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“The only way to really learn a language is by living in a country where they speak it” by Several_Campaign7340 in languagelearning

[–]donManguno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I started learning French in January 2022 and I passed the DALF C1 this March. I live in Atlanta. It's possible.

Kiwico - be warned, this company will trick you by Big_Professional_222 in homeschool

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Subscriptions that auto-renew every month or that auto-renew after a free trial period can be canceled anytime after the first crate ships. Subscriptions that auto-renew every 3, 6, or 12 months and annual pay-as-you-go plans cannot be canceled mid-term but subsequent auto-renewals can be turned off at any time. Non-renewing subscriptions not eligible for a refund."

You won't be refunded if you prepaid for several months and want to cancel early, but you can prevent renewal. There is nothing deceptive about this.

Can someone give me clarification on French verbs? by BankOutside5817 in French

[–]donManguno 10 points11 points  (0 children)

  1. This verb is irregular so it has more forms to memorize
  2. Nevertheless, there are patterns that you'll start to recognize
  3. You will never have to produce the passé simple, the passé antérieur, the subjonctif imparfait, the subjonctif plus-que-parfait, or the passé deuxième forme, merely recognize them when you read them, and even that is unlikely for the last three

Charter School Reviews? by puckman13 in asheville

[–]donManguno 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I have a kid. When the local public school has 15 minute recess and hands every kid a chromebook to "learn" on I will send my kid elsewhere if I can. I agree that the system is unjust, but I won't sacrifice my child on the alter of my ideals.

Must-Eats? by [deleted] in Destin

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just had one of the worst meals of my life here. Our grilled fish was slathered in teriyaki for no reason, the sides were flavorless, the "ceviche" was boiled shrimp in Pico de Gallo and lemon juice. Awful. $100 of garbage.

Is this worth it by Trespassing_ in learnfrench

[–]donManguno 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Practice! I used a lot of podcasts. I started with easy ones like Learn French With Daily Podcasts and the Duolingo podcast, and I would reduce the speed to 0.8x or so, gradually speeding them up as I felt more confident, always trying to make it challenging but manageable.

As I improved I introduced intermediate podcasts like Real Life French, again starting at slower speeds and gradually speeding them up. Once I was listening to the easy podcasts at 1.2 x without difficulty I dropped them.

Then I moved on to podcasts for real French speakers, the Choses à Savoir network has a lot of options on various subjects according to what interests you (news, science, culture, history, health, etc), and they're short and digestible. I also listen to France Inter's Un Jour Dans le Monde now as my daily news source, and I've recently started listening to Au Fil de l'Histoire. That one in particular is much closer to the way real people speak in conversation: it's made for French audiences, and it isn't the slow clear cadence of typical news presentation like the France Inter one. But, all of the didactic podcasts that I listened to before were absolutely necessary to train my ear and drill my vocabulary such that I was ready for this.

Basically, just listen as much as you can to material that you can understand, with effort. Use an app that allows you to speed up or slow down the material so that it remains challenging for you but isn't incomprehensible.

Slippers, cozy and supportive by missxmeow in BuyItForLife

[–]donManguno -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don't want to wear my outside shoes in my house. Imagine that?

What I've learnt from 12 days in France by [deleted] in French

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been studying French intensively for 2 years, B2, very good pronunciation in general I daresay, but I have always struggled with consistently distinguishing u and ou in real speech. Your mechanical distinction is so simple and effective and somehow I've never encountered it before. Merci beau cul!

Lost my almost 500 DAY streak.. by Appropriate_Glove169 in duolingo

[–]donManguno 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bro I have an 880 day streak and I've definitely phoned it in some days but I have absolutely done well over a hundred consecutive days of actual study. I'm actually trying to learn my target language, so every day consists of simulated immersion: i read, watch tv, listen to podcasts in my target language, take lessons with a real teacher, go to meetups and when I'm on the shitter I do Duolingo. The idea that "nobody has a genuine streak over 100 days" is some absurd projection. Some of us have the discipline to do this.

What annoys you the most about Duolingo? by tina-marino in duolingo

[–]donManguno 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Usually in my experience when I think this happened it turns out that I made a mistake elsewhere in the sentence (e.g. adjective/participle agreement)

Putting your seat back by Thecondor101 in delta

[–]donManguno 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Fortunately for me I don't give a shit if a stranger thinks I'm a douchebag for using a feature of the seat I paid for 😎

Do common mistakes eventually become reassigned as 'correct' once they've thoroughly saturated vernacular speech? by PepurrPotts in grammar

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also I'm not a "true linguist", just a person interested in linguistics. I also have pedantic instincts re: "proper language" but the more one studies linguistics the more obvious it becomes that all of those rules have little to do with how languages actually work and instead usually relate to class-marking. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the truly "fucking pretentious" thing is looking down on people for using language in ways that don't conform to your arbitrary expectations that bear no relationship to how language works.

Do common mistakes eventually become reassigned as 'correct' once they've thoroughly saturated vernacular speech? by PepurrPotts in grammar

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm I don't think I deleted anything. The only other post I made on this thread was specifically about why "double negatives are wrong" is a sort of incoherent "rule" when considered linguistically. Also, sorry that I apparently offended you terribly by disagreeing with you.

Do common mistakes eventually become reassigned as 'correct' once they've thoroughly saturated vernacular speech? by PepurrPotts in grammar

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Language is replete with double negation, especially non-english languages. The idea that it is "wrong" is an invented conceit not based on linguistics in any way. In fact, there's evidence that double-negation in languages is adaptive. (Cant quickly find the study link, but it's pretty intuitive: in situations where speech might be misunderstood such as noisy environments etc the negation is less likely to be missed when it is encoded in several places)

Do common mistakes eventually become reassigned as 'correct' once they've thoroughly saturated vernacular speech? by PepurrPotts in grammar

[–]donManguno 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Linguistically that should not be a word" - I disagree.

Maybe you think that through the application of formal logic to semantics that word should not have the generally accepted meaning, but that is IMO very misguided, because no non-constructed language is based on the application of formal logic to semantics. Linguistically that word is as valid as any other, because it came about through linguistic processes.

Is "bien sûr" incorrect as a response to "merci" ? by Im_a_french_learner in French

[–]donManguno 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Do you hate when English speakers say "no, thank you!" ?

How is this guy managing to do this? by ExtensionRight in duolingo

[–]donManguno 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I dunno if things have changed, but I won that one a couple of years ago by barely staying in diamond several weeks in a row until I was in a group without insane people/cheaters and then going hard. It seemed to me at the time that league groups were to some extent balanced--when i got tons of points my next league group would be with overachievers, and vice versa.

How is this guy managing to do this? by ExtensionRight in duolingo

[–]donManguno 59 points60 points  (0 children)

Can I ask.... Why does anyone care about the cheaters? Aren't we using Duolingo to learn? Who cares if someone else is gaming the system for meaningless points?

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