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Golden Tree Club
You are invited to join The Golden Tree Club :) I have been turning my French tree a lovely gold. This seems to be taking a bit longer than I thought it would. I originally planned on making an announcement once I had completed my gold tree. I thought a festive party with friends would be such fun. Then I remembered hearing that the journey can be more fun than achieving the destination. Especially when taking the journey with friends.
I'm open to suggestions as to how we can all enjoy supporting each other as we accomplish our mutual goal of turning the Tree of our choice to a lovely gold. I shall now return to my half golden tree :)
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I have two golden owls now. How would anyone see them? I even bought the tuxedo but I think I am the only one who can see it. Is that right?
Hi Zsuzsi, Have you been to the discussions? I am sure someone could help you post your owls and your gold trees in a Discussion post. We are on a discussion post right now. I would love to see your golden owls in their tuxedos! :) I'll check around to find someone who might know how to do this. I suspect ML might...
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/27018964https://www.duolingo.com/comment/27018964https:// ML, Please read this post and tell me what you might know about this situation. Just now I tried to make a new comment to the group. All of the postings disappeared and I saw only the original post and no way to comment. Is this happening to everyone?
Hi ML, Was the funeral for your dad's friend who had fireworks on his birthday?
This discussion is not the first to disappear. I am starting to feel paranoid.
ML, today I finally got to level 20 in Spanish! This is the first new level since the Activity Stream was discontinued. applause, applause ;)
Steffi, congrats on your 100 days! :) This discussion is vaguely familiar. I believe there was a time that you and Lrtward helped with something technical. I might try this sometime. However, I would probably not be able to participate unless the Duolingo forum has automatic translations. You know, like the UN does.
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My tree was golden yesterday, alas the glitter has faded a little. Je dois pratiquer mon français un peu plus.
I can understand how you might have difficulty keeping a tree golden considering all the languages you are learning ;)
This Club was to support people working toward making a tree (or trees) golden. I see there needs to be a way for people to post the tree they have made golden and the date they accomplished this. Also, Lrtward suggested that this be posted on the Duolingo forum for all languages. Since I do not know how to do either of these things I would appreciate someone stepping in to do this.
As you can see there are two people ready for the (gallery?) RedheadedRogue has golden French and Spanish trees and Simon has a golden Spanish tree.
Hey Ev/Odelia, thanks so much for the kind words! I don't believe we've met before, but you can call me Anne (not my real name, alas, but I'm a bit leery of possible stalkers floating around). I've been learning Spanish since I was eight or so but only got really serious this past September; same with French but I had no prior experience with that. I'm learning purely out of love of the thing, which, along with a decent knowledge of Latin, I suppose explains my semi-quick completion of the trees. As for keeping them golden, I try to manage 100 XP per language per day when at all possible, sneaking into Duolingo whenever I have free time. ^_^ I spent a fair bit of my childhood in Europe - though I never learned the languages then - and hope to return someday when I have the means.
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We are similar. I was born in Hungary but left when I was five 66 years ago! I started the Hungarian for English speakers in October and got the golden owl about two weeks ago. So 5 months. Then I did the reverse - English for Hungarian speakers and got the owl in just two weeks! I was so surprised. My Hungarian isn't rusty any more and I was able to carry on a two hour phone conversation with a Hungarian woman!.
Latin also helped me a lot - I am doing French now as well, and will get busy with German after that. I don't like to do two at once although I am drawn to the conversation practices in French which is not available in Hungarian. I like to totally immerse and think in the language I am practicing.
I learned German in a refugee camp in Austria while we waited for a year to get a visa to go somewhere. We landed in Canada, went to Montreal and so I learned English and French there. I have been living in the U.S.since 1960 but I am getting ready to go back to Budapest to live for a year or so. That is why I came to DUO to work on languages. I am amazed at how well it is going.
I know it is not the same for people who have no background at all in a new language although I did learn some Spanish and Italian through immersion while working in Europe for short periods like a few months at a time where those were the languages spoken by my business associates.
Keep it up! You will do so well with this!
