#Duolingo podcast

[fallynleaf]

also, i've been spending the past few years sort of passively acquiring Spanish, and i really want to recommend the duolingo Spanish podcast! i started listening to it when my Spanish was at a low intermediate level (basically i'd just revived my long dormant high school Spanish with the duolingo app and that was as far as i'd gotten), and the listening was tough at first, but surprisingly doable!

after listening to over 125 episodes of it, i finally reached a point earlier this year where the podcast got easy enough for me that i've moved on to Radio Ambulante, which is an NPR podcast meant for native speakers, haha, but the last season i listened to of the duolingo podcast was genuinely and unironically super good, and i would recommend it just as, like, media

they did a multi-part series called The Mystery of the Itata (it's in six parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and it rules. it's about a Chilean shipwreck that was somehow lost in history, and the narrative itself touches on so many elements, like labor rights and the consequences of exploiting people for greed, gender barriers in early 20th century journalism, tracking down information to solve a mystery, the complications of underwater archaeology, etc.

@paramaline as a fellow Boat Media enthusiast, haha, i thought about you when i listened! i'm not sure if you have any background with Spanish, but the podcast holds your hand a lot by restating the main points in English, and there are transcripts that you can consult if your listening isn't up to the task. i think you'd really enjoy it!

@norationalthoughtrequired i don't know if you've tried listening to any media in Spanish, but if you haven't yet (or even if you have and are past this level haha), i highly recommend giving this a shot! i enjoy the duolingo podcast way more than the app itself lol

[thoughtportal]

Photographer Gaspard Duval has a growing archive of the historic Paris Catacombs, a network of tunnels and burial grounds underneath the city of Paris. He navigates the underground labyrinth to highlight his favorite spots, from the official tour area to secret chambers that are forbidden to the public.

Click here for photos of places mentioned in the episode.

[darkthur-lesters-lost-arm]

Alexander according to the Malevolent fandom:

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[packedice]

does anyone who is learning jp have any resource recommendations…

[lemonthepotato]

Cringe warning: very bad Esperanto.

Mi povas mergi min en Esperanto čar mi ne faris multe da progreso ekde 2019. Mi kredas mi komencis lerni en 2019, sed mi rezignis dum (por?) unua jaro. Mi rezignis la hispana, la franca, la japana kaj la irlandano čar… nu, estas evidente kial. Tro da lingvoj lerni (por lerni? Lerni sentas malgxuste.)

Sed, mi restis kun la Esperanto(n?) čar gxi estas facila. Mi volas lerni lingvon por la sakeo (that’s… is that seriously the word? Sakeo? I joked once that Esperanto is 80% English words with -o and the end and 15% other languages with o- at the end, but I digress) de lerni lingvon. Homoj diras ke tio estas malbono kialo, sed, kial? Estas amuza… ne estas krimo amuziĝi.

Honeste, mi estis (estis for ‘have been?’ doesn’t feel right…) uzi Google Translate por helpi min, sed ne por lambastono. nur por kontroli se mia gramatiko estas bona. Ne estas, evidente, sed… mi estas nesekura pri gramatiko. Mi scias ke gxi ne estas bona, sed gxi estas probable pli bona ol mi sed mi ne uzis gxin.

Cxiuokaze… mi havas punkton kun ĉi tio; estas malfacila mergi en konlang! Jes, mi povus aligxi servilo de Discord, sed… la embaraso. Mi estus kiel, “Bonvolu… mi estas…” kaj havas furzo de cerba! Cerba furzo? (Googling how to stutter in Esperanto. Great.) (also I’m realising I said bonvolu instead of… oh my god? Am I seriously forgetting hello? Oh, Saluton!)

Cxu mi probable lernu la lingvon de miaj lando, la irlandano? Probable, sed honeste? Neniu parolas la irlandano en la nordo. Ili apenaŭ en la sudo. (Ne estas sude, mi ne zorgas se Google translate diras alie… ne sentas gxusta.)

Cxu mi havas punkto kun cxi tio? Ne. Sed, hej, diras al mi kiel CLAPPED mia Esperanto estas. Kaj, jes, mi eĉ ne provis traduki clapped cxar gxi estas pli amuza al ne.

