word_geek: Weemee wearing purple (Default)
hsb ([personal profile] word_geek) wrote in [personal profile] watervole 2023-11-09 07:37 pm (UTC)

That sounds really interesting and I might try it out.

Personally, I'm finding Bluesky surprisingly useful for picking up German again. When Elon decided to say something supportive of AfD, a large chunk of German Twitter pulled the escape cord. The Bluesky equivalent to Tweetdeck had more German users than American, the following week.

when I got on the site, I followed a German to English translator that I had got to know a little bit on Twitter and interacted with her a bit on Bluesky. Now, if I look in the more-algorithmic Discover feed, I get both languages. It's linked to Google translate (no native translation function yet) so I can check things I'm not certain of based on my own rusty language skills.

Once I started interacting with other posts in German, the 'you must be bilingual' effect accelerated. The posts are short, which helps, and I can respond in English (although I am careful with the words *I* pick), because the Internet is weighted toward folk who can at least read in English. It's surprising how often I read something through a few times and a word I had no idea I had ever learned comes floating to the surface again.

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