u/GregName

Seems like we may be in groups. Some of us saw on a website, APTP, NO APTO, or didn’t look in time to see these the postings.

Who will this be worse on? Users that saw APTO, and later get a NO APTO when the official results come out?

How about sitting around having seen NO APTO? Those folks wait, hoping NO APTO is somehow an APTO.

It is a question along the lines of, “Is it better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all?”

After all the steps to upgrade my iPhone to the modern era, you would think the first thing I would test is whether I could make a phone call.

Nope. First things first. Will my new cell phone let me do a lesson on Duolingo?

Happy to report, Apple had no trouble with the conversion. Using Bluetooth and wireless, with the old and new phones side-by-side, apps and data migrated through the air from one phone to the other. It all just worked.

There was a moment when a speaking exercise appeared when iOS asked me two things. First, was it going to be okay for Duolingo to use my microphone. Second, would it be alright to use the built-in speech recognition that comes with my new phone. Obviously, I gave the app permission for both.

Crazy addiction, huh?

Wow. Hard to even begin. I’ll start with Words.

So at my Score of 92, on the old course I had 4,174 words in my Words icon in the Practice Hub. That’s at the start of Section 6, Unit 141. It has fallen to 3,697 after the update. There is a whole rabbit hole about what a word is for linguists. With a very cursory look, I will grant that my word list has fewer almost-duplicates now. I see nothing new in the last 500 words or so.

I don’t have any catch-up lessons, seen by others as the 3 Extra Units. My bet is at Score 92, there was nothing to present. The titles of the redesigned units are pretty much lockstep. I had reviewed all this prior to the update on the DuolingoData.com website. So far, no pain.

Now the sad news. Legendary. Destruction begins at Section 1, Unit 3. Fixing Section 1 looks like just a few Star icons need Legendary here and there. Section 2 seemed similar for the beginning, but as I look at the back half of Section 2, it looks like Role Play wants to be earned as a lesson. Section 3 doesn’t look like a long repair, Star icons here and there again.

I think I will just get busy fixing the CEFR A1 Legendary right now. I will look at the CEFR A2 destruction after that. Just peaking at Section 4, not a terribly long reconstruction like I just went through last week with new GenAI stories dropped into Section 6. I did check those, and my work remains intact as Legendary (whew).

At some point, I want to progress on the path and get past this Score 92. First, fixing Legendary…again.

Had my Legendary destroyed this morning and was about to celebrate the new Spanish Update.

Instead, it was just an update of Stories in my path for Section 6. I am at Unit 139. This ”new feature” took away the Legendary status on 67 on my Stories. Kind of random on which Units would get a new Story.

I did notice this new feature where the Story would have me reorganize descriptions of events that happened in the story. It was a drag feature, where I dragged things around until they were in the right order. That was new for me.

At least Stories repair rather quickly. I figure 3 to 4 minutes per story to blaze through them, or longer if I try to spot vocabulary that is new to me (and make notes).

A side benefit this year for learning Spanish is picking up an additional 8 countries to root for.

Flew to Ecuador to take the DELE A2 exam. Didn’t study any special DELE prep materials, but did show up two weeks early to take a one-on-one prep course at the school where the exam was held. Three hours a day prep, but felt quite a bit unprepared despite the two weeks practice.

My hope is my speaking and writing will pull up those multiple choice questions. I used to think I liked multiple choice, but I’ve changed my mind.

Coming to the test from a Duolingo background. Seems like the test-makers intentionally used words not presented until beyond A2 Duolingo. At over three-fourths through the B1 content on Duolingo, the exam still had words beyond me.

Supplementing beyond Duolingo included over 200 hours on italki, and now, four country visits in South America. Started with Chile, later hit Peru school for 5 weeks. Did 5 school weeks in Argentina. Now with Ecuador, one more country, and one more week of school to go.

If I didn’t pass, that’s okay. There will be time after the results to hit Spain for the October/November tests.

Just the Legendary destruction, still on the old course. Destroyed about 7 units I just fixed this week. My Legendary boat is sinking. I’m plugging holes, bailing water, but the boat keeps springing with new leaks.

Not sure why I only was partially upgraded (taking away some Legendary statuses is apparently a step in the upgrade).

Please just rip this whole Band-aide off in one go. Upgrade my course to more GenAI, destroy some Legendary, and add words I haven’t seen. Get it over with already.