Mi estas tiel malbona pri Esperanto. Mi devas fidi al tradukistoj por helpo. Mi uzas Google Translate por helpi kun tempoj kaj gramatikoj, sed la vortoj estas plejparte el mia cerbo, se tio havas sencon.

Mi ne havas kialon pri ĉi tio. Mi supozas, ke ĉi tio estas testo de miaj kapabloj. La rezultoj? Tre malbona, sed, hej, mi afiŝos ĉi tio, ĉiuokaze.

Edit: after writing this post, I got an easy, actually video about languages recommended… lol

[allthingslinguistic]

October 2022: Visiting Singapore and Linguist Halloween

My newsletter for October 2022: Visiting Singapore and Linguist Halloween

This month, I went to Singapore! It’s the beginning of my multi-month trip that’ll also take me to Australia in November and New Zealand in December. I stayed with Suzy J Styles, gave a talk about linguistics communication at Nanyang Technical University, and met up with lots of lovely linguists who made sure that I tried many delicious Singaporean foods (thank you!). Also I got to hear people…

[the-physicality]

.

[tadeadshihamurder]

I logged into memrise for the first time since ~2016–2017 recently and found that they're basically trying to remove the community-made courses and promoting their own generic, structureless, auto-generated courses and filling the interface with irrelevant ads and videos.

and while duolingo's decline hasn't been as steeply dramatic, their removal of discussion forums and relevant grammar notes along with the removal of the incubator has really disappointed me. also, I'd made it pretty far in my Japanese course a few years ago when it was still linear, but I'd returned recently to find that they reset all my progress when they overturned the course structure and now, I've been stuck relearning the words "hotel" and "convenience store" for weeks.

it's not a great time for language self-study enthusiasts right now :(

[lingocurio]

So I was listening to the Duolingo French podcast today. I think it was the most recent episode, Jan 30. It's the one about French pastries: Paris - Le goût des patisseries. (Omg, I think I gained 10 lbs just listening to it.)

One of the pastries they mention is Paris-Brest. I don't know what that is. So I looked it up and found various photos. It didn't strike me as being anything special.

It mentioned that it's made with choux pastry. What the heck is choux pastry?? So I looked that up. It's a light and fluffy pastry made with basically just butter, water, flour and egg. It doesn't have any ingredient that would normally be used to make dough fluffy (yeast, baking powder), it's basically the water steaming that makes it puff up.

Wait a minute... This sounded familiar...

My mom used to make cream puffs. They were delicious and they were my favourite of the desserts she used to make. She explained to me once the physics of how the water has to steam out in order for the pastry to puff up.

She got the recipe out of a Betty Crocker cookbook. I have that cookbook now. See photos for the recipe.

So this Paris-Brest pastry sounds delicious after all. 😄

By the way, choux means "cabbages" in French (singular: chou). Apparently the puff pastries look a bit like little cabbages, so that is how this pastry got its name.

Now the term of endearment "mon petit chou" makes more sense. It must be referring to the cute and sweet little puff pastry, not a giant, not-exactly-attractive nutritious-but-boring vegetable.

[poughkeepsies]

I've been having so much fun learning new languages over winter break and I'm so sad cause I know I'll probably stop keeping up with it once the new semester starts and I'm just too stressed/tired

[thoughtportal]

Olivier Chandez was the official clocksmith of the Notre Dame Cathedral. He tended to its antique central clock until a fire set the Cathedral ablaze in 2019. Olivier will take us back to a time before the fire for a special tour of one of the world’s most beloved Parisian landmarks.

[azrail-has-a-vendetta]

okay actually, cause I can say “The man ate the apple” in Italian but I cannot ask where the freaking bathroom is

[haltlosebaby]

Im learning French bc it’s such a sexy cute passionate sounding language… she’s whatever you want her to be

[fingertipsmp3]

Excuse the shittily made meme but here’s why I won’t be fixing my sleep schedule tonight

[guinevereslancelot]

i never spoke or understood a target language better than when i was unemployed and just spent hours bingeing tv in that language