(no subject)

[yuuago]

Oh boy, Duolingo changed the web version of the site to include the League leaderboard in the main screen. I do not like this At All. I'll deal, of course, but - definitely not a fan. If I'm going to see someone's weekly progress, I would like it to be my friends, not a bunch of random people!

Speaking of Duolingo, the Norwegian course recently released version 4 of the tree. Version 4 is bigger and has a lot more details in the grammar tips, apparently. Great! Unfortunately, it's still in A/B testing, and I'm not in the group that gets to try the new course tree. I'm going to have to wait until the whole thing is released for everybody - admin's estimate is about 6 months. WELL... I'll just keep going, then!

Has anyone used Tinycards? It's a flashcard site/app run by Duolingo. Thinking about giving it a go, don't know how effective it will be though. I've tried flashcards before; was using Anki for that. Didn't have a whole lot of success, but that's probably because I was using a deck that somebody else made, and a lot of the words were ones that I'd never encountered.

Did some studying during lunch today. Using newspapers for studying is kind of challenging, because I can often get the general sense of what it's saying, but the specific details are a lot harder. And sometimes there are phrases where - I can tell what the individual words mean in isolation, but together the meaning mystifies me, haa. Anyway, I slapped down some rough translation of an article I was reading, so at least that's something. It was about how the Gokstad ship's current museum display is not sufficient to secure against damage from cracking in the wood, and how measures are being developed to prevent further damage. Ended up having to look up quite a bit of technical words, but it's not a bother when the subject interests me, even if I probably won't use most of them again. ;p (Unless I seek out more reading about boats and/or archaeological artifacts. Which isn't all that unlikely now that I think about it.)

Comments

[deadfinch]

I was ready to suggest Anki over TinyCards (better customization, less buggy), but you beat me to it. I've heard people swear up and down that it only works if you make your own cards. (They don't do much for me, either, that said. At least for vocabulary. Flashcards work wonders when I'm learning new writing systems, interestingly enough?)

I studied Norwegian for little bit, but I'm a lot more practiced with Spanish because of where I live, and I've historically not done well trying to split my attention, so I've given the former up temporarily. But I miss Norwegian! It's such a charming language.

[yuuago]

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven't heard many people talk about Anki, just kind of stumbled over it years ago, so it's interesting that people say it works best with your own cards... Maybe I'll try it again with my own deck. There are a lot of words that I should know by now, but don't have nailed down yet. Maybe that'll help. ;)

I hear you on splitting the attention. Haven't had much luck with that either.

[allekha]

I haven't tried Tinycards in particular, but spaced flashcards have been helpful for me, though they don't work for everyone. I've always made my own cards, and I try to stick some context on the card when learning new words.

Those times when you understand the words but not what they mean together are so annoying. But it sounds like you got some interesting practice.

[yuuago]

Guess it won't hurt to try. Though after looking at both options I've gone back to Anki again. xD

Oh yes, the little turns of phrase are like... "I feel like I SHOULD understand what this means, but it does not make sense?!" Or when there's some kind of informal or regional use of the word and the dictionaries don't offer any suggestions that fit the implied meaning... fun. xD

[hokuton_punch]

Ooh, that sounds like a really neat article! I hope they come up with something to help keep the ship preserved.

[yuuago]

YEAH it was really interesting! They're working on some things to stabilize it, and it's eventually going to go to a new building constructed to display it in a way that won't damage it (or at least, that's the plan). I might need to see if I can find some more stuff about this at a later date - I really like reading about new measures that are being developed to take care of antiquities that were dug up a while ago and might not necessarily have been kept in the most suitable condition.

[(Anonymous)]

Where did you find such informations about your Norwegian on Duolingo, Yuu ? I'm curious, someone I know suddenly get more subjects (learning French...) than before and I think that I would enjoy/need that for my Swedish ^-^°

Mélusine

[yuuago]

The web version of Duolingo has forums for each language course. An announcement was posted in the Norwegian forum about all the things that were added to it: here (I don't know if you can view that since you're not doing Norsk but anyway)

For French, the French course was recently redone to align with CEFR. This was done last month ago I think? I'm not sure how long it took to roll out to everyone. So the additions that the person you know is seeing might be because of that.

I'm not sure if the Swedish course is being worked on for redesign, but maybe!

[chartini]

For my first attempt at Anki I ran into the exact same issue!

I started using it again a few months ago, this time with only my own deck & cards, and I find it much easier to dedicate time/effort to it.

[yuuago]

It seems to be a common problem! xD

I expect it might take me a while to put a useful deck together, but it sounds like it would be worth the effort. ;)

[chartini]

I recommend just starting one and adding words as you come by them while studying ;). Then you can just build it up gradually as you go.

(You're technically not supposed to learn more than 20 new words in a day anyway, haha)