161–170 of 231 posts
What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)
I love that Duo streak is hard to lose, unlike other apps where if you miss a day streak is gone. The goal of app is to help you keep learning. In life things are bound to happen because of which you might miss couple of days or more, it make no sense to penalize you for that. I have been trying to maintain streak in other apps but I when I miss a day, I am not motivated enough to go back and start again. Also, strea…
What I noticed from the sobriety community (specifically alcohol), it is important to make promises to yourself 'one day at a a time'. There is a presumed danger to tying too much of your ego to the duration of your sobriety. I am not sure if it is scientifically proven, but if you relapse the assumption is you would rather have a psychology built around making the right choice today and not one built on pride of a l…
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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…
Sure, someone with a strong uncommon accent can take some effort to understand ("can't even understand" is a clear exaggeration except in the more egregious cases), but the language underneath is the same.
French is very standardised, and "international French" is spoken by everyone. That description would fit something like German much better.
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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.
What are some good alternatives to Duolingo with fewer dark patterns? (And don't suggest traditional methods, I am very much not against them, I am just curious about apps and such.)
Babbel is the least hated of this kind of app among my linguist friends. Pimsleur is highly regarded by phonologists. I get frustrated by almost all of these tools. In particular, I feel like Duolingo is much less useful if you already know another language, and is almost useless as a way to brush up on a language you already know (my boyfriend has been doing Russian Duolingo for three months and his vocabulary is ju…
As someone who has used Duolingo for multiple languages (German, French, Swedish) for about a decade (2012-2020) I am here to say that Babbel is vastly superior to Duolingo in terms of quality.
Duolingo is just rote memorization of their vocabulary. Despite investing years into "studying" the above languages in Duolingo, I didn't feel I was actually useful in these languages (I studied before relocating to the respective countries).
Babbel on the other hand, is very much like a digital version of the language textbooks you will find everywhere for levels A1/A2/B1/B2. The Babbel lessons involve listening comprehension, speaking (though their voice recognition is... poor), reading, writing, and they make a huge effort to teach you conjugation and grammar rules. There are also no ads or annoying animations.
Babbel does cost money, but it's far less than Duolingo's paid tier, and I personally find Babbel much more effective at actually teaching me the language as opposed to Duolingo having me memorize random vocabulary.
Babbel allows you to set learning goals (though max target is 9 per week) and daily reminders, but they don't have streaks nor do they get up in your face about it.
I will never go back to Duolingo after having used Babbel.
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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?
no way. i learned german through immersion, then tried to learn the much simpler Spanish via Duolingo. key problems: 1. not enough speaking practice. speaking is _at least_ 50% of the skill but about 10% of DL. 2. Waay too much time spent setting up each question w animations etc. not enoimugh learning time. much more repetition is required. 3. way too general learning. people have varying needs for language. e.g. wo…
Else you're like a dog listening to steam of human sounds: "Not walk, not walk, not walk, ...WALK!! (I know that one!), not walk, not walk, ..."
In my experience, Duolingo and other entry level apps can get you there especially for the person who hasn't learned a second language thus doesn't even know where to begin.
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…
Wow, that's impressive. Non-avid reader before to almost a year of avid reading, then all lost because of a hook metric. This stuff is a real deal.
Then, like GP, I just had a particularly busy day and didn’t get to my reviews until after midnight. BAM- a triple digit streak gone. After that, every time I logged in I got a reminder of my FAILURE (real or imagined) to keep up with my studies. I didn’t like being reminded of that, so I didn’t login. I ended up taking a year-long sabbatical from language learning instead.
Developers, don’t put streak counters in these sorts of apps.
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Not sure it’s a flex. Long time Duolingo user here, that streak-building addiction is real. It’s like i’m on the platform to hit my streak and much less to learn.
I wish my other apps invested more research engineers into optimizing incentives. Brilliant.com is great for learning, but builds no habits.
I love that Duo streak is hard to lose, unlike other apps where if you miss a day streak is gone. The goal of app is to help you keep learning. In life things are bound to happen because of which you might miss couple of days or more, it make no sense to penalize you for that. I have been trying to maintain streak in other apps but I when I miss a day, I am not motivated enough to go back and start again. Also, strea…
But how does the streak motivate you if you know that it is meaningless - and not even really a streak?