German has reached 38 Million learners!
The German course for English speakers has reached 38 Million learners! Congratulations to the German team!
25 Comments
Yea, I'm one of the 38 million! I have this program on my phone and am a lot farther along than the computer shows... I've been doing this program for several years now... But I still can not for the life of me figure out when to use the correct you, she, he, my, the, to, etc... But I figure if I ever have to use my German skills I have learned, I would be able to communicate with a German speaking person (a little anyway)... They might laugh at me but they would be able to figure out what I would be trying to say.
You can find some great explanations online for this! Search for case pronouns (they change when nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive).
A quick breakdown:
nominative: use these ones when you are referring the Subject (the person or thing doing the action/verb).
accusative: use when referring to the Object (the person or thing that is the receiver of the action)
dative: use when referring to the receiver of the object.
ex. she gives the coffee to him. -- "She" is the one doing the giving (so nominative), so you would use "sie". The coffee is the object (the thing she is giving), so you would use "den" Kaffee, because Kaffee is masculine (and is der in nominative case, but changes to den in accusative). And "him" is receiving the object, so "him" is dative. So you would use "ihm".
she gives him the coffee -- Sie gibt ihm den Kaffee.
Unforunately, I have not yet learned the genitive case, so I can't help with that one.
There are a lot of rules about cases in German, and knowing what the rules are will make is so much easier for you. ein, kein, and even adjectives can also change, though you will find it's very consistent, so once you know them you're golden!
Edit - some prepositions (with, to, from, etc) always take a certain case. So for example, "with" is always followed by dative. "with him" would be "mit ihm" ALWAYS
I have enjoyed learning German though Duo. I have been studying for 3 years now! I am glad to be one of the 38 million! I always tell my friends to search this app when learning a new language. Danke!
I wish i knew "you're welcome" I haven't learned that yet. But i can say please: bitte.
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Would be interesting to know how many people finished their trees though. I've started a few courses without much consequence and I guess I count as a learner of those languages...
Around 1 percent: In 2013, 1 in 100 members had completed their course
(there were 10,000,000 registered users, and 100,000 of them had completed their course)
In 2017, there are now over 150,000,000 registered users (around 15 times as many as there were in 2013), so the percentage of those who complete a course could have changed dramatically. We can only assume that it's still somewhere around 1 percent though, since we have no data to suggest otherwise.
This 2013 article, which refers to statements from Luis von Ahn (the founder of Duolingo) gives both the numbers for 2013: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/15/tech/mobile/duolingo-incubator-language-teaching/
Duolingo total registered users in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo
How can you tell the difference between the different 'sie' . Because it can mean she, they, you informal.
p.s I might be wrong with what it means but my point is it is used in several different ways, so how can you tell the difference
I have absolutely no idea!!!! I am a beginner. Please excuse my enthusiasm.
when it means formal 'you', it begins with a capital letter, so is written as 'Sie', but the other two are written with lower case s, so 'sie'
What;s that mean? I'm only a beginner, but i can say some basic stuff: du bist eine Mann.
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I began the German from English course in November 2016 and finished it 198 days later. Then I did the English from German and finished Nov 4, 2017. It has been a great experience and I would say that it is at least the equivalent of a couple of semesters college German.But I still have difficulty reading and need to find someone to practice conversation with. I think I will return to the German from English course now.
I taught Spanish to English speakers for 43 years, and wish that Duolingo had been available then.
