Hey Evan just FYI, the protagonist in Curious Incident is high functioning autistic. He’s not immature. That’s why the writing and perspective is so unique.
The curious incident is actually the first "normal" english book I read back in 8th grade when I was learning english. I can recommend "Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama". It's not originally a german book but it's written from a kids point of view so the language is quite simple. But it's not necessarily a feelgood read. And don't try to read books like Harry Potter in German, it's just frustrated because we translated everything. Even names. First time I read Harry Potter in English I was so lost 😅
They changed the names of most creatures, some places (The Burrow, the pubs, diagon alley etc.) and e.g. Hermione is called Hermine in the german version (probably because germans would be confused about the io).
Luna Lovegood I think when the philosopher’s stone first came out in German they translated Sirius Black to Sirius Schwarz (the German word for black). This was before we knew that he’d be an important character, they stopped translating the name in later books and editions. Hermione is always spelled Hermine, as no German kid would have ever heard the name Hermione, let alone be able to pronounce it. Actually, I never read the German translations so there might be more, those are just some examples that I’m aware of and that made me read the original books.
Hey Slovenians did it too for some reason xD Like Severus Snape is now Robaus Raws and Voldemort became Mrlakenstein, like some made sense like Hogwarts becoming Bradavičarka because it's a basic translation and people would understand what the school name originally meant but Snape made me so confused because he was Snape in the movies and I grew up knowing him as Raws lol
i like doing the stories on duolingo. they introduce you to more slang or colloquial words but go at a steady pace to make sure you understand the story as you go along. i think they only have them in french, english and spanish though.
When you do eventually upload your only-German speaking video, can you please add English subtitles so us English speakers don’t miss out on your content???
I’ve had my DuoLingo Spanish tree completed for a few years. I currently read Spanish poems, Spanish music and try my best to speak to my Spanish speaking friends. I’m not fluent yet (the goal), but learning a language is so fun and extremely helpful in my daily life! Such an insightful video Evan! :)
Am in Kenya...self-learning...looking for a German Native speaker to be conversing with on Facebook book to learn better...my fb handle is M M Paul pmm...
I'm learning French on Duolingo and don't understand the crowns at all I preferred the old update I don't know what order to do things now. A big complaint I have is that you can't go back and review old lessons, it just does the next crown level
there is a 3rd party site, duome.eu, where you can see the strength levels which were removed from the website. go to duome.eu/username/progress (substitute username with your real duolingo username)
I've found the crowns just build on what you just learned so in effect you are still practicing but doing so with longer sentences with diff vocab. I think it's genius. I much prefer this as you do not move on too quickly. I wish the dutch would add stories eventually but I understand it isn't a major pull for duo. They've done a great job with a lot of the languages though..it is just too bad the computer voice can't be replaced with something real like they have done in Google translate.
i love a curious incident of the dog in the night time bc i have autism and bro thats how i think and i dont have to re read sentences to completely understand what it means i luv it
Auf ein komplett deutsches Video, in der Zukunft, freue ich mich auch. Immernoch sehr stolz auf dich, dass du das so ambitioniert mast mit dem Deutsch lernen. :)
If you're looking for some more German authors worth checking out, here are some I really enjoy: - Cornelia Funke and Kai Meyer (both mostly known for their amazing children's and teen's novels) - Sebastian Fitzeck (a really successful German crime author) - Walter Moers (a author known for writing the most creative fantasy novels) I don't know what genre you're into, but maybe I named one or two you might enjoy. ;) Viel Spaß beim Lesen, falls du dich dazu entscheiden solltest. :)
pietra I started using Duolingo because of his previous video. I'm happily learning Japanese and Portuguese, and very thankful to Evan for introducing the App to us.
I started reading Harry Potter in Swedish because I have read them so many times and it feels so good to actually understand. I recommend to pick your childhood favourites if you don't feel ready to read a new book.
Du solltest ein Video auf Deutsch machen!! I’ve been learning german for 6 years and I love it so much. I’m glad your videos are encouraging more people to learn german. It’s so under appreciated! Best wishes!
I remember how great it felt when I first read an English book and understood what was going on. I didnt even notice when I got to the level of understanding almost every conversation, but the Internet basically taught me since I only knew two tenses before - simple present and simple past. That's quite limited, still I use other tenses as well for a while now and I never really learned them. I'm sure there are many mistakes in my written and spoken English, but being able to understand and speak and understanding each other already feels great. Reading books, watching movies and chatting really did a lot for me. I just noticed last week that I was finally able to understand something when I read some pages of a French book I bought 4 years ago. I wanted to get to this point by this year, and even though I was very lazy or rather I actually didnt have a lot of time to learn but I actually got there. It's still bad, but I see some progress. I also used Duolingo for learning French sometimes, haven't checked out the update yet but since I also didnt really like the app I'm quite sceptical now. It really helps with getting a feeling for the structure of the language and for learning some basic vocabulary.
I almost went to sleep when my brain went ‘YOU HAVENT SEEN EVAN’S NEW VIDEO WHAT ARE YOU DOING’So now it’s its 12:45pm and I’m watching your vid before sleep.My priorities are CLEARLY in order :)
I'm actually pretty glad you made your first Duolingo video because it inspired me to pick it up and really give it a serious go this time! Also learning German with a combo of that + once a week course + Easy German + watching German serials and whoa -- the Deutsche Welle tip was EVERYTHING. Checking that out immediately. Vielen dank Evan!
