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I originally completed the first German tree almost exactly one year ago and decided in the last few months to make an effort to revisit the tree, seeing the new lessons/topics and attempt to regild everything. Like the last time I posted my shiny golden tree, I thought I'd do a small write-up of sorts just in case anybody would be interested in hearing what I think, along with some suggestions that could help other learners.

So since November I have actually been able to move to Germany! I came with the intention of staying for around a year, and with the primary intention of improving my German and joining a language course (I went for an integration course as it was a lot cheaper, I will be finished with B1 level soon but I feel in some regards a bit more advanced than this, with reading for example). So now I have had the experience of a real language course, I feel better placed to comment on Duo's effectiveness. People often say on here something along the lines of 'Duolingo will be able to take you somewhere around the A2 level, if you supplement yourself with other resources'. This of course largely depends on those other resources, but I find it very hard to believe it is anything more than high A1 level, possibly low A2 level in some things. The best thing Duo can do is improve your reading skills. I visited Germany before moving here for 3 weeks, and I was very surprised to see that I could understand most signs, newspaper headlines, restaurant signs, etc etc. but when I tried to listen to people on the street or tram, I was utterly clueless. Also, in terms of speaking, I was also extremely short. This is something that can only be improved outside of Duolingo, but I know this is easier said than done because I admittedly never sought this out alongside my own learning. Writing is a bit of a mixed skill, because when I was using Duolingo the first time, I noticed that I would be fine at writing the sentences on the website itself, but when it came to writing my own sentences, I found that I lacked the grammatical knowledge to help construct sentences. I think Duolingo could do a little bit more in that respect. Overall however, despite sounding like I am slating it a bit, I think Duolingo is a fantastic introductory resource, but must be used alongside other things!

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention.. The god damn abstract objects! No matter how much practice and memorisation I do with them words, I simply cannot remember them for more than a few hours at a time. They were by far the hardest part of the tree both last year and this year!

Okay I think I'm doing rambling for now. I know there are many resources around reddit, but here are a lit of my personal favourites that I used quite a lot. My personal favourite things are;
http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar.html This website in general is incredible, but in particular the grammar worksheets are fantastic. They explain the topic in very simple terms (in English) and then tend to ease you in with simple exercises building up to harder exercises. It also has many 'answer sheets' so you can check your own work. It can be frustrating when you attempt the worksheets without knowing if you are correct or not, but I found that even practicising after reading the help was still a hugely useful exercise. You can attempt the sheets with just a notebook, but I found it best to physically print the sheets - but that's just me.

www.memrise.com I'm sure everyone knows this website as it is heavily recommended. It is excellent for vocabulary. Another option you could use is Anki. I personally found it a bit fiddly but I know a lot of people swear by it.

'Learn German with Stories' (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learn-German-Stories-Berlin-Beginners/dp/1492399493/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462113831&sr=8-1&keywords=berlin+cafe+stories) - This is incredible if you own a Kindle with a built in dictionary function. These books are written in extremely simple German, and are a great introduction to reading things fully in German. I think for this first book, anyone that is close to finishing the tree would have a good time with it. There are some words you won't understand, but once you look them up, or even work out what they mean by context, they become part of your vocabulary!

German music/film. This can be difficult as they are often quick, but just listening to things in the target language of German can be a huge help. If anyone would like any recommendations I can try my best.

http://slowgerman.com/ Another resource for listening comprehension is this website. It is essentially German news podcasts, but spoken slowly, and if I remember correctly, the handy app even gives you a transcript so you can follow along.



There are a few more things I could possibly recommend but I think that's enough for now, I am aware that this post is becoming long! If there are any other questions, don't hesitate to ask as I'd like to help, and sorry if this post is a bit of an unorganised mess!

Yes! As for books these one's have really helped me:

• Everything Learning German This one is super great for grammar. It has exercises at the end of each lesson so you can practice too :)
  
• Collins Complete German This one is probbbbably my favorite. I love it, it has a guide for pretty much everything you need to know in the grammar, it explains everything well, and it has verb tables so you can study the conjugation. It has some vocabulary in the back too.
  
