2024 52 Card Project: Week 34: Spanish

[pegkerr]

To my surprise and disappointment, I reached the end of Scottish Gaelic on Duolingo last week. I have not reached any kind of fluency, but I reached the end of the third unit and--whaaaaat? No more lessons?

Scottish Gaelic has been both a terror and a delight. I took a screenshot of this in one of my last lessons. I mean, LOOK at that word for 'forget.'



The sentence seemed an appropriate capstone to my study of Scottish Gaelic.

I hope that Duolingo will expand the lesson plan (they've done that to other languages before) and I'll be able to go back and learn more.

But I needed to pick another language. I picked Spanish. That's what my girls learned in school. My Dad was very proud to be able to speak Spanish. I have some extended family members who are fluent in Spanish. It's a heckuva lot more useful than Scottish Gaelic.

It's also a major language on Duolingo, rather than a minor one, meaning it has a lot more support, which is a bonus.

So, I dove in. Right off the bat, I can tell that my knowledge of French will be very helpful. It's another romance language, so I understand the grammatical structure. (Although there are irritations. Annoyingly, we're back to a gendered language, except the gender isn't a one-to-one correspondence with the other romance language I already know. Car is feminine in French (la voiture) but masculine in Spanish (el carro)).

My plan is to study it for two years (which I plan to do for each new language I pick up, unless I run out of lessons as I did with Scottish Gaelic). The eventual goal is to have seven languages, and at that point, I will rotate lessons so I study each language one day of the week.

Description: Duolingo app interface, overlaid with Duo (the app mascot) holding a Spanish flag. Text reads 'Start learning Spanish now.' Lower right corner: a woman (Peg) smiles at the viewer, wearing a cartoon sombrero.

Spanish



(Compare the collage I did last year for French.)

(What? I never did a card for Scottish Gaelic????)

Click on the links to see the 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Comments

[dreamshark]

I applaud your linguistic adventurism. Gaelic looks incredibly daunting, but as you say, Spanish will be a lot more useful.

I took 4 years of French in high school, and all my attempts to learn other languages since then have mostly just dredged up the remains of my French. Before traveling to Spain about 20 years ago I spent several months trying to learn Spanish online, with unimpressive results. But when we found ourselves unable to find an English language tour guide to the part of Spain we happened to be in at the time, I picked up a French version and was amazed to discover that I could pretty much read it!

I found that knowing some French both helps and massively interferes with learning Spanish. Yes, there are tons of familiar looking cognates, so it helps a lot with written Spanish, but I am completely unable to understand spoken Spanish. And I absolutely CANNOT bring myself to pronounce a final E without wincing.

[minnehaha]

I sort of enjoyed the collisions between Spanish and French when I took a year of college French after three years of college Spanish. "Ah, OK. Same. Different."

Now I am studying European Portuguese which has this weird accent, some very strange grammar points, and lots of little tweaks differentiating it from Spanish. I can half-assed read it, if it is simple enough. I'm using Pimsleur, which I think is the best of the language learning courses. But I like to flip over to the library's Transparent Language as another entry point to learning this. Still have not figured out the grammar around articles. There maybe a Youtube channel about this; I suspect there is.

K.

[dreamshark]

Apparently Portuguese and Spanish are mutually comprehensible. At least Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish (according to a Portuguese family I met last week). Which doesn't necessarily mean that the much larger universe of Spanish speakers will admit to understanding Portuguese.

[ndrosen]

You’re still trying to learn new things, and keep your mind active and flexible. Good for you!

[kiwiria]

Awesome card!

I'm still eagerly awaiting the day Duolingo adds a Maori course!

[minnehaha]

If your library offers language learning (as Peg's and mine does), you might find Maori. Transparent Languages Online offers it, for example.

K.

[kiwiria]

I don’t really think that’s a thing in Denmark, unfortunately. I’ll try to take a look at FOF evening classes though. They didn’t offer it last I looked, but that’s been a few years - might have changed.

[minnehaha]

I get the idea that you have a strong commitment to Duolingo, as many people seem to. If so, choosing another language in that system makes sense. But if you want to continue with Scottish Gaelic, your library has free language learning through Transparent Languages Online, and they offer Scottish Gaelic. It will start at the beginning, but take a different path through the language, enforce what you know, and offer some new situations/vocabulary/etc.

And if you want to practice Spanish at any time let me know; I am always up for that!

K.

[pegkerr]

I had another friend recommend the Transparent app--and I will definitely check it out, as I do want to continue with Scottish Gaelic. I am just a little overwhelmed by other projects at the moment.

And noted on Spanish practice--thanks! I also have some very fluent nephews.