Anyone interested in Duolingo? I have a couple free invitations.

"With Duolingo, you learn a language for free while helping to translate the web."

If anyone would like to get in on the beta, I have two invitations left. They just started allowing us to invite friends two days ago. After signing up, I think you'll also be able to invite three people to give it a whirl, too. Since my invitations are limited, I'd like to share with someone who'll appreciate it.

Edit: I would like to keep a list of who's who on Duolingo so we can follow and support each other. Just let me know and I'll update. :)

Dragons on Duolingo
@amysisson - amysisson
@C4RO - CaroE
@chaut0 - chaut0
@Choreocrat - choreocrat
@drizzt321 - drizzt
@Groxx - Groxx
@Rozax - Rozax

Edit: If you need help with your translations, here are some trusty online dictionaries.
French: ?
German: http://dict.leo.org
Spanish: http://www.spanishdict.com

Freetranslation.com also has it's uses, but don't rely on it too heavily. I tried using it back when I got my German edition of Harry Potter, and it was not pretty. :p

Hi there. I would really like to learn German. I'm native English- if you have any invites left.

*waves* I need to practice my Chinese.

If you end up with more invites, I'd be grateful for one. I'm interested in German. (My e-mail is removed after the fact)

If someone of you had already get one of Ronax' invitations, I would be grateful to get one of yours.
In this way we could share many more invites.
My e-mail is: (removed).

Thank you :)

#4 - Sent. Feel free to edit your e-mail address out, if you wish.

#3 - They currently have only Spanish, German, and French, as well as English lessons for Spanish speakers. Given the size of the project, though, I expect them to expand it.

#2 - That's one of the languages I'm practicing. I majored in German studies, but my grasp on the language is deplorable. I have one invitation left. You can send me a private message with your e-mail address, if you prefer. :)

Once you've settled into your account, you can each invite three people and spread the love of language! I'll have nothing to do with people spreading the language of love, though...

^6, Thank you so much! I signed up, started playing, and am ready to start Level 2. I can see that I'll be having some fun on this long holiday weekend.

I now have 3 invites to share, if anyone would like one. You can post here or private-message me your e-mail address.

I hope they add Japanese in the not-too-distant future. A lot of the German will be much needed refreshing, while I'm almost a rank beginner in Japanese.

Rozak, I didn't major in German, but spent a year there as an exchange student.... let's just say it was so long ago I was in West Germany, back when it was East and West with a big old wall in between! I've been back just twice since then, but I made sure to pick up lots of children's books in German each trip. It's a fun way to practice.

Thanks again!

6 - Oh, I see. I know Chinese was one of the languages they were planing on, but I didn't know they hadn't done it yet.

In the near future, no doubt. I hope you'll still give Duolingo a try. I'm having a lot of fun. :)

Except when I test my German. My progress is dismal. ~_~ Have I mentioned that one of my influences for majoring in German was my interest in the Grimm brothers?

Wow! What is up with the touch stones? I go to specify "Grimm Brothers" and it gives me Sir Elton John. I try "Brothers Grim" and it gives me Gianfranco Giorgi. "The Brothers Grimm"? Kanoko Okamoto. As far as I know, it isn't All Fools Day, so what on Earth is going on??

*sheesh* I attempt to go back to the default Jacob Grimm and it gives me "Richard E. Byrd". I'm pretty sure he spelled his name Jakob Grimm, though. No love for "Wilhelm", eh? Nope, redirects to Syd Hoff.

I'm going to bed...

I've still got one Duolingo invitation left, and a couple people here probably have invitations to share!

I'd welcome the invite.

I just need an e-mail address. You can PM it to me; I promise not to abuse it. You can delete the message after you get your invitation.

All of my invitations are spent. Please feel free to continue using this thread for sharing invitations, though!

I've got two invitations; if anyone is interested please private-message me your e-mail address.

I'd like to hear your reactions to it. As someone for whom language is my profession, I'd like to see howit works for you.

