I want to learn a Celtic language

Say, what? When hasn't Duolingo been broken?

But I'm sorry to say that I might be of little help when it comes to plurals. I mean, sheesh, I've just discovered that, indeed, the plural of Mädchen matches its singular form (I don't know why, I don't think I've ever seen or heard it used in the plural... or maybe just haven't paid attention).

I don't know which two classes they mean. So far I've kind of had to learn plurals by heart pretty much for each noun (barring some exceptions with common endings, like -ung). Like, there's nouns that stay the same, change a vowel, add -en, add -er... Which of those make up which class, I wonder.

But yeah, apparently neuter nouns ending in -chen stay the same. So das Mädchen - "the girl", die Mädchen - "the girls".

Better get used to nouns staying the same. There's a lot of them, ending in -er, especially for professions. A broad sampling: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categ...fixed_with_-er .

Also, for pronunciation, don't forget https://forvo.com/. I'm sure I've already mentioned it here, but I suppose it got lost in the regular stream of links. It's a site where volunteers records their pronunciation of words and sentences. I've used it for Welsh, which means their database must be extensive indeed.

Oh, I wanted to share, what I consider to be my biggest failure in learning German: A little, but nigh omnipresent word - bzw. Well, it's an abbreviation, which stands for a much longer word - beziehungsweise. I've probably seen it a thousand times, and still have to pause and make a conscious effort to assign it a meaning. And I'm never certain that I picked the right one. It's usually given two definitions: "or" and "respectively". It's usually easy to discard the second one (I don't think I've ever seen it in a case where there were parallel listings of things, if that makes sense). But that "or" is more complicated. I mean, I could just pretend that it's this simple. But there is a simple word for "or" in German - "oder". The first definition of "bzw." actually carries with it a trail of synonyms: "or rather", "more exactly", etc. I mean, they're listed as synonyms, but they aren't really, I don't think, except it can be impossible to tell which one is meant if you put a blank between two words. And to complicate matters more, it's derived from the noun "Beziehung" which means "relationship". At least, for me that's very confusing.

Anyway, I don't know if you've encountered it yet, but be prepared.

Yeah, Duolingo, I guess I didn't actually lose my progress, it just switched to something else. But the new way it works is now each topic has levels, like I'm on level 4 of basics 1, and have now 15 lessons to complete. It no longer shows you the words you'll learn or your weakest words, it just has you do the lesson, if I wasn't already using the app before the update, I'd be totally lost.

As for plurals, I think I have a small (like 1%) grasp on them, you're right on "das Mädchen" being the singular (the girl) and "die Mädchen" being the plural as the book told me all plurals use the article "die". That's as far as I know in singular vs. plural. So like "der Mann" (the man) is the singular while "die Männer" (the men) is the plural atleast that seems to be my understanding of it anyways, I think it kind of clicked between reading in my book and seeing singular and plurals play out on Duolingo (even though that app doesn't explain anything). Now if I could only figure out why "Das" translates to "the", "that", "these", "those", and "this" (all seen on Duolingo as translations of "das", that is confusing how one word, when the main translation is "the" can have so many different meanings.

Thanks for the link I saved it so I can read it later.

I think what I wrote in my last post about "das" translating to so many things is how I encountered a situation like this (I may be wrong though). Also the word "sie" being "she" or "they" is also confusing as to which way to use the word, when to use it and for what purpose (like are you talking about a woman/girl, or someone else), and how you use it as either "she" or "they". There seem to be a lot of words that can translate to many different things and it's so confusing.

Reading through my book, the lesson I was on was articles and it went through the indefinite articles "ein" "eine" and "ein" (again) which mean "a" or "an" and which gender they are used for, I wish it also taught me about "einen" "einem" and "einer" and when they are used aswell as Duolingo uses those also and I have no idea when they would be used and how. Same with "den" and "dem" Duolingo also uses those for "the" and I have no idea of how or when they would be used. I guess as I go along I'll learn, but at the level I'm at it is all so confusing.

I'm afraid that if I try explaining about the definite articles and their different meanings (that, this, etc), I'm going to get more things wrong than right. All I can offer is some hopefully illuminating factoids.

I don't know if you know, the English definite article is derived from the word for "that". In fact, I'm pretty sure the ancestral Germanic language had neither definite nor indefinite articles. In fact it seems to be a secondary development in most European languages. People just kept referring to "those" objects so much that it became a permanent structure. In English it kind of lost all of its explicit meaning (in the way that, for example, it's usually just not translated into article-less languages). In German some of it remains. I mean, a lot. Or you could say, German hasn't acquired a separate word for "that". Although it has a word for "this" - "dieser/diese/dies". I don't know if all that is making sense. I'm just winging it here.

So I think if you try replacing all those definite articles in your speech with "that", you might develop some sympathy for that German way.

