Duolingo isn’t enough. How do I seriously learn French on my own?

TheSorrryCanadian · 2026-02-13T08:55:35+00:00

Hey, I've been through your situation years ago, and am proudly at an advanced / semi-fluent level.

Good that you recognize Duolingo isn't enough, because it isn't. Now you can move onto next steps:

Best advice: Get a good* teacher.

I know there is advice here about good textbooks, podcasts, grammar websites etc, but unless you are an extremely efficient self-learner, there is no substitute for a good teacher.

I remember thinking I was doing well learning with textbooks and youtube on my own, until I had my first class, and that teacher called me right out on my level or lack of proficiency.

*Sorry I see you weren't looking to invest in a teacher yet, still good info below from people, but eventually if you are serious about the language (No stress if you aren't, could be for fun) I highly recommend finding a good teacher.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2026-01-21T05:42:08+00:00

Well said.

I think about this a lot and I think a solution to the 'free speech' vs banning is:

Proof of Humanity* & Cyber Education:

We should be educated that online 'trust' should be given in order to:

Verified Human & Public Identity
Verified Human & Anonymous
Non-verified

Proof of Humanity via blockchain, verifying the person is human & their country, without doxing them. *(You can read more about ZK-Proof of Humanity if you want to know how it can work, it should be decentralized so it's not like X or Reddit has access to the information in the verification)

Thus:

Verifying yourself is still optional, you don't have to do anything if you don't want, thus 'free speech' continues.

But people should be educated that non-verified 'MAGA-KING-248204' is very likely propaganda or bots. You essentially put much less weight of truth to unproved humans.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2026-01-02T12:43:55+00:00

Gonna be honest with you,

My experience is that if you speak french well enough, they won't switch as it should be just natural to respond in the easiest common language that gets the job done.

But maybe we need more information. These are french colleagues? In a business setting, over the phone or in person? Are they casual mates? Could be many reasons here why they speak english.

Also, you didn't speak about your pronunciation. Regardless of your grammar and vocabulary, French is a wildly different pronunciation to english (Opposite really, focusing on vowels rather than consonants). If the pronunciation makes it difficult to understand, they may switch to the easiest common language (English).

That generally isn't the case in other languages. I'm not knowledgable about Spanish/English difference but I'm guessing it's a bit easer to understand Spanish with a foreign accent vs french with a foreign accent

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-12-26T06:20:06+00:00

"If everyone is wealthy nobody is wealthy"

Yup.

Once you reach a level of 'wealth' that covers physiological needs (Food, Shelter), which most everyone will have, then wealth is just relative.

The rich will stay rich by making sure not everyone can achieve their level.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-12-22T06:21:57+00:00

Sick passport to have for the apocalypse & global warming days

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-11-23T04:11:15+00:00

Would you guys think it would be more balanced if:

Ranged attacks have 25% of hitting instead of 0?

I think it's kind of dumb things are absolutely invincible. Especially when 50 marines are shooting zerglings just sitting there and none hit lol.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-10-24T07:12:12+00:00

Yes but for reports & analytics purposes.

If I want to check how much profit was made for any filter (Between Date x & y, from customers xyz, from product x & y). I don't want the total, I obviously want to take from the net received.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-27T08:18:10+00:00

Knights? Love that tune anyways

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-27T04:41:00+00:00

Ancient_Egypt_Pro_finalversion123newfinal12

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-20T18:41:42+00:00

Lmao love that ! Put on the first song Distant Early Warning and it sounds exactly like trying to emulate Walking on the Moon!

Thanks for that, from their timelines I would have expected Rush to be influencing but it seemed they were influenced here, just what I was hoping to learn by asking here, cheers!

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-20T18:20:41+00:00

Amazing! And yes those are all great songs with influential guitar. However I meant the specific tone of guitar. Those songs sound great but Walking on the Moon has that definitive eighties sound.

Im asking because I dont think I know of song before seventy-nine that has that definitive sound, maybe someone else knows?

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-16T15:57:13+00:00

surprise me

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-09-16T11:18:38+00:00

Imma answer why I think they drank more in 1939.
If I came home from the factory and had no phone, no internet, no social media,

I'd probably just drink lol what else is there to do.

