Genius Hour Project A Fail Essay

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I’m going to tap out and call this Genius Hour project a fail. My goal was to learn beginner-level French, through Duolingo on the Web, in two weeks to prove that language barriers should not discourage people from learning a new language. I thought I was prepared to practice once a day and take notes. I researched all of what I thought I needed. After all, I picked up Chinese easily in school, so why not French?
At first I tried Babbel instead of Duolingo. Babbel focuses on conversational language rather than starting from square one, which is exactly what Duolingo focuses on. I dumped Babbel in favor of Duolingo after the first lesson because I didn’t want to pay for each one. But after the project, I realize that I should have stuck with Babbel because I probably would have learned and retained more, as well as being able to have a natural conversation with a French speaker quicker.
I found myself repeating Duolingo …show more content…

First, practice more than once a day. Throughout your day, you are busy. Working and thinking about other things. The last thing on your mind is remembering how to pronounce “Je suis un garçon” and the like. Secondly, take valuable notes. Write words and phrases more than once because the motion your hand makes helps the brain remember what it’s writing. Keep a notebook instead of a piece of paper because you’re less likely to lose it and start over, which I had to do. Looking back to seventh-grade, my Chinese teacher would have us write each word five times, and it’s not a coincidence how those are the words I remember best today. Thirdly, don’t learn two languages at the same time. Sounds silly. But Chinese is my sixth-hour class. Every day write, pronounce, and recognize characters, as well as learn grammatical structures that would be considered incorrect in English. I focus on that rather than writing a fancy hook on the bottom of the letter

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