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio..." 'Hamlet' ;) I loved your "Alas" :)
Dear Anne, Please choose a name chuckle or create one of your own :)
200 XP's a day? You must type like the wind!
You must have wonderful stories of spending "a fair bit of my childhood in Europe".
I am inspired by you. I will make 100 XP's a goal for today. Let's start with one day ;)
I love his quotes. They seem to be in a lot of movies and shows. I'm sure I've seen much more of his work than I realize. So tell me how much you love Shakespeare :)
How old were you when the tourists found you as interesting as the canals? Did they take a picture of just you? Did this happen more than once? Were they able to speak English?
Oh, very much. I've had a lot of his quotes memorized since I first started reading him - and I mean really reading, not just getting through assigned plays for school. Anyone who makes up literally thousands of words that we still use deserves my respect.
I was very young. Not sure exactly how old, but young enough that I'm pretty sure I only remember because my family has told the story to me a few times. I believe it did happen more than once, which is how my parents finally figured out what was going on, but I don't remember having the actual pictures taken. Probably there was something more interesting in the pictures than just me. ;) They spoke a little English, but only enough to get their basic meaning across.
Ah, do I detect another Shakespeare fanatic? And while we're on the subject, I think I'll go with Odelia - reminds me of Ophelia. Ev/Odelia is certainly too unwieldy to keep up. ;)
Heheh, well, I'm still in school after a fashion and do quite a bit of studying on the computer - the typing comes quicker after awhile.
I don't remember as much as I'd like, but I do have some fun stories. My favorite comes from when we went on a family tour of Venice - there were many Asian tourists there that summer, and they thought my red curly hair quite as exotic as the canals and asked to have my picture as a souvenir. Scared us half to death until we realized why.
I didn't recognize the quote from reading Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the plays I like most), so I looked it up and it's by someone called Oliver Goldsmith: https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/45/messages/1059.html
Thank you so much :) It's still a lovely old quote, is it not? What are some fun quotes from a Midsummer Night's Dream?
Another question. Would this play be considered a farce?
"Beware the Ides of March" (March 15th) I was looking at my calendar and thought of this quote form Shakespeare's Julius Cesar. Shakespeare must have loved history!
It is indeed. ^.^ My favorite Midsummer quote would have to be "And though she be but little, she is fierce".
I'm not sure if it would be considered a farce - though to be honest, I've never been quite clear on what a farce actually is.
He must have! One of the reasons he was so great. Julius Caesar is among my favorites as well.
Bonjour mon amie, comment vas-tu? How is my favorite redheaded Shakespeare fan today? How gold is your French tree today? How did you do your 100 XP's for French today?
I am to skills away form having my 4th checkpoint gold. One is people and I presently cannot recall the other one.
Today I reviewed "Negatives" and "Adverbs" Some of the Sentence Discussions in these two skills are stock full of information! Luv it! :)
Anne, Did you see that I gave Lento noogies yesterday? He deserved them ;)
Why did you say goodbye and not talk with us?
What I meant to say was, "Where is Lento with his celebratory orange tuxedo?" Steffi, are you a mod or a course consultant? I think Theron has a similar Green world and ring. He is very secretive about his new responsibilities :)
Do you know Iris? She has been looking for someone to help her with German. Also,, Nina, probably would love some help. I have not been able to talk with her but I see that she is still active.
What I did when I abandonned my old account was definitely not ok. I am very sorry for that, please accept my apologies. I can only say that I had to face a very difficult situation in my personal life and I did not manage that very well.
I took a break and started again, with a new fresh account. And at first without writing in the forums. And then I started to reply on sentence discussions on GE-TR...
Oh, how is ForgedbyHistoria, you brought us Turkish learners together, and SmallStrongMouse - Nina, you told me that she would like to improve her German. How is Hope?
Oh Wow! Would you please put a link so that I will be able to see if I could fit into your world?
I miss FbH terribly. I knew he wouldn't have much time for Duo since he was getting his Masters in December. But he didn't even say goodbye :(
I have no way to speak with Hope. I think that Usiageboy is the only person who might know how they are
You might be able to contact Nina since you are a mod. She is listed on my list of friends. I am so relieved to see that she is hanging in with Duo. The last time I talked with her she thanked me for keeping up her spirits. I am so frustrated that I am no longer able to find out how she is doing :(
RR had just taught me how to do links and now that way doesn't work anymore. What's up with that?
