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Something I've had to get used to since I became a 9–5:30-working, tax-paying adult is the travel restrictions imposed upon me by annual leave, a concept that sounds highly appealing until you realise how little of it you get. As such, the fortnight-long holidays that I have grown accustomed to during my Hertfordshire life have been replaced by the phenomenon known as the Weekend Break. This month, I will be using one of my precious days of paid leave to visit a new city in a new country: Amsterdam. Due to the fact that I have never been to the Netherlands before, my knowledge of Dutch begins and ends at vaguely recognising words that resemble German, a language of which my knowledge is, to put it generously, restricted. It was my desire to not be rude to the Dutch people (and also not to accidentally order something terrible in a restaurant) that led me to what seems to have become the latest linguistic craze: Duolingo, the free language-learning app that gives you points based on how much of your chosen language you learn.