I really like the Assimil method of learning. I find it is more organic than Duolingo or flashcards. It makes you more proficient in conversation early than learning a whole lot of vocabulary.
My uni also offered a Dutch course with a similar style to Assimil. Loved learning it, although it is quite similar to German so it was actually super easy. No offence to you Dutch folk, but the way you pronounce your G is just terrible. xD
DeepL is better than Google Translate for the languages it supports. I find that it captures the context better when words have multiple meanings. Some features are paid, for example, translating a text to an informal context (Sie vs du in German).
It does not support as many languages as Google, though. Most European languages are supported.
Between DeepL and Wiktionary, I find I don't even need Google Translate anymore.
DivestOS has ceased maintaining Mull if I remember correctly. I use Ironfox on Android now.
I'd pay for Youtube if Google would guarantee to not track me. I donate to open source projects that I use, rotating every month whom I choose to donate to. I even donated to Manjaro recently even though I don't use it any more, but it was something I had used in the past and I was poor and couldn't donate them then. But I refuse to feel any guilt for watching Youtube for free.
I do this too. I do not like anything on my Desktop, but I download files to there, which forces me to deal with them. Interestingly enough, my Downloads directory is a barren wasteland.
Got any grapes?
I switched after development ended on the package manager I was using on neovim. I didn't at that moment want to simplify my vimconfig, so I looked into helix.
Helix highlights the action you take, so if for example, you are deleting 5 lines, you select the lines first then hit delete. Sometimes the vim actions end up taking fewer keystrokes though. And I still prefer some ways vim does things. And I don't always agree with the kakoune inspiration of helix (I haven't used kakoune, just going by what the docs say) - for example, movement always selects text which I then have to unhighlight.
But the biggest reason I stuck to helix was sane LSP defaults out of the box with minimal config. I was tired of having to fix LSP related bugs in my vim config after package updates.
TLDR: saner defaults for helix + lazy to fix my bloated vimconfig.
Caesar 3 please? Happy Christmas! :)
I've been using KOReader on my phone now, ever since my Kindle one day decided to be unrecognisable on my computer. Couldn't find a solution to fix it so it became a glorified paperweight.
The screen real estate is slightly degraded, but fuck if I give Amazon any more of my money. Besides, I get to store epubs as epubs instead of converting to that god awful mobi format.
I switched to Pipepipe from Newpipe because I wasn't sure Newpipe was being maintained. Pipepipe has SponsorBlock.
I have a similar setup and decided to install it on my degoogled phone because I definitely wanted to use a VPN to connect to Whatsapp and my other phone is an older Android without the global VPN option.
I have it completely isolated from my main account by using Shelter from F-droid, installing Aurora store in that sandbox and then installing Whatsapp from Aurora into the work profile created by Shelter.
This way, my main contacts and media are not accessed by Whatsapp. It does its own separate thing and I have no other apps interacting with it.
Assimil is a great way to throw yourself into the language. Each lesson is in the form of a conversation with audio and the pdf has the text along with the translation.
Listen to the lesson without reading the text first. This gets you used to the sound of the language. Then read the text, then text with audio, and finally read the translation along with whatever notes on grammar (don't focus too much on the grammar aspects when you are first starting out), neither on spellings. Later on you'll be asked to go back to earlier lessons and reproduce the text. The first phase is to internalise the language. You can read the recommended Assimil way of learning and adapt the steps to something that suits you.
Assimil works well along with Language Transfer for me. Assimil is more immersive while Language Transfer is more explanatory.
I find that music is also a great way for me to learn new words. Once I listen enough times to a song I like, I start humming along, maybe repeat a word or two. The important thing is to not stress yourself out trying to sing along to everything. Maybe there is a catchy chorus or bridge section that is memorable. That is good enough to form associations with words. In this, I find pop songs are a better genre because they are catchy.
Something else I do is have a notebook where the only rule I have for myself is: no using my native language. I try to explain new words to myself using a sketch or whatever basic words I have already learnt. Don't worry if you can't draw well, neither can I. But I can draw something that looks like a spoon or a hill. Then I label them, and bam I've already learnt two new words. To build on that, I can draw a stick figure on the hill - this has taught me the verb climbing. You get the general idea. Just don't stress yourself out trying to journal every new word you come across. Be creative and you'll have fun.