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500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

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Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#101

Post by andrepd »

tudorconstantin wrote: post #84

My now 12.5 years old daughter started to learn English on Duolingo when she was around 9. She didn't complete the full course, but has around 100-150 days of lessons. It definitely helped her starting to understand the language. She loves Harry Potter so much that after reading the whole series in Romanian, she started to read the first volume in English. Didn't finish that either, but managed to read about 100 page…

>Duolingo might not teach you how to speak a language fluently, but it definitely can give you a headstart in learning one.

That's a remarkable jump, to make that claim based on some rough assessment of a single person.

I didn't have duolingo but I still outperformed most of my colleagues who were in extracurricular English. What can I conclude from that?

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#103

Post by warabe »

Zarath wrote: post #102

Duolingo works for languages that have grammar the same or nearly the same as English (or possibly whatever language you're learning it in), but when you try to learn something like Japanese it is almost entirely useless.

Hey, that sounds interesting. Could you elaborate? As a native Japanese speaker, I’d like to hear your theory.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#104

Post by ecspike »

tudorconstantin wrote: post #84

My now 12.5 years old daughter started to learn English on Duolingo when she was around 9. She didn't complete the full course, but has around 100-150 days of lessons. It definitely helped her starting to understand the language. She loves Harry Potter so much that after reading the whole series in Romanian, she started to read the first volume in English. Didn't finish that either, but managed to read about 100 page…

I think that's both duolingo and more her effort to find ways to apply the language to her interests. I didn't have literature in my language classes and generally wasn't taught about the opportunity to "live" in my target language until I got to college IIRC.

Here in the US, we go hard on repeated rote memorization and mastery of minute things that don't matter as much.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#105

Post by bigred100 »

Anyone else feel like language learning is overrated? (Yes I’m an uncultured provincial American and I’m sorry). Unless you frequently travel somewhere where another language is spoken, have family that speaks another language, or want to travel places like that, it’s hard for me to see why learning more about your own language, math or something, socializing, learning about how your government and society work, or something else wouldn’t be more rewarding in the long run. And, actually be able to give you some reward over a reasonable period of time (1 year) versus learning a language where I think you’ll reasonably at it for at least half a decade to achieve proficiency unless you’re really dedicated or move there.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#106

Post by Volrath89 »

zeta0134 wrote: post #96
wallflower wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, "a la" (roughly "to the") condenses to "al" in Spanish “a el” condenses to “al”. You might want to get a book on Spanish grammar to cross-check when you encounter new rules.

Ha, I would mess up the example. :P You're completely right of course. I guess I assumed it applied to both genders, but I'm still picking up the gender of a lot of the words; that's not terribly intuitive.

(almost) All the nouns ending with "a" are feminine - la silla, la mesa, la casa, la luna, la montaña. (Notable exception: el agua). Also feminine all that end in "ción" such as: la nación, la configuración, la confirmación.

Almost all the other nouns are masculine - el carro, el niño, el oso, el barrio, el avión, el camión, el árbol.

Pretty sure with those 2 simple rules you will catch 90% of genders right.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#107

Post by odysseus »

wallflower wrote: post #75
dominotw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hey helps that my wife is Mexican :D but I've been lazy learning spanish all these years. I just need a full immersion where i can enjoy the full payoff.

I know you are qualifying your efforts with the weasel word “lazy”, and I hate to break it to you but there is no magic bullet to learning a language after early childhood. (Invested time x Motivation) ÷ Inhibition = Result https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kató_Lomb As the Spanish saying goes: los idiomas se aprenden en la cuna o en la cama ("languages are learned either in the cradle or in bed") One of my acquaintanc…

Thank you for the inspiration regarding your acquaintance. I am trying this now with my wife who knows Spanish. We are doing Sabado por la mañana español. Lots of fun already!

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#109

Post by magicbuzz »

bigred100 wrote: post #105

Anyone else feel like language learning is overrated? (Yes I’m an uncultured provincial American and I’m sorry). Unless you frequently travel somewhere where another language is spoken, have family that speaks another language, or want to travel places like that, it’s hard for me to see why learning more about your own language, math or something, socializing, learning about how your government and society work, or s…

Learning a language teaches you deeply about that culture and gives you perspectives on your own culture from the standpoint of another.

Re: 500 days of Duolingo: What you can and can’t learn from a language app

#110

Post by sanderjd »

bigred100 wrote: post #105

Anyone else feel like language learning is overrated? (Yes I’m an uncultured provincial American and I’m sorry). Unless you frequently travel somewhere where another language is spoken, have family that speaks another language, or want to travel places like that, it’s hard for me to see why learning more about your own language, math or something, socializing, learning about how your government and society work, or s…

Upvoted because I want to see replies to this question.

My intuition is that language learning has other positive effects than just the practical one of allowing you to converse with other people in that language. For instance you say that math would be more rewarding in the long run. But why? Most people really don't have a practical need for math past arithmetic. But your intuition is that it is nonetheless rewarding. I strongly agree! But I think the same is true of language learning, for very similar reasons.

But I don't really know if my intuition is right. Maybe someone else here has a better answer.

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