200 days of Duolingo

As promised in the 100 days update, I am here to celebrate my 200th day streak.

This milestone reflects a change in my Dutch learning journey. I had the opportunity to meet someone who was Dutch, and they discouraged me from continuing to learn. They explained that the Netherlands is too boring and small of a country - arguing that Melbourne is a more exciting city than Amsterdam.. They also said that Dutch has too many quirks and idiosyncrasies, which may deter foreigners. As a result, I decided against studying the language too intensely, and rather focus on my other career pathways. Nevertheless, I was determined to complete a full year streak before moving on from the app.

In regards to the app itself, the criticisms from the previous post remain the same. In the last 3 months, they have not been addressed at all: ads still fail to load intermittently; and the text-to-speech is still buggy. Unfortunately, I would even dare to say that the app has gotten worse since.

I appreciate that the company is constantly looking to improve its app. At the time of writing this post, the current interface has Duo hovering over the most current lesson. I think that this is visually confusing, because it obscures the actual user progress. Additionally, the tooltip hovering over Duo is broken, as part of the tooltip text is obscured. Finally, upon completing a lesson, there is a loading bar animation on the statistics screen before moving on. Though I’m sure there are technical justifications for slowing down the app, it is frustrating from an end user’s perspective.

Despite the criticisms, I still quite enjoy the Duolingo interface. My honest opinions stem from a place of care. I understand that the app is a labour of love from the Duolingo team, and I wish them all the success. In fact, I’m actually thinking of learning a new language once I have finished the Dutch module, so I may continue this update beyond the 300th, 36th and even 400th day mark.

Inner Sanctum of the Mind

I have an aversion to sadness.

My body and I have grown to treat it like a virus. Apparently, homeostasis is happiness. And like any other invasion, we want to activate the immune system, and expel melancholy out as soon as possible.

But I am starting to understand that my sadness is chronic. So how can I excise something that has seeped into every pore, bundled with every fibre of my being?

My brain has come up with an amazing solution: Sometimes you have to kill the host to kill the parasite. This explains why I have fantasies of dying. Jumping off buildings. Drowning in a river. Being hit by a car. Overdose. Maybe, if I’m really desperate, I’ll slit my wrists.

Now that I understand my mind is a civil war, can we attempt a truce? Can sadness and I achieve symbiosis? Or will there be the occasional saber rattling; backstabbing coups; and cowardly retreats to our respective drawn boundaries? Time, and hopefully enough medication, can only tell. Until then, I will always pick MAD.

100 days of Duolingo

A few days ago, I reached an exciting milestone. 100 days of Duolingo.

So for the past few months, I have been learning Dutch. Graduation is coming up for me, so I am thinking about various career pathways. And since last year, I caught Dutch fever. I thought it would be interesting to work in the Netherlands someday.

The last 100 days have gone by so quickly. Practising daily Duolingo has been a memorable journey so far - a core memory is grinding it during my rural rotation. I remember practising it on the Vline train on the commute to my rural placement, and practising late at night in the accommodation.

Practising Duolingo has been a delight because the company has invested quite heavily in the interface. Prior to learning Dutch, I was only familiar with the memes about Duo the Owl menacingly threatening you to maintain the streak. But the company lives up to its reputation - the animations, the haptic feedback and overall cohesiveness of the different screens blew me away back then and blows me away 100 days later. As an aspiring developer, the interface is something worth admiring and trying to emulate. They have even really nailed the gamification aspects of the app.

However, it is not without its flaws. I’m not complaining about its freemium model, but I’m annoyed how some ads don’t load correctly after completing a lesson. This results in my having to evoke either the home screen or swipe down to bring the Notifications Center. Additionally, I think the speech-to-text interface can be improved. While it is a novel idea, there have been too many occasions where the app cannot pick up what I’ve said. As a result, I’m unsure whether my pronunciation is actually accurate and, though speaking is an important part of learning a language, I try to avoid practising it.

My last critique is the learning content of Duolingo. A core part of the learning experience in Duolingo is just constant exposure, which can lead to a lot of grinding. This is good, but I’m disappointed that Duolingo only tries to teach by showing vocabulary. I wish that there was a quick preview moment where the app demonstrates how the grammar works before exposing learners to the vocabulary. I’ve made many mistakes where my grammar was incorrect and it was difficult to understand why. Luckily, in these cases, I reached out for a textbook which helped a lot. But without additional resources, I would’ve struggled a lot more and for no reason.

Nevertheless, I’ve been enjoying learning Dutch and Duolingo has been a big part of it. I tried to initially learn Dutch last year by downloading an Anki, but it was quite daunting and difficult to maintain that habit. So I think Duolingo is a great way to break down any daunting barriers of learning something new. Starting anything is uncomfortable and difficult, and I appreciate how Duolingo is essentially a framework that sets up safe guard rails for ensuring that you stay on track. I look forward to keep practising and hopefully provide another update at the 200 day mark.

A Small Update

Today is a unique day - it only comes around every leap year. Hence I thought it was appropriate to post a little update.

My life generally is divided into 3 responsibilities - studying dentistry, app development and trying to develop a startup idea.

I am in my final year of the dental program. I have been seeing patients almost everyday since mid-January. It’s very rewarding and provides insight what a post-graduation life looks like. There are 7 rotations before graduation, and I am on my 2nd. My 2nd rotation is a rural placement, so I am located 2.5 hours from Melbourne.

After my last post last year, the assessments ramped up and had little time for app development. At the same time, iOS17 was released which meant there were a lot of API changes to SwiftUI. It took some time to catchup and understand the changes, as well as the new frameworks introduced. During the holidays, I have been working on a separate app as well. I am currently working on that whenever I have the chance.

Also last year, I wrote about CBCT following a conversation with a radiologist. Since then, I have been talking to a lot of dentists about the idea and I have a general concept for a startup. Currently, I am in the process of assembling a team and developing a business plan. There are some milestones I’d like to achieve within this year for the startup to actually materialise. I shall post updates as I hit them.

2024 is all about biding time and putting in the hours. Let’s hope it all pays off