Anybody try Duolingo?
 

Anybody try duolingo, www.duolingo.com ? After kicking myself for being young and dumb for not paying more attention in high school and college in picking up a foreign language, I am now trying many years later. The site is free and I have been using it a couple days. If you have experience with it what were your results?

The only way to truly learn a language is immersion. I lived in Germany for 6 months and left fluent.

I am not trying to be fluent but possibly barely conversational to start.

Still going to be really hard to be conversational without some immersion. Quick comprehension is important - you have to be able to listen without having to translate in your head, otherwise it's very difficult to keep up conversationally.

Do you have access to native speakers? If so, use your website and then practice on them. Make sure they refuse to speak English with you and you can try it that way.

Is this only for lingo? Or does it support other languages as well?

FAX

No access to native speakers for the language I am trying to learn. I am guessing youtube videos would probably be the next best thing.

Duolingo is great for practice and has a great interface. I disagree that total immersion is the only way to become fluent in a language. Check out this site I believe it’s called fluent in 30 days. I like this guys approach because he emphasizes eliminating learning unnecessary words that you’re never going to use. In other words learn enough words and phrases to hold a basic conversation and build your skills from there.

Is it interactive?

If it is, it's essentially the same as immersion. It's just a quicker, dirtier version.

It's nearly impossible to become functionally fluent in a language without any feedback. Speaking is the smallest part of the battle, listening is the biggest.

Memrise is another free app that is helpful with language drills.

I haven’t tried it but, there are FaceTime apps where you can connect with native speakers to practice.

Duolingo is not interactive but I think it’s helpful for drills and repetition to help you memorize key words and phrases that are essential.

I haven't tried duolingo, but I tried dugong once. It tasted a lot like manatee.

It's the best way. If you can do it that way.

It will speed up your fluency after you’ve learned the basics. You can’t just drop someone off somewhere they don’t know the language and expect them to easily become fluent. You first have to learn basic conversational phrases and vocabulary as well as have a basic understanding of the grammar.

I haven't tried duolingo but my wife gave it a go and just wasn't committed enough to keep it up.

I knew a kid from Guatemala who came up here and spoke English very well. He said he only watched English language TV while his sister stuck with Spanish TV. He learned and she didn't.

I think the best reason for immersion is to build confidence at least for me. My biggest block is confidence. I am afraid to say the wrong thing so I am very leery about trying to speak in a foreign language.

Tried duolingo.

Realized I'd never have a conversation in spanish about
onions (caballos)
Leche (milk)
el Pan (the bread)
Laves (keys).
eggs (huevos)

So I gave it up. I did start getting basic concepts and started understanding mexican rest menus and phrases more.