We actually say "dab" too :D As you probably know, there are a lot of anglicisms in the german language, especiallly when it comes to technology or kind of new words like for example laptop, date, lifestyle, branding, date, dab ;) ... and the list goes on. What is pretty funny is that often the english words are kind of germanised and modified to be able to press them into the german language and sometimes people forget that they are not actually german words. If you say you are "abgefuckt" that means you are super fed up about a situation or you are super drained/tired or if you say you are totally "ausgepowert" that means you are super drained/ tired too but in a more positive way then abgefuckt :`D And the fascinating thing about angliisms is that they are so ingrained in our language that even people who do not speak english and have never learned it understand them! If I talk to my grandma she knows without a question what an all- inclusive vacation is or a Babysitter or feedback :D I think that's really cool
Another accessible book in German is 'Tschick', (English 'Why We Took the Car') by Wolfgang Herrndorf a funny, insightful story of two boys who end up on a road trip using a 'borrowed' car, told through the eyes of a 14-year-old. The film of the book was released in 2016. Its English title is 'Goodbye Berlin.'
I just want to thank you for making these language/Duolingo videos. They've motivated me to pick up studying German at a pace I'm comfortable at. I moved to Germany in 2015 from Canada with little to no knowledge of the language, took the 6 month integration/language course and passed the DTZ with a B1 mark. But I have almost no opportunity to practice given my situation, and in large part motivation. Coming across your videos on RUclips's sidebar was the best thing to motivate me and start the Duolingo grind. Again, thank you for your wonderful content and upbeat videos. I'm looking forward to more great content from you :)
I started Duolingo looking at your video..and now you are giving more resources. I do not know how to thank you more. Its true the experience of being able to read a foreign language or understand is absolutely thrilling. It has a kick like being inducted into a secret club or something.
Omg i have been using duolingo for quite some time and watching your video starting with duo and now reading an actual book in German gives me so much pleasure and motivation to keep up my work and continue what i am doing and it gets me soooo excited for the future,so thank you 👏💪🙏❤
Thanks for this video. I logged onto Duolingo one day and the crowns were there. No explanation. Just... crowns. And I was turned off and kinda left Duo for a bit. Now I feel like I can get back into it.
Hast du eigendlich ein Video komplett auf Deutsch geplant? Fänd ich mega! :) (Do you plan to upload a video completely in German at some point in the future?) Edit: I just reached the end of the video and you've answered that question, so never mind. :D
btw I learned English mostly through reading books and watching movies in English. But the break through came when I started watching RUclipsrs. Why? Because they A: use everyday words and B: they sometimes talk suuuuper fast (I'm looking at you) and the moment I started to understand what you were saying, I was so proud haha
FloatingPier Same here! When I first started watching youtube videos in english it was like being thrown into the cold water haha. I was so bad at understanding all these different accents because I was so used to this shitty german accent I heard in school (that makes me cringe every time I hear it). But now I understand people with all their accents perfectly fine :)
I finished my swedish tree on april 2017 and I still learn something every time I revise my lessons. This new system has been the most effective way for me, this way I have learned a ton and I have a big motivation to finally reach the level 25 and to get the most out of Duolingo. I think without the new system I wouldn’t have been so motivated to keep learning swedish through Duolingo. It is more fun and the lessons are actually hard. I study from A1- B2 textbooks and Duo is a nice switch, but I wouldn’t necessarily say easier. But yes I agree, after you finish the tree a whole new world opens in front of you and you just need to know something more. I started with textbooks, now I am following some swedish vloggers and with all of my struggle it is unbelievably amazing to go for even a half a minute and realize that you just understood everything!
The new update definitely has its ups and downs for me. Nevertheless I'll continue to use Duolingo. It's really amazing to hear about your duolingo journey!
Really proud of you Evan! German is a really hard language. Also I myself speak German and I'm currently learning English in school. I was really happy when I could read a book in English and watch movies, videos and series without subtitles! I guess the only thing that I still have to work on is grammar haha. But I'm only 14 so I guess i have a lot of time to learn!
I watched this video at least 6 months ago, way before I'd ever considered trying to read a book in German. I recently finished my first book, Einmal by Morris Gleitzman, which is narrated by a child so easy enough to follow (touching story from a kid in WWII) and remembered this recommendation. I'm 60% into in now and oh my goodness, it's so good. I'm even more into this book than the first one I read and so glad to have found it. I want to keep reading it just like I would any English book that I go sucked into. Even though there's still lots of words I don't understand it doesn't stop me from following the story. I'm now worrying about what to read next, maybe I'll give "Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama" a go. Any Harry Potter book is still too much for me but I'll get there, hopefully in the next 6 months.
Thanks for this, Evan! I used Duolingo back in high school as a part of my French class, and I recently went back to it to start teaching myself Spanish! I wondered why things looked different now. I use the desktop version so I will definitely be turning off that word box function! (I also agree that Duolingo does very little in terms of teaching grammar which is kind of a bummer.)
Freu mich auf jedes Video das urgendwas mit der deutschen sprache zu tun hat :) especially that you mix English and German together because it's a nice feeling for me as a bilingual to be able to understand both at the same time 😂😂
This is so helpful! I am trying to learn basic German before applying to grad school (which is necessary for my academic interests) and I wanted a fun, interactive learning experience rather than paying for dull night courses.
Thank you very much! I have used Deutsche Welle before and it was good but a bit slow and I always get bored because I already have done A1.1. I didn't know about the story and the series you have mentioned and now I am super excited and motivated to start that while I am also using duolingo. I find your videos very motivating.
