After two and one half years of on-again off-again effort - mostly a couple months up front and a few weeks at the end, I finally completed the final section in the Duolingo Spanish curriculum. They optimistically rate me at 57% fluency, but I take that with quite a few grains of salt.
What it seem to mean is that, given time to think about it, I can recognize many of the major constructs of the language and piece together the meaning of various words and phrases.
However, it doesn’t involve a lot of vocabulary and I still display an almost complete lack of verbal fluency. I do notice I can pick out a little more of the commentator dialog when watching soccer, but cannot understand snippets of conversation in real-life.
All-in-all it was an enjoyable refresher for my 20-year old Spanish minor and, if I spend some time each day keeping the 62 sections colored gold, I would expect the average time to recognize and/or generate a word or phrase will continue to drop, as well as improved competence with the various verb tenses which came at a rapid pace near the end.
Next up will be "Duolingo Stories" which is a beta product that consists of four sets of ten "mini stories" that focus more on listening and reading comprehension for intermediate to advanced learners. Should be a nice supplement to the basics supplied by the original courses and a good way to build out some more vocabulary and develop an "ear" for the language.
No comments:
Post a Comment