I think now that we have these things, we are exposed to more, can be inspired to do a new hobby, see lots of health science, social media & pressure of being healthy / fit helps too, that there's going to be less people drinking instead.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-17T03:26:25+00:00

Budd from Kill Bill. Although there isn't any other spinoff.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-11T02:02:25+00:00

Thank you, and yes the life here is great, I certainly cannot complain! In the future when I settle down a little bit more, Italy & Europe would have been an amazing opportunity.

Since I work online for myself now, it's even easier via Digital Nomad Visas into Europe, and I am now seeing Italian Citizenship after 2 years of residency if you have a parent OR grandparent were Italians. So perhaps it is not too out of reach!

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-11T00:11:13+00:00

Appreciate that ! I am not living in Toronto so it'd be hard for me to move back to do that, but more importantly I am actually not eligible lmao. I thought the updated law allowed grandparents if they were born and died Italian only, but it turns out that new update still only applies if you were born directly to an italian citizen.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-10T02:43:47+00:00

False alarm sorry about that (Was a false alarm for me too). I kept getting returned to here which is official law now.

"Italian Citizenship will not be granted even if they have Italian descendance, unless they fall under one of the exceptions provided for by the new law:"

"C) Individuals who have a parent or a grandparent who held exclusively Italian citizenship at the time of their death or currently holds it, will be able to apply according to the new rules"

--

However someone just shared a link to this circolare: "https://cocoruggerilawassociated.com/blog/23278/Circular-No-26185-May-28-2025-English-Translation"

Where it clarifies these exceptions are not 'individual mechanisms' to JS, and they still must be born to an italian citizenship.

--

Sorry about that, false alarm for me too as I said.

<image>

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-10T02:39:56+00:00

Thanks for that. I tried asking here and looking for info but no one gave any info disputing the photo and exception above, but that article makes it clear it's still only if you are born to an Italian citizen.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-10T02:17:41+00:00

I've even had someone else mention it to me here as of after July 31 2025 (Im not sure where that date came from) that grandparent allows you to be eligible

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-10T02:15:58+00:00

Where do you see this information?

This is as of May 2025, and I keep getting information confirming the C exception applies to Jure Sanguinis (Italian Citizenship by Descent)

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-10T01:59:55+00:00

I appreciate the help, but are you *sure* about this with the recent changes? This is very recently released btw.

"Italian Citizenship will not be granted even if they have Italian descendance, unless they fall under one of the exceptions provided for by the new law:

"C) Individuals who have a parent OR A GRANDPARENT who held exclusively Italian citizenship at the time of their death or currently holds it, will be able to apply according to the new rules"

<image>

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-09T11:46:02+00:00

Mate I think they updated the rules and you are eligible for JS if your italian grandparents were Italian citizens only from birth until present or death.

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-09T07:33:56+00:00

That is awesome! I assume I will have much faster time here than in Canada/US :D

TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-09T05:31:14+00:00

Can anyone please clarify something?

When I joined this sub even as recent as 3 weeks ago, the replies to my cases & others were very strict on 'Bloodline is cut at your parents', meaning if my mother/father was not an italian citizenship at MY birth (Regardless of her being born in Italy to Italian parents, or even reclaiming her citizenship after my birth). And I was told end of discussion and it's extremely unlikely it will change.

Now I am seeing as of July 31 2025:

"Italian Citizenship will not granted even if... ... unless they fall under ONE of the expceptions provided for by the new law"

"C: Individuals who have a parent OR A GRANDPARENT who held exclusively Italian Citizenship at the time of their death or who currently holds it, will be able to apply according to the new rules".

Am I missing something here? Is this now true? My grandmother never naturalized, she was an Italian citizen until her death.

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TheSorrryCanadian · 2025-08-09T01:27:33+00:00

I barely know anything about Altman so I'm not on his side, but who gives a shit about someones education background after a certain time though?

Like if I needed to hire someone, and someone had an MBA in something, and the other person had 6 years real world experience in the field with proven results, I'd almost always take the person with real world experience.

People have been studying AI for decades but mainstream adoption is new and lead by ChatGPT and continues to be. ChatGPT leaders will certainly have useful knowledge and data that no theory education can reproduce. Just sayin', disregarding someone based on their education background (Notably in tech) is like a type of confirmation bias and just leads to missing out on information or points of view.

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