I feel a bit discouraged. Tried speaking and it didn’t go very well. Think I’ll stop trying to talk in day to day activities because it really took the fun out of it.
I have done everything in the Duolingo for Finnish, i continue with it because i have not found an alternative app that allows me to practice for 10-30 minutes a day when I want. Most of the programs i have found have longer videos. It does have more and more that I can speak the sentence and it types it out for me. I continue to struggle to get it to recognize onni (Happy) not as uni (sleep).
I grew up in New Mexico, many of my friends were Navajo, so i decided to start trying to learn diné bizaad (the Navajo language). It is quite difficult, even compared to Finnish. But i already find myself picking a word or two from the elders i encounter around my town.
Oh wow I checked it out and does look like a tough language to learn, wishing you luck! And yeah my partner is quite disappointed about the lack of options for learning finnish. Duolingo has finally apparently added speaking exercises to finnish course but developments are slow.
I had the opposite experience the other day. I believe learning a language has plenty of ups and down depending on the people around you.
I surely sounded incredibly like a newbie, but I was asked in English, and I managed to find words that made sense in the other language. I took it simply word by word, skipping grammatical correctness and not caring about how unnaturally the sentence was constructed, added a swear word as a substitute for a noun I didn’t know, and it all worked out! I was understood, and I was even indirectly praised by one present who didn’t speak English! That made me feel encouraged to learn more, so that I can continue to impress!
This is after a lot of demotivating events however, so that made the upswing just even more powerful!
Super happy to hear that! Yeah there are ups and downs and it’s all about not giving up and staying consistent / daring with trying it out.
Swear words to the rescue! Lol
I’ve been doing steady work on Busuu with German, and wondering how I could do more structured language learning. I have definitely thrived in a classroom seeing when it comes to language learning, but I have yet to replicate that environment outside of school.
Same. I can’t fully replicate it and need more structure and guidance for learning. It helps to follow a course book though, give that a try!
I think with following a course book, I wouldn’t have enough discipline to follow through on it.
I understand. A dedicated class is definitely the nicest way to do it with someone keeping you accountable :)
The first genuine time I tried to speak Spanish with my GF she outright refused to speak back to me in Spanish, no hangups with her, she just didn’t engage me with it and instead spoke English. That was also a downer for me, but at the same time I realized I could say a basic few words despite never doing it before, so at least that was a positive.
Progress recently, scraped by quite a few days, doing bare minimum, due to various factors like stress and illness and more stress. Only today was I able to study the full 30 mins in Japanese and Spanish. Still not over the hurdles life threw at me save the sickness, but at least I’m on the horse again for now. Or at least today. No idea what tomorrow might throw at me, so hoping for something less serious.
Today managed to be with the GF a fair amount too, managed to do a full 180 flashcards on MaruMori and still have another 20 to go. Then I spent a while on Duolingo and Migaku for Spanish. I’ve completed both languages at 30 mins a piece, but still don’t feel satisfied. Also to add, I still have yet to finish the last of the N5 off, so should probably aim to do a few more of those before pushing for other stuff on the Japanese front. Down to about 15 cards now, but I tend to do 10 cards a day based on N5 then 10 cards on a random assortment of N4,N3,N2,N1 levels jointly together.
Might end up going back to Dreaming in Spanish later, as well as that Japanese site for videos… cijapanese, that’s the site.
Otherwise I guess I could dive into Irish again, but I’d feel easier just focusing on these 2 languages for now, as I’m still trying to get into the swing of things again. I was doing so well for months then life happens, I guess that’s just life. Still. Such a bummer.Anyway, back to the grind.
