sparrowhawkandco

[sparrowhawkandco]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[sparrowhawkandco]

Wednesday the king vulture chick is almost a year old now! She’s still adorable.

[sparrowhawkandco]

You gotta create replacement activities man. We can't just phase out all the church attendance and all the usamerican social holidays cold turkey in the middle of a loneliness epidemic bro like yeah fuck church fuck thanksgiving and FUCK the 4th of July but like what's the long-term plan. People need holidays and repetitive social rituals or they go crazy. Like are we inventing new ones or ....?

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[sparrowhawkandco]

U.S. conservatives always talk about creating jobs but get SO MAD whenever anyone mentions banning prison labor like imagine the insane ammout of jobs that would be created literally overnight if companies in your country had to actually employ people instead of using slave labor from people that got caught with weed 10 years ago.

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A crested eagle tangled up with a snake in battle

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GET YOUR BODY OUT OF SURVIVAL MODE SO YOU CAN CREATE FROM YOUR HEART

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🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

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This was in Sioux Falls South Dakota! The green sky is caused by large hail stones within the storm refracting back green light to the observer.

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An “initiation well,” used in magical rites, which was excavated at the Quinta da Regaleira estate in Sintra, Portugal.  

[sparrowhawkandco]

General Tso’s Tofu (Better Than Takeout) General Tso’s Tofu features crispy caramelized tofu bites with tender broccoli rabe in a tangy savory sweet sticky sauce.

Recipe => http://omnivorescookbook.com/general-tso-tofu

[sparrowhawkandco]

I hate that the "Gen Alpha can't read." conversation so much because people are taking this as a chance to call children stupid and their parents monsters instead of having a very real discussion about how the education system is flawed by design, covid fucked up everything socialization wise, these parents having little access to child care and more work hours leads them to lean on things like tablets and phones to watch their kids more and more, teachers are more overworked and underpaid than ever leading to them leaving the profession in droves and that's only like the surface level issues. There's a myriad of factors at play here, not just that "The kids are spoiled screen-addicted brats with no imagination and their parents are childish spoiled millennials who just let coco melon handle everything."

[sparrowhawkandco]

I read this post the other day that said “sometimes people pretend you’re a bad person so they don’t feel guilty for the things they did to you” and boiiii has that one stuck with me

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[sparrowhawkandco]

#0283, #0284

Surskit, Masquerain

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[sparrowhawkandco]

NO THANKS I’M FROM MASSACHUSETTS