So Long, Duolingo

 

For a number of years, I have been trying to teach myself German on Duolingo, a free language learning program on the internet.  I wanted to learn German because I have cousins who live in the German-speaking region of Switzerland.  Almost all of them speak English fluently, and, in fact, most people in Switzerland speak English.  Nevertheless, I wanted to learn the language.  

(It should be noted that the dialect spoken in the German region of Switzerland is almost a separate language which is unintelligible to people in Germany.  However, everyone learns standard German in school, and it is officially used in education, government and in the media.)

Over the years I would use Duolingo for a while, then stop, and then return, sometimes going back to the beginning.  In Switzerland I tried speaking a bit with my cousins.  One cousin said my pronunciation was very good.  On my last trip, shortly before the pandemic, I also traveled in Austria and Bavaria.  I was able to communicate a little... I could order from a menu and ask directions.  Of course, when my rudimentary German failed me, almost everyone would switch to English.  But I think that my attempts to speak the language were appreciated. 

I went back to using Duolingo more seriously, and I had a streak of more than 700 consecutive days.  During that time, they were always making changes in the course.  They turned the course into more of a competition, in which you could advance to a higher league.  However, if you didn't do enough lessons each week you would be demoted.  Some people criticized that feature, but I found that it spurred me to continue my streak.  I was in the Diamond League, the highest league.  One change that I did not like was that they did away with user comments.  If you didn't understand the grammar or syntax of a particular sentence, in the comments section you could ask a question.  Often someone would reply with an explanation.

I should also mention here that Duolingo has a free course, and also a premium course for which you have to pay.  I was perfectly satisfied with the free course. 

Then just a week or so ago they made some major changes that I found completely unacceptable.  Before it was possible to go back and review earlier lessons all the way to the beginning of the course.  Now you can no longer go back and review previous material.  I was most upset by the fact that they are limiting how many lessons you can do in a day.  Each day you receive five "hearts".  Every time that you make a mistake, you lose a "heart".  When you have lost all your "hearts", you cannot go any farther.  In a matter of days, I went from second place in the Diamond League to the bottom of the demotion zone.  If you pay for the premium course, you get unlimited "hearts".  Obviously, it is a blatant attempt to get people to switch from the free program and to start paying.  

Sorry, Duolingo, but it is time for me to say "Adiós¨.  I won't say "Auf wiedersehen", because that literally means "until we see each other again", and I don't intend to return.

Another Year of German

I have continued my study of German on Duolingo throughout this year.  I don't mean to brag (OK, maybe I do), but at the beginning of the month I received a "report card" from Duolingo.

For more than a year I have done my German lessons every day.  There are still things about the grammar and syntax of the language that I find very confusing.  The nominative, accusative and dative cases are coming to me a bit easier.  However, I still forget the gender... masculine, feminine or neuter... of many nouns.  Every noun in German has a gender, and, unlike Spanish where a noun ending in "o" is usually masculine and a noun ending in "a" is usually feminine, there is not much rhyme or reason to genders in German.  "Das Mädchen" (the girl) is neuter.  "Der Kaffee" (the coffee) is masculine.  "Die Suppe" (the soup) is feminine.  You simply have to memorize the gender of each noun.  Articles and adjectives change according to the gender of the noun they describe and according to whether the noun is singular or plural.  OK, Spanish does the same thing, but German makes it more complicated by changing the articles and adjectives again in the accusative (direct object) case or the dative (indirect object) case.  Oddly enough, I sometimes remember the gender of German nouns by thinking of Spanish.  There are quite a few words that have the same gender in both languages.  For example, "Universität" and "universidad" are both feminine.  For other words I keep in mind that the gender is the opposite of Spanish.  "Mond" (moon) is masculine, but in Spanish "luna" is feminine.

When I was at my sister-in-law's home for Christmas, she invited some neighbors over to the apartment.  One of her neighbors is a lady who was born in Germany.  I attempted to converse in German a little bit with her.  Every time I managed to say something, she exclaimed "Sehr gut!"  I also received a Christmas card from my Swiss cousin Andre.  He is the one cousin who does not speak English.  He wrote a short note in German, and I was so proud that I was able to understand it all without relying on Google Translate!