I’m using it to help me learn Japanese better. I’ve forgotten so much since I’ve moved back to the USA from Japan, and this has been helping me so much. I’m thinking about learning German, and I’m hoping Tagalog is added soon!
I sort of gave up learning German this year when I became ill and was in the hospital and all that. Thanks for recommending Nicos Weg and Harry - gefangen in der Zeit! I've bookmarked them on my browser so I can start studying again using those resources. :)
Omg thank you for these sources!!! I'm A1 in german atm and I need to be at least B1 in about 3-4 years (I'm in the swiss Matura school system so I need at least B1 to graduate. And also just so i can get Swiss citizenship in about 5 years) so this is great for me! Also, my German teachers will be so happy that I'll be improving faster than I am rn lol
Time practice is still there. Also, once in a blue moon, there are typing exercises on Duoligno mobile. It happens once every two lessons on its own. However, I've noticed if you take a word box exercise on mobile and leave mid-exercise it will switch to fill in the blank exercises.
Your passion for learning German reignites my interest in the language. My grandfather’s family grew up speaking the language, but they learned Low German whereas most books teach High German. The little bit I know is not always understood by the family. Still, it’s an interesting language to study.
Omg, you’re making me more motivated to learn German, I’ve been wanting to learn it for a long time, but I didn’t actually start it, I’m Brazilian, Portuguese speaker, fluent in English and want to become a polyglot
Thanks to YOU I am learning French on Duolingo. Actually I did study French in school which was a long long time ago but I was inspired and since I saw your other vid I thought I would give Duolingo a try. It's supposed to be good for old people's brains to study a language.
I’m in the same boat as you are: I had never learned German throughout my life as it wasn’t offered as a language option in school growing up, however much of my ancestry is German and I even live in a town named after a city in Germany, so I figured screw it and decided a few weeks ago to give it a go. I’m up to a 3 week streak - which yes I know pales in comparison to your hopefully 1000+ day streak by now - but I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, especially the challenge of learning a language such as German because I like a good challenge plus I’m just bored in life and consider myself to have a fairly good grasp of English. I appreciate the tips as well as the other apps and sites to try the further along I get as I’m truly looking forward to grinding my way to being fluent in another language. Also I figured it would be kind of cool for my grandpa as when he was much younger he’s told me his grandma spoke very little English and mainly only German then to have a grandchild able to speak the language. Would kind of bring everything full circle I suppose. Anyway thanks again for the advice and I’ll pop back in sometime and leave a comment as to how my learning is going. Auf Wiedersehen!
I was very proud of myself while was watching your video!! English is my 2nd language and I thought it was cool that I understand you well although you speak super fast 😅 I’m using Duolingo to learn German and I love it. Thank you for the information👍🏼
I agree that moving on to reading books is a great next move. I’ve been reading adult books in Spanish for about 6 months now and it’s amazing how much it’s improved my Spanish. I feel like a pretty fluent reader in Spanish!
I followed you on DuoLingo because I wanted your competitive nature to drive me to do more... then you started doing just the basic 10 points a day and I wondered why. Now I know - so now as I'm working my way through the crowns (turning my level 2s into level 3s, then my 3s into 4s, etc.) I look forward to starting my journey with Harry. :) (And I know it was frustrating for Duo to change their interface and learning system two weeks after your video, but it's a minor first-world problem, not the story of your life. You're living a life some of us only dream of. Enjoy it and appreciate it. :D
Thanks for posting about the update! I saw your original video when I was just starting out on Duolingo, and found myself wondering, "what does he mean gold?" So I figured the crowns must turn gold at a certain level (they're really more of an orange lol). So I'm at like level 5 on alphabet and level 4 on basics 1, and only recently decided to move on. But on the positive side, I feel like I actually know the words, so that plateau experience you describe has not been an issue. But you're right, the website is the way to go. Yes, you learn better with "fill in the blank" (and that's what I'm using) and also helps for guys like me with fat fingers (lol). Sure I butcher the spelling, but the more I do it, the more I learn the spelling too, which gives me a better idea of how the pronunciation works. Can't get that from the word box. Anyway, you're right that Duo won't get you everything you need to become fluent in a language. In addition to Duo I've been using Google Translate - which admittedly is not a perfect tool either, but at least gives me access to some new phrases and vocabulary. And someday, I'd like to find a good book (when I can actually understand it). That helped me learn Spanish... well that and watching movies and listening to music in Spanish. :) PS: I'm not up to book level yet, but I would love to read that book about the time loop! Do they have it in Russian? That's what I'm learning with Duolingo.
Just started learning on Duolingo for the first time in years and I'm so glad I made the decision to revisit it. I'm doing the Swedish tree and I'm making more progress than my boyfriend who has been trying to learn for the last few years. Using Duo in addition to a few other resources helps a ton.
