FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
PtolemysXX wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:02 pm
Once you get more exposure with Arabic @busuu I'll be happy to read your impressions, especially a comparison Busuu vs. Duolingo...
Well, just after my comment, I started 16th unit of the A1 beginner course. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed.
Arabic has no separate Pronunciation course, unlike Dutch, French, English,...
The French A1 course of course has several dedicated formal grammar (written tips) or pronunciation lessons included, reserved for Premium(Plus) members.
There was a fine line between Premium vs PremiumPlus, can't remember all details right now; was Plus only about Speaking/Writing and exams (earlier McGraw-Hill now the logo is missing)?
I don't have it added so I can't see on my Non-Premium account how the "Complete Arabic" course is structured internally.
Does it really contain intermediate and advanced material?
How many lessons does the first (A1) part/section have?
- French A1 has 96 lessons + several reviews.
- French A2 has 105 lessons.
- Some more Web checkpoints per A1 or A2 chapter.
- Additional review lessons somewhere in the middle on the Web once activated.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
...and for every adjective it gives the masculine and feminine variations without giving any clue on short vowels and some weird endings (-tun, -an). Maybe this will come on next lessons about short vowels.
Hmm, what is the content of the first 15 lessons then?
With Busuu it hardly makes sense using a placement test if you only come from Duolingo.
You will miss too much of given content.
With their French A1 course my main issue was the non-linear progress, constant usage of unknown words not introduced first, hard and long sentence examples using vocabulary from the A2 section like I
"Il fait", direct and indirect object pronouns, etc.
I've installed and bought Dr. French grammar and Fastlingo apps now.
Strongly recommend to search for a good Arabic introduction resource.
Often the audio was absent or the EN translations missing, or no FR could be read in parallel.
Not always, but here and there, especially within grammar lessons.
Does the Arabic course has dedicated grammar lessons and tips? Pronunciation lessons?
With the debug flag of an earlier app version I could activate more French lesson reviews on the Web which were not there before. I was quite surprised - good practice.
Would need to create a separate account to play around with Arabic.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
Anyway, the level of difficulty raises very sharply!
Definitely this!
It happened around lessons 25-30 of the A1 French course, maybe earlier.
If you never heard of "veux" and such stuff, you'll be just surprised about its early usage.
Don't miss any dialogues, reading texts, videos or harder example sentences (often with vocabulary you have not learned up to this point)!
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
I could manage to get through this (with Duolingo knowledge) but then I had an exercise whose goal was to describe myself or someone I know.
Never felt ready for those community challenges in French, maybe English (28+ years of constant practice and learning) or Portuguese (6+ years).
The French Busuu course is NOT for true beginners.
So I doubt the Arabic course will truly be.
Of course, it's made by another linguistic team, so there will be differences.
You probably need to try to get the basics from somewhere else, a learning resource which focuses on this Arabic language and correct dialect incl. sounds, writing,...if Busuu doesn't introduce it gradually, starting from scratch.
Have in mind that I had learned Portuguese for 5 years (Duolingo, Memrise, Mondly, 50languages) before I got started with French on Busuu.
This means I know a kot of Romance beginner stuff and sometimes I can guess it in French or at least complicated concepts are quicker to pick up.
Starting with a category IV) language, rated by FSI as super hard, would be VERY different for me.
Also for French a lot of similarities are given from English.
En + Pt makes my French learning a bit easier. Don't want to think about how it would be without no similarities, starting totally from scratch.
Then I would need baby steps...which Busuu alone probably can't deliver?!??
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
I don't have all the required vocabulary (even after Duolingo) but the Busuu learners have to chance to have it.
Which brings me back to the earlier lessons which you skipped over (with the placement test).
For French it was a mixture:
Sometimes hard to follow, best used with a translator app (on Android), Accessibility "Select to Speak" for TTS play activated or checking all words carefully and adding flashcards early on in this process; on the Web I want to try the MosaDiscovery browser extension (from Mosalingua).