So, I guess I am making progress, and I can honestly say "Ich spreche ein bisschen deutsch." (I speak German a little.)  Someday, maybe I will actually be able to say that I am truly trilingual!   

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

 

In the past I have written about my attempts to teach myself German on Duolingo.  After my trip to Switzerland, Austria and Germany in the summer of 2019, I lapsed, and I had not logged onto Duolingo in over a year.  A couple months ago, I got back to spending some time every day practicing my German.  I had to go back and review all the lessons that I had done before, but I was pleased by how much I remembered.  I was even getting the hang of some of the grammar that I had found so difficult.  I was doing better with the nominative, accusative cases and dative cases and the devilish prepositions that require a change in case.  Now, however, I have progressed to new lessons, and there are more diabolical aspects of German grammar that are driving me crazy.  Now I am learning that adjectives change not only according to the gender of the nouns they describe, but also according to the case.  It makes Spanish grammar seem like a piece of cake in comparison.  My Swiss cousin Brigitta consoled me and told me that there are foreigners who have lived in Switzerland for years who have still not mastered the intricacies of the language. 

During this year of the pandemic, I have been chatting frequently with my Swiss relatives on Skype.  It is one of the silver linings of this terrible year that I have grown even closer to my Swiss family than I have during my occasional trips to Switzerland.  For this holiday season I have sung to them two Christmas carols in German... "O Tannenbaum" (Oh Christmas Tree) and "Stille Nacht"  (Silent Night).  Brigitta said that my German pronunciation was excellent, and I am encouraged to continue my study.

Here is my singing debut on the blog.  Hopefully it is not too painful to your ears, and my rendition does not leave you forever hating one of the most beautiful carols ever written...

Best wishes for a happy holiday season!

Ready to Go!

By this time tomorrow I will already be in Chicago waiting for my flight to Switzerland.

I have printed off my boarding passes, the last item on my long checklist of things to do before I leave.

Yesterday I received an email from my cousin Brigitta.  She knows that I am trying to learn German, but I think that she overestimates my fluency in the language.  Her short message was entirely in German.  However, I had a pretty good guess of what she wrote.  I went to Google Translate to be sure, and I was correct.  I guess my German is progressing.  I would probably be tongue-tied trying to say it myself, and I would probably be lost if someone said it in rapid fire German.   But I understood her written word.  I figured out that Brigitta had told me, "We will wait for you in the big hall outside of customs."

Switzerland, here I come!

Travel Planning

(Image taken from the web)

This travel-crazy retired teacher is actually spending three months at home.  My next trip will not be until August when I fly to... not Mexico, but Europe.  Yesterday, my cousin Gail and her husband Wes invited me to their home for dinner.  We did some trip planning together since they will be with me for a portion of my European trip.  I have written previously that they are taking a guided tour of Switzerland.  Their tour ends in Zurich, and they are staying for a few extra days.  I am going to meet them there, introduce them to some of the Swiss cousins, and take them to the town where Gail's great grandfather and my great grandmother were born.

I decided to splurge and do something that I have always wanted to do.  I am flying to Switzerland in business class!  I will be on Swiss International Airlines.  Their business class features seats that convert into a flat bed.  Supper consists of several courses, each course with a wine pairing.  I have never been able to sleep on an airplane, but perhaps, between the flat bed and the wine, I will get some sleep on this flight.

My cousin Brigitta and her husband Peter will meet me at the airport, and I will stay at their home.  Gail and Wes have reserved a hotel nearby.  Brigitta originally planned to have a big party... a get-together of the cousins... while we were there.  However there has been a change of plans.  That weekend Brigitta and Peter will be away attending Peter's family reunion.  But Brigitta's brother Werner, who lives in Madrid, is coming up to Switzerland, and he will take us under his wing... driving us to our ancestral village, and most likely taking us to visit some of the other cousins. 

