I find your lack of conversational lessons disturbing- Darth Martinez. Reflection post number 2

Hola a todos,

Welcome to my second reflection post on my Genius Hour project on learning French and how to read and write Spanish. So far what I have accomplish is finding three apps on the Google Play store and doing a handful of lessons on them. The following three apps have been selected- Duolingo, Babbel and Memrise. For French the following courses have been finished:

Duolingo:
-Basic 1, level 0
-Basic 2, level 0
-Phrases, level 0
-Plurals 1, level 0
-Gallicism, level 0
-Basics 3, level 0
-Food, level 0

Babbel:
-Beginner's Course 1, Salut! Part 1
-Beginner's Course 2, C'esr une jolie photo. Part 1
-Beginner's Course 3, C'est à qui? Part 1

Memrise:
French 1
   -Launchpad!
   -I Come in Peace
   -Being Human

For Spanish the following courses have been finished:

Duolingo:
-Intro, level 0
-Phrases, level 0
Travel, level 0

Babbel
-Beginner's Course 1, Mucho gusto! Part 1.
Beginner's Course 2, Estamos casados. Part 1

Memrise:
Spanish 1
  -Launchpad
  -I Come in Peace

In a three week period I have tried to spend at least 30 minutes to one hour learning either Spanish or French per day, sometimes that is more and other days it is a struggle to do 15 minutes.



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Biggest obstacle I have faced is the paywalls these apps contain. I remember when I tried Duolingo a few years back and there were no adds bothering me while finishing a course! Now every time you'll get a message that asks if you want to get premium or try premium for 7 days. Look, I understand that these apps need income, but try to do it in a less bothersome way. Babbel has each lesson after part 1 in each course behind a paywall. Memrise will not let the user go to what lesson they want to without paying for premium.
Another issue I have encountered was the lack of conversation lessons or even how there are rules to follow for certain words when used, e.g. vous, nous and tu. I understand that you need to learn the basics before proceeding to more complicated conversational speech. I would like that in the end of the lesson there were was a conversation lesson to help you with implementing what you learned in a conversation type style.

For next week I will try and see if I can label things around my apartment in Spanish and in French. Lessons wise I hope to tackle at least 3 lessons per app. A bonus task would be to try and have a basic conversation with my girlfriend in French this week.


Hasta la vista

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