I love DuoLingo, the language-learning app. I randomly started learning Norwegian last year, which fascinates me intensely and has introduced me to some wonderful Norwegian friends & poets. I have also dabbled in Spanish, French & Italian on DuoLingo. Now I've started on German, & I must say, my ear is sharper there than in any other of the languages I've spent time with. In Norwegian, I still use the "turtle" speed of word-by-word pronunciation a lot. In German, I rarely use it at all. Partly because German is the most like English of the languages I've studied, partly because a lot of the vocabulary that isn't English is related to Norwegian, so I have a double chance of guessing right, but mostly, I'm sure, because my dad was German & that accent is deeply familiar. When my friend from South Carolina & I talk on the phone, we often have to repeat ourselves to the other's non-Southern/non-Northern ear, but I hear German.
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