After Gail and Wes fly home to Ohio, I am going to continue by train to Vienna, Austria, and then Munich, Germany.  I bought Rick Steve's guidebooks for both of those cities, and I have been studying them and planning which sights I want to see.  After a long hiatus, I have also returned to studying German on Duolingo.  Ich spreche Deutsch ein Wenig! 

Yesterday Gail and I were also discussing another trip coming up this autumn.  I will return to Mexico City for my usual visit in October / November.  Gail, along with one of her college friends, will come down in November for a week's stay.   They have already made their plane and hotel reservations.  They will stay at they same hotel where my friends Cliff and Jeramie stayed last month... just a one minute walk from the condo that I rent.  So, once again, I will get to play "tour guide" in Mexico City.  

Falash Portuguesh?

For the past two weeks I have been faithfully going to the website "Duolingo" on a daily basis and doing my lessons on German and Portuguese.  After my trip to Europe, I went back to the very beginning of the German lessons and started to review what I had already covered.  I was surprised at how much I still remembered, and I have breezed through lessons with a minimum of mistakes (and most of those are typos from typing too quickly).  Nevertheless I keep going back and reviewing over and over again.  I even feel as if I am starting to get a handle on the pronunciation of those pesky vowels with "umlauts" over them.  I have still not reached the lessons where I was starting to hit a wall with the difficulty of the grammar.  But hopefully when I get there I will manage to overcome the obstacles and progress farther.

As I wrote previously, the Portuguese vocabulary and grammar have been a snap due to their similarity to Spanish.  However, I have become increasingly frustrated with the Portuguese pronunciation.  There are so many differences from Spanish.  For example, when the vowel "o" appears at the end of the word it seems to sound like the "oo" in "moon", or the "e" at the end of a word sounds more like the Spanish "i".  "Ele come" (he eats) is pronounced as if it were spelled (in Spanish) "Eli comi".  The letter "t" when between two vowels sounds like a "ch", and a "ch" sounds like a "sh".  An "r" at the beginning of a word sounds like a harsh "h".  "Roupa" (clothing) is pronounced "Houpa".  It was all starting to make my head swim. 

"Duolingo" uses Brazilian Portuguese rather than the pronunciation of Portugal.  That is understandable since Brazil has a population of over 200 million, whereas Portugal has a population of around 10 million.  However, I am teaching myself the language in preparation for a possible trip to Portugal next summer.  So I decided to look for a website on the pronunciation in the mother country, and I hoped that it would be easier.

I found a website with audio examples of the how the letters are pronounced.  Many of those Brazilian sounds are not used, but there are other peculiarities of pronunciation in Portugal.  For example, an "s" at the end of a word is pronounced like our "sh".  So, "Falas portugues?" (Do you speak Portuguese?) comes out like "Falash portuguesh?" 

And the vowel sounds!  There are nasal vowels, open vowels and closed vowels.  I get the nasal vowels, but, for the life of me, I could not hear any difference between the open and the closed vowels.  After visiting that website I only felt more confused and frustrated!

With sincere apologies to any Portuguese speakers that might be reading this, I was starting to believe something that someone told me long ago.  "Portuguese is sloppy Spanish."

I finally pulled out a book that had been sitting on a bookshelf for years.

 
I had purchased this book ages ago at a second-hand book store prior to a trip to Brazil.  I had learned a few phrases, but I had not continued.  The text began with a "Note on Pronunciation".  It mentioned that there were differences between Brazil and Portugal and even between northern and southern Portugal, but that for this book the publishers had adopted a neutral accent.  Also, except for the "tilde" (which makes a vowel "a" nasal) they had eliminated "the bothersome diacritical marks".  They listed a number of rules (most of which I already understood).  There was no discussion of closed vowels and open vowels.  (Perhaps Mr. Berlitz couldn't hear the difference either!)  In the lessons, under each word or phrase, they give a close approximation of the pronunciation in English.  It is all so much simpler. 

I don't know if Berlitz is still in business, but at one time it was the biggest name in language instruction.  I figure if these are the pronunciation rules that they give, they must be acceptable and understandable.  So I will continue with my lessons on "Duolingo", but I will speak according to Berlitz.  And if I end up sounding like a Mexican trying to speak Portuguese, so be it!

