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Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

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61–70 of 189 posts

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#61
I am a audio-visual learner and on Duolingo, which I am currently using to learn Spanish, my biggest problem is, that I have not a real visual for the words. Sure sometimes you get a picture for single substantives, but learning via video and watching mouth movements is so much better for me.

So this is a welcome tool I am definitively gonna check out.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#62
Clearly I’m in the minority, but I found the idea awful. The execution on the exercises is good—I especially like that you mix similarly sounding words—but my first thought as soon as I read your description was that the news are a terrible, worrying choice which could be misused to push a specific agenda on learners. Lo and behold, first thing I try is Musk’s dad calling people bums. Learners shouldn’t be subjected to polarised opinions at the same time they are trying to internalise words. Use instead some neutral science channels like Veritasium, CGP Grey, or Vsauce.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#63
I’ve been learning Spanish on Duolingo. It has brought me from zero to scoring 96% on this test – I didn’t realise I was so advanced!

I love the concept and the execution. This is a rare instance of a Show HN that I not just admire, but can easily see myself using regularly and paying for.

Please, please monetise this in such a way as to avoid enshittification.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#64
post #62

Clearly I’m in the minority, but I found the idea awful. The execution on the exercises is good—I especially like that you mix similarly sounding words—but my first thought as soon as I read your description was that the news are a terrible, worrying choice which could be misused to push a specific agenda on learners. Lo and behold, first thing I try is Musk’s dad calling people bums. Learners shouldn’t be subjected…

I agree that channels should be checked more carefully. I initially added two news channels per language. But some of those are pretty horrible (like Skynews). I'll put some more time in adjusting the channels. For example, TF1 is really great for French. It can be colored but it has many non-political or more local items.

I picked news channels because they often have short well spoken videos.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#65
It's a good idea and something I will be interested in using

However, I was very confused by the interface at first. I started a with a 3 gap exercise. I dragged what I thought was the correct word into the gap. Listened again, changed my mind but I couldn't drag in my new choice. It was a while before I realised that the correct word had been inserted for me. This was despite me not completing the other gaps.

It would be better if the answers weren't given until the user submits the answer.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#66
post #56

One more thing, just in general: Some people are complaining that some languages work better than others. This seems to be a common issue now with the availability of AI (both voice recognition and LLMs): there's a temptation to expand into as many languages as possible, simply because you can. My advice would be to have languages default to an "alpha" state, and only progress them to "beta" and "1.0" state when they…

Agreed. That's why the exercises are only there for a couple of selected languages. But even there it can be tricky. The model is less confident in Dutch than in English, so I have to experiment a bit with what is best for having a variety of content and quality.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#69

That's neat ! Although I got an issue on the Finnish challenge, when I drag the (correct) word "koho" it transforms into the (incorrect) word "koko". I thought I missclicked and tried the whole challenge again but I reproduced it despite being very careful.

Thanks for trying, and sorry about that. I thought that the videos for Finnish where on a decent enough level (only checked one). I'm afraid the transcription quality is not on par yet for Finnish. I'll add a warning for the smaller languages and hopefully the models will improve.

Re: Show HN: Duolingo-style exercises but with real-world content like the news

#70
post #62

Clearly I’m in the minority, but I found the idea awful. The execution on the exercises is good—I especially like that you mix similarly sounding words—but my first thought as soon as I read your description was that the news are a terrible, worrying choice which could be misused to push a specific agenda on learners. Lo and behold, first thing I try is Musk’s dad calling people bums. Learners shouldn’t be subjected…

This is probably better even if you just select non-US news channels showing non-US news items. NHK 24 kind of thing.
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