Learning French with Duolingo

I recently subscribed to Le Monde Diplomatique, a French-language, monthly newspaper. I have to say it's wonderful. I'm currently reading an article on The true meaning of "fake news":

Dans cette configuration, la capacité d’argumenter, de s’écouter mutuellement et de résoudre des conflits par le biais de la raison laisserait peu à peu place à une guerre civile numérique nourrie par l’ambition politique de quelques milliardaires. Principale victime : la vérité elle-même. Ou, pour être plus précis, notre faculté à distinguer le vrai du faux.

I've been learning French for a little while now. My spoken French is still horrible. I'll revert to English with anyone who speaks it, but it turns out to be serviceable when needed. I need practice essentially. There's no way, though, that I could have read in-depth articles on anything not a short time ago. Being able to now is rewarding.

My children all study French at school. The eldest is doing a dual-language baccalaureate, and intends to study at a university in France. The others, regardless of whether they choose to do the same, will have at least B1 level French when they get to 16. Added to three other languages at native level, they don't know what a gift they have.

Last night I was sat with the youngest two, helping them work through their Révision D'Été, which was fun and, again, not something I could have done previously.

As a Englishman I was (obviously) monolingual until adulthood. We've lived in Spain for 14 years now, and I picked up the local languages, Catalan and Castilian Spanish, if still with a accent that I can refine but will never lose.

We live near to France, and visit regularly. A few years ago I thought it would be nice to have a few words, so I gave the Duolingo app a go.

In now on a 1500 day streak.

On any given day, the lessons can be a bit boring. Depends on the day though. On other days they're not. But in any case, it does work. You just have to keep going.

And this is time that would otherwise be spent on Candy Crush, or social media. If you want to pick up a language (not quickly, but I'm not sure there are quick ways anyhow) then I'd say give it a look.

I subscribe to their family plan. It's good value I think, and lets everyone have access, including my mother-in-law, whose on like a 1000+ day streak learning Spanish.

They've got some AI powered extra layer now, that I don't subscribe to. I was underwhelmed the times they've given me trials, and I kind of feel I already signed up for the everything plan. This kind of mirrors my feelings about AI features in general: they might be OK as add ons, but it's not clear how much extra money they're worth. 🤷