Duolingo Milestone

Table of Contents

I hit a numeric milestone in Duolingo yesterday, 300 days learning Spanish.

One of my Covid-19-keep-my-sanity-hobbies I decided to take on was learning Spanish. I started out really strong, and in the early days was spending an hour or more each day. After a couple of months, I started burning out, so I slowed down, and found a balance where I could still move forward, but not feel it was too much.

I haven’t been perfect. I’ve missed days. But the app has a nice streak-freeze feature that can keep you going. It’s a great idea! It’s not so much that you just quit, but it’s enough so you don’t feel frustrated and have to give up just because life gets in the way.

I’ll be frank, I probably would have quit a long time ago had it not been for the gamification Duolingo provides. The daily reminder to keep a streak going is a powerful motivation. It has been so helpful, I’ve started looking at other opportunities to use this powerful habit learning technology. For example, a great iOS app like Strides could be a helpful too to motivate me to walk daily, or tackle any other routine habit I wish to create.

Enjoy!

alter-text
Tags :

Related Posts

"Son of a Witch: A Novel" by Gregory Maguire

"Son of a Witch: A Novel" by Gregory Maguire

alter-text

Maquire has done it again; he’s taken us into Oz, but not Baum’s Oz, a new, different Oz.

This book begins just after the Wicked Witch of the West has her meltdown. Liir, a boy who was raised by (as he thinks of her) “the Witch,” has to go out on his own. He returns to the Emerald City with Dorothy, but then is left on his own. His adventures are absorbing, and the issue of whether is the son of the Witch is left in mystery until the very end.

Read More
Anger Management

Anger Management

Silence. Internal voices saying, “I’m not good enough,” and “I’m evil.” Jibes and taunts. I talked about this some in the MBAGPP post, what it is like to stand apart from society and deal with the bigotry.

Folks are driven by these challenges in different ways. Some turn away and find new groups and families that meet their support requirements. Some close down and get angry. And some quit, unable to deal with or unable to bear the burden.

Read More
Fair Isle Pattern

Fair Isle Pattern

On page 91 of Barbara Walker’s, A Treasury of Knitting Patterns Vol 1, pages 88-89 is the “Fair Isle” pattern. It is nice stranded colorwork and a nice intro to Argyle patterns. It is an enjoyable knit, and for the swatches, I’m trying to keep a 2 stitch border on each side in garter for later seaming/joining into the larger blanket, but I ran into some challenges with this. I tried several different approaches early on (don’t look at the edges, they are a mess) but ultimately found that just holding both colors together for the first 2 and last 2 stitches worked the best and matched the thickness of the fabric. That’s what this project is all about…experimenting and learning.

Read More