Learning German from DuoLingo: Day 37

Today was day 37 of my effort to learn to read the German language through use of the DuoLingo application. Here's an update on my activities from yesterday and today.

On day 36, I finished the remaining levels (of 5) in the "Question 1" category, read one or two stories, and completed practice exercises in a handful of categories that I had previously completed. Additionally, I finished in second place in the Sapphire league.

On day 37, I advanced to level 3 of the "Present 1" category and completed practice exercises in 8 previously completed categories. I was quite lucky to get the correct English translation to "We are playing and learning" ("Wir spielen und lernen") with no multiple choice options and after only seeing spielen (to play) one prior time. I advanced to the Emerald league today.

Here are some words/phrases from today's lessons. I saved these in screen snapshots, so they should be correct:

German	English
hoch	high
denkt	thinks (I have an easy time remembering denken because of Ich Denke Dein.)
Ein Fisch und ein Hund schwimmen	A fish and a dog are swimming
bringen	are bringing (remember to use accusative form - den/einen with this one)
Er ist nicht gesund	He is not healthy (I remember "healthy" by thinking of "gesundheit")
Das ist nicht einfach	It is not easy
Sie wollen einen Hund	They want a dog (accusative form again)
Ich mache Tee	I am making tea.
Er sieht klein aus.	He looks small (I still don't understand this construction. I don't think the app has explained it yet.)
Ich schimme nicht	I am not swimming

I also had words for "expensive", "pay for", and "need", but I'm not remembering them at the moment, so I'll have to pay attention for those in future lessons.

One thing that I'm confused about today is the verb, "laufen", which can apparently mean "to run" or "to walk". I remember it because it reminds me of "loaf" and "lope", but at this point, I'm not sure how to tell when it means "run" or "walk". In today's examples, it was not always clear from the context.

The "dust" and "est-ten-ten" pneumonic devices continue to be vital for me in verb conjugation. I find myself referring to them constantly. I also have developed a habit of mentally reciting "sind seid sind" as a short-hand reminder for conjugation of "to be": "Wir sind", "Ihr seid", and "Sie sind"

Here are my current numbers:

• Hearts: 4
• Streak: 37
• Crowns: 63
• XP today: 317
• XP this week: 2146
• Total XP: 5910
• League: Emerald
• Time remaining in league: 5d 21h 7m
• Rank in league: 7
• XP in league: 317
• Total words learned: 240

I don't have any new special characters in today's post, so the full table (so far) remains unchanged:

Key press	character
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".