Don't forget that "girl" is neuter in German, so you actually can't use "sie" there, at least in the singular. Ein Mädchen ist es ("it").

But you figure it out by context, including the conjugation of the verb (sie ist - "she is", sie sind - "they are"). In rare cases it can be confusing for the native speakers, and they might ask each other (or you) for clarification - whether you mean the "them" sie or the "her" sie.

That's the topic "cases", and I don't think you can blame the book for not explaining Duolingo's shortcomings. In the book cases logically have to be a little ways after the introduction to articles, don't you think? ...Maybe not a little ways. That's actually a pretty complicated topic, especially the "einen" - "einem" part... I mean, I don't know, how does it sound to you to put Duolingo aside for a couple weeks until you catch up in the book? Or do you think you're going to lose motivation? That really seems to be turning into an excessively convoluted process.

On the other hand, I'm personally am not particularly bothered by grammar in Welsh for now, because I'm trying to first get a good base of root words, so for one exercises I come across won't be too frustrating (because of not knowing the words and not understanding the grammar at the same time). But in Duolingo you don't really get the option to ignore grammar, because it generally doesn't accept grammatically incorrect sentences...

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense now that there isn't a separate word for "that". The two main translations of "das" are "the" and "that" so I'll have to remember that and male sure I use "das" in the right context(s).

Okay, well if it confuses native speakers on rare occasions, then it will definitely confuse me.

Okay, I'm going to keep playing around with Duolingo just for motication and memorization purposes, I also don't know (or think) the book will explain "einen" or "einem".

I know tomorrow (since today I'm way too tired to focus on anything) I'll get a brief introduction into pronouns (I skimed through the paragraph), ich, mich, and mir. So I'll update on that tomorrow.

I can't ignore grammar for some reason, I want to both understand words and basics of grammar at the same time. I think I'd just get more confused if I ignore one or the other.

Well, yeah, the way I usually do it (pff, it's not like I learn a new language every day... but still, I think I'm starting to get some regularities), I have to learn the basics of grammar - how the noun looks, the verb, tenses, declinations, if applicable... although this time I actually don't know how most tenses work in Welsh and that kind of doesn't bother me. The way it seems to be working this time is that I come across an unfamiliar construction, start looking it up and end up discovering that it's how the past tense is made. I think my attitude is something like this: however weird and difficult the grammar may be, it won't match the monumental task of remembering at least 5000 words to be able to keep up with any text or conversation. And add to that the fact that native speakers sometimes get their own grammar wrong. It's probably happened to you, but I've kind of been paying extra attention how sometimes (or you could say, quite often) native English speakers forget even such basics as plurals. In the sense that at the end of a sentence they realize that they made a plural incorrectly (such as "sheeps") and then go back and correct themselves... I don't know, maybe that's not a valid reason. But that's kind of how I see it.

I suppose that's also particular to my focus. I haven't had to use grammar in a long time (lack of time, social anxiety... well, no obvious place where I could do it), and really, with Welsh, don't expect to. And I've been able to get away as an observer (or reader) in at least German with suspiciously little understanding of it.

I probably should immediately put a disclaimer that I in no way advocate or promote bad grammar and waive any liability in case you follow my advice.

I suppose I should mention that I've finally bought the "Flut" book (not because I was able to afford it, but for the reason of using public transportation without any internet connection). So far I've highlighted at least 3 words per page. I don't know if I'm going to do anything with that, but it's taken away the anxiety that I'm missing words. It doesn't seem so hopeless when I come across an unfamiliar word.

I wanted to make a correction for something I've said earlier. I said that on the site italki there are free lessons with community tutors. I just checked and nope, complete randos are giving paid lessons... Okay, that's not fair. I mean, I don't know how it is in your country, but there's a long tradition of complete randos giving tuition without any accreditation. At the very least on italki they get a rating. In case you're at all curious, the top community tutor for German charges $16/hour... Curiously, I also glanced at my native language, and the top Russian tutor takes half that much. I'm not going to go into the whole economic situation, but that's an interesting indicator.

And a bonus random factoid that suddenly came to mind: In all the languages that I know, except English, the word(s) for "why" have a more or less obvious derivation from "for what": Spanish por qué, French pourquoi, and also the German warum - a combination of "wo" (which in the modern language mostly means "where"; oh, it's also sort of adapted into "war-" to be followed by a vowel) and "um" which is often used to indicate purpose in the construction "um... zu": Ich schreibe im Deutsch, um dir einen Beispiel zu geben... But English divorced with this tradition. I mean, wikipedia says that "why" is still derived from an ancient (reconstructed) word for "what for", but you can't see it.

