Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

Post by Uberphallus » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:00 PM UTC

mgbmtl wrote: post #166

Uberphallus wrote: post #40

Duolingo is great to get your feet wet, but its teaching model doesn't scale past A2/B1 levels (and in speaking/listening even less so). This valuation is enormous for a company that's virtually been for 10 years in losses. So far Duolingo has made the experience more painful to free users to push them to pay, and yet hasn't managed to get out of the red. I think the main that most learners are from developing countr…

I was a paid user for some time. It's inexpensive and fun. I mostly paid to encourage them, and to be able to use it offline in the plane (it's a fun game). However, as most people, I haven't flown in a long time, so I cancelled it. I wonder what are the main types of paid users. Otherwise, when not paying, I use the web version, and never noticed any advertising.

Post by TheFreim » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

zild3d wrote: post #262

rainydaybook wrote: post #260

I've always found Duolingo too boring and it didn't help me at all. I was able to learn 7 languages using different routes. I already knew Russian, I've learned English the usual school + moving to the country route, and I've learned Spanish, French, German, Italian and Latin by mostly reading books and watching online videos and movies. Having bookstores nearby (especially the Strand) with a lot of interesting books…

At what point do you start reading a book in a new language? Do you already know say 500 words? Otherwise I'd imagine you have to look up almost every word on the page

Post by arghwhat » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

least wrote: post #167

arghwhat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 teachi…

> 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. This is definitely not the case. Yes, listening to difficult audio is really hard to interpret. Your proficiency in listening isn't defined simply by how well you can listen to people in a perfect scenario, but also your capacity to understand the language. Reading is usually easie…

Post by Reason077 » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

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…

Post by dorchadas » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

barney54 wrote: post #264

dorchadas wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Audio is the most important and hardest component of learning a language so apps have a huge advantage over textbooks any day. Assuming the apps actually use native speaker audio. Which Duolingo doesn't do. > I really don't think recommending textbooks is at all relevant these days. I disagree completely. Textbooks are still, in my opinion and experience, the most efficient way to start learning a language. > reall…

Why do you say Duolingo doesn’t use native speakers? Their Spanish speakers for example are either native or indistinguishable from native speakers.