How can I best learn a new language? Oh, if I only knew the answer to that seemingly innocuous question. Lots of us want to learn another language, but few of us succeed. My best advice is to give DuoLingo a try. DuoLingo is a web-based language learning program available for desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Two of the pluses of DuoLingo are that it has a perfectly acceptable free version and that you can tailor it to your own needs. Is it the panacea for all language learning problems? No, sorry. But I have been using it for about six years and still look forward to using it on a daily basis. Here is the advice I would give a friend who wants to acquire another language using DuoLingo.
First, choose a language that is meaningful to your life. DuoLingo offers a wide variety of languages.You may be planning a trip to a foreign country, have friends who speak another language,, enjoy the music from a certain country, want to connect with your roots, or learn about a new culture. I study Spanish and Portuguese because I have taught those subjects, French because I have French-speaking Canadian friends and enjoy traveling in Canada, Italian because a good friend has just bought a flat in Venice, and Irish and Welsh because I am intrigued by Celtic cultures. And if you find that you chose the wrong one, you can quit it and start a new one. I once began Catalan and Romanian because they are Romance languages, but I quickly lost interest, probably because I didn't have a personal connection.
Next, set a daily goal ( a small one is fine) or let DuoLingo set one for you. The program can be instructed to send you reminders if you don't meet your daily goal. I used them at first to develop the habit of doing some bit of language every day, but after a while, the reminders began to feel like a nag. Now my strategy is to gain ten points every day, which is really easy. I have a streak going of over 1800 days. You may laugh, but I go to great lengths to maintain my DuoLingo streak. However, in addition, my personal daily goal is to do one exercise in six different languages every day without making five errors. Duolingo lets me know when I make an error by losing one of my five available hearts. So, my advice is to play around with your goal so that it fits your lifestyle.
Now to the content that DuoLingo offers. You will choose topics to work on, some based on life experiences, like travel, and others based on grammar, like past progressive verbs. Once again, you are in charge here. The topics are arranged from easier to more advanced, but you don't have to necessarily work through them in a lock step fashion. Remember, language learning can be a truly enjoyable experience. Language Acquisition experts talk about the important role of Language Input, that is, getting lots of language into your head in a comprehensible way. Duolingo offers an impressive amount of content.
Another piece of advice is to allow yourself to explore what DuoLingo offers. There is no one right way to use it. DuoLingo is constantly changing, so you may log in one day and find new features. I can compare it to learning how to use an iPhone or an Apple Watch. You will discover capabilities you want to use and others of no interest. On Duolingo, I have explored grammar explanations (pretty boring), jump ahead quizzes (great), vocabulary count (not useful), online discussions (pretty interesting if you have time), and adding friends to compete with (not so interesting anymore). Just keep clicking around in the program until you find features that suit you.
Now back to the thorny question of how to learn a language. I can only say that DuoLingo will help you along in your journey. The program gives me an opportunity to maintain Spanish and Portuguese, helps me feel that I am not losing the French I learned in school, gives me hope that the next time I am in Italy I can use more Italian than the last time, and provides an intellectual challenge figuring out the workings of Irish and Welsh.
My plea to Duolingo is: Please bring back the 'bots'. The bots carried on a conversation with you to which you replied speaking or in writing. Talking to the bots was very close to having a conversation with a real person, which means that you were creating language in your own head. I loved talking to them. But the bots unfortunately only made a brief appearance in the program.
Is DuoLingo the ultimate answer to the question, "How do I best learn a language?" No, but it is a flexible, motivating way to study language. And I look forward to a future where language learning is even more accessible.
If you are a DuoLingo user or want to be, I look forward to reading your comments and observations on language learning!
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