Hi, trying to learn a little Italian. So far, have started with Duolingo but struggled a bit, so am having a few tutor sessions which is helping a lot and makes sense of Duo.
I walk my dogs for an 1-3hours per day, so want to try an audio app that will help me. I'm very much a beginner so things like learning numbers, verb conjugation, simple restaurant sentences. Thinking the app will express a sentence and I repeat, all audio based.
Any recommendations?
Not Duolingo. More game than language app. Other than that I have nothing. Sorry.
Try Language Transfer
Someone on here recommended it to me and after getting annoyed with Duolingo it was a revelation
Not an app but the Coffee Break… (Italian in your case) podcasts are pretty good.
Another vote for Language Transfer
https://www.languagetransfer.org/courses#italian
Duolingo is utterly awful
came on here to also recommend language transfer. free and can download the lessons if required.
I have it on my phone and I'm refreshing my French ahead of a week there. I did GCSE French in 1988 so I'm a little rusty but can get by in restaurants.
Just practicing gets your brain ready for when you go. Even if you learn nothing new it's good to practice. You wouldn't turn up at a half marathon without some training
I'm a big fan of the Say Something in Welsh course, and I see that they do an Italian version. Not cheap, but if you're using it for 1-3 hours per day then it feels a bit better value.
Not Babbel. Wanted to learn some Spanish basics but it seems to start at a more advanced level than I needed. Cannot do it just as audio (which I wanted) as you need to interact with the screen.
Thanks all. Tried Language Transfer on my walk this afternoon. Pretty refreshing after Duolingo, so fingers crossed.Cheers
If you have Spotify, try Paul Noble's learn Italian audio book, it's free. I still use the French language (advanced) course to brush up on my French before visiting the in-laws.
He uses a technique of beginning with familiar words (I'd imagine that there's many Italian words that you are already familiar with) and builds from that. before you realise it you building useful sentences. Once you have that, you need to speak it with someone. If you can't find someone to practice with, Jumpspeak seems to be all over social media, never used it though.
Hmmm. While it doesn't suit the OP's needs, what is so bad about duolingo?
We recently started using it & find it pretty good.
Currently doing Spanish from pretty much scratch & German from a basic-intermediate level having done AS level many years ago & then working in Bavaria for 6 months. It is very game-ified, but much better than spending 10mins scrolling through Facebook or whatever.
Having said that, I have not heard of language transfer so will take a look at that & see if it supplements Duolingo.
Hmmm. While it doesn't suit the OP's needs, what is so bad about duolingo?
I've reverted back to the Free version after using Super Duolingo for a year. It was the lack of any explanations when I got things wrong. It seems the "Explain my mistake" feature is only available in the expensive "Max" version. And even then, it's only AI driven.
So, learning from mistakes is all very well but this doesn't work if the mistake isn't explained, so just got frustrating. And it also covered some very bizarre language like "there is a tiger in my backyard". Not sure that's useful for a beginner who probably wants to learn holiday French. Two beers & a pizza would be more useful.
TBF, I have learnt some language but that requires me to google for answers also.
I'll probably stick with the free version but no more than that.
I just got sick of the gamified way duolingo teaches quite quickly, it just doesn't suit my brain. I had kind of given up learning, but with the recommendations for language transfer I will now give that a go.
I quite like the duolingo Max version with the AI video phone calls, I think it’s one of the best uses of AI I’ve seen, you literally talk with and interact with the character.
What I have noticed is that everyone complains about the bizarre language at first but tbh once you get into it that seems to be dropped as the language becomes more difficult.
I think you also have to remember that Duo is attempting to help you learn to not only speak but read and write the language not give a few holiday phrases.(which fail as soon as they ask you anything off script).
I also sometimes think that people get hooked up on mistakes , I’m not sure that massive explanations actually help you just have to be able to recognise the word order and get it right which I find gained by familiarity by reading more sentences with it.
Funny thing is it’s trickier than you think this learning a language lark, unless your a cunning linguist 🙂
TBF, I have learnt some language but that requires me to google for answers also
TBH it’s only a single tool in a toolkit of things , I watch telly and am starting to read books/comics , unfortunately it takes a fair bit of time to get enough vocabulary and ‘ear’ to get to a position that you can mostly follow the conversation and enjoy the program/book/comic and learn something more from it.
I just thought that after a couple of years of learning via Duolingo (and other sources) my language skills would be better, but perhaps I'm just not cut out for it 🤣 Or perhaps it's taking a while to sink in, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on Duo.
I suppose I can read, write, speak & understand more French than I think I can. I'll keep plugging away, though.
all depends on your goal really. i dont think theres anything better than language transfer for conversing with natives if thats your aim. it wont teach you to read and write tho.
i found duolingo crap really. i didnt mind the 'i have a pink elephant in my bathroom' type stuff, its just that it seemed to test rather than teach.
there were also some frankly disturbing sentences created too, which i thought if id actually experienced something like that in real life it might send me over the edge!