The Old Language Learner

The best time to learn a foreign language is when a person is very young.  The brain is not yet hard wired to one's native language and is more receptive to the sounds and patterns of another.  In most European countries the study of foreign languages begins in elementary school.  However here in the United States, in far too many school districts, the study of languages is not required and often does not begin until middle school or high school.  I did not begin to study Spanish until the ninth grade.  Even though I am fluent and have a good pronunciation, I am sure that nobody mistakes me for a native speaker.

Nevertheless, this old, retired teacher has embarked on the mission of learning some more languages.  Several months ago, I wrote a couple posts about my attempt to learn some

German.  Since I was going to travel to Switzerland, I thought it would be nice to be able to speak a bit of German.  I went to a free website called "Duolingo" and began their German lessons.  At first it was fun and a breeze.  I learned a number of phrases and a fair amount of vocabulary.  I could even conjugate a few verbs in the present tense.  "Duolingo" even said that I was 34% fluent, which is laughable.  But then I hit a wall.  As I continued, the grammar was becoming quite difficult.  I had accomplished what I had set out to do... learning a smattering of the language... so I figured that I would not pursue it any further after taking my trip.

Even though most everyone in Switzerland speaks English, I found it great fun to use a little German from time to time.  My Swiss cousins said that my pronunciation was pretty good.  As a result, I was encouraged not to give up on German.  I have gone back to "Duolingo", and I have started from the beginning.  I want to retain what I have already learned and to relearn what I have already forgotten.  Perhaps I will even manage to progress a little farther, and by the time I make it to Switzerland again I will be able to speak more.

There are plans in the works to travel to Portugal next summer.  Years ago I spent a few days in Brazil.  (Brazil speaks Portuguese, not Spanish!)  I taught myself a few polite phrases.  However this time I want to be able to speak more.  Two nights ago I started the Portuguese lessons on "Duolingo".   Portuguese, of course, is very similar to Spanish, so it will be much easier than German for me.  Most of the words I have encountered so far are easily recognizable.  For example, in Spanish the word for "book" is "libro", in Portuguese it is "livro".  "Woman" in Spanish is "mujer"; in Portuguese it is "mulher".  Even the verb conjugations seem to be almost identical.  The present tense conjugation of the verb "to eat" in Spanish is:  como, comes, come, comemos, comen.  In Portuguese it is : como, comes, come, comemos, comem.  The only stumbling block will be pronunciation.  Portuguese has a lot of diacritical marks which change the sound of vowels and consonants. There are nasal vowel sounds similar to French, and some consonants that sound more like Italian.

After just two lessons, "Duolingo" says that I am 6% fluent in Portuguese.  This is not nearly as preposterous as my supposed 34% fluency in German.  Although I still can't say much, I can already read and understand a fair amount.

We will see how it goes.

 Até logo.  Hasta luego.  Until later.    

Swiss Trivia

In ten days I will leave for Switzerland.  Here are some interesting facts about the country which you may not know.

1. Switzerland has four official languages.

You may be aware that German, French and Italian are spoken in Switzerland.  About 65% of the population speak German as their native language, 22% speak French and 8% speak Italian.  The fourth language is Romansh, an obscure language which is derived from Vulgar Latin.  Romansh is spoken by only 35,000 people in one region of the country.  Nevertheless, it is an official language.

2.  Most people from Germany cannot understand the German that is spoken in Switzerland.

The German-speaking population of the country speaks a number of dialects which are referred to as Swiss German.  These dialects are very different from the German spoken in Germany and Austria.  Most people also know Swiss Standard German which is much closer to the textbook version of the language.  It is used in schools, newspapers, books, advertising and government publications.  However, in their everyday conversations, most people, regardless of social class, use their local dialect.

3.  Switzerland was a part of the Roman Empire.

For nearly three centuries Switzerland was under Roman rule.  Scattered throughout the country there are Roman archaeological sites, and many of the Swiss cities were once Roman settlements. 