• Graded German Reader This one is also really awesome. You can find a used one for 10 bucks on amazon, just the new ones are really expensive because I don't think they are made anymore. This starts with simple reading passages and gradually gets more difficult while adding new words- but it's at a perfect pace so you don't get overwhelmed, and you will probably be able to completely understand.
  
• Cafe in Berlin Another german short story book. This one is great too.
  
• German Pre-Intermediate Reader Another reader- this one incorporates the top 1000 words in German.
  
  I know I have more but these are my favorites! As for movies/shows.. when I watch like youtube videos (try 'easy german') or kids shows I tend to watch them without subtitles. If I'm watching an adult movie/show I pretty much have to use subtitles otherwise I can't pick up anything. I usually put the subtitles in German though, because I read better than I listen!
  
  Let me know if I can help you with anything else :)

There probably ought to be a list in the right-hand bar, since people ask this question so often. I have a rather long list of things to do to supplement Duolingo, but the most important is probably a grammar book. Schaum's is good for Spanish, and it does have exercises.

The other really important one is flashcards. I love Anki. It's free, and I have a strategy to use Anki with Duolingo.

For reading practice, I suggest using Duolingo's own Immersion facility. Read the sentences and then see how others translated them. That's useful even if you're not ready to try any translations yourself yet. Try newspaper articles. El País online is free and very good. News stories (as opposed to editorials) are usually written in easier Spanish.

I'd stay away from children's books, although young-adult books can be great.

I reached level 24 (French) and I gave up Duolingo (well, not completely, I learned Ukrainian there, just for fun) It is an effective resource for beginners but your time will be better spend on something else. You can of course still practice your language there as it's quite cool (and you can realise how much you learned already so you build up your confidence) but you won't learn that much.

When I bought a French textbook I was quite shocked that they didn't cover even some very basic concepts. You need a good grammar book. It is crucial.

Also, you need to practice listening and speaking a lot if you haven't done it yet. Try language immersion (TV etc.), speaking to native speakers (Skype lessons for start, French usually costs about 10-15 euro per hour). Reading every day for a couple of minutes (with google dictionary installed) helps a lot. At level 20 you should be able to read press like Reuters or BBC in your target language (their articles are really well written and easy to follow)

Also, you need to learn a lot of words to be really proficient. Not 2000 that Duo is teaching. More like 5000-7000 so a lot of serious studying is required. I personally think that learning additional 2000 words would be a lot more rewarding than just regilding Duolingo over and over again.

I just saw that you finished French tree. So...

1. Try lingvist.
   
2. Subscribe to brief.me. It's a French newsletter distributed every weekday and Saturday (Brief Weekend) It could be difficult at first but you will get an amazing brief. They are really good at summarising the most important French and world news. I can read it in about 5 minutes.
   
3. Radio France
   
4. BFM TV
   
5. To watch: Le Bureau des légendes (French Homeland, amazing!), Engrenages (something similar to The Wire)
   
6. Le Monde, Liberation
   
   The grammar book that I have used:
   https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Practice-Perfect-Complete-French-Grammar-Premium-McGraw/1259642372/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492001774&sr=8-1&keywords=french+grammar
   
   I am not sure if it is your price range, but she helped me a lot https://www.italki.com/teacher/2404952
   
   Bonne chance!

• RT.com has lessons online: http://learnrussian.rt.com/
  
• You really need to learn some Russian cursive if you want to keep learning Russian. Knowing the block script is great, but in day-to-day use most Russians write in cursive. There's workbooks on Amazon if you're interested, but there's also apps for the iPad, or even worksheets you can print for free: https://lingualift.com/ru/files/docs/russian-writing-cursive.pdf and https://ilrussian.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/script-practice-sheets.pdf
  
• Teach Yourself has both a "Getting Started with Russian" book with audio and a Teach Yourself Complete Russian course with audio. They're also very good and available on Amazon. There may also be copies in language-learning bundles on PirateBay if you're so inclined.
  
• For TV shows, I like Маша и Медведь - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcL-oGPxgCg is one example, but there's a bunch online with and without subtitles. This one I really like too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDwBuPsrSM4
  
• While we're continuing on the theme of kids stuff, I've seen a lot of children's workbooks online and things like "My First Bi-lingual Book" on Amazon. This will help fill in some areas where Duo hasn't covered vocab.
  
