Thursday, September 05, 2024

Learning blocks

Some of the time and energy that used to go to my blog continues to be siphoned off by Duolingo. I am of mixed mind about whether that's good or bad.

Of the three languages on which I'm rotating weeks -- Italian and German being the others -- Japanese is by far the biggest lift, and therefore the one that's of clearest value. With Japanese Duolingo's strictly usage-based model shows weaknesses, at least for me, and in the way I'm going about this process. Since it never lines up logical categories (numbers, family members, colors) and teaches you them together, they don't stick that well in memory. I'm sure it would be better if I were to just stay with Japanese week after week, but I don't. Probably I should suspend my practice of alternate weeks and hunker down on Japanese.

But sometimes one needs an Italian vacation. 

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