4.  The Matterhorn is not Switzerland's tallest mountain.

Although the Matterhorn is the most famous and most recognizable peak of the Swiss Alps, it is only the seventh highest mountain in the country.  Furthermore, it is not entirely within Switzerland.  It straddles the border with Italy.  The Italians call it "Monte Cervino".

5.  There are palm trees in Switzerland.

When we think of Switzerland we picture Alpine meadows and snow-covered peaks... not palm trees!  However there are valleys in the south near the Italian border which have a nearly Mediterranean climate.  Cold-hardy palms are able to grow there. 

6. The Swiss are the world's largest consumers of chocolate.

Not surprising!

Das Essen Ist Gut

Das Essen ist gut!... The food is good!  That is one of the sentences which I have learned from my German lessons.

So, it was very appropriate that I had lunch today at the nearby German-American Cultural Center in Olmsted Township with my cousin Gail and her husband Wes.

The cultural center was established in 1970 by the Danube Swabians.  In the eighteenth century, the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa offered free land to farmers who would settle areas along the Danube River which had been taken from the Ottoman Empire.  Many Germans, especially those from the region of Swabia, took advantage of this offer.  Those colonists, whether they were from Swabia or from other regions of Germany, became known as the "Donauschwaben", and they formed an important minority within the largely Slavic region.

After World War I, the territory where the Danube Swabians lived became part of the new nation of Yugoslavia.  After World War II the Communist government began a campaign of repression against the German-speaking minority, and hundreds of thousands of Danube Swabians immigrated to the United States.

The cultural center includes a restaurant which is open to the public for lunch five days a week.  Our waitress was a very personable lady who was born in Vienna and came to the United States when she was a child. 

Here are Gail and Wes.  Gail is showing the chicken schnitzel which she ordered.

I ordered the Wiener schnitzel.  It was served over "Blaukraut" (red cabbage, although the German translates as blue cabbage) and "Spaetzle", little egg dumplings.

  

Whenever I am at a German restaurant, I always order "Spaetzle", hoping one day to run across something as good as what my mother used to make.  She always called them "Spatzli" which is what they are called in Switzerland.  My mom most certainly learned how to make them from her Swiss paternal grandmother.  I have asked my Swiss cousins if there is a secret family recipe for "Spatzli", but they say "no".

The Wiener schnitzel was excellent.  The "Spaetzle" were not as good as my mother's, but still... "Das Essen ist gut!"  

German Is Difficult

In preparation for my trip to Switzerland in August, each day I have been studying some German on DuoLingo.  I have gone through fifteen lessons, although at this point, I am reviewing the old lessons to try to make the material stick in my brain.  The website tells me that I am 29% fluent in German, which I find quite laughable.  I have under my belt perhaps a hundred words and phrases, and I have memorized fairly well the conjugation in the present tense of a handful of verbs.  But I consider myself anything but fluent!

English, in spite of its many words of Latin and French derivation, is a Germanic language, and it is interesting to see similarities.  For example, it's easy to remember that "hund" is the German word for dog since we have the word "hound".  Some sentences such as "Wir trinken Tee" actually sound quite similar to the English translation... "We're drinking tea."

However, in spite of the similarities, I am finding German to be rather difficult.

I am struggling with the pronunciation.  I am used to Spanish which is a very phonetic language.  The vowel sounds are very crisp and clear, and the consonants, with some notable exceptions, are fairly similar to English.  However, German pronunciation, as in English, is a bit of a mess.  Vowel sounds seem indistinct and muddy, and I still haven't got a handle on what that umlaut (the two dots over a vowel) does to the pronunciation.  The consonants are not much better.  I have figured out that an "s" at the beginning of a word sounds like our "z" and that a "d" at the end of a word sounds like a "t".  I find myself simply memorizing the pronunciation of each individual word, and I am sure that I would butcher any word that I have not learned.

