Italian Update: 1 year with Duolingo

Ciao tutti!

Sto sicura che volete sapere com'è il mio italiano dopo un anno di studiare. Si? Molto bene. Ti dico.

In 2020, I decided to do a little experiment with Duolingo. Typically, I wouldn't use Duolingo as my main resource to learn a new language, but having a foundation in Spanish and French, I knew Italian would be an easier language to learn for me. Every day, I did one lesson from Duolingo, then wrote a question and a response in my notebook. In the second half of the year, I also added in listening to podcasts and reading in Italian. I also tried to think in Italian at least once a week.

Wonder how many individual lessons there are on Duolingo? Here is where I ended up for Italian:

Well, did I achieve my goal? I did! I actually completed the whole year. This is saying a lot for me, because with long-term goals like this, I usually end up giving out around the 75% completed mark. For example, with an 8-week meditation course, I made it to week 7. With Couch to 5K, I made it to week 7. You can see the pattern here. So completing something in its entirety is exciting in itself. Speaking Italian now, however, made it that much more worth it.

And did the experiment work? How is my Italian? Well, my italki Italian teacher told me this morning "Sei brava!" so I think it's not so bad. You can see videos of me speaking Italian (and other languages) on my personal instagram: @livingonlanguage.

What's next for 2021?

Great question. For 2021, I'll be changing up the way I do language goals. This year, I'm really focusing on building and growing the Language TV Club at polyglotstation.com. I'm super excited about it. 😀In order to host some of the months, I'll need to improve my skills in those languages. January is Italian month, so I'll be doubling down on my studying for the time being. March is Spanish, so I'll try to finish my advanced grammar book by then. And April is Mandarin, so I will need to focus on that from February through April in order to get it to a good enough level.

After that, only time will tell. I haven't yet planned out the last 6 months of the year, but I have some ideas...

When I'm not working on a focus language, (or just not working at all!), I'll be trying to get a good base in Swahili. My current method is using Duolingo lessons to present vocabulary, so I can then write all those new words in my notebook, then reviewing and testing myself with my notes by creating new sentences and quizzing myself on words. After I get to a certain level, I'll start incorporating listening, reading and conversation activities.

I'm looking forward to this year of languages! What do you have planned this year? Let me know in the comments below!