by Javantea
March 18, 2025
Duolingo has a lot of problems. I know this because I've spent 1232 days learning Portuguese, Spanish, and a little bit of Finnish and Klingon. I have a 1232 day streak and am in obsidian league. I'm hoping that the developers at Duolingo who are watching for negative sentiment find this post. Here's my duome if you want to see where I'm at.
Duolingo is for beginners. If you end up at day 400 in Duolingo, you might think that it is useful for intermediate and advanced speakers. This isn't true. The only argument that I have really accepted for why intermediate learners should accept Duolingo as a daily tool is that it's important to avoid losing ground in a language. By spending a few minutes you're able to avoid dramatic loss of vocabulary that often coincides with not using a language for weeks.
Read more »Review by Javantea
Sept 9, 2021
Made for beginners, this 1995 book by AJALT is boring, formal, and slow. The fact that is uses hiragana and katakana instead of kanji is a major limitation. Compared to courses made since 2010, this is more historically valuable than the price of the book. I finished this textbook despite being far beyond its material level in a matter of months of podcasts because I wanted the easy stuff to be very solid in my head -- listen, read, and think. Because it has to start at such a low level, it might be good for people who have trouble with the alternatives. But to get a substantial handle on Japanese, one will need more than this book can teach. What does it teach?
Read more »As with other posts in this series, this is the results of a test I took today, July 5th, 2021.
歩 速 急 降 心 頼 自 道 米 先 不 配 天 成 便 利 市 券 横 料 多 安 乗 軽 平 貸 個 忙 重
Read more »I've been learning Japanese again. If you don't know what's going on, check the previous posts. This is a test and then a short blog.
席 野 長 少 研 所 切 客 勉 当 番 食 声 代 宅 母 究 目 借 内 教 学 近 貸 仕 森 読 度
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