Thought or Rant of the day!!!

[ObsessedWithCats]

I'm doing my best to learn the special characters, mostly because I remember words best as pronunciations and the spellings then only follow properly with the accent marks. I'm really hoping the Memrise course I'm using will add the relevant buttons and start getting strict about it soon.

In German Duolingo points out missing/extra umlauts but wont penalise them - something like that would be good for Polish on Duolingo.

[Snickie]

I know Esperanto has special characters, but since they're used only for Esperanto, the people for DuoLingo have created a workaround (you can see some of these in the Esperanto forum here). So we would still know where the special characters go even if we can't type them. But now it's getting picky about it, sometimes notifying me about a misspelling when the only thing wrong is that I used the workaround instead of the actual character.

On the other hand, I installed the Polish keyboard on my computer a year or more ago when I was attempting to learn Polish through Busuu. So I have no need for a workaround there.

[ObsessedWithCats]

I've found an extended English keyboard and a Polish programmers keyboard in my computer's input settings (and the one at work too) so I can write German and Polish special characters respectively. There was a time when I tried using the alt codes for all the umlauts as well as ß but I can't imagine ever putting up with having to click the on-screen buttons. One of the many reasons French and I never got along :3

I go by the same name on Duolingo if anyone wants to friend me ^_^ If your name isn't the same as here you should let me know who you are because I get a lot of weird friend requests which I ignore.

[Snickie]

That's what my Polish keyboard is, the programmer's keyboard. As for French and German characters (except for ß which I have on my phone but not my laptop) I just use my full Spanish keyboard. It has a surprising number of extra symbols that don't really get used in Spanish.

The French keyboard and I don't get along because only a few things are in the same places. Lol

[Snowdrop]

The sky is sooo pink this morning! A really deep dusky sort of pink.

[destinysWalrus]

Arrrrrrgh, why are all my (wakeful) characters nice people?!

I had one character, I spawned her a while ago, she was supposed to be the kind of character that would be mistaken for a pirate. Sailor, fast ship, attitude... Yeah... didn't really work. Ship, yes. Rigging, in progress. Attitude... completely a pose, she's unexpectedly kind even when she's trying to be all tough and things.

Closest thing I have is a character who tends to wake up at random times and make snarky comments, but she hasn't even been snarking much lately.

*bangs head against invisible wall*


Edit - (the above isn't entirely true, I have a character who is going to go sliiiightly crazy if/when her boyfriend dies]

I remain irritated by my inability to play mean characters or any variation of "bad guy". Even my character who's supposed to be untrustworthy hasn't done more than hold onto items nobody reminded her to give back. She hasn't even done anything sneaky.

Rrrrrrgh.

[Xander]

I've just tried Polish on Duolingo (I've actually tried all of the currently available languages for English speakers and intend to do so with every language they add, although I'm mainly concentrating on Norwegian), and I think the pronunciation of Polish would be something I personally would struggle with.

My experiences of the languages so far -

Polish - I've only done a few words, but I found it difficult to understand them and I probably would struggle to spell them correctly.

Norwegian - I know plenty of words in the language and a lot of the language is very similar to English, although there are words that are completely different to their English counterparts.

French - I already know quite a bit of French and it's probably the closest thing I have to a second language (in the same way a couple of spare tyres and maybe some window glass is the closest a car owner has to a second car), so it's relatively easy, mainly due to the large influence the language had on English.

German - I think the thing I struggle with most when it comes to German is the different forms of "the", but other than that it's not too difficult. A lot of the words are similar enough to English, although it does have "false friends" like every other language.

Dutch - Easier than German in my opinion, probably because it's sort of in between English and German. I might spend some time in the future focussing on Dutch because I think I might be able to pick it up fairly well.

Esperanto - A lot of people think that this is a good "starter" language to try before you start a natural language, whilst others think it's a waste of time. I tend to agree with the former rather than the latter, but I haven't spent much time with this language.

Turkish - I found it fairly difficult and only remember a couple of words, but I liked the look of the language.

