• Taleya
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    1 year ago

    Duolingo: We help identify your weakness and strengths!

    me: aight, I haven’t spoken italian seriously for about 20 years, lemme brush up.

    six months laterrrrr

    Duolingo: Which of the following is correct?

    Tu: ______

    Parle Parla Parli Parliamo

    me: ho studiato italiano per cinque anni motherfucker how the fuck have you not picked up I know how to conjugate a fucking -are verb??

    • landsharkkidd
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      1 year ago

      I love Duolingo but it is not good at teaching you. It’s one of the things I learned when I studied Italian in uni.

      • Taleya
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        1 year ago

        I’m torn between “sweet, brushing up my vocab” and rage screeching at it asking questions like “Which word means “eat”” and the answer being a generic conjugation of mangiare that literally only applies to a specific person, object or circumstance, it’s NOT LIKE ENGLISH, DAMMIT.

        • landsharkkidd
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          1 year ago

          It’s so frustrating when you make a mistake because of the different ways Italian say eat. Like don’t take away a heart! Damn it!

          • Taleya
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            1 year ago

            It’s a dipshit way of teaching you verbs. Here’s a cheat sheet: all regular verbs in Italian end in –are, –ere, or –ire. They tend to follow a pretty standard pattern with some deviations but that’s beyond this comment so we go beginner mode. Also I am using present tense, again, beginner mode.

            Mangiare is an -*Are *verb, so the conjugation is thus:

            io (I) mangio
            tu (you) mangi
            lui /lei (he/she/it) mangia
            noi (we plural) mangiamo
            voi (you plural) mangiate
            loro (it / they plural, also third person respectful) mangiano

            see how the -are part of mangiare changes with each subject? Not so much for Tu, but mangii is a stupid-looking word so we don’t use it :P

            Also I s2g it deliberately dips you on spelling when it shouldn’t just to fuck up a perfect score. I’ve seen it fuck me on a fat fingered mishap one instance, then the next say “I’ll allow it but you made a typo” once I’ve lost the precious

            • landsharkkidd
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              1 year ago

              Definitely saving this. I try to remember what the pronoun is, like Io is easy to remember but once noi and voi come in, it’s like, nope you’ve lost it.