Duolingo and other language-learning

Over the past few months I’ve restarted language learning via Duolingo – which, judging by this recent email congratulating me on my 8th Duoversary, I joined eight years ago. I haven’t actually been actively using the app for anything like that length of time: I assume I used it when I first signed up for it in January 2017, and then again briefly during the COVID lockdown, but then had tailed off until a few months ago, spurred back to it by Mum, Hannah and Nia all using it and adding me as a friend, and partly with the idea that it would be good brain activity. I have no idea whether the latter is really true or not, but it is quite fun. It’s easy to use and has a pleasant interface, though I have recently been suckered into paying for ‘Super’ Duolingo to get rid of the annoying ads. Once you’ve done that, though, it then tries to sell you Duolingo Max. IT WILL NEVER END.
 

I’ve tried out a few languages, but German is the one I’ve given most time to so far. A typical lesson includes written sentences to translate (in both directions), German sentences to speak yourself, spoken German sentences to translate into English, usually from a supplied pool of words, and ‘matching’ exercises where you match an English word to its German equivalent.

You can complete quests with your Duolingo ‘friends’, and are moved up and down through various leagues. In addition to languages, I’ve also recently had a go at Music, through curiosity to see what exactly they could offer in this area: it’s essentially some exercises teaching you the position of the notes on a keyboard, and to read music. It’s stuff I already know from learning the piano years ago, but is quite good as far as it goes.

Among the German sentences I’ve been presented with that I don’t foresee myself actually ever needing to use are the following:

I don’t live alone, I have a fish.
My cat runs every day without gym shoes.
I don’t love you, I only love mayonnaise.
Why is a cucumber in the living room?
Can you please buy ninety-nine carrots?
Oscar, are you picking up the turtle?

In reality I've never made serious efforts to become fluent in another language, though post-school I have done a few language classes over the years, all of them some time ago now. At school I missed out on studying German, due to changing schools at the wrong time and it evidently being thought that it would be too much for me to try and catch up with my year group - though I like to think I probably could have done. Perhaps this explains my keenness to have a go at it in adult life. I've also done evening classes in both Spanish and Dutch at various times. French was the only modern language I studied at school. I was fairly good at it, getting an A in my O-level plus my year's O-level French Prize. I did go on to take A-level French but went off it substantially at that stage, mainly because of the literature-heavy course. No idea whether A-level modern language courses are still like this. Probably.

Digressing a bit: for school prizes we had to choose a book (none of that Amazon gift card malarkey in our day), which then got a label stuck inside it before it was presented to us on Speech Day, as per above. The book I chose was William Horwood's Duncton Wood, a fantasy novel involving moles. I still have the book, though it's consigned to the attic. Looking at the back cover, I imagine I would have been swayed at the time by Magnus Magnusson's mention of both The Lord of the Rings and Watership Down, as I read and very much enjoyed both of those books in my teens. I don't think I ever got more than a few chapters in to DW, though Hannah pinched it and read it - in fact we reminisced briefly at Christmas about it and the character names we could remember. According to Wikipedia, Duncton Wood ended up being part of a six-volume series. Horwood must have felt the moles had legs.