• Back at rt.com they have documentaries that are in Russian but with English subtitles: https://rtd.rt.com/
  
  I hope this is a good start. Happy learning! Удачи!

Assimil Spanish will get you there. It teaches you Castilian Spanish, but does tell you at times if there is a word better for use in Latin America or not. Honestly there is not a better program out there for Spanish, imho. I have the vocabulary list for this book, if you buy it.

Lingvist is another good program, but it doesn't really explain the grammar, but I think it tries to teach you the desktop 5000 common words (I might be wrong). Right now it has taught me 3,864 words. The words are taught in context, and a lot of useful sentences at that.

Practice Makes Perfect Is a nice cheap grammar book. You can see the others on Amazon they offer (cheap, too, like $5-$10)

Gramática de uso del Español Is another grammar book that's really detailed. They have it with A1-B2, and C1-C2. I have only the A1-B2 book and love it. Beware, it's all in Spanish, no English whatsoever.

SpanishDict Amazing Spanish dictionary site. I use it daily.

Spanish Grammar Another good grammar site.

Well I've been using Duolingo alongside learning French at school (the teachers aren't great) so it's hard to say. I can definitely understand the gist of some news articles but I have to look up tons of vocab on sites like France24. This site is a great place to start reading news because it's aimed at French children so it's simpler - I can understand about 80% of it.

As for speaking, I don't think Duolingo is particularly useful. I'm sure you could have a very basic conversation about some of the topics taught, but it would peter out pretty quickly.

Duolingo has introduced me to grammar concepts and tenses that I won't be learning at school for a few years so that's been one of the best things about the course. Although, the notes basically stop the further down the tree you get, so this book has been enormously helpful.

I'm doing one at my university this semester (basically rebuilding what I learnt at school for my GCSE), but I've also borrowed someone's 'Teach Yourself' book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself-Complete-German-Language/dp/1444177397/ is what I borrowed and it is really helpful in it (although I did see once, they had and instead of und (in a German sentence).

But yes, they do it in Italian also (and quite a few other languages, the book series is about 80 years old). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Italian-Teach-Yourself-Book/dp/1444100130/ which is also in an e-book if you want that.

The voices are proper people and for the exercises they will say it in the target language and then English. You may have to listen and answer questions from what you heard (such as who has a job or where do they come from, at the start at least), or perhaps you might have someone's information and you get asked the questions. You supply the answers then unpause and you will hear a correct answer.

I was talking to someone about these books in Waterstones (member of staff) and they were very helpful. He said that these Teach Yourself books have really improved a lot the past year or two.

I can't remember if I said it, but on the CEFR, it takes you to intermediate (B2, afterwards is C1 and C2 which are basically fluent in everything).

Please tell me what you do! :D

Edit: My university course is basically beginners (I forgot a lot of stuff even though I did a GCSE in it a few years ago) but I'm remembering stuff really well so it should be easy in the end.

I'll list all the stuff I'll be using!

I'm doing Brazilian Portuguese, so I'll be going through the Semantica course which I keep hearing is very good, although subscription-based.

Books that I got were:

1. Muito Prazer - just for learning in general.
   
2. [Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide] (https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0415566444&pd_rd_r=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898&pd_rd_w=cSvFc&pd_rd_wg=tD8Wj&psc=1&refRID=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898) - which is supposed to be THE Brazilian Portuguese grammar book to have.
   
3. Pois Não - More technical approach for those with a Spanish-speaking background. Not 100% sure on this one yet, but I like a challenge.
   
4. 501 Portuguese Verbs - for all the conjugation tables.
   
   Websites:
   1. Hacking Portuguese
   
   
5. Brazilian Gringo
   
6. WordReference.com - Dictionary
   
7. Lang-8.com - AWESOME resource where you write diary entries for your target language and people will correct you. Did this/currently doing this for French and Spanish. I've gotten corrections in like, 5 minutes.
   
8. italki.com - For conversation practice. There are dirt-cheap community tutors who are patient with you, some for around $3.00 an hour.
   
9. BrazilPod - Free podcasts.
   
   Programs/Apps:
   
10. Anki - To make your own Flashcards. Everyone swears by this thing. I like it 1000% better than Memrise because the UI is super-simple and you don't have to force yourself to go through decks with stuff you already know.
    
