Another way that I spent my time this summer was reviewing
my Spanish. I have this desire to be fluent in it, and though I seriously doubt
that I’ll ever achieve that, I keep trying. The latest way I’ve been working on
it is through a free website called Duolingo. I have to admit that I’ve become
pretty hooked on it. There are several other languages available (Italian,
German), but I haven’t tried them. So what I’m writing is probably true of all
of these languages, but I can only guarantee that it’s true for Spanish. There
are achievement levels to reach (I think I’m currently at level 10), and as
usual, they become more and more difficult to reach the higher you get. You
earn points in several ways. At first, it’s by doing lessons on various aspects
of the language (verbs, words about time, colors, people, etc.). Each unit has
from 3-10 lessons; once you have successfully accomplished all of the lessons,
you unlock the next unit. If you’ve had the language before, each unit gives a
chance to pass out of it by successfully completing a quiz. For all of the
lessons, you get four mistakes; if you miss three questions, you can still
complete the lesson, but on your fourth miss, you have to begin again.
Another way to earn points is to review. If your skills in a
certain area start to slip, you’ll see some white area in your completion bar,
rather than seeing it fully filled in. You can go back and review any area and
get points for each question you get right. These reviews are timed, so you can
add an element of quick thinking if you desire (you can choose not to have them
timed).
After you’ve reached some milestone (I’m not sure if it’s a
number of units completed or a level), Duolingo starts to tell you that you can
read a certain percentage of articles published in Spanish (starts out around
30%). You then have the option of being taken to an article and seeing how
other students have translated it. You get points for voting on the translation
(good or bad) or for editing it. Eventually you start to see some articles that
have sentences in lighter type. These are untranslated sentences, and you get
to have the first chance to translate them. These are worth quite a few points.
I have found this to be the best online language tool I’ve
tried (including Rosetta Stone). There is an option to include speaking in the
questions (you have to hook up a mike), but I haven’t tried it. The other
question types are transcribing a sentence or phrase, translating from Spanish,
and translating into Spanish. Highly recommended! 5/5*
