Although I only spent four days in bed, I felt mentally and physically exhausted for weeks afterwards. So being able to speak at least a little Spanish would be enormously helpful. I dance Argentine tango, fell head-over-heels in love with Buenos Aires, and plan to spend one month a year there (one week of holiday, three weeks working in the mornings and dancing in the afternoons and evenings).

*Hello, Goodbye, Yes, No, Please, Thank you, one of those (as I could then order anything I could point to), bathroom, airport, and taxi. I stuck to a plan of learning 10 phrases for each country I visited*, and promptly forgetting them within minutes of leaving the country.

I’d reluctantly written off languages as not something for me. Yet despite all this, my German vocabulary probably peaked at 900 words, and I’d be surprised if I could remember 10% of it today. There was a time in my life when I was visiting Germany for a few days a month I tried almost every language course under the sun and I even had a German girlfriend for three years. To which I would respond with The German Experience. More adept friends would always say it was about spending more time in the country, working harder, spending more time on it, or. Some people pick them up easily, others have to work harder but progress at a decent rate. I’ve many times had friends fail to comprehend my level of incompetence with languages. I’m generally a fast learner, and have picked up a diverse range of skills over the years, but have always been completely hopeless when it comes to learning languages … Understanding my level of linguistic incompetence Duolingo is one of the world’s most popular apps, consistently ranking in the top two or three educational apps, and a hugely popular way to learn a language.Īll of which had, until very recently, been completely irrelevant to me.

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