Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 274 posts

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#91

Post by davidzweig »

3pt14159 wrote: post #66
rando444 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on duolingo since the beginning and am sure that I've spent more time with the site and app than 95% of the userbase. I've learned languages with duolingo.. and by that I don't mean duolingo will teach you a language. There's two things that I feel that almost everyone misses. #1: Using duolingo alone will get you to about an A2-B1 level in comprehension and an A1-A2 level in writing and speaking. This is j…

No way will Duo Lingo get you anywhere close to A2 for writing or speaking. MAYBE A1 if you try hard at it for a long long time in a language it well supports. To get to A2 you need a real tutor and real communication experience. I used Verbling to find a tutor and I traveled to Eastern Europe over the summer to practice and only after hundreds of hours of practice was I able to communicate in Russian to any degree e…

Perhaps take a look at 'Modern Russian' materials (Clayton). Great drill course from the 1960s with books and cassettes.

I have more recommendations if you want them.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#92

Post by kzrdude »

firefoxd wrote: post #45

I did Duolingo seriously for more than 370 days in a row. Spanish: I speak french and English so Spanish is relatively easy to complete. After completing the course, I tried having conversations with people (with friends but mostly uber drivers) and I was surprised how many times i learned it all wrong. I had to read a lot or children book to remedy that. French: As a french speaker, I went through it as a meta cours…

Well, Duolingo can't make you learn a language. You have to do that yourself. You can use Duolingo along the way..

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#93

Post by yorwba »

rando444 wrote: post #77
3pt14159 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way will Duo Lingo get you anywhere close to A2 for writing or speaking. MAYBE A1 if you try hard at it for a long long time in a language it well supports. To get to A2 you need a real tutor and real communication experience. I used Verbling to find a tutor and I traveled to Eastern Europe over the summer to practice and only after hundreds of hours of practice was I able to communicate in Russian to any degree e…

This largely depends on the language. More complex languages, yes, but for languages like swedish/norwegian/danish where there is very little grammar, I find it's much easier to progress within the limits of their program.

It also depends on the languages you already speak.

Swedish/Norwegian/Danish do not really have "little grammar", but for an English speaker, there probably won't be any need to explicitly learn the grammar, since it works mostly like English. But on the flipside, they are just as difficult as English for speakers of unrelated languages.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#94

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

I've used Duolingo for about a year now.

This is what I discovered:

1) It can't be your one learning source. You get the essence of the language but you'll never become fluent.

2) It's very good at keeping you engaged. It gets an A from me on that.

3) The web app is stricter and will force you to learn better than the Android app

4)On the Android app you can get thru the challenges without learning a thing. You can just guess.

5)Your mindset should be to learn as opposed to getting thru the challenges.

6)Grammar is important so make sure you read the text they post on the web app. The phone app does not have it.

7)Find someone to speak the language with you ASAP. Speaking is the fastest way to fluency.

8)They've started to monetize the app so ads are a problem now. And ad-free is expensive.

9) It's many times better than the in-class teaching I got in junior high. They should replace the 1st few semesters with the app.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#95

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

CrystalLangUser wrote: post #53
_betty_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just annoyed it forces you to learn the writing system.

Right, when I’m learning mathematics I hate how they force you to learn math notation. Learning a romanized version of a language is not learning a language. Sounds in one language don’t map neatly to English sounds, and beginner language learners who use romanization always have pronunciation issues because their headspace isn’t in the language, it’s in a romanized variant of that language. What’s the point of learn…

> What’s the point of learning Chinese or any other script language if you don’t learn the script?

I once learned Chinese in a very intensive course that focused on the spoken language and only taught a few hundred characters. It has proven very useful for my occasional travels in China, being able to interact with hotels etc., having nice enjoyable conversations with my drivers when hitchhiking, etc. For me, my present skills are enough for what I want to get out of the country; for me, China is just one country among many. The few characters I know are enough of a bare minimum to find my way around. If I were keen on reading Chinese literature, then I would definitely go further with characters, but there is value for many people in having simply a minimum command of the language.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#96

Post by magissima »

lambda wrote: post #55
GuiA wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found WaniKani to be amazing for SRS for kanji. If you are diligent about it you can go through the jouyou set in 18 months or so.

Looks interesting. I think I'd have to be a lot more dedicated to that, and need some other resource for learning grammar, vocabulary, and testing complete sentences. The nice thing about Duolingo for, say, French is that I can kind of mindlessly do it every day to keep my skills up and improve my vocabulary, and then do smaller bouts of studying using other methods to improve actual fluency. But with Japanese, Duoli…

Tae Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese is what I used when I was starting out. Iirc it's pretty focused on grammar without a lot of fluff or a specific program, but if you already have a decent grip on grammar generally and like learning in terms of rules and patterns it's excellent.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#97

Post by jonbarker »

CrystalLangUser wrote: post #58
reiichiroh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Anki?

The short version is that Anki’s spaced repetition is very good for retaining and learning vocabulary. My background is that I’ve used it while studying Korean. I’m at about 2,000 korean words now, of which Anki has helped me a lot. Each day I review 50 words and add 20 new ones. It sucks but it works. As you see new words in reading material, etc, you can add it to Anki. That’s supposed to be how it’s done, but ther…

Funny coincidence, I am also studying Korean and think the searchable repository of pre-built decks is a great feature. I also enjoy that the spaced repetition algorithm seems to make it exactly as difficult as it should be without becoming frustrating. Would be interested in Anki decks for studying programming languages.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#98

Post by jonbarker »

andy_wrote wrote: post #89
jonbarker wrote: post #6

I think Duolingo is good for getting you past complete beginner but to go deeper I recommend Anki.

This one https://apps.ankiweb.net/ or this one? https://www.ankiapp.com/ If there is much of a difference?

Ankiapp in the browser. Also Anki for iOS (which is around 25 dollars but is the only way the developer is monetizing). This enables sync between iOS and browser.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#99

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #80

Anyone have advice on learning French?

Backpack in Morocco and West Africa. And when I say backpack, I don’t mean just follow the hostel trail and stay with other foreigners. Try to stay independent and maximize your contact with the local people. (I learned active French over several months hitchhiking in the region, for example. Before going, I had a decent passive reading knowledge like any bookish European). I highly recommend learning French there because the local people are much more tolerant of mistakes than in France proper. They will just be happy you can communicate. And yet, many urban Moroccans and Senegalese speak French so well, so virtually natively, that they are good models to learn from.

Re: Duolingo Suddenly Has Over Twice as Much Language Learning Material

#100

Post by nulagrithom »

Itaxpica wrote: post #65

The biggest issue I have with Duolingo is that they offer "grammar notes" to explain why specific elements are the way they are... but only on desktop web. In-app, which is the main way that I (and I'd imagine most users) use Duolingo, there are no grammar notes and no way to access the grammar notes - they just seem to assume that you'll pick it up from context. Personally I've been studying Russian, a language with…

Grammar in general is my definitely my biggest issue. I have a firm grasp on grammatical terms in English, and it would be much easier for me if the rules of grammar were simply explained instead of implied.

I've found I end up looking at the comments frequently and just hoping that someone was kind enough to plainly explain the grammar at some point. Failing that, I end up asking fluent Spanish speakers random questions like, "Are adjectives gendered and pluralized in Spanish?" Which works up to a point, but when you start asking about things like "gerunds" and "past participle" you end up having to explain what those things mean in the first place (using English) and then ask the question again about Spanish.

Would love to see an app that focuses less on implied methods of teaching and is more willing to dive in to grammar lessons.

Post reply on HN