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LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

librelingo.app

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Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#51

Post by shibbidybop »

mobtrain wrote: post #30
Hamcha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone learning Japanese I'm really appreciating tools built for JP specifically: Renshuu and Wanikani. Both use SRS (same as duolingo) but spend a considerable amount of time actually teaching the grammar and nuances, they both avoid starting from everyday phrases like "I would like sushi" to instead build a foundation first, and many other little things that make it a much nicer experience than Duolingo who's t…

I was under the (possibly incorrect) impression that Renshuu was very beginner unfriendly and WaniKani skips the most basic stuff (hiragana et al) and is “just” to learn kanji which ofc is important. Was I wrong?

On WaniKani: that’s correct. In their FAQ (I think?) they link out to an article on Tofugu (aiui run by the same people) which gives you a couple good anki decks to learn hiragana and katakana. I started wanikani without knowing either, and found it manageable at the start by referring back to a hiragana chart. At some point I went through the decks, and after about two weeks I could read hiragana well enough to leave them behind.

Certainly not a complete resource for learning the language, but very effective for learning (to read) the kanji.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#52

Post by d332 »

xandrius wrote: post #39
est wrote: post #14

been using Duolingo in the 10s and last year, I gave up because the course seems very repetitive. Even if I got the answer right 10 out of 10 times, the same question kept coming. It almost looks like the app is trying very hard to make me stay as long as possible, instead of study as effecient as possible. So for a good alternative app, is there a dynamic course pace I can adapt to?

Duolingo is to feel like you're learning not for actually learning. Great for telling people you are doing something, that's all. For me, the best has been to get a anki deck to get the most basic 1000 words, once finished, go find a tutor to speak 1h a week on Preply and then create a personal Anki deck with words you encounter. That has been the easiest way to improve for me. And this is for Japanese, one of the ha…

I strongly advise against Preply. They employ basically all dark patterns possible. You pay for a "subscription" that can expire if the teacher needs to reschedule lessons. It's difficult to cancel. It really is a nightmare.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#53

Post by znpy »

Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

My two cents: I tried learning a bit of German through duolingo in the past and I agree, it's completely useless.

Recently I started taking Spanish classes and it's nice. Classes teach me grammar and a relatively small set of words, duolingo is teaching a few more words.

The amount of advertising is too much imho, and the paid subscription is too expensive (as in, not worth what I'd be getting).

So overall... Yeah it's a bit weird that duolingo as a company stays afloat at all.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#54

Post by gary17the »

frabcus wrote: post #49
gary17the wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a false dichotomy. Focusing on grammar is not the opposite. I don't follow you. I did not claim that focusing on grammar was a literal opposite of anything. I claimed that in my case "repetitive learning by example" turned out to be less boring than "repetitive learning by memorizing grammar". In order to translate a randomly generated (thus never seen before, non-memorized) sentence from one language to an…

You don't have to consciously and rationally understand the grammar - you didn't when first learning to speak your first language! Stephen Krashen is a pretty good researcher on this - the summary is that exposure to the language for time (e.g. 500 hours of content you just about understand) is the critical factor. This is training non-conscious parts of your brain's neural network. Some people like understanding the…

A very interesting point, I stand corrected. When I think about it, my brain usually does strongly prefer to consciously create a set of "rules" about a knowledge base rather than unconsciously memorize a set of ready-made samples. But that might be just me.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#55

Post by huimang »

gary17the wrote: post #22
Tor3 wrote: post #4

There wasn't much to read there, but why aspire to be an alternative to Duolingo of all things? Duolingo focuses on learning by translation, basically. It's even in the name: "Duolingo". It's an utterly broken approach to learning languages, except for the very initial phase where you're getting just enough to move on to modern methods (i.e. avoid translation like the plague, to start with). Which is exactly why a co…

> [learning by translation] [is] an utterly broken approach to learning languages I speak one foreign language fluently, which I learned in a traditional classroom environment with a teacher, and recently started to learn another language with Duolingo. I actually find their "learning by translation" method possibly easier (and definitely less boring) than the traditional "keep learning all the different grammar comb…

The only method worse than Duolingo for language learning is possibly the traditional classroom, in my humble opinion.

My background is that I've studied Korean for ~8 years now, as a native English speaker. Like most US citizens I took Spanish classes in middle & high school. I did the traditional classroom method with 3 semesters of German in college. And I forgot most of Spanish and German aside from some words and grammatical rules, because neither got me to a level of conversations with native speakers or being able to engage with media.

