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Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

reuters.com

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Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#141

Post by tapland »

least wrote: post #122
zarzavat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking and listening are related skills yet speaking is much harder than listening, and both are much harder than reading (for the vast majority of languages). In my opinion it's the other way around. Reading is easiest in any alphabetic language. Both intrinsically and to teach. Reading has no time limit so you can make your way through text at whatever pace you want. Reading instruction is strongly amenable to…

I in fact did indicate that reading is the easiest in my post. Speaking is harder than listening because it requires you to produce language and convey ideas from your own mind, with proficiency in pronouncing it in such a way that a native speaker might understand you. Things like idioms you may be able to infer meaning from interpretation when you are listening or reading but you will never use them in speaking unl…

According to the test specifications.

You will not speak what you don't know. There is no such limit when others just say things in accents, speeds or using words you have no knowledge of.

Starting to speak and be correctly understood felt much easier than accurately understanding others in my two secondary languages, and the same for my fiancée who is a native English speaker with one secondary language.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#142

Post by jacquesm »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #62
bawolff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People learn languages for a variety of purposes. Some people just want to know enough to be able to ask where the bathroom is and read a menu at a resturant.

More people learn languages to feel good and for bragging rights than for any actual use.

Bollocks. In Europe you learn languages to be able to go abroad and to at least try to meet strangers halfway. Knowing just your own tongue is rude.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#144

Post by meepmorp »

bawolff wrote: post #53
wyxuan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done duolingo for 300+ days and can tell you that Japanese and Arabic are uniquely bad/hard to teach

If your native language is english, surely romance languages are going to be easier than something like japanese

even though english is a germanic language?

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#145

Post by candyman »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #65
least wrote: post #46

I was a cryptologic linguist for the army and went through a 16 month course of 6-7 hours of classroom instruction per day M-F, native speaking instructors, tons of immersion, and a couple hours of homework each night and left still feeling like I hardly knew the language that I was supposed to be interpreting. Unless your major in college is a specific language, you probably won't achieve any sort of fluency in your…

I find it really useful for practice, but it's obviously not the best thing to be using solely if you think that's going to reach you to proficiency. It's a fun way to kill like 15-20 minutes a day, it's probably the closest thing I waste my time on that's like a video game these days yet 100x more productive. I've got books for learning Russian and German to go through along with using Duolingo as a pretty good opti…

I feel the same way about Duolingo. I used to be able to speak a moderate amount of German and let it lapse. I picked up Duolingo because it substituted for some other casual activity I might do on my phone (crossword, read hackernews, etc.) And learning some conversational German feels like a better use of time. However it is pretty basic. I know there are hundreds or thousands of units and spending 10 minutes a day probably won't get me very far. Still if I keep it up and take a trip to German I'll at least know some of the basics. I practice with my long-suffering family who has to listen to me say Mein sohn is sehr klug! and other stuff like that all the time.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#146

Post by jpgvm »

captn3m0 wrote: post #135
selectodude wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Palantir is coming up on 20. Palantir is a dumb shitty company that will file for bankruptcy. Unfortunately the VCs have already dumped it on to the dopes on Wall Street bets.

https://www.macroaxis.com/invest/ratio/PLTR/Probability-Of-B... says Current Palantir Technologies Probability Of Bankruptcy = 24%

That analysis seems to be full of shit. When plugging in companies with much better financials than PLTR I end up with higher % of bankruptcy.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#147

Post by candyman »

poorjohnmacafee wrote: post #3

Quick look at financials, they lost $25M in trailing 12 months, lost $14M in the previous year, lost $10M in the year before. How is Duolingo supposed to become profitable? How is a $6.5B valuation justified?

