Achievement Unlocked!

As someone who majored in English in college, it always entertains me to see how people react when I inform them that I used to be god-awful at the subject back when I was a brat. The rules never really clicked, to be honest - I still couldn't tell you what a conditional continuous affirmative statement is supposed to sound like ("She would have been there" is an example. Google be praised.) I ultimately became above average at it from the amount of exposure I had with the language. Playing a lot of dialogue heavy games. Watching a lot of movies. Reading tons and tons of books. I literally blew through all of the Goosebumps books at my school library, half of the Hardy Boys books at the public library, and the Harry Potter series about ten times before graduating high school. I never really learned the proper rules; I just naturally know what sounds right and wrong, and my perception is almost always correct.

Because I understand that I am not very technically minded, I don't think it's the wrong course of action to go about learning other languages in a similar fashion. Of course, it is important to learn the rules initially; if nothing else, hearing them will leave an impact on you that makes absorbing information later down the road easier, but after a certain point, diving in is the best course of action, because the answers you receive from the questions you ask will be all the more meaningful when there is a slight gap in your knowledge that you want to fill, as opposed to a massive void.

I have looked hard for apps and games that make learning fun, the way that actually motivates me to learn, and though I have yet to find the perfect method, Duolingo is about as close as I've come. I've been playing it for about a year or two now, and I finally hit a milestone: I completed every chapter and every lesson of the Spanish course! Here are some of the stats on that (since I actually enjoy seeing numbers quite a bit):

• Completed: July 20, 2016 at 8:22 PM. 
• Total Experience: 11,120XP (at 10XP/lesson=1,112 lessons completed)
• Level: 17
• Goal: Insane (minimum 5 lessons a day)
• Streak: 143 days streak meeting goal

I'll continue to refine my Spanish for a bit on Duolingo before I move on to starting my Italian studies, but again, I wanted to empathize that while it is not the perfect grammar tool, it is a great way to build a solid repertoire of basic vocabulary without the headache that normally accompanies learning as a beginner. I have a few books and games that I can also use to practice Spanish, and I fell in love with many Spanish movies after a course I had in college, so there are still numerous options available. It's just satisfying to finally see visual evidence of my progress, even if it is just a virtual trophy shaped like a giant owl.