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- Initial thoughts on the cours…
Initial thoughts on the course?
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First of all, big congrats to the team on making it into Beta! Second, I was just curious what people's initial thoughts of the tree are? I love it so far, I just wish it had a Greek keyboard to type in some of the Greek letters. Any other thoughts?
36 Comments
I have been exposed to Greek prior to learning it on Duolingo. Fortunately, I can say that I have a bit of experience with learning it. On the downside of this, It is beginning to become exponentially harder for a native English speaker like myself. I am making sure to take an overwhelming amount of notes to improve my learning of the course. I'm glad people other than myself are finding Greek interesting!
I started on Duo three years ago doing German and took notes by hand. It took too long and was difficult to organize. Then I found Quizlet and use it for everything. (No, I'm not on commission :)) There are other sites but I was satisfied with this so didn't even try any others.
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I haven't done much yet, obviously, but I like it so far. I like the TTS voice and the fact that there is audio for all the words. I like the long, multi-part into skill.
I installed the Greek keyboard so that I can advance a little further, so will do that today.
It may be a long journey, but this is one tree I am likely to finish one day. (Hey, if I can finish Russian, I can finish Greek, right!)
I'll likely post a better comment about the Greek tree somewhere down the line when I have something more intelligent to report, but I just wanted to check in and thank the Greek team for all their work and let them know I appreciate the opportunity to learn some Greek the Duolingo way!
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I cannot respond on behalf on Duolingo for any of their decisions, but here is my opinion:
The TTS voice offers some advantages:
You get "normal" and "slow" playback (with the real human voice recordings, you're stuck with the one speed).
You can hear each individual work in a sentence pronounced, over and over if you want (with the real human voice recordings, you need to hear the entire sentence just to get the one word you might want to hear again).
Finally, you get audio for every sentence. With the human voice recordings, there are a lot of words and sentences that don't have recordings. In the early stages when you're just learning and can't hear the sentences, it's hard to know how they sound and hard to remember them.
I simply find the TTS clearer and easier to understand than the recordings, although, I admit, there are occasional problems with the TTS pronunciations.
Esperanto is the only tree I've completed that didn't have TTS. I've given up on a few duolingo language courses (at least for new) mainly because they have live recordings instead of TTS.
Thank you. I like what I've heard so far but think all my courses have been TTS. One reason it took the course so long from the time the sentences were finished until we entered Beta was the problem of choosing the audio. I'm glad this was chosen it sounds fine.
I've been waiting for the Greek course for so long, and I'm so excited it is finally in Beta. If only I wasn't working all the time I'd be further ahead into the language. Thanks so much to the contributors
And another thank you. How kind everyone is. Don't worry about how long it takes. Duo doesn't ask for your homework as soon as you walk in the door. :)
For a long time I was eyeing greek course in the incubator and waiting for it to come out and after a few lesson I think I love it, for some reasons I like the kind of languages where you have to learn a new set of letters...maybe.
Yes, we were quite late but I hope it was worth it. Of course, there is still a great deal of polishing up to do before we are through. Many thanks.
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It was most definitely worth it. Thanks to you and all your colleagues for the hours of work you have put into this course and are continuing to put in now dealing with the snagging in the beta stage. You deserve a medal. :-))
As a greek I do believe that there is a room for improving, it's a good effort but it needs some work since some of the grammatical rules in the course are wrong. Especially on the way the "tonos" is used, oh well I guess it is something
We would really appreciate your input with some details to help us improve the course.
Hello! I am Greek, but I wanted to check it out, out of curiosity. Well done! One thing I noticed is that some better examples could be used for the pronunciation of "τσ" and "τζ", I would suggest "ch" and "j" respectively. Keep up the good work!
Thank you very much for weighing in. Being Greek your views will be of great help. Thank you for the tip on ''τσ" και "τζ". I'll get on it now. And you know we'd be very grateful for any other information, observations etc you could share. Best of luck with the German.
I am really enjoying the Greek course. It is very good. However, when I do the exercises, I spend too much time switching my keyboard from Greek to English. I would learn faster if the responses were grouped, half Greek, then half English. Instead of alternating languages and constantly changing the alphabet.
I think it is very good. Am being tripped up by odd spelling and words in some cases e.g. "forty" is taken as a wrong answer it insists on "fourty". At first i thought that might be the American spelling but having looked it up it doesn't seem to be the case. Also won't accept "sitting room" it must be living room so is clearly posh :-) But it is a very good course and congrats to the team.
