Before I came to Spain, I had wanted to learn the language. I'd been afraid that without language skills I wouldn't be able to communicate efficiently. So as many many people I had installed Duolingo as my language acquisition partner. I had been learning new words, such as café, sandwich, taco, hence I had been able to order some food in Spain despite being in Poland. Such a bullshit man...
Why would you learn such useless things??
Well, you can say that you learn pronunciation, basic words, basics of grammar. But in this way? Why? Why wouldn't you learn something more useful, not deprived from naturality of basic human interaction. Like "How are you? Do you like Spain? Have you tried our food?" And you learn to acknowledge and respond to such questions that are more life-occurent.
Duolingo lacks sense of connection. Its society concentrates around a) daily streakers that brag about their score, b) trauma-bonded folks connected by mutual upsetness at the haunting green bird and c) short-time exceptional language explorers.
Venga! fills the blank space of connection with other language explorers. Feel free to visit venga.space for more details.
See you at the 2nd edition of Venga! Language Event in Madrid :) on 6th of December 2025.