[LMB] News for my Duolingo friends

[Elizabeth Holden]

Katherine Collett said:

> I don’t understand or care about the league system (there’s a league
system?), so I guess
> I’m not bothered by it.

I was using Duolingo for a long time, totally oblivious.

Then I got talking to the father of a friend of mine, who asked what League
I was in. He was doing German, and was highly competitive. He had all the
strategies worked out to be #1 at the end of every week. (What, weeks have
ends?)

So I became aware. And since I was doing Duolingo to study anyway, it
seemed a game worth playing. And then I got caught up in the game-playing,
and it became frustrating.

Really, as far as learning a language goes, after however long I've been
using Duolingo - six years now, counting from when I first casually started
- Duolingo really isn't helping my learning of Esperanto any more. It's
practice, yes, but I'd be practising better if I spent the same time
reading novels or listening to films  or conversing on Zoom or taking real
lessons with real teachers. Which I am also doing, with the aim of passing
the official language exams.

So why do I do Duolingo every day? Mostly because I am stubborn enough to
want a 250 day streak. I've had more than 200 consecutive days several
times, but I'd like to get to that magic 250 days and then stop. Of course,
I could just switch to another language;  but at the moment, I don't want
to confuse myself with two languages at once. And even more because I want
to put all my language-study time into Esperanto at present.

Linking to friends is fun though, for comparison or encouragement or
whatever.

Am I the only one who thinks that the English in Duolingo is often very
strange?

namaste,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth Holden <azurite at azurite.ca>

<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
Virus-free.
www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>