That’s what I asked Annette.

I use mainly fish and occasionally nushell.

I didn’t get far learning any language using free online resources (technically English, but that was/is rather a passive learning experience).

I mostly used Duolingo to take the first steps and to challenge my interest for the language. At a certain point I prefer language-specific services, e.g. for Esperanto there is lernu (I stopped that, because I hated a few concepts of the language).

I learn Japanese on and off. I’m currently at my third or fourth attempt I believe xD I tried a lot from (again) Duolingo, JapanesePod101 to Memrise. On the long-term I prefer to use online resources secondary, e.g. existing Anki vocabulary decks to guide my textbook. And for a language like Japanese I like to use different kinds of dictionaries, articles and historical context, because sometimes there simply isn’t a definite answer T_T

I know people mean it well and I respect that. But it’s a little indirect insult, when their first reaction is to assume that you feel bad about it and to patronize you.

Of course there are people with that mindset among short dating men who often aggressively blame women’s standards. So I try to be not too upset about it.

In my opinion taking your time to find the Linux distribution you like the most, is not only a great learning experience, but also allows you to learn more about your own preferences.

I’ve never seen a more mysterious and adventurous description of Linux. Just in case you ever write a novel on your first steps in Linux, you should know that you’ve got one reader already.