Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#51

Post by alister » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:16 AM UTC

knorker wrote: post #9

Betteridge's law of headlines be damned, the answer is "yes". I've basically only used Duolingo for learning a particular new language. I started from nothing, and just did a little every day during the pandemic. Then I travelled to the country in question, and was able to tell stories in the language. Not easily, and with bad grammar and my vocabulary sucked, but this is more than being able to order at a restaurant…

> surprisingly many people will not make any adjustments at all when you say "Please, if you speak more slowly I can understand"

I've seen this too, so many times. If I'm speaking to someone who has trouble with English, I can automatically speak slower, enunciate better, and use simpler words and shorter sentences. But some people cannot adapt the way they speak. I don't think it's because they are unaccommodating or impatient. For some puzzling reason, they just can't speaker slower and simpler. Ironically they might instead speak a bit faster as you observed, or louder.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#52

Post by bombolo » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

to1y wrote: post #18

As a bilingual I tend to believe unless you're living in the country trying to learn a language(using any method) is probably a waste of time.

Nah. I've learnt english well enough in a non-english speaking country to move abroad and earn a university degree speaking/writing english.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#53

Post by jltsiren » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:35 AM UTC

alister wrote: post #51

knorker wrote: post #9

Betteridge's law of headlines be damned, the answer is "yes". I've basically only used Duolingo for learning a particular new language. I started from nothing, and just did a little every day during the pandemic. Then I travelled to the country in question, and was able to tell stories in the language. Not easily, and with bad grammar and my vocabulary sucked, but this is more than being able to order at a restaurant…

> surprisingly many people will not make any adjustments at all when you say "Please, if you speak more slowly I can understand" I've seen this too, so many times. If I'm speaking to someone who has trouble with English, I can automatically speak slower, enunciate better, and use simpler words and shorter sentences. But some people cannot adapt the way they speak. I don't think it's because they are unaccommodating o…

Communicating with people who don't know the language well is a skill you have to learn and practice. It's not something people can do by default. Especially in their native language.

When you speak in your native language, the words may just come out automatically, without any effort. If you need to speak slowly, you have to be more deliberate and maybe even consider each word separately. If you don't remember that and just start speaking, you may end up speaking normally without even realizing that until it's too late.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#54

Post by veridies » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

sharker8 wrote: post #33

Followers of Krashen know that it's sensible input that results in language acquisition. Duolingo gamifies the frequency of sensible input. Therefore Duolingo will work if frequently and consistently used. Fluent is an outdated term. It probably takes about six months to achieve any lasting result. Illusion of progress is impossible to prove or disprove probably.

I just want to note (this is what I studied for my MA) that Krashen is very controversial in the field. Many researchers argue that output is critical to learning, and "interactionism," the idea that learning is facilitated through conversation, is probably the dominant theoretical approach at the moment. See, for example, Second Language Learning Theories, by Mitchell, Myles, & Marsden, chapter 6.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#55

Post by arminiusreturns » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #46

poulsbohemian wrote: post #22

Something that bothers me both about Duolingo and Rosetta Stone (and similar apps...) is that they don't let you fail enough. What I mean is - when you were first learning your native language, you probably mispronounced lots of things and didn't understand the grammar. But you kept going, learning as you went. Duolingo et al. want you to get the pronunciation of things correct before they will let you go on to the n…

I've had the best success with Pimsleur, which is almost completely audio-based, and just rotates through vocabulary and situations at increasingly lengthy intervals. Somehow the constant back and forth talking to the tape just works better for me than looking at something in writing. As a result, I can't write anything in French and have no clue how most things are spelled, but I've been told my pronunciation is pre…

Pimsleur has been my goto for over 20 years now also. It's good enough to spur my memory on stuff I know, and get me base functional in something new if I'm travelling. I had a real cool moment when due to Pimsleur I picked up on Egyptian Arabic being spoken in a place that was mostly Levantine. Next on my todo is Hindi. (I also tend to do sticker books all over common items as an assist)

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#56

Post by softgrow » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:53 AM UTC

pigtailgirl wrote: post #28

whacked_new wrote: post #10

Recently I encountered a tourist who didn't understand anything I said, but said he's from Korea. Recalling that I have been studying Korean on Duolingo for over a year, I excitedly probed my memory for a few seconds, then finally exclaimed, "annyeonghaseyo!" (hello), then blurted in English, "sorry, I don't speak Korean" Later I encountered a fellow who spoke English. He told me he's from Germany. Recalling that I h…

-- don't worry - 한국어는 어려운 언어입니다 (Korean is hard) --

Thankfully for me, you can literally learn how to read and write on a long haul plane there. Had a great time despite being functionally illiterate. Just learned numbers, please/thankyou and was fine. This only fell over with the peculiar decision in Taejon to issue tourists with maps with English on one side and Hanja (Chinese character for Koreans) on the other. Completely useless to both me and the taxi driver.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#57

Post by vouaobrasil » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 2:59 AM UTC

The Spanish course is one of the best courses on Duolingo.

I took a slightly less-developed course -- the Portuguese course and completed it. At the end of the course, I was able to have basic conversations in Portuguese. I had one half hour conversation where I talked only in Portuguese to an Uber driver and we talked about what he was doing, what he did in his spare time, etc.

It was a little rough going at times but basically it brings you to the basic conversation level. That's all you can really expect from it because it's rather short (took me about 6 months to complete). Of course, I practised regularly outside of Duolingo especially with writing and looking stuff up on Wiktionary.

No online course can ever teach you to become fluent. But Duolingo will give you the starting point so that you'll know where to go next if you really complete all the lessons. After finishing Duolingo, if you spend another year studying, practising, and consuming material in that language, you should be able to get to a reasonable working level in it.

With the length of the Spanish course, I am guessing you can progress even further.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#58

Post by mikeyouse » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:00 AM UTC

djmips wrote: post #45

poulsbohemian wrote: post #22

Something that bothers me both about Duolingo and Rosetta Stone (and similar apps...) is that they don't let you fail enough. What I mean is - when you were first learning your native language, you probably mispronounced lots of things and didn't understand the grammar. But you kept going, learning as you went. Duolingo et al. want you to get the pronunciation of things correct before they will let you go on to the n…

Maybe the future is AI. If ChatGPT is conversational in several languages it could work as the teacher and it can also look past these mispronunciations and misspellings.

Why would you need to learn a separate language with ChatGPT capabilities in the world? Learn one language well and let the computers translate between that one and the others.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#59

Post by djmips » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:03 AM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #58

djmips wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the future is AI. If ChatGPT is conversational in several languages it could work as the teacher and it can also look past these mispronunciations and misspellings.

Why would you need to learn a separate language with ChatGPT capabilities in the world? Learn one language well and let the computers translate between that one and the others.

I see your point but people still like to interact with people in other languages in person. Babelfish isn't there yet.

Re: Can Duolingo actually teach you Spanish?

#60

Post by lordofgibbons » Sat, Dec 10, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

Has anyone tried "Language Transfer" to learn a foreign language? I've done a few of the lessons and it's so incredibly intuitive. They use concepts and patterns in the listener's native language to learn concepts in the target language. Surprisingly, It's completely free (please donate if you can)

https://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-spanish