Calling it a culture war is so depressing. It’s basically making explicit: yes the genocide is happening, but politics is about how you feel about it and what words you use.

I found starting with vocabulary the most effective. take A1 vocabulary lists, and make memorization a daily routine.

if the grammar of your target language is similar to a language you already speak, ignore it for now. if you need some grammar for comprehension, focus only on that. so don’t waste time (yet) on gender or case systems.

if you manage to stay dedicated, you can start reading and listening surprisingly quickly. ofc it should be either easy texts and audio, or stuff you’ve already familiar with.

other tips: don’t get frustrated by quitting, accept the break and start again; if you’re bored with one specific activity, switch it up. you need to practice listening, reading, writing, grammar, speaking, etc anyways; and if you don’t manage to motivate yourself, pay someone to do it for you (if you have the means ofc).

it’s probably not universal, but this worked for me.

technically yes, but my comment wasn’t meant as a moral indictment against you :)

just a heads up: learning a new language is an amazing experience, just consider alternatives to duolingo first

funnily enough, japan had the exact same reaction to germany invading the soviet union. japan was probably the only country at the time who correctly estimated their strength, having just lost an embarrassing defeat against them.

luckily, starting an unwinnable war, hoping that sheer will and terror can beat the odds, is no longer of our time.

remember: none of the metrics duolingo keeps track of have anything to do with language proficiency. it’s a game not a learning tool.

yes: duolingo > doing nothing
but: any alternative learning method > duolingo

they stay relevant through viral marketing, that is often objectively funny, not through efficacy. the idea is that if you want to learn a language, your first thought is to use duolingo. then if it fails, you blame yourself: it cannot be the case that the most famous language-learning product doesn‘t actually help you learn a language.

As a woman you have to be a virgin until marriage, but in your 50s, when your marriage is sagging, you get to be a femme fatale. You get to break as many twenty-year-olds hearts over your metaphorical knees as you want, really make them feel that precious experience. Circle closed. Good deal for all involved.