I want to learn a Celtic language

I didn't get my first smartphone until 2012, when they had already been out a few years, my younger sisters had one before I did, but that was when smartphones were mostly IPhones, I like android phones. Now I can't imagine not having a smartphone. Before my smartphone and somewhat after I used my mp3 player for my music, I still have it and it still works, I've had it since 2007, I just have to get everything backed up to my desktop, I had everything on my laptop but that broke so I lost everything. The US is probably ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to things on the internet, I don't know for sure though since I don't live in any other country.

I finished up the lesson on the perfect tense and forming the plast principal of verbs. One of the verbs used was "sein", but it didn't give any example sentence actually using the word "sein", so now I'm confused on how it's supposed to be used, or if it is actually used in sentences at all. Everything else was okay and I got it the best I could, but how "sein" is used confused me.

Oof, at the risk of... interfering with the book, but that's another of the topics I enjoy.

The equivalent of the use of "sein" ("to be") in English isn't completely unknown or hasn't disappeared. The most common expression would be "something is gone". Well, with a certain meaning it's just an adjective, and when you want to be more specific, you can, of course, say "something has gone". But there's still traces of the present perfect being expressed there.

Oh, yeah, so I have to defer to my own grammar book, according to which (well, I know it myself, but rather implicitly), perfect tenses are used with "sein" when it has to do with movement or transformation (plus some special cases, like "bleiben", "passieren"): "ich bin gekommen" - "I have come", "Was ist passiert?" - "What has happened?", "Er ist gestorben" - "He has died".

Oh, yeah, Duolingo also suddenly decided to start reviewing my submissions (I don't even know if that still exists) as to additional correct translations of their sentences. I'm pretty sure it's for a course I completed at least 3 years ago (Spanish)... I mean, better late than never, but their "please keep it up" has never been more futile... Actually, 4 years ago... I feel old... Oh how recently did Spanish feel like a hip new thing...

You're not interfering with the book, you're just addijg a little extra information that helps me be less confused.

Anyway that makes more sense, I just got confused because the word "sein" wasn't used, but other verbs were instead. Like today the lesson was the simple past tense and again the example word was "sein", but the table showing the -ich, -du, -wir, -Sie, -ihr forms used the words "war", "waren", "wart", and "warst", so again it isn't using the word "sein" but other verbs.

Also "wart" is translating to "serviceable", but in the context the book was using it in I think it means "were", though I may be wrong.

Hmm, I haven't had it review my submissions, and I technically completed the German course but am still using it to memorize words and phrases, especially with these new crown levels and the fact that I'm at levels 1, 2, or sometimes 3 with all my topics/lessons.

Woo! Congrats!

At least for me completing a course was a big occasion... which is to say, I shared it on all the (few) social media I could.

... I mean, there should have been "lessons" on tenses, articles and conjugations on Duolingo. What's going on?

The book also should have said that "sein" is conjugated differently for almost each pronoun, in the present and simple past. (Kind of like the English "to be", but even more.) So those weren't different verbs, but different forms.

"Wart" is for the familiar second person plural... I don't know how you're getting on with this concept. Well, if you recall at all, Spanish also has this, with "vosotros"... Although in many varieties that's going away.

Which, on a related note, I find pretty interesting, because German and Spanish are the only languages that preserve this form of address. English has all second person pronouns collapsed into "you", of course. French, Russian, Polish, Dutch... and Welsh only distinguish between the singular and the plural/polite.

I know this is still not particularly relevant to you, but it sucks when you forget 10 flashcards in a session. And I know why that is. Flashcards on their own are not enough, which, I guess, is a pretty depressing fact... First, you have to know how to use them. Simply writing the word on one side and the definition on the other, at least for me, is just trying to associate a meaningless string of letters with a little more meaningful one. What I've been doing is writing a word on one side and example sentences with it on the other... But it still doesn't always work, perhaps depending on how meaningful the sentences I've been able to find are.

I feel the best about my chances to remember a word, if it keeps coming up in my memory randomly, because for whatever reason I've become fascinated by it. I imagine it's the way toddlers learn new words, by getting fascinated by them and repeating them a lot.

So in addition to the flashcards program, today I've also written the new words down on paper so I can glance at them throughout the day. It doesn't correspond exactly to the above idea, but it's the best I can come up with.

It probably sounds a little bit ridiculous, but I really want to improve.

Thanks, yeah now I just use Duolingo for the memorization of words amd phrases on the German course. And yeah it should have lessons on tenses, articles and conjugations, but it doesn't, that's why I have a book.

Thanks for explaining "sein" better, now I think I understand it more. And thanks for explain "wart" to me, that helps a lot. Amd no I don't recall learning about "vosotros" in my Spanish class, maybe we covered it, I can't remember.

