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It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

leejo.github.io

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Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#141

Post by SicSemperUranus »

leejo wrote: post #16
toyg wrote: post #8

Of course you can refill freezes, but you need enough credits to do so. You accumulate credits as you complete lessons and hit targets. So OP was, effectively, living for a period off the riches he had accumulated over almost 10 years (!) of efforts. That's not easy.

That is a fair point. I went back through my history in the app to figure out the real numbers: First day of use: 11th Dec 2014 First missed day: 19th Jun 2017 (921 days later) First freeze use: 20th Oct 2020 (2,140 days after first day of use) The missed days were down to (IIRC) time zone crossing and patchy internet, I can't recall if Duolingo let you off here or if there was leeway in the streak calculation. Those…

> I find/found the lack of colloquialisms one of the biggest problems with it.

This is actually a big problem with how people perceive language in general. It's hard to understand if you only speak one language, but the idea of a language as a discrete unit is a myth. Here in Québec there is Québécois French, which in and of itself is a generalization, as many regions have different accents and expressions.

In France there are many kinds of French. Some people say they "can't even understand" people from a certain other region... That's pretty much where a dialect crosses the line into a language!

In general people will learn what we call "international French", which is spoken by no one but understood by all. But good luck navigating the subtleties of a French-speaking society without being familiar to their regional dialect.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#142

Post by capitalsigma »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #61
iratewizard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Duolingo for about a year and they definitely have a lot of stuff like that built into the gamification. Often times, though, playing the game they designed is counterproductive. I've broken 100+ day streaks twice now because I realized I was only putting in the minimum for the sake of the game. I've found it better to take a month off here and there so that I can come back and focus on my actual goals. The…

Does the app work? I don’t mean the gamification: I mean, are you becoming fluent (or even just literate) in the language outside of the app?

An app is only ever going to be an adjunct to a real course taught by a real human. As an adjunct, it works pretty well for teaching vocabulary and practicing in between classes.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#143

Post by capitalsigma »

toyg wrote: post #8

Of course you can refill freezes, but you need enough credits to do so. You accumulate credits as you complete lessons and hit targets. So OP was, effectively, living for a period off the riches he had accumulated over almost 10 years (!) of efforts. That's not easy.

If you haven't used it in the past few years, it's worth noting that they really stepped up the gamification. I was shocked when I logged in to it recently after not using it since... maybe 2018? and every action in the app is accompanied by 10 animations, sound effects, "share" buttons, etc. It also now "randomly" gives you streak freezes. I've gotten 3 over the course of my current 100 day streak without spending any of the currency.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#144

Post by bluGill »

moron4hire wrote: post #27

I work for a foreign language instruction services company. We mostly serve government and military, but we do accept private students. All of our linguists are extremely skeptical of apps like Duolingo. And before anyone replies something like "your company has a vested interest in propping up instructor-led language training", if apps like Duolingo actually worked, the government--especially the military--would sto…

10 years of Duolingo is about the same effort as 1 week with your course. That is effort, not a measure of effectiveness, your tutors are more effective. I'm sure you don't expect much of anyone after a week.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#145

Post by pessimizer »

aliswe wrote: post #17

What made me lose interest in Duolingo was (losing the friends whom I conversate with and) 1. The lessons are so sluggish, if I know everything I want to be able to zip through them. But no - apparently these success animations and transitional effects are good for me. And 2. The totally senseless examples and also the sometimes cryptic questions when you don't know what they are asking for because the language is am…

Not a big Duolingo person, but I suspect your complaints may be outdated now. They made the sentences less stupid in general and introduced switches to turn off a lot of the frilly stuff (because your complaints were shared by a lot of people.)

My problem with Duolingo ambiguity is that if you want to do language learning on Duolingo starting from the middle rather than at the beginning, you'll get a lot of questions wrong because you're not familiar with the exact vocabulary that Duolingo wants you to know (i.e. what it taught you in earlier lessons.) Since it's constant translation drills, it builds up its own internal conventions about what English word translates to what target language word that you don't know as someone who has learned from other sources.