Another difficulty is with gender.  My Spanish students used to find it odd that every noun is either masculine or feminine.  You have to memorize the gender of each word, but there are rules that make that easier.  You can usually bet that a noun ending in "o" is masculine and that one ending in "a" is feminine.  In German there are three genders... masculine, feminine and neuter, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.  Why is the German word for "girl" neuter?   Inanimate objects are often neuter... for example, "Essen" (food) is neuter.  But many other objects are masculine or feminine.  "Sonne" (sun) is feminine, but "Mond" (moon) is masculine.  And it is important to know the gender of a word because the definite and indefinite articles change according to the gender of the word with which they are used.  So it's "das Essen" (the food), "die Sonne" (the sun) and "der Mond" (the moon).

Making a noun plural is also difficult, although there are rules that govern that.  Some words add an "e".  "Brot" (bread) becomes "Brote".  Others add an "er".  "Kind" (child) becomes "Kinder".  And other words add an "n" or "en".  "Frau" (woman) becomes "Frauen".  Many times making a word plural will also require putting an umlaut over the vowel, and that changes the pronunciation.  I am still scratching my head over the word "Buch" (book).  The plural is "Bucher" with an umlaut.  For the life of me it sounds like they are saying "boo-ya".  

I realize that the English language is just as strange.  Now that I have dipped my toe into the study of German, I can better sympathize with a Spanish-speaking person trying to learn the vagarities of our language.

In spite of it all, I am enjoying my German lessons, and I intend to keep plodding along. 

Learning German

Four years ago, when I made my first trip to Switzerland to visit my new-found cousins, I had good intentions to teach myself some German prior to the trip.  I bought a book with an accompanying audio CD.  Well, I went through the first lesson and never opened the book again.  I told myself that the Swiss dialect was quite different from textbook German, and that most of my Swiss cousins were fluent in English anyway. 

I did pick up a few words here and there while I was in Switzerland.  On the few occasions when I was on my own and I needed to communicate with someone who spoke no English, I somehow managed to make myself understood in broken German. 

On my first morning in Othmarsingen, the little town where my great grandmother was born, I set off to explore the town without my cousin Werner in tow.  I went to the village church where my great grandmother was baptized.  I wanted to ask if the church was open.  In the churchyard there was an elderly lady who did not speak English.  I knew that "church" was "Kirche", and somewhere I had picked up that "open" was "offen".  So I said "Kirche... offen?", and she smiled and replied, "Ja".  "Danke," I said.

After visiting the church, I went to a small restaurant for breakfast.  (I had to go there, because it bore the same family name as my great grandmother!)  In this little, non-tourist town there was no English menu, and my waitress spoke only a smattering of English.  I managed to order a meal.  I still remember that "orange juice" is "Orangensaft".  While I was eating, there was a gentleman seated at a nearby table who kept looking my way with curiosity.  I later found out that he was another cousin of mine, Werner's brother... one of the few cousins who doesn't speak much English.

One day I took the train on my own to Zurich, which is only a half hour away.  I stopped at a stand on the street to have some lunch.  Looking at the German menu I was able to order a sausage, some potato salad and a soft drink.  I still remember that "potato salad" is "Kartoffelsalat".  (Zurich is an extremely expensive city, and that little lunch cost the equivalent of $30!)

I will be returning to Switzerland this summer, and I will be surrounded by my mostly English-speaking relatives.  Nevertheless, I decided that this time I should have a bit more German under my belt.  I found a free website called "Duolingo", and for the last couple days I have been spending some time there trying to pick up some German.  It seems to be more interesting and fun than the book I bought some years ago.  I already have learned a few more useful expressions.   A native speaker pronounces the phrases, and I try to imitate the sounds.  I am sure that my pronunciation is atrocious, but if I am able to make myself understood, that is all that matters.  After finishing a few lessons, "Duolingo" tells me that I am 4% fluent in German.  Ha!  That's being extremely generous!

From Switzerland, I will be traveling to Norway, where one of my Swiss cousins currently lives.  I could also try to learn some Norwegian on "Duolingo", but I fear that I would end up mixing the two languages.  From what I read, virtually everyone in Norway is quite fluent in English, so I think that I will simply learn a couple phrases, like "Hello" and "Thank you".