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Oh God yes. I once had a furious shouting match with it in the garden, much to the bemusement of my neighbours

Glad it’s not just me!

yes, i just got done shouting the spanish word for fork (tenedor for those so curious) at it repeatedly for a good 2 or 3 minutes.

Watching the latest episode of Fist of the North Star. And in the opening credits, I’m able to recognise some of the Hiragana.

I can tell you the sound they represent, but couldn’t tell you what the word is.

But hey, not bad for a fortnight of learning from zero knowledge!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Watching the latest episode of Fist of the North Star. And in the opening credits, I’m able to recognise some of the Hiragana.

I can tell you the sound they represent, but couldn’t tell you what the word is.

But hey, not bad for a fortnight of learning from zero knowledge!

That's certainly better than me watching Star Trek III after 500 days of Klingon and hardly understanding a single klingon word, you know, quite the only situation Klingon could actually be used for.

(I think by now it's a bit better, knowing "So'wI' yIchu'!" (Activate the claoking device!) is quite practical for most of the movie klingon dialogues...)

I have been caning it though. Finished in first place across the first two league tables, and am currently 4,000xp ahead of the second place person.

I’m finding the short nature of each lesson a boon. If I’m pondering something at work? I can jump on Duolingo for a lesson or two, whilst the back burner of my brain works on the professional stuff.

Really wish I’d done this years ago now.

My wife is doing German on it, I'm doing french.

One of my biggest complaints of her doing German is how they default to the "du" not the "sie". I took two semesters of german in college, and it's making my pull my hair out because I'm all "you are literally introducing yourself to this person, they dont know you! WHY are you Du-tsing them??????!?!?!?"


I have had my eye out for a better, non-AI using language app, so I'll have to watch that YT video someone posted above when I get the chance.

Mild frustration today. I’m at the stage where it’s starting to ask me to type stuff in Japanese. I need to be very careful there, as whilst I’ve been diligent in noting down the correct Hiragana Katakana and Kanj for each word or phrase? Its keyboard translation software is wont to suggest the wrong one first.

It is of course on me to double check it. But man it can get right on my pip when I need to type “Ha” to get right “Wa”. Same with San, which is either the honorific, or the number 3.

But it is effective in teaching me where the differences lie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I think I want a new notebook. Bought one especially, but my notes are kind of all over the shop, so it can be tricky for me to find the right word or phrase.

I have no experience with Duolingo, I've been using WaniKani to study Japanese for a while now, but it is solely focused on reading and vocab through memorisation and mnemonics. So it won't really make you conversational in a short time.
I took some Japanese classes years ago, so I have a basic grasp of grammar and sentence structure, which helps a lot with understanding the example sentences and picking up on new patterns. And I find it quite fun to learn the kanji spelling of words I already know or recognise from anime.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It is of course on me to double check it. But man it can get right on my pip when I need to type “Ha” to get right “Wa”.

Don't know how the keyboard in Duolingo works, my main issue in Wanikani is having to double type n to get the hiragana/katakana "N", because otherwise it'll append the n to the next hiragana and turn it into "Nya" or something.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Same with San, which is either the honorific, or the number 3.

Counting in Japanese is a big old mess once you get into it, something for you to look forward to
My favourite is that the Japanese kanji for book (hon) is also used to count things, but only long, cilindrical objects (pencils, etc). If you want to count books, you have to use another kanji, very intuitive.

Startin to learn some bigger numbers. Hyaku, Sen specifically. And if memory serves from something mentioned much earlier in the course? It’s not that far from French.

So, for my age of 46? It would be…erm… Yonjuuroku.

Or “four tens and six”.

I’m also wondering if having a scottishish accent, I’ve a bit of a leg up on pronounciation. Lots of guttural sounds.

No that’s a deliberate second ish. Lived in England for…erm…36 years (sanjuuroku!) it’s genuinely scottishish.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Startin to learn some bigger numbers. Hyaku, Sen specifically. And if memory serves from something mentioned much earlier in the course? It’s not that far from French.

After that they move to hundred thousand (Man) and hundred million (Oku), which requires a lot of menthal arithmetics on my part.
I was specifically talking about counting words though. We just put the numbers before a noun (two books), but Japanese doesn't do that. There it depends on whether an object is alive, its shape/size, whether it has wings, is human,... Quite annoying to learn. In basic conversation hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu,... luckily suffice most of the time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m also wondering if having a scottishish accent, I’ve a bit of a leg up on pronounciation. Lots of guttural sounds.

I found that most Japanese pronunciation comes quite easy thanks to knowing both Dutch and French. Except for the correct pronunciation of the fu (more whistly I believe) and g- sounds (slightly nasal). But I'll never pass for a native anyway, so close enough is good enough.

Yeah….just getting into that.

One, as a number, is Ichi.

But, One as a quantity of an item? Is Hitotsu.

Kinda following on from my passing familiarity with French and its gender words? I try not to worry about “how and why”, and am instead going with “it just is, so you’ll have to learn it”

On Fu? I find it easiest to pronounce by pretending I’m about to say the F Word, but only get about half way through saying the F before deciding not to bother. More a breath than a syllable.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Fu? I find it easiest to pronounce by pretending I’m about to say the F Word, but only get about half way through saying the F before deciding not to bother. More a breath than a syllable.

Sounds like a good trick, just remember to actually stop halfway when you're in Japan

I’ll tell you this for now, there’s what I’ll define as an Anime Girl voice on Duolingo, and man do I struggle to parse what it’s said!

Not too bad when the “say it slower” button is there, as that usually helps. But when it’s just “here’s some high pitched syllables spoken really quickly” I struggle.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll upgrade to Max, give it a whirl for a month. Brings “video chats”, so better for actually practicing what I’m learning. Spesh as you can do as many as you fancy.