go do duolingo before the owl gets you
you were your family
[Music]
hola todos
yo soy sam well hello Skinner makino-san
estoy hablando espanol so I've been a
user of duolingo for a long time now
like a long time and just like with any
software any program things change
sometimes it's for the better or
sometimes it's for the worse but
regardless they change so whether you're
brand new to duolingo or you've been on
for a long time trying to see through
the updates I'm gonna fill in some gaps
and go over a few tips and tricks to get
the most out of it but first can I just
point out it is beautiful out here today
beautiful day in the studio
look at this Golden Hour check this out
gorgeous I genuinely I got to feel like
I'm in Narnia or something okay so the
bread and butter of duolingo is their
lesson tree that of course is where
you're gonna find all the lessons when I
initially went through it a few years
ago just because I'm a perfectionist I
wouldn't move on until I made the
complete lesson gold and everything
before it had to be repaired
you know I before I could move on now
because the lessons have been
restructured each lesson you're only
actually learning eight vocabulary words
and to sit there and go through it that
many times it's gonna bore you to death
and you're gonna log off you'll never
log back on and then the scary green owl
is gonna up here in your closet one day
but I I recommend to people now kind of
a waterfall technique if you will as you
go down the tree and
as you get some gold you know some
lessons fully gold it may be the next
three or four you'll be leveled three or
four and then you go down a little bit
and some level twos and then some level
ones and then some lessons you haven't
started yet and that way every day you
log on you can do five or ten minutes of
review and then another five or ten
minutes of progression and it kind of
Risa little Phi's everything you've
learned and keeps you on your toes so
you're not just repeating the same
phrase over and over and over and over
and over and over again not the duolingo
has that reputation so it's just a good
way I think the the waterfall technique
I'll call it is kind of a good way to to
game progress but to hold on to what
you've already learned and it'll just by
the time you get to the end you'll be
much more confident and when you start
moving into stories and podcasts and
stuff I think you'll be a bit better
equipped and guys sorry I almost forgot
you can actually test out skills now it
doesn't matter what level you're on if
it's material that you've already
learned elsewhere or if you just have
superhuman intelligence and you learn
really quickly and you don't want to go
through and keep closing the little
circle over and over and over again you
can click this little key icon it'll
cost you 200 gems if you're on mobile
but don't worry if you're a plus member
you can do this as many times as you'd
like there is no fee so you can jump
from level 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 or 4 to 5 as
long as you know the material but there
are no hints you can't click the word to
get a you know for a gimme so if you
know it quizzes you and you can test out
of it you can do this on any skill on
the tree at any time
next thing while we're still talking
about the tree if you're learning
Spanish on duolingo every single lesson
has a tips box click it that will save
you
an incredible headache down the road
it's just kind of a mini briefing before
the lessons if you will a lot of
duolingo is sink or swim you kind of
learn by failure which is a great way to
go but it doesn't hurt to let you know
hey by the way if you want to say we
swim it's no damos instead of just you
know clicking over and over and over and
over again trying to figure out the
conjugation so they kind of they help
you along a little bit again
implementing that into your daily use as
you move on to new lessons be sure to
click tips you'll learn much quicker and
keep that owl away and if you really
want to get the most how to do a lingo I
think a major key to that is doing it on
desktop on a web browser rather first of
all I think the questions are just
better and it might just be that you
have more real estate to work with in it
it's just more user friendly but there
are no hearts on the desktop that means
you can fail as many times as you want
and you don't have to wait you don't get
the sad duo that's like an upgrade to
Plus which is a great idea if you want
to support duolingo
I have none I have no qualms with plus
but if you're not in a position to be a
plus member and you get frustrated and
you're worried to move forward because
if you fail then you're done for the day
and you're holding on to your streaker
whatever it is all of those worries go
away when you just load it up into a web
browser and also there is still no app
support for the forum's and if you're
not on the forums sure like every third
post tends to kind of be irrelevant but
every day I just kind of got in the
habit I like to just see what's up with
with Spanish today or people learning
span or you know lots of funny memes are
exchanged so yeah get out of the forum
check out the forum so front
moving on to do duolingo better I
recently made a video about this but
these stories are awesome I know not
every language has them yet but if
you're learning Spanish there's a ton of
them and it takes your your lessons
which usually have silly sentences like
I do not hear you since I have cinnamon
rolls in my ears and it puts them into a
real-world perspective and you start
learning phrases and you start
identifying patterns of speech and it
kind of it brings glue together and you
start I don't it's fun to read a story
in a foreign language it's fun if your
brother sitting next to you you know
what's going on with Rafael and he
doesn't I don't know it's just kind of
it's fun I mean I like to talk about
people in Spanish so they don't know
what I'm saying let's have the fun of
the language is that so wrong
might be wrong all right hot topic here
leagues love them or hate them leagues
are there if you hate it I'm kind of
right there with you I don't need a
digital flex to let you know that I'm
learning more than you because that's
not really how learning works just
pretend they don't exist
you'll never be docked for it continue
on your merry way learning Spanish with
duolingo but if you're one of those that
is a fan of the leagues
me too everybody's competition let's
bury them and if you go look at the
league's tab not many people know about
this there's an option in there it's
called ramp up it's kind of like a like
a more serious review you can earn a
hundred and fifteen experience
relatively quickly each little tear of
the ramp up you have less time to
complete the review and if you can't get
to the end of the review before the
clock expires you have to start all the
way over so while you're looking at the
at the leaderboards and you see that
you're only a few spots behind first
place and you want that notification
that you won ramp it up baby ramp it up
all right another one I've noticed a lot
of people don't know this even exists
I've seen a lot of people talking about
it on the forums is the streak freeze
the kind of the reason I come back all
the time is because my streak freeze is
just too high to lose like why should I
lose it you know I've done it for this
long I might as well keep doing it
there have been times sometimes when
I've flown internationally just a simple
time change on your phone you can lose
your streak or I don't know sometimes
we're just not perfect and you forget
you pretty much set it and forget it
once you buy it it'll be used if you
make it to midnight and you haven't
completed the streak but yeah I don't I
know one day the streak is gonna end I
know I understand how this works but
that won't happen till I die
and if it does I'm gonna be very very
sad so good as I said if capacity has
put me a tad I've got a few app
comparisons coming up in the near future
here to compare some some of the easier
ways to speak and listen and learn
Spanish in general so if you're learning
Spanish if you want to if you want to
follow along please do subscribe I make
videos like this every Saturday and yeah
go do duolingo before the owl gets you
you were your family
[Music]