I need to get to a store and buy the cards to make flashcards, but it's just finding them since school supplies don't come out until late July (though I could in theory use a small pocket sized notebook), the only problem is with German the same word can translate to a few things, so it's writing all the translations down on one card and it being legible since I can't write too small due to my vision. I don't know, I'm just a bit lazy when it comes to studying, but studying is the only way I'll learn.

Today's lesson was on the future tense, which I guess isn't used a lot in German, it said that most things can be written/explained/spoken in the present tense, but you can still use the future tense for things too. It gave the example verb "werden", and gave a table with the verb in different forms, ich werde, du wirst, Sie werden, wir werden, er/sie/es wird, and ihr werdet. This wasn't too confusing, but the example sentences are translating werde/werden/wird to going, example; "Es wird regnen", "It's going to rain". So how is werden/werde/wird translating to going when the translations are will or become according to the book and Google translate? Just wondering.

You probably didn't. I suspect you would have studied Mexican Spanish, which, if I'm not mistaken, doesn't use "vosotros" anymore (there's a lot of variety in the way the use of pronouns evolved in different Spanish-speaking countries, btw). So, oops, that reference wasn't that useful to begin with.

I'm wondering what you want to achieve by writing down all the translations. Apart from a few cases, you're not going to be able to remember them (when, for example, they're drastically different - or maybe if they're instead very similar). In my experience, a lot of the times at best a couple of the senses gets used in everyday speech, and even then one of them will be pronominal (used with "sich"), or something like that... I mean, in Polish, I've gotten away with writing a single definition for every word (although as I've mentioned I don't write down definitions, but if we translate that to my method...), because it's the only definition I've ever encountered in the wild.

Sheesh.

I may actually be out of my depth here. But I do agree, it sounds pretty awkward to translate "Es wird regnen" to "It will rain." I mean, in German it's a simple statement, like you might encounter in a forecast, but in English it's more of a gloomy prophecy... Or maybe I'm imagining things. You kind of stare at subtle nuances for a while and stop seeing them.

In any case, I wish books like yours would stop with "this thing is barely used anymore" when it's actually alive and kicking... I mean, maybe they've counted and "werden" is in statistical decline, but if you ask any native speaker, no one is going to be surprised and not know what to do with it.

I would say, though, that often sentences with "will" in English might be better expressed in the present tense in German, and German sentences with "werden" - with "going to" in English. But it's a matter of nuance that can disappear if you stare at it too long. Except that it's kind of a translating standard, so you don't forget it that easily.

Yeah, I think that's my take on it. And it's really hard to think of examples that translate "will" to "werden", at least in a natural manner.

Yeah, we studied Mexican Spanish, so we wouldn't have covered any words from say like Spain Spanish.

I don't know what I want to achieve, I just think it's a case of wanting to know every little thing and translation, some words obviously I may have to write down more than one translation, (like das, with the fact that it can mean the or that), but not a million translations.

Thanks, yeah I don't know why my book is telling me that things aren't used as much anymore, it makes things confusing for me and probably other readers too. Thanks for a better explanation on why "werden" is translating to "going" in the example sentences, makes more sense now.

One more thing on "sein" that translates to "to be" but Doulingo keeps translating it to "his" it's kind of weird and confusing and I don't know Google translate is even translating "sein" to "be", so is Duolingo wrong?

A little update on Duolingo, it didn't take away the matching portion, it just doesn't use it in certain topics/lessons. I like the matching words as it helped with memorization.

Well... it's actually another word that is spelled "sein" which is the possessive pronoun meaning "his", as in "his hat" - "sein Hut" (not "to be hat").

I mean, Google is probably doing its best with limited context. Which makes me wonder why you're using it, instead of, well, whatever proper dictionary is available to you. Such as wiktionary... Or, well, glosbe, actually. No, scratch that. Glosbe lumps everything into one big incomprehensible pile (I mostly use it for example sentences nowadays).

I've also got Collins bookmarked, although I don't use it (simply because I've got a million different dictionaries bookmarked). But its page on "sein" is pretty comprehensive (if you don't miss the two superscripts at the top of the page for two meanings).

I've realized today that I've actually barely ever heard music in German. You must be really a bigger music fan than I am... Well, I've heard bands from Germany, such as the Scorpions, but they sang (sing?) in English.

Somehow I missed both German and French music. But caught a bit of Spanish, and now Welsh (well, I've really got only a single song each favorited on Google play).

I, of course, wouldn't mind listening to music in any of those languages, but the omnipresent Google values much more giving me familiar stuff or universally popular songs.