Edit: Oh, but if you're a fan of articles (like in "newspaper"), italki might be for you. I've found some interesting ones for German: https://www.italki.com/articles/german (I'm not sure if you're going to be able to look at them without signing up.)

Thanks for the advice, right now I'm at the basics of everything, words, grammar etc.

And yeah as for English speakers and plurals of words, where I live we add the letter "S" onto words that were never meant to be plural (store names that aren't plural) I try not to do it (sometimes I do though), but I hear it done all the time, its even become a meme that people in my state will do this. It's really weird actually.

Thanks for the clarification, I can read the articles on the website without having to sign up, so I'll take a look at some of those.

Interesting how other languages word fpr "why" comes from "for what" while English it is just "why".

Read an intro paragraph on pronouns, (the book will cover it more later in the chapter I'm on). It was very brief, then went into adjectives, it basically gave 4 examples using the adjectives schön, weiß, klein, and groß. It mentioned how the spelling can change depending if a noun is singular/plural, or what if any article is infront of it. But it didn't really explain much more, it just gave some examples with using both definite and indefinite articles and on example had no article at all.

I skimmed through a little bit more of the chapter before I actually go and write down any notes in my notebook, and it looks like it goes a little more into detail about "einen" and "einem". Then kind of shows you the different forms of "you", I can't remember. Everything in that book so far is just really brief explanations of things with examples of how the words are used, it meant for beginners.

I forget, which book was that? "For Dummies"? (Probably not, doesn't sound like it.)

Anyway, you sound unhappy with it, which is a shame. On the other hand, I'd probably love it. My attention span is really short, and I usually grow to loathe long, extensive explanations. But especially when they're accompanied with a bunch of repetitive exercises. Like in the book series "Practice Makes Perfect". Now, if you think you could use 20 more exercises with "einem"/"einen", pick that one up. Or they might have a whole book dedicated just to that. (I know there's one just for Spanish verbs.)

Ah! Okay, is it this thing? The story behind the Michigan "s" | Michigan Radio Except it's not plural but possessive (I suppose it's become so ingrained that it's actually lost its grammatical function, but never mind).

Anyway, it's fascinating that it's a contentious issue. I've heard it a lot, but thought it was just a thing that happened and I had to accept, without ever getting an explanation.

I wanted to mention another bit of insight I've gotten into the workings of that italki site.

The most useful function that is free might be "Language Partners". It probably doesn't require an explanation. The only thing is, people seem to be focused on Skype conversations. For me that's simply not an option. Even when you just get me into live chat, I'm not going to be able to sleep all night because of excitement and anxiety. Talking with foreigners - I'm probably going to get a heart attack.

You probably didn't know that there's been fairly regular spelling reforms in German. The most recent one was in 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...reform_of_1996 I'm not sure about that one, but I've tried reading some pre-1900 texts (on Gutenberg) and it's quite striking. According to wikipedia, all German-speaking countries adopted the reform, although I'm kind of confused about Switzerland now (which doesn't use the mandated ß). By the way, the article also explains the origin of ß.

And that is all to say, there's been nothing like that in English, which seems to faithfully rely on a spelling standard invented somethere around the year 1000, if I'm not mistaken (or at the latest whenever the King James bible was written - 1500s?). I kind of suspect that the multifold reasons include the fact that all the English-speaking countries would never agree on a common... well, framework to base that around (especially not you, yankees ). And also it's kind of too late. Somewhere in history an appropriate moment was missed when the spelling still followed the language but not quite, when it could be just tweaked to fall in line. Whereas now you might as well invent a new written language to make it at all phonetic...

Okay, I'm rambling. You know, I just got up, it's 6:30, I can't stop thinking about spelling. Happens to everyone, right?

It is German for Dummies, and I do like the book, it's good for a beginner, I think it's just my need for every little detail to be explained rather than broad overviews (which are less mental draining). But I'm sticking with the book because it is teaching me stuff, I'm mean as things go along there will bw more explanations of things, I did skim through some stuff further in the chapter I'm on and it goes into more explanation of things I'm learning. So I dont hate the book at all.

So this has become so ingrained in us that we don't realize we're doing it, to outsiders it seems weird and grammatically incorrect. I'm guilty of doing it verbally (I don't do this in writing), it's most common when saying the name of stores or restaurants. Its a weird little thing that is unique to Michigan, just like we call soda "pop" for some reason.

I don't think I could handle Skype conversations due to social anxiety, it would have to be written communication for me.

That's really interesting, so pretty much all German speaking countries had to learn new spelling of words (or something like that), amd yeah English speaking countries would never agree on anything like that. I mean the U.S. pretty much speaks a simplified version of English compared to other English speaking countries. The only major changes to the English language were going from old English to middle English then now to current (modern) English. Though I read the book Faust in highschool for class, which is all in old or middle English and I could barely comprehend it.