Klasse, dass du es geschafft hast auf reguläre Bücher umzusteigen :) du wirst merken, dass das der Schlüssel ist, um ein echtes Verständnis der Sprache zu erlangen! Der Großteil meines Wortschatzes im Englischen kommt vom Lesen toller Bücher. Hast du schon mal versucht die Harry Potter Serie in Deutsch zu lesen? Da die Bücher dem Alter der Leser gerecht geschrieben wurden, dürfte der selbe Effekt eintreten wie bei den Deutsche Welle Videos. Außerdem kennst du ja schon den Inhalt ;) Viele meiner deutschen Freunde haben es als wir jung waren andersrum gemacht. (Great that you managed to switch to regular books :) you will see that this is the key to gaining a real understanding of the language. Most of my English vocabulary comes from reading great books. Have you ever tried reading the Harry Potter series in German? As the books were written to suit the readers age, the same effect as the one in the videos of Deutsche Welle videos should come into play. Moreover you already know the content ;) lots of my German friends did it the other way around when we were younger)
Going to start learning Welsh (my home language) through Duolingo, inspired by you! I did get good marks in it at GCSE but have not spoken it in nearly 4 years and want to relearn :) Hopefully one day I can get as good as you are at German
I think I read the curious incident of the dog in the night time in 9th grade English class, buts it’s so good, also at the end Christopher will go over some math problems so keep reading Evan
I just started learning german on duolingo recently. And I think its great for the basics. I'm surprised by how much I have learnt already. And its so excited to be picking things up. Im jealous of your pronunciation cause Im finding that quite hard.
Upload your full german video here and have subtitles!! That would be awesome! OR like exploring Germany like you're a tour guide for us who can only speak German for your travel channel lol
I'm currently studying Portuguese on Duolingo, and I definitely prefer the new system. It forces you to do the same stuff over and over again to get to level 5, and that way you build that solid foundation that's needed to learn more. I also agree with Evan, you can't just learn a language on Duolingo. It's the perfect place to start and get into a language, but if your goal is fluency, then you need to learn in other ways at well. I have a bunch of Portuguese friends, who are good motivators to learn, and are also very helpful with the things I don't understand about the language. A good way to learn is also listening to music in your goal language, you can do that even when you're just getting started. It makes you used to hearing that language and then at some point you can even maybe understand the lyrics. And please for the love of god, don't just use Duolingo when it comes to grammar, it's a good place to get started, but it is never enough when it comes to grammar.
boy i thought i had this on 1.5x speed but nah you just speak fast 😂
I'm not an english native speaker, so you can imagine how hard it turns when he speaks fast hahah. I can handle it but sometimes is kind of tricky
Yeah I actually put it on ×0.75 to understand him properly 😂
Lol I'm actually watching this on 1.25 speed as a non native speaker 😂, gotta save time
I'm from Brazil and I had the same impression. I'm gonna follow him to practice this level of listening to english speaking ...lol
That’s why I subscribed, to strengthen my English listening comprehension skill 🤣
Watch your favorite movies in German! It'll help!!!
I've tried watching "Star Trek" in German. It's more funny than anything.
Hayley Alexis the German voice of Bruce Willis is the perfect prove how something can be better than the original!
I'm going to watch some shows in Swedish because those are beautiful...
*And Comics too ;)*
Watched Shrek in german and could not stop laughing the entire film
Hey Evan just FYI, the protagonist in Curious Incident is high functioning autistic. He’s not immature. That’s why the writing and perspective is so unique.
Mission Failed
I got killed on 31st April 2018.
Was going to mention that too
*I thought at first it was an offensive joke until I actually read the whole sentence, haha!*
And, so am I!
The curious incident is actually the first "normal" english book I read back in 8th grade when I was learning english. I can recommend "Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama". It's not originally a german book but it's written from a kids point of view so the language is quite simple. But it's not necessarily a feelgood read. And don't try to read books like Harry Potter in German, it's just frustrated because we translated everything. Even names. First time I read Harry Potter in English I was so lost 😅
They changed the names of most creatures, some places (The Burrow, the pubs, diagon alley etc.) and e.g. Hermione is called Hermine in the german version (probably because germans would be confused about the io).
Luna Lovegood
I think when the philosopher’s stone first came out in German they translated Sirius Black to Sirius Schwarz (the German word for black). This was before we knew that he’d be an important character, they stopped translating the name in later books and editions.
Hermione is always spelled Hermine, as no German kid would have ever heard the name Hermione, let alone be able to pronounce it.
Actually, I never read the German translations so there might be more, those are just some examples that I’m aware of and that made me read the original books.
Hey Slovenians did it too for some reason xD Like Severus Snape is now Robaus Raws and Voldemort became Mrlakenstein, like some made sense like Hogwarts becoming Bradavičarka because it's a basic translation and people would understand what the school name originally meant but Snape made me so confused because he was Snape in the movies and I grew up knowing him as Raws lol
Guys you should watch the video Vox made on that!
Oml ikr
Can we just pause and look how good Evans hair looks?
Alena H I totally agree xD
i like doing the stories on duolingo. they introduce you to more slang or colloquial words but go at a steady pace to make sure you understand the story as you go along. i think they only have them in french, english and spanish though.
They also have them in German! I was about to comment it aswell because it is really useful.
Maybe I should make a video on the Turkish I learned on Duolingo. Hint: I couldn't translate that sentence into Turkish.
They also have them in Portuguese (Português ftw!)
They have it in German now which is great because I learn better by reading and and it's a nice break from the lessons
Where are the stories? never seen that feature in Duolingo.
When you do eventually upload your only-German speaking video, can you please add English subtitles so us English speakers don’t miss out on your content???
+
+
^please
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I’ve had my DuoLingo Spanish tree completed for a few years. I currently read Spanish poems, Spanish music and try my best to speak to my Spanish speaking friends. I’m not fluent yet (the goal), but learning a language is so fun and extremely helpful in my daily life! Such an insightful video Evan! :)
I miss the cute little characters on Duolingo. There was one that looked like Shakespeare and it amused me whenever he popped up!
am i german and a native german speaker?? yes
did i still watch the whole video?? yes
You can apply almost everything in this video to studying any language.
