Learning German from DuoLingo: Day 59
Today was day 59 in my endeavor to learn to read the German language by using the DuoLingo application. This post will summarize some highlights from my recent activities.
Flugzeug: Pixabay license: source
Day 56 (Saturday): I continued working on lessons from the "Places 1" category and completed a number of practice exercises whenever I needed to replenish my hearts.
I also went hunting on youtube for German language music videos with English captions that I could use to further expose myself to the language. I stumbled across one that I sort-of like. It's a relatively new release (August 14) from Nena (of 99 red balloons fame):
From that I learned the phrase: "alles wieder stimmt" - "everything is right again". I've been listening to it a lot since then, but not reading the lyrics and captions as much as I need to. Eventually, maybe I'll learn the rest of those words.
Day 57 (Sunday): Continued working on "Places 1" and also did a number of practice exercises. Amazingly, I managed to finish in first place of the "Pearl" league and advanced into the "Obsidian" league. It looks like this is the penultimate league, with the next one being "Diamond" if I make it that far. Some words from the "Places 1" category include thee following:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Hotel (das) | hotel |
| Hotels (die) | hotels |
| Schule (die) | school |
| Schulen (die) | schools |
| Bibliothek (die) | library |
| Bibliotheke (die) | libraries |
| Land (das) | country |
| Länder (die) | countries |
| Stadt (das) | city |
| Städte (die) | cities |
| Schloss (das) | castle |
| Schlösser (die) | castles |
Day 58 (Monday): I completed the "Places 1" category and began on "Stuff". This new league, Obsidian, is the most competitive that I've been in, and I have a theory about that. I spent nearly an hour working on lessons, practice exercises, and reading stories, and still didn't manage to break into the top-10. My theory is that if you join a league on Sunday night, right near the time that the leagues change over, you wind up competing with the most motivated learners. On the other hand, if you dilly-dally until Monday or even Tuesday, the leagues get generally less competitive. This week, I had started my new league right at the transition time on Sunday evening.
Finally, some lessons that are easy (einfach) to understand and remember. The good thing about "stuff" is that everything builds on the root word, "das zeug". So if you just remember that, half the battle is won. Here are some of the words from these lessons:
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Zeug (das) | stuff |
| Feuerzeug (das) | lighter (fire stuff) |
| Feuerzeuge (die) | lighters |
| Flugzeug (das) | airplane (flight stuff) |
| Flugzeuge (die) | airplanes |
| Spielzeug (das) | toy (play stuff) |
| Spielzeuge (die) | toys |
| Werkzeug (das) | tool (work stuff) |
| Werkzeuge (die) | tools |
Day 59 (today): After another hour or so today, I managed to crack into the top-10 of the Obsidian league. I finished the "stuff" category and began on Accusative pronouns. I also completed 19 practice exercises from previously completed categories. The tips for Accusative pronouns include these mappings:
| basic form | accusative form |
|---|---|
| ich (I) | mich (me) |
| du (you) | dich (you) |
| er (he) | ihn (him) |
| sie (she) | sie (her) |
| es (it) | es (it) |
| wir (we) | uns (us) |
| ihr (you all) | euch (you all) |
| sie (they) | sie (them) |
These tips also point out that these words get the same accusative suffix as in previous lessons. Such as:
| Accusative case | Accusative pronoun |
|---|---|
| einen Käse (a cheese) | seinen Käse (his cheese) |
| eine Schokolade (a chocolate) | seine Schokolade (his chocolate) |
| ein Wasser (a water) | sein Wasser (his water) |
| keine Schuhe (no shoes) | meine Schuhe (my shoes) |
For myself, I usually still need to look up the correct suffix or just take a guess. Even when I remember them in the short term for lessons, they're not sticking in long-term memory yet.
Here are my current numbers, as reported by DuoLingo:
- hearts: 5
- Streak: 59
- Crowns: 108
- XP today: 483
- Total XP: 10769
- League: Obsidian
- XP in league: 790
- Place in league: 7
- Words learned: 385 in app, 448 on web page
- Followers: 4
No new special characters in today's post, so the full table (so far) look 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 endangered languages like Navajo or Hawaiian.