I've found translation to be a dead end for me. If I don't know a Spanish word I look it up in a Spanish language dictionary and/or thesaurus, and if I can't manage to figure it out using that and context, then I'll finally look for an English translation of the word. Totally there for English language grammar instruction, but not translation.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#146

Post by juancampa »

mastax wrote: post #120
oneoff786 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I would be so pessimistic. Learning a language is hard and you’re probably correct that you won’t be able to speak it with just duolingo. That doesn’t mean duolingo isn’t providing a substantial amount of necessary foundation. I’ve never tried it but I feel like it’s probably similar to Spanish classes in high school.

It is similar in that Spanish classes necessarily require learning a lot of vocabulary and grammar. However once you have a base level of knowledge you can take advantage of being near real people to practice conversation skills. By the end of my second year of Spanish class we were being tested speaking for several sentences about a topic (with some advance preparation) to the teacher who would ask questions. Holdin…

I find myself thinking about the answer before looking at the options. Also, not reading the prompt but trying to figure it out by listening.

If it's too easy, you can make it a bit more challenging yourself.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#147

Post by toyg »

capitalsigma wrote: post #143
toyg wrote: post #8

Of course you can refill freezes, but you need enough credits to do so. You accumulate credits as you complete lessons and hit targets. So OP was, effectively, living for a period off the riches he had accumulated over almost 10 years (!) of efforts. That's not easy.

If you haven't used it in the past few years, it's worth noting that they really stepped up the gamification. I was shocked when I logged in to it recently after not using it since... maybe 2018? and every action in the app is accompanied by 10 animations, sound effects, "share" buttons, etc. It also now "randomly" gives you streak freezes. I've gotten 3 over the course of my current 100 day streak without spending a…

I've been on it for less than 6 months (151 streak), so it's always been like this for me. And I definitely had to "pay" for all my freezes after the initial 2.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#148

Post by pessimizer »

yieldcrv wrote: post #52
Frummy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do you learn with that goal in mind? And how do you know in advance what the cultural demands are?

I go to a club in that country and figure it out. Takes an me about an hour and a half to observe, and then try. I don't consider myself extroverted. The more stimuli the better, because the less actual talking is expected. Very basic bits of information need to be transmitted. Nobody is going to understand your years of app language, or years of school language, and definitely not your accent. You need idioms and ex…

Come on now. People are definitely going to understand that, and encourage you. You may not understand their idiomatic expressions of encouragement at all, but that's your opportunity to use your app/school language to learn something new.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#149

Post by Zababa »

dan-robertson wrote: post #86
ninkendo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this problem with the Books app on my iPad. I had a nearly 300 day streak going of reading at least 5 minutes every day (and I have not been an avid reader throughout most of my life.) The books app would keep track of the streak at the bottom of the screen in your library view. Then one night I started reading at 11:57 PM, and by the time I was reading for 5 minutes, it was 12:02AM and I technically missed a d…

I wonder what a fix would be? Maybe reset every 30 days and have a separate counter for the number of completed months that doesn’t reset if you fail.

Anki (a flashcard software) allows you to set when the "next day" is. I put it around 4 am, it works well for me.

Re: It's quite hard to lose a Duolingo streak

#150

Post by Tepix »

vulkan92 wrote: post #25
someotherperson wrote: post #14

One thing I found odd about Duolingo is that they disabled offline lessons. It was the most powerful thing they had -- to me at least. I was able to board planes and just grind for hours, I could travel cross country and do the same. Even in normal travels I was able to use it without constant disconnects -- it was great. But they decided one day to just nuke it... for no reason as far as I could tell. My subscriptio…

Not with you on that. I just did your exact usecase on my flight of 9+ hours and it worked just fine? Maybe they shuffled around the way you set something to download? I can confirm that this feature still exists (atleast on iOS)

I think you can do one level oer exercise while offline, not more
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