Ja, wie geht‘s?
Same
Am in Kenya...self-learning...looking for a German Native speaker to be conversing with on Facebook book to learn better...my fb handle is M M Paul pmm...
Evan, PLEASE read "tschick"! It´s my favourite German book! It´s so funny and well written and it doesn´t exist in other languages!
I love that book, and the movie is great too! :)
chicken skink and having a good movie for a good book is very rare!! They f*cked up the end though :/ (I mean the movie)
Liv it does exist in other languages, it's called why we stole the car in English 😊
MyMissionForAmbition wow I didn't know that! Did you read it?
I'm biased against it because we had to read it in school
I'm learning French on Duolingo and don't understand the crowns at all I preferred the old update I don't know what order to do things now. A big complaint I have is that you can't go back and review old lessons, it just does the next crown level
FairyTaleBeliever Use the practice button.
You can still practice your old skills
there is a 3rd party site, duome.eu, where you can see the strength levels which were removed from the website. go to duome.eu/username/progress (substitute username with your real duolingo username)
I miss the Strengthen option... :'(
I've found the crowns just build on what you just learned so in effect you are still practicing but doing so with longer sentences with diff vocab. I think it's genius. I much prefer this as you do not move on too quickly. I wish the dutch would add stories eventually but I understand it isn't a major pull for duo. They've done a great job with a lot of the languages though..it is just too bad the computer voice can't be replaced with something real like they have done in Google translate.
i love a curious incident of the dog in the night time bc i have autism and bro thats how i think and i dont have to re read sentences to completely understand what it means i luv it
IZZI ikr, although i do not have autism i still love and appreciate the book
Ass burgers syndrome
Good book though
Auf ein komplett deutsches Video, in der Zukunft, freue ich mich auch. Immernoch sehr stolz auf dich, dass du das so ambitioniert mast mit dem Deutsch lernen. :)
If you're looking for some more German authors worth checking out, here are some I really enjoy:
- Cornelia Funke and Kai Meyer (both mostly known for their amazing children's and teen's novels)
- Sebastian Fitzeck (a really successful German crime author)
- Walter Moers (a author known for writing the most creative fantasy novels)
I don't know what genre you're into, but maybe I named one or two you might enjoy. ;)
Viel Spaß beim Lesen, falls du dich dazu entscheiden solltest. :)
I think you mean ger-ney
Megan Wells jour-many
?
i started learning german because of you!!
pietra I started using Duolingo because of his previous video. I'm happily learning Japanese and Portuguese, and very thankful to Evan for introducing the App to us.
*germam*
Cannon sorry, it was a typo
Dukan Ani thats cool, i speak portuguese (i'm brazilian)
I started reading Harry Potter in Swedish because I have read them so many times and it feels so good to actually understand. I recommend to pick your childhood favourites if you don't feel ready to read a new book.
Du solltest ein Video auf Deutsch machen!! I’ve been learning german for 6 years and I love it so much. I’m glad your videos are encouraging more people to learn german. It’s so under appreciated! Best wishes!
Thank you so much! You could also link the sources you mentioned.
It's from that german newspaper. www.dw.de . Go to learn german and you will find the stuff he was talking about.
Duolingo helped me learn basic Mandarin!
Ich finde es echt super, dass du dich entschieden hast Deutsch zu lernen!
I remember how great it felt when I first read an English book and understood what was going on. I didnt even notice when I got to the level of understanding almost every conversation, but the Internet basically taught me since I only knew two tenses before - simple present and simple past. That's quite limited, still I use other tenses as well for a while now and I never really learned them. I'm sure there are many mistakes in my written and spoken English, but being able to understand and speak and understanding each other already feels great. Reading books, watching movies and chatting really did a lot for me. I just noticed last week that I was finally able to understand something when I read some pages of a French book I bought 4 years ago. I wanted to get to this point by this year, and even though I was very lazy or rather I actually didnt have a lot of time to learn but I actually got there. It's still bad, but I see some progress. I also used Duolingo for learning French sometimes, haven't checked out the update yet but since I also didnt really like the app I'm quite sceptical now. It really helps with getting a feeling for the structure of the language and for learning some basic vocabulary.
I almost went to sleep when my brain went ‘YOU HAVENT SEEN EVAN’S NEW VIDEO WHAT ARE YOU DOING’So now it’s its 12:45pm and I’m watching your vid before sleep.My priorities are CLEARLY in order :)
keep it up man, you get the understand of that langue in no time.
I started learning Dutch with Doulingo because of you. I'm on my 83 day streak and I love it. Thank you for the inspiration! 😍🇱🇺
It's kinda funny, when I tried to improve my english I picked that exact same book but in english :D It's really good!
I just started to learn Hebrew on Doulingo. Thanks for inspiring me
your videos always get me pumped to continue learning a language with Duolinguo, thank you Evan!!
I'm actually pretty glad you made your first Duolingo video because it inspired me to pick it up and really give it a serious go this time! Also learning German with a combo of that + once a week course + Easy German + watching German serials and whoa -- the Deutsche Welle tip was EVERYTHING. Checking that out immediately. Vielen dank Evan!
