Something like 1% of Americans are proficient in a language they learned in a classroom. Instead I reached for an app, Duolingo, because when I mentioned this story to a colleague who was using it, I heard nothing but raves. I thought about sitting in on university classes, and asking my high school teacher to tutor me. I considered a couple different ways to shake the rust off. When I learned I’d be returning to Europe this fall, I determined to use the trip as a do-over - to relearn enough German to have grown-up conversations. The dialects, the speed of talking, the accents, they were all so. On the infrequent occasions someone spoke it to me, I almost never understood it. In that time I rarely even bothered trying to speak German.

Not one.Īfter the family stay, my class toured Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for three weeks. I stayed with a family for a week, and in that week I did not understand one single word my host father said. But I quickly learned my skills were futile. When I went to Germany with my high school class in 1988, I thought that the three years I had spent studying the language would apply in the real world.

Duo lingo translate