I speak Irish pretty well and Duolingo I think is a fantastic tool to get better and learn some new words that I didn't no. (Neither my dad nor I knew portán meant crab). The issue is that pronunciation in Irish is kinda varied but the lady who does it for Duolingo is on some extreme. The majority of Irish speakers would not pronounce things that way in the slightest and it would be misleading for someone who learned on the app to actually try and speak it as I'm not sure I would understand them
Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
21–30 of 274 posts
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#22[Meta] So far in this thread, there are several comments that could be the grounds for substantive discussion, but don't bother offering the substance. For example: Why does jonbarker recommend Anki for going deeper than "complete beginner"? What does zealsham mean by Duolingo lacking a "structural syllabus" and why is that problematic? The conversations can be a very valuable part of HN, but not if most comments are…
Welcome Redditors!
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#23[Meta] So far in this thread, there are several comments that could be the grounds for substantive discussion, but don't bother offering the substance. For example: Why does jonbarker recommend Anki for going deeper than "complete beginner"? What does zealsham mean by Duolingo lacking a "structural syllabus" and why is that problematic? The conversations can be a very valuable part of HN, but not if most comments are…
If you're interested in learning more about something someone said, maybe you could reply to them with a question?
People often respond well to a bit of encouragement, and replies are more likely to be seen than a meta-comment.
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#24has anyone had success with any of these language-learning apps, even as supplemental material to a more traditional education? I've tried to use Duolingo for Japanese, with very little success on its own. Paired with my own studying, it was only a bit more helpful, but not more helpful than flashcards. Another app, LingoDeer, was better, because it had a curriculum and more unified lessons, and I could swap between…
I had taken some Japanese in high school, and French in college, and later done some Duolingo to try to brush up my French, but then abandoned it.
I recently picked it back up again (couple of months ago), and tried doing both Japanese and French. I find the French one much more helpful. The Japanese module is still in beta, and it shows; tapping on one word to look them up if you don't remember them doesn't work well in Japanese but it works fine in French.
And yeah, I found the Japanese curriculum pretty lacking, and the kanji really hard to learn in this format.
I did find an interesting way to practice my hiragana and katakana, though. I created a slide deck using Tinycards (Duolingo's flash-card app, I found it a lot easier to set up and use than Anki even if it's less powerful) in which I would have to write the kana using the handwriting input method for Japanese. I found that actually trying to write out the characters was way more helpful for remembering them then just clicking on the right one out of a list.
However, I couldn't figure out a good way to get Duolingo to give me a list of the kanji I was supposed to have learned by now to use that with kanji, and figured it would be too much of a pain to go back through all of the lessons, write all of that down and then create the flash cards manually from that.
I've quit with the Duolingo Japanese lessons by now, I think I want to wait until they're a little more fully baked, and even then I'll probably need some other outside resources to study along with.
I think Duolingo in its current form is a good way to stay practiced with a language and learn some vocabulary and grammar, but only for some of the languages. However, even for those languages, you will need some other resources to really develop fluency.
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#25has anyone had success with any of these language-learning apps, even as supplemental material to a more traditional education? I've tried to use Duolingo for Japanese, with very little success on its own. Paired with my own studying, it was only a bit more helpful, but not more helpful than flashcards. Another app, LingoDeer, was better, because it had a curriculum and more unified lessons, and I could swap between…
I find it fun (enough) and quick enough to use daily to keep my mind thinking in Spanish now and then, but I agree it isn't very effective at allowing me to speak it. I draw a blank whenever trying to converse in Spanish. But, I do find I can read quite a bit more Spanish after a year or so of using Duolingo mostly daily. I only use it for about 10 minutes a day, so I don't expect miracles. I find the "you are 53% fl…
I am also 40% or so fluent in Swedish >50% in Spanish, and similar for Portuguese and Korean.
I have come to the conclusion that people in those countries are either very dumb and have little to talk about, or these numbers aren’t really correct.
I’m not sure which it is yet ;)
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#26has anyone had success with any of these language-learning apps, even as supplemental material to a more traditional education? I've tried to use Duolingo for Japanese, with very little success on its own. Paired with my own studying, it was only a bit more helpful, but not more helpful than flashcards. Another app, LingoDeer, was better, because it had a curriculum and more unified lessons, and I could swap between…
I successfully learned Esperanto, extensively studying solely on duolingo for 3 weeks, then jumping on to other material. It was one of best things that I did for myself. I particularly recommend Esperanto to HN readers as the language itself is "hackable".
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#27has anyone had success with any of these language-learning apps, even as supplemental material to a more traditional education? I've tried to use Duolingo for Japanese, with very little success on its own. Paired with my own studying, it was only a bit more helpful, but not more helpful than flashcards. Another app, LingoDeer, was better, because it had a curriculum and more unified lessons, and I could swap between…
Yes, German. Taught myself to GCSE grade B (self assessed with a past paper, for non UK that exam is the standard for 16 year olds and is merely OK not amazing or terrible).
Also learning Esperanto (I don’t think it’s teaching me enough) and Greek (no idea, only half way through the course, but I can now touch type Greek on an English keyboard).
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#28I still find their spaced repetition lacking. I never see some of the words again after seeing them for the first time.
Worse yet is that there is a world of difference between being able to recognize a word when primed, and being able to recognize it when not primed. When it decided that I need refreshing on a phrase I probably got flashcards corresponding to translate this English phrase into Russian, translate the Russian phrase into English (from a set of pre-chosen words), type this Russian phrase in Russian, and maybe type the English version of this Russian phrase and/or type the Russian version of this English phrase. All with the same phrase. Lumped with many other variations of the exercise on the same topic.
Introducing them all together is helpful. However after some level of proficiency I would like to receive them separately. In a group with unrelated exercises. On a schedule indicating how well I know that phrase.
That said, they have been a painless way to gain a basic foundation.
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#29Duolingo has a lot of nonsense sentences which is rather annoying. Trying to use it for non latin alphabet languages hasn't been a good experience for myself either (almost always a better alternative). I attempted to learn Greek from duolingo and despite it saying that I knew 70 words I only knew 2 or 3 via recall. I started listening to some podcasts(?) called Language Transfer and I've had a much better experience with that so far. It's not an all in one solution, but it has been a far more intuitive approach (at least for Greek). The creator is Greek but has a lot of languages available to learn. I still use duolingo for vocab but I don't think its a great place to learn a language from scratch.
Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material
#30[Meta] So far in this thread, there are several comments that could be the grounds for substantive discussion, but don't bother offering the substance. For example: Why does jonbarker recommend Anki for going deeper than "complete beginner"? What does zealsham mean by Duolingo lacking a "structural syllabus" and why is that problematic? The conversations can be a very valuable part of HN, but not if most comments are…
If you're interested in learning more about something someone said, maybe you could reply to them with a question? People often respond well to a bit of encouragement, and replies are more likely to be seen than a meta-comment.
No doubt - we're not here to write counter-blogs, just to discuss.