Or,
learning the Romanian language.
For
the past year or so I have been attempting to learn Romanian as a hobby, making
slow but steady(ish) progress while trying a variety of online resources. My first stop was YouTube, but while the
presenters were usually personable, I generally found the videos to be unstructured
and not suitable for learning anything beyond single words and simple
phrases. On the whole, I don’t find
looking at someone sitting in front of a video camera reading out lists of
words helpful because the method lacks interactivity, and retention was an
issue.
Several
years ago I signed up for a Babbel online course prior to a visit to Russia,
which was valuable preparation, but Romanian isn’t available from them. If I lived in London I would consider enrolling
on a courses run by the Romanian Cultural Institute, but participation in these
is not feasible for me because of my location.
Instead, the online course I am following is provided by Duolingo. It employs a ‘freemium’ business model but I
only use those functions which are free and ignore the adverts.
The
course is broken into themed modules, each with levels of increasing difficulty. Lessons within a level have only a few
elements, mixing type of task, and it is easy to do the odd lesson in a spare
few minutes. Tasks so far have been to
translate written text either way, or write what I hear in Romanian in either
Romanian or English. There is a mixture
of single words/phrases and short sentences of varying but generally increasing
complexity. Speech has two speed options,
normal and slow, the latter handy when the former seems a blur, which in my
case is often. There is much repetition
to reinforce memorisation of the vocabulary, and plenty of practice in word
endings.
Modules
are linked to pages of background information for that theme containing useful,
if brief, tables and explanations of the sort found in grammars, and individual
tasks have an associated user-generated discussion page, often helpful if
something is unclear. A ‘game’ aspect provides
virtual rewards, and while I don’t bother with peripherals like ‘lingots’ and ‘streaks’,
I find it is satisfying to complete a module, and that makes me want to finish
one and move on to the next. Discipline
is provided by not allowing learners to move too far ahead, course sections
only becoming accessible once a certain number of earlier modules have been
completed.
Duolingo
isn’t perfect by any means. The accepted
responses can be rigid and I have on occasion written what I considered a
correct response to find it rejected as incorrect (a common complaint from
users). Some elements are multiple
choice, and often the appropriate word or phrase to select is too easy. The auditory component needs to be expanded
to allow the learner to hear more examples of the spoken language (and there has
been the odd complaint about clarity and the accuracy of pronunciation on the
discussion pages). Those minor criticisms
aside, the Duolingo developers have done a good job.
Another
freemium provider I have been trying is Memrise, again only the free element. It contains a large number of mini-courses each
ranging from a few dozen to hundreds of words.
The feature I have been sampling
consists of ‘flashcards’, just lists of words and phrases you memorise. Learning is reinforced by repetition, from
Romanian to English and English to Romanian, and testing is by selecting the correct stimulus word from a list
under time pressure. The learner is
awarded points for selecting the correct words and there is a leader board
where one is ranked with other learners.
The
huge drawback of this approach is that there is no context, so while one learns
useful vocabulary it is not possible to build on it to generate grammatical
sentences of any complexity. Simply
learning words is an arid exercise, and as with YouTube videos, retention is
difficult. Hence I use Memrise as a
supplementary resource to Duolingo, but would not want to rely on it as my sole
learning method.
(19
September 2018)
Duolingo
update
I
have now reached the end of the Duolingo Romanian course so am in a better
position to judge its value. The first
thing to say is that the course is well organised and I have enjoyed the
process, except when facing frustratingly complicated grammatical
constructions. There is a sense of
achievement (though sometimes relief too!) on reaching the end of a module and
it was motivating to see the number completed grow larger and the end of the
course gradually approach.
While
my experience has been positive, there is still work to be done on development
of the course. The ‘tips’ pages
currently peter out about two-thirds of the way through, which means one has to
rely on exercise-related comments from other learners. They are extremely supportive, however, some
contributors to the discussion pages are Romanians who can speak with authority
but do not always pitch their comments at the appropriate level, and as they
are responding to specific questions the answers are not always
comprehensive. In practice Duolingo tips
pages vary in usefulness anyway and are no substitute for a proper grammar.
The
quality of the English translations in the exercises occasionally leaves
something to be desired and clearly have not always been double-checked by
native English speakers. This is
particularly evident in the later stages of the course, resulting in some odd
formulations. As I noted earlier, sound
quality is variable, and at times misleading.
The pool of sentences to work through within a module is often limited
in number, and one can eventually memorise them without necessarily learning
the principles. On the other hand the
course is free, so one cannot be too severe, and it is evolving so in time
these weaknesses should be addressed.
In
summary, do I think the course has been worth the effort? Yes, I do.
Can I now carry out a conversation in Romanian? No, but I never expected to, based on my
limited exposure. Duolingo has given me
a decent foundation but to become really proficient I would need to do more
speaking and listening (in the French Duolingo course one is given phrases to
speak – though this is more to do with practising the accent than conversation
skills – something missing in the Romanian one). Finishing a Duolingo ‘tree’ gives an enormous
sense of satisfaction, however in terms of learning a language it is but a baby
step.
My
plan now is to come back to the Duolingo course exercises regularly to retain
the knowledge I have picked up, and carry on using the free element of Memrise
to build and reinforce vocabulary, supplemented by studying printed grammars
and trying to translate Romanian blogs/Facebook pages. I shall continue watching subtitled videos to
increase my familiarity with Romanian as it is spoken, though even now speed of
delivery is a concern.
(29
June 2020)
Romanian
Cultural Institute (London) online course
As
normal face-to-face classes were suspended because of the Covid-19 pandemic, in
May the Romanian Cultural Institute in London offered three free 12-week online
courses: one for children (Salut,
exploratori!), one for beginners (Salut,
prieteni!) and one for intermediate learners (Salut, companioni!). Each
session was scheduled to last about an hour.
The first twenty people to register could participate via Zoom, but the
sessions were also live-streamed on YouTube.
I
was curious to see how they worked, and this was the closest I was likely to
get to the classes the RCI runs in London.
I was not able to commit to participating on Zoom, or to watch the
streamed session on YouTube, but I did watch all the recorded sessions
later. My first thought was to follow
both beginner and intermediate classes, but I decided to focus on those for
beginners and come back to the intermediate ones later, as my level fell
somewhere in between.
The
beginners’ tutor, Mrs Ciupală, was very engaging and full of cheerful
encouragement, though the Zoom students were initially diffident in making
contributions. Those watching the
streamed lessons were able to comment using a text bar, though this diminished
as the course progressed.
The
course assumed no prior knowledge and began with basics. The first session focused on pronouncing the
alphabet, and subsequent lessons explored vocabulary and grammar in a carefully
structured way, covering such topics as greetings, how to give and receive
personal information, the issue of word endings, numbers, conjugating the
present tense of key verbs, and concepts of time and place. There was plenty of variety in the exercises,
spoken and written.
A
lovely surprise was the appearance of the Romanian Ambassador to the UK to chat
with the class during the tenth lesson, which was much appreciated. By the end of the course the students had
visibly increased in confidence to the extent they were able to give short
presentations about themselves in Romanian and answer basic questions.
I
would recommend watching the YouTube recordings (unfortunately they are only available
until 15 August). They provide an
insight into how the normal RCI classes work, and anyone able to attend the
face-to-face courses once they resume will find them a valuable element of the
language-learning experience.
Putting
on the free online courses was a wonderful gesture, and the RCI, Mrs Ciupală,
and her colleagues are to be applauded for the initiative. I hope they will consider something similar
in future, not least so I can get to grips with Salut, companioni!
(30
July 2020)
