One Year of Duolingo

A Duolingo post on Facebook today claims that
“You can learn as much in 34 hours of Duolingo as in one entire semester of university language classes.”
(According to an Effectiveness study from 2012).

As I’ve been spending about an hour a day with Duolingo over the past year – does this mean that I can add twelve more university semesters to my CV? (I seriously doubt that, but couldn’t help suddenly feeling rather impressed with myself…)

Anyway, it is about a year ago now that I first got started with Duolingo, and it may be time for another progress summary – for my own memory rather than with intention to brag. (I have previously posted after six weeks, 100 days, and 8 months.)

My current Duo/multilingo status is as follows:

Spanish – Level 20, 43% fluency (started in May 2016)

Welsh – Level 13 (not yet finished; and no fluency will ever be achieved!) I first tried a few lessons last summer, but gave it up as being too difficult. However, I later picked it up again, and have managed to advance a bit. It is a very difficult language, though. For one thing, they don’t even seem to know themselves how to spell it! (For every word or expression there seems to be at least two different alternatives.) I don’t actually have all that many lessons left to get through now – but endless repetition will be needed if I shall ever get any of it to stick in my memory. (Why I would want to use my memory to store bits of Welsh remains a mystery even to myself. It’s just one of those things…)

Turkish – Level 15. No fluency rating. I have advanced two levels since I finished guessing my way through the first round, though. (It’s a close call which is the most difficult, Turkish or Welsh. Probably Turkish, because there is even less to relate it to, in my brain.)

French – Level 13. Continuing to use the Duolingo app for repetition of what once upon a time I learned in school, I have advanced from my initial 31% to 41%.

German – Level 13, and mysteriously I have dropped from ~50% to 41% fluency. The more I learn, the more I forget?? (I’m afraid the Duo app only knows what goes on within the Duo app, though…)

Netherlands (Dutch) – Level 14 (no fluency given).
Started in January and had worked my way through the Duo lessons before the end of April. Guessing at the meaning of written Dutch is not all that difficult when one already knows German, English and Swedish (or Danish, or Norwegian). Spelling & pronunciation on the other hand...!!! Alas there are no speaking exercises included in the Dutch Duo. (So far I’ve only found those in Spanish, French and German.)

Danish – Level 7 (6%). (Started just recently.)
Much the same kind of challenge for me as with Dutch. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish have a lot of common ground. Swedes and Norwegians usually understand each other without much difficulty (each speaking our own language). Swedes and Danes – with a bit more effort… My only ambition is to add a bit further to my understanding.

Basically, I’m just doing it all for fun, and brain exercise…