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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

#241

Post by akudha »

gambiting wrote: post #97
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've learnt both English and German at school, for pretty much equal amounts of time - about 12 years each. And well, I can speak fluent English, but barely any German, despite usually having at least ~2 hours of lessons a week, plenty of homework, oral exercises..... For me, it has everything to do with actually using the languge in practice. English was and is everywhere - it's much easier to practice when all your…

Language learning is like Math, without consistent practice nobody is going to get anywhere. In some ways, languages are harder than Math - Math is logical, languages are often not (tons of arbitrary rules on spelling, grammar and especially pronunciation). More and more languages are going to die, despite best efforts from linguists to preserve them. English is going to be the dominant language for the foreseeable future, and we'll soon have apps (if we don't already have them) interpreting in real time. Given the long time commitment needed to even get to a basic fluency in a language, most people are going to give up quickly, except a tiny percentage of population that genuinely loves learning new languages.

If everyone learned at least one foreign language, the world would be a much better place.

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

#242

Post by tgb »

dorchadas wrote: post #228
AussieWog93 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that you can't possibly become fluent in a language with an app like it and there isn't any single app that will. I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. It is an amazingly powerful tool to bootstrap you from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talkin…

> I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. I'm active in various Facebook/Reddit groups dealing with language learning. The average user, who's never learned a language before, does think DL will make them fluent. And DL advertises themselves in this manner as well. It's a common issue: "I've got my entire tree gold, why can't I understand natives?"…

Audio is the most important and hardest component of learning a language so apps have a huge advantage over textbooks any day. I really don't think recommending textbooks is at all relevant these days. Graded readers are better for simulating immersion. Apps are better for getting your feet wet. Textbooks can teach grammar but so can apps and really you have to be pretty far along for grammar to be the main stumbling block (over listening, pronunciation, and vocabulary).

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

#243

Post by marpayne »

I have tried Duolingo (Premium user), and I can say that it is not an effective app if you're going to learn a language effectively. Instead, it is better if you're going to have a bite-sized time to have some mini quiz or something like that. It is more of memorization, and there's no immersion or anything that makes you feel you're making significant progress

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

#244

Post by wpietri »

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…

As a general rule, modern-day capitalism produces products based on whether you can market it to somebody with money, not on actual results. For a lot of markets, the revenue is nearly as good and it's much cheaper to make something that doesn't work well, or doesn't work at all.

The most obvious example here is make-money-fast schemes. Those things never work; if they did, they wouldn't be offered for sale to randos. But there are a ton of others.

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

#245

Post by wildfire »

dorchadas wrote: post #228
AussieWog93 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that you can't possibly become fluent in a language with an app like it and there isn't any single app that will. I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. It is an amazingly powerful tool to bootstrap you from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talkin…

> I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. I'm active in various Facebook/Reddit groups dealing with language learning. The average user, who's never learned a language before, does think DL will make them fluent. And DL advertises themselves in this manner as well. It's a common issue: "I've got my entire tree gold, why can't I understand natives?"…

≥ you never practice reading for comprehension

This has existed for at least two years: https://www.duolingo.com/stories

Yes, it does not cover every language but the intent is to address that ( perceived ) complaint.

I disagree that an actual coursebook is more helpful.

I used Duo for 6 months prior to moving to a Germany. It gave me an incredible confidence boost to be able to at least understand what was going on around me.

After living in Berlin for 6 months I did a course and I was far ahead of others who had taken formal courses before.

It has been 2 years since I left Germany, I still do my Duo daily and have continued doing German courses.

It has helped maintain my minimal ability.

> it also likely depends on person

Indeed. My partner at the time did the same as me and Duo did not work for her at all.

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

#246

Post by bojan »

rtpg wrote: post #155
dubeye wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it fun to learn language on Duolingo as a kind of game. But unless I have a need to regularly use the learning, I know for sure it won't stick. And I'm afraid that last 0.1% of aquisition is pretty much impossible to obtain deliberately unless you abandon your native language. Even your English, whilst technicaly good, has a couple of flags.

There are plenty of people effectively native in multiple languages. It’s not guaranteed (I have that missing part for one language despite having done all of High School and college in it), but i know people who speak perfectly in two languages (usually English+their parents native tongue) I have found that English is a bit weird in that you need obsessively high absorption of like, culture, to execute well, so it’s…

> I have found that English is a bit weird in that you need obsessively high absorption of like, culture, to execute well, so it’s easier to spot non-native speakers.

This applies to every language out there, English is certainly not an exception in this aspect.

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

#247

Post by Graziano_M »

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?

They are pushing 'plus' HARD. Plus is basically the feature set everyone had for years, so it's basically, "Pay to keep features or we'll take them one by one". I have an > 2000 day streak, so I have seen it change a lot over the years and I have 0 urge to pay, I will just stop playing.

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

#248

Post by nIHOPp6MQw0f5ut »

onemiketwelve wrote: post #206
jpgvm wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then short it for free money

"Markets can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent"

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

#249

Post by kouteiheika »

dorchadas wrote: post #237
kouteiheika wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like all the current research is that "immersion" in the target language is critical This, a hundred times this. Immersion is not only effective in getting you used to the language, but also really helps you solidify what you've learned, and is extremely motivating. Virtually all of the people that I know in the Japanese learning community who learned the language really fast heavily immersed in a lot of cont…

If you could do step one that wasn't based entirely on anime I'd love it. That's always been my biggest hurdle with the Japanese learning community -- almost all recommendations seem to be anime, and I'm just not that interested.

I also have Japanese dramas, light novels, a few normal novels, visual novels and I recently started adding YouTube videos, so it's definitely not only anime.

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

#250

Post by dorchadas »

arihant wrote: post #225

I've been learning Russian for a year (currently at around B1-B2). None of these new age language learning apps are actually useful, even to get your feet wet. The old is still gold when it comes to language learning. You think you're learning with these apps, but in my experience you're not. They just don't seem to put anything in long term memory well. There is spaced repetition in some of them, but not enough repe…

> The old is still gold when it comes to language learning.

Absolutely. Maybe I'm just inclined to the grammar-translation model, but I've found the older editions of books like Teach Yourself so much more helpful to me. Couple that with self-created immersion and it goes a lot quicker.

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