Trying to pick up some French with Duolingo, and it's... very sink or swim. Different from the regimented way I was taught Spanish in high school. I guess it's trying to teach it conversationally, like you'd learn your first language? I mean, yeah, you don't sit with a baby and conjugate "to be", but it's confusing sometimes. Like I didn't see why there was only one valid answer here. Why can't I eat a sandwich?
Turns out the reason is... genders. Baguette is feminine, sandwich is masculine, fuck, une is fucking feminine, so sandwich doesn't match because fuck.
Fuck genders.
(Not bagging on the language itself (mainly), just how genders can be frustrating in a whooooole neeeww waaayyy)
And then sometimes Duolingo is cool in that it just presents you with new words and just sees of you can guess based on context. That's neat. Sometimes it's easier to guess new words than others...
@Mycroft It's definitely very different from how I have learned languages anywhere else. And I am learning and it's fun and easy, so I guess it works. But I like more structure. I like vocab lists and conjugation tables and clearly defined rules. So I'll keep using Duolingo to practice and drive what I learn, but I plan to supplement with more traditional materials.
I just started the "foods" section, next is "animals". It's going to seem mighty weird if canonically all bears are boys and all bunnies are girls. I can't wait. (No spoilers plz!)