What's next?

[Corinnebelle]

Now that Duolingo forum has closed or almost. What's next for you?

I have to finish organizing my archives in the Hebrew forum.

Has this closure opened some new doors for you or set you on a new path?

Are you going to focus more on other learning sites than Duolingo, now that the forum is no longer available?

Has this made you feel like giving up and throwing in the towel?

I am planning to continue keeping my streak and finish the course. Hopefully there will be people posting here about getting their golden owls soon!

Have you met up with new people to practice languages with recently due to these changes? Do you feel obliterated and alone?

I feel like this forum is beginning to sprout and will be fruiting soon!

What was your reaction to the forums closing? How has it hindered or aided you on your language learning journey?

Personally my reaction was to archive all the useful Hebrew posts I could find as they weren't many people on the Hebrew forum and I fear there will be less on here. So far I've met one Hebrew person who helped me out on here. The other thing is with the archives is when someone asked a question one would sometimes link to an older post about the same topic for more information.

Here is how I felt archiving the forum. Carrying away little bits of the forum to grow again.

[IceVajal]

I haven't been on Duolingo for long and didn't see any helpful forum posts there, so I won't miss the DL forum, but I can say, I would already miss this forum, if it would go!
Luckily it's just the beginning!

I want to finish the trees, at least if they don't change even more and Plus would be necessary to continue. As I use other apps, too, Duolingo is just one piece of my language learning.

Luckily I have a friend in Moscow who I know for 35+ years and who will help me. As he worked for an Irish company years ago, he's speaking English very well. Another friend is from the Netherlands, but moved to Canada about 10 years ago. So I have friends to practice outside the usual resources.

[HeyMarlana]

I was basically in practice-mode on Duolingo, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do to be honest. Logging in and always doing something was no doubt useful, but I have moved on to other sources and ways to practice. It was always more fun to engage with others, and with that gone, logging in to one place like that to do both, get my morning lesson in and to engage is no more.

I just made it to 1000 days a few days ago, and am still contemplating what to do, even though I told myself I'd just quit, and let my streak lapse. It's hard.

[pawndemic]

Well, at least I have to adapt the new situation. The sentences discussion was a part of my daily practice, especially in the German from Spanish course. While I was never very active in the "open" forum, I wrote a lot in the sentences discussions. Here I need to change my approach. One of the benefits to learn the language from the "other side", was the sentence discussion forum . Obviously that is no longer the case. Note sure, what my next steps are. I have to think about it. Maybe I should quit some of these courses. I don't need them anymore (to learning something new).

[Corinnebelle]

I think I will start writing more in my target language. Maybe we should start a Hoots like thing in the "I speak" forums where we write each day something from our lessons.

It could be divided into skills, where we take three words from a skill we learned and practice writing them in a sentence.

[EranBarLev]

The sentences discussion was a part of my daily practice, especially in the German from Spanish course. While I was never very active in the "open" forum, I wrote a lot in the sentences discussions.

Same here. I used the SDs to ask questions, last one was yesterday morning. Also, each weekend I used to do one Hebrew lesson, click "discuss" on every sentence and answer questions. I can't do that anymore. I will continue with all my trees as before though.


[Seiryuu]

I mainly frequented the forums for sentence discussions, as it helped me cement grammar points while teaching others about it. Once I fully complete German and Italian I'm going to start looking for other resources, like Deutsche Welle's German learning course.

[ImEatingCookies]

I have always used Duolingo in phases. Whenever I started a new language or felt bored, I searched for my passwort, realized I forgot it, made a new one and started courses again. After a couple of weeks or months, I would stop, focus on the language courses at my university, forget about Duo and the passwort and... well, do the whole thing again. I don't think I'll ever completly stop using Duolingo. I need either gamification or competition to continue learning and most learning tools simply do not work for me. Duolingo is making a lot of crazy mistakes, but they would have to destroy their system to lose me.
At the moment I'm in the process of leaving university. I feel like loosing the language courses and the learning community there is going to be much worse for my progress than whatever is happening with Duo. Duo has always been an extra, not my main source. I guess I'll start looking for tandem partners or evening classes...

[MoniqueMaRie]

While browsing through older posts, I just came across this one.
My posts at the time were almost exclusively in EN-FR or in "Deutsch" so I hadn't read this back then.

Now I ask you: have your expectations from back then been fulfilled?

[John Little]

I am just starting to feel that I have learned something. Although after 2 1/2 years of the same sentences, I might just be remembering them like a script.

The same thing happened with a Spanish tape we had. I learnt the phrases but couldn't actually use the words outside those set phrases.

Having said that, I had a brief but simple conversation with my son's Chilean father-in-law, who lives in Brasil, by WhatsApp, and he understood me. My Brasilian daughter-on-law, who was actually talking to her dad at the time, seemed quite impressed.

[John Little]

While browsing through older posts, I just came across this one.
My posts at the time were almost exclusively in EN-FR or in "Deutsch" so I hadn't read this back then.

Now I ask you: have your expectations from back then been fulfilled?

I might add, Monique, that I am impressed and humbled by you and a few others here, who have such an enviable grasp of language(s)

[Corinnebelle]

I am just starting to feel that I have learned something. Although after 2 1/2 years of the same sentences, I might just be remembering them like a script.

The same thing happened with a Spanish tape we had. I learnt the phrases but couldn't actually use the words outside those set phrases.

Having said that, I had a brief but simple conversation with my son's Chilean father-in-law, who lives in Brasil, by WhatsApp, and he understood me. My Brasilian daughter-on-law, who was actually talking to her dad at the time, seemed quite impressed.

Trying to get that recall to happen out of a set setting is the question. How do you get the words into the everyday part of the brain you can use in conversation!

Congratulations on your conversation with your father in law. By the way, I've never hear of a "daughter-on-law"!

I finished archiving the Hebrew forum.

[MoniqueMaRie]

@John Little
In the last year here I was quite impressed that you play so differently with Duolingo than the developers intended ("going down triumphantly").

You seem to have opportunities to speak Spanish and Portuguese in your family.
That's a real good motivation to learn.

Yes, there are some people here on the duome forum who show that they are very versatile with different languages by posting in multiple languages with ease. I'm not the most gifted person when it comes to languages. I have to work hard - which I don't always do.
I cannot write easily in any language. Even with my native German it takes a lot of time to "compose" a post. More so in another language.

[MoniqueMaRie]

I finished archiving the Hebrew forum.

I also use this forum here a bit like a storeroom for something I've learnt. As well as some others.
But I don't necessarily use Duolingo as a source.

All in all, the EN-FR forum has become a kind of repository.

I don't know if that's the same for the other main Duolingo language, Spanish.