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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

#161

Post by sweeneyrod »

benjaminjackman wrote: post #125
tdumitrescu wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started learning more languages as an adult, I found that the biggest accelerator for me personally was likewise to read novels, even if they were way beyond my nominal skill level. The first 50-100 pages would be slow grinding, looking up almost everything in the dictionary, but then it would rapidly get faster and easier as I got used to common turns of phrases, idioms etc. And it was great for maintaining r…

That's a really interesting approach. I wonder if there are reading apps which have that dictionary integrated, but which still require a mouseover / tap to display it for a particular word (they are just using a translation language dictionary).

Look up LingQ

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

#162

Post by thaumasiotes »

laGrenouille wrote: post #153
usaar333 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Classes with other students are just about the least effective way to learn a foreign language. Well, sure a private tutor is better, but that's a lot more expensive. Without a teacher of some sort that can provide feedback, I have no idea how I could have learned elementary Mandarin (that is produce and listen to sounds radically different from my native English). From what I've seen the ability for computers to g…

>> Classes with other students are just about the least effective way to learn a foreign language. > Well, sure a private tutor is better, but that's a lot more expensive. In my experience, a private tutor really is not any more expensive than an classroom environment when you factor in the reduced number of hours needed. I have been taking language lessons online with 1-on-1 tutors (via Skype) through italki. You ca…

My brother and sister get individual Japanese lessons from a UCSC professor for 60 minutes a week. They apparently progress faster than the actual Japanese class. (I believe a normal UCSC class has 3-4 hours / week of classroom time.)

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

#163

Post by thaumasiotes »

benjaminjackman wrote: post #125
tdumitrescu wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started learning more languages as an adult, I found that the biggest accelerator for me personally was likewise to read novels, even if they were way beyond my nominal skill level. The first 50-100 pages would be slow grinding, looking up almost everything in the dictionary, but then it would rapidly get faster and easier as I got used to common turns of phrases, idioms etc. And it was great for maintaining r…

That's a really interesting approach. I wonder if there are reading apps which have that dictionary integrated, but which still require a mouseover / tap to display it for a particular word (they are just using a translation language dictionary).

Pleco is a high-quality dictionary app (for Chinese and only Chinese) which is currently moving into the space of selling ebooks. Dictionary features are of course integrated into the reader.

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

#164

Post by wallflower »

odysseus wrote: post #107
wallflower wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

No hay de que. Buena suerte!

The key, as you seem to already have found out, is to have fun with it.

There is a Portuguese saying along the lines of “Language is learned in public”. That is, to truly learn a language you must practice it in public spaces, with strangers and “danger” around.

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

#165

Post by thaumasiotes »

dnautics wrote: post #122
Volrath89 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

poeta, nauta are two -a nouns that are masculine; sofa if you count a with accents

Nauta and poeta are both members of a small set of profession words which are masculine despite being in the first declension (-a) in Latin. My textbook provided a comprehensive (again, small) list and just suggested they should all be memorized; the only other one I remember now is agricola, farmer.

Manus, hand, is one of an even smaller set of feminine fourth declension nouns. I believe this oddity has also been preserved in Spanish as "la mano".

This makes me wonder whether the Spanish words for trees tend to be feminine while having masculine-looking forms; that is regular in Latin.

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

#166

Post by Taniwha »

phorese wrote: post #4
Mirioron wrote: post #2

I envy the author's persistence. 500 days of working on a task without skipping a day is impressive.

It is impressive, but you can buy items (with the in-app currency you get from finishing lections) that allow you to skip single days (or even whole weekends, IIRC).

If you travel this is just about required (I crossed the dateline on last night's flight, had no Saturday ....)

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

#167

Post by feetfailmenot »

Duolingo and other apps are fine to build passive vocabulary (the words you can understand) up to some level, but the real issue for me is the lack of a real "speaking" component.

Frequent speaking practice is key to build your active vocabuary (the words you can use). It's also key to build your confidence in using a language.

Shameless plug: that's why we are making an app that really makes you speak: https://en.globers.co/

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

#168

Post by Rerarom »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14
cosarara wrote: post #5

The worst part of Duolingo is how boring it is to level up a skill to 5 when you already understand the topics taught. When learning German or Italian and testing out of the earlier levels, the exercise you get most of the time is just "sort these English words to translate the sentence". You can get it right all the time just by looking for a grammatically correct sentence with the most superficial of understanding.…

Repetition is the mother of learning, as the old Russian proverb states. The point is making a phrase really get memorized.

Perhaps you have heard Russian epic of Cinderella?

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

#169

Post by hombre_fatal »

realharo wrote: post #135
bit_logic wrote: post #119

Learning a language requires immersion. That's why classes with other students are more effective than flashcards. VR has potential to really make a difference here. Imagine you load a VR level. It's a busy outdoor market in Taipei. In your inventory you have some cash. NPCs with AI and chat logic are around you interacting. Your goal is to buy some bread and get to the subway. You see a vendor with some bread, but d…

I remember an old game called Mean City ( https://www.mobygames.com/game/mean-city-learn-english-or-di... ) that tried to do something similar (minus the VR and the voice parts). There were probably others.

Find a MUD in your target language.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MUD/comments/bhxejm/muding_for_span...

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

#170

Post by wallflower »

lawnchair wrote: post #145
bit_logic wrote: post #119

Learning a language requires immersion. That's why classes with other students are more effective than flashcards. VR has potential to really make a difference here. Imagine you load a VR level. It's a busy outdoor market in Taipei. In your inventory you have some cash. NPCs with AI and chat logic are around you interacting. Your goal is to buy some bread and get to the subway. You see a vendor with some bread, but d…

I really wish this VR existed. Would be great.

This would be close to AGI.
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