We actually say "dab" too :D As you probably know, there are a lot of anglicisms in the german language, especiallly when it comes to technology or kind of new words like for example laptop, date, lifestyle, branding, date, dab ;) ... and the list goes on. What is pretty funny is that often the english words are kind of germanised and modified to be able to press them into the german language and sometimes people forget that they are not actually german words. If you say you are "abgefuckt" that means you are super fed up about a situation or you are super drained/tired or if you say you are totally "ausgepowert" that means you are super drained/ tired too but in a more positive way then abgefuckt :`D And the fascinating thing about angliisms is that they are so ingrained in our language that even people who do not speak english and have never learned it understand them! If I talk to my grandma she knows without a question what an all- inclusive vacation is or a Babysitter or feedback :D I think that's really cool
Another accessible book in German is 'Tschick', (English 'Why We Took the Car')
by Wolfgang Herrndorf a funny, insightful story of two boys who end up on a road trip using a 'borrowed' car, told through the eyes of a 14-year-old.
The film of the book was released in 2016. Its English title is 'Goodbye Berlin.'
I’ve started to learn Japanese thanks to your video explaining Duolingo so thank you
Jack lol no it doesnt 1 year is all you need
dabben (to dab)
ich dabbe
du dabst
er/sie/es dabt
ich dabte
ich habe gedabt
adam_n ich habe gedabt werden, ich würde dabben, er dabbe....
ich werde dabben
ich werde gedabt haben
Dabb(e)!
Dabbt
Dabben Sie
Wir dabben xD #germany
ich werde gedabt hatten! (Futur III)
I just want to thank you for making these language/Duolingo videos. They've motivated me to pick up studying German at a pace I'm comfortable at. I moved to Germany in 2015 from Canada with little to no knowledge of the language, took the 6 month integration/language course and passed the DTZ with a B1 mark. But I have almost no opportunity to practice given my situation, and in large part motivation. Coming across your videos on RUclips's sidebar was the best thing to motivate me and start the Duolingo grind. Again, thank you for your wonderful content and upbeat videos. I'm looking forward to more great content from you :)
I started Duolingo looking at your video..and now you are giving more resources. I do not know how to thank you more. Its true the experience of being able to read a foreign language or understand is absolutely thrilling. It has a kick like being inducted into a secret club or something.
your german journey makes me soooo happy. i'm a huge language geek and i'm so proud of you for learning a new language.
They showed us "Harry - gefangen in der Zeit" in german class last year lol
I’m watching this all over again because you make me the happiest
Omg i have been using duolingo for quite some time and watching your video starting with duo and now reading an actual book in German gives me so much pleasure and motivation to keep up my work and continue what i am doing and it gets me soooo excited for the future,so thank you 👏💪🙏❤
I actually tried playing your video at 0.75x speed and damn it's actually much more understandable.
Lauw! Thanks
I checked the video speed if i’ve left it at 1.25x or 1.5x or something lol
Even if they updated it, your techniques have kickstarted my Italian. GRAZIE!!!!!!
Thanks for this video. I logged onto Duolingo one day and the crowns were there. No explanation. Just... crowns. And I was turned off and kinda left Duo for a bit. Now I feel like I can get back into it.
Chatterbug has been a revelation for me. really helped my german, duolingo gets you to a point and you plateau pretty quickly
I was going to ask you about it on twitter, happy to hear your thoughts
Hast du eigendlich ein Video komplett auf Deutsch geplant? Fänd ich mega! :) (Do you plan to upload a video completely in German at some point in the future?)
Edit: I just reached the end of the video and you've answered that question, so never mind. :D
btw I learned English mostly through reading books and watching movies in English. But the break through came when I started watching RUclipsrs. Why? Because they A: use everyday words and B: they sometimes talk suuuuper fast (I'm looking at you) and the moment I started to understand what you were saying, I was so proud haha
FloatingPier Geht mir genauso!
Was ist geplant auf englisch?
FloatingPier Same here! When I first started watching youtube videos in english it was like being thrown into the cold water haha. I was so bad at understanding all these different accents because I was so used to this shitty german accent I heard in school (that makes me cringe every time I hear it). But now I understand people with all their accents perfectly fine :)
Oh and fanfiction helped me build my vocabulary xD
I finished my swedish tree on april 2017 and I still learn something every time I revise my lessons. This new system has been the most effective way for me, this way I have learned a ton and I have a big motivation to finally reach the level 25 and to get the most out of Duolingo. I think without the new system I wouldn’t have been so motivated to keep learning swedish through Duolingo. It is more fun and the lessons are actually hard. I study from A1- B2 textbooks and Duo is a nice switch, but I wouldn’t necessarily say easier. But yes I agree, after you finish the tree a whole new world opens in front of you and you just need to know something more. I started with textbooks, now I am following some swedish vloggers and with all of my struggle it is unbelievably amazing to go for even a half a minute and realize that you just understood everything!
My uncle is stationed in Germany and I'm planning on visiting him a couple of times. Started learning german and this was very helpful!!
The new update definitely has its ups and downs for me. Nevertheless I'll continue to use Duolingo. It's really amazing to hear about your duolingo journey!
Evan you are actually amazing 😘😂
Really proud of you Evan! German is a really hard language. Also I myself speak German and I'm currently learning English in school. I was really happy when I could read a book in English and watch movies, videos and series without subtitles! I guess the only thing that I still have to work on is grammar haha. But I'm only 14 so I guess i have a lot of time to learn!
