r/learndutch • u/SpottyMoggy • 2d ago
Humour What's with these sentient apples?
Me and my husband's dulingo this morning both contained living apples.
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u/I-am-fire_I-am-steel 2d ago
😂 I have been asking myself the same thing. At this point it seems like the apple speaks more Dutch then I do 😂
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u/TwitchyGoober 2d ago
Just you wait until you get space-warping cows and emotional toothbrushes
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u/SpottyMoggy 2d ago
Sounds mental. Can't wait
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u/destinynftbro 1d ago
Dont. Duolingo is trash. This sub has many other recommendations. If you’re serious about learning, literally anything else will be better for you.
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u/Plorntus 1d ago
Eh, I understand a lot of people dislike duo because it's more gamified and has aggressive monetisation but it's still not bad as an introduction to a language honestly. Once it gets a bit grindy as you progress then for sure it can be thrown to the side. Basically I wouldn't agree that it's trash.
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u/SpottyMoggy 1d ago
Memrise has been suggested and I am planning on giving that a go! I have only been learning for about 2 weeks 🙂
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u/destinynftbro 1d ago
Building a habit is ultimately the most important thing. An hour a day will have you being very competent in a year! Try to engage with media as well. This sub is a good resource as you’re probably finding out. :)
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u/Too_Gay_To_Drive 2d ago
I'm learning Norwegian. Apparently microwave is watching me
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u/No-Loss-2763 Fluent 2d ago
I mean tbf everything on the market these days will have a variant with a camera, maybe the microwave is indeed watching you
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u/WanderingLethe 2d ago edited 2d ago
And you are a banana
Maybe this was their inspiration for the microwave question: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/13/kellyanne-conway-trump-wiretap-surveillance-obama
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u/Useful-Ad-1421 2d ago
Honestly, I gave up on Duolingo. Looking to other sources to learn now.
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u/No-Loss-2763 Fluent 2d ago
Memrise is a good app been using it for years.
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u/Useful-Ad-1421 2d ago
Dank Je wel
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u/No-Loss-2763 Fluent 2d ago
Garage gedaan man
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u/C-14_U-235 1d ago
Garage van buur man
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u/No-Loss-2763 Fluent 1d ago
Lmfao I didn't even see the typo😂😂 Ik heb Geen Nederlands toetsenbord😅
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u/Terrafintor 1d ago
Well, just listening to Dutch conversations online, like podcasts, or tv shows, or films, should work fine if you're fluent in English. You'll understand very little in the beginning, but it will have a similar effect to moving to the Netherlands, if you listen a lot. If babies can do it, so can you. Alternatively, you can also not learn Dutch.
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u/Useful-Ad-1421 1d ago
Well I was learning for over 400 days with Duolingo and have rudimentary points to show for my efforts. Also, I'm a historical recreationist and representing the 12th and 13th century Brabant mercenaries, so in the interest of historic authenticity and depth I also want to represent the language they spoke. Brabant dutch is as close as a modern day person can get, so modern Dutch is where I need to start before moving onto the Noordbrabants dialect. As for me, I am born and raised English so yes I'm fluent lol I have been listening to a lot of mixed media, but Duolingo was going nowhere functionally.
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u/Terrafintor 1d ago
Yeah, Duolingo does work, but it shouldn't be the primary way of learning. It's simply a tool to learn a couple words. I think the best method to learn any language is by challenging your brain to simply try to understand it. It sounds counterintuitive, but when you think about it, it's how everyone learns their first language. So just watch, read, and listen to something in Dutch without the help of subtitles or anything, so your brain is forced to actually try and find connections. If your brain isn't challenged, it won't learn effectively. Also, avoid speaking until you understand fluent Dutch, if you want to eliminate your accent, since you'll make sure your brain knows what sounds it has to make, instead of you having already taught it with the sounds from your own language.
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u/Useful-Ad-1421 1d ago
Makes a lot of sense there, I wouldn't call it counterintuitive at all, like you say it is how infants learn, and will make things interesting with my 7 month old daughter. Living in Wales, we're already mostly functionally bilingual, so adding in dutch will be fun. I must say though, in your reference to speech and spoken verbiagr, I did find one of the big flaws of Duo to be the audio reception aspect. No matter how much effort I put in, going back and repeating entire sections, it kept marking it wrong or failing to pick it up as I spoke. But sincerely, thanks for the advice, bud.
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u/21gordo12 2d ago
Dutch has been difficult to learn with just Duolingo.
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u/Terrafintor 1d ago
Dutch and English are very similar. Simply listening and watching Dutch media, while learning some words and sentence structure on the side should be enough. Actually speaking the language shouldn't be a priority, that will come if you can understand what's being said.
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u/RoughChemicals 2d ago
They needed an object in the sentence for them to teach the "to be" verb. This sentence is fine because it does exactly that. Sure, it is dumb, but when you haven't got much vocabulary to work with, you have to give allowances for certain sentences to pop up. When Duolingo gives you this form, you don't have jobs or hobbies or anything else really to put in this and one can say "I am a boy." or "You are a girl." so many times.
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u/muffinsballhair Native speaker (NL) 1d ago
This is one of the good things about Duolingo to be honest. It makes sure people are actually parsing the sentence and not just guessing what makes sense in context. Many people into language learning really underestimate just how much they're just guessing based on context while calling it reading and that consequently their guesses, while right most of the time, are also very often wrong.
Throwing in nonsensical but grammatically correct sentences once in a while keeps people honest.
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u/Adventurous-Cry-7462 17h ago
It's a learning trick, nonsense is easier to learn than boring sentences
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u/OnyxBlom Native speaker (NL) 2h ago
My brother once was practicing on it and went "yea I'm gonna fill in 'The dog is eating the apple' because it technically says 'The apple is eating the dog'"Â
guess what the correct answer was
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u/BlaReni 2d ago
AI lessons
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u/Plorntus 2d ago
Nah this has been a thing for ages across all the courses. I believe from what I've read in the past the "justifiable" reason is that they want to present you with weird scenarios to keep you actually thinking, so you question the answer as it doesn't make strict sense. The focus being on formulating a sentence rather than making sense.
The more likely reasoning is (and this is all speculation) that some volunteer back in the day thought it'd be funny to sprinkle in some nonsensical phrases. That happened to get engagement on social media and they did it across all the courses for marketing.
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u/DivineAlmond 2d ago
Very certain its Duo's branding team at work
I'm a turkish guy learning dutch so im well versed in appel memes but from what i could understand turkish duo also has a meme-worthy phrase (outdated but "correct" terms for father in law) which gets reactions from turkish duo tiktok
Irl, whenever i mention im on duo learning dutch, at least 75% of people say "aaah ik ben een appel :))" so i'd say its working