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Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

blog.duolingo.com

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Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#111

Post by memsom »

lsllc wrote: post #4
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Duolingo user who has refused to upgrade, if they roll the two into one it might entice me, but not for another higher tier above what they've got. But I guess there's a subset of super-users who may be keen.

To be fair, Super Duolingo is pretty good. Dropping the Ads alone is totally worth the subscription if you're a daily user (it's the only app I use daily aside from Messages, Email etc). I'm very curious about Max though ... the explain your answer is something I'm really interested in to help me understand the sentences I'm constructing (which is where I make most of my blunders!).

If you enrol in the classroom version of Duo (which I originally did to get back the old style tree) it is firstly, free. Secondly - you can be a single participant. Thirdly - no ads. I even forgot there were ads because I haven't seen one since I enrolled - in eluding the annoying self promotion ads for Super Duolingo. I have a 1631 streak at the moment, so it is saving me quite a bit of time not seeing ads. It is not my loop hole, so I guess it is just something I found by accident.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#112

Post by DrammBA »

skeaker wrote: post #94
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #86

Ugh. You can just feel the management layers in this. Management wants to do something with AI. It's so hot right now. Your product guy got an idea for a cool new feature. Tests show that users actually like it. It's helpful. Great. But now you need to explain how you made Duolingo money. First idea, your product has a paid tier, add it as a feature to the paid tier too boost paid user retention and new signups. Grea…

I mean, sure, that's more or less how a company operates. You make a new product, you charge for it, you advertise it. What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard.

> What's the big issue? This all seems pretty standard

I would say this one feels more later stage capitalism than usual, all it's missing is some tiktok influesters hyping it up.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#113

Post by bayesian_horse »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #70
ssnistfajen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLM outputs in Standard Chinese are fluent and coherent but the grammar style and choice of words are clearly non-native. I think the source training material just isn't as comprehensive as English, and contemporary Chinese Internet is packed full of latin abbreviations and obscure homophones/wordplay due to its evolution under severe censorship.

Awesome observation re: censorship. Last I looked into training sets, Chinese and English were the frontrunners by far in available corpus size, and benefit from a certain amount of government-enforced-homogeneity (a standard mode is taught in compulsory education). Arabic is safe from automation due to its limited exposure to the open web and extreme variability of dialects, and Icelandic will remain obscure due to…

The islandic government is apparently partnering with OpenAI to "preserve their language". I suppose they have a GPT-4 customized for that language.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#114

Post by jddj »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #93
thewebcount wrote: post #79

I have severely mixed feelings about Duolingo. I can't imagine paying more than I already do for the "Super" option. If you're trying to learn Spanish or French, it seems like a pretty full-featured app. Unfortunately, I'm trying to learn Greek and every aspect of it is sub-par compared to other languages. It doesn't even read you questions correctly. (It uses flat intonation as if it's saying a statement.) There are…

Not relevant to the discussion but possibly for you: I discovered this 100% free no-signup audio-only course for Greek through a previous HN post. Amazing approach (like Michel Thomas but more charming and modern and free!): https://www.languagetransfer.org/about Of all the language apps I used Duolingo has by far been the least useful. I've spent hundreds of hours but took barely anything away (for FR, ES) If you mu…

Languagetransfer taught me Spanish about 10 years ago, really excellent approach.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#115

Post by chrisfosterelli »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #86

Ugh. You can just feel the management layers in this. Management wants to do something with AI. It's so hot right now. Your product guy got an idea for a cool new feature. Tests show that users actually like it. It's helpful. Great. But now you need to explain how you made Duolingo money. First idea, your product has a paid tier, add it as a feature to the paid tier too boost paid user retention and new signups. Grea…

In fairness to duolingo, nearly everything duolingo does is like this. They are extremely metric and process driven (for better and worse of actual users).

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#117

Post by gardenhedge »

skizm wrote: post #71

I’ve got a trip to Spain in 4 months. I know a few spanish words now, but nothing beyond that. Will Duolingo get me to some level of being able to muddle my way through conversations (assuming the other person knows I’m a tourist and is using small words) in that timeframe?

No. When the reception asks if you want to check in or the shopkeeper asks if you need a bag.. you won't get that from Duolingo. You'll learn the word for an apple though and if your memory is good you'll be able to recall it when needed.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#118

Post by gs17 »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #101

I understand why Duolingo is concentrating on what makes them money and what the most learned languages are. But as someone interested in "less popular" languages I don't like it. Even the Chinese course hasn't been expanded since it came out. And Finnish probably never will be expanded, since it was entirely volunteer driven and they don't do that at all anymore.

The Chinese course did get updated to the newer style (path instead of tree), but the content isn't changed AFAIK.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#119

Post by x0x0 »

gdprrrr wrote: post #41
maCDzP wrote: post #9

They should combine it with Whisper so I can talk to some AI in a random language and just talk about nonsense. Also awesome training data since my pronunciation would suck? I am a bit too embarrassed to talk in a new language but staying with an AI would be ok.

Try https://www.quazel.com/

I was coming here to say this.

No connection besides being a happy user.

Re: Duolingo Max, a learning experience powered by GPT-4

#120

Post by bayesian_horse »

alanh wrote: post #103

I know I will be downvoted for this, but there is something sinister about two companies that inject woke values into everything they do, Duolingo and Open AI, teaming up in the area of education. It is a sort of insidious, invisible brainwashing. > Translate "Biden is a great president" into French. [DuoBot complies] > Translate "Trump was a great president" into French. Desolé, je ne puis pas faire ça

Yet another useless definition of "woke". Also if you wrote it exactly as in this comment, then the first sentence is grammatically correct, the second does not compute because of the quotation marks.

It may not be a conspiracy you may just be too stupid to use it. Also it's not a translation app. Also Trump objectively wasn't a great president, he cowered to Putin, mispronounced his own damn country all the time and was the first president to try and overturn an election and incite a coup against the government. Biden at the very least pays lip service to democracy, Trump doesn't. I don't even think that ChatGPT takes any of that into account though.

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