Duolingo is already cash flow positive and if you back out some non-cash costs can say they are profitable. However some of these non-cash costs should be included but that's another story. Their target model is for 35% adjusted earnings margins which is aggressive. I did publish a post with our "present future value" model that goes out to 2026 and discounts things back. I only see them getting to 22% operating margins at this point but there are some areas like testing fees that could push that higher. Using the model I get to a $145 stock price that I'd say puts a full value on the next several years of growth. It's just a preliminary model now. After they report a few quarters we can put a finer point on it. Details here: https://ipocandy.com/2021/07/making-sense-of-duolingo-duol/

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#148

Post by jeofken »

For any language learners out there, my method of learning to communicate quite freely in two foreign languages in adulthood has been going to bars, and asking tipsy strangers in very friendly ways about words, such as on the menu, or something you’re wondering about. Let them be the expert they are. You must enjoy learning and sounding like an idiot for a couple of years.

I’ve done courses, Duolingo etc, self study books, spaced repetition cards, and watched a lot of TV. But nothing has beat bars, or having roommates who don’t speak English (or my native language).

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#149

Post by arghwhat »

kelnos wrote: post #139
zarzavat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking and listening are related skills yet speaking is much harder than listening, and both are much harder than reading (for the vast majority of languages). In my opinion it's the other way around. Reading is easiest in any alphabetic language. Both intrinsically and to teach. Reading has no time limit so you can make your way through text at whatever pace you want. Reading instruction is strongly amenable to…

The parent did claim that reading is easiest (you've even quoted that), so I don't think you're disagreeing there. I do agree with the parent that listening is easier than speaking. When you're speaking, you have to know the right words, and know what order to put them in. Sure, there's some leeway: if you put words in the wrong order, or incorrectly conjugate a verb, or forget some types of words, your meaning will…

Listening is easier than speaking only when what you listen to is easy and at a pace you can follow where you can have things repeated.

Speaking is hard, but those native in the language is more likely to understand slow and broken speech with a little effort than a learner is to understand fast and unclear speech that takes shortcuts.

This is my experience with learning Mandarin at least, both using classroom teaching and Duolingo.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#150

Post by csa »

tasogare wrote: post #91
tasogare wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you won't be able to do that with Duolingo. I'll go as far as saying that Duolingo is (very) negative for learners: it sells them the idea they are learning a language and progressing when they are in fact not. A good example of that is a comment I read here on HN from a user defending Duolingo since it allowed him to master hiragana (one script of Japanese) after two years and half. This is normally taking a…

Replying to deleted post: First, you don't need 10k kanji to read. About 3000-5000 depending on what you read is enough. Then count 400-500 kanji per year if learning at university and being motivated (lot of people stops). For conversation count two intensive years for the bare minimum, add one for more fluency. Actually all depends on how much effort you spend on it, I know a guy who was JLPT N2 or so after it's fi…

> First, you don't need 10k kanji to read. About 3000-5000 depending on what you read is enough.

You’re still grossly over-representing what is needed to read Japanese.

1. 10k characters is utter nonsense. I assume that people conflate the 10k words needed for JLPT N1 with characters. They are totally different, since words are often combinations of characters.

2. Joyo kanji has 2,136 characters. All government documents and pretty much all mainstream media use only these characters plus some kanji specific to names. Any kanji outside of joyo (e.g., an unusual name or a stylistic word) typically have a phonetic reading (furigana) next to or over the character(s). Joyo is what is tested for the JLPT 1 (the top level).

3. Hundreds of joyo kanji are very context-specific — that is, they are relatively low utility.

4. There are a few additional kanji outside of joyo that are widely known. Educated folks also know more than joyo that are specialist terms or stylistic words. It would be like an English speaker knowing words like “deoxyribonucleic acid” (DNA) or “ceteris paribus”.

5. Lastly, for anyone reading Classical Japanese or historical documents… well, much of the above is not relevant due to changes in the language (mostly simplification over time). It depends on what is being studied or read.

6. 3000 kanji nets someone “highly educated native speaker” status — think teacher, doctor, lawyer. 5000 kanji gets you nerd status — think professor or logomaniac.

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