Your videos on Duolingo and your focus and consistency with it have really helped me maintain my now 30 DAY STREAK which is kind of a big deal for me
I watched this video at least 6 months ago, way before I'd ever considered trying to read a book in German. I recently finished my first book, Einmal by Morris Gleitzman, which is narrated by a child so easy enough to follow (touching story from a kid in WWII) and remembered this recommendation. I'm 60% into in now and oh my goodness, it's so good. I'm even more into this book than the first one I read and so glad to have found it. I want to keep reading it just like I would any English book that I go sucked into. Even though there's still lots of words I don't understand it doesn't stop me from following the story. I'm now worrying about what to read next, maybe I'll give "Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama" a go. Any Harry Potter book is still too much for me but I'll get there, hopefully in the next 6 months.
YAY! I have been waiting for a video like this. So thank you for making this video! AWESOME video! And yes I do like the new changes on Duolingo!
Thanks for this, Evan! I used Duolingo back in high school as a part of my French class, and I recently went back to it to start teaching myself Spanish! I wondered why things looked different now. I use the desktop version so I will definitely be turning off that word box function! (I also agree that Duolingo does very little in terms of teaching grammar which is kind of a bummer.)
Because of you I downloaded the app and my spanish has become significantly better thanks man!
Freu mich auf jedes Video das urgendwas mit der deutschen sprache zu tun hat :) especially that you mix English and German together because it's a nice feeling for me as a bilingual to be able to understand both at the same time 😂😂
Oh my gosh, thank you for the advice! I learn German at school but now do if after school with a German friend of mine.
Thanks a lot for the recommendations and resources! Motivated to continue learning French now
Hi Evan. I was on duolingo and to get the times practice you have to buy it in the shop with the red jewl lingot things. 👍🏼
This is so helpful! I am trying to learn basic German before applying to grad school (which is necessary for my academic interests) and I wanted a fun, interactive learning experience rather than paying for dull night courses.
Thank you very much! I have used Deutsche Welle before and it was good but a bit slow and I always get bored because I already have done A1.1. I didn't know about the story and the series you have mentioned and now I am super excited and motivated to start that while I am also using duolingo.
I find your videos very motivating.
I’m using it to help me learn Japanese better. I’ve forgotten so much since I’ve moved back to the USA from Japan, and this has been helping me so much.
I’m thinking about learning German, and I’m hoping Tagalog is added soon!
I sort of gave up learning German this year when I became ill and was in the hospital and all that. Thanks for recommending Nicos Weg and Harry - gefangen in der Zeit! I've bookmarked them on my browser so I can start studying again using those resources. :)
Omg thank you for these sources!!! I'm A1 in german atm and I need to be at least B1 in about 3-4 years (I'm in the swiss Matura school system so I need at least B1 to graduate. And also just so i can get Swiss citizenship in about 5 years) so this is great for me! Also, my German teachers will be so happy that I'll be improving faster than I am rn lol
Time practice is still there. Also, once in a blue moon, there are typing exercises on Duoligno mobile. It happens once every two lessons on its own. However, I've noticed if you take a word box exercise on mobile and leave mid-exercise it will switch to fill in the blank exercises.
Your passion for learning German reignites my interest in the language. My grandfather’s family grew up speaking the language, but they learned Low German whereas most books teach High German. The little bit I know is not always understood by the family. Still, it’s an interesting language to study.
Omg, you’re making me more motivated to learn German, I’ve been wanting to learn it for a long time, but I didn’t actually start it, I’m Brazilian, Portuguese speaker, fluent in English and want to become a polyglot
you inspired me to use duolingo!
I love seeing Evan excited and motivated
This and the other vid makes me so motivated to continue duolingo. Bless
Thanks to YOU I am learning French on Duolingo. Actually I did study French in school which was a long long time ago but I was inspired and since I saw your other vid I thought I would give Duolingo a try. It's supposed to be good for old people's brains to study a language.
I’m in the same boat as you are: I had never learned German throughout my life as it wasn’t offered as a language option in school growing up, however much of my ancestry is German and I even live in a town named after a city in Germany, so I figured screw it and decided a few weeks ago to give it a go. I’m up to a 3 week streak - which yes I know pales in comparison to your hopefully 1000+ day streak by now - but I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, especially the challenge of learning a language such as German because I like a good challenge plus I’m just bored in life and consider myself to have a fairly good grasp of English. I appreciate the tips as well as the other apps and sites to try the further along I get as I’m truly looking forward to grinding my way to being fluent in another language. Also I figured it would be kind of cool for my grandpa as when he was much younger he’s told me his grandma spoke very little English and mainly only German then to have a grandchild able to speak the language. Would kind of bring everything full circle I suppose. Anyway thanks again for the advice and I’ll pop back in sometime and leave a comment as to how my learning is going. Auf Wiedersehen!
I have a 50 day streak are you proud of me?😃
I'm on 58 days :P
good job!
whoop!
74 ! Started Italian with Evan's first video and boy did it motivate me x)
134
I was very proud of myself while was watching your video!! English is my 2nd language and I thought it was cool that I understand you well although you speak super fast 😅
I’m using Duolingo to learn German and I love it. Thank you for the information👍🏼
Omg, I started with Nico's Weg, it's really cool. Oh, yeah and thanks to you I downloaded Duolingo, Danke! :D
I agree that books are an awesome learning resource after Duo. I am so excited to now be reading the Divergent book in Spanish!
I am learning german at school and on Duolingo and i am doing it on babble aswell
Izzie Neal
how is babble?
I agree that moving on to reading books is a great next move. I’ve been reading adult books in Spanish for about 6 months now and it’s amazing how much it’s improved my Spanish. I feel like a pretty fluent reader in Spanish!
