Learning German from DuoLingo: Day 120 - Dative case pronouns, Family-2, and Dative prepositions

Today was day 120 in my continuing attempt to learn to read German by using the DuoLingo application and web site. This update covers 9 days because apparently that's how long it took me to move on to a new category. It definitely seems that the lessons are now getting harder and taking longer.

On day 112, I finished the category on Dative case pronouns, yesterday (day 119) I finished the Family 2 category, and today I began the Dative Prepositions category.

Here is some information about Dative Prepositions. First, as a reminder, the dative case is when something is indirectly affected by an action. This contrasts with the nominative case where the noun is the actor (i.e. the subject of a sentence) and the accusative case where the object is the direct recipient of an action. Here is a good link that describes these in more detail.

For example:

Er gibt der Katze den Käse (He gives the cat the cheese), the cheese is the thing being given - the direct object or accusative case. In contrast, the cat is the thing receiving the object, which makes it the indirect object or the dative case.

What we're learning in the dative prepositions lesson is that prepositions like from, since, after, by, and to all draw nouns and pronouns into the dative case. Here are some examples that are modeled after those in the Tips section:

Preposition	Object of phrase
von (from)	uns (us)
mit (with)	meinem Geschwister (my sibling)
seit (since)	dem Abendessen ([the] dinner)
nach (after)	dem Frühstück ([the] breakfast)
bei (by)	dem Fenster (the window)
zu (to)	ihm (him)

The Tips section also notes that there can be confusion around words like "von" and "aus", both of which mean "from". We use "aus" if we're talking about a place of origin, and we use "von" when describing movements. Examples are "Ich komme aus Amerika" (I come from America) and "Sie kommt von dem Bibliothek" (she comes from the library).

Curiously, I was using bing/google translate tools to try to validate my examples, but neither one of those translators wants to give me a sentence using "von".

The tips section also notes the phrases, "nach Hause" (going home) and "zu Hause" (at home).

Finally, the Tips also describes something like a contraction where certain words can be combined with "the" in a single word:

Preposition	Preposition + the
zu + dem	zum
zu + der	zur
bei + dem	beim
von + dem	vom

And modeling after the lessons, here are some examples of dative prepositions:

German	English
Ein Freund von einem Freund ist auch ein Freund	A friend of a friend is also a friend.
Keiner von uns hat Hunger	None of us is hungry.
Seit wann trinkt sie Kaffee?	Since when does she drink coffee?
Seit dem Mittagessen	Since lunch
Kommen sie zu ans?	Are you coming to us?
Er spielt mit mich	He is playing with me.
Wir essen bei dem Fenster	We are eating by the window.

Finally, here are my current numbers in the application:

• Streak: 120 days
• Crowns: 172
• Crystals: 348
• Lingots: 490
• League: Diamond
• Total XP: 18881
• XP today: XP Today: 66
• XP in league: 778
• Place in league: 11
• Followers: 4
• Words learned: 635 in app, 807 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.