catincamden

Same! I want to learn Cantonese and/or Teochew so I can speak with my relatives. My parents never spoke either dialect to me, and I never really got round to learning - because learning it from books and in classes just felt weird. I learned French in school because we had the option to It was an optional thing in our secondary school education and I figured, well, lots of people speak French, so why not!

I will admit that I can't stand lists of vocab - maybe it's all the time I spent in school memorising Chinese idioms - when they're out of context and you know you're just cramming them into your brain in alphabetical order. The most beautiful part for me is finding myself thinking in the language, even for a moment.

To build on that: people who have completed a language in Duolingo, which aspect of the language (reading/writing/speaking/listening) do you think you are strongest in? Do you think Duolingo has had a big part to play in that?

I learned French up to O levels a few years ago, and though I borrowed Maigret books from the library I always struggled to finish them. To this day I don't think I'm catching the correct nuances from the stories.