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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

#291

Post by rainydaybook »

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

Depends on the book. I usually used Alice in wonderland, through the looking glass, and wizard of Oz as my first books in these languages, (except latin), and though I don't know the exact starting word count, I think a couple of hundred + familiarity with the book is enough for me. Some other easy and interesting books to consider are Tom Sawyer and The Hobbit, and Peter Pan.

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

#292

Post by Mikeb85 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #183
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…

>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…

This. Duolingo is a great introduction to a language and can get you from not knowing a word to being able to understand something and maybe have basic tourist-level conversational skills.

Nothing gets you to fluency without actually just immersing yourself in a language for awhile.

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

#293

Post by plainnoodles »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #183
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…

>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 agree. I feel like there's 3 phases to learning a new language.

Background: English first language, French second, and I've been trying to learn Japanese.

The three phases are:

1. Learning basic alphabet (if different from your own), basic grammar. Unlocks: being able to access more learning material and more rapid progress. Progress on these first building blocks is slow and can be discouraging.

2. Learning full grammar control. Even the most basic prose uses ~all of the tenses and conjugation rules. Unlocks: reading/watching non-educational native material.

3. Learning the culture and filling out vocab. Lots of languages are idiomatic, and understanding real-world usage can require just as much that you read Candide as that you memorize flashcards of more-obscure vocab (more-obscure meaning things like "chandelier". It's not an uncommon word, but a second-language learner probably won't run into it in wordbanks or anything.)

I think Duolingo is good for doing 1, and like, half of 2. I don't think it can get you to 3.

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

#294

Post by rjsw »

saiya-jin wrote: post #197
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…

There are definitely more effective methods, just mostly not free and more time demanding. I have a mission to get B1 French, tried Duolingo with some basic level for cca 6 months in past year. You get into the bubble that you think you are progressing but reality is, its a very narrow and not-so-useful progress if whole language knowledge is your goal - mostly passive skills and certain type of language usage that g…

I found watching French TV helped get the equivalent of language immersion.

One source that isn't region locked is TV5Monde [1], you can view programmes online if it isn't available as a broadcast channel where you are.

[1] http://www.tv5monde.com/

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

#295

Post by rainydaybook »

cerved wrote: post #272
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…

huh, I've learnt 8 languages, mostly through conversation

Which languages and how well did it work for you to transition into reading books?

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

#296

Post by rainydaybook »

TheFreim wrote: post #263
zild3d wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I only know English but am in the middle of studying Latin and I've found that the pain of having to look up works makes them stick in my mind pretty well. Once you can understand a decent number of words you can construct the meaning surprisingly quickly just based on context and the endings of words.

I really recommend interlinear editions for Latin. And also again want to mention Lingua Latina Per Se. If you are ever in NYC there's East Village bookstore that has a lot of interlinear editions in Latin at affordable price. Other than that, you can also get Winnie the pooh in latin on amazon and another edition in english and read them in parallel.

There's also wizard of oz in latin which is a lot longer than Winnie the pooh (and more interesting), but it's hard to find and expensive, alas.

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

#297

Post by jdavis703 »

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…

Duolingo is great for producing a cursory introduction to a language. But yes, there is no substitute for immersion. For example I spent some time in Spain after learning the language basically on Duolingo. I’m sure I spoke like a 2 year old, but at least I wasn’t totally helpless (I was even able to give someone directions to the airport!). Contrast that with my experience in France where I barely knew anything, and felt totally out of place and awkward.

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

#298

Post by meepmorp »

bagacrap wrote: post #210
meepmorp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The grammatical structure of modern English is closer to Romance languages than Germanic languages. I'm pretty sure that's not true.

from Wikipedia: "Of the Germanic family, English is exceptional in having predominantly SVO order instead of V2, although there are vestiges of the V2 phenomenon." Romance languages like French and Spanish use SVO so I think it's correct to say English is like them. An example given by wiki of German sentence structure translated directly to English: "Before school played the children in the park soccer."

I'm familiar with V2 and how English doesn't exhibit it. Look at the following weird deviations from how you'd say things in English

* I am hungry

* Ich bin hungrig

* It is raining today

* Es regnet heute

* Where is your house?

* Wo ist dein Haus?

It turns out that Germanic V2 is SVO in the case of simple declarative sentences! But what about other kinds of ordering, below the full sentence level?

Look at this, about the ordering of attributive adjectives and nouns in Spanish vs. German:

* un hombre alto

* una chica muy bonita

* ein großer mensch

* eine sehr schönes Mädchen

Like German, English places attributive adjectives before the nouns they modify.

Consider the possibility of eliding pronouns:

* Yo tengo hambre

* Tengo hambre

both are fine in Spanish.

* I am hungry

* Am hungry

Dropping the pronoun in English isn't ok in English, unless you're going to produce a fairly contrived context - like a text message, etc. It's not normal speech. In case you're curious, you can't drop the pronoun in German, either.

Language has lots of tiny facts that fit together in interesting ways.V

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

#299

Post by asoneth »

It makes sense that fifteen minutes a day of Duolingo isn't as effective as spending two hours a day studying, going to meetups, traveling to a foreign country, etc.

I recall similar criticism for the "seven-minute workout" from people who pointed out that joining a gym and hiring a personal trainer is a more effective way of getting in shape.

But those are not very helpful. If I have fifteen minutes before the kids wake up my only decision is how to spend that time. Duolingo? Meditate? Pushups? Half an episode of something? Daydream?

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

#300

Post by jimbob45 »

brushfoot wrote: post #198
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…

The old FSI language courses are very effective. And free and in the public domain. FSI combines hundreds of pages of print materials with hundreds of verbal audio drills. I used it to supplement a French course in college and my professor asked me how I advanced so quickly. The course materials were doing very little for the rest of the class because they didn't force natural language thinking. FSI grammar drills ma…

Surely there are updates to the FSI courses, right? Like what does our state department today use? Have they entirely farmed the job out to private institutions like Rosetta Stone and community colleges?
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