795 days into Duolingo. 🙂 It's not an academic course by any stretch, but the gamification keeps me coming back daily, even if it's only for a few minutes (and it'll generally be fifteen or twenty a day, I guess). I see a difference between courses (Japanese, pretty engaging - Vietnamese, REALLY weird, feels like easy-easy-easy-ROCK HARD!). I think it makes a difference that I'm learning for fun - if it was for a trip, I'd get frustrated that what I'm learning isn't likely to be directly useful.
Has anyone got any good talking books to recommend? I'm the same as AUS I walk my dogs 1-3 hours a day and as my in laws live in rural Spain I would like to put my spare time to good use and try and learn a bit more of the language. I've tried Paul Noble's one but started to struggle when it got past the basics! much appreciated.
Has anyone got any good talking books to recommend?
Oh that reminds me, Duolingo have some podcasts. I've only listened to a couple and they seem okay, I must start listening to them again when I'm out walking. Maybe they're of some use?
Thanks Glenn!
The duo max version of duolingo Spanish is getting very clever,I listened to vikrams radio show and then zari rang me up to talk about it.
Its very impressive just how immersive they are getting by using A.I in a really usefull way as opposed to just a sales tag.
I'm really looking to see how far they take this as I can really see being able to talk to someone in the language your learning as one of those (as oft overused used phrases) ‘game changing’ moments.
and as my in laws live in rural Spain
You’ll be able to speak some to them but be unable to decipher the response then 🙂
Around my way the native Spanish speakers from Madrid always complain that they can’t understand the local dialect(Murcian).
Or you’ll get what I get “Hey English do you want some of our fine Spanish beer” shouted out in English over a crowd of people at the outside bar in the square and I don’t really have a problem with spanish.(I just have to get the spanish in first.:-)
I’m a bit of a novelty as although I’m not fluent I speak more Spanish than a lot of the ex-pats they’re used to.(although TBF there are some oldies here who have gone to the hassle of learning the lingo and have a much greater group of friends/integration than the old school stereotypical ex-pats who don’t bother.)
@dudeofdoom you're right at the minute they either assume I can speak Spanish and fire back at me at 100mph which i've no idea what they're on about or they take pity on me and reply in English 😀
If your into Spanish with Netflix I recommend watching Alpha Males to practice your ear, it’s one of spains most popular comedy series written by Spanish soap royalty ,it’s rather funny (although you won’t want to be watching it with the kids or parents) 🙂
it’s not like anything you’ve probably seen before.
I also enjoyed Elite but tbh it’s targeted at a younger audience but also unlike anything you’ve seen, Grange Hill on speed and like 15 years of storylines in one episode with a large dose of sex,nudity , murder and lots of drugs but entertaining.
I also enjoyed Elite but tbh it’s targeted at a younger audience but also unlike anything you’ve seen
They filmed part of the latest (last?) season about 2 minutes from my front door 🙂
(Not that I've bothered watching it, but my daughters have).
I'm doing Duolingo to learn a bit of French and German - the main problem I have with it is that I'd like to have an overview of the grammar, and then build on that, while Duolingo seems to build very slowly bit by bit. An example of this is that you don't learn the days of the week all at once, but in this lesson you learn "Monday", and then you might learn "Tuesday" in a couple of lessons' time. Similarly you'll learn "I drink" today, but it'll be another couple of weeks of classes before you've covered you, he/she, we, etc. It's not wrong per se, but it's not exactly how I'd like to learn a language. It's also a bit American for my taste - that's a pavement, not a sidewalk, and we go to the toilet, not the restroom...
Still, ignoring those entirely subjective complaints, it is a very slick app, and I am definitely learning. I might give Language Transfer a try, though... although I'd hate to lose my 450 day streak!
I also think there’s an urge to switch, as you don’t feel that you are getting anywhere fast enough.
IMHO people really underestimate how long it will take to get enough of a language for it to be useful and then blame whatever they are using to learn as to why they aren’t engaging in fluent conversation then skip over to the next app/course.
I started off on Rosetta Stone as I originally found duo lingo too gamey like everyone else (TBH it has definitely changed over the years and they are now showing you the CEFR level it’s teaching you at and where you are) I definitely found that Rosetta covered a lot more language in a shorter time but ended up back on duo as that reading and writing part is really important as that opens up constructing sentences of things that you haven’t heard/ been taught.
I was in media markt returning a Wi-Fi thing and just mentioned to the assistant I wanted a refund onto my card, all done no drama but it’s not a phrase I’d been taught/heard, Mrs DoD’s like ‘where did that come from ?’ 🙂
I’ve also got a picture of a bike with the all the parts in Spanish as tbh your unlikely to get a duolingo unit that covers getting a new chain or tyre 🙂