I would probably report "fourty", as the general consensus seems to be that it is either archaic or a misspelling. I assure you it's not the American spelling (and we usually lose the u's rather than add extras).
Oh, please let us know on the "Report a problem" option, or here what you've found odd. And if you give some directions (subject, unit e.g.) it will help us find it quickly so another learned doesn't get held up. We are dedicated to including both American and British spelling but have slipped up a few times. And yes, I think we need both "sitting room" and "living room". Of course, we are ever so posh, but we also want to be fair. Thanks for your input and the congrats.
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I feel that if posh is the aim we really need drawing room, if not withdrawing room as well ...... NOTE:To those who might take it seriously, this comment is made with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek. :-))
Hanging my head in shame at having neglected "drawing room" I'm off to edit. We must be as posh as posh can be. Tata.
Doing some research I've found that the consensus is that "forty" is the way to go with "fourty" being arcahic. Just two of the better sites:>www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/forty and> www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forty
BE/AE most sides covered. So I'll go back and correct it. Do you recall where it was?
I reported it, and have subsequently had an email that my suggestion has been accepted and that "forty" is now accepted.
I'm enjoying the course hugely -- thanks to the Greek team for all their hard work! My only previous knwoledge of Greek is Ancient Greek, but I'm finding all of the lessons both useful and interesting.
Now, if that didn't "make my day". What more could we want than a satisfied learner. Thank you. Btw over on the Resource link there is a site comparing Ancient and Modern Greek and an interesting video also.
I really like it. I enjoy that they put a lot of effort into the letters. The Russian and Ukrainian courses almost assumes that people already understands the Cyrillic alphabet well, which makes all the rest harder.
Really enjoying (/ obsessed with) the Greek course - thanks so much to the volunteers who made it for all the hours you put in! So far (I've only been at it for a day and a half) I'm really appreciating the grammar, vocab and cultural notes - like the mini-intro to Greek cuisine in the food bit. This is already looking like a high-quality course. I've been eagerly waiting for months for this course and what I have in front of me now makes it all worthwhile. Thanks again!
I've also been using Michel Thomas (finished it but re-listening to the mp3s for reinforcement and memory) and Glossika (so awesome, do check it out), which are great for speaking and listening (an element of language learning Duo in general is weaker on because of being primarily text-based). What I am finding is that the Duo course is picking up on and making me tighten up all the bits and pieces I've been lazy on and haven't listened to properly, because on Duo you have to feed back into it in text. So I'm justifying my obsession with this course because it really is complimenting my more audio-focused study using Michel Thomas and Glossika.
Εφγαριστω πολι!
I just did the lesson on parts of speech -- I'm really pleased that the Greek course actually goes into these!
I'm liking the ourse after my first terrible try. It takes some getting used to. Someone wrote te tip about finding all the vocabulary in list frm on the 'school' site which has been a great help. Also so eone lse mentioned to 'tips' at the start of a unit if you scroll down you find vocab and grammar help. Lastly I didn't seeaguide to dipthongs which a Greek friend kindly wrote out for me. We have these vowels doples: (el tono always enter in the second letter of the two) αι (we say ε) example αίθουσα (éthusa) hall ει (we say ι) example εικόνα (ikóna) picture οι (we say ι) example οικογένεια (ikogénia) family ευ (we say εφ) example ευχαριστώ (efcharistó) thanks ου (we say u) example ουρανός (urano's) = sky
I love it so far and I like the keyboard in Greek! I visited Greece twice , Pireas and Naxos and I HAVE to learn the language. It is music to my ears, it has a healing effect...I truly hope my dream will come true and move to Greece one day. Many thanks from Romania!
I was four crowns (366) from a complete 5-ring golden tree when I was updated. But I reset completely with the new tree to try out all the lessons. My impression is that areas I'd previously completed contained heaps of new content. The colours has a whole heap of new vocab (βαθυ) and new gender endings. New terms in Family such as plural of grandad (παππούδες), and godson. Lots to discover, but take-home message is that even some of the very early classes have a significant upgrade and are much more challenging. In a good way.
Thank you so much for your positive and encouraging comment. And your clear and careful analyses not only shows you have check the course thoroughly but also guides us to further upgrades and improvements. This was a great way to being another day on Duo.
