speaker, as they only offer very few languages for German speakers).
what i like is that it is colourful and entertaining, so you don't get bored that easily - though i think the constant "you won this and earned that" is a bit too much ...
what i haven't seen so far is any kind of grammatical explanation, no idea if that comes at some point or not - i think it is necessary to really learn language. in fact, it seems to be basically constant tests with learning by trial and error. and for learning the alphabet, it is made a bit to easy, that you can always hear the sound - that way, instead of memorizing a new letter, i end up just listening to the sound and clicking the answer ... another thing - i can function pretty well in Romanian, but i didn't do that great on the test there, because a lot of the test questions seemed kind of bizarre to me, they wanted you to know some not so common words, and sometimes a whole sentence was wrong because you didn't know one (rarely used) word, and on the other hand something was counted as correct and just a typo, when i actually made a pretty big grammatical error ...
but i think if you want to familiarize yourself with a language or just use different tools to practice, it is alright ...
one thing, since it is free and their site seems pretty big, i wonder what their business model is - i didn't see any ads there, either, and having worked in online language courses for a little while, i know it isn't something you produce just like that, it costs money to make them ... so, i often prefer to pay a little bit and then be pretty sure that the courses are made by people with didactical knowledge ...
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 23, 2019 16:09:13 GMT
That is a perfect description of Duolingo, Rikita! Overall I think it's pretty okay for giving a person enough confidence to take on learning a language. But I often feel it doesn't build on what it's taught you enough to really fix that knowledge in the brain. Instead it likes to sort of jump ahead with stuff it expects you to get intuitively. When I don't make that leap, I not only feel frustrated, I feel that the program didn't prepare me adequately. I realize that sounds too passive, but people who have done some Duolingo will know what I mean. I still like it, though, because it's so accessible.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Aug 5, 2022 20:53:41 GMT
This is fun & rather useful ~
|
|