DuoLingo Review

Want to practice your French (or any other language) without spending any money? French Reddit
keeps posting raving reviews about a type of learning software named Duolingo, so I decided to further investigate Duolingo and see what features are beneficial to Language Learners. I will also address how fluent you can become with this program.

What is DuoLingo?
Duolingo is a do it yourself style of language learning software which can be found on the internet. The
initial purpose of DuoLingo is to translate webpages, however as an unexpected bonus, a form of software was created to aid students learning foreign languages.

To test out the program, I advanced up to level 7 in French and Level 1 in Italian (a language which I started learning about 6 months ago). The program is arranged in a stepwise manner (progression tree) and it goes through topics that are similar to ones you would find in a language class. For example, there are lessons on greetings, food, animals, adjectives, possessives, clothing, colors, verb translations, and much more.

I got an answer correct!

Each lesson contains a number of questions for you to complete, and to encourage motivation and correct answers, you are given a few "lives". When you get a question wrong, a correction will highlight what you did incorrectly and you'll lose a life. If you lose all your lives then you'll have to redo the lesson, if you finish with surplus lives, you'll be rewarded with more points. The lives concept creates a more fun, engaging program that seems more like a game rather than a tedious task (learning grammar/vocabulary, etc). Learners are introduced new vocabulary through both speech and text, then are asked to either translate words/sentences into English, or into French. There are also picture recognition questions similar to Rosetta Stone, where a picture is presented and you have to associate a word to it.

DuoLingo emphasizes that you go back and review words and concepts over time. There is a large community of the forums so that if you stumble across any problems, you can discuss it with other language learners. But don't take my word for it, keep reading and see what some users think!

My DuoLingo progress, you can see how the lessons are arranged in a step-wise fashion.

À Nos Actes Manques English Translation - M. Pokora

À Nos Actes Manques in English
Reviewed/Translated by John Elkhoury
COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTY: HARD


À tous mes loupés, mes ratés, mes vrais soleils
To all my failures, all my misses, all my true suns
Tous les chemins qui me sont passés à côté
All the paths which passed me by
À tous mes bateaux manqués, mes mauvais sommeils
To all the missed boats, my bad dreams
À tous ceux que je n'ai pas été
To everything that I never was

En Apesanteur English Translation - Calogero

En Apesanteur in English
Reviewed/Translated by John Elkhoury
COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM


J'arrive à me glisser
I managed to slide myself in
Juste avant que les portes ne se referment
Just before the doors closed
Elle me dit "quel étage"
She said to me "which floor"
Et sa voix me fait quitter la terre ferme
And her voice made me leave the solid ground
Alors
So
Les chiffres dansent
The numbers dance
Tout se mélange
Everything blends
Je suis en tête-à-tête avec un ange
I am face to face with an angel

Du Contrat Social - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Voilà des extraits Du Contrat social, publié en 1762 par Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

L'homme est né libre et partout il es dans les fers. Tel se croit le maître des autres, qui ne laisse pas d'être plus esclave qu'eux. Comment ce changement s'est-il fait? Je l'ignore. Qu'est-ce qui peut le rendre légitime? Je crois pouvoir résoudre cette question.

Si je ne considérais que la force, et l'effet qui en dérive, je dirais: tant qu'un Peuple est contraint d'obéit, il fait bien; sitôt qu'il peut secouer le joug, et qu'il le secoue, il fait encore mieux; car, recouvrant sa liberté par le même droit qui la lui a ravie, ou il est fondé à la reprendre, ou on ne l'était point à la lui ôter. Mais l'ordre social est un droit sacré qui sert de base à tous les autres. Cependant ce droit ne vient point de la nature; il est donc fondé sur des conventions...

La Fête de la Musique - France

La Fête de la Musique

Every summer throughout France la Fête de la Musique (literally the party of music), takes over the country!  Live concerts are established in town squares, street musicians are found everywhere, and Paris goes wild with fireworks (feu d'artifice). The performances are amazing, the musicians are talented, and the atmosphere is energetic & joyous.

The idea of a worldwide day of music was first conceived by an American, Joel Cohen, in 1976. He introduced it on a French radio show with the desire of celebrating the summer solstice, which marks the longest period of daylight within a year. In 1982, the French minister of culture implemented his idea. Nowadays, la Fête de la Musique is found in over 100 different countries around the world, often under a different name, World Music Day.

The French Schwa

Want to continue sound more "French" with your pronunciation? If so, there is a phenomena called the schwa (ə) [also known as le e muét ou le e caduct] which many French classes overlook. If you haven't done so already, it's recommended that you read this article: French Phonetics, before continuing.