No, I've not done anything like that in my first year, not even now.
Memorion is another Android app for SRS but I haven't checked if Arabic vocabulary is available with the two repositories.
Leaving out Memrise and typing didn't work out too well for French. Worked much better with Portuguese.
Didn't use Duolingo before for French.
But I wanted to focus more on the speaking side of the French language. Will hopefully catch up with the rest.
Repetition:
I had to restart the Busuu French A1 course multiple times after a few lesson blocks.
It's hardly possible to grasp the examples at the first run.
I more quickly forget earlier vocabulary without strict Memrise SR cycles, 4-12h error repeats and if I'm not forced into typing.
So while progressing in the course to lessons 25-30, 50, 70-80... there's a specific time where you finally don't understand anything anymore and just feel overwhelmed.
-er, -ir and -re verbs were introduced in tables but often the lesson didn't fully introduce all of them. In the placement test I get a lot of these wrong.
Better look everything up incl. verb conjugation charts externally.
So I regularly restart with lessons from the top or from lesson X.
And now tend to forget the complicated stuff from the A1 end or the middle as I don't quickly enough finish reviewing from the top
Better define your own SR cycles, pick up a notebook, write down the learning date of lesson X and use a Leitner box or similar Memrise SR cycle when to exactly review which lesson.
It's up to you when to continue with new lessons, how many, when to stop, restart or review.
Complicated verb stuff from the previous day can be a nice quick review the other day when you start with a review.
The old Android app version still has the old sub modules view what is exactly contained in a lesson.
So you can hit the respective buttons to redo exercises or to see if a reading text, dialogue or video is contained.
I know that you have some previous MSA knowledge from Duolingo, but will not suggest to push through a Busuu course in one go.
I think with lacking SR concepts it's important to stop at block X, restart from 0 or in the middle so you don't forget too much.
The Duolingo path uses previous crown levels for at least 2-3 repeats and introducing longer and harder sentences with mixed exercises, which may not be immediately available from crown level 0 as the sentence moved up the chain because of higher user errors.
With Busuu you need to find your own pace and when to stop.
Alone adding "Select to Speak" Android Accessibility feature and hearing all the sentences from grammar lessons or where audio was missing made a big difference to me as I can then repeat aloud the French sentence.
Researching UNKNOWN vocabulary or writing those phrases down on paper will make your life easier.
For Arabic or any Asian languages AFAIU this a MUST-HAVE?!
So push yourself into writing down the symbols.
Of course I didn't do this with French.
Not using the Busuu vocabulary review for some time will heavily backfire if you do too many new lessons continuously.
I can't IGNORE words there, so I'll be half killed with Viennoiseries words I have just tried to ignore for a longer time (lesson done, accept but move on).
I tend to understand and recognizing French adjectives, but having to type them out on an empty text field without an hints is something different.
Without practicing this on Memrise or another SRS application (Pc) my accuracy won't be very high.
A good didactical course shall probably use words very wisely and a should not anticipate words from a later section/unit/chapter but it was not impression that Busuu handled this very carefully.
Maybe your Arabic course is different and doesn't run into the same limitations which I had to fight around with French.
Should have consulted external FR resources early on.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
New elements are introduced but I didn't figure out how revisions works, you have to select a word bank and you can revise them, but for instance if I start them I'm given a sentence in Arabic (I'm from England) and I'm supposed to type this directly ... in Arabic ! I've never had a chance to work on this.
Ah yes, the Android (and Web) vocabulary review makes use of the RECALLING technique to check your accuracy.
Always have to do this in French, the target language.
So you didn't have to type on Duolingo? I know that for some courses with foreign scripts like Cyrillic (Russian) staff had disabled this.
Only tapping around on word banks of course won't prepare you for the next big typing step.
I also have my difficulty remembering French words on Busuu, especially all this patisseries stuff.
Busuu makes use of cloze-deletion exercises, like Lingvist.
Duolingo Web had given the option of full typing and pushed you into learning how to construct sentences with applied grammar and verb conjugations.
