Mon Trajet à 25
The numbers: Level: 25 XP: 30,004 Days: 260 (one streak freeze) Words: 2837 Fluency: 64%
Where I started from: From English speaking Canada. Written French is almost everywhere (all labelling, goverment offices & documents, instruction manuals, etc.) and I took French from grade 5 through high school. This gave me a decent vocabulary and the ability to conjugate a number of verbs in the present, passé composé, and futur proche; my listening and speaking skills were however minimal. Add in a couple of decades of time and what skills I had were very rusty.
How I used Duolingo: 50 points/day no voice/mic off web only The Tree: When I started I had a lot of free time and obsessed over Duo. I completed my tree in about 10 days, blasting through the things I knew but taking my time on things that were new (e.g. Futur simple? Why was I not taught this in school? Subjonctif? What the heck is that?) I can’t recall how many pts/day but I’d guess it was a lot. Post-Tree: Having the huge deficit in hearing French I would often look away from the screen for every exercise/strengthening and listen until I could figure out what was said. This took time and hence I put off using timed practice for months. This really slowed down my points production but the gains I made in hearing French were just amazing. During this period I would often just get my 50 pts/day. After adding timed-practice I’d target 120 pts/day minimum, often surpassing this number.
Other Resources: web: Lingquist, Memrise (Memrise lessons & Intermediate French). Both finished and no longer used. refrence: google translate, nouvelobs media: books on ereader (w/ Fr-Eng dictionary), TV w/ French subtitles on (easy to get in Canada)
Where I am now: Trying to watch 1hr/day of French TV/Movies. It’s still frustrating at times though. I do have occasional conversations with my French speaking friends and amaze myself that I’m able to do so, even if in a stilted fashion. I love Sci-Fi and have finished Asimov’s Fondation translated into French. Next book is reading French sci-fi authour Baranger.
Added benefit: Largely due to Timed Practice my typing has gone from ~30 wpm to ~50wpm
12 Comments
Ben, this is a lot of good work! Bravo !
One comment:
"mon trajet à 25" is a good word-for-word translation but we would not say "my journey to 25" in this way.
I would say: "mon parcours jusqu'au niveau 25", or "mon parcours jusqu'à 25".
Thanks for both the congratulations and the correction. Much appreciated.
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Congrats on your work! It sounds like it really paid off. I think speaking is the hardest skill to become proficient without having someone to practice daily. Good luck with your progress.
Thanks! It really has paid off. Duo is amazing, but you seem to know that already :) If I can find the time and shake off my lack of confidence I may have to get a native French speaking Skype buddy to get my speaking up to a decent level.
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very nice, thanks for sharing and good luck with learning even more :-) I am just on my way to 25 in German and I sure know it's not easy to get there... so props :-)
Thank you. Best of luck to you as well. Props for your very impressive streak.
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Thanks :-) I try to do a little every day. Do you know already if you are going to continue to use Duolingo now that you reached level 25?
I'm not sure yet. I will continue in the near term and I'm very interested in the Mandarin course that's on the way - between those times I'm not certain. If any additional content is available now that I'm 25 I'll likely stick around longer.
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I feel the same, when I get to 25 (hopefully by the end of October), still not sure if I will continue or not... that is with German. I will slowly continue working on my French (still only half way down the tree). Mandarin does sound very tempting. It must be one of the most demanded courses on Duolingo :-)
