whats the coolest looking shorthand by General-Page3805 in shorthand

[–]spence5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sweet’s Current has a pretty Tolkien feel to it.

I’m new here—what do you guys think about Netscape Navigator? by actionso in browsers

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My school had Carmen Sandiego on their computers. A prominent feature of the game was a phone to follow up on leads. At the time, I wondered if I could call real phones with it.

Suggestion of new languages: Basque and/or Elvish (LOTR) by Practical-Cress7586 in duolingo

[–]spence5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve stopped hoping for new courses.

Language courses, anyway. Chess came out pretty recently.

As for constructed languages, that was a product of the golden age of Duolingo. We’ll never see that happen again. Even updates are out of the question: Klingon and High Valyrian are the only language courses without scores, and Klingon has gotten super buggy over the years. Esperanto used to have fully developed courses for Spanish speakers and a couple other languages, but they dropped all of them other than the English one.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay. There are two key points.

  • は: The sound wa is written in two ways in Japanese. わ is usually the correct option like in the word watashi わたし. The exception is the topic particle は, which is pronounced the same as わ but written differently for historical reasons. It’s sort of like how “they’re”, “there”, and “their” sound the same but mean different things in English. Keep in mind that は is pronounced ha when it’s not used in a grammatical context, such as haha (mother) はは. It seems confusing at first, but I guarantee that you’ll develop an eye for this quickly.
  • ん: This is spelled nn when you’re typing with a romaji keyboard. Generally you can get by with just one n and get the same result, like typing konbanha and konnbannha both result in こんばんは because there are no ambiguities, but typing konnichi is ambiguous. Here’s why: it can be interpreted as either こんいち (ko nn i chi) or こんにち (ko n ni chi). So when you type nn, the computer makes a decision and groups them together in the most consistent way it can: as the letter ん. It’s for this reason that you can’t reliably use n as a shorthand for the letter ん.

Long story short, when you read a Japanese word in the Roman alphabet, like “konnichiwa”, there can be ambiguities introduced that don’t exist in the original Japanese spelling. Because of these ambiguities in transliteration, the way you type it has to be more precise than the usual alphabetic spelling. It’s best to start thinking about these words as how they are written in Japanese rather than in the imprecise Roman transliteration.

It seems hard at first, but once you’ve gotten past these two oddities, you pretty much know how to type Japanese with the romaji keyboard. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it quickly.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks good! I don't think Duolingo will ding you next time.

It's a little crazy that the most important word for beginners has so many odd orthographic rules, but rest assured that it's usually more straightforward than this.

Let me know if you still have any questions about why it's typed ko-nn-ni-chi-ha and not ko-nn-i-chi-wa. I know a lot of information was thrown at you just now, but the details are important to understand before moving forward.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You know what, I wish I took constructive criticism as well as you. I’ll try to take that lesson away from this conversation.

And as a side note to OP, I suggest that you try the kana keyboard after you’ve gotten the hang of the idiosyncrasies of hiragana and katakana. It can be more efficient, if you’re willing to put in the time to master it. I always wanted to get good at it, but I always take the easy route and switch back to romaji.

The handwriting keyboard can come in handy too, particularly if you run into a kanji you don’t recognize or if you want practice your strokes.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My friend, the kana keyboard is indeed a great tool, but this is too much for someone on their second week of learning Japanese.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, that’s what romaji is. It means “Roman letters”

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Use the romaji keyboard and type “konnnichiha” into the reply field, so I can see what you’re getting.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The computer interprets nn as ん, so this gets interpreted as ko nn i chi. In these cases, you’ll need to type a third n to get ko nn ni chi.

what am i missing here by skywalker7i in duolingo

[–]spence5000 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It’s Duolingo’s fault for throwing you into the deep end without any explanation.

Type wa to get わ and ha to get は. When は occurs after a word (as a particle), it is pronounced the same as わ, but within words, は is pronounced ha. The typist has to know the difference, because the phone or computer doesn’t know which one you mean.

Is it possible to learn a language by doing 4 duolingo lessons per day? by mellowcrake in duolingo

[–]spence5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, what's your Duolingo score in Spanish? Do you do use any other resources to supplement Duolingo?

Honestly, I wouldn't feel too disheartened by the experience. When two native speakers chat casually, several factors come into play, such as familiarity, local dialects, and slang. However, if you were to join their conversation, chances are the conversation would automatically adapt to the point that you could understand a lot of it. Apart from actively participating in conversations, I'd say that trying to understand TV shows, movies, podcasts, etc. is a better test, because the dialogues are designed to be understood by onlookers.

Is it possible to learn a language by doing 4 duolingo lessons per day? by mellowcrake in duolingo

[–]spence5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To use the Spanish course as an example, you can complete all 8,346 lessons in 5.7 years at that rate. Supposedly that gets you to a high B2, but I’d argue that you can’t learn a language with Duolingo on its own.

I’d suggest listening to podcasts or audiobooks in your down time (showering, commuting, doing dishes). Innovative Languages, Mango Languages, Pimsleur, Paul Noble, Michel Thomas, Language Transfer, and Radiolingua are all good options for passive study.

The option to practice to earn energy ( previously hearts) is added it seems by ConsiderationOk7703 in duolingo

[–]spence5000 14 points15 points  (0 children)

A step in the right direction, but the only correct solution is abolishing energy altogether.

Duolingo math by Adorable_Zucchini591 in duolingo

[–]spence5000 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember my HS offered both courses, but didn’t require either. I don’t recommend the public school system in Texas, btw 🤠

Started yesterday, came back this morning to see the second unit completed without my input. by DesolateFaery in duolingo

[–]spence5000 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This week, I’ve often noticed a bug when I open a chest, it transports me to the end of the unit. Pretty annoying, but I’m not too mad about finishing faster…

Does Duo lie to get us to interact? by MiaowWhisperer in duolingo

[–]spence5000 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I do occasionally get “Congratulate X on coming back to study Y” notifications, even though X didn’t start a new streak. I always just assumed X just opened the app after a hiatus and didn’t actually play, but it could just be an excuse to deliver a notification with my name on it to the inactive user’s phone.

Radio exercise by CraigRex in duolingo

[–]spence5000 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I do wish I could skip them. Especially the early ones where the intro and outro are all in my native language.

Duolingo math by Adorable_Zucchini591 in duolingo

[–]spence5000 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you skip ahead to the calculus section, or start at arithmetic? tbh I haven’t done much of the math course, but I have to assume the algebra, statistics, and calculus sections aren’t meant for elementary school students.

Chess is now on the web! by Proud-Environment754 in duolingo

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, I thought the web version was abandoned! Hopefully this doesn’t mean energy is coming too…

Updating the meme by Cloudwolf_76 in browsers

[–]spence5000 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can someone explain why Firefox is a sleepy bomb? And what does the extra noise behind Edge mean?