[Better Life -> Learn With Steem] Learning German from DuoLingo: Day 159 - Travel, Numbers 2, Colors, and Imperative
Today is day 159 in my continuing attempt at learning to read German by using the DuoLingo cell phone application and web site. In the six days since my previous post, I completed the Travel category and began lessons in Numbers 2, Colors, and Imperative categories.
Hunderte Menschen (Hundreds of peope), Pixabay license: source
Just to mix things up, I'm trying out a "pyramid" strategy with new lessons. I'm hoping that this way, I'll always be working on a mix of easy and hard lessons. I'll try it out for a while and decide whether to continue this way or switch back to focusing exclusively on one category at a time.
With my new multi-category approach, I'm on the following levels in the currently active categories:
| Category | Level | Lessons complete |
|---|---|---|
| Numbers 2 | 3 of 5 | 0 of 4 |
| Colors | 2 of 5 | 0 of 4 |
| Imperative | 1 of 5 | 1 of 2 |
Additionally, the "Adjectives" category decayed away from completion, so I'll be doing a lesson in that category later today to get it marked as complete again.
Tips
I discussed Tips from the Travel section last time, so this time I'll discuss Tips from Numbers 2. In Numbers 1, I had learned the numbers from 0 through 19. In Numbers 2, we're learning the numbers from twenty through ninety, along with values for a hundred, a thousand, a million, and a billion The tens places are described in this table:
| Number | German Word |
|---|---|
| 20 | zwanzig |
| 30 | dreißig (this is the only one that doesn't end with "zig") |
| 40 | vierzig |
| 50 | fünfzig |
| 60 | sechzig |
| 70 | siebzig |
| 80 | achtzig |
| 90 | neunzig |
And these are combined with the numbers from one through nine in a recipe that typically goes:
[ones place] and [tens place]
For example:
| Number | German word |
|---|---|
| 23 | dreiundzwanzig |
| 71 | einundsiebzig |
| 87 | siebenundachtzig |
| 32 | zweiunddreißig |
| 54 | vierundfünfzig |
One tricky thing here is that "eins" (one) becomes "ein" when it's used as part of another number.
Another tricky part has to do with bigger numbers, for example, the example is given of six thousand nine hundred fifty-four, which translates as sechstausendneunhundertvierundfünfzig. (six thousand nine hundred four-and-fifty). Another year would be the year, 1978, which is neunzehnhundertachtundsiebzig (neunzehnhundert = nineteen hundred, achtundsiebzig = eight and seventy, or seventy-eight).
| Curiously, Bing Translate gets this example wrong |
|---|
But it gets it right if you add a space
Google translate gets it right, though.
Lessons and examples
Moving on from the tips, the next thing to cover are words and phrases from each of the categories, so here are a few.
Travel
| German | English |
|---|---|
| das Fahrrad | the bicycle |
| Züge | trains |
| Was ist mit unserem Zug? | What is with our train? |
| Urlaub | vacation |
| Wir haben Fahrräder | We have bicycles. |
| customs | Zoll |
| Österreich oder Bayern? | Austria or Bavaria? |
| Wir wandern von Österreich nach Deutschland. | We are hiking from Austria to Germany. |
Numbers 2
| Number | German word |
|---|---|
| 100 | Hundert |
| 1000 | Tausend |
| 1,000,000 | Million |
| 1,000,000,000 | Milliard |
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Millionen Knopf | Millions of buttons |
| Milliarden Euro | Billions of Euros |
Colors
The trick about colors is that they seem to change forms depending on where they are in the sentence, for example:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Die Ente ist weiß. | The duck is white. |
| Die weiße Ente ist schnell. | The white duck is fast. |
Maybe this will be explained in the Tips section, but I haven't read it yet. Here are some colors that I've learned.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| schwarz | black |
| blau | blue |
| weiß | white |
| rot | red |
| gelb | yellow |
| grün | green |
Imperative
This category offers practice with imperative phrases and sentences. Without having read the Tips secion yet, the imperative form of the verb usually seems to be the verb with the "e", "st", or "t" that would be used in the i, we, he/she/it forms of the verb. Here are some examples.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Ruf dem Hund | Call the dog. |
| Lies das nicht. | Don't read that. |
| Trink Wasser gegen den Durst. | Drink water to quench your thirst. |
| Nimm es. | Take it. |
| Trink den Wein | Drink the wine. |
| Iss dein Gemüse. | Eat your vegetables. |
| Nimm mich bitte nach Berlin mit. | Please take me to Berlin. |
| Iss un trink | Eat and drink |
Progress
As of this moment, here are my numbers in the application:
- Streak: 159 days
- Hearts: 4
- XP today: 72
- Crowns: 207
- Crystals: 1632
- Lingots: 552
- Total XP: 22309
- League: Diamond
- XP in league: 364
- Place in league: 16
- Time left in league: 3 days 2 hours 40 minutes
- Followers: 4
- Words learned: 794 in app, 1,015 on web site
There were no new special characters in today's post, so the full table (so far) still looks like this:
| Key press | character |
|---|---|
| ALT-0196 | Ä |
| ALT-0214 | Ö |
| ALT-0223 | ß |
| ALT-0228 | ä |
| ALT-0246 | ö |
| ALT-0252 | ü |
If you want to learn a foreign language (or Klingon or High Valyrian), my recommendation for DuoLingo continues to be "thumbs up". According to the app, you can also use DuoLingo to learn dead or endangered languages like Latin, Navajo or Hawaiian.
My guess is that no one is going to learn to speak a language perfectly through DuoLingo, but I think it can provide a solid foundation that can be used to build additional knowledge through other, immersive techniques.
Steemit's Better Life initiative is described in the post: 1000 DAYS OF STEEM : A Better Life with Steem - new Content and Curation Project