So far I like the lessons. Lots of repetition, lots of back-and-forth from English to German and vice versa. But I do find the site navigation a bit awkward. I can't tell if I'm supposed to be repeating exercises or if I'm just clicking in the wrong places. I also have no idea what their numbers/awards/scoring system is supposed to be. (I suppose I could just check for a "help" section and figure that out!). I also don't understand how they choose what they want you to translate, since the stuff I'm seeing for translation is miles beyond what they've actually taught me so far.

Language-wise it hasn't been a true test for me since I'm refresing on stuff I already knew. So I think I'm going to start Spanish also, which I haven't ever studied seriously. I do wish they had Japanese, but with the various Japanese alphabets, that would introduce so many complicated layers to how they do things.

EDITED TO ADD: I just started Spanish. Of course I knew this, but now I really know it: it's so much harder when you've truly never studied or known the language before. But it's fun. I'm thinking maybe I'll alternate days of German and Spanish.

Just dipped into it, it looks fun and I'm going to take it slowly and carefully.

I have 3 invites going free; here or PM me if anyone wants them.

I'm having a blast plowing through the levels. I'm surprised by how much I remember, and how quickly some things are coming back to me. This is all in Spanish, of course. German is still dismal. I'm also having fun making snarky comments with my "new" vocabulary words.

"Why are all these animals eating rice?"
"Spanish needs a generic term for 'children'. 'Niños' is vague."
"The students look bored. They're ready for the workforce!"

I'm a little annoyed with some of these lazy translations, though. And even more annoyed when I suggest an edit, and nobody responds. Well, I did get a response once. I wonder if I remembered to follow that person's progress. We're trying to translate the internet, here! Nobody's being graded! Let's discuss our mistakes and make better mistakes tomorrow!

if anyone has an invite left - id be interested :)

^ Rozax, some of the translations do look very awkward. But I didn't know until reading your post that people can respond to your suggestions. Do you know for sure they're being notified when you make a suggestion?

Clearly I need to explore further.

^ evedeve, if you private message me (here on Library Thing) your e-mail address I can send you the invite.

I suppose I really can't be sure, but it should show up in our streams.

Thought! Would we like to share our Duolingo usernames so we can follow each other? I'll edit the top post to include usernames if all are in favor.

Mine is the same as my LT username, amysisson. Share away as far as I'm concerned! I think I'm already following you on Duolingo -- was given the opportunity when you sent me the invite. But I haven't really explored what one can do when following.

#17 Merci C4RO! I'm about to go exploring.

And now, I have 3 invites going free; here or PM me if anyone wants them.

Um...it looks like I have four more invitations. Any takers?

#22: I think following helps with accountability and encouragement. We can give each other a pat on the back, or say "WELCOME BACK!" if you've been away for a while.

I'll take one. I can practice my advanced Spanish, at least. I'll PM you.

3 left ^_^

I've joined, and I'm using the same user name as here.

It's neat. I'm not sure if it's helping my Spanish yet, but I might see if it'll let me do another language as well.

2 invites left with me, PM please if you want me to see it quickly! I'm also about to go on holiday and be mostly off-net for a week or so. Please be patient!

I've decided to give French a try. It's in beta, so they're still working out some bugs.

By the way, I have 3 invitations to give out, again. As long as the people who receive them sign up, it looks like I get more invitations.

So far I'm finding the German lessons good -- lots of repetition, which is good even when this is mainly a refresher for me. But boy, some of the sentences they come up with are odd! "Your cat is eating my duck" is a bit strange, for instance. Another strangeness is that they sometimes test you on vocab words they haven't given to you yet.

I think the webpages they give you to translate sentences are kind of hit or miss. I'm trying to remember to rate translations as well as make them myself.

But overall I'm really enjoying German. I haven't done more than barely dip into Spanish. And then all this inspired me to go play with a Japanese hirigana quiz. I was pleased that I remembered most of those characters after several months away from them, but I know I don't remember how to say much beyond "please" and "thank you" in Japanese, not that I ever could say much!

My one remaining ambition is Norwegian. But I think I'll wait a while on that one!

