Well, it's a two weeks before my two year anniversary of starting Duolingo, but the next two weeks are going to be busy at work, so I'll post this now.
For veteran's day (almost) two years ago, my daughter was off from school and I from work, and there were plenty of free meal deals out there for veterans. I'm a veteran of the Gulf War back in 1991, so its very nice that businesses offer free meals for vets. So my daughter and I went to IHOP for my free meal, and her breakfast--which outraged my wallet nevertheless. During breakfast, my daughter asked me about the war and I told her about being in the Persian Gulf, guiding tankers through the mined waters outside Kuwait (yes, live mines being detonated around us by EOD all the time, shaking the ship like ein Erdbeben), and pulling into Bahrain behind a German minesweeper named "Trossschiff Freiberg", a supply ship for German minesweepers. I had taken German classes in high school, and decided to ask them if I could take a tour of their ship in my poor German, and they sent a deckhand named Stefan Lakeberg to give me a tour. He didn't speak any English, but apparently my German was passable enough to hold a basic conversation. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and I still have the ships hat Stefan gave me when we traded hats over thirty years ago....
Anyway, my daughter said "So you think you know German? Well, lets just test that out." She was in 7th grade, taking French and was using Duolingo for her classes. So she put the Duolingo app on my cell phone and starting giving me unit exams, one after the other. So in the hour or so we were at IHOP, I took the 5 or 6 exams (I don't remember) and was able to dimly discern the correct answers to get the level 1 trophy. My daughter was astounded. "Wow!" she said, shocked "You really do know German!" My daughter being impressed by old stupid dad was a big ego boost. But the reality was, I barely got through the exams and realized that my understanding of German was very poor.
Now I almost have a 2 year streak, where I've practiced every day. After the last update, it felt like I had been dropped off at Utah Beach in Normandy, June 6 1942. I hammered through all the lessons, all the way up through legendary, seeing strange things, dodging bullets, running, dodging, jumping all the way to the end. Victory?!? I guess, but I realized after all was said and done, that my understanding of German was actually very poor. All the words have genders, all the sentences have cases, and all the cases have a kind Yoda speak that takes a bit of getting used to.
I don't think there is a right way to study German, unless you say you just keep returning to it day after day and keep moving forward. Take that beach! Be patient. Keep going. It is important to understand the cases, the der and ein words and their endings in each case, the genders of all the most common words. And then there are special exceptions, certain forms, strange conventions that remind you that this is oddly similar to English, but it is its own language, with its own history and its own ways.
Now--two years later---I am going through each legendary section and doing the hardest lesson until I make no mistakes in it. I learn the genders of the words (forgetting them often, but then reminding myself of them again later), and I'm finally starting to type in sentence translations in a format that is acceptable to the Duolingo algorithm. I guess the important thing is that I've learned not to be a perfectionist, since I've made thousands upon thousands of mistakes, and it is through these mistakes that I've gotten a "feel" for the language. I mean, I learned English not through memorizing grammar in an English class, but from speaking it, reading it, hearing it every day from my family, at school, in society. The learning process is pretty much the same here, except I have keine guenstige Gelegenheiten to talk to Germans in the US, since it is so rare where I live, and when I do encounter a German speaker, if your German is flawed, they quickly switch to English to impress you with their masterful command of the English language.
But I'm not daunted by that. I just keep doing the lessons every day, doing them over and over again until I'm able to breeze through them. I don't think Duolingo is enough, though, you need a good grammar site for when you don't understand something you've read. It is also good to read a lot of books at an appropriate level, since that is how you improve your vocabulary.
I greatly appreciate the service that Duolingo offers, since my German has improved immensely. I can actually read simple books with much fewer word lookups than before, and I'm able to understand more clearly everything that is being said and what is going on. I consider studying German a great hobby, since it is inexpensive to pursue, and it doesn't particularly have to have a utilitarian need in order to be entertaining. I find it satisfying to think "Hey! You are reading a book in German! How many people in the US can say they are doing that?"
Anyway, just wanted to say hello to all you out there. I could have written this note in German but I didn't want to sound like a mental deficient since my writing mastery is poor at best.... that's the next mountain to climb, but--- as with all hobbies---there is no hurry. Just relax, enjoy the beauty of the words and what they mean, enjoy the process of learning.... Enjoy!
L1 
Advanced beginner 
Native | 
L25 (Duo) / A2 (6+y, McGraw-Hill) - Learning (Busuu): 
(A1 McGraw-Hill) | 
(interm.)