Steffi, Please read Lrtward's suggestions for the Gold Tree Club. I would appreciate you taking these suggestions and organizing such a club. Would you have time? I'm just an ideas person. I need help with organization and follow through.
I love that you are back! Do you think that Lento and RR know how to contact you?
This is the link to this discussion here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/26537665
Once I find the old thread - where I left - I'll copy it there, those who still follow that discussion and have email notifications enabled will get a notification and thus know where to find us now :-)
Edit: done !
Another update: with the new crowns my trees are colorful again, but I like them more and more. It feels as if the golden indication of the word strength is missing, but the strengthen button still works, so the word strength is still there in the background. But I get credit on how often I repeat a lesson now, which is also nice to see - and encouraging. It seems as if they placed no skill higher than crown level 3 in the transition and I am glad to have a lot of skills on level 3 already :-))
Hi, everyone! (Hi Lento! I've missed you! I hope to see you more active in the leaderboard!) Listen: I have an idea.
I have the Duolingo app on my phone (android.) I was thinking I could start a club. I'm thinking French because that is one of the languages we all share. Would anyone like to join this club? I will set it up and post the activation code if anyone's interested. If no one is, forget I said it. :)
ML, I have no Idea what you just said. The truth comes out! You are a secret agent, aren't you. As you know, I have suspected this since we were deciding what to call each other and you refused to tell me your name. Now everyone else calls you by the "K" name and I have become accustomed to calling you ML. Seriously, I have no idea how to find your club. You gotta map?
Lento, Great news! :) All the skills in the fourth group are GOLD!!! I thought that everything was gold yesterday. Then I noticed that a skill lost a bar. It is now a lovely gold and I'm on to the last group. The last group seems to be as large as the first four put together. How gold is your tree now? I hope today that you will have a lovely streak of one ;)
Thank you :) What would you say is the trick to keeping a tree gold? I think I remember reading a conversation between Theron and Garpike about this. I think Garpike recommended doing something 5 times because it's easier to do all 5 at one time than to do 5 in 5 separate times.
I was going to make my 'announcement ;) yesterday but Infinitives lost a bar.
Lento, please check out my new quote :)
I don't know how to keep skills gold, I've never tried before, I always just zoop through the tree. I've heard that if you don't make mistakes or peak that they will stay gold longer but I don't peak and I've hardly made any mistakes on these early skills and half of them lost their gold Wednesday.
What is the quote, I can't see the one on your profile because my IPad doesn't display profiles correctly, I see part of it but the rest is covered up by your profile picture. I just know it says something about how tough you are but I already knew that.
Lento, The first lesson of Verbs Present 3 is quite fun when you read the Discussion Sentences! :) Example: "Tu viens ici souvent? ;)" Example: Mixing those forms up makes it impossible for listeners to be sure who is doing what to whom. lol (subject, object and direct object)
I tell you, I live for the Discussion Sentences :)
Thank you ML :) My heart rate is still trying to get to normal ;) I'm not sure that I've thought in sputter before! :)
I thought the race might be about skills made gold not XP's. How many skills do you have that are gold? I just need to make people gold in the third checkpoint. Perhaps I will have a gold tree in a month or two with the two of you competing ;)
Hi Lento, Dafne's not here. I'm not sure if she will see your message tonight. I will be sure to tell her tomorrow that you messaged her :)
We did have such fun last night. I needed to start the Spanish tree over because I had forgotten so much. She was doing the English tree for Spanish. We would check with each other how words are pronounced. There was laughing involved :)
Where she was sitting with the laptop she could see my computer screen. When I did a Spanish story she would always laugh before I would laugh. The reason being, she just had to read it while I had to translate first.
How are you doing Lento?
Hello Lady!! It's so nice that you have someone you can do duolingo with, it sounds like you are having a great time.