Danish - Obviously very similar to Bokmal Norwegian (Nynorsk being a more conservative form of Norwegian), there are some differences. However, my Norwegian studies have allowed me to understand more of my distant Danish cousin's statuses on facebook whenever he posts in Danish.

Swedish - I've noticed the differences between Swedish and the other two available Scandinavian languages, but it's not any more difficult. There seems to be some family connection to Sweden, either via an ancestor or a relative who emigrated there/married a Swede, so this language might be useful for genealogy someday (as could a few of the others on this list).

Ukrainian - I understand some of the Cyrillic language but not entirely so this was more difficult in that way, but in another way the first few words seemed rather easy to understand.

Russian - Similar experience to the one I had with Ukrainian, but maybe slightly more difficult.

Italian - Quite easy to understand, although I do find I make similar mistakes with Romance languages. I like the look of the language, though.

Spanish - Similar to my experiences with Italian and I might focus on a Romance language eventually.

Portuguese - A lot of the words are similar enough to Spanish but also can be quite different, and I did find myself using Spanish words instead of Portuguese a few times.

Irish - Like many British people, I'm partly Irish so it was good to try out an ancestral language, but I found it fairly difficult. I'm hoping Welsh (another ancestral language) might be easier.

[ObsessedWithCats]

Wow, that sounds like quite a project Xander XD There's a handful of sounds in Polish that don't exist in English but the fact that the pronunciation and spelling map nicely to one another is a big selling point for me.

I've found Polish infinitely more easy than French so far I never got along with French so that's probably not surprising.

[Snickie]

Holy crap, you're doing all the languages?

I've done lessons in
English to Spanish
Spanish to English (always good to reinforce)
English to French
English to German
Spanish to French
English to Esperanto
English to Polish

But I found it all too much to handle especially during the school year. So now I've limited myself to
English to Spanish (daily refresher, Spanish is my second language basically)
English to Esperanto (because it's easy)
English to Polish

Polish pronunciation is difficult for me. There are several sounds in it that don't exist in my accent of American English which makes spelling a guess when doing listening exercises (fortunately the rest of those so far are pretty easy). I'm still trying to understand endings, for example when to use kobieta vs kobietą (the only two forms of that word I've learned so far, and there are 14 if you count plurals).

Esperanto is straightforward. I just have to remember vocabulary, but there are so many cognates to English and other foreign words I already know.

French wasn't terribly difficult except for spelling and listening. Holy crap spelling. Also I never got to the part about the different verb tenses.

Not much to say about German. I was never very serious about studying it.

[ObsessedWithCats]

I'm doing four courses (English to Polish, English to German and the reverses of both) and have temporarily relegated German to stopping at Preterite and going back to really thoroughly learn all of the vocab before there. I'm supplementing both forward courses with matching Memrise courses because Duolingo makes it too easy to cheat and not actually learn the words XD.

I'm getting better at the word endings (though the endings on chłopiec for example are a nightmare, and pluralising...) but I've not really learned the rules so I'm not 100% even with the cases I should know.

The reverse Polish course has a load of words that don't appear in the equivalent forwards course lessons, which is mildly disorientating O_o

[Alutka]

I'm still trying to understand endings, for example when to use kobieta vs kobietą (the only two forms of that word I've learned so far, and there are 14 if you count plurals).

My language is so beautiful.

[Xander]

Wow, that sounds like quite a project Xander XD There's a handful of sounds in Polish that don't exist in English but the fact that the pronunciation and spelling map nicely to one another is a big selling point for me.

Holy crap, you're doing all the languages?

I'm not actively studying any language other than Norwegian, but I do try out the new languages and occasionally do some of them.

[Finchington]

Sometimes Australia isn't so bad.

[MonkeyPants4736]

What you don't see is the eight foot tall spider and forty foot long snake just outside the frame of the picture, both about to pounce on you.

[Finchington]

What you don't see is the eight foot tall spider and forty foot long snake just outside the frame of the picture, both about to pounce on you.

Hey, that's not fair. The spider was only six feet tall.