Duolingo - Debbie Young's Writing Life

The Power of the Streak

Posted on November 14, 2024 by Debbie Young

Day 185 of my Duolingo Latin streak, and the little green owl, Duo, mascot of this popular language learning app, has just emailed me to say he sees a 186-day streak in my future.

He’s right. The concept of the streak plays a huge part in Duolingo’s success. Once you get going, you dare not miss a day of practice for fear of cutting your streak short, although if you practise a lot, you’ll earn a Streak Freeze allowing you to take a very occasional day off. The longer the streak, the harder it is to lapse, especially when Duo is constantly stalking you with reminders.

If the green owl graphic wasn’t so cute, he’d seem positively sinister.

This is the second time I’ve built up a long Duolingo Latin Streak. Over the years, I’ve spent so many hours with Duo that I’ve completed the Latin course several times over. However, it’s far from comprehensive. I know I’d learn much more if I spent the same amount of time studying the Cambridge Latin Course. I first came across this course at secondary school, and the course book is currently Amazon’s bestseller in Latin. Even so, I can’t seem to escape Duo’s clutches.

cover of first book in Cambridge Latin series showing Amazon bestseller orange flag — I was astonished to find my old school Latin textbook is currently a bestseller on Amazon – bestseller n the Latin category, anyway!

We all know that apps are designed to be addictive, applying streak mechanisms to keep you hooked. The concept of the streak was around long before the invention of the app. Inevitably at my age, my earliest experience of the grip of the streak is analogue: the yellow attendance card for Scripture Union club at primary school. The A6 card was ruled into neat squares, and each time we attended the after-school club, the kindly Mr Linton stamped a little star into the next blank square. A row of stars earned the cardholder a bookmark, a full card a book. Gaining stars was a powerful motivator for attendance, as was Mr Linton’s obvious pleasure at our progress.

Perhaps I should apply the same psychology to housework, never high on my list of priorities.

I could easily make up a Scripture Union style card and reward myself with a stamp for every completed task. But it wouldn’t feel as fulfilling without the personal endorsement of dear old Mr Linton or Duolingo’s winsome little green owl.

As Mr Linton retired to Norfolk when I was 11, I can’t look to him for help now. Clearly I need my own version of Duo. So, if you come across a small plump green owl with domineering tendencies in need of a good home, please send him my way.

In Other News

No sooner is my latest book done than I’m writing the next!

Death at the Old Curiosity Shop was launched last month and has been very well received, with a 4.4* average on Amazon and over 120 reviews and ratings so far. This book is the start in a brand new series, initially planned as a trilogy, set around Alice Carroll, the new proprietor of a derelict bric-a-brac shop in the Cotswold village of Little Pride. I had such fun creating the new setting and characters that as soon as that book was in production, I set to work on the sequel. Death at the Village Chess Club will be launched on 3rd March 2025, and is already available to preorder. I’ll share the cover here as soon as I can.

graphic showing some endorsements from the blog tour — Just some of the kind reviews of my latest book so far

In the meantime, I’m getting in festive mood as I organise the next Hawkesbury Upton Village Literature Festival event – the now traditional Christmas Special. This will include readings of classic favourite Christmas poetry and prose, as well as readings and talks by local authors. Three of the guest speakers will be sharing stories written for this occasion. The Festival is very honoured! For more information and to book tickets, visit the HULF website at www.hulitfest.com, or book your tickets online via Eventbrite here. Advance booking is essential to make sure we’ve got enough refreshments and chairs to go around!

Family, Personal life

How My Childhood Made Me A Citizen of the World

Posted on December 18, 2019January 25, 2020 by Debbie Young

cover of December issue of Tetbury Advertiser — Click to read the whole issue online

In my Young by Name column for the December issue of the Tetbury Advertiser – written during the build-up to the UK general election – I reflected on how my upbringing has affected my world view – and my love of languages.

From an early age, I counted myself as a traveller. Born in an era when most British families took holidays in their own country, and only one a year, usually in the summer, I had a fortunate head start at the tender age of eight.

An American Road Trip

My father’s job as a computer engineer required that he spend a year in the USA, and he took the whole family with him – my mum, my older brother and sister, and me. Initially posted to Philadelphia, he was asked after a month to relocate to Los Angeles.