The Sch...what?
In the realm of phonetics and phonology, the schwa is a weak, unstressed sound. To make matters easier for Anglophones, English actually contains the schwa (horray!!), it is practically everywhere in our language.

So what does the schwa sound like? The schwa in both French and English are represented by an"uh" sound. This could be found words like sofa /ˈsəʊfə/, about /əˈbaʊt/, or suspense /səˈspɛns/ in English, while French uses them in words like le and samedi.

More Schwa instances in English:
Look at all the highlighted schwas in the following sentence as you pronounce the words.

The present for my brother is a book about wizards.

The French Schwa
In French, the schwa represents the phonemes /ø/, /œ/, or /ə/ when they are unstressed (remember, check out French Phonetics if you have no idea what I'm talking about). Now the problem with the schwa in French is not necessarily identifying the sound, but rather figuring out when to use a schwa and when to omit it.

French Phonetic Alphabet Practice Exercises

By using the phonetic alphabet (presented in this article) you can do several things with French to better your pronunciation:

1. Know all the sounds of the French Language
2. Be able to read French dictionaires and be able to pronounce words correctly from the given pronunciation
3. Be able to read / write / speak more proficiently by sounding out words correctly.

French Phonetic Exercises
For the first exercise, I'm going to write down French words using only IPA symbols. You should be able to properly say the words out loud and guess what they are (to make the task easier, I placed spaces between syllables). Answers are provided right below... try not to cheat!
Example: [sy btɛR fyʒ] = subterfuge
[klak] =
[pɔʀ] =
[ble] =
[ʃa to] =
[tRẽ] =
[ʃə miz] = 
[sol] =
[ø ʀɔp] =
[si ɛʒ] = 
[vi] =
[mõ te] =
[vwa tyʀ] =
[lyt] =
[ʃɑ̃ paɲ] =

The Difference between Parce Que and Car

In French, what's the difference between parce que, car, en effet, and puisque? Many students have a problem between these words because they are used in very similar situations, so I'll offer up a quick explanation!

Parce Que:
Parce que introduces a cause. It's also less formal and more universally accepted as the English equivalent of because. Parce que has the ability to start a sentence, something you can't do with car.

La pomme? Je l'ai mangée parce que j'avais faim.
The apple? I at it because I was hungry.
Parce qu'elle est mignonne, elle gagne plus que Pauline.
Because she is cute, she earns more than Pauline.

Toi Plus Moi English Translation - Grégoire

Plus Rien Ne M'Etonne in English
Reviewed/Translated by John Elkhoury
Like all my music reviews, I start with a French to English translation then critique the lyrics and style below.
COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTY: EASY


Toi, plus moi, plus eux, plus tous ceux qui le veulent,
You, plus me, plus them, plus all those who you want,
Plus lui, plus elle, et tous ceux qui sont seuls,
Plus him, plus her, and all those who are alone,
Allez venez et entrez dans la danse,
Come and enter in the dance,
Allez venez, laissez faire l'insouciance
Come, let go of your inhibitions

A deux à mille, je sais qu'on est capables,
From two, to a thousand, I know that we are capable,
Tout est possible, tout est réalisable,
Everything is possible, everything is feasible
On peut s'enfuir bien plus haut que nos rêves,
We could fly even higher than our dreams,
On peut partir bien plus loin que la grève
We could go even further than the shore

L'Accident - A Short Story

The start of my story seems rather dramatic, this is because my French teacher gave each student the same opening and then had us continue the story using our creativity. Writing is a great activity to expand your vocabulary and work on tenses! Here's my story, I hope you like it.

Introductory Phrase given by our professor:
La femme était assise tranquillement dans la cuisine. Son mari est arrivé derrière elle, il tenait dans sa main droite un grand couteau. Il s'approcha d'elle et...

commença à couper les carottes à côté de sa femme.

C'était le soir, Marc et Sylvie étaient hôtes d'un dîner professionnel. Marc cherchait à faire une bonne impression vis-à-vis de ses collègues, ainsi il avait invité son chef et des autres condisciples à manger chez lui. La femme préparait la salade et la soupe alors que son mari avait la responsabilité de cuisiner la dinde avec attention. Tout allait bien, l'odeur de la dinde circulait partout dans la maison, indiquant que dans quelques minutes la dinde serait bien cuite. Tout à coup quelqu'un frappa à la porte. Oh non, pensa Marc, ils sont arrivés une heure plus tôt ! Sylvie se précipita à la porte imaginant une explication qui justifierait pourquoi le repas n'était pas encore fini. Elle ouvrit la porte ; devant elle, deux agents de la police municipale.

---ellipse temporel---