I've been doing great, very busy though. Easter week is the busiest week of the year at the zoo so I've been spending a lot of time there. It's a big zoo and I do a lot of walking so I just feel like taking a nap and watching tv when I get home. I haven't worked on duolingo much this week.
Thanks for your reply Lento :)
I'm so excited! On Friday I gave Dafne the Duolingo site and my user name. Today I saw a follow from Dafne in my inbox. I followed back and left the computer for about 10 minutes when I suddenly stopped and said, "Dafne?"
I buzzed her apartment to ask if she was the Dafne who followed me on Duolingo. She laughed and said yes.
ML and Lento, I'm not sure how to get Dafne to the Discussions. She uses her phone and I use my computer. ML, I know she also followed you. I can hardly wait for her to join our discussions. Spanish is her native language and she enjoys learning English.
I wish I could switch my tree to Spanish right now.
If she types duolingo.com/discussion into her browser she can see the discussions. She can't do it from the app though
Hi Lento, I have never heard you say that you are lazy. How are you feeling mi querido amigo? (impressed ;) You are the most energetic and caring person that I know.
I need your help with a problem. Recently I started to work on Spanish again. Presently I am doing Basics two level three. I would like to refresh my understanding of basics. However, I am not able to go back to Tips and Notes like I was able to before the Crown System. I cannot find a light bulb to tap on level 3. (Never thought I'd say that sentence) Help, por favor.
Have a Sun Shiny day day, Lento :-)
It will automatically change to show your Spanish course details when you switch to the course on Duolingo.
Duome is not made by Duolingo but by a fan. Please see also the FAQ of that page and this:
https://duome.eu/thankyou
I added a bookmark to it - with my username to see my overview.
Adding bookmarks or favorites varies from browser to browser, not so easy to explain without seeing which one you are using, sorry.
I am impressed lady! A 500 day steak!!!
You say so many nice things about me, maybe I'm not lazy, I just have too many projects going at the same time that I sometimes neglect duolingo. I still study Spanish everyday though, even if I'm just flipping through flash cards at my moms house.
Did you find the Tips and Notes? Spanish Basics 2 doesn't seem to have them, I don't think they made Tips and notes for all the skills.
Thanks for the congrats :)
I am sure that others say (and think) many nice things about you ;
I think it might be true that if you are working on several projects at the same time, you might not feel you are progressing as fast as you might like. I'd love to hear what some of the projects are :-)
D'accord. Spanish Basics 2 does not seem to have them. Would you know how Steffi got my French record? I'd love to have one for Spanish.
Did you get my short French note about how I love to watch birds play in my birdbath? I adore birds! I love watching how they interact with each other. The pecking order is fascinating to observe.
I asked Dafne, "How can you not like birds?" She shrugged. (no information there lol) However, she did say that zoos made her feel sad because the animals should be free and living in the wild with their families. I understand that way of thinking, but I think zoos are great PR for saving the wildlife of the world.
Dafne and I are having great fun learning from each other. She helps me speak Spanish. I help her learn some of the interesting history of the English language such as why one third of the English language is French, Anglo-Saxon and our extremely entertaining ways of communicating with idioms.
Mu understanding of the English language has improved since Dafne and I have been learning together. She is a stickler on pronunciation and tenses. I have gotten to the point of telling her that I am not sure and to please ask her English teacher and then tell me what the teacher says. For some reason Dafne does not believe that I do not know the answers. I try to help her understand that even though English is the only language I know, this does not mean that I know how to correctly construct a sentence. Oh well, I think that one day she will understand the difference between speaking a language and correctly communicating in that language.
What are some of the language sites you go to? I'd like to show Dafne. I wish I could see the bird show at your zoo. I have to tell you Lento, you have not lived until you have seen a robin bathe in a birdbath! omg
Helllooooo!
I can't remember all of your questions bu I will try. I have a birdbath but I can't see it from my window but I do have a puddle after it rains that the birds will play in. I saw a Robin bathing a few weeks ago, and it was cold that day. If you are ever in NC I will make sure you see the bird show.
I meet a lot of people who don't like birds, some people are afraid of them and won't go into the aviary because they are afraid the birds will get them.