I followed you on DuoLingo because I wanted your competitive nature to drive me to do more... then you started doing just the basic 10 points a day and I wondered why. Now I know - so now as I'm working my way through the crowns (turning my level 2s into level 3s, then my 3s into 4s, etc.) I look forward to starting my journey with Harry. :)
(And I know it was frustrating for Duo to change their interface and learning system two weeks after your video, but it's a minor first-world problem, not the story of your life. You're living a life some of us only dream of. Enjoy it and appreciate it. :D
I recently started using duolingo to re-learn German. I studied it in high school but have forgotten almost everything. I’ve been liking it so far!
THANK YOU I WAS SO CONFUSED ABOUT THE UPDATE
Thanks for posting about the update!
I saw your original video when I was just starting out on Duolingo, and found myself wondering, "what does he mean gold?" So I figured the crowns must turn gold at a certain level (they're really more of an orange lol). So I'm at like level 5 on alphabet and level 4 on basics 1, and only recently decided to move on. But on the positive side, I feel like I actually know the words, so that plateau experience you describe has not been an issue.
But you're right, the website is the way to go. Yes, you learn better with "fill in the blank" (and that's what I'm using) and also helps for guys like me with fat fingers (lol). Sure I butcher the spelling, but the more I do it, the more I learn the spelling too, which gives me a better idea of how the pronunciation works. Can't get that from the word box.
Anyway, you're right that Duo won't get you everything you need to become fluent in a language. In addition to Duo I've been using Google Translate - which admittedly is not a perfect tool either, but at least gives me access to some new phrases and vocabulary. And someday, I'd like to find a good book (when I can actually understand it). That helped me learn Spanish... well that and watching movies and listening to music in Spanish. :)
PS: I'm not up to book level yet, but I would love to read that book about the time loop! Do they have it in Russian? That's what I'm learning with Duolingo.
Just started learning on Duolingo for the first time in years and I'm so glad I made the decision to revisit it. I'm doing the Swedish tree and I'm making more progress than my boyfriend who has been trying to learn for the last few years. Using Duo in addition to a few other resources helps a ton.
Thanks for you last Duolingo video, I back to use it. In the website, they have a little grammar explain now.
Klasse, dass du es geschafft hast auf reguläre Bücher umzusteigen :) du wirst merken, dass das der Schlüssel ist, um ein echtes Verständnis der Sprache zu erlangen! Der Großteil meines Wortschatzes im Englischen kommt vom Lesen toller Bücher. Hast du schon mal versucht die Harry Potter Serie in Deutsch zu lesen? Da die Bücher dem Alter der Leser gerecht geschrieben wurden, dürfte der selbe Effekt eintreten wie bei den Deutsche Welle Videos. Außerdem kennst du ja schon den Inhalt ;) Viele meiner deutschen Freunde haben es als wir jung waren andersrum gemacht.
(Great that you managed to switch to regular books :) you will see that this is the key to gaining a real understanding of the language. Most of my English vocabulary comes from reading great books. Have you ever tried reading the Harry Potter series in German? As the books were written to suit the readers age, the same effect as the one in the videos of Deutsche Welle videos should come into play. Moreover you already know the content ;) lots of my German friends did it the other way around when we were younger)
Lol when you mentioned the name of the book it was crazy cool sounding good job sir
Going to start learning Welsh (my home language) through Duolingo, inspired by you! I did get good marks in it at GCSE but have not spoken it in nearly 4 years and want to relearn :) Hopefully one day I can get as good as you are at German
I really enjoyed hearing German videos
I think I read the curious incident of the dog in the night time in 9th grade English class, buts it’s so good, also at the end Christopher will go over some math problems so keep reading Evan
:D The Nico's Weg guy is a big soap star in Germany :D He's also been in a few TV movies. Isn't he handsome? ^.^
nikos weg ist sehr gut!! we watch it sometimes in german class when the teacher is too lazy to give us a real lesson... i love it lmao
Alright, you got me. I'll start learning Italian now.
i did my german speaking on friday and kept thinking of you - i talked about eurovision it was class
Timed practice is still there, Evan, right in the practice section.
I just started learning german on duolingo recently. And I think its great for the basics. I'm surprised by how much I have learnt already. And its so excited to be picking things up. Im jealous of your pronunciation cause Im finding that quite hard.
HEY THANK YOU FOR THE BOTH DUOLINGO VIDEUS , IT'S NICE TO LISTIN TO YOU
Upload your full german video here and have subtitles!! That would be awesome! OR like exploring Germany like you're a tour guide for us who can only speak German for your travel channel lol
Cooles Video, Evan! "Daumen hoch" war richtig, keine Sorge! Und man kann sagen "Abboniert meinen Kanal!" indem man den Imperativ benutzt.
I'm currently studying Portuguese on Duolingo, and I definitely prefer the new system. It forces you to do the same stuff over and over again to get to level 5, and that way you build that solid foundation that's needed to learn more. I also agree with Evan, you can't just learn a language on Duolingo. It's the perfect place to start and get into a language, but if your goal is fluency, then you need to learn in other ways at well. I have a bunch of Portuguese friends, who are good motivators to learn, and are also very helpful with the things I don't understand about the language. A good way to learn is also listening to music in your goal language, you can do that even when you're just getting started. It makes you used to hearing that language and then at some point you can even maybe understand the lyrics. And please for the love of god, don't just use Duolingo when it comes to grammar, it's a good place to get started, but it is never enough when it comes to grammar.