Honestly, haven't used the vocabulary review on Busuu too much on the phone (French keyboard is added on Android) as two old Laptops broke down and I can only occasionally borrow/use another one.
Haven't rebuilt a Joy-It keyboard Pc either as it went too warm and existing cooling was not sufficient.
The big trouble is that the French course often uses words and examples or phrases in videos/audio/texts/dialogues but all that many vocabulary doesn't necessarily show up in the "vocabulary review" section.
There is IMHO no way around adding all words/phrases of Busuu content manually to a good SRS application or starting somewhere else with the basics and to learn the first hundreds of basic words.
With Portuguese I used Memrise (Web, full typing) in parallel. They've restructured their website; userscript support for Tampermonkey is gone, unfortunately.
Also used VT languagecourse.net/vocabulary-trainer.php here and there.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
Plus, but this is mainly because I'm 57, the Arabic writings on Busuu are way too small for my eyes.
How is the Android app?
It seems to respect my text size/ display size settings.
Maybe Accessibility works better there.
Or do you only use the Busuu website?
Another way could be installing Stylus browser extension and changing the CSS font size or even the font.
I read on a scripting site that some languages required this on Duolingo.
Haven't tried with Asian languages, Hindi, Arabic, etc.
Also do you have browser zoom set to at least 133% on the Pc?
The mobile Chrome browser is horrible as it doesn't respect Accessibility 155% font size.
Works much better with Firefox Nightly.
Some websites may miss important Accessibility tags where each browser is asking for different ones.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
Assimil is better but their e-method sucks
What do you mean? The Android app is not good? The e-form sucks?
I have installed French 2020 but have not intensively tested it; is not cheap. Earlier versions are separated.
Maybe a book is better.
I only have a 6.67* screen here but honestly, all is enough complicated that I doubt I would pick up a book right now....too much going on in personal life.
FurbyZeKat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:24 pm
I think I'll redo the Arabic course with the path and check Turkish on Busuu
If Turkish has no dedicated grammar lessons and tips or only partly introduces important concepts you will have a hard time.
FSI rates it more difficult.
Some languages contain a lot of content on Busuu. My French content also seems to change so it is being worked on.
You guys seem to expect the same for Arabic and Turkish courses.
Hope you won't be disappointed.
If you do any comparisons do it for Es/Fr/Pt or De.
Dutch also got added.
For Asian and very foreign script languages I would probably check out resources which have focused on that language as a main language.
How complete can the Arabic or Turkish course (heard nothing too good about Chinese) be when the company is located in the UK and got bought by a US company?
Check Reddit... what do other true/false beginners and learners specifically say??
Hope you won't be overwhelmed as a true beginner.
As I said earlier: A course curriculum should follow a good didactical approach.
Things shall be introduced slowly at the right time.
And videos/audios with missing subtitles or missing EN translations are not a good starting point.
I've already requested some changes in the A1 French course.
In the A2 course I saw some subtitles present but recorded sound quality (of one person showing up in one video) wasn't always the greatest and I couldn't follow the audio+ text easily (the second person was very different, had good voice, didn't speak too fast).
Text was not in sync and I had to pause all the time.
Knowing how French was for me I wouldn't bother with starting Arabic or Turkish there without having a very good foundation from another basic course and personal tutor to discuss problems.
IMHO you need someone to catch you and being able to break things down for you when you can't keep up with the quick pace and introduced dialogues, texts,... and suddenly increasing difficulty levels.
No, I've NOT started the two languages on Busuu and I also don't know them from other resources.
Keep that in mind that I can only give very general suggestions coming from other languages.
Could I do Busuu A1 and A2 Portuguese sections?
Yes, and I still expect a lot of difficult reading/dialogue/video to show up for several lessons.
After multiple resources and 6 years it's better manageable for me of course.
Was placed at B1 lesson 1.
Harder stuff in French doesn't start at B1 but much earlier.
Edit: Found some typing issues. I was on mobile. Will try to review and fix later.