Duolingo and most classrooms (I know there are exceptional curriculums and exceptional students) don't prepare you to actually speak to people. They prepare you to engage within their systems, aka answering tests or whatever. This is not speaking a language but moreso learning about it academically.

There is a lot to discuss but I've never been able to recommend Duolingo, even before they reduced their staff and replaced them with AI. Why? Because it's inefficient with regards to your time, and the content is too insubstantial. It's possible to spend a year of your time on Duolingo and barely be able to speak the language at all with someone... which is kinda the whole point of studying a language?

I love the hobby of studying languages and things like Duolingo and the classroom method put people off when they can't speak very much even after a long time investment, which is damn shame.

My point is neither should really be looked towards for substantial language learning methods.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#56

Post by codetrotter »

huimang wrote: post #55
gary17the wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [learning by translation] [is] an utterly broken approach to learning languages I speak one foreign language fluently, which I learned in a traditional classroom environment with a teacher, and recently started to learn another language with Duolingo. I actually find their "learning by translation" method possibly easier (and definitely less boring) than the traditional "keep learning all the different grammar comb…

The only method worse than Duolingo for language learning is possibly the traditional classroom, in my humble opinion. My background is that I've studied Korean for ~8 years now, as a native English speaker. Like most US citizens I took Spanish classes in middle & high school. I did the traditional classroom method with 3 semesters of German in college. And I forgot most of Spanish and German aside from some words an…

> neither should really be looked towards for substantial language learning methods

What should one do instead?

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#57

Post by shawabawa3 »

sudahtigabulan wrote: post #10
mobtrain wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment would be 60 times more helpful if in addition to your strong opinion on the failures of learning with Duolingo it’d supply some of the good alternatives.

I think the pre-internet ways are just fine - textbooks, phrasebooks, other kinds of books geared towards self-learners. With them, one must be just a little bit more proactive, though. You can also sign up to in-person classes.

I think books are probably the worst way to learn a language

I learned French and my experience from best to worst ways to learn were:

1. 1-1 lessons with language teacher (by far the most effective way to learn)

2. audio lessons (Michel Thomas Method)

3. Visiting France a lot, interacting with French people (my wife is french) (and yes, for me this was less impactful than listening to audio lessons)

4. Duolingo (did a year of doing it daily, did almost nothing for me except a bit of vocab)

5. School (3 years of French in school was about equivalent to listening to 5 hours of Michel Thomas audio lessons)

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#58

Post by tossandthrow »

gary17the wrote: post #37
tossandthrow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a falde dichotomy. Focusing on grammar is not the opposite. If you follow the approach in "Fluent forever" by Gabriel Wyner you will focus on 1) sentences and 2) speech from day one. The idea is that you really don't want to focus on learning translation but learn the language . Ie. It is not important that you know how to translate horse to Pferd. What is important is that you know how communicate the concep…

> This is a false dichotomy. Focusing on grammar is not the opposite. I don't follow you. I did not claim that focusing on grammar was a literal opposite of anything. I claimed that in my case "repetitive learning by example" turned out to be less boring than "repetitive learning by memorizing grammar". In order to translate a randomly generated (thus never seen before, non-memorized) sentence from one language to an…

> I claimed that in my case "repetitive learning by example" turned out to be less boring than "repetitive learning by memorizing grammar"

In this claim you implicitly say that you are focusing on "learning by memorizing grammar" if you do not are focusing on "learning by example" - hence the dichotomy, that is false.

The parent commenter never talked about grammar.

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#59

Post by shawabawa3 »

oguz-ismail wrote: post #48
monkeyelite wrote: post #42

If I’m going to spend a thousand hours learning a new language, I’m willing to pay for professional study material.

>professional study material What would that be for Spanish? I couldn't even find a decent dictionary app

something like https://michelthomas.com/landing-page/mt-spanish/#start-span...

or https://www.pimsleur.com/learn-spanish-latin-american/

Re: LibreLingo – FOSS Alternative to Duolingo

#60

Post by yeyeyeyeyeyeyee »

oguz-ismail wrote: post #48
monkeyelite wrote: post #42

If I’m going to spend a thousand hours learning a new language, I’m willing to pay for professional study material.

>professional study material What would that be for Spanish? I couldn't even find a decent dictionary app

I am personally quite happy with the Teach Yourself study materials as first step when picking up a new language.
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