Photo of my dad with tour guide looking at old photos — My dad impresses our tour guide on the HMS Belfast with photos of his seafaring days

My father’s natural sense of adventure had been nurtured by his earlier service with the Royal Navy, including two years during the Korean War on HMS Belfast, now a museum on the Thames. He negotiated swapping our expenses-paid plane tickets for petrol, and so began our great American road trip in the family car. Our scenic route was designed to take in world-famous, memorable landmarks such as Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone Park and Las Vegas. Before I turned nine, I had seen more of the US than many American adults.

The Railways of Europe

His subsequent posting to Germany during my last four years of high school saw me hopping on and off trans-European railways in my school holidays, a confident solo traveller. Only recently, as my own teenage daughter started travelling abroad independently, did my parents reveal that they were much less insouciant about my train trips than I was.

East, West…

In adulthood, I have made countless journeys abroad, not only for pleasure. Business trips have taken me as far afield as Hong Kong and the Caribbean. Yet now, with the likelihood of trans-European travel becoming less straightforward post Brexit, coupled with concern for my carbon footprint, my appetite for foreign jaunts is waning.

A World of Languages

Therefore my recent decision to start learning more foreign languages may seem incongruous. I already have some French and German from my schooldays and a little tourist Greek from evening classes, which for many people might seem plenty. But when my daughter introduced me to Duolingo, a free app that makes learning another language fun, she sparked a latent desire. The languages offered by this app are not only the obvious ones from the the school curriculum. Hankering after Hawaiian? Keen on Klingon? Duolingo has those too.

I’m starting with Latin, because I’ve long wanted to have a better grasp of the roots of English. But Latin is only a small part of the picture. Our English language has of course been enriched by many more tongues since the Romans left English soil, via immigrants, invaders and imported texts.

Whatever happens politically in the next few months, nothing can take away our rich linguistic culture. Every time I pick up my pen, I celebrate our long heritage of the blending of Anglo Saxon with French, German, Greek, Latin and many more European languages.

As JFK almost said at the height of another politic crisis, “Ich bin Europäer”.

cover of Young by Name — The cover illustration is a watercolour by my father

If you enjoyed this post, you might like to read more of my columns for the Tetbury Advertiser, which I’m compiling into books. The first volume, Young By Name (the name of my column in the magazine), covers the issues from 2010 through 2015. The second volume, taking us from 2016 through 2020, will be out at the end of 2020.

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Or order from your local bookshop quoting ISBN 978-1911223030.

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Personal life, Reading, Writing

Latin is a Language (Not Quite as Dead as Can Be)

Posted on December 3, 2019December 11, 2019 by Debbie Young

In my column for the December issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I shared the new discovery that’s helping me to learn Latin: Duolingo

For a couple of years at secondary school, I studied Latin using what was then considered a revolutionary new system.

The Cambridge Latin Course tried hard to make learning fun and Latin funky. The first year’s course book had a bright orange cover – very right-on in the 1970s, when I chose to paint my bedroom walls bright orange too.

The course revolved around the story of a real-life family, headed by Lucus Caecilius Iucundus, a rich banker, living in Pompeii just before the devastating eruption of Vesuvius.

Call me suggestible, but Lucus Caecilius Iucundus and his family came to seem very real to me, and I cared about them.

When I changed schools at the age of 14, to my regret Latin was no longer an option.

Now, decades later, I’m making up for lost time with a very 21^st century route to fluency: a free app called Duolingo. With an estimated three million users globally, Duolingo aims to please its students wherever they are in the world. Thus I find myself translating surreal conversations featuring New York, Philadelphia, Boston and California, none of which existed when Latin was a living language.

screenshot of Duolingo's Twitter home page — Duoloingo’s Twitter home page indicates its popularity

Having always wondered what happened to Caecilius and family, I decided to investigate. To my surprise, our experimental texts have since become a classic teaching method, celebrating 50 years in print. The particular book I used, albeit now published with a less startling coloured cover, is currently Amazon’s #1 bestseller in Latin.

Even more surprising is that Caecilius and family have since featured in an episode of Dr Who, which my daughter kindly found me on Netflix. Their adventure opens just as Vesuvius is making ominous noises, portentous of imminent eruption and mass destruction. What becomes of my chum Caecilius? You’ll have to watch it to find out. (Here’s the link to its IMDB page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1173173/)

But I have one remaining question: had I had been able to persevere with my Latin studies, would Dr Who have popped up in the A Level textbook? Now that would have made Latin cool.

PS Added Duolingo fun can be found on this alternative Twitter account: @shitsduosays, which highlights the more bizarre and surreal phrases it teaches you. Here are a few screenshots to whet your appetite: