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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

#101

Post by leejo »

atlas_shrugged wrote: post #84

Just curious is this 8 year streak for 1 language? What % completion are you for a the language? Do you consider yourself proficient?

> Just curious is this 8 year streak for 1 language?

No. Probably five years for one and then switching between others (German, Italian, and Spanish).

> What % completion are you for a the language?

I got close to the end initially then they added more to the tree so I never finished the tree as I didn't need to. I just looked at it and I'm at 50% so they've added a lot since I last checked.

> Do you consider yourself proficient?

I've lived in the French speaking part of Switzerland for nine years. That has made me proficient. Having French speaking colleagues, going to evening classes, giving talks in French, receiving correspondance and filling in my tax returns in French, working in a local gallery (adds vocab and situations outside the norm), watching French films and TV, listening to French podcasts and radio.

Duolingo helped with building some vocab and grammar.

Becoming more proficient in French and living in a French speaking country has, on the flip side, started to erode my English (spelling for the most part).

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

#102

Post by dymk »

torstenvl wrote: post #22
Rerarom wrote: post #2

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…

Cure Dolly for Japanese is a huge infodump of high quality grammar explanation.

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

#103

Post by dotancohen »

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?

After a few weeks with the Greek course and adding important words to Anki, I was able to communicate with Greeks who know no other language - which I was surprised to find many of. The Arabic course is less useful by itself, only because Arabic itself is very dependent on dialect and Duolingo teaches a mix of Egyptian / MSA. But the Duolingo course did provide a terrific cornerstone to learn the specific dialect that I am interested in, so it had real value.

You _will_ need to supplement the vocabulary with Anki or another tool. You won't become fluent, but you will get a good basis to start talking with people comfortably. Becoming fluent depends on keeping up that talking. I would say that Duolingo gives a terrific starting point, at least for the three languages I've learned with it.

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

#104

Post by yieldcrv »

standardUser wrote: post #98
yieldcrv wrote: post #6

A) For those that question the apps and are on the fence, consider a traditional methods of language learning, consider a class at a community college. Community college in San Francisco is free for San Francisco residents and they have many language classes! Similar arrangements might be available wherever you currently live, and they're also cheap either way. B) I travel a lot and I realized that I don't actually w…

I recently signed up for a full-time, in-person community college language course this Fall. Not free where I live, but still very cheap compared to private tutoring.

Great way to meet some new people too.

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

#105

Post by dotancohen »

sshine wrote: post #65
matthewdgreen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Does the app work? Not in my experience. Anki + language-partner sessions + evening classes did it for me.

I supplement Duolingo with Anki, otherwise I would forget the vocabulary.

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

#106

Post by 8organicbits »

sieabahlpark wrote: post #78
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…

Were you really reading that much in five minutes anyway? It doesn't sound like you changed much.

"atleast five minutes"

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

#107

Post by sanqui »

davidzweig wrote: post #59
sanqui wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a paid app, but I enjoyed Speakly's approach of "endless stream of open cloze exercises". It forces you to actually type words in the target language (unlike Duolingo which is mostly translations into the source language), it has a clever spaced repetition algorithm, and it lets you practice for as long as you want and stop immediately at any point, unlike Duolingo locking you into 20 question long lessons.

We made something a couple of weeks ago, you might like it, needs login but is 100% free. Endless (depending on language) listening exercises, sentences are selected (from tatoeba) based on vocabulary (no selection based on grammar yet). It's also integrated with a flashcard system (also free). If you set a small vocab (100 words) and do lots of cards, you start to get a feel for the grammar of a language. Something…

That looks great so far! Pair it with open cloze with translation once you determine that the user should know the word and you've got magic going. You could even "beep" the word out of the recording (I'm assuming they're TTS).

Edit: typo

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

#108

Post by k8sToGo »

bondant wrote: post #80
k8sToGo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did it help you learn communicate in it or is it just like duolingo where you only learn basic vocab?

In the case of polish it gave me enough vocabulary and prononciation clues to not be afraid to go to Poland and be able to use basic sentences when talking with staff at restaurants, shops and hotels. I was also quite happy to be able to understand basic stuff on signs and have basic conversations with native polish friends.

Thanks. I'll give it a try then.

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

#109

Post by calahad »

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?

The app works great for getting you to an intermediate level, which is all it claims to do.

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

#110

Post by davidzweig »

sanqui wrote: post #107
davidzweig wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We made something a couple of weeks ago, you might like it, needs login but is 100% free. Endless (depending on language) listening exercises, sentences are selected (from tatoeba) based on vocabulary (no selection based on grammar yet). It's also integrated with a flashcard system (also free). If you set a small vocab (100 words) and do lots of cards, you start to get a feel for the grammar of a language. Something…

That looks great so far! Pair it with open cloze with translation once you determine that the user should know the word and you've got magic going. You could even "beep" the word out of the recording (I'm assuming they're TTS). Edit: typo

We use microsoft TTS, was trying to figure out if they can give time ranges for beeping out words.. didn't see it. Holy grail would be just generating audio files to listen to, no front end at all. :)
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