This is my longest Duolingo streak so far. One day at a time, I've been practising Russian 7 or 10 minutes a day. I usually complete a lesson or two while walking to my working place and, if I forget, I take a few minutes after dinner to achieve my personal daily goal of 4 or 5 lessons a day.
I started this habit a couple of years ago, while I was visiting Moldova. When I was there, I ran into some difficulties talking with the locals, specially in shops and restaurants, as most of employees and clerks were over 40, with no interest whatsoever in the English language.
In Moldova, the main language is Romanian. I thought to myself: "I should learn a few words, to get around easier."
I investigated online and concluded that learning Romanian was probably a waste of time, since it's only used in a few countries.
But what about Russian? Through my travels in Eastern Europe, I understood that Russian was used by Eastern Europeans as much as we Westerns use English, so learning Russian would be a lot more useful in the future than learning Romanian could ever be. I went online and tried to look for Russian Online Courses... and that's when I stumbled across Duolingo, a mobile app that seemed like an interactive and fun way of learning a language.
I decided to give it a go and started playing around with it. The few first lessons were simpler than I expected, with words that sounded really similar to their English and Portuguese counterparts. I mean words like "Mama, papa, radio, motor..." which sounded exactly the same in all 3 languages. "So far, so good." - I thought.
I kept going and repeated the first two lessons a few times and when I got to the third lesson I almost gave up. Why? Because a couple of freakish, almost unpronounceable words appeared. Words like "Здравствуйте" - which means Hello - and "Пожа́луйста" - which means Please.
Whooooaaaa!!! If Hello and Please are this complicated, what else would I find out next? However, I forced myself to push forward. I listened to the app plenty of times until I could repeat those words without twisting my tongue... I remember I was stuck on lesson number three for a few weeks, just because of these two not-so-simple words. When I finally moved on to the fourth lesson, the new words were a lot easier. What a relief...
Yesterday, I was very happy to achieve this goal: 500 consecutive days of using the app.
I feel like I am still at the level of a 2 or 3 year old kid but at least I can already ask for a few things in Russian, when I'm travelling in countries like Slovakia, for example. This makes me feel much more comfortable than before and the locals act a lot more friendly, when I attempt to throw a few Russian words around, instead of expecting them to speak English with me.
Have you ever tried Duolingo? If yes, how was your experience? What language did you (try to) learn?