Two Weeks Left for my Swedish Goal
With two weeks left in the year, I'm beginning to think my Swedish Goal was a little too ambitious. Hopefully I can still reach it.
A little background
I started learning Swedish through Duolingo in March of 2019. It was my main focus on and off since that time.
At the beginning of December, I did a little math.
The Swedish course on Duolingo has 66 skills. Each skill has 5 levels, and each time you level up you earn a "crown". That's a total of 330 crowns to earn to complete the course.
At the beginning of the month I was at 227 crowns. I figured if I earned a little more than 3 crowns per day, I could finish the complete course by the end of December.
And it was going well, I think until I did some different math earlier this week.
Some skills in Duolingo take 9 or 10 lessons to level up. Some take 1 or 2 lessons to earn a crown. To keep up the pace to earn 3 to 4 crowns per day, I was focusing on the skills that had fewer lessons per crown, and spending less time on skills that took longer to level up.
So, earlier this week I counted the amount of lessons, not crowns, per day that I finish per day.
It's about 15. Sigh.
I can burn through lessons at the lower levels pretty quickly. But trying to level up from level 4 to level 5 on a skill takes a bit longer. So the closer I get to my goal, the harder it will be to finish 15 lessons per day.
How much is left?
Here's my progress from the last three days. I count how many lessons I need to complete at the beginning of the day, and as you could see, I've been doing less than 15 per day.
Here's where I am with my unfinished skills:
| Skill Name | Lessons to Complete | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 12/16 | 12/17 | 12/18 | Verbs Infinitive 2 | 9 | 8 | 6 |
| Nature | 9 | 8 | 6 |
| Abstract Objects 2 | 19 | 18 | 16 |
| Sports | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Directions | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Arts | 11 | 10 | 10 |
| Medical | 23 | 22 | 22 |
| Politics | 23 | 22 | 21 |
| Communication | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| Active Participles | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Science | 27 | 24 | 23 |
| Verbs Conditional | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| Spiritual | 12 | 11 | 11 |
| Passive | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Future Preterite | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Business | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Celebrate | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Total Lessons Left | 237 | 226 | 217 |
| Days Left | 16 | 15 | 14 |
| Lessons Needed per Day | 14.81 | 15.06 | 15.5 |
Biggest Lesson Learned
I didn't have a way of counting lessons when I started back in the beginning of the month, since skills aren't available until you've completed the previous skills to at least level 1. So counting crowns was my best option back then.
However, I should have realized that a goal that required me to work hard every day for a month was going to be rough. It's not that I don't want to work hard, but every once in a while, I have a day where language learning can't be a priority.
Tuesday, earlier this week, was just such a day. I was busy with work projects, meetings, etc, and I was only able to complete 3 lessons that day.
I still don't regret the goal, however. I am making progress in Swedish faster than ever, and even if I don't succeed by the end of the year, I will finish for sure in January.
Some Good News
I almost forgot the good news. All Swedish skills have been leveled up to at least level 1. Whoo hoo!
No time to celebrate, though. I need to go do 15 lessons of Swedish right now.
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