    If anyone has more suggestions, let me know!

I've been trying to self-study Arabic, and I feel like it might never be a candidate for Duolingo, unfortunately. (Two years on-and-off and I can make simple sentences! Yay!)

For one thing, there's a lot of sounds that are just plain difficult for non-Arabic speakers to get a hold of: ع is the worst, emphatic consonant pairs are a pain (ت/ط ;ك/ق ;س/ص...) and given the common complaints about TTS quality in other language, it might make hearing the difference between them impossible. Which would make properly learning and understanding it impossible. (ETA: The trick is: forget about the "pure" vowels you get in European languages. Arabic is spoken very much towards the nose and the front of the mouth. Don't be afraid to sound "whiny," it's how you hear the difference between regular and "emphatic" vowels.)

There's also the issue of diglossia (multiple dialects in common usage, sometimes switching between the two in one sentence) . There's Modern Standard Arabic"(الفصحى) which is sort of like a newscaster's dialect: it's clear enough that most everyone understands it, but nobody really talks like that in day-to-day life. A lot of the Arabic courses I've looked into recommend supplementing that with a local dialect, but then which one would we choose? (I want to say Levantine is used a lot on TV shows produced for the region, Peninsular Arabic hews closer to Classical Arabic than the others because it was the birthplace of the language, Egyptian has the largest minority of speakers, and Moroccan/North African still represents a significant population? Could be wrong, feel free to correct me). I want to say each one of them is more different from each other than, say, American English vs. Australian English; i.e., it's not just "Moroccans think Iraqis talk kind of funny," it's "only catching every third word because it's so different").

I mean, I guess it might be doable, but it's a lot harder to do than, say, Romance- or Germanic-to-English, and it might be too much to ask a crew of volunteers to build a "game-able" version of it for free.

I've used TenguGo, Madinah Arabic, and cough DIGITAL COPIES ACHIEVED THROUGH PERFECTLY LEGAL MEANS cough of Alif Baa:Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds to get started.

Hallo Django! I just added you too. I started maybe five weeks ago, so I'm a little ahead... but what the hell, more the merrier I guess. I'll probably slow things down a little on duolingo though... started getting more into reading. Which, by the way, if you're interested in... you should super check this out. It's amazingly well put together, better than any other graded readers I've found for any other language I've checked out. I found a copy used for $20, super worth it, and it's seemed to make duolingo a lot easier. It doesn't perfectly line up (a lot of duolingo's vocabulary is specialized) but... eh. Helped me out a bunch.

First of all, congratulations!

You should really hit the ground running with Duolingo's immersion section. It's tons of fun and puts use to what you just learned. That's all that Duolingo offers right now. If you want to study outside of Duolingo, here's what I recommend.

1. Buy a book in Spanish, which is leveled either at a middle school or elementary school level. If you want a lower level book, take a look at the series titled Casa del Arbol (AKA Magic Tree House in English). If you would prefer a higher level book, check out Los Juegos del Hambre (AKA Hunger Games in English). No matter which book you pick (or what level book you pick), keep a list of new vocabulary words! Also, keep a highlighter handy. Highlight any word that is new or any concept in Spanish that catches your eye.
   
2. Start looking up Spanish culture. You've only uncovered a tiny bit of the language; the culture is truly the more interesting part.
   
3. Keep your skills golden on Duolingo! That's sort of obvious ;)
   
4. Write in Spanish! Check out Lang8 for more information.
   
   Whatever you do, best of luck!

Schaum's Outline of German Grammar is good.

Also, English Grammar for Students of German

And as RadiiRadish has said, Memrise is fantastic for vocabulary. I haven't been to German is easy! so I can't attest to it's merits.

Here is a pretty good site with likely familiar fairy tales in German.

Get Germanized is a fun youtube channel that teaches vocabulary, culture, etc. I know it's not reading material, but fun no less.

This book was very helpful in learning some of the stranger parts of German grammar and conjugation: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Learning-German-Book-understand/dp/159869989X/

I think watching dubbed/subbed videos in German would be extremely helpful! I have heard of Yabla (https://www.yabla.com/) but I was trying to put off the subscription-based things until I really wanted to push myself to the next level. I will look into the Clozemaster site though.