I have always loved the zoo but I also used to think zoos were kind of sad in a way but we need them, I'm sure all the animals at my zoo are happy, they have so much room, over 500 acres. Our Rhinoceros habitat by itself is bigger than most zoos are. And all the animals are loved and taken care of, the keepers do such a great job.
They don't go out in the wild to capture animals anymore just for zoos, they only do that if the animal is in trouble and needs rescuing. Most zoo animals were born in zoos or rescued from somewhere.
Our zoo spends a lot of time and money in Africa trying to prevent poaching and poisoning and finding ways for people and animals to live together. They work together with a lot of zoos in America on breeding programs to keep the captive populations healthy, that's why you see zoos trading animals so much. One day some of the zoo populations will be all that's left of some animals. African elephants and rhinos and gorillas in the wild will be lucky to make it out of this century. And zoos can release animals sometimes when they have too, red wolves were completely extinct in the wild a few decades ago but they were reintroduced by captive breeding programs, they are still in big trouble, there are less than 300 in the world most are in zoos. The California condor was down to two dozen so they captured them all and bred and released them, there are hundreds in the wild now. Some kind of monkey went extinct in South America recently, I can't remember its name but they were successfully reintroduced and we were told they are doing fine now. Every time someone visits our zoo they are helping to save animals in the wild and hopefully getting educated about them too but they try to keep the message positive.
Languagetransfer.org is the only other site I use that has more than one language, they have English for Spanish speakers too.
I'm studying a Spanish course called Accellerated Spanish at masterofmemory.com it's my new favorite because it teaches idioms and all the tenses from the beginning.
I know what you mean about teaching someone English, I know Someone who lives in China teaching English and sometimes I think that would be great but I'd have no idea how to teach them, I feel like I can't even speak it myself and I'm afraid everything Intell them would be wrong.
I feel your concern. Like I told Dafne, I can tell you what I say but that probably isn't the proper English that would be what you should learn. If you are going to learn a language, why not learn from someone who knows what they are talking about. (I am pretty sure that we are not suppose to start a sentence with a preposition) I think my second sentence doesn't seem right. And I can't stop using prepositions at the end of a sentence - but that is classic Wisconsin.
So, you've seen a robin bathe? Is it not hilarious? :-) They are SO through! First they stand in the deepest part of the birdbath. Then they 'sit' down and start to do exaggerated splashing. After about five vigorous, simultaneous splashes they start the diving part of their program. I love how they dive their head under the water, raise their head and proceed to dive a few more times. They might do some extra splashes before they hop to the side of the bath, flap a bit, shake their tail feathers and then hop onto the shepherd plant hanging stand that I now let the birds have :) The robin preens a bit and then does the whole procedure one, two or three times more. I am sure the smaller birds wonder what the robin's major malfunction is lol
Only one robin is able to take a bath at a time since they seem to occupy the whole birdbath. However, the little birds are fond of playing in the water with each other. One time there were about 12 or 14 birds flapping around the birdbath at the same time! I told my son that they must be coffee clutching. He said, "They're what?" sigh Another part of Americana gone forever...
I love hearing about how progressive your zoo is. I thought of Michael Jackson's video, "This is It" when you explained how zoos are helping save endangered animals.
Yo también, despues de algunos días, regresé. Hoy Odelia, me enseñó como pronunciar la frase "What the heck" por que me gusta el sonido, aprendí a decirlo y lo digo mucho, y me preguntaba si tú consideras que sea apropiado decirlo en una iglesia jajaja Bueno, sería divertido hablar contigo en español y ayudarte si lo necesitas y tú ayudarme con el inglés. = )
¡Buenas tardes Dafne! He estado muy ocupado por un tiempo (¡la esposa del gobernador vino a donde trabajo!) pero voy a tratar estar aquí más. Sería muy feliz ayudarte con ingles y necesito mucha ayuda con español.
I don't think "what the heck" would be too bad to say in church, I don't think it would bother anyone. I personally wouldn't say it there though.
tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEyOSK9nxo&t=144stps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEyOSK
Congratulations Anne on your 101 day streak! :-)