Nathalieland Update - Snow/Duolingo/Cousins/Click/School

First Snow. We woke up on Monday to a beautiful dusting of snow! It didn't stick around past lunchtime, but winter coats are definitely in use now. Thus begins our love/hate relationship with winter weather.

1000 Days of Duolingo. I reached a major milestone this month: a 1000-day streak on Duolingo German!! And that's the end of it! I had decided that once I reached that cool milestone, it was time to put Duolingo away and continue learning German using other sources. For now it's mostly YouTube, but I'm still enjoying it and proud of my progress. Thanks Duo, for getting me back into the German language and all those days of practice.

Overnight Cousins. Earlier this month we had a sleepover with Lorelei and Caleb while their parents were away. Four kids makes for a busy household! We all reunited the next day to celebrate Little (Lil) Click's first birthday.

Phone chat with Mommy & Daddy

Happy birthday, Lil Click ♫

Goodbye Lil Click. In a sad turn of events, the day after Lil Click's birthday, he died! He wasn't looking so great that morning, and in fact was in rough shape for weeks prior to his birthday. He sometimes became afflicted with swim bladder disease and we were never sure if we were feeding him too much or too little. He passed away while the girls were at school. When the girls got home, we buried him in the front garden bed and added a commemorative stone. Goodbye, Lil Click! We will think of you fondly.

Morning... you ok in there?

Afternoon... so sad

Scroll saw ornaments to remember our pet betta

A Life Without. Emily came home with this poster of things she can't imagine life without. I think we're doing pretty good!

Nathalieland Update - Family/Skating/Duolingo/Ukulele

Family Day Weekend. My wish from last weekend came true: the Stay-At-Home order was removed, so we were able to see my parents and sister's family for dinner on Sunday (Valentine's Day!). It was great to catch up, have a nice meal, and listen to the kids play/giggle all afternoon. The other highlight this weekend was the girls' sudden interest in skating. On Family Day Monday, both girls (and Steve) strapped on some skates and worked on their skills. They enjoyed it so much that we went back out a second time that afternoon, and by the end Emily and Jessi were able to skate around without assistance! It was so neat to watch their progress. I would have strapped on some skates too, but Emily was wearing mine. Time to get another pair :)

Two-Year Duoversary. At the start of this month I celebrated my 2nd Duoversary; I've now been learning German on Duolingo every day for two years! At this point I've done all the work and achieved every milestone, so I'm basically just reviewing material for 15 minutes every day until I figure out what my next steps in learning should be. I really enjoy watching Easy German videos on YouTube, but some more hands-on practice would be best.

Ukulele Update. Speaking of two years, I've now also been learning on RockClass101.com for two years! Since December 2018 I've participated in every single Monthly Challenge, until this January (it was about time I took a break). I'm pleased with my progress and continue to enjoy playing the ukulele. Here are a couple of my most recent recordings (on my new uke!). For more videos, check out my YouTube channel.

COVID-19 - Week 5 (Duo to Gold & Lemmy Pics)

I forgot to mention in my Easter post that although we didn't get to see my sister's family for Easter, we did get a nice card from them in the mail! ♥

It was a pretty uneventful week in Nathalieland. The girls' one-hour-a-day schoolwork went well and Steve and I continued with our daily activities and chores. The weather wasn't great; we had wind, rain, and two days of on-and-off snow! Here was my view while doing the dishes on Wednesday:

The most exciting part for me this week was finishing all of my Duolingo German word sections to Level 5 (Gold)! This happened two weeks before we would have been leaving for our trip...

About to finish the last round

So excited!

That's 436 days of work and 607 crowns earned!

My next goal is to finish going through all the Duolingo Stories and then continue reviewing words every day while searching for other German-learning opportunities. Ich werde bereit sein, mit meinem Verwandten zu sprechen, wenn wir endlich nach Deutschland gehen!

On a random note, we tried to get good pictures of Lemmy (like this one of Ludwig) to put on Jessi's wall. Unfortunately it's hard to get a good close-up of a wriggly, not-so-social guinea pig! I think we'll keep trying.

One Year on Duolingo!

On February 2nd I celebrated my "Duoversary" -- the one-year anniversary of learning with Duolingo. Two days later I also achieved a pretty neat goal: a 365-day streak, meaning I've been practicing my German every day for a year!

Learning German on Duolingo all started when I was chatting with a stranger at my trampoline class last winter. He happened to know a bit of German, and when I mentioned that I had German relatives and took some German courses in high school and University, he tried to strike up a conversation in that language. I quickly realized that I had lost most of what I'd learned, and then I had an A-HA! moment: I should brush up on my German since I'm going to Germany in May 2020.

I signed up with Duolingo and right away enjoyed the routine of doing a little bit every day.

I love all the different ways in which the language is taught: for each category of words there are speaking exercises, hearing exercises, word matching, fill-in-the-blanks, and plenty of translating (in both directions). Each category has 5 levels, and the exercises get harder as you level up.

All these categories are at Level 5 (gold)

I've been keeping track of words and useful sentences learned in a small notebook. It might come in handy when I'm in Germany! I at least feel that writing things down helps with memory.

Sometimes it's hard to fit all the words of a category on two pages...

A few things changed with the Duolingo app within my year of using it. My two favourite updates are that they added Duolingo Stories, which really helps with reading comprehension and adding more vocabulary. They also started requiring you to practice/review categories you had already learned, which has been great for retention.

Duolingo Stories 

This category needs to be practiced!

There are typically 3 categories to review per day

I'm not quite done going through the entire German course, but I have accomplished a lot and definitely feel more comfortable with the language. Here are some Duo-related stats I've achieved in my one year of learning (as of today):

• Learned over 2,000 words
• Earned 45,709 XP (you get XPs for every session you complete)
• Received 427 crowns (one for each Level)
• Collected 1,824 lingots (Duolingo currency that you can use to buy things... though there aren't many purchasing options!)
• Maintained my streak (which is now at 371 days)
• Reached the Diamond League (a friendly way to compete with other users; leveling up depends on how many XPs you earn in a week compared to others in your league)

Achievements still missing: getting all categories to Level 1

and getting 1st place in my league (a major challenge!)

Looking ahead, I will likely be able to finish the entire course before we leave in May. I think Duolingo will have given me a great foundation and a much wider vocabulary than I ever had. Will I be able to converse fluently with my relatives? Hmm, I'm not so sure. But I will be a lot more ready and willing to try!

And now I'm off to do my daily Duo!