Where did you find a Japanese hirigana quiz?

Sorry if I wasn't clear -- it's not on Duolingo. But here it is if you'd like to try it. Note that you can change from romaji to hirigana to katakana and quiz yourself from any one of those to any other.

http://www.easyjapanese.org/kanaquiz.html

Cool! Thanks!

And as it stands, I have 8 more invitations, since the people I've been inviting keep joining. :)

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ?

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ?

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ?

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ?

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ? Thank you.

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ? Thank you.

I would like to get an invitation. How to PM you in librarything ? Thank you.

^drizzt321, to PM someone, you can click on their username to get to their profile, scroll down for the message box, type in your message, and check the box that says "make message private".

Dear Rozax,
I have sent my email using PM. A million thanks!

You're welcome! I hope you enjoy it! :)

I found the Spanish a bit too easy for my level (I thought I could start at a more advanced place), so I've switched to German, which is testing me a bit more. I'm good at getting the gist of what's going on, even without looking some of the vocab up, but trying to get a good translation is forcing me to actually consider the smaller parts.

Of course it does nothing for *spoken* German, but I'll easily settle for being able to read it - it's something I've felt lacking in for some time.

Ok, Rozax, I sent you a PM. I'll give French a go.... with some trepidation...

French is definitely testing my mettle. It's been a long time since I started at square-one with a language.

What a great time-sink!

I'm finding that it stretches my command of English as much as the French (I can never think of exactly the correct word/phrase!) thanks Rozax

I now have three invites as well! PM your email if you want to try it out!

OH! I had great fun getting started with the French. I am sure it will challenge me, soon. But I am loving it!!!

I have 3 invites also so if someone is still looking for an invitation send me a PM.

Merci beau coup! Rozax.

Avec plaisir! I'm happy to have people to share this experience with!

And totally surprising to me, I actually visit it daily! And my French is brushing up, I think.

How are people doing these days with Duolingo? I'm still working on German most days. I notice that their errors in translation (some just typos, which is frustrating when you are marked incorrect for their typo!) seem to have increased on the later lessons, but I'm still finding it fun and useful.

(Still have invites if anyone wants one, although I guess they're not really needed anymore since it's out of beta.)

I am still working on French and liking it. Am stuck on one level because I continuously make silly mistakes. duh

I too have one more invite available if anyone wants to join us. I feel very virtuous trying to keep my French up! (-:

I've been slacking since I started my new job. :(

I should give time-management another go.  During my first two university years, I had everything written down in a planner, and I stuck to that plan.  Junior year rolled around, and I had to abandon a lot of my usual tasks, and thus my time-management skills suffered.  Maybe I should make Duolingo part of a morning regiment.  Wake up, brush teeth, duolingo while breakfast simmers.

I do better when I do it in the morning ! And I do have it as part of my every morning routine. I am not perfect, though.

I've got a couple of invites still- I'm going very slowly on German. Work is very busy and I've been travelling for a few weeks so no chance to get online and do it regularly.

I will get back to it within the next week as things are quieter now (probably just jinxed it!)

I still have one also. Also, going slowly in French but am enjoying it and am thinking of joining a French conversation group, once a week. Woo hoo!

I also have some invites.

I'm finding the German lessons are not as good the further you get. There are very few questions in some lessons, and in others the same three sentences repeat over and over. There are also more mistakes in the "correct" answers.

But I'm still enjoying it.

I noticed that if you did have a correct answer and it differed only slightly, and not incorrectly, from their answer you can communicate that to the team. I assume they are working to improve the nuances.

Yes, I've been following the feedback link when I can. It's not there for multiple choice, unfortunately. I had one where the first two answers were identical -- I literally compared them letter by letter at least 4 times -- but one is considered wrong and the other is considered right. I got it wrong.

I also think some of the sentences they choose are very strange.

But there's far more to like about the site than to dislike, so I consider these very minor quibbles.

There was one instance where my response was marked as incorrect, because while the translation was verbatim, made sense, and got the point across, it wasn't actually what they were saying.  I can't remember what it was, now, though.