This is week #4 of my learning project and I made some great progress this week!
I began to learn words this week and am slowly (very slowly) beginning to string sentences together. I made a list of all the words I learned at the beginning of the week and then used this to study each day and try remember them. Since I learned the alphabet the last few weeks I was able to sound out the words to learn the pronunciation better. So far learning the words and pronunciation is not to challenging but remembering the words is really hard.
I used Duolingo to help me learn this week and it was awesome at teaching me but had some downfalls aswell. Duolingo is a good source to start with and probably good to learn the whole language as well because it uses active recall strategies. It keeps asking me the same questions until I get it right which I believe is a really effective way to learn. The accesibility of it is so nice because it was easy for me to just do a few lessons each day. However, a really big downfall for the app is you only get five “hearts” and each wrong question costs you a heart. You have to wait until the next day or else purchase more hearts. I don’t like this when I am trying to learn a new language because I am going to make plenty of mistakes and it limits my learning. Besides having limited amounts of hearts Duolingo is so good to learn from becasue it uses active recall and is so easy to learn a few lessons in a day.
2 Comments
Jordan Puscus
Hey Meghan, nice to see the update of where you are at so far. I like how you are using Duolingo but not solely relying on it. To be honest, I used Duolingo quite heavily for about 9 months or so to learn Spanish. My intention was just to be more productive on my phone instead of just scrolling through social media, although it’s fallen off. One of the things I did on Duolingo is practice to earn more hearts. I know this becomes a bit monotonous and those hearts can go quick, but it’s an easy way to refill if you want to get more work in that day. Plus, more practice helps! Anyways, I would recommend using that feature if you are getting frustrated of running out of your 5 hearts!
Meghan Wright
Hey Meghan! A friend of mine speaks Ukrainian so I have heard some of those words once or twice. I am really impressed by your commitment to learning this language. Unlike other languages Ukrainian has a different alphabet, so not only do you have to remember to say the words, and spell the words but you also need to know the letters to use to spell the words. I don’t know if that made much sense but props to you for taking on this big